Plateau

The weight'd been coming off really well for months. Slowly, steadily, at a healthy rate. Wonderful. Until about 3 months ago. Now shayla's been hovering in the same 4-pound range the whole time. So she reviewed her eating habits, made a couple adjustments, worked harder on her exercises. And it seemed to make a difference for a little, then stopped once again.

Frustrating, to say the least. Admittedly, shayla's been too focused on that little number on the scale when she stands on it. It's hard to avoid doing so. In the meantime, her clothes are still getting a bit looser, though not at the rate they had been. And she keeps in mind what Master's said many times. Muscle weighs more than fat. Which is something that shayla's been gaining. All those exercises are still doing something, & she tries to keep the intensity up when she's doing them.

Though it's awfully hard to keep from focusing on that little number. Though, to be honest, what she's done so far is no small acheivement. In 14 months shayla's lost 75 pounds, and is a mere 14 away from 120, which is what she weighed at 17. Not many people who diet can say that. Not many 34 year old women come this close to what they weighed at 17. And, to shayla, most importantly, Master's still pleased with her progress. The other day was a good example; she was going out to run an errand and Master called her to him, then gave a tug at the waistband of her shorts, which have been getting a bit looser. Size 7's, getting loose, who'd have imagined. Months ago Master'd gotten a shirt/short outfit for shayla. While the halter-top fits fine, the shorts were far too tight. As he toyed with the waistband, easily getting 4 fingers into it with room to move them around, he commented that shayla would be able to slip into those shorts really soon.

Unbelieveable, but there it is. She can deal with a plateau. A tweak here & there, perhaps Master re-evaluating her exercise routine, & she'll get kick-started again.

shayla

Butterfly...

...or was it a moth?

Anyhow, shayla'd had to step outside while she was at work the other day, & glimpsed what she thought at first was a leaf on the pavement. But it was too symmetrical, and the wrong shape for it to be a leaf.

So she crouched down for a closer look. Upon first glance shayla thought it was a moth, but now she's not certain. It was light lime-green, the wingspan easily the distance from the tip of shayla's middle finger to the base of her hand. There was a line of medium brown all along the leading edge of the front pair of wings, splitting at one point to a short line, almost a comma (about 1/3 inch long), about an inch from the body. The rear pair of wings had a spot of brown (same shade as the line) in the middle of them, roughly 1/3 inch in diameter. The antennae were about 1/2 inch long, and heavily feathered, same shade green as the wings and body, which was about 2 inches long.

Beautiful little (or big, depending on one's perspective) thing. Shayla gave it a nudge with a fingertip and it fluttered off the ground for a couple seconds, then landed in the same spot it had left. It was mid-afternoon, about 93, 95 degrees. Likely it was just relaxing in the shade. Though why it picked a hard asphalt resting spot instead of the nice cool trees a few yards away shayla'll never know.

She's not been able to find a site that shows a photo of that particular moth. But she'll keep on looking.

shayla

Fellowship of the Ring

One of Master's relatives visited him last week. Connie lives a few hours away and Master'd had to juggle things some to get them arranged. But she made it, staying for the weekend and heading back home Sunday. One of our little outings was to the Museum of Natural Science to see the Fellowship of the Ring exhibit.

Shayla's been drooling over this museum since she first found out about it. Things being the way they are, she's not actually been able to see it. What need does a kettle and mat girl have to go to a museum? This exhibit only piqued her interest. So Thursday morning we went (passing within arm's reach of the Museum of Fine Arts, something else that shayla's been dying to see...Grrr). And shayla tried not to notice just how much it cost to go *into* that series of rooms. But oh, was it nice.

The clothes that Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf, Galadriel, and Saruman had worn, among others. The varying styles of armor made for the Riders of Rohan, as well as the orcs & uruk-hai. All types of the weaponry, including the gifts that Galadriel had given the Fellowship. The models used for Treebeard and the cave troll. They had two displays of the cave troll. One full-size, complete with mace, filth, & gaping mouth. It was enough to have given young kids the willies. The other was a smaller model that had been made. This one au naturale. No mace, chain collar, or even the loincloth. Shayla was more than a little surprised to note that it had been made, ah.. shall we say, anatomically correct. There was a whole wall devoted to the various prostheses that had been made for the filming. Dozens of feet, ears, you name it. Even a few orc contact lenses. Off in one niche was Boromir's funeral boat. The model was so realistic that, to shayla's eyes (being the medical professional that she is), she could have collected a blood sample from the veins in his hand.

