Beach Bootcamp and an Armenian Head

Man I really suck these days at keeping up my blog. I'm sorry everyone! Assuming that anyone is still out there reading this. Well I've been putting off writing this post for a while because it seemed a bit, well, rude. I was waiting for the weather back home to be less than brutal before I wrote about my adventures on the beach. Then it went down to minus 50 in Edmonton and I thought "screw it!". By the way, I am not exaggerating when I say that people can not comprehend the concept of negative temperatures. It is in small part because of the whole celsius/fahrenheit thing but mostly because they don't understand that a temperature can have a negative sign in front of it.

So, my new favourite thing about living in L.A. is a little thing called Beach Bootcamp. Yes, the "bootcamp" part may sound less than fun but doesn't everything sound better with the word "beach" in front of it? I was looking for an exercise class and I came upon a Beach Bootcamp class taught by Markus and Texas. Are those great names or what? I had images of two heavily-muscled ex-marines yelling at me to run faster. Wohoo! Well upon further investigation I found out that Texas is in fact a woman and she and Markus are married. They run a class for women where you can bring your kids and they play on the beach while you work out. Sign me up!

I showed up at the beach and saw a woman setting up for a class. I assumed this was Texas herself. I walked up to her and said "are you Texas?" to which the woman replied "is that a person?". It turns out that there are several fitness classes on the beach and the one I was looking for was a bit further down. When I finally found Markus he told me to take off my shoes and go for a run in the sand. Well, he had me at "take off your shoes". Something you must know about me is that I loathe shoes. I have worn flip-flops every single day that I have lived here. A workout where you don't wear shoes?! Sweet! Running in the sand is not so sweet but it is a fantastic workout.

I've been doing the class for two weeks now and I love it. To be honest it's not as challenging as I had hoped but it's still a pretty good workout. (As a side note... Jolene's Stroller Bootcamp in Whitecourt is the best fitness class I've ever taken. If you live in Whitecourt and have had or will ever have a baby you MUST take this class. Also, if you live anywhere near one of Alberta's recreation facilities I hope you're taking advantage of it! There is NOTHING like Whitecourt's Allan & Jean Miller Centre here!)

I am lucky enough that Asha is in school when I go to the class and David is home most mornings so Nia stays at home with him. So after my class I go down by the water and stretch and meditate. How very Californian of me! It's a great way to start my day.

So do you hate me yet? Well my bootcamp class has also been a bit of a reminder of the not-so-great things about L.A.. There was sewage spill the other day so there were signs all over the beach that you couldn't swim in the water. Apparently it happens all the time. I guess the system that manages the waste of 8 million people is bound to fail sometimes. A fellow bootcamper also told me the other day that you have to have money to live in L.A. because you either need to pay to live in a fancy area or pay for private schools because the public schools in the other areas suck. I think this is a comment on both the insane standard of living here but also the frenzy that people get into about schools in this city. But that's a whole other post...

Finally, the topic of conversation at class today was that a human head was found by a hiker near the Hollywood sign. The body (or I guess the lack thereof) had not been identified but apparently it was suspected that they were Armenian.  How exactly would they know that?! When I first moved to Whitecourt there had been a stabbing a few days before and I was horrified. What kind of place had I moved to!?

So living in L.A. is not all sand and meditation but I'm doing my best to take advantage of all the good stuff. Nothing beats the feeling of sand in my toes and sun on my face.

Oh, and one quick Asha-ism before I sign off. The other day she asked me "what's unnergah?" to which I replied "I have no idea". She said "in the pledgaleedgence?". To which I replied "I literally have no idea what you are talking about". So it turns out that they are learning the Pledge of Allegiance in school. It's a bit wierd that Asha is pledging her allegiance to a foreign flag but I guess I have to expect it if I'm going to put her in a Yankee school. So here's how her version goes:

"A pledgaleedgence to the flag. On which it stand. In invisible. Unnergah."

I figure it's OK that she's pledging her allegiance to a foreign flag because she clearly has no idea what she is saying.