Mon. Day.

Here I am, outside. (GASP!) I'm not, sadly, an outside kind of girl. Outside is a rare thing for me. I'm not big on outside. (See also: Exercising is best done at the gym, where one can also find air conditioning and water fountains and bathrooms. And: Allergic reactions to insect stings like the one I got on my ass yesterday that promptly swelled up to golf ball size and hurts like a mofo.)

But there is the new patio. New Patio is the draw, really. There is a nice place to sit and I can make sure that all the new plants haven't run away. Also, turns out that it's just as easy to drink lots of coffee outside as it is to drink lots of coffee inside. I've always wondered why Starbucks has those tables outside. Who knew?

The plants? The plants are doing very nicely, thank you. They all survived the transplant procedure and are resting comfortably in their new pots. The coleus and the mulla mulla are planted in these really cool biodegradable bamboo pots. I planted the purple coleus in a teal blue pot and Dave planted the mulla mulla in a lime green pot. (I'm too lazy to post photos, so you'll just have to use your imagination.)

Tomorrow I'm supposed to start a water aerobics class with my aunt Char who has dropped 25 pounds in the last couple of months (Brava!) and who wants to mix it up exercise-wise. I'm ready for something new, too. The gym is not so inspiring these days, and as a result, I've put on a few of the pounds I'd lost. (Boo fucking hoo. First-world problems.) In order to prepare for the class, I went out and bought a new swimsuit without trying it on. Not the smartest thing I've ever done, but it's a Speedo suit and it was $20 (Costco, yo!)--not the $60-$120 you'd pay for a Speedo suit at an athletic store, so I just picked out my size and got the damn suit. (I've done this once before and got a gorgeous, well-fitting $20 black swimsuit out of the deal. Costco, yo!)

When I lived in Japan, where people practically learn to swim before they can walk, the students were amazed that a) there was no swimming pool at my elementary school (!) and b) that I didn't learn to swim until I was 27. Yep, that's right. 27 years old.

I grew up in the desert, yo.

I actually learned how to swim at the Y. My teacher was an absolutely gorgeous 16- or 17-year-old high school student, a swim champion in our little desert city and beyond. She rocked the butterfly stroke like nobody's business. She also happened to weigh about 250+ pounds, which mattered not at all when she was in the water. She was like a damned torpedo. Full speed ahead. (Which was great for me, considering that at the time I outweighed her by about seventy pounds.) At the time, I had to buy a swimsuit specially, from a company that made sportswear for fat chicks like me. The suit cost about $100. Madness. I chose the attention-getting bright red suit, natch.

But seriously: How are fat people supposed to feel comfortable exercising when they can't FIND sportswear in fat folk sizes? Yo, Nike, fat people have money, too, and they want to pay you waaaay too much for your damn swish biking shorts. Oh, and don't even get me started on goddamned YOGA GEAR which hardly exists for those of us above a size four. No joke. When I was an anorexic size FOUR, I could not find yoga wear from the big names--prAna, Shakti, I'm looking at you--that fit. It was all too small for me. Yoga wear is a joke. I just wore old sweats and a t-shirt to yoga class.

So....I'll let you know how that water aerobics class goes.