January at the gym rant.

I really wish that there were two gyms in January. One for people who actually work out year round and one for the folks who only attend for the first couple weeks of the year after making a resolution they know full well they'll give up on as soon as it gets hard.

Our gym has been packed -- packed, I tell you! -- with throngs of January work-out ne'er-do-wells. Every morning, as I've made my way to the cardio fitness room to jump on a treadmill or elliptical, I've found that I've had to wait 10-20 minutes for people to finish their routine. And most of those people? They are hogging the equipment, going over the 30 minute time limit, moving as slowly as humanly possible.

It drives me insane.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for people getting out there and getting a little exercise. It's just that I want them to actually mean it if they are going to get in the way of my routine. Most of them are wearing expensive work-out gear, drinking high-calorie sports drinks (did you know that your bottle of Gatorade holds 2.5 servings at 200+ calories a serving? Yeah, you've actually consumed more calories during your work-out than you burned. Well done), sucking that performance goo out of packets, and kvetching about how they just can't lose weight no matter what they do.

February cannot come too soon.

Ewww.

"Babe, have you seen the kitchen scissors?"

"Umm, are those the black-handled ones?"

"Yes."

"They are in the bathroom."

"What the hell are they doing in the bathroom?"

"I used them to trim my pubes."

"What?! Gross! Why the hell did you use those scissors? Those are kitchen scissors. I use them to cut meat and veggies, for God's sake."

"Well, how appropriate that they've now been used to cut near meat."

On how reality never lives up to the fantasy.

"Okay, I couldn't wait for you to call me. Now that I'm old and married, I have to live vicariously through someone. So how did the date with the hot French dude go? He's not still there, is he?"

"No, he's not here. The date was all right."

"All right? Just all right? You've been talking about getting together with this guy forever! He is HOT FRENCH DUDE. How could it be just all right? What happened?"

"Well, the date itself was actually awesome."

"Yeah? Where did you go?"

"We went to dinner at this joint called the Supper Club and it was just perfect. He was perfect. Sweet, romantic, interesting, funny. We totally hit it off. It almost seemed like I was starring in my own romantic comedy."

"That sounds awesome. So where's the 'all right' in that?"

"The 'all right' comes after. So I took him back to my place..."

"You slut!"

"...and we started making out. He was a great kisser and everything seemed absolutely perfect."

"So did you close the deal? Or did you not and he get pissy about it or something? I'm still trying to figure out the 'all right' part."

"No, no, nothing like that. It was great. And so after a while, we made our way up to my bedroom and started going at it. But once I got his pants off, I started laughing uncontrollably."

"Uh, do I want to know what in his pants was laughter-worthy? This isn't going to gross me out, is it?"

"It's just that once things started getting hot and heavy, he started going 'Oui, oui...oui, oui.' And once things got really, really heavy, his voice got all high-pitched and squeaky and those 'oui, oui's' came out more like 'wee-wee, wee-wee, wee-wee-wee-weeeeeeeeeeeeee.' And you know, there is absolutely nothing sexy about getting down and dirty with someone who sounds like a toddler who is telling you he has to go to the potty."

So, like, I know there is a lot of uglification going on here.

But I still can't believe I used to be in love with Christian Slater when I was a teenager.

This is a still from his new movie, "He Was a Quiet Man." And I know there's a good bit of make-up on. He's having his go at the Charlene Theron/Nicole Kidman ugly make-up path to Oscardom. But even so, it's all too easy to recognize him. It's like the creepy Chester-the-Molester dude was always in him, even when he was the hottie in "Healthers," just waiting for the right time to come on out.

And in this corner...

Earlier this week, Bette took on the NY Times op-ed by Gloria Steinem arguing that African Americans are ahead of women in terms of political power.

Apparently, she wasn't the only one who took some issue with it. Mark Leibovich talks about the history of the right to vote for minorities and women in the article, "Rights vs. Rights." It's an interesting read.

Drinking the Kool-Aid.

One of the best things about heading back to the states is going to one of the stadium seating, multiplex theaters. The idea of going to the movies -- non AAFES-approved movies, even! -- just seems like pure decadence.

Both CPT Dick and I recently finished His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman so we wanted to check out "The Golden Compass." We thought it would be the perfect movie to take our nephews to see with us.

But lo and behold, when we mentioned the idea of heading to the movies, usually a big treat, we were met with stunned silence. "The Golden Compass" it seems is immoral enough fodder to merit a letter home telling parents to not let their kids see it.

Now, I heard about some of the hullabaloo about the movie. The Catholic League came out against it and the books it was based on. But it's one thing to hear about some organization that Kathy Griffin calls "some guy on a computer" on the news spewing about immorality and another to see a letter written by a real live principal on official school letter head that was sent home with your family members. And it's not one of these off-the-wall Christian schools like my friend R. went to where her parents had to sign a contract at the beginning of each school year that agreed that she not be able to listen to music. It's just your run-of-the-mill East Coast Catholic school.

I just don't get it. What does banning books and ideas get us? Shouldn't faith be strong enough to handle a few questions? Isn't that the point? Isn't that why it's faith?

I don't know.

CPT Dick and I went to see the movie. And our older nephew, now a teenager, decided to go with us. But our younger one stood firm and as we walked out the door to see the film, he looked at us sternly and said, "God isn't going to like this."

I'll let you know if any of us are struck by lightning any time soon.

I love Steven Pinker.

Steven Pinker, a professor at Harvard University, has an article about the evolution and purpose of morality in this week's New York Times magazine.

It's a must read for just about everyone. He's got it spot on.

Back in the saddle.

We're back and right back in the middle of the FRG crazy.

Our unit has been given their orders. We know when they are leaving for Iraq. And the response to this -- you know, this thing that we've all known was coming for ages -- has been no less than completely off-the-wall.

We have suicide threats, child neglect, faked injuries and all kinds of other random nonsense. I understand the the official order makes this all real but I guess I can't quite grok why it makes it so different than what was happening before.

Maybe I'm just naive.

My husband, the moralist.

"What are you doing?"

"Making Munchkin a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

"Don't use the blueberry jam that's in there."

"Why not?"

"It's moldy."

"When did you notice this?"

"When we got back from the states. It was all kinds of furry. Utterly disgusting."

"So why is it still languishing in the fridge then, exactly?"

"Because I respect life. I'm a giver that way."

Stupid teenagers.

In Germany, setting off fireworks at the turn of the new year is not just tradition but a requirement. It's a lot of fun and CPT Dick and I had commented that we were sorry that we missed it this year.

What we didn't know is that some of the village teenagers took advantage of our absence to do their own combustible merrymaking in our backyard. Which, you know, would be all well and good. Teenagers will be teenagers and all that. I'm sure we expected to find the odd spent rocket and empty bottle of Jager somewhere on the premises. Hell, had we been here, they would have been ours.

But we didn't expect that the idiots would have thrown cherry bombs into our goldfish pond. Yeah, yeah, I know if the guys on "Jackass" do it, the masses are sure to follow. And when you equate for location, that means that the German kids will be doing it two to three years after that.

Their actions had the desired effect. There are now 30 odd dead fish floating under the ice in the pond.

It just infuriates me. I mean, I'd expect that kind of shit in the states. But for some reason, living in this small town where I can leave my wallet in the driveway over the weekend by accident and find it again untouched on Monday made me feel safe from that kind of thoughtless teenage bullshit.

So guess what I'll be doing tomorrow now that the rains have started melting the ice cover? You guessed it -- fishing out dead goldfish.

I'm seriously thinking about keeping them in a bucket by the front door to randomly lob at the teenagers when they are using my driveway to practice their BMX tricks.