Fall Colors, an Apology, and a Quick Health Reminder

Photo: harold.lloyd

So the Lobster and I are back from our brief New England Fall Foliage tour, and though we were too lazy to take pictures, we had a great time!

Er, well, most of the trip, anyway. Perhaps not the night when we'd settled down in our lovely campsite by the pretty pond, finished dinner, and were just preparing for a peaceful night's sleep in our trusty campervan when...

BEEP!!! BEEP!!! BEEP!!! BEEP!!!

Our propane alarm went off, warning us of a potential gas leak.

Did I mention this was a completely deserted campground inside a beautiful state park miles from anywhere that promised awesome hiking, and that it was already paid for and nonrefundable?

We carefully considered our options: we could mute the frantic bleating sound, assuming it was only a false alarm (albeit the first one ever in seven years). Of course there would be small chance we might asphyxiate in our sleep, but as far as accidental death goes... that's really not an unpleasant one, right?

Nighty Night, Sleep Tight!

(Photo: O Pish Posh)

Much better to go to sleep inhaling propane than be wide awake and meet up with a huge hungry grizzly bear, or fall off a cliff or something.

Warning: Hurts More Than Falling Asleep.

(Photo:fdecomite)

Plus, if we never woke up, then we wouldn't have to unpack and clean the van again on our return!

But on balance, we decided it was probably worth hauling our sleepy asses back out of the lovely forest and onto the highway in search of a motel. And instead of hiking the next morning, we'd attempt to find an RV repair shop, one of our perennial favorite road-trip amusement stops.

As it turned out, the reason no one else was in our pretty campground even though it was the height of fall colors? All the leaf-peeping tourists were crammed into every motel room within two hours of us. After numerous "No Vacancies" we finally found a room at "America's Best," which we later learned must be short for the less well-known "America's Best Shithole" motel chain.

To be fair, as far as shithole motel rooms went, it probably was one of the best bets out there. To summarize:

Downsides: grease, grime, cigarette-burned bedclothes, rusted metal fixtures, water-stained ceilings, odd unidentifiable smears on doors and walls, a tiny lumpy double bed, funky moldy/garbagey smells, tattered carpet and drapes, peeling wallpaper, banged-up furniture, cobwebs, missing coffee-maker, cracked mirrors, and a couple of curious houseflies.

Upsides: No gunfire, prostitutes, drug-dealers, drunken screaming neighbors, rodents, arachnids, vipers or cockroaches. Plus, the toilet, while grimy, actually flushed and the shower had hot water. And it was cheap!

The Happy Ending: Van got fixed the next morning, our hiking and touring resumed that afternoon, and we consoled ourselves over our temporary misfortune with a Special Road Trip Treat: cheeseburgers!

So Sorry!

Alert readers may notice a bit of blogging laziness lately, as I gear up for the Cranky Fitness Big-Ass Giveaway and Cross Country Road trip. I've been terrible about answering emails, commenting at my favorite blogs, and doing much in the way of extensive health and fitness research. Again, thank goodness for helpful co-bloggers! And I swear that once I get settled on the west coast I'll start doing researchy posts where I try to dig up and report on actual useful information. Or barring that, at least I'll scout around and find some soccer players in their underwear, Sarah Haskins videos, or cute Lolcats.

And now for the promised health reminder:

Summer's Over, How's Your Vitamin D?

Many people, especially those in northern latitudes, don't get nearly enough vitamin D during the winter. (And we don't mean northern latitudes like Fairbanks, we mean northern like Boston and San Francisco.) Consider supplementing with some D-3, or get a few minutes of early morning or late afternoon sunshine without sunscreen. Perhaps sometime this winter, Cranky Fitness will sponsor a clothing-optional blogathon for Vitamin D awareness!

Outside is Better, But Maybe the Window's Open?

(Photo: kindofindie)

So send in your pictures of yourself blogging naked in the winter sunshine and we'll... well, I'm not sure what we'll do, besides giggle, but it will be arguably good for your health and may boost our pageviews.

Or, a more practical idea: next time you have a physical, ask to have your Vitamin D blood levels tested. Sure, depending on your doctor you may end up feeling like a high-maintenance hypochondriac, but screw it, it's worth it to get a number and have some clue if you're deficient. Some folks do all the right things and still somehow end up low.

