I Have My Assignment....

Check me out in my new Black Helmet 9/11 shirt!

It's official - in March, I will be posted at the recovery room atop the Columbia Center in Seattle.  Can I get a woot woot?

My hope is that a tall, dark and handsome firefighter will set a new national speed record in the stair climb, and then collapse into my waiting arms as I push a thick lock of black hair from his forehead and gently pour gatorade between his parted lips. 

Or I might get thrown up on by some blonde guy.   But being a firefighter, I bet he'll feel bad and apologize.

Either way, this is my opportunity to show off my sweet Florence Nightingale skills as we bring in money to kick blood cancer's ass.  Join us - donate by following the link at the top of this page.

What Floor, Please?

Today was a HUGE day.  Today was Wednesday, January 25th - the day that the volunteer applications and assignment requests for the Seattle Stair Climb were to go out.  OHHHHHH....the possibilities!  Do I go with "ground floor", where I can chat 1500 firefighters who are all jazzed up to do this thing; or do I go for the glory of "top floor", where I can witness the thrill of victory, and possibly get vomited on by a substantially less jazzed up firefighter?  Eenie Meenie Minee Moe.....  back and forth I went.  I checked my e-mail, oh, 80 thousand times today.  And guess what - no form. Sigh.   Tomorrow, Scarlett.  Tomorrow.

In the face of the agony of defeat, a ray of sunshine - literally. It was like 45 today, and the snow receded a little - so off to the gym for Teener tonight.  I was really, really hoping against hope that they still had that old Stairmaster tucked in a corner somewhere, so I could train along with my Stevens County boys - but alas, nobody does that anymore, the machine is long gone. And since I think I might work in the only multi-story building in the county (three stories when you include the basement, thank you very much), as Jack Nicholson would say, this might be as good as it gets.

Firefighter diet?  I'm eating meat maybe twice a week, not because I'm really Jonesing for it, but because I'm cold and most of my veggie dishes are cold, and I want warm food.  I know, lazy lazy lazy.  I'm consoling myself with the knowledge that I'm making progress, and next week, I'm shooting for only 1 "meat day."

I asked Alex to provide me with some training pics today of my Stevens County boys, which I will share with you immediately, dearest reader.  Yeah, I'm a little jazzed over the climb.

For those of you who care (the number is probably dwindling daily), after much consideration, I've disabled the ability to leave "anonymous" comments on the blog.  So if you want to leave a comment, you have to register, which takes about 2 seconds.  I did this after consulting with my guru Amy Smith, relationship coach and fellow blogger.  I know it's stupid to take the comments of morons personally, but what can I say, I do.  And no, I'm not talking about the average comments, or people who just plain disagree with me; I'm talking about the very personal attacks; the 5th grade playground shit.  So I hit her up on FaceBook with the question, "how do YOU handle the 'you suck and your blog sucks' comments?"  Her sage response was basically, you gotta wonder why someone who thinks you suck so bad would bother reading your stuff, and to hit 'DELETE'.  No wasting energy on defending yourself, release the douchebag to the universe and move on.  (She might not have used the word "douchebag", but I guarantee she wouldn't mind the paraphrase.)  So this is my new philosophy. 

My recommendation is that you race on over to her site and check it out.  For you who are peeved by my unwillingness to use the f-word, you'll love her.  She drops f-bombs on the floor like Raisinettes at a matinee.  I love me some Amy Smith.

Anyhow, tomorrow is registration day - I can just FEEL it.   What do you vote?  Top floor (thrill of victory/possible vomit) and Ground floor (jazzed up, victory status unknown)?

MAKE IT STOP...MAKE IT STOP....

I've had an epiphany-my readership doesn't know sh*t about rope, because none of ya'll even took a GUESS at the last fire exam question.  The answer .... A, static kermantle rope.

Yeah, I didn't know either; but, in my defense, my academics don't start for another 10 days.

