my troubles with Gold's Gym...

Awhile back I promised you a post about my trainer Allison, affectionately known as "the Sadist." Yes, I have a personal trainer. On a side note, I'm having my birthday party in London this year and I own a small, yippy dog...I'm very glamorous. Anyway, I joined Gold's gym in May after watching a friend from work drop 30lbs by working out and also because many of the nurses that I work with go there. I thought if I could have a workout buddy then I might be more inspired to go. Nancy introduced me to her trainer, Allison, and I worked out with them for a session. I really enjoyed it and signed up immediately. $300 a month for 3, 1/2 hour sessions each week seemed pretty steep but such a great investment in myself so I decided to go for it. It simply had to be done. Allison was great and she worked my butt off...literally, I lost 14 inches off of my body in less than 3 weeks. It was amazing. It was also the hardest thing I've ever done. When I first starting working out, I could walk on the treadmill for ages but what I couldn't do was anything that involved major cardio. I tried the elliptical one night and after 2 minutes at level 1, I was ready to die. I was done. I'm proud to say now that I do anywhere from 30mins to an hour on the elliptical and I'm up to level 8! Its easy to stay motivated when progress is so evident. There were days when I was so sore, I could barely walk..I suffered from all kinds of aches and pains and some days I didn't think I could on but I did and it was so worth it. So enough of my workout inspirational! I'll just say this before I move onto the juicy stuff--so far I've lost about 12lbs and 20+ inches total from my body. I've lost 11 inches from my waist alone. I'm loving my skinny jeans.

So onto the good stuff. The week of Bonnaroo, I was scheduled to workout with Allison on monday and tuesday. She called me to cancel because she had a sick friend. No worries. She then proceeded to either not show up for or cancel our next 3 appointments. Basically she missed 4 appts in less than 2 weeks. That last appt was on a thursday and I was at work. She sent a text message to the other nurse that works with her to cancel their appt but I recieved no text or phone call. My session was 2 and 1/2 hours after Nancy's so I called Allison to double check, thinking that maybe she just had to cancel Nancy but would make it to mine. Apparently I was unreasonable in my rationale. I left Allison a message and told her that if she didn't call me back, I would assume that we were still on. So I went to my session and she wasn't there. I saw another girl that I work with and expressed my frustration to her about what was going on. She suggested that I speak with Wes, the general manager of the Colerain gym about the situation because he had helped her in the past with some issues regarding the training department. She introduced me to Wes and the conversation began. I explained to him that I was disappointed because I was so motivated and wanted to workout and that Allison is a great trainer..yadda yadda yadda. I also expressly told him that I didn't want her to get into trouble because she's a great trainer and also because she was having some personal stuff going on that needed to be dealt with. That was the end of it and I went to work out on my own.

When I came back to my car, I found a text from Allison saying that she didn't have my phone number followed by 3 lengthy voicemails in which she became increasingly irate and hostile. Apparently, 3 people called her from the gym to say that I was "talking smack" about her to Wes. One of the callers was the guy running the front desk! She told me that she would never train me anymore and she just kept going on and on about how she had done so much for me and that she couldnt' believe I would spread her business around the gym. It became more outrageous with each voicemail. Naturally I called her to try to set the record straight but she wouldn't have any of it. She was incredibly unprofessional and made rude comments about Natalie, the girl who introduced me to Wes. The call ended with her hanging up on me.

The next day I spoke with Matt, the head of the training department, and told him what had occurred. He said that he would deal with it and asked me to send him an email describing what Allison had said to me. I told him that I would NEVER step foot into the Colerain gym again and that he needed to switch my training over to the Rookwood gym. So he did that and I never heard anymore about the situation. No followup or anything.

