Christmas Celebrations Update: Gift Giving

My definition of adventure may change frequently, but I have consistently stated that shopping is not an adventure. Yet in the run up to Christmas, shopping is too prominent of an activity to ignore.

This weekend, I have to brave the malls to finish preparing for the annual gift exchanging ritual. So it seems an appropriate time to share my Christmas shopping strategy.

Tip #1: Empathize

I think gift giving is all about empathy. For person on my list I ask myself, “What does [Insert Relative] want, need and desire?” But that can be a prospect scarier than the most crowded mall. When you get inside a person’s head, it is not always that easy to get out.

And I am only half joking. I think it is an especially difficult question to ask about one’s parents. Can you say what your mother or father needs to be happier?

Tip #2: Investment Rather Than Consume

Christmas is the centerpiece of a consumption based economy. Sure, one can search for American made products, but as long as someone is buying a piece of plastic, it is probably made in China. My favorite type of Christmas gift goes the other way and helps the recipient produce something.

Some people have hobbies for which equipment is easy to buy. For others, it can be trickier to find a healthy experience they will embrace.

Of course, one has to be careful about buying a “gym membership” gift. While it is important to give something people want or need, you cannot give them something you think they need. That said, my girlfriend bought me a gym membership last Christmas and it was a very appreciated and used gift.

Tip #3: Give as Well as Receive

It is better to give than receive. So while you are doing your own shopping, make sure you communicate your own needs. The worst thing to be at Christmas is someone “difficult to shop for.”

In some ways, I think this blog is my Christmas list. I have a year’s worth of hobbies, planned activities and desired experiences. One should be able to gleam gifts from it.

I also wish there was some technology to allow one to find the perfect gift. Of course, there is. It’s called the Internet. Still, I feel things like the Amazon wish lists are underused. But I finally created one this year.

Tip #4: Don’t Be a Hero

The perfect gift is something the receiver would never even have thought of themselves. But one cannot let great be the enemy of good. So I advise not to try to be a hero for every person every year.

Instead, pick one or two people for whom you have not done something special recently and focus on them. Everyone else gets a gift card. Or alcohol.

Sometimes it will work great anyways. Last year, my brother-in-law was the last person on my list. I slipped into Marathon Sports at the last moment to buy him a gift card and on impulse bought him two books on coaching cross-country. They were my biggest hit of the season.

That’s the true lesson of Christmas shopping: nobody knows anything. So do your best and do not forget to buy at least one gift for someone less fortunate. I have bought something for Toys for Tots every year and I’ve never heard a complaint.

Shaking My Stuff at the Latin-Inspired Dance Fitness-Party

Over the summer, my girlfriend and I dipped our toes into new exercise classes at our new suburban YMCA. When fall rolled in, I planned to switch to basketball, but with a full schedule of math and science classes, I did not have too many free weeknights to commit to a team sport.

Instead, Rebecca and I had time for just one class. So we chose Zumba and Tuesday became another night we exercised instead of watching television.

“Zumba (The Zumba Song)”

I like quoting the official Zumba site, but “Latin-inspired, dance fitness party” is not particularly illuminating.

Zumba is an aerobics class with an emphasis on music. In some ways, it has to be a third cousin once-removed of those old Sweatin’ to the Oldies videos.

On our first day, the instructor jumped right in without any instruction. Rebecca speculated that she is used to regulars and does roughly the same routine every class. That has proven correct.

I really enjoy our instructor and the few other Zumba classes I have taken have confirmed her energy and creativity. The other instructors have stuck more to dance steps, hip movement and Latin music. Our regular instructor’s routines, set to popular music as well as traditional Zumba tunes, have more big movements, including squats, jumps and thrusts.

For a while, we had a routine in warming up with “Give Me Everything” by Pitbull and then switching to something I call “Zumba (The Zumba Song)” both because the lyrics repeat the word Zumba and because it perfectly captures Zumaba's fast pace and frequent left-right-left-left-right-left-right-right shuffle.

Half the fun of Zumba is wondering what song comes next on the weekly Hot Zumba Chart. Not every hit makes a good Zumba song. “Pumped Up Kicks” only lasted one week because the routine featured a lot of little kicks. “We Found Love” just made the charts last week.

Sometimes the right movements can redeem a song. For example, “Yeah” by Usher is way too clubby for me, but the movements are squats, so it feels like one of the best workouts.

One of my favorite combinations of song and movement is “I Wanna Go” by Brittany Spears. It is a little feminine, but we also do cross-body jumping jacks in the middle. Rebecca really likes “Waka, Waka” in which we do something resembling a side lunge.

For a few sessions in a row, we did Adele’s “Someone Like You” as a cool down. That was too much for me. What is this, Sweatin’ to Adult Contemporary?

The Gender Gap

Very recently, I saw the Zumba instructor passing through the weight room while I ran on the treadmill. She stopped and we chatted briefly about Zumba and the Y Cycle class she also teaches. Every indication is that I am a welcome regular to the class.

Yet, I still feel a bit awkward walking past all the other women. Even after three months of regular attendance, I am still the only guy.

