TFIF*

crazy woman at the gym
There is a crazy woman at my gym. In fact there's probably more than one but Ms. Transylvania (as I have named her) is as crazy as I'd like to meet. I'm minding my own business one day in the change rooms when suddenly there is this dramatic cry oh 'Oh my GOD! How tragic!" I turned around and this largish woman with a headband/turban made of toilet paper is standing on the other side of the room who proceeded to tell me and the lady standing beside me that 2 months from that day, in 2 year's time she would be 70. "It just hit me darling! 70! Oh it's horrible!" Now I may be in the UK but she sure ain't British and I was trying to place her accent and it finally hit me- she has that melodramatic way of drawing out her vowels (esp the word daaaarling, which she sprinkled liberally throughout her dialog) that made me think of some old-style Transylvania accented vampire. Luckily she focused on the lady beside me who was just about to turn 60 ("Oh but daarling that is nothing! I've been there, 60 is fantastic!") so I just turned my back and got on with getting changed.

feminism today
I got one of those forwarded mail humour things from a friend entitled 'female self esteem' and a couple of the things actually made me smile and so I share them with you now:
- we know all our kids are ours
- we have priority in a ship wreck
- we are the first hostages to go free
All three are good and valid points. ;-) And the last two points tie in quite nicely with my theory of modern feminism: there's no harm in letting a guy do it for you. I can be independent and self-reliant but there's nothing wrong with letting a male help you if you can't do it and if they offer to help but you can do it yourself, why not let them do it? It makes them feel good and saves you some effort. Everybody wins.

the aftermath
On Thursday I went climbing for the first time since getting back from my bungee experience. Now usually I would consider myself a fairly fearless climber (which I would argue is fairly easy way to be when you're top-roping. I'm sure once I'm putting the rope up myself and there's more slack in it and the falls are larger, I'll be more cautious) and am happy to jump for things and if I think I'm going to fall, I'll just tell my belayer so that they're ready for it. I don't mind the fall, as far as I'm concerned, I have faith in my equipment and my climbing buddy so nothing should go wrong. But Thursday was a little different. The first time I was being let down after finishing a climb, my knot tightened and the rope creaked, as it always will, and suddenly I had to fight this urge to grab on to the wall. It happened again later on when I was taking a break and sitting back on the rope and I thought to myself, "This is because of that bloody bungee jump." And it was. With knots tightening and things creaking, I suddenly had that memory of that feeling of free-fall, that stomach-almost-in-your-mouth feeling, that ohmyGodI'mabouttodie feeling. But I fought it and later on, when I took an unexpected fall (and usually I have an idea when I'm about to pop off the wall) I was perfectly fine. Nevertheless, I found it really interesting that I had residual bungee issues lurking in my psyche.

more crazy lady
I am writing this in installments throughout the day so now it's post-lunch and CRAZY LADY WAS THE THE GYM AGAIN. I've decided that she is my new fav crazy person because the stuff that comes out of her mouth is just gold. Today she was talking to a 'friend' about gardening: "Oh daarling, you know What'shername, ugly as sin, poor thing but her enthusiasm is so infectious, and she knows everything about gardening, she is just adorable." This woman actually manages to talk in italics, it's amazing.

*think TGIF but with more swearing