FL on TV
When Kelly and I went out to the Riverfront Saturday, Kelly mentioned that one of the clubs we went to, China White, had been shown on The Real World: Key West when the housemates had evacuated to Fort Lauderdale to avoid Hurricane Wilma last fall. Apparently, they had spent the night before the storm slurping cocktails and having a merry old time while everyone else was home boarding up windows and counting their provisional cans of Beanie Weanies. So when I was flipping through channels last night and saw that episode was on again, I set my DVR to record it so I could see what it was all about.
So tonight, after working late and having to do more work at home (what is that about?), I turned it on for some mindless, wind-down evening entertainment. I haven’t seen that show in ages, but I wasn’t surprised to see the same archetypal characters were still there…the dumb blonde, the hot jock, the even hotter gay guy, etc. In this episode they had to evacuate Key West and head to Fort Lauderdale because Hurricane Wilma was heading for them. It was actually quite cool to see Las Olas on TV and the clubs Kelly and I had been to! If it’s good enough for the kids on Real World, then it’s pretty good indeed. It just continues to amaze me how much I’d underestimated Fort Lauderdale! I never knew much about it so I just assumed it was like any other beach town, albeit bigger than most, but it has turned out to be a pretty incredible city, and I’ve only been here a short while. I’m looking forward to getting out there and finding out all the other cool stuff that I haven’t discovered yet! Which is actually quite a lot I suppose…
But back to the show…the Real World housemates had packed it all north to get away from the storm, only to get hammered here in Ft. Lauderdale. It was really scary seeing how bad the hurricane was…I had no idea it had been that bad. I guess I should have realized, considering how much visible damage is still present today. I’m talking broken business signs, blue tarps, collapsed buildings, uprooted trees, and the list goes on. I even heard people at work talking about how power was out for a couple of weeks, but I never really thought it could have been that bad, or else I would have heard about it on the news, right? Well, what I saw tonight on TV was no ordinary Florida summer thunderstorm! It freaked me out…the hotel they were staying in lost the roof, walls and windows. Entire trees were blown into pools and shingles were stipped off rooves like dust being blown off the cover of a neglected book. It had never been that bad in Orlando…ever. I’m now wishing I could fast forward to November and be done with hurricane season, but, sadly, life isn’t that easy. I’m definitely thinking I should look into renter’s insurance sooner rather than later!
Before I moved to England, I always made it a point to go to the gym and try to keep fit. I went religiously five days a week before work, waking up at 5:15 am sometimes to beat the crush of meatheads and sorostitutes that descended on the UCF gym later in the day. But since I graduated I’ve given myself a bit of a break…a 14 month break to be precise. Besides the two months of schlepping my backpack all over Europe, I think I only formally exercised maybe three or four times…total. How sad! So yesterday I decided it would be a good idea to go back to the gym and ease myself gracefully back into the routine. Today I feel like the lower half of my body has been trampled on by a stampede of wild lizards (heavy ones). It hurts to look at them.
When I got to the gym it was all right–it was just me and one other woman who finished up in a few minutes and left, leaving me on the treadmill with the room to myself. That was until a few minutes later when my team lead walked in. I was sweaty and gross, had no makeup on at all and was huffing and puffing after only 10 minutes of light jogging, so needless to say I was a bit mortified, particularly when he got on the treadmill next to me. We said hello, and then I spent the next few minutes trying to avoid making eye contact with him in the mirror in front of us. He left after a few minutes and went into the adjoining weight room, which left me to have my cardiac arrest in peace, but I had to follow behind a little later to do my leg workout. Now I’ve done many a workout in my day, but my boss, Matt, is one of those guys who knows what he’s doing. He drinks these weird protein drinks, he times when he eats his meals and he’s just plain buff. So I expected him to tell me I was doing something wrong and was going to injure myself and die, but thankfully he didn’t. We both listened to our iPods and went about our business. My workout went okay, I didn’t really push myself at ALL, but I guess my body just isn’t used to doing much more than carrying my own body weight around every day. I made the supreme mistake of wearing heels yestereday and thought my calves were going to die! Walking was more effort than it had ever been in my life…until today. I can’t even stand up without wincing! I guess a year+ off will do that to you! Whoops.
Today I was sitting in Matt’s office (where I was both un-sweaty and un-disgusting) discussing a new project I’m working on, when he interrupted me to tell me what I’d just said sounded British. I don’t think I’d ever been so caught off-guard before. I was really focused, sounding all professional and talking about businessy things, and then I was blind-sinded. I’ve never been accused of that. Sometimes I’ve been known to mumble, but never to slip into any accents, unless it’s just me and Kel sitting around having a laugh. I’ll admit that while I was there I picked up the inflection British people have when they’re asking questions and I adopted a few British-isms for sake of making communication easier, but I haven’t ever brought that back home with me. Apparently when I said “didn’t” it came out in “British.” 🙂 I was laughing so hard when he said that to me that I couldn’t recover. So much for being professional…I couldn’t get rid of the giggles for a good minute or so and I completely forgot what I’d been saying. I can handle “didn’t” just as long as “innit” doesn’t come popping out of my mouth next. Knowwhatimean?
Tags: exercise, Florida, Fort Lauderdale, Travel, work
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