Jenyfer Matthews

Carry me to my home…

It’s a travel day for me, but with luck I’ll be back in Cairo by late afternoon (Cairo time, that is)

We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled program by Tuesday…Wednesday at the latest. Promise. (Again, Cairo time – this translates to “”sooner or later” depending on which global direction you are tuning in from.)

Looking forward to being home again, not so much to the process of getting there. Flying is for the birds…

You know you are getting up there in age when many of your stories include phrases like when I was a child or I remember when. Since it seems like a lot of my stories start that way recently so you can draw your own conclusions!

Though I was never a girl scout myself, I have a long history with girl scout cookies. A friend of mine down the street who was a little younger than me was a girl scout and I used to help her sell them. It was kind of a treat for me because my school was always asking us to sell hard things like magazine subscriptions. Girl scout cookies were a breeze – they practically sell themselves!

But it was difficult for even a young child to resist the allure of all those cookies. I used to buy boxes of thin mints with my allowance and stash them in my bedroom. No worries of attracting insects because they never lasted very long! The serving size in the nutritional information really should just say “2″ – I can easily eat an entire tube at one sitting and I’d like to think that everyone else is doing exactly the same thing. I’d like to know what they put in Thin Mints because I can resist all other varieties of Girl Scout cookies but those. The only way for me to resist them is not to buy them at all.

(And incidentally – that Thin Mint Blizzard that Dairy Queen was hyping last summer was a big disappointment. It was Oreos and mint sauce in ice cream. Not a bad Blizzard but NOT Thin Mints)

I’ll be making a quick trip back to the US soon and a friend asked me would I like any girl scout cookies. Does anyone ever say no to girl scout cookies?? Even the cat in the picture is even sitting on a box of my favorite variety! I think my only hope is to avoid eye contact if I see any Girl Scouts or I may have to pay for excess baggage on the return flight!

Wishing you a magical Christmas!

Unfortunately for me, paying to fly business class wasn’t really an option. So imagine my disgust when, as I am at the check-in desk in Cairo, one of the airline representatives comes to inform me that the flight is overbooked and due to my frequent flier status I’m eligible to be upgraded. Even as my heart swelled with hope she continued and tells me that it’s airline policy not to upgrade children under 12. Um, okay. So why tell me at all?? I could have lived happily without ever having been teased in that way. In the end, I got the seats I paid for, but see that cat up there? That was me, squashed in my economy class seats between two sleeping children.

(But it could have been worse – they could have stayed awake like me!)

After enduring a twelve hour flight shoehorned into a square foot of space, sandwiched between the kids, imagine my delight to find out that the next partner airline I was flying had NO problem upgrading children. We flew first class from NY to Minneapolis. It’s a different world up there. We not only had bigger seats and more leg room, but I had a real lunch with free beverages and actual glassware! I didn’t sleep on that flight just so I could better savor the experience

All in all, I can’t complain. I gave myself enough time to clear security and get from place to place and none of my planes were delayed and my luggage arrived in tact. These days, you can’t really ask for much more than that.

I made it through last week and stuck to my intended schedule – and only made Shelley Munro’s 5-minute mug cake once (we won’t talk about all the birthday cake that’s been consumed in the last few weeks now, will we??) I love love love my yoga class and even though I question why I paid someone to torture me at the beginning of my water aerobics class by the end of that workout I’m feeling pretty good as well. Curves gym, though – that’s another matter.

I’ve never been much of a joiner. I used to blame my parents – every time I asked to join an after school club the answer was always no because they were working and couldn’t be there to pick me up afterwards. They may have set a pattern early, but it’s me that carried it on. I wasn’t a cheerleader, never joined any clubs in high school – don’t tend to join clubs now. I’m not anti-social exactly, I just like to keep my options open. The only groups I frequent are those with no rules or mission statements.

I like Curves, I really do. I like the machine work and I really like the structure of the workout routine. Thirty seconds, then switch to the next activity. Being finished in half an hour is great. But because I’m already very self-motivated, what I’m not so up with is the rah-rah, you-can-do-it motivational atmosphere they strive for.

For instance: every month there is a calendar sheet that comes out and every day there is a different “activity” listed. Participate in the activity and you earn points which can be redeemed for Curves merchandise.

So I go in the other day and they are playing Arabic music, instead of the usual techo-beat pop music they usually play. Okay – we are in Egypt and the clientele is mixed so I guess it stands to reason they’d mix the music up periodically. But have you ever tried to exercise to Arabic music? It has a much different rhythm to it. I hadn’t realized how effective the pop music was to getting me to move fast.

I was doing my thing, trying to tune the music out, when one of the assistants came up to me and asked me if I knew how to belly dance. Huh? Because I was annoyed and just wanted to be left alone, I was rather abrupt with her and said no and went back to my workout. As I was doing the cool-down stretch sequence, I noticed on the calendar that it was “show us your belly dance moves” day. I missed my chance to earn 1 point.

Oh well – there’s always next Monday. And if I wear a Halloween costume to work-out on the 30th I can earn 10 points. Can you image what a dork I’d look like dressed up like a black cat, working the weight machine? Now there’s some motivation for you!

This is pretty much what it’s been like at my house since school ended for the summer. Just so you know, if the issue is ever raised, I’m all for a year round school year.

Still, the bickering is preferable to the girl-drama that has been going on around here. There are three little girls in our building, in addition to my own DD – ages 8 & 9. Ideally, the two oldest and the two youngest would pair up and they’d all be happy and entertained. But you know that reality rarely works that way.

Instead what tends to happen is that one little girl defects and goes and plays either on her own or with a little boy. And two others compete for the affection and attention of the third (and oldest). Which always leads to trouble.

Lately, it’s been my DD who has been on the outs with them. It’s been a few weeks since she’s spent much time with any of them and I’m okay with that. Before, she would come home ranting about how she hated this one or that one – or crying because someone had said something nasty to her and excluded her from their play.

I try very hard not to get involved in these dramas, however angry it makes me to see DD hurt. They need to figure out how to deal with things themselves without parental interference. Also, what usually happens is they’ve long gotten over whatever the problem was and I’m still ticked off. If I were to involve myself the only thing that would happen is that I’d be on the outs with all their mothers.

It’s been harder to ignore recently though – particularly when the “in” girls add petty vandalism to their bag of tricks. Nothing they have done – so far – has been such a big deal. But what they don’t realize is that the items they are damaging are things that *I* bought and paid for so I have an interest in putting a stop to it.

So I did what I had to do. I told their mommies on them.

Girls can be such a pain in the butt with all their head games and cliquishness. (I know, I was a little girl once). This is one area where I think a man’s approach is better. Just slug ‘em and get over it…