Just Call Me Gretel

     I leave a trail of bobby pins around the apartment as a lead to my favorite places, just like the bread crumbs Hansel and Gretel left behind. Blue, pink, brown, black, green, sparkly, decorative, they're all over; it's one of my messy habits. Sometimes I just get tired of my hair being on my forehead or in my face--so in they go; and other time's I feel like the roots get sore when it's pulled back--so out they come. It's usually an urgent-feeling situation, so I like them to be in convenient places. It's something that works for me. If you didn't know, I have a neat-freak husband, a devil cat who's paws love to rearrange my decorating by shoveling everything movable to the floor, and dogs with gnarly teeth that salivate with cravings to cease and destroy my pretties once found at a reachable level (No thanks to Lucifer!). Consequently what works for me, sometimes turns out to work against me. . . . .Ever feel like that?
     When was the last time you saw someone at the gym sporting a cassette tape Walkman? I saw one last week at the hoity toity gym, so I know they have enough money to buy something a little more. . . . . . . . updated. That's a true testimate to love of vintage right there! I couldn't imagine not having my easy to use iPod play list or Pandora to jam to while I'm working out now days, but I used to take my Walkman with me everywhere. I knew every word to every song on my The Judds tape.  Remember when the batteries on those things were going dead and your music tempo would slow to about 1/8th the speed and the voices would fall about 10 octaves lower? I can recall spending countless hours by the stereo waiting for my favorite songs to air so I could press record and create the best mixed tapes ever! Can you imagine present day kids having the patience to make their own mixed tapes? Did you ever record yourself being silly or singing so you could play it back for fun? We have some really funny evidence of Patrick pretending to be a Fart Expert with his cousin Laura interviewing him about his fart knowledge, back in their little person years! Priceless memories. Hours of entertainment.
     My trainer friend confiscated my heart rate monitor watch the last couple of days to program a few heart rate controlled workouts for me. After getting it back and experimenting with it for the first time, I think I may need to make some changes to the way I exercise while using it. The watch beeps at me when my heart rate falls out of the pre-set range, which is very handy, except for the fact that I cannot hear the beep with my amazing external-sound-blocking headphones blaring motivational music through my ears. (My heart rate automatically shows up on the machine, but the machine doesn't know what range my heart rate is suppose to be in.) The only way I could asses my heart rate exceeding the zones, aside from memorization which requires too much thinking for my meat-head time, is by the older lady on the treadmill in front of me that wasn't wearing any head phones. I would receive a cue to look down at my beeping watch every time she veered over her right shoulder to glare at the annoying girl wearing the noisy gadget (that's me). So what can I do in the future to make sure I hear my watch when zone training? Just grit my teeth and bear not listening to my headphones, look down at my watch every 5 seconds like a freak, or continue to annoy the weird silence lovers around me and risk receiving a hex from all the evil eyes? I haven't decided if I want to be "that girl" or not.