Crocs, not just for gardening anymore!

My mom has become involved in competing in marathons for everything from cancer to amoebic dysentery.  She trains by going sometimes 8-12 miles a day.  It's a pretty grueling distance to travel.  Her poor feet are mangled and blistered, but she is inspired and keeps her focus on all the sick people she is helping.  A steadfast philanthropist.

Every morning, no matter how hard she partied the night before, she gets up, slips into her crocks and begins her training.  A bona-fide modern-day Prefontaine.  She begins her warm up with Richard Simmon's Sweating to the Oldies (she rotates through volumes 1, 2 and 3 throughout the week). She turns on Regis and Kelly and hops on her manual powered POS treadmill she overpaid for from some tweaker on craig's list.  She has it perfectly timed so she knows that when Regis and Kelly is over, she has walked a whopping 1.5 miles.  She puts on her pedometer and continues her errands the rest of the day.  She'll walk to the library to check her facebook, walk to the grocery store, etc.
 
I overheard her telling her friends and family over the phone about her training schedule.  If I didn't know better, I would think she were an honest injun, iron-woman.  She tells them of her blisters and pulled muscles, but leaves out the details that--oh, yeah, by the way, these are WALKING half-marathons, she's "competing" in.

Her Aunt finally got sick of my mother bragging about how hard she is training and her subsequent complaining about aching feet and legs.  So her Aunt suggested to her, "How about getting some real athletic shoes, instead of those crocs?"  My mother immediately defended her cherished crocs and argued they could not possibly be the reason for her blisters.  And her logic is, if pain is beauty, this must mean she is a supermodel!  Yet, my mother really values her Aunt and her expertise so she decided to invest in some more tactical foot attire.

My mom cannot bear spending more than $15 for a pair of shoes, so her first stop, and only stop, of course, is the thrift shop.  She prefers the fact that the gym shoes she's trying on have already been broken in for her, so she doesn't have to do it herself.  Finally she unearthed a pair from the giant rancid heap and a dove descended down upon her and she knew these were the ones.  Never mind that they were a size and a half too small (and never mind that the dove was actually a pigeon which had migrated it's way into the store).  My mother was just going to have to go sockless to make the fit.  And for cryin' out loud, if these people she was helping had to live with some insufferable disease every day, she would suffer with them.  True empathy.

So next time you're at the gym working out "just to look good," keep up with the Kardashians or Ronnie from Jersey Shore, think of the people who may be disabled and can't. (And next time you're shooting up those steroids to grow muscles and shrink your testes because you think they look too saggy, think of those who have to take steroids daily to keep their illness at bay.)  Think of the  diligent, selfless people out there exercising for a cause in crocs and used tennies, and at least get a Chinese or tribal symbol tattoo to raise awareness. 

Rapunzel

Sorry for the break in writing.  Thus continues the saga of my mother.

I made a visit to my mother's house around the holidays and couldn't help but notice her obscene display of Rapunzel, the main character for the cartoon Tangled.  Upon walking in through the front door, her visitors are greeted, or perhaps bombarded, with her shrine.  High on the top shelf, she has the Rapunzel doll, still in the original packaging, in all its glory.  She had been thinking about using it as the "angel" on top of her Christmas tree.  I suggested to her that maybe she keep it stored away in a very special place, just in case thieves came in for the loot. (And I have to admit my intentions were not solely altruistic for her or her doll's safety. What if I dared to bring a male visitor over, while my mom was out running errands of course.  I didn't want to have to explain the insanity.  Unless if I got him boozed up first, then I could convince him he was hallucinating and the bartender must have "slipped something in his drink."  It could work, but I didn't want to risk it.)

As I reached up to grab the doll off the shelf, my mother shrieked at the top of her lungs, "We're all gonna die!!!"  I stopped cold in my tracks and only moved my eyeballs to glance at her out of the corner of my peripheral vision. She stated that she had indeed booby-trapped it to set off a small IED which would shoot shrapnel everywhere.  And she had 24hr video surveillance of the room.  She said if she saw a burglar on surveillance in the middle of the night, she had a panic room she could slip into that was shrapnel proof and sound proof.  I wanted to ask her if it had a lock on the outside and padded walls.

Later that evening I meandered through her condo searching for a place to rest my weary, travel-laden head.  I had one of two choices...the Green Bay Packer's room, which still has Barbie and Ken in it having a picnic (their food has gotten slightly stale over the years), or the Rapunzel room.  In the Rapunzel room, there is a large "Rapunzel" quilt laid out neatly on top of the bed.  My mother informed me she made it herself.

When I finally could no longer keep my tongue from committing verbal suicide, I asked my mom about her fascination with this character.  She replied, "Well you know, I am Rapunzel.  I mean, really, we were both taken away from our families when we were young and forced to live in a lonely tower.  Only to be visited and rescued by a prince on his white horse."

Again, I had a small panic attack.  Was my mother completely losing it?  No.  I had to remind myself of her history.  And she did have a point, there is an uncanny resemblance between her and this cartoon character....long blonde hair....green eyes.  Hmm...she was beginning to make a believer out of me.

But there was one problem...who was this man on a white horse?  My father never rode horses.  I snapped back into reality.

Then she asked me if I would like to see her quote en quote "tramp stamp" tattoo of the name "Rapunzel" in Old English Calligraphy.