Yesterday I got all dolled up and went to the gym, only to learn that they close for 4 hours on Saturday afternoons (valuable information to perhaps show on their FaceBook page, which is where I went to find their hours).  So I came home and set up my Wii Fit Plus.  My oldest daughter was kind enough to make a Mii for me when she was home, aptly named "Mama".   What sucks is this stupid thing weighs you in every day and tells you how you are lacking in weight proficiency.  You see, a "normal" BMI is 24.9 and under.  My BMI is 25.  If I drop 2 pounds, I will be in the "normal" range.  But, oh no, Wii Fit has to announce to me that "MAMA IS OVERWEIGHT" every time I step on it.  I hate to split hairs here, but if I'm only "overweight" by 2 pounds, I'm not really overweight.  I could go a few hours without drinking water and be miraculously "normal." So say I.

And I can't go to the gym today, because it's been effin' snowing for 4 hours now.  And there's no fire events going on at any houses, because it's WINTER and not exactly hamburger and hot dog weather.  So I'm housebound and getting a little stir crazy.

In honor of my stircraziness, I've compiled:

THE TOP TEN THINGS THAT ARE CURRENTLY PISSING TINA OFF

1.  Nonstop snow
2.  Gyms that are not open when their FaceBook page says that they should be
3.  No fire events to go to because it's winter time
4.  Veggie subs.  I'm friggin' sick of eating veggie subs.
5.  My old woman knee that keeps acting up every time I try to go down stairs or do squats/lunges
6.  The lady who won't call me back about the fundraiser I'm trying to organize for the Stair Climb
7.  Not having a clue what the term "kermantle rope" means
8.  The weight tracker feature on Wii Fit Plus
9.  Love
10. The complete lack of response to my resumes' that I've sent to potential employers in Spokompton

Okay, your turn.  What's got YOUR panties in a bunch today?

Yeah, Still the Knee Thing.

Greetings from a snow-bound SSG.

If you recall, when we last left this training menagerie, I had modified my lifting by removing squats/lunges and substituting knee extensions/donkey kicks to see if my old woman knee would rehabilitate.  And guess what - no pain.  (In this case, "no pain, no gain" does not apply - just to clarify.)  Anyhow, I've been patting myself on the back pretty thoroughly over that one.  Not only is she a land records examiner extraordinaire...siren sex goddess...firefighter in training...but she's also the next Jillian Michaels.

So I headed out the back door this morning to go to work, started down the stairs off the back porch (that would be TWO STAIRS), and BANG.  I had to hang on to the handrail and go down those TWO STAIRS sideways because my knee decided to just stop functioning the way most normal knees do.  Sigh.  Once I was on flat ground, I was pretty much fine again.

So much for my new career as Bob Harper's sidekick.  But I will not bow in the face of adversity - I will strive on and see how a few more weeks of modification impact my Old Woman Knee Syndrome.

On another note - there's always another note - I'm trying to pull together a fundraiser for the Seattle Stairclimb (feel free to give at the link at the top of this screen, darling).  My ability to do so depends on a certain person returning my messages.  Well, guess who isn't?  That would be the certain person.  Double sigh.  I hate it when I have something planned and I can't do it because somebody else won't do their part, don't you?  So when I'm finished with this, I'm going online and looking to see if I can find another certain person who might be able to help out.

Are you ready for a fire exam question, dearest reader?  Well, golly, I sure as heck am!!!

Firefighters are fighting a fire in a four-story apartment building.  They need an extremely strong rope that does not stretch to rescue a burn victim.  What type of rope will they most likely use?
a.  Static kermantle
b.  Braided
c.  Dynamic kermantle
d.  Braid-on-braid
e.  Laid

Take a Knee

So, there's this thing with my knee.  It never bothers me unless I'm doing stairs; then it hurts like hell.  This means that it flares up big time during squats and lunges, which is truly a shame, because squats and lunges make my booty look really sweet.