(Bonus: if you take the test and find out your blood levels are great, it's an awesome smug feeling!)

Wait, I Forgot, Why Do We Care About Vitamin D?

It's the new hip nutrient (acai berries are so last year), and it seems to be linked to lowering risk of all kinds of health problems. It appears Vitamin D lowers risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke, autoimmune diseases like M.S., diabetes, and Alzheimer's.

Thanks for your patience! Any thoughts on fall foliage, crappy motels, interrupted vacations, vitamin D, or nude blogging?

Thoughts While at the Spa

[Posted by Crabby]

Recently, as part of an anniversary celebration, Crabby and the Lobster treated themselves to a massage. Rather than go the to the cheap place down the street as they usually do, the Crustacean Couple decided to splurge and went to the Fancy Schmancy Spa instead.


The exorbitantly priced massage included the use of the spa facilities, plus unlimited cups of weak tea and cucumber water. Even aside from the massage, it was quite a treat. There were hot tubs, and cold tubs, and saunas, and strange showers with water jets at all different heights and angles that pounded the Crab in places she'd never been pounded before!

Relaxing? Well, strangely enough--yes!

Anyway, the spa facilities were segregated by gender. (Supposedly, guys go to the spa too, though Crabby is skeptical about this. Perhaps there are no tubs or saunas behind their doorway, and instead their space is filled with big screen tv's and beer and snack bars and racks of girly magazines and video game kiosks. Just a theory).

But the women's side of the spa does indeed exist, and since it's women-only, it's assumed you won't be wearing a bathing suit. You could--but almost no one does, and if you did you'd still have to put it on in the communal locker room where everyone else is getting dressed too.

So, as is true in many spas and gym locker rooms, you end up sharing space and lounging around with strangers while wearing no clothes at all.

Crabby has to ask: does anyone else find this weird?

Not necessarily bad-weird. Just weird-weird.

Maybe what feels weird about it is that our culture is generally so screwed-up when it comes to nudity. We treat the naked human body as if it is (a) incredibly powerful and dangerous; but simultaneously (b) ridiculous and comic and humiliating. Truly, what's a common Worst Nightmare scenario? To somehow be caught naked out in public. It can't get anymore embarrassing than that!

Yet somehow, if you declare an area "men only" or "women only," all this psychological baggage is supposed to magically disappear. Strangers are only supposed to feel 'strange' if they are of the opposite sex.

Crabby actually doesn't mind being naked in these situations anymore, but as a younger person she hate-hate-hated public locker rooms. At some point in college she got over it, who knows why, and now, in a certain mood, she can even enjoy it. There can be something curiously liberating about not wearing clothes in a semi-public place--like you're getting away with something extremely naughty that would ordinarily land you in jail! (Hmm... actually, come to think of it, you are getting away with something that would normally land you in jail).

However, it seems likely that at least a few people might not feel all that comfortable being naked in front of others. It seems odd that even in the most upscale locker rooms and spas, there often aren't many concessions to privacy. Would it hurt to have a few more curtains, changing rooms, and shower doors that close for people who are shy? Just wondering.

But aside from the weirdness of it, there is also something quite affirming about being around a bunch of women in an entirely natural state. For one, it totally exposes what a Big Fat Lie prime-time television is. Because guess what? Real women may sometimes look desperate, but we don't look at all like Desperate Housewives.

Real women not only have curves, we have wrinkles and scars and cellulite! We have ample bellies and sagging boobs and droopy asses. We have wide hips and knobby knees and hair where we shouldn't. We have pairs of body parts that are not symmetrical; we have birthmarks and warts and stretch marks and all kinds of stuff you never see on TV. (Unless of course it's "reality" TV and then the whole point of the show is to have an expert or a surgeon step in and "fix" it).

It's funny, though, the way so many of us women evaluate our appearance not by looking around at the real women nearby. Instead, we look at the air-brushed pictures of actresses in magazines, with teams of trainers, surgeons, and stylists at their disposal. We look and we sigh--why can't we be like them?

Why can't we? Because those pictures--and those women--they aren't real!

The versions we see are just as fictional as the movies and tv shows that make these people famous.

So here's to real, healthy, three-dimensional women. Naked or not!