namaste

Every morning (oh, all right, not every morning) I stumble down the stairs, slap on a bra and a pair of socks, lace on a pair of Reebok Cross-Trainers and haul my ever-expanding ass onto the elliptical machine in the family room.

I'm winded just thinking about it...

*gasp*

Forty-minutes later, I keel over onto the floor, my morning workout complete.

You'd think all the expended energy would turn my ass into an ever-shrinking entity, but no, that would be too easy. It's discouraging, but I figure if I don't slap on that bra and those socks, the ever-expanding ass will reach epic proportions of expandedness, so there I am, every morning (oh, all right!) slogging away on the torture device Mr. Lemony purchased with his American Express Bonus Points.

(frankly, I'd have preferred the flower delivery every week for six months, but Mr. Lemony is not one to think Gerbera daisies are worthy of his hard-earned free Bonus Points)

I decided I hate the elliptical machine. HATE it. Think burning supernova heat of hatred and you're close, but not quite there. Sure, it makes me sweat. Sure, it makes my hamstrings scream in agony. It even gives the biceps some attention, something they appreciate since the only action they've seen in far too long is the Lemony-Child-Lifting-and-Heaving-Into-Car-Seats-And-Shopping-Carts kind. And yet...

I hate it.

It bores me. I mean, think about it. You're standing on a spaceship of a treadmill and you're not going anywhere, you're not seeing anything, and you're certainly not smelling of Lemony Freshness while you're doing it. What possible good can come from that?

None, I say.

And so, in an effort to make the mornings more exciting...or at least less boring...I decided to start adding new forms of torture to the sweat ritual.

The first form involved a ball. A big ball. A big, big ball. A big, big pink ball. With paisleys on it. After I spent two hours blowing up this giant piece of bubble gum with the matchbook-sized air pump that came in the package, I was thoroughly exhausted. But, determined not to fail, I took a deep breath and spent an hour rolling around on the floor with the damned thing until my abs were screaming and my hamstrings were begging for mercy. When it was over, I was sweaty and sore, so I figured rolling around on the floor with a pink piece of paisley bubble gum was probably worth the effort, but since Mr. Lemony laughed his Perfect No Matter What I Eat Ass off the entire time...

Next, I put on my yoga pants...who knew they were for actual yoga and not Sunday morning trips to the produce market??...and followed along (oh, all right...attempted to follow along) as an obscenely limber man contorted himself while sitting in the middle of what appeared to be the Sahara Desert.

I don't know if it's because I was in the family room and not in the Sahara Desert or if it was the serene voice that kept saying "Feel your inner-eyes slipping into your brain" that threw me, but I spent most of that hour either in pain or in great peals of laughter.

When I wasn't in pain or laughing my ever-expanding ass off, I was fending off Lemony Mutt. The floor is her territory, you know.

I'm not sure the Great Exercise Experiment is working out as planned, but I'm not ready to give up just yet. Besides, rolling around on the floor with a paisley bubble gum ball, letting my eyes slip into my brain, and wrestling with a sixty-pound dog is nothing if not entertaining.

Namaste.