Ibuprofen, shopping, and pimping

Thursday morning, my back hurt something fierce when I woke up.

I injured my back about six years ago while scuba diving, and it’s never been quite right since, especially not when carrying lots of weight wearing scuba on the shore (which I do often enough) or on long car trips or sometimes just in general.

Sunday I was cleaning closets, lifting (light, for the most part) stuff above my head and then bending over to sort through boxes on the coffee table. Monday I went bike riding. Tuesday night, I spent three-ish hours sitting in a non-ergonomic chair in the back of the classroom for Open Water class. Wednesday I spent another hour for Dive Club.

Thursday, I took handfulls of ibuprofen. And then got in the pool for three hours. I didn’t wear a weight belt, which seems to exacerbate the problem, but I did wear 10lbs in the pockets of my BCD. I got through the night, but I probably made the mistake of slinging tanks and weights around too much when the ibuprofen was blocking the pain.

Friday was more ibuprofen, but I had something to take my mind off of it all. John and I went and applied for a loan, and then looked at our first possible home. It was a townhouse/condo type thing, with two bedrooms, two and a half baths, a two-car garage, and lots of space. We really liked it a lot, and it’s central to both our work places, but it was about $125,000 over our budget. YIKES!! It was just a for-fun look as we drove by, but I may judge other places against this one from now on, sadly.

However, it’s much more real now that we’re planning on buying a house. John’s job here is just so good, and his boss is so well-respected in the industry, and it’s such a good training facility, that it will benefit him greatly to stay in the area and become and instructor and gain more experience.

And it’s not as if I can’t find jobs around here.

I actually sat down and talked to my boss the other day, both about vacation time, about experiments to finish up my paper, and about the future. We talked graduation (she’s thinking two years from now!!!!!!), and she thinks it would be easy and realistic for me to get a job in the area, and possible right at the same place, though not in the same lab. Woot!

So, if we’re going to be in the area another four-five-six years, it makes financial sense to buy a place and not just through money away on rent each month. We just have to qualify for a loan and be able to afford the morgage. Pamela, my mother-in-law, has offered to help us out with the money down and the mortgage payments if we need it (which we will), and I’m both grateful and wary. We couldn’t do it, I don’t think, without her help, but given our past, I’m a bit worried about the whole owing her lots of money part of it all. But I think it’ll work out.

So Saturday morning, we took another step forward by asking one of the ladies who went to Belize with us if she’d sit down with us and look at loans, and then show us some places. She’s a real estate agent, and offered to do so while we were on vacation, which was incredibly sweet of her. And it’s nice to know her, and not just have her be a random person.

And then the rest of Saturday was spent pimping myself out. Really. Pimping, scuba style…

Greg, Alisa, Ben and I went to a house in the east bay and did Discover Scuba to entertain party guests at some rich guy’s house. It was his annual “Yeah it’s summer” party. I’m not sure I actually met the host, but who knows. He requested an instructor with “female staff”, so there we were.

Yeah, yeah, I know. But it was thought by some people that he might have lots of female guests (and he did) that might be more comfortable working with a female staff member (which they probably were). But given the amount of arm candy there, it was also definitely to have girls in swim suits in his pool all day long as eye candy. Gah.

So what were some of the entertainments, you ask? Aside from us doing our scuba thing, there was a clown/juggler, a balloon artist, two masseuses, belly dancers, hawaiian performers, a dj, and judging from the people carrying music stands as we were leaving, probably some classical musicians. The catering alone was impressive, with crab legs and shrimp and whatnot. We only got a few tasty mouthfuls in during the time, but mmmm. I’m guessing a budge of easily $20K. Like I said, we were the cheap end. Next year, we’re asking for more money!

This guy had a niiiice pool, with a bridge over it and all, a half tennis court, and a gigantic house. With plenty of locked rooms that a girl looking to change back into street clothes was afraid to enter in her search for a bathroom. Uck.

And aparently, some of the girls told Greg that they were hired to be there, and that they were “models”, but he pointed out that one of them didn’t have great teeth, and thus he thought they were more likely “escort” types than “model” types. That may be a bit of a classification, but judging from what I saw, I wouldn’t put it past these guys. I repeat, WOW!

And another thing: the guests. Not a single person with more than a smidge of poodge. We joked about having a requisite low BMI to enter, but for a girl who recently lost a lot of weight and feels good with her body, it was still disheartening. Seriously, people, eat something! Also, the number of women who had natural, umm, well, you know, were seriously outnumbered by the women who’d had implants. No small asian women are naturally that big or that perky in that small of a bikini. You could have fed a small African nation on what all those implants cost. Things like that just sicken me, but I suppose to be arm candy, you have to look the part.

Me, I’m happy how I am, though another 10lbs would help both my self-esteem and my doctor’s opinion. I like my body, though I’d reduce rather than increase certain aspects, and I’m happy that I’m valued by my friends for my brains and my abilities rather than my looks. I sometimes envy people who have money, in that it would simplify things like wanting to go on expensive dive trips or buy a house, but I don’t envy that culture of having to always be and look perfect in order to fit in. Or in the need to hire cute guests to inflate my self importance. Or in the need of my other guests to take numerous pictures with the hired guests to remember my self-importance. Deep down, I’m guessing my insecurity issues are nothing compred to some of those people.

And frankly, I’d rather be me than be them any day. Even if I did get paid a miniscule amount to pimp myself out to them for a couple of hours in a swimming pool.

We especially didn’t get paid enough when you factor in the planning time, the loading and unloading time of all those tanks and gear, and the drive times. And the gas. *sigh* John yelled at me for slinging tanks around up on to the top rack last night when we were unloading, and this morning, I can’t say that I blame him. But we got stuff onloaded and put away or set out to wash, then headed to dinner with Ben and his girl.

What followed was BBQ and another gallon of so of water for dinner, the peach cobbler, then John and I came home and became comatose while watching Alton Brown’s Feasting on Asphalt 2: The River Run. I like him and that show a lot. Of course, I crashed about half-way through.

This morning, I swallowed another handful of ibuprofen within minutes of waking up. Guess John was right about swinging tanks. This time, strangely, it’s the right side of my lower back that hurts the worst, so I’m hoping this is a specific incident related to last night as opposed to a continuation of the pain of the last couple days.

We had planned to go bike riding, but I don’t think my back’s up to it, so we’re just going to be lazy and carefree, doign laundry, playing games, poking around on the internet, and whatnot today. Hopefully that’ll help my back more than anything, other than ibuprofen, right now.