*sigh*

It's comforting to know that while I was facing off with one battle last night, my new "friend" Sean was facing off with another. Maybe not in real time, but in blog time. His battle was against a Chinese buffet / birthday celebration. Mine was against looking for a bike in front of God and everybody. Sean was the catalyst, but as I read more and more blogs linked to his this week, I know there are hundreds, if not thousands of Seans out there. I'm a Sean too. We're all Seans. It's just Sean put a face on the journey and gave it a voice...and here we are. I almost weenied out of going when my husband posed the question, "Are we going bike shopping tonight?" I had a choice to make. It was still my decision. So I said, "ok". We ate a quick supper...a grilled individual sized lean turkey/cheddar smoked sausage link on a lite wheat hotdog bun with mustard, smothered in Pam sauteed peppers, onions, and mushrooms, and cantalope. We considered our options: Sears, Walmart, Kmart, and Dick's Sporting Goods. We ruled out Kmart and Walmart, just because, and hit Dick's. I was happy to see a huge selection of bikes lining the back wall in 2 rows, floor to ceiling. Did I care most about the selection? No. I liked that it was the most isolated, least traveled section of the store! This was a really big step for me; one that could easily bring me to tears and send my self-esteem crashing. Husband pulled a bike from the rack and I "tried it on". I have many issues factoring in to the difficulty of this task. I think my weight is an issue, but my husband assures me (I love him) that with the RIGHT bike, it will not be an issue. The next being my roundness. There was a time that I was shaped sort of like a guitar, ok? From the front I was curvy, and I could turn to the side and be flat. Now I'm more like a pear, same view, 360 degrees, with legs. Short legs. So this bike HAS to allow space between the front of the seat and the handle bars for my pear. Then there's the leg issue. I don't plan on getting any taller. I do plan to rid myself of thigh and calf circumference, but length is what it is. So here's the problem. I can't seem to find a bike that will allow my feet to be flat on the ground at any time. At best, all we've found is one where I can be on my tip-toes, and even then, the pointier-than-it-looks front of the seat is...lodged. Say no more. We weren't there 2 minutes and someone discovered us. This can't be good. My heart rate goes up and my legs get shakey because deep down I know the end of this story. This tall, broad, handsome black man, kind as the day is long, is going to make this short, round white girl get on a bike. In front of him. He has no clue of the internal trauma this is causing. I mean I'm just now, THIS week, comfortable dragging my husband into this battle with me. He still doesn't know what I weigh. He hasn't asked, and I haven't volunteered. Now granted, many a morning when I go in to weigh, he's in the shower and in plain view of the scales with nothing but a clear glass wall between us. He may know and I don't know he knows, and that's ok. I still look to make sure his back is towards me when I get on the scales, and hope to God I'm off before he turns around. I have Dr's scales, and always return them to 0 when I'm done. It's just me. So Denzel Washington has no idea what intimate space he has trespassed in to. He says he has just the bike for me and he climbs a set of rolling metal stairs to get it. And yes, he tells me to get on The seat is good and I can touch the ground, and my pear fits, but I never mentioned the final problem. My knees, specifically the left one I've been babying back to health. When I bring the left pedal to its highest position, my knee is either in my armpit (according to my husband) forcing the back of my calf so snuggly against the back of my thigh that it causes a tearing sensation I try hard to avoid in the bad knee. That, or I have to flair my knees outward which is just stupid. So then Denzel goes to adjust the seat, making it higher! Ummm...hello. Ain't gonna work. No way. No how. At that point, husband takes over and gives him all the reasons the seat cannot be higher. Denzel pulls another bike. $200 more than the one that was almost ok, but way too wrong for me. He wouldn't take no for an answer. He insisted I follow him. I could see where this was going. This was going right back to elementary school gym class! Yes sirree...He took the bike to a compressor station and inflated the tires. You know what he wanted me to do? He wanted me to get on the bike AND ride it across the store! I'm not kidding!!! I think he pulls legs off grasshoppers on his day off. I looked at my husband and he looked at me, and though he said no words, his eyes were saying, "You're not ok, are you?" I was definitely not ok, and there was no way in Hell I was going to pedal JACK across the store, anymoreso than I was going to clear the bar in 4th grade gym class. Denzel really blew it when he insisted, "You're just going to have to LEARN to ride THIS bike." The Hell! Fortunately, "the bell rang" before my number was up because I could neither mount nor dismount the beast without turning it to a 45 degree angle, and though I got on it to convince Denzel of this truth, he got the last laugh as I walked away trying to delicately extract my underwear from "there". I held my head high as we exited the store and suggested to my husband that we try some place where nobody EVER shows up to offer assistance. Unfortunately, those places don't sell bikes. We walked to Sears. No bikes. So here's where you get ready to applaud...we're in Sears. Think of a clock. Sears is at 3:00 in the mall and Dick's, where the car is parked, is at noon. Going through the mall it's a pretty straight, short jaunt. Totally out of character, I suggested since it was a nice evening that we exit the mall and walk the outer perimeter of the mall back to the car! Yes I did! And, clockwise, I might add! Even my husband admitted he was proud of me. So that was 2 little exercise events for me yesterday. Lovin' me some Skecher Tone-ups! Especially with my battle scar from the footie betrayal earlier in the day. The scales are lovin' me. They are creeping down, and the only reason, I've decided, that I need to weigh every day at this point is because I am SO close to the river...I don't want to miss my cross over!!! I've not crossed over in forever! I vacationed briefly in that far away place when I did WW, but WW didn't fit me. I'm not crappin' on WW. It's great for many, many people, but I'm not one of them. I've joined 3x. I equate my success on that program with holding my breath under water....I could only do it for so long before panic and frustration set in. What I'm doing now is like a marriage of all the very best attributes from every diet I've ever tried. I took all of the components that I could reasonably adhere to and made them my own. So anyway, once I cross over, and let me tell you! You'll know when I do! At that point, I'll pick a weigh day, maybe once every 2 weeks, because, sure, I'd like to report a weight loss of big pounds. Right now it's little pieces and parts of pounds that I don't really report, not because they don't matter, but because my eyes are fixed on the river. Almost there.