First, I do not believe in exclusion based on race, religion, gender, national origin or sexual orientation. But I cannot help but empathize and I worry every time about invading someone’s safe space. Exclusion is wrong, but I’ll be a martyr rather than make women uncomfortable.

There was one other guy once. He too came with one of the woman regulars. For a moment, I felt like a hero, like I was breaking down barriers. I could not tell at the time if he was having fun or not, but he has not returned.

On the other hand, one of the women patted me on the shoulder, told me she respected me for coming and wished her husband would come too.

Of course, there are setbacks. One night while I waited to go in, a man coming out of the spin class looked at me and said “you must be either very brave or very single.” But I’m not sure I would have had the courage to do Zumba without Rebecca there to vouch for me.

Once More, with Feeling

I keep going because it is more fun to do cardio when it feels like a dance party than to do 50 minutes on the treadmill, even if in other situations I hate dance parties.

I have said before that a great adventure is when you get to live out the best part of classic movies. Zumba is my Billy Elliot moment. But ballet, while a source of embarrassment for a young boy from a working class neighborhood, does have a required masculine component. Zumba doesn’t have a Mikhail Baryshnikov.

I joked before that Zumba is the best boob workout I have ever had. There is a lot of chest shaking and butt gyrating. One night, we even did Peggy Lee’s “Fever” complete with slinky hip swings. There are many songs I do a sort of twist while the rest of the class is doing a rump shaker.

Zumba is a tiny bit gender-bending. It is possible that Zumba is more like a Priscilla Queen of the Desert clip.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what musical I am doing, what matters is that it is fun to break out in song and dance. It is why people do flash mobs, I imagine.

Zumba is most accurately a jukebox musical. Our favorite is probably “Moves Like Jagger” by Maroon Five, which we have been doing since day one.

I requested it at a wedding recently, thinking that since Rebecca and I had a choreographed routine we could totally be that couple that takes over the dance floor. It did not quite work out that way, but the photographs are still priceless.

I said before that Zumba is competition for television. But it is really a complement for job night in our house. Sixty minutes of high energy Latin dance is sometimes just enough to prevent me from crawling into the fetal position.

Exercise Update: Week #2

Saying “I went to the gym this weekend” may be an understatement. I took a new Zumba class Friday morning, lifted Friday night, took my first cycling class on Saturday and then lifted again Sunday morning. I do not know if I'm risking a burnout by doing something crazy like exercising every day, but right now I'm enjoying the challenge of a daily gym visit.

This weekend confirmed the lesson I learned over the summer: an exercise class is all about the instructor. The Y Cycle class was taught by our regular Zumba instructor and she brought the same level of enthusiasm and fun to the bikes that she brings to Latin-inspired dance fitness. And while our normal Zumba class has a lot of big aerobic movements, the Friday morning Zumba instructor focused all on hip movement.

My gym schedule for this week has two new routines. The Boston Sports Club had a core conditioning class I enjoyed last winter. But the YMCA’s midday class schedule is not as good as BSC’s. If one doesn’t want to do Pilates or Yoga, there is nothing cardio to do between 10 am and 6 pm besides the treadmill. I worry I'm going to be bored. So I'm following multiple suggestions to take up interval workouts. http://carrotsncake.com/2009/03/holy-yum-and-more-treadmill-workouts.html.

But speaking of Yoga, my girlfriend and I are planning to attend our first yoga class at B Yoga Center. http://www.byogacenter.com/schedule.html. I am little nervous because the class description says it is appropriate for "almost" all levels. If I do not fall outside of that almost, I don't know who does. Still, I will give it a try and report back.

So that is my exercise adventure schedule for this week: treadmill intervals, Zumba, Yoga and lifting, including my return to the Gravitron.

Exercise Update: Fall Hiking Finale

Yesterday I posted my geocaching blog entry. Telling my story left me itching for more. Plus, the cold weather is starting to discourage me going outside for exercise. And I needed to tire out Shula before leaving for my physics final.

So everything came together for a fall hiking finale. Fourthly, I wanted to time myself on the Outer Loop before my girlfriend and I attempted it in the snow. The Outer Loop at Breakheart (Pine Tops Road to Hemlock Road) is just 3 miles. It took Shula and me 53 minutes.

When I ended the walk, I used the geocaching.com app to find the nearest cache. “X700” was just up the road on the pond side of Pine Tops Road.

The cache’s hint, which I’m still enough of a newbie to read, said to “look under the huge rock near the top of the ridge.” This was misleading because there were several large boulders at the very top that would have made great hiding places. But I didn’t see anything underneath any of them.

Remembering some recent rookie advice, I put away my phone and started looking under every rock and ledge in the area. I still came up empty and grew frustrated.

Then I read some of the recent logs and thought maybe I was too high up. So I started heading back down, looking underneath the boulders as I descended. Peaking out from a covering of foliage was a bright yellow disc. I took a photo and then investigated further. Sure enough, it was the top to a plastic cache. My second geocache find! I signed the log book and left behind the comic book I had carried in my pack since September.

