I Am Obese

Yup. It's official. I'm obese.

I'm 43 years old (horrors!), almost 5 foot 9, wear a size 12 on most occasions, and yet, I'm obese.

O.B.E.S.E.

Not pleasantly plump. Not slightly overweight. Obese.

I could live with "she could lose a few pounds." I would prefer that some of my pants were less snug. And really, who couldn't drop 10 pounds and look better?

But obese? I'm having a hard time with this one.

Just where am I getting this data? Tanita. The scale people.

It all started with an Amazon Prime membership*. That's where you pay Amazon a $75 flat fee per year and get free 2nd day shipping on ANY product sold by Amazon. (The fine print: sold by Amazon -- not a third party merchant.)

Even with the fine print, it's a great deal. Especially if you share the membership with a friend from work. (You can add up to three family members on your account.) So according to Amazon, Christina and I are sisters. Hi Sis. How's your free shipping?

Anyway, back to my little obesity issue.

Christina ordered a new Tanita scale through her Amazon Prime account. (The amount of Amazon stuff that now arrives at our office is a little scary...).

She loves it. It's all digital. It gives body fat and water content percentages. Me, being the shopping whore that I am, think: "Why shouldn't I spend $50 bucks to save $7.99 in shipping? I need a new scale. My scale must be 15 years old, isn't digital and I should know my body fat and water percentages, too."

Two days later my scale arrived.

The next morning I got on it.

And holy fat ass, Batman -- my body fat percentage came up as 44%. Forty-fucking-four percent. What is that??? My body is almost 50 percent fat??? How could that be? Am I one of those people who don't realize that my belly is hanging over my pants? My ass fits in a coach airplane seat just fine. I work out. I can get my heart rate to 165 and still breathe. Yet I'm 44% body fat??

Then I look at the handy chart that Tanita provides, and low and behold -- I'm obese.

My husband doesn't believe any of this. He completely poo-pood their claims:

"Tanita has patented a revolutionary new way of measuring BIA that is faster, easier, less intrusive and includes a precision scale making this a simple one-step process. In fact, Tanita was the first company to introduce the world to the body fat monitor/scale. Tanita's monitor looks just like a bathroom scale. A person inputs age, gender and height, then steps onto the platform. Electrodes in the foot sensor pads send a low, safe signal through the body. Weight is calculated automatically along with body fat content in less than a minute. All Body Fat Monitor/Scales and UltimateScales feature Tanita's patented BIA method."

But he's not the one they're calling obese. I think it's time to find me someone with some fat calipers and determine my true fat count.

After I have my ice cream Sunday, of course. (Ha!)

*Imagine if Amazon sold yarn? It would be insane.

"Are You This Picky With Your Men?"

That's what Joseph, the guy who sits at the reception desk at my office, said to me today when I dropped off yet another box for FedEx to pick up.

It all started innocently enough, but yet, it's the unfortunate reason I haven't knit ANYTHING all week.

Cell phone purchasing.

What a pain in the ass.

It was time to replace my Motorola V710. I had it for two years and was done with it. Technology had surpassed my boring phone and it was time for an upgrade. Also aiding my decision to upgrade was a strange class-action suit brought against Verizon for this particular phone -- which, to spare you all the dull details -- permitted me to return the V710, buy a brand new Verizon phone and get $250 off the purchase price.

Even someone as math-challenged as me could figure out that if I purchased a phone costing less than $250, I got to pocket the difference. (Hi. More yarn anyone?) Or, if I selected a more expensive phone, the first $250 would be covered.

Not a bad deal. Gotta love class-action suits. (OK, not really. I think they're all pretty stupid, but in this case I made out.)

So what kind of phone does a girl who loves pink go for?


The Pink Razr

It's adorable. It's pink. (A nice, light shade of pink, much more attractive, IMHO, than the fuscia pink introduced last year. Almost the exact shade of pink as my iPod mini.)

Problem was: I hated the phone. While still within the measly 15-day decision period that Verizon gives you to test out new phones, I decided the only thing I really liked about this phone was the color. The buttons on the side were all in the wrong place. It wasn't comfortable. And even with all the gadgets available today, I was still stuck sending text messages using the ultra inconvenient keypad as a keyboard.

So back in the box it went, whisked away by the nice FedEx man at work.

Next up:


The Motorola Q

Made by the same people who make the Razr. It's very hot now. And very thin. With a nice form factor. (Hmmm. I'd like to have those attributes...)

Joseph called to tell me another FedEx box had arrived at the front desk. The Motorola Q was about to become my new favorite gadget.

But then I started playing around with it. I found it uncomfortable. And unfortunately designed for right-handed people. The extremely useful scroll wheel was just not that useful for a lefty. The screen, while crisp, was kind of teeny. Worst of all was the Microsoft Windows Mobile interface.

Admission: I'm a Mac girl. I use a PC at work, but ultimately prefer my home Mac Mini. While I knew about the Windows Mobile thing going into this purchase, it just didn't sink in.

Until the had the phone in my hands to fiddle with. I didn't like the software at all. It was so, I don't know, Microsoft. I didn't like the calendar. I didn't like the datebook. I didn't like that it took 5 steps to get anywhere useful. I've used a Palm PDA for so many years I just wasn't ready to attempt to badly retrofit all my data into this Windows operating system.

So after two days of the Q, it too found itself in a return FexEx box waiting for the man in the FexEx uniform.

They say three's a charm (sorry for the bad cliche), but it's true. I've found true love.


The Treo 700p

Everything I wanted in a phone. Palm interface. Qwerty keypad so I don't spend 3 minutes typing a "I'll be home in 15 mins" text message to my husband. Phone and PDA in one package with an interface that I love.

Ok. It's not pink, there will be no slush money from the $250 rebate for yarn purchases and I've read more cell phone instruction manuals in the last 3 weeks than any human should have to read in a lifetime.

But I've found my new gadget and I love it. Now can somebody please bring me my knitting so I can get back to doing something fun?

SP8

I received this postcard from my Secret Pal today:

How cute is that? It's from an artist named Yoshitoma Nara. I love that they're so mad.

My Friend Christina Thinks I'm Crazy

Why?

Because I wrote a complaint letter to Safeway via their website today.

I guess that's just me. The Safeway in my town sucks. Seriously. I guess this was the trip that broke this camel's back, so to speak, so today I opted to let them know.

Christina suggested I post this on my blog so that others can learn how to write a complaint letter. I'm not sure this one qualifies as one of my better complaint letters (yeah, yeah, I write them often...) but I'll post it here anyway.

Dear Safeway:

I don't understand why my local Safeway is such a terrible store. Nothing is ever in stock, the store is a wreck, even the Safeway branding inside the store is half missing -- it's like the Safeway that time forgot.

With all the competition in this area, I'm surprised at the horrible condition of this location. My checker said it best last night: "Well, I guess they don't want to spend the money to have items restocked in the evening."

It was 8:30 pm and the shelves were bare. No blueberries. No strawberries. Nothing but a few green bananas that even a chimp would turn down. The yogurt aisle was wiped clean, as was the frozen ice cream department (no sugar free, fat free fudgesicles for me...). I opted for frozen blueberries instead -- and even those were out of stock! My trip was a complete waste of time.

If this Safeway doesn't want to pay the money to keep its shelves stocked, then I don't want to pay the money to buy my groceries here. I'll be sure to frequent (the other two local stores) much more from now on.

What a disappointing store. Safeway should be ashamed.

So there you have it. My letter to Safeway. What can I say? When I get mad, I speak my mind. And for those of you who think I only send letters to complain, I have been known to send complimentary letters, as well...they're just not as much fun.