I'm thinking of swapping out those 2 particular exercises for knee extensions and donkey kicks, with the idea of building muscle in the area and then maybe I won't look 80 on the stairs anymore.

Any fitness champions out there have any suggestions?

The China Quandary

The correct answer to our last fire exam question - D.  Although the rest do make for some entertaining mental pictures.

So yesterday I went to W-Town and had dinner with TG.  We went to this Chinese place (yes, fell off the vegan wagon again) and it made me wonder...what does authentic Chinese food taste like?  I mean, really - have you ever seen a fat Chinese guy on TV?  You can't tell me that they actually stay skinny by deep-frying everything and slathering it in gravy or sticky neon sweet and sour sauce.  And don't get me started on that slimy texture that is so pervasive in every stir-fry dish.

If I recall correctly, I had 1 hit in China last week.  Dear Chinese reader, please feel free to chime in, provided you stumble across us again.

Anyhow, back to TG.  We had a sad conversation about my impending move and the effect it will have on "us"....and if "us" can survive that kind of long distance for an indefinite amount of time.    It's one of those situations where I know the answer, and he knows the answer, and I just don't want to have to deal with it right now, because he's a good guy and I like spending time with him.  Sometimes being a siren sex goddess really sucks. I'm such a fan of arranged marriage now, it's not even funny.

So now I'm home, and am faced with a quandary - Go to the gym, or eat a cinnamon roll and take a nap?  Your input is welcome.

A Girl in a Boy's Gym

The answer to our last fire exam question - A strap wrench.  Congratulations, Anonymous, you got it right.  Woot woot.

So the tattoo is healing....slowly.  It hurts, and the waistband of my work pants rubs on it, which of course doesn't help.  I stuffed a wad of Kleenex down my pants yesterday, which helped until I got up and walked around the office and it fell out of the bottom of my pants leg.  Humiliating?  Believe it or not, those who know me best - my coworkers - wouldn't bat an eye at that.  Another day in the life of Tina.

I went to the gym yesterday in my cool new Leary Foundation T-shirt and I gotta tell you, I spend a good 50% of the evening just checking myself out in all those mirrors.  Homegirl is lookin pretty sweet.  Once I realized that I could exercise and look at myself at the same time, I hit the treadmill.  My intent was to just warm up for a few minutes on the treadmill, then hit the weights.   Forty minutes later - well - I was still slugging away on the treadmill, mouthing the words to Shake Senora and pretending like I wasn't.

The problem was,at that particular time of night, the gym was full of GUYS.  It's not that I don't like men looking at me (especially when I'm wearing my cute Leary Foundation T-shirt), but flopping those little dumbbells around next to the heavy weightlifter...makes me feel...SILLY.  I would have zero problem going into the middle of the gym in front of all those men and putting my makeup on, or making pasta, or doing my hair.  That's girl stuff, and that's different. But weight lifting...well...going at 7 p.m. with the Thug Patrol cemented my decision to start going on my lunch hour when nobody else is there. It's a good thing I'm not studying to enter a male-dominated career field or something; how uncomfortable would that be?

ahem.

So anyway, Kat stayed on the treadmill for most of the night. In the end, I figured an hour of half-assed workout on the treadmill is still better an an hour of watching tv, right?  Right.

We are on target, dearest reader.  It's a marathon, not a sprint.

That being said, I ate about a thousand calories' worth of sloppy joes and chips tonight.  Yes, meat.  Yes, from a cow.  I try not to blow my weekly meat fest so early in the week...but you know what?  It was worth it.  It was a Manwich night.

Sharpen your pencils - exam question time:

When hoselines are laid by an apparatus (ie a pumper or tanker truck), what is the correct means for a firefighter to anchor the hose before the apparatus moves forward to pay out its load?'
a. Stand atop the hose or coupling
b.  Wrap the hose twice around the waist
c.  Face the opposite direction the apparatus is moving and lean forward while straddling the hose.
d.  Grasp the hose firmly and lean slightly backward.