Dear Kid,

My scale and I are back on speaking terms.

You didn’t know we’d had a falling out? Let me tell you about my scale.

Regular scales wait until someone steps on them, then the scale calculates their weight. No personality, no taking liberties with facts, no diabolical plans.

Not so with my scale.

My scale is alive. It can’t move by itself, but it definitely has a mind of its own.

And it’s stubborn.

It can’t be coaxed into showing the weight I want to be. Which isn’t surprising, since most scales stick with reality rather than sharing my view of the world.

But my scale isn’t really interested in reality as much as it’s interested in messing with me.

My scale makes a daily decision before I get near it. During the night, the scale sits quietly thinking of ways to inflict its own personalized torture. Then it picks a number.

Not an entirely random number. It has never suggested I weigh 7,000 lbs. nor has it ever guessed 6 lbs. Pretty much everything in between is fair game.

Some days, it shows numbers relative close to what I expect to see. Other days, not so much. Let me tell you what happened two days ago.

I got on the scale and yelped. What? I gained 7 lbs. overnight? No way. Then I realized I was still holding a book. Ah. I put it down, reset the scale, and stepped back on. Same number.

Are. You. Kidding. Me?

That book weighed about 17 lbs. It was enormous. It was practically dictionary sized (remind me to explain what a dictionary is). It was the weight of the first 5 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica (I’ll explain that one too).

The scale smirked ‘That’s your number for today.’

I stepped off the scale, walked down the hall, snuck back in (changing my cadence so the scale wouldn’t know it was me), and stepped on. Same number.

‘Told you.’

See what I mean?

I decided to snub my scale. I turned my back and walked out. The scale smiled. It knew it had won.

Fortunately, today it shows I’ve lost half a pound, so we’re back on speaking terms.

You have suggestions. I know. I can hear you thinking them.

Your first suggestion is that I get another scale. Not going to happen right now. I know how this scale thinks; I don’t really want to train a new scale. The scale you know is better and all that.

Your second suggestion is that I refrain from weighing myself every day. You might as well suggest I wear ugly shoes every day. Not going to happen in this decade. In fact, the reason I like my current diet is because it requires me to weigh myself every day.

The big problem (yes, I know it’s a big problem) is that my scale has control over me. It’s true, it’s unhealthy, and I have no plans to change my attitude or belief system. (Anyone who wants to tell me not to judge myself by my scale needn’t bother. I don’t judge myself by the scale. I judge my weight by my scale and I believe my weight is important. Without weight, gravity would have nothing to hold on to. I would just like gravity to have a little less to hold on to.)

Love, Mom

P.S. Please don’t try to explain that gravity causes weight. This is a blog about my scale and for purposes of this discussion, Oreos cause weight, not gravity.

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Dear Kid,

I, your favorite mother, took my first spin class last night.

Lindsey TheBloggerJournalist and Spinning Instructor is crazy fit and has been teaching spinning for quite some time. I met Lindsey when she was blogging for TEDxCincinnati and she told me she taught spin at the Rec Center. I thought Why not? Turns out there Are Reasons Why Not.

I walked into the room basically the same mom you know and love. I crawled out a mere puddle of person.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

When I got to the spin room, Lindsey greeted me cheerfully. The spin bike gloated. When machinery gloats, you should probably worry.

The first thing one does when one goes to a spin class is set the bike for your (lack of) height. Of course if one isn’t careful, one gets bitten by the bike pedal. Which looks like a lion swatted the back of my leg. It was even more elegant in person. Lindsey, to her credit, did not laugh. At least not out loud.

So we (and by “we” I mean Lindsey) adjusted the bike. The bike purred—it likes her. I climbed on to test the fit. The bike bit me. Relationship established.

Then Lindsey explained how the gears and the monitor worked. So far so good.

The music started and we were off.

While we gently peddled through the warm up (I’ve got this!), Lindsey the Sadist showed us how to ride sitting and how to ride standing. She talked about setting intentions for the ride. (My intention is to not fall off the bike and to make it out alive.) She glowed as she talked about spinning and how much she loves it and loves sharing it with people.

My bike chuckled softly.

When machinery chuckles softly in an evil manner, you should probably worry.

“Set your bike at your base level!” called Lindsey, “That should be between 4 and 10 on your gears!”

I set my gears at negative 273. The bike helpfully settled in and shifted itself to positive 500.

“Ok!” called Lindsey, “We’re going to climb! Set your gear level up 2!” Against my better judgement (and by “better judgement” I mean physical capabilities) I shifted up two levels. The bike called me a wuss. I ignored the bike’s commentary and focused on pedaling. “Up another level!” I shifted. “And one more! We’re almost halfway there!” Halfway? Are you nuts?

Meanwhile, the fat cells in my body were having great fun. They played musical chairs but refined the rules so no one was “out.” In fact, I’m pretty sure they invited a few new fat cell friends to join them. I am the only person in the world who can go to a spin class and gain weight.