I've been working out at Rookwood and its really nice. I have a trainer named Karla and she's absolutely fantastic. Yesterday, Karla and I logged in the computer to charge me for a session and the computer showed that I was 5 sessions in the hole, meaning that they hadn't been paid for. I was going to be billed for July today so I figured that was the reason. Karla didn't think so and she said that we needed to talk to Steven, the training manager. As it turns out, Matt didn't sign me up for a 3x a week plan like he said he did. He signed me up for a plan that allowed me to go 3x a week for the first 2 months, then 2x a week for 2 months, then 1x a week for the duration of the contract! When he sold me the plan, he gave me a pricing list that showed 2 days a week at $280 a month and 3x a week at $340 or so. I told him that I would do the 2x a week, simply based on price. He said, "if I make it $300 a month, would you do 3x a week?" and I said yes. So that's what I thought I signed up for. When it came time to pay, he told me that I had to pay 2 months upfront, which was going to run close to $700 with taxes and fees. I told him that I couldn't front that much money at that point and so he asked me if I could do approx $460. I said yes, paid, and was out the door. When they billed me for June, I they didn't bill me $300, instead it was around $200 so I figured that was just the other half of the second month. I was fully expecting to be billed $300 today. At this point, I've been given the option to buy more sessions at a reduced rate of $25 a session instead of $35. The kicker is that I have to buy them in a lump and the smallest number I can buy is 15. So they want me to pay my gym membership, my training fee (they are telling me its $240), plus the $375 to buy my extra sessions. I might be as glamorous as Paris but I certainly don't have her money! So they are still trying to figure all of that out for me. I asked Steven why Matt wouldn't be upfront with me about all of it and Steven said "because he's a sheister! He's shady."

The more pressing issue for me is this-- When I discovered that my sessions were in the hole, my trainer suggested that I look at the log to see what I was charged for and sure enough, it appears as if Allison charged me for sessions that I didn't attend! She billed me for a session for June 9th which was a Sat. and she doesn't even work on Sat! She also billed me 2x for the day that I cancelled on her. Interestingly enough, she went in and made an exception (meaning that she had to override the computer to make the charge) at 8am monday morning, charging me for an appt that I hadn't even cancelled yet! Then at 842pm she used my password to get into the computer and charge me again for the same appt. That's some super shady stuff.

I've currently got Wes looking into it all for me and trying to sort it out. I'll update when it pans out. So the moral of the story is BEWARE and BE CAREFUL! I'm trying not to let this discourage me but its hard when I thought I could trust these people and obviously I couldn't.

P.S. The Rocky theme makes for excellent workout music!

Family Drama Update

My uncle Raymond (the lawyer) got involved and not surprisingly, my Uncle John dropped the theft charges against my aunts. There's more to come on this I'm sure as the jewelry still has not shown up. I just keep crossing my fingers and praying that my aunts don't have it and they swear they don't. I know my Aunt Ethel doesn't but I wouldn't be completely surprised if my aunt Ruth did. I'm probably thinking way too much about it though. I can't wait to see how it all plays out. I'm sure my poor, sweet Aunt Nellie is rolling over in her grave!

I knew there was a reason why I don't want a lot of kids. Ok, well there are several reasons but this is one of them. It seems that the larger your family is, the more drama ensues. My grandma is one of 7 siblings, all of which were living until my aunt died in April...y'all know that story! Here's what we really didn't know (I'm only gonna add this in because I think it adds to the drama of the whole story!)...My great-aunt Ruth (from Mississippi) and my great-aunt Ethel (from KY) were at the hospital when Nellie died. Apparently, just after the doctors told the family to give them a couple of days to get some meds in her and that she's be just fine, Ruth was out in the hallway with Nellie's husband John leaving Ethel alone in the room with Nellie. Apparently, Nellie coughed and starting spewing blood from her mouth. Very, VERY large amounts of blood. Ethel screamed and nearly fainted while Nellie choked on her own blood and died. Its now painfully obvious why the code team was unable to do anything for her. Anyway, what none of us knew was that my aunt Nell had lung cancer. She didn't tell anyone and obviously had forgone treatment. She had been severly depressed since the unexpected death of her only son in 2005 and was just basically waiting to die. So I can only guess that she must've had some kind of tumor lysis which would explain the amount of blood, etc. Sorry that this is so graphic but its like putting together pieces of a puzzle for me.

Aunt Nell was buried on monday while I was in Vegas. My uncle John asked the sisters to come in and immediately clean their house out. He wanted to move to their house in KY permanently and wanted all memories of Nell out of that house. So, that's just what they did. It took them days to get through her clothes, purses, jewelry, etc. She was a bit of a fashionista and loved to dress. They found 71 pairs of houseshoes alone. (Wonder where I get that habit from?? ) Aunt Nell was always loaded down with jewelry and she had a lot of expensives diamond pieces so when it came time to go through her jewelry, Ruth put all of the "good stuff" to the side and the sisters split the other stuff up to be divided among the nieces. I received her 25th anniversary wedding band, which is a beautiful wide, gold band. Ruth and John apparently boxed up the really expensive pieces (she had one ring with a receipt that showed my uncle paid $5K for it and that was a very long time ago) and Ruth told him to put them up somewhere. So, the girls got the house in order and started the process of moving on.

