Model what? Basket case?

I will never be one of those 'fat by accident' women. Note I did not say I'd never be a fat woman. Been there. Done that. Bought the oversized t-shirt.

It amazes me that with all the folks I know at any given moment who are 'dieting' in some manner--i.e. wishing they could be smaller, saying they intend to become smaller, but doing who knows what to effect results--very few know the basics, I mean the very elementary basic science of how and why one's body expands or shrinks. I may get fat from time to time, but I sure as heck know every step that got me there...

I think it was early teen-hood when I first learnt about the 'evil' calorie, and just how many of those suckers are in each fat gram and just how many fat grams are in each of my favorite foods and just how many calories I use up daily.

And it was during those years the mental conditioning began. Everytime I'd see a carton of french fries I'd feel my thighs grow by a few inches within moments of the greasy smell wafting anywhere near my nose.

Many women have similar reactions. They've heard enough to have a general idea that chocolate, fries, and pizza are 'bad' foods while anything green as grass is good. Funny thing is, as much as the average female claims to care about her weight, seems most don't complete the most obvious of the introductory self-help steps in this problematic area. And, note: you can still eat pizza, it's all just a daily negotiation of various choices, you can have 'this' or 'that'...

Hong Kong is a vain city; a vain, vain, city. As one might expect, it does show itself to be typical of any of the world's major fashion capitals.

On a maybe a weekly basis I am confronted with whiny, struggling, imported models. Lest you assume I am one who 'dislikes' models simply because they are 5'9", 130 pounds and I am not, it's much deeper than that.

Last week, there I am laying in the sauna post-workout doing my best to ignore the 'funky' Chinese woman wrapped in garbage bags. Turns out, not only is she a fan of turning one's self into a piece of rubbish for the sake of beauty--but the other sauna occupant (later revealed a Brazilian model) eargerly interjects that she is shoping for a 'sauna suit'.

"I heard you can still get them in Thailand." Brazilian says.

"Yea, maybe, but anyway garbage bags work better." Hong Konger'er replies.

"They do? Okay." Says Brazilian.

"It's hard to find the suits cuz many people think they don't work - but I know they do, but not as good as regular garbage bags, the suits only work for a month and then you have to replace them." Hong Kong'er says.

"Oh, I know. There's a girl who works out here in the evening she has one she got in Thailand. It makes her sweat alot and she just feels so self-concious when she doesn't use it." Brazilian says.

"I'm trying to lose 10 pounds but I don't know why it's not coming off, I'm not eating any carbs." Says Brazilian.

Good night! I now see how it is so many spas and saunas here in HK can manage to sucker so many women into paying several hundred dollars for 'slimming treatments' - the only slimming treatment that could possibly be effective within a few hours would be the shutting of one's mouth and the moving of one's ass... It's these kind of women that think anything with lettuce is good for you, despite how much fat you ladle on top of said shredded veggie.

It was last night I was riding the elevator to my apartment when I had the luck of sharing the 4' x 4' space with another Brazilian model hanging with her guy friend.

"Like he said I can't eat beef, or cheese." She says. "You know how much I like cheese!" she emphasizes. "That's going to kill."

I was thinking 'I can relate', being one who loves cheese that is, and immediately I felt her pain.

She turns to size me up--eyes from the floor to the face--as all immature girls do when defending "territory" or "status" and proceeds to note "I think the consultant didn't even know how to help me or what to say to me." She says. "He was probably like, she doesn't need to lose weight, I mean there were some really fat a$$e$ in there." And thankfully with that we were at the floor of her exit.

Yes, sweetheart, pretty true you don't need to loose weight except given the fact that you've chosen a career which is quite competitive and not having cheese-breath might make the difference.

It's quite baffling to me all the pomp and positioning these model-type girls act out with--as though every female around them is judging them and envying them. Truthfully it makes me greatful I wasn't born better looking, it's a trap.

Could be these nice looking girls are sorry they have that thing in between their ears seeing as how it adds like 4 or 5 pounds to one's body weight - but uh, the rest of us are quite thankful we have them - those things called brains - which can actually aid in say, helping you put down the cheese.

