Session number two with Adam, the personal trainer, today.
As was not raining I had great anticipation that I would move onto greater things. Reality strikes a fatal blow, however.
About halfway through the session we were doing some ‘ab’ work wherein the personal trainee (ie. me) lies on a mat on the ground with the personal trainer (ie. Adam) standing on her feet and cajoling her to perform ‘ab crunches’. This great physical feat is enlivened by the fact that the personal trainee is wearing boxing gloves and, when she contracts her ‘abs’ she reaches up to do two punches into big mitts which the personal trainer is holding above her (just ever so slightly out of reach).
I manage about a half a dozen. This is no way near enough to fill in a minute’s worth of physical activity. The rest of the park is treated to the spectacle of me lying on the ground completely incapable of raising myself from the turf while a perky personal trainer stands on my feet waving punching mitts threateningly over my prone corpse.
Is the point of a personal trainer to have the personal trainee languishing on the ground – unable to move? I thought the point of the personal trainer was to make me move around a bit more! Clearly I have been deluded in my expectations.
Perhaps I am really more the armchair athlete? I suspect so.
And my reasoning?
I’m currently LEADING my footy tipping competition!! And greater validation for my armchair athleticism I could not find!

Have just staggered in to work after first ever session with personal trainer.
Alarm at 6.15 am, down to park for 6.30 am start. Running, jumping, lifting, pushing, skipping, staggering, breathing really heavily. And being rained on. Incessantly.
(Brand new hair ruined in one fell swoop.)
Adam, said personal trainer, is 24 and cute as a button. He’s very enthusiastic and very affirming; part way through the session he says: “Go Marita, doing well, you’re a machine!” (As I lay in a puddle of water on the ground.) Gross over exaggeration not to mention more than mildly amusing. I might even go back.
I just hope I’ll be able to lift up my arms sometime during the next week/millenium.

Just a note on the Comedy Festival: if you’re casting about for something to see but not sure what, go and see ‘Gerry of Arabia’. He is a delight. We went last night and he was lovely.

Sigh. It’s just one of those days.
I’m having a clumsy day.
Have just dropped a cup of tea all over my keyboard, all over my chair, all over my lap and all over my shoes.
I did not expect so much liquid could come out of a fairly standard sized tea cup. It was hot too.
Went to toilet in endeavour to dry off under hand dryer. Look in mirror and somehow have got pen all over my chin.
Sigh.
Suggestion that should go out and buy new (dry) skirt has been scoffed at. Retail therapy not deemed an appropriate response to this crisis.
However, lovely office mate just gave me sympathy chocolate biscuit. Things are looking up!

Perusing the ‘get me out of this hellhole/find me a new job’ pages of recent papers, I’ve come across the role of ‘cheese optimisation co-ordinator’.
Intriguing.
At desperate point of wondering if might be able to undertake this role, after all like to eat cheese. A lot.
Wonder what it entails?
Should I waste more time seeking out a job description?

I was having a chat this morning with a friend of mine (Hi Andrew – if you read this!!) about, among other things, the subject matter of my blog. Taking a cue from this conversation another of our friends, Kathy (Hi to you too, if you read this!!), made the comment with reference to my entry ‘Taking the hard out of hard rubbish’, that I had turned the art of charming someone else into doing stuff for me into a superpower.
A superpower! I have always wanted a superpower.
This has caused some discussion in my workplace; everyone wants their own superpower.
I decided to test my hitherto latent powers on Smith Street. Unfortunately, I had left my purse at home today – so no money to buy any lunch. However, given my newfound superpower, I thought I would see if I could finagle a lunch from somewhere.
(Some time later)
Humphhff – no luck. Fortunately I had recourse to the staff kitty – so did not go hungry.
While I am unwilling to relinquish my newfound superpower – I do admit that it is a bit random in its application. But then, I guess all superheroes do find their powers are a little unstable initially. At least until they learn to harness their powers – for good (of course!) not evil.

