It's not working out

In Vegas, I had the brilliant--but apparently flawed--idea of working out in the hotel gym. We were on vacation; I had extra time. I had brought sneakers. I seemed prepared. What I had not bargained for was the perky smirk on the desk attendant's face as she informed me that the gym fee was $25 a day. I'm quick at math*, so I immediately got pissed. "It's $25 to get on the elliptical machine for 30 minutes?" I said in disbelief. "It's $75 if I want to work out every day while I'm here?"

"That's right!" beamed the gym troll.

"I'll have to rethink this," I said, backing away.

I returned to the room and complained to Rob, who made a valiant (albeit embarrassing) effort to call the front desk and get them to comp my gym entry. No dice.

Eventually, I acquiesced to the Vegas pressure and paid--but only for one day. Of course, during my time in the gym, I critiqued everything (example: the room wasn't even large enough to merit paying for entry) and took extra water bottles from the complimentary cooler.

So now I'm in a suburb of Chicago and I'm sitting in a dodgy room at a Holiday Inn, having just returned from another ill-fated trip to the gym. This "fitness center" was the size of a small college dorm room and had three treadmills, one taken and the other two broken. I sat down on the only other machine in the place, a bike, and rode for 5 minutes before the sauna-like atmosphere became too much for me. I left, bought a bag of pretzels and returned to the room.

It's hard for me to say this, but I probably would have paid $25 if I could have worked out today in a gym that actually had machines and air. And free water.


*No, I'm not.

Hit me

We returned from Las Vegas last night, and I am only down $30. Unless you count everything we spent on eating, drinking, and shopping. Then the number is different.

If my New Year's Resolution was to be a blog slacker...nailed it.

I have no real excuse for the blog delinquency. Faux excuse: I’ve been traveling a lot. Canada and Orlando earlier this month, Vegas this weekend, and Chicago next week. I had to cancel a trip to Boston for next weekend because I like it when my brain is all in the same state, at least physically.

And because of that, it seems like when I’m not traveling, I’m at work. Certainly un-blog worthy.

Still, things have happened. I watched the inauguration and felt excited. I skied 2 days in Whistler without falling or dying. I went to Florida and forgot where I was, because I spent so much time in a windowless conference room. One morning Rob informed me that my Native American name is “Little Person Who Gets in the Way.” I stopped going to the gym. So I stopped drinking to at least try to balance that fact. Interesting and definitely temporary. Alcohol and the Elliptical Machine are coming back into my life in February. But probably not at the same time. That’s just dangerous.

The best and brightest of NYC

I know that I said I wouldn't blog about work. And I really meant it. However...

After 15 hours of travel, we got back from Whistler at the crispy hour of 2am, me flinging toiletries around in a rabid search for Ambien. The cats, ecstatic by the warm bodies of their favorite victims, harrassed us by walking back and forth across the bed, dropping "naturally unscented" poo pebbles on the clean sheets. I woke up clinging to a dream about being crushed in a tsunami.

"Rise and shine," Rob called from the bathroom. As I stumbled to the shower, he leaned towards me. "I see rising," he observed. "But no shining."

Which pretty much sums up the day. I tried, though. I wore a bright purple sweater and put on makeup. I drank a double latte. I smiled.

And I talked. Which is what I do at work all day. Towards the end of the afternoon I wearily answered my phone to find one of my client's stuttering new interns on the other end. Overly formal and entirely clueless, he tried to explain to me what he needed. Was it then completely rude when I said:

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

?

Evidently someone was sitting right next to him, because after some muffled whispering, he tried to explain his question again. I imagined an authority figure who, having dropped a bunch of lingo onto this kid without explaining what it meant, was now sitting there listening, wasting my time. I literally could not understand the conversation. I will briefly consider the possibility that this had something to do with my sleep deprivation and subsequent medication.

"Is there someone else there with you?" I asked flatly. Not-so-hidden meaning: let me talk to that person.

Instead of answering, the little pioneer handed off the phone to his intern twin, who proved only slightly more coherent--enough so that I could understand that they were confused about an accounting issue. Not my strong suit, as if it mattered.

"Ok..." I said slowly, mad at myself for not being nicer and also for not really caring that I wasn't being nicer. "What is your question?"

"Dude," he whispered, half covering the receiver, "She sounds hot."

2008: The year of the baby

Here is a list of the babies we welcomed into our lives in 2008. Congratulations to all of our wonderful friends on the making of these cuties!

Grace


Tommy


Timmy


Roan


Chloe


Naya (twin Ketan not pictured, but very cute! These two were born on Dec 30.)


Gabrielle


Lily



Not pictured:
Nicholas
Zorion
Liana
John
Allie

I asked Rob which was his favorite baby (parents of these babies, I was just kidding when I asked this. No one has a favorite baby. Except all of you.)

He responded, "I'm not into favorites. I'm more of a merit-based person. I want to see what they've all done in a year."