Now, I'm not going to go off on a tangent how models aren't generally the brightest, even though they're not, and how what's inside matters more, though it does... But what I will say is, how did our world get to where it is, that simply by looking at me as a size 10 women these girls sometimes surmise I'd rather be them.

No, really, I'm ok being me. Better to be able to think independantly than wear size 3, or in your case 5, jeans.

Happy Birthday Abby!

Hey Abby, Hope you're having a good one.

This post comes with my thoughts of you, wishing I could be

close by to give you a birthday hug.

Love, your 'big' sis Beth.

Happy, Happy Birthday.

Tony, Happy Birthday!

Hope you thoroughly enjoy the day.

Also, an early congrats on your upcoming 3 month anniversary!

Cairns: Part III

In addition to our off-shore adventures Nick and I spent a few days wandering the city to see what we would see. In between stops at the local mall and night market our visit to the 'Cairns Tropical Zoo' resulted in 1) me determining Koala's are as cuddly as they look 2) discovering that being stampeded by Kangaroos is survivable 3) learning that it is always advisable to look overhead when walking under trees 4) and finally, having an enlightening moment whereby I realized just how pivitol Mr. Roger's Neighborhood is/was to me.

As shown below I did partake of the obligatory touristy experience in trading $15AUD in exchange for 30 seconds of hugging action with a Koala. I must say the 'lil guy took to my hip quite well, which is something to keep in mind especially seeing as how Nick said recently he wouldn't be entirely dissapointed if our offspring looked like Zoe, though, while she is cute, probably best to raise 'traditional' human-bean youngin's...

Passing the pelicans, turtles, wombats and all wingy creatures we made our way toward the Kangaroo habitat. Upon entering we noticed the 'roo's where huddled under the trees looking at us as though we looked as odd as we do. I quickly got out my 'zoo approved' bag of nibbles, filled my outstretched palm and waited expecting atleast a few to leap forward hungrily. What in fact resulted was nothing. No movement, no interest despite my efforts in sticking my hand as far past the fence as possible.

Deciding we'd try later if time allowed we meandered past another gate toward the crocodile's. It wasn't till we'd finished our rotation around various occupied swampy puddles that I looked up toward the sky and gazed upon a few massive webs with accompanying massive spiders. Not since Haiti had I felt such hatred for all things 8-legged. Not surprisingly the rest of our trek 'round the zoo would not be with the innocence and spontenaity had before the spider encounter.

Fleeing the scene we once again joined the 'roo crew and this time were shocked to learn that the aforementioned fence was only present to keep us out of their resting space--though they were quite free to come and go where they liked. Finding 2 or 3 now on 'our' side of the fence I successfully fed a pile of dry niblets to a few. Their mouths were quite hard, bone-y, abit intimidating. Shortly thereafter something apparently very heavy fell from the sky creating a loud smack and before we could process the booming noise ourselves a few dozen kangaroo's came running in our direction. Thinking as quickly as I could I determined it'd be best to hold still--and even if this wasn't the best action time wouldn't allow me any other options. I stood up and froze watching several 'roos quickly pass on my right and left, and thankfully they exercised judegement in terms of trying to avoid running me over. In matter of 60 seconds the whole event was over and we were left contemplating what had just been for sure a once in a lifetime experience.

Later in the afternoon we attended a free-flight bird show which included various tropical birds, eagles, an owl and the like. The owl's part in the show was to rest in the hole of a tree and at the moment the zoo guide mentioned him he'd pop up and out. The owl's timing was perfect (later we learned this was w/ the help of a time-released cage inside the tree) and his cute, round little face instantly made me feel 5 all over again.

This vacation was particularly animal oriented and the experiences had on it brought me back to earlier years in life where, like most other kids my age, I had, perhaps almost daily, visits with imaginary animal friends. Seeing the owl, the kangaroos, the fish immediately brought back pleasant thoughts of Mister Rogers and Captain Kangaroo, not to mention the Little Mermaid or other later Disney creations. Still waiting to one day meet Oscar's family of grouches...

