Idyllic Indecency

The weather is gorgeous here.

It's sunny; it's warm; it's breezy.

It's the kind of weather that makes you want to eat everything al fresco and run through the grass barefoot (being careful to avoid all bugs, dog poop, and reptiles, of course.)

So yesterday afternoon - the one day of the week I don't spend at the gym - I took a good book, a stack of magazines, a glass of iced tea, and a lawn chair out to the backyard. I let one of my 80-pound dogs, Fish, climb into my lap while the other, Marvin, lay at my feet.

It was perfect.

Until Marvin got up, idled over to the back corner of the yard, and started barking like a mad man.

Incessantly.

Annoyingly.

Loudly.

Still, I was determined to keep reading, so, eyes on the page, I started yelling, "Marv! Shhhh! Marv! Be quiet! Marvin! Stop it right now!"

But he didn't.

He kept at it so religiously that, finally, I was forced to look up.

And notice that a strange man was standing there.

Just beyond the fence of the backyard.

Peeing.

Just putting it all out there, lazily glancing off, without a care in the world, it seemed.

Peeing.

(Or doing something else unsavory with his pants unzipped that I care not to think about at the moment.)

I was mortified. I felt like I'd just accidentally opened the door on someone using the john.

So I followed my gut instinct and tried to hide behind my magazine.

Because dear Lord in heaven, I did not want to see any of that.

I was embarrassed as all get out. For him. For me. For my dog, who was still barking at the urinating man.

And then I realized that man was peeing in a public place. Worse yet, he was basically peeing directly into my backyard.

He was so close that Marvin was standing and barking in the "splash zone," if you will.

He was a grown man on public property, which is clearly visible from multiple houses. None of which have sky-high privacy fences. All of which have plenty of windows. Not to mention the fact that he definitely could see me - his unwilling audience!

I became irate. I was so mad that I wished I owned some kind of weapon I could brandish, waving it about and firing it into the air to scare away this strange urinator and any other peeing freaks that deemed public indecency an everyday occurrence.

But I don't own a gun.

Heck, I don't even own a terribly sharp knife.

So I did the next best thing.

I grabbed my book, my stack of magazines, my iced tea, and my dogs and hastily retreated back into the house. Still blushing. With Marvin still barking.

Because, apparently, nothing is sacred anymore.

Including my own backyard.

***

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, free of public indecency and other displays of bodily functions!

Happy Friday!

Workout Wednesday!

Meet the new love of my life:

OK. I'm exaggerating, a little bit anyways. But the foam roller pictured above is an amazing tool for the regular worker-outer (and even the occasional worker-outer or the average old walker.)

You've probably seen this cylinder of foam lying abandoned in the stretching section of your gym. Upon occasion, you may see one Crazy Person try to balance upon it or squat while standing on it.

While it's a little bit unassuming, and well, let's just say, it looks like packing material, this piece of gym equipment works better than an industrial-strength ibuprofen.

It can be used for strength training, hence the reason why Crazy Person is squatting while trying to stand on a tube of foam. But it's real beauty lies in its ability to massage you.

Yes. That's right. I said the magic word: Massage. (And it won't cost you the $70+ spas will charge you for a 45-minute rubdown, either.)

A foam roller is your tool for self-massage. Say good-bye to sore muscles. I've found your cure.

You basically sit or lie on a foam roller, moving back and forth across the sore parts of your body while pressing the majority of your body weight towards the foam roller.


I love to use it on my hips, hamstrings (back of the legs) and glutes (rump.) But you can use it for your back and upper body too. The acute pressure applied by the stiff roll of foam actually causes the release of muscle tension and works away at knots and kinks. In short, it releases your muscle pain and improves your performance when you're back in the gym the following day.

WARNING: The foam rolling itself is NOT a painless process. As you roll out certain parts of your body, you'll hit sore points. You should focus your weight/pressure there and roll slowly back and forth across the sore spot. It will hurt. A lot, depending on how sore and tight you are. But I promise that it's worth it if you can fight through it. When I work on my hips, I often huff and puff and try to breathe through the pain like I'm in labor or something. But I promise, it will pay off. I wouldn't keep doing it if it didn't.

Plus, for those of you that have ever had a deep tissue or sports massage, while you know it can be painful at first, you also know that you'll feel an amazing release afterwards. That floaty, clear-headed relaxation you get after a massage? Same feeling you can get after foam rolling! It is amazing for your body to release all that soreness.

FYI for the pregnant women or new mommies: This will do wonders for your lower back, plus anywhere else you're carrying tension from toting around a new baby all the time and falling asleep in odd positions at all hours of the night. I'm going to start bringing one of these puppies as a gift to every baby shower I attend. Moms need these that much.

Couple more quick tips before you all go get your own personal, monogrammed foam roller:
1. Drink water after you do it. Like with massages, the release of lactic acid from your tight muscles can cause dehydration and nausea. Plus, water helps your body heal from the deep muscle work you're doing.
2. Do this AFTER a workout. Doing it beforehand gives your body the wrong signals and increases your risk of injury. It will also result in a more sluggish, sometimes more painful, workout.
3. Roll out smaller parts of your body with tension, like the bottoms of your feet, along tennis balls to produce the same effect.
3. Hide that personal foam roller from your family members. Children think it's a weapon; husbands(or wives!) think it's garbage; and dogs think it's a chew toy. Exhibit A: My dog (nose in bottom of photo) trying to attack Foamy, as I affectionally call her, when I picked her up for a quick massage session yesterday.

***

OK, that's it for our second installment of Workout Wednesday. Feel free to send me anything you'd like to know or hear about in the fitness world, and I'll do the best to answer your questions in upcoming installments. Also, read how Workout Wednesday got started.

Now, go try that poor, neglected foam roller! Your sore muscles will thank you!