I was wandering back home this afternoon after a trip to Footscray shopping centre (a twilight zone all of its own) when I saw a man attempt to round a curve a little too sharply and, as a consequence, … fall off his unicycle!!
Not your usual mode of transport over this side of town. (I imagine the fellow is a local as it would be one mean feat to ride a unicycle over the Westgate Bridge to get here!)
As I’m usually at work during the day on Fridays, I miss this kind of local action. Perhaps I’ll take more Fridays off in the future. What else could I have missed?

Each month I write up a little column in the newsletter at work entitled ‘History in the News’. Basically it’s just a summary of history-related articles which have appeared in the major newspapers over the last month or so.
The Australian (13/03/03) included an article which told how a team of paleontologists in Italy had uncovered a set of fossil footprints showing a man out for a walk with a dog – more than 300,000 years ago!! The footprints were left in cooling lava after an eruption from Mt Roccamonfina in southern Italy. They say it provides evidence that humans and dogs have been ‘keeping company’ since the earliest days of both species. While the scientific significance of the footprints has only just been revealed, locals had known of the footprints for years – calling them “ciampata del Diavolo” (footprints of the Devil) in the local dialect.
How interesting is that?
Tonight when I take my Maisie for a walk we will have to find some wet concrete (in lieu of cooling lava and as opposed to the usual mud) to ensure our daily activity is enshrined in the annals of history!

Further on my sudden massive increase in available credit.
Decided to ring the bank today to see if the approval of a $20,000 credit limit was, in fact, real or, more likely, a typo.
Yes, two people were able to tell my that my credit limit had been increased to $20,000. No, it did not appear to be a typo, it was actually $20,000.
Hmmmmm.
Did you know this figure represents substantially more than half my current annual income?
Could I perhaps change it to something more like $2000 ie. what I had asked for the the beginning? Would be prepared to accept $5000 if pushed.
Only if you put on a red hat, spin around three times and jump through hoops.
Right.
Well, red hat, three spins and several hoops later it appears that my credit limit has indeed been reduced to $2000. A confirmation letter will follow. Who knows what it will contain – although a colleague has warned me that I might find the credit limit has been reduced to $200!
As a customer I’d have assumed the bank would have more control over its zeros.

I was recently offered an increased credit limit on my credit card. I didn’t request one, they asked me.
“OK,” I thought. “Two grand might be handy.”
Last night I came home to a letter confirming my credit limit increase to a cool $20,000.00!!
Twenty grand!
That’s a lot of…. well, anything really.
Must go, things to… buy!!!!!!

Our local council has organised a hard rubbish collection day for today. Thus my walk to the station this morning was spent looking at all the good stuff that my neighbours have decided to rid themselves of: old computer cases and garden clippings are at the top of the list. Probably most of the really good stuff disappeared in the night.
Consequently, Justine and I spent a large part of yesterday moving an endless chain of debris from the back yard onto the nature strip. This included the remains from the destruction of our shed (see previous entry). These remains consisted of a number of hardwood supporting beams which needed to be cut in half to satisfy the council’s pick up requirements. Not being possessed of power tools such as a chain saw, we had to use a hand saw to cut up the timber. A tiring and physically demanding job. Justine had cut up about half a dozen beams on Saturday and so 10.00 am Sunday morning saw me bedecked in safety glasses and knee pads, wielding the saw before a small mountain of wood. I cut up one beam. I cut up another. I stood before the small mountain disconsolately- it was not looking much smaller. I must have cut quite a pathetic figure.
As I stood in the driveway gazing at the wood a jaunty figure in green sporting a plaid waistcoat (he later informed me this was his “vistin’ clobber”) wandered past (on his way to buy to alcohol, as he later also informed me). He smiled at me and my big pile of wood, I weakly waved my saw at him and he walked on.
I was just about to start on beam number three when the man in green returns. “Do I want a hand?” “Really?,” I respond. “We can get through this in no time,” he says. And he did!! As I held the lengths of timber in place and listened to him talk about the merchant navy, living in Newcastle (England) as a youth, the English football/soccer team, the Spanish Armada, crosswords and Charles I he cut through that wood like butter. It took him about 20 minutes. It was magic.
So thank you Bernard for your random act of kindess. Newcastle is definitely my soccer team for evermore.
And the neatly stacked wood on the nature strip? It too had disappeared in the night to a new home.