Our treks outside the hotel generally brought us back around 5 or 6 often resulting in us gawking at the tube, access to 'good' television programming is now all in itself a 'holiday' event. The Biggest Loser, Australia became our obsession as it aired every weekday night. Hearing Munnalita and Damian go on about life at well over 100 kilos inspired Nick and I, diet wise.

Perhaps thanks to motivation from Biggest Loser - my watermelon, pineapple and chicken dinners (not to mention snorkeling aka exercise in disguise)resulted in a loss of a kilo over the week and the same for Nick though his loss was likely due to his intense dislike of potato and veggie salads which seemed to be the favorite food to serve aboard a boat in Oz.

Munnalita, we're routing for you. And even though you get us going with your accent which makes everything sound like a question we think you can take this one! Good luck.

Spare time at the hotel not spent watching Biggest Loser was spent in the huge ground-floor pool which most often was not occupied by anyone but the two of us. In prep for our ocean outings we'd purchased SCUBA masks and snorkels and oh, what a good investment they turned out to be. Armed with a few coins and a few rocks we spent hours in the pool playing games, hiding and finding said rocks and coins and generally doing whatever it is one can do underwater but not on land. As said before, I felt 5 all over again and quite fabulous. There are few moments in adulthood that one has the opportunity to experience true fun and silliness as innocently acheived during one's first decade on earth. Our time spent in the pool defied all realities of being old and was the most fun I've had in ages. Had I known this would be, I'd have purchased these pool accessories much sooner.

In keeping with my childlike attitude I had a few moments of intense gratefulness: 1) when I lost my treasured (and expensive) snorkel when diving into the choppy ocean waters and yet somehow it turned up back on the boat, someone found it floating and brought it back! 2) when I lost my snorkel a 2nd time and my diving instructor quickly retrieved it 3) when Nick said ok to me spending close to $80US dollars on fresh fruit over the long week. I couldn't get enough of the Hilton's 'Tropical Fruit Plate' w/ a scoop of coconut ice cream-though it wasn't cheap Nick let me order this 4 or 5 times! 4) When I found a pair of cute 'Egyptiany' strappy but supportive brown sandals in my size that didn't make my feet look as wide as they are!

I could go on, but those are the highlights. Mate, I tell ya, holidays like that one truly leave you feelin' energized. Cheers!

PS - Sorry I don't have more pics to share. In addition to losing my snorkel I lost my waterproof camera and unfortunately it was not found...

a giant clam - just one of the things seen on our dives. I didn't take this picture and so didn't likely see this exact clam, but who cares, right?!

Getting ready to jump off the boat, about 5 feet above the water, scary!

The aforementioned grill whose bay bugs I declined
Nick snorkeling in the hotel pool. As I said, fun, fun, fun!!
Holding a baby croc!
So cute! I'll take 3!
The feeding of kangaroos prior to the stampede.

Cairns: Part II

Once in Cairns we quickly realized that due to the logistics, the locations of everything, our adventures would require a bit of finaggling in effort to squeeze everything in. Accessing the Barrier Reef requires a 1 hour boat ride, which we knew, but hadn't figured on the costs or the means by which this travel would be made.

Picking up brochures on various events we decided on a day-trip to Green Island, a daytrip to the reef to snorkel and finally a night on a 'live-aboard' boat to complete our qualifying dives ending with certification.

Not surprisingly we weren't one of few who had their sights on Cairns last week. We hadn't expected quite so many other divers to also be onboard. The numbers made for a bit of a boot-camp experience as we quickly shuffled here and there in our heavy diving gear making way for other divers in effort to keep all groups of divers on task!

Once in the water groups of 4 to 8 new divers would in tandem fight the choppy waves hoping to make the 60 foot trek down without bursting an eardrum, choking on water or simply freaking out. It didn't take long to determine 4 was about the max any one instructor could reasonably handle though despite this ours was a group of 6, another group had 8. Inevitably one diver was destined to have hurdles which at times meant the rest of us would be sitting on the ocean floor waiting anxiously for the instructor and wayward student to return.