Of course, there was the One Ring. Set off in a room by itself. Just going into the doorway and through the hall to the area the Ring was was an errie experience. The Ring was in a clear cylinder, suspended in gel? water? who knows? Shayla could just barely see the fishing wire (or whatever it was) that kept the Ring in place. Very nice, though.

Connie is one of those people that just breeze through things like this. A quick glance, a read of the plaque that is with the display, & she's off to the next one. Master was only slightly slower than shayla. He studied each piece meticulously, inspecting how it was made, the details, viewing it from as many angles as he could. Master and shayla could have easily spent a week in that building.

But we were on a time schedule, so after we went through the exhibit we had to leave. So shayla only was able to catch a quick browse through the dinosaur display; all she saw of the gold exhibit was the stairwell leading up to it. And a quick wander around the gift shop. Seeing any of the IMAX movies was out of the question.

Come to think of it, Master mentioned on the way home that he'd not seen the One Ring. Maybe this warrants a trip back, sometime when we've got all day. Or two.

shayla

Topless Bars

One of the gentlemen that come into shayla's work regularly is the manager of one of the local topless bars. As shayla often does with customers, we talk and flirt with each other. That's one of the really enjoyable things about this area, the people are sincerely friendly. He surprised shayla one afternoon when he invited her to come to his work some evening.

Shayla, in a topless bar. Yeah, right. Perhaps it's some residual cynicism from her previous life, but shayla wasn't expecting much, or even that Master'd even entertain the idea. But she gave Master the card that James had given her, letting him know that they'd been invited. That was weeks ago, and shayla didn't give it much thought after she'd given her Master the information. Though she thought it would be nice to learn how to do something like that. Not to work in such a place, but simply to know how to move like that

So it was surprising the other night when Master dug out that little business card, told shayla to get ready, and began heading that way. When we arrived, the surprise morphed into mild alarm. She'd half-expected something cheesy, but not to this degree. Master got out of the truck and had reached her door before she even had the courage to open it. Shayla had never been to a place like this, and seeing something that met, or, should she say, didn't meet, her expectations was mortifying. To think she'd even brought this place to his attention made it even worse. His response when shayla told him so was a simple, 'it was my idea to come, shayla, i'd not blame you'

The interior was to be expected, dark, tacky; the single stage was smaller than expected. Master picked a table near it, and after a few minutes shayla went to let James know that they were here. A quick exchange of greetings and James darted back into his office and back to work. For the next hour or so the most interesting, intriguing thing that happened was the un-heard of sight of Master's eyes glaze over with boredom. Long periods of time between dancers, who even shayla could tell weren't very good, the music was awful, and the one waitress, when asking Master if there was anything she could do, agreed whole-heartedly when Master asked for the DJ to be fired. And shayla feeling more inferior and bumbling as time went by.

It was very relieving when Master decided that it was time to go. Shayla put the whole experience out of her mind. But she'd not expected to be taken to another topless bar the next day. This one was the workplace of one of Master's friends. She'd invited him to visit a time or two, but this was the first time he'd been able to do so. The difference was shocking. Modify the rooms a little, slap collars on the girls, & make things a bit more obvious in regards to lap dances, etc, & you've got yourself a paga tavern. Te whole place, not just the performers, was classy. There's no other word for it. The dancers were gorgeous & even seemed to enjoy themselves as they danced & later moved about the tables. Master's friend, Amy, was very nice. Shayla was immediately at ease with her. We talked just as much as Master and Amy did. Though shayla was left at the table for a few minutes while Master and Amy stepped into one of the private niches (alcoves? *G*) for her to give him a lap dance.

Perversely enough, that was the only disappointment of the whole experience. Shayla'd been sitting at that table observing, watching, absorbing what the girls were doing up on those stages. And she's never seen a lap dance, doesn't know what's involved in one. How's she going to learn how to do something like that if she's unable to observe one?

It's something she'd like to learn how to do. Not just the lap dances, but the whole thing. Just to please him and to know how to move and dance like that. We can only hope.

shayla