We climbed. We recovered (“This is active recovery!” I’m aware. Thanks.) We climbed again.

Once I was completely dead, Lindsey chirped, “Now we’re going to stand up!” We’re done? I did this! No problem! Only she meant we were going to keep spinning while standing up.

Do you know what is harder than spinning? Spinning while you stand up.

Do you know why? I have no clue. The bike probably knew, but it was too busy going all 50 Shades of Spinning on me.

I stood. I sat. I stood more. Sit! Stand! Sit! Stand! Sit! Roll over and play dead! No prob.

You know how the first time you ride a bike after a long time of not riding a bike you get saddle sore? Double it for spin. Triple it if you have a bike that hates you.

I dialed 1-800-SEND-A-WHEELCHAIR.

After the class, I decided to tweet about it.

Took first spin class. #Survived

And then

First spin class ever. Not sure if I’m exhilarated or too dead to feel pain.

I’ll probably spin again. Possibly even before I hit my grave.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

My gym (well, it’s not mine, it’s the community’s). The gym I belong to has a wide range of people who come to work out. The fit, the not so fit, the Sponge Bob wannabe. The young, the ancient, the in-between (I fall into that category—you may refrain from comment). We also have a wide selection of college students.

I know they are college students because a) they look like college, b) they talk like college students, and c) some of them have told me they’re college students.

Not all of them speak English as their first language. But it doesn’t really matter. It’s easy enough to follow what’s going on.

Yesterday, two guys were doing shoulder presses. They did not sneer derisively at my ½ pound weights (I’m kidding—they did sneer). One was pressing 35 pound dumbbells (we’ll call him 35) and one was pressing 45 pound dumbbells (we’ll call him 45). 35 pressed, 45 spotted. Then they switched. Much Spanish after which 35 tried pressing the 45s (without much success). Switch. Then 35 went to retrieve the 35 pounders—much Spanish. Several significant looks. 35 came back carrying 40 pound dumbbells. “Peer pressure” he said in English. I didn’t need the translation.

Then there’s Look at Me Dude. He was also working shoulders, using 65 pound weights. For the record, they were too heavy which gave him the opportunity to grunt and groan and grimace and then to drop those suckers on the floor (shaking the entire building so everyone would look up to see what had happened and startling Yours Truly who’d been spending time between sets texting a certain remote college student).

Plank Girl is very thin, very athletic, and very unassuming. She doesn’t care if she’s near a mirror or not. She comes to work. Hard. She’s friends with the girl majoring in American Sign Language (we had a conversation a while ago). I’ve seen Plank Girl work out and she’s a machine. I’m convinced the only reason she changes position when she’s doing planks is boredom. Otherwise she’d still be there 6 hours later.

My Business is Your Business works out semi-regularly. And by “semi-regularly” I mean approximately 1/3 of the time he’s at the gym. The rest of the time is spent slapping other dudes on the back and shouting into his cell phone.

The Two Math Majors (actually I’m guessing they are grad students) sport matching wispy beards and discuss weird calculations as they work out. They have one muscle that they share.

I Love Me Dud (why are the I Love Mes at the gym so often men?) grabs a spot by the mirror and proceeds to do exercises designed to show (himself) every muscle. In case you weren’t sure, he accepts the hint and looks at himself. I’ve never seen him actually kiss his muscles, but it’s probably because he doesn’t like PDAs and kisses at home.

And then there is the small child in the locker room singing Do, a Dear at the top of her lungs. Well, singing 70% of it. “La, a needle is a thread!!!” Translation? Joy, pure joy.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

There are some things you should look at very carefully. Science experiments and legal documents come to mind. And there are some things you should not look at too carefully because the answer might terrify you. Exact ingredients in fast food comes to mind. And there are some things you shouldn’t look at too carefully because details get in the way of enjoyment. The four-course dinner at The Melting Pot comes to mind.

We recently visited The Melting Pot for dinner. It was fabulous and I may never recover. Not only was the company lovely, the food was delicious. If you care to revisit the meal, you have but to look at my hips, because that’s where it is all hanging out. I checked, and the caloric total for our dinner was 4 trillion b’zillion quadrillion calories. Per person.

This translates to roughly doubling my weight in one meal. Dad ate more than I did and will not have gained an ounce. You ate more than Dad and probably lost weight during the meal. I couldn’t eat breakfast the next morning (still too full), spent 6 hours on the elliptical, and (I think) burned off the salad (Caesar salad without dressing). You on the other hand slept soundly and barely had enough fuel left to make it downstairs for a 9 course breakfast. Metabolism can be so unfair.

I’m not sure what was going on with Pi because she was having a blonde night and that child has almost black hair. She was almost as funny as I am, but she wasn’t trying most of the time. Especially when Jim (The World’s Greatest Server) was adding graham crackers to the s’mores fondue and she asked if he was adding bark (not willow bark because she didn’t know about that). I don’t think any of us have figured out what she was talking about, but we almost fell off our chairs laughing.

It really was an excellent meal.

Love, Mom