Hitches in the plan resulted in overuse of air, which resulted in abruptly ending our dives- meaning we often weren't able to accomplish everything on the agenda, pushing more to-do's to the next dive. Like I said, bootcamp! But so rewarding.

In between dives I spent many hours snorkeling. I absolutely love snorkeling. Diving has its place, but when the conditions are good for diving they are also perfect for snorkeling. I love how simple it is, just popping on a snorkel, mask, stinger suit (shown in pics below) and in you go. On a few occassions I was able to see the ocean floor while floating atop. It's exercise in disguise and should you have a problem breathing you simply pop your head up and adjust and you're on your way. Not surprisngly often I was in the water until the last call to return to the boat, it is my favorite active pasttime!

Cairns: Part I

I like to think I am a traveler and not a tourist. Meaning I am on a continous experiential journey rather than one who simply photographs the footprints their sock covering birkenstocks leave behind.

But nothing cements more firmly that you are a foreigner like an exotic culinary experience. Australia may not immediately come to mind when thinking of places that are sure to challenge your palate, but for us there was enough varience to take note of. Aussie's are indeed famous for their barbie's - and not those made by mattel.

While many perceptions we American's have of other cultures come only from our own loose interpretation of said culture, versus actual influence from it - I can confirm that indeed Aussie's do like a well-grilled piece of flesh, just don't ask for a side of 'bloomin onion' as if the Outback Steakhouse was actually Australian the menu would be largely kangaroo and emu fillets perhaps served with some sort of bland sweet-potato salad.

Being American and all we did have out sights set on havin a charcoaled hunk of chicken or beef but quickly walked out of the Red Ochre Grill--recommended for it's variety of tasty meats--me deciding the one chicken option served with a side of bay bugs wasn't what I was craving and thankfully Nick wasn't into Emu.

The bay bug and emu offerings wouldn't be the last of our mealtime hurdles. I was quite shocked at the Australian version of salsa and can confirm I don't care for vegemite, but nevermind all that we quite enjoyed the access to fresh, juicy fruits, honeyed fried chicken bits over rice, aka 'Chinese Food', as made everywhere except China...

Aside from the eating there were of course shopping excursions. I was overjoyed to walk into a shoe store and find ample selection in size 9 - stylish shoes at last, to adorn my large 'westerny' feet!

As was the plan Nick and I spent a good portion of our time in Cairns (cans) in the ocean. We snorkled, we dove, we saw, we screamed, we laughed, we choked--it was an intense week.

We are now certified divers!

During our off-shore adventures I saw: 1 Sea Turtle, 2 Reef Sharks, 1 Pod (12 or so) Dolphins, 3 Little Nemo fish, 3 Dog Face Fish, 3 Giant Clams, 1 Baby Squid, 2 Jellyfish, a few trumpet fish, and numerous Angel and other colorful fish and coral.

Despite the fact that over 24 hours later I still feel as though I'm rocking back and forth--the work was very much worth the experience. The process of becoming certified divers meant jumping off the boat into the whiping ocean waters following instructions to remove and replace this, adjust that, move here or there testifying to your ability to manage the equipment necessary to get you to and from the ocean floor safely. When we next dive we'll be free of the 'classroom' exercises and have only to focus on the basics - getting underwater to explore!

No bunnies this Easter...

As Nick mentioned—this week we’re off to Australia, namely the north, as in the Great Barrier Reef. We are very excited for many reasons—the first being that we never turn down an opportunity to visit somewhere new, except say the local emergency room or city jail.

Aside from never having been to Oz, this chunk of land/water is particularly touted. Not only as the ‘#1 Marine Destination’ in the world, but also the ‘#1 Place to See’ overall in the world! So says The Travel Channel and thankfully in addition to their recommendation I’ve heard nothing but good things from fellow Hong Kong’ers who’ve vacationed there. This will be spectacular—and I’m guessing we won’t regret holding off on Sydney in favor of having 3 more days in Cairns.

