Remember Your Roots and Keep Them Colored

Life makes you wonder

By Trena Eiden
Posted 5/21/20

Like Gar, our children are all fantastic, but the daughter is the only mountain climber among them, and even her brothers scratch their heads at her feats. She does exercises not meant for mortals, …

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Remember Your Roots and Keep Them Colored

Life makes you wonder

Posted

Like Gar, our children are all fantastic, but the daughter is the only mountain climber among them, and even her brothers scratch their heads at her feats. She does exercises not meant for mortals, which is not only an understatement, but hard to believe, since it seems the loins in which she originated are not in the same universe as she. A family friend recently texted, “Lunny isn’t only a legend, but a supernatural being sent from a magical land. It’s the only explanation, knowing who her parents are.”

We know.

A year ago, Lunny threw down some serious cash for a trek up Denali. The obscene amount of money was enough to purchase almost anything  — a town, for instance. I may have frowned because if it can’t be bought on sale or on consignment, my day is ruined.

Already having a flat stomach, and running miles every day, she began training in earnest. This trip would be the first she’d ever done, while not only packing 60 pounds on her back, but pulling a sled with that much weight on it, for three weeks. Heeding wise council, she hired a personal trainer, who said it would take muscles not normally used. What? We have muscles lying around on a sofa while I’m practically dying getting trash to the curb? I’d have asked, at which discount store those bands of fibrous tissue could be bought? When he said they’re made, I’d have said what I say reading an eight-ingredient recipe: “Well, that’s not gonna happen.”

Her trainer laid out a game plan of running, pulling, pushing, planks, reaches, sit-ups, crunches, lifts and my personal favorite, the stair-stepper, for hours on end with that despicable pack on her back. Now would have been my first clue to feign a broken femur.

The next thing she did was hire a nutritionist. Lunny’s a healthy eater so I thought this was a dumb idea until this expert said something so delightfully outlandish, I asked if I could text her a heart emoji: She told Lunny to start eating more.

Can you imagine? Me neither, but a light bulb went off in my head, which is weird, I know, because there’s nothing in there, much less a light bulb. To tell the truth, I also heard a spoon being pinged on a wine glass. It had to mean something and I figured it was that I should put myself on a diet of eating more, too.

It’s not every day you’re told you’re not eating enough, and while I hadn’t been the one given the green light, I took advantage of the advice anyway. I’ll tell you, though, the results were obviously eschewed. For three days I ate more than I usually do: a whole chocolate cake, a half-gallon of vanilla bean ice cream, two packages of Fritos (one regular and one chili flavored), melted cheese on toasted French bread and several bags of Hershey’s kisses; I don’t even know which ones.

I was so excited to have a license to eat, I shoved my arm onto a shelf and scooped a whole aisle into my cart like I’d just come from fat camp. A few people stared, so I felt the need to explain how I was following the regulations of a nutritionist. I didn’t bore them with the sad details of exercise.

I ate like it was my job and that paid professional would have been proud. I expected the pounds to melt off like a pat of butter on the sunny side of a window sill, but that isn’t what transpired.

On the morning of the second day, I couldn’t button my jeans. On the third day, my elastic waistband cringed. I swung my head to look in the mirror and four chins waved back. That’s when it hit me; I texted my daughter that her nutritionist is an incompetent dolt. In all likelihood she doesn’t even have a degree, like she’s probably a bartender or a pet groomer.

So, while our girl was preparing for Denali — leaping over skyscrapers and lifting Buicks — the world was changing. Last week, after her year of pain and struggle, mainly convincing me that this expedition was a good idea, the coronavirus canceled the trip. When she told me, I enragedly screamed like a wasp had just stung my buttock. She calmly stated, “Mama, it’s OK, there’s next year.”

Obviously, she didn’t come from me, but was instead delivered by stork into the cabbage patch.

Remember Your Roots and Keep Them Colored

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