As I said, Nell was buried on monday. On friday my uncle John took a woman out to dinner and succeeded in outraging my entire family. I actually stuck up for him telling my grandma that she was out of line for being upset and telling her that he was probably very lonely after having lost his mate of 50+ years. I tried to get her to see it from his perspective and all she kept saying to me was that Nell wasn't even cold in the ground and he already had a gf! Again, I kept sticking up for him. Then, he started to get ballsy. He introduced her to my cousin and even took her to their house in KY. Apparently this lady was a friend of theirs, as she is the sister of their next door neighbor. He even asked my grandma, Nell's closest friend in the world, to meet this woman. My grandma said no.

Uncle John has proceeded to absolutely lose his mind and I've gotta wonder how much of a part this woman plays. John called Ruth's job in Mississippi (she's a slots manager in a casino in Tunica) and told her boss that she was a thief and had stolen Nell's jewelry. After calling 3x, her boss finally told him to stop or they would press harrassment charges. He called Ethel in KY and apparently called her every name in the book and told her that he was calling the cops if she didn't return the stuff. The ironic thing is that Ethel was already back in KY when the jewelry was sorted. It was my grandma and Ruth that did it. Interestingly enough, John has never accused my grandma of anything.

So today the Fairfield police department called my grandmother to speak to her because John has charged Ruth and Ethel with theft. The kicker is that, based on the cash value of the jewelry involved (over $10K), it makes the charges a felony. John is in his 80s and the aunts are in their 60s. Can you imagine this?? Its crazy to me. 60 year old women getting investigated for felony charges. So of course, John's family sticks by him and believes him...all except one of his neices. She has a friend who is a PI and had the woman investigated. Apparently this woman (aka the Black Widow) has been married 3x and marries old men for their money. John's neice believes that she saw the perfect opportunity when Nell died and dug her hooks into him. My grandma actually thinks that this lady stole the jewelry or has hidden it and convinced him that my aunts have it.

So we'll see how it all pans out. Fortunately for all of us, my grandma's brother, Raymond, is an attorney and used to serve on the KY State Senate. He has a lot of friends in a lot of places and hopefully will be able to sort all of this out.

I'm just sad. I can't my family has turned on each other like that. I think about my Uncle John as the sweet old man who used to give me $100 for Christmas every year and absolutely adored me. I can't imagine him turning on the aunts like this. I think my Aunt Nell is rolling over in her grave right now.

Threaded and loving it...

I've got this thing with eyebrows. This will come as no shock to some of you. I'm almost monkeylike in my need to groom other people. I bought this cute little tool at Sephora and I frequently bring it in to work to clean up the nurses eyebrows. I usually have a line of girls saying, "I'm next, I'm next." So you can imagine my sheer delight when my friend Thea came into work with perfectly sculptured brows and described to me a place in the Kenwood mall that does nothing but eyebrows!!! House of Brows is a new store that specializes in threading. I didn't know much about threading other than that it was a middle eastern thing and the girls use thread to rip out the hair instead of wax. I had to know more but I couldn't do it alone. So I convinced my friend Brooke from work to come with me and we made a little girls day of it. Coffee, Sephora, brows, and pedis.

I was a little hestitant at first but I Brooke made me go first. Basically the girl used a spool of thread and with the end in her mouth, she made almost a cat's cradle with the thread and somehow it pulls the hairs out. I've seen marvels of medicine and many, many surgical procedures but I couldn't quite wrap my mind around how she was getting the hair out with this piece of thread. I've decided that its difficult to understand the wonders of the universe. =)

So the end result is that my brows look great. They are full and lush and I wasn't irritated after like I typically am when I have them waxed. Brooke looked amazing too! She had tears in her eyes because the change on her was so dramatic. So girls and boys (yeah you know who you are!) go get threaded! Hanin is her name and eyebrows are her business.

Oh yeah, got a pedicure at my nail shop..it looks great too but it can't possibly compare to the lush little pillows that are my eyebrows.