Prepping for the diving adventures we will shortly be on was intimidating, interesting, scary, exciting—all of this. I found taking on this type of sport resulted in experiencing various stages of fear. I first became concerned that unlike all divers before me I would not in fact master the rhythm of breathing through a tank underwater—and somehow I’d choke on water or air. After 2 or 3 hours at the bottom of 9 feet of water this fear did subside. Indeed I do possess enough intelligence to breath in and out. What a relief.

I am a worrier. I will absolutely run through every possible negative before engaging in this or that. However I am not superwoman and therefore I can only take on a few concerns at any given time. Following resolution of breathing techniques it dawned on me that I’d spent very little time researching just which creatures we’d be bumping into once at the GBR. I’m all for clown fish, smallish sea turtles, and pretty much anything I see hanging in store-front windows when walking past some of the local restaurants here.

However it turned out I had signed on to diving without really thoroughly thinking through whether or not I could handle the shark encounter. “Sharks?” you say. “Yes, sharks.”

Now some Marine-Know-It-All could probably pipe up here on how the sharks I may meet won’t be of the man-flesh-eating kind or further how few sharks of any kind actually do bite divers, surfers, etc—however if you’re like me, you don’t find it at all settling to hear that only certain species of sharks are common here or there… “Oh ok, glad to know I’ll be eaten by a local dwelling shark and not a west-coast species…and glad to know he won’t eat me if he’s full from having eaten someone else.”

Not only will I likely see a shark, if I live to swim to freedom I may only reach the top after having discreetly avoided a stingray or two. I’ve seen plenty of these winged darkish creatures in aquariums and might actually find them inviting if it weren’t for the spearfish tail they possess which we’ve confirmed is effective via the tragic end to Steve Irwin.

Not surprisingly the shark/stingray fearing phase lasted longer than the breathing concerns however this week I find they’ve subsided. I seem to have found the bravado, atleast today, to ‘dive into’ this, however that’s not to say all is calm.

Jellyfish. Oh how I hate them. They’re hard to spot, they’re tiny, they’re big, they’re stupidly unfocused and seem unconcerned with avoiding me, they’re vengeful and oh, while we’re at it, let’s not forget they taste terrible. So what exactly are they here for? Right, so I can have the pleasure of peeing on someone else’s leg—how could I forget.

While I am tired of seeing Jellyfish on the dim-sum table I suppose I should be wishing to more often see them on menu’s thus keeping them out of ‘my’ water.

While we’re diving we’ll likely be well covered. But our faces, our heels, our fingers just might be susceptible to jellyfish stings and this is now my main concern. I stupidly watched an episode of “I Shouldn’t Be Alive” the other day—which by the way I despise this show but somehow can’t change the channel—in which a few divers were stranded and ran through a ‘herd’ of jellyfish and oh the stinging that resulted. Awful.

Our diving instructor mentioned he liked diving due to the ability to conserve energy, i.e. be lazy—“You just float around and observe” he said. “Yea, well, if I had to avoid all these potentially fatal encounters just to get to the couch, suddenly the treadmill would look more attractive.”

Sheesh. You’d think humans weren’t intended for underwater living or something.

Among my contending with all of the above I fully intend, just as Steve Irwin did (with all due respect) to record my demise. My $10 underwater camera will be with me and if I return it shall be with a few snaps—even if only blurry images of what was an angel fish. And well, if I don’t return I expect someday the camera will float ashore evidencing my effort to try out that “twisting the shark tail’ maneuver thing, I guess proving it does not in fact paralyze these water-dwelling beasts…

As far as our ‘On-Shore’ adventures we just may “Dance with the Dingos” and “Kiss Kangaroos” but it would probably be wise to let my heart-rate settle before trekking over to the ‘Venom Zoo” which houses—well the obvious—pretty much anything you’d never want stuck in your sandal.

So much for thinking life at the beach is relaxing!