Cranky Pants in the House

Okay, warning, I have my cranky pants on tonight. Let the complaining began.

Today was an eventful day. I gave a presentation on behalf of the American Heart Association at a Kiwanis meeting in my hometown of Issaquah. I did give the disclaimer at the start that "views, opinions, commentary and/or jokes" were my personal opinion and not those of the association. After the Erectile Dysfunction sidetrack at the last presentation I figured I should add that disclaimer. Now I don't know if you have ever been to a Kiwanis meeting, I had not. They are a worldwide service organization and they do a lot of good in our community.
There were about 35 people ranging in age from 30-75. The first 30 minutes of the meeting was very entertaining. I was glad Scott had come to support me because I don't know if I can describe this adequately. But a designated Kiwani (not sure what they call themselves) carried a white hat around the room. People stood and put one dollar bills into the hat. They called it a "happy dollar", then proceeded to tell a story of something that happen to them that week or day. There was also "Sad dollars" and "nostalgia dollars". Here are some examples (edited for time, trust me they liked to hear themselves talk)
Happy Dollars
"Well you know that barn fire the other night." (hmmm...Happy? dollar) "Well that was our neighbors barn and I was the one that called 911. We woke up to popping noises and my husband looked out the window and saw a wall of flames thru the trees. He hopped out of bed swearing up a storm. I had to turn the light on to use the phone because you know now adays they are all portable and you have to turn them on and I couldn't find the on button in the dark. I had never called 911 before so it was very exciting. But I accidentally called 411, city and state please. Darn, finally got it right. The fire department came and put the fire out. The bad news is that the Rooster survived."
Now, if you know me, you must be so proud of me for sitting straight faced during this 30-40 minutes and not making any snarky remarks to Scott. Our favorite Happy dollar was when the gal across from us announced that yesterday she found out she was voted the Queen of Issaquah! So she would not be flipping salmon at the booth since she would be riding in the float during the parade! She was so happy she had tears in her eyes. Everyone Clapped.
No Joke, a woman that had already had her turn, whipped another dollar out of her purse and called the guy back to tell her story of how she was the Queen of Issaquah in like 2001. Not to be outdone, another woman stood, threw a dollar in and said she could top that she was the 2nd Queen in 1963 and since the first one had moved away (probably code for died), that actually made her the 1st Queen. Then a man stood up to announce "I was the King of Issaquah one year which means I am the King today with three Queens." Come on you know I had a list of comments for that one!
Scott later said that he was shocked that the women did that and that the first gal looked very unhappy about it, particularly when one of the gals had corrected her and said she would not be on a float but in a convertible. SNARKY! Loved it! I explained to him that Bitchy had no age limit.
Some of the Sad Dollars involved a detailed story of how a shower leak caused him a $900 plumber bill. Or the one where the man said he would miss the Auction because he had to go to California to deal with a personal and very complicated Family matter that he could not discuss. There were a couple of sad dollars for a wife that was having knee replacement. I was totally waiting for a happy dollar from someone saying their fiber intake was going well and that they had a bowel movement every day that week, hooray!
All I could think was I have a few dollars I would like to throw in that hat. So after the dollar chats it was my turn to speak. Not to be outdone I did mention that I marched in that parade three times winning 1st place ribbons for those performances. Top that Queens. It was a 30 minute discussion of heart health. Because the crowd was "older. I spent a large amount of time on the symptoms of heart attack and stroke. I also encouraged them to all take the time to watch a one minute video on the AHA website to learn hands only CPR. I figured at this age prevention was probably not the key anymore. The brochure I had with me to pass out is called "the seven simple steps". I resent that title. There is nothing "simple" about diet and exercise. Cause if it was "Simple" I would be a size 8.
I believe that the brain of a woman has one of those built in things that the eye doctor uses. You know you look thru it and he/she changes the lenses, "which is better, a or b, c or d". I feel that is the filter we use to see our bodies. Hence eating disorders. Mine seems to change daily. Some days, I am like okay, not bad, getting better. Then there are days or weeks, like now, where I look in the mirror at the gym and only see Humpty Dumpty. Really, forget apple or pear shaped, I am Egg shaped. Maybe it is all the Easter images. But I swear to you that is what I looked like tonight. With the sports bra strapping the girls down, I looked like a giant Easter egg on stilts. It was very distracting. I take two classes on Wednesday nights. The first is a weight lifting class to music called Bodypump. So every time I leaned over to row the darn bar, it was like watching Humpty bend over. So I got more depressed and cranky as the hour went on. It was not so bad when we laid on our backs on the bench and I could suck it in and gravity helped. But as soon as we stood up, Humpty was back. It didn't help that the British instructor who looks like a blonde Leprechaun was wearing a revealing tank and her purchased girls were like two golden eggs mocking me. Plus she yells at us and calls us "team". Trust me I was not feeling like a team player.
So lets say when my dance mommies arrived to join Pam and I for the second hour, a dance aerobics class called S'hbam, I was in rare form. The teacher walks in and it is not the regular (Jen, love her!) it was the Australian. What is this "work outs from around the world" tonight. I was distracted by her microphone pack belt that was bedazzled with the word "Shbam" and riding low enough to be right across her crotch. So I was already thinking of some snarky remarks and vajazzle (google it) jokes. She proceeds to pull out two little buckets filled with Chocolate Easter Candy (egg shaped of course) and four boxes of Peeps. She tells us they don't have peeps in Australia so she is excited to try them and if we work hard in class we can have some. She sets them below the podium directly in front of me. WTH? Are you kidding? Who brings candy to a gym work out class? This really ticks me off. That is like bringing a bottle of Jack Daniels to an AA meeting. Wrong on so many levels.
As we danced and sweat for 45 minutes the candy and the peeps were mocking me. All I could do was stare at it. I can even tell you that there were 40 peeps (my age) 30 pink and 10 purple. I told you it was very distracting. I counted the peeps and wondered how many of the damn things I could shove in the instructors "belt". I bitched and moaned about it the entire class to my "peeps" between tracks. I am sure I was very annoying. No joke, at the end of the class while the five of us collected our water bottles and our jackets, at least a dozen women headed for that pile of candy. I have an "angry dollar" for you gals.