Day Forty – I Never Promised You A Rose Garden

Today’s Workout
• 10-minutes cardio
• Upper Body Machines: 50 Chest Flies, 50 Lateral Pulldowns, 50 shoulder presses, 50 bicep curls, 50 tricep pushdowns
• 2-minutes cardio
• Upper body with free weights: 50 chest press, 50 back rows, 50 side raises, 50 hammer curls, 50 overhead tricep extensions
• 2-minutes cardio
• Lower Body Machines: 50 Leg presses, 50 leg extensions, 50 Leg curls, 50 inner thigh, 50 outer thigh
• 2-minutes cardio
• Lower body with free weights: 50 regular squats; 50 Duck squats; 50 lateral leg raises; 50 front leg raises; 50 back leg raises
• 2-minutes cardio
• Abdominal exercises on mat: 50 regular crunches; 50 butterfly crunches; 50 Russian twists; 50 reverse crunches; 50 “reach for the stars” crunches
• 10 final minutes of cardio

I did not sleep well at all Saturday night, despite taking some Advil PM. I know it’s because I was still stressed out about what happened at Saturday’s Boot Camp. I, unfortunately, cannot turn off my brain, even if I have the ocean waves whooshing through my clock radio. I woke up around 4am and only dozed a few minutes between then and 8am. Finally my stomach would not let me sleep any longer….it was hungry, especially since I skipped the 4th meal on Saturday (just too tired to eat). Achingly I arose from bed…my triceps, knees, ankles, and right elbow were still bothering me. Ooooowwwww! I really didn’t want to go to the gym, but as I missed a whole workout yesterday, I had to go. I knew that with Schuyler leading us, we’d be on our own to do the list above. Normally I don’t like it; I really prefer for a trainer to push us. But after yesterday, I was in no mood for anyone to yell at me. I got through the workout without any trouble and headed home to meet Mom where we planned to visit the California Science Center’s Rose Garden. We were excited about this because we could see that along the road and in the yards of many houses in the neighborhood, the rose bushes in full bloom, and thus we had high hopes that the Rose Garden would be exploding with color and aroma. Alas, the lack of sleep hit me and it was slow-going for me to get through lunch, shower, and getting dressed. PLUS, the final round of the Masters was on and I’m a huge Tiger Woods fan and by the time we turned it on, Tiger was coming back and catching up to the leaders. I LOVED the fact that he and Phil Mickelson were paired together. Tiger Woods made me become a golf fan many years ago. I love his dedication and athleticism. To me, he forced all the other golfers to step up their game, making golf that much more interesting. I generally only watch tournaments if Tiger is playing, but sometimes also if Phil Mickelson is playing. I’m not a golfer at all. I’ve only ever played in office tournaments in which I was paired with an experienced golfer. I can count on two hands the good shots that I’ve ever made. Anyway…I love close matches and I was pulling for Tiger and also Phil to catch up to the leader, Kenny Perry. By the 17th hole, however, if you watched you know that Tiger bogied and thus had no chance to win. By then, Angel Cabrera wasn’t doing so well, but he was paired with Kenny Perry who was holding onto the lead. Mom and I decided to leave for our excursion. We assumed either Kenny Perry won or Chad Campbell caught up and won. JUST NOW to my surprise I checked the Masters.org website and I see that Cabrera came back from a disastrous 1st Sudden Death Hole to win the 2nd Sudden Death Hole. Unbelievable! Wow!! I wish I had recorded all that on my fancy-schmancy new DirectTV satellite DVR which I’ve not quite figured out. I’m a TiVo expert, but this DVR has a few more bells and whistles, so I missed the overtime of the show and thus missed the sudden death holes. Aaaaargh! I would have liked to see Kenny Perry win as he would have been the oldest man to ever win a Major, however, I’m pleased to see that Cabrera came from so far behind to win. Those are the best kinds of wins, don’t you think?!

It was a gorgeous Easter Sunday and there was lots of traffic to prove it. Mom and I headed to the Science Center which is next to the LA Coliseum (where the Olympics have been held, among other events). When the parking attendant asked us to which exhibit we were visiting, we indicated the Rose Garden, and she said it was CLOSED! HORRORS!!! Omigawd, we were SO DISAPPOINTED! So, we pulled up a bit to get out of the entrance lane and to figure out where we wanted to go instead. As we started about two hours later than planned (thanks to me being so exhausted and because we were both engrossed in the Masters), the other Botanical Garden that we would have visited, The Huntington Gardens, would have closed only an hour from then. So, we realized we weren’t going to see any gardens that day. It’s sort of a tradition with Mom and me – whenever we visit a city we try to make it to at least one of that city’s best gardens. We’ve visited gardens in Edinburgh, Scotland, Washington, DC, Atlanta, GA, and on our own I’ve visited Butchart Gardens in Victoria, BC, and Mom has been to Callaway in GA, San Antonio’s, and Galveston’s. It’s a tradition that I love and thus you can see why we were so upset that we didn’t get to see the Rose Garden. Sooooo, we had plans to go to Whole Foods Market and headed that way. We passed through a few somewhat dodgy neighborhoods to get there, but as we got closer to Whole Foods the neighborhoods improved. We noticed a few side streets that had large homes, so after Whole Foods and eating lunch, we drove back to a couple of those side streets. One of them was June St. As “June” was Granny’s name, we felt we were destined to tour that street. Somehow, even though there was no ladybug on our shoulders, Granny was with us because the street was lovely with large, unique homes and most of them with lots of roses along the walkways or walls or whatever. The homes had character, too. We also drove down the next street, Hudson St., which had gorgeous, bigger homes, but the ones on June St were much more interesting, just as our Granny was. After this, we were tired and as Mom has to pack for her early flight, we headed home. I’m icing my knees and ankles now. I DO feel and walk like Fred Sanford! I want to try to sleep well tonight as I have SEVEN hours of workouts scheduled for tomorrow, including the bike ride (in which I know Marco will push me to get to the end in less time) and a 1-on-1 and 2-on-1 sessions.

Did you all have a lovely Easter Sunday? I heard the weather was awful in Bermuda. I hope all my KPMG tax friends at least slept in before heading to work. I still have to do my tax return automatic extension!! Only three more days, y’all! Hang in there and be ready to party it up on Wednesday! Have a great week, everyone ;-)