Bonnaroo

So I've had 3 weeks or so to reflect on it and I figured since I'm wearing my tie dyed roo shirt today, I should say a bit about Bonnaroo. Jeregano was going to post something but he never did so here I go. We spent 4 days and nights with 80,000 of our closest friends in a 700+ acre field filled with dirt and dust. Unfortunately we were parked really, really, REALLY far away from the center of all things exciting, aka Centeroo, and our first day there we hauled all of our crap in 2 trips from the truck to the tent only section to set up. It was only 90+ degrees outside and due to the lack of road signs (yes the place has named roads), we took the long walk with all of our stuff. Jeregano was carrying a Vietnam style dufflebag and wasn't very happy. Luckily our setup went pretty well. We saw comedy by Lewis Black and friends, movies in the much loved air conditioned movie tent, and so much live music it was hard to wrap your mind around it all. We even saw half naked ladies in a burlesque show! The Police reunited and even though Sting screwed up "Roxanne" and the band fell apart AND they ended their show about 40 mins early, they still rocked. The dust was so thick Sat. night we were barely able to breathe, let alone see. So many people walked around with bandanas on their faces it looked like a scene from the old west. I blew black stuff out of my nose every morning and I had to show it to Jeregano because it was so unbelievable! Everyday he had to witness the black snot. I washed my hair in a trough on saturday and it was one of the most exhilirating experiences of my entire life but not to be outdone by the first post roo shower that I took at my folks house on monday morning. It is possible to sweat your ass off for 4 days in 90 degree heat without showers and NOT smell like a pigpen. Baby wipes were our friend. I lived in a tent for 4 days with no pillow ( I knew I'd forget something!) and basically sleeping on nothing but a sleeping bag and woke up every morning feeling fantastic. It was totally impossible to sleep past 8am because despite our shade canopy, the sun turned my tent into a sauna at about 7:55am every morning. Beer was overpriced at $6 a piece and you couldn't bring your own into Centeroo. Thanks goes out to the boys with the flask full of bourbon! I came down with a bizarre and unidentifiable rash on my feet, neck, and arms. It went away about a week later thank goodness.

Despite it all, it was one of the best experiences I've ever had. I saw Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, Bang Bang Bang, The Police, Government Mule, Dierks Bentley, The Yard Dogs Road Show, Damien Rice, Ben Harper, Wilco, Old Crow Medicine Show, Ziggy Marley, Uncle Earl and the list goes on and on. I remember standing there Sat. night listening to the Police with probably 70,000 other folks and really feeling like a part of something great. I still feel a little sad that I fell asleep during Wilco but nothing beats sleeping in a field with a gyro in the belly. What a great nap that was.

So check out www.bonnaroo.com for lots of amazing pics. If I can ever figure it out, I'll put some pics of my own up here.

I can't wait for bonnaroo 2008!

a sad start to the 4th of July

Yesterday morning I was just letting Lola into the yard when I heard someone behind me. I turned around to see this little old lady running towards me with a huge smile on her face. I didn't recognize her and immediately thought that she must know my best friend and or/landlords. She started yelling, "there's my woman, there's my woman" over and over again. She ran up to me and grabbed my arm. I said hello as her husband briskly turned the corner into the side yard. He yelled for her, "Ruby, come on now we have to go home." She kept holding onto me and said, "this is my woman. I'm going home with her." I held onto her hand and started walking with her to the gate. I told her that she couldn't come home with me because I had a lot of chores to do but that she could go home with her husband. She finally took his hand and as she did, he looked at me with the saddest eyes and apologized as if there was actually something to apologize for. He had the clearest baby blue eyes, like my dad's in fact, and they were slightly marked by tears. They walked out onto the sidewalk and as I went into the house I thought I'd check out my front door and see how they were doing. I saw Ruby take off running down the street with her husband running after her. I put my shoes back on and went outside hoping maybe to help him. He finally caught her as she was distracted by the siren of an ambulance. I saw her husband look back at me from a block away and instantly I felt silly for watching them so I tried to turn sideways and hide behind a telephone pole. As I watched them walk away, hand in hand, a wave of sadness fell over me. I thought of my grandma who dealt with the same illness and was so thankful that my grandpa had not been around to see her like that. It was absolutely devastating.

I had been waxing and waning on going whitewater rafting, frankly because I was scared. I've decided that I'm going now. Ruby has reminded me to live and get the most out of life. Its ironic that I work with kids dying of cancer everyday and it took having a personal moment with Ruby to remember that life is a great adventure and we might as well live it up.