Exercise Update: Pull Up

It was cold during my hike today. So until either March arrives or I find my winter gloves to replace the red mittens I borrowed from my girlfriend, all my exercise has to be indoors.

Regular blog readers know that the evidence on my fitness is mixed. On the positive side, I have enjoyed stable weight and low cholesterol despite the occasional late night cookie bowl. On the other hand, I have never done a pull up. This winter, I am determined to change one of those.

I have been lifting for nearly a year and I still don’t know if I’ve accomplished anything. I will feel much better with a measurable objective. My new goal is to increase my lifetime number of pull ups from 0 to 1.

My favorite exercise machine is the Gravitron anyway because it’s most like a ride. Luckily, it is also basically a pull up. If I understand the physics behind it, and let us hope I do since I just passed in my physics final, the Gravitron is basically a pulley. The more weight counterbalancing one’s own body mass, the easier it is to do a chin up.

For example, I most recently did three sets on the Gravitron at 140 lbs. This is an improvement since a week ago when I did them at 150 lbs. Of course, to do a real pull up, I need that weight to be zero. So that is my goal for the next three months.

Traveling Through Breakheart Reservation with Shula

Each week I try to bill 50 hours between writing, studying and looking for a job. My instinct to stay "productive" is balanced by a voice telling me to stay in bed watching Seinfeld in my underwear. Worse yet, I don't know which part of me is the crazy one.

So to hedge my bets I pick one midday indulgence a week. This fall, my slacker moment was geocaching through Breakheart Reservation, the scene of many a past snowball fight.

In addition to exercise and fresh air, these hikes fulfilled my primary domestic responsibility of keeping Shula out of trouble.

Beginner's Guide to Geocaching

Breakheart was my first attempt to geocache since I struck out on Nantucket in August.

Geocaching.com’s maps show only the paved roads, not the park's hiking trails. The hidden treasures should make woodlands like Breakheart sparkle with adventure. Instead, I am slowed down comparing my phone's map with the physical map in my hand.

Shula and I started with a cache called "Off the Beaten Path". About 16 caches are hidden throughout Breakheart, but this cache is hidden alone on the park's eastern end. It's in an area I may never have explored otherwise.

My GPS led me to a wooden bridge spanning the Saugus River. For once, my phone wasn't zonking out, possibly because there was less tree cover by the river. If my reading was accurate then, the cache was underneath.

Climbing down the rocks, stepping over a dead bird, I peeked under the boards. I reached through a thick nest of webs to pull out the plastic container. The dog and I had solved our first mystery!

The next week, I searched for the "Breakheart Flume" cache. I brought along a comic book. I decided that since I was geocaching as Reading Quietly, I should leave reading material in all the caches I found.

Since the flume is too easy to reach by the paved roads, just for fun, I walked along the Ridge Trail before cutting back between the Upper and Lower Ponds. I remembered the flume area well from my childhood. I am sure I've peed in those bushes.

But I couldn't find a cache in there. My phone's GPS kept changing its directions. I have since read that once one is within 20 feet, one has to start looking by eye.

I joked in a tweet that Shula's snout would not let us down. But Shula, as much as I love having her out there with me, is a hindrance. With my phone in one hand and Shula's leash in the other, I don't have a free hand to dig.

On my next trip, I had two dogs! I told myself not to even bother geocaching with a leash in each hand. But I couldn't resist. On the way back to the parking lot, I made a run at "Foggy Breakheart". It was not on a trail, just 100 feet off the paved road.

I tried to at least brush at stuff with my foot and to look up into trees. Still did not see anything that resembled a cache.

TGIF

After two no-finds, I took a break from geocaching. On our next trip, Shula and I returned to the Flume Trail just to enjoy the fall weather and, I had to admit it, the foliage.

Hiking is like being in the middle of a fall storm. One can literally watch the leaves fall to the ground, especially on this day, as the sky grew dark and the wind picked up.

We reached the end of the Outer Loop Trail just as the Northeast Metro Tech ended classes for the week. I have talked about the importance of a Saturday activity. It is equally important to have a Friday activity to enjoy the rhythm of weekend's start, when no one should be thinking about homework.

Fall hiking was a pretty good one for both Shula and me. Breakheart has a dog park now where I can let Shula off the leash without guilt or fear. Shula made a new friend nearly every trip we made.

Trails & Hills

There is a flipside to my childhood nostalgia for Breakheart. These are the same woods where I whined about not having a girlfriend in 7th grade, the same place kids from my high school went to drink. Even putting that aside, compared to hiking the White Mountains, Breakheart is a massive step back.

Still, Breakheart has some fun trails. I think the best trail is on west side of the park. The Ridge Trail goes over all the high points of the park, giving one nice views of the Boston skyline. One goes from fording swamps to climbing rocky outcroppings.

Plus, there is a geocache at the trail's most remote point: Crow's Hill. I feel deep enough in the woods to release Shula. She always starts with a full gallop forward and back. Then she settles down in a way she never does at the beach or in the city. She happily trots next me like an animal avatar from World of Warcraft.

The cache, called "Crow's Nest", has a hint that says the Boston skyline is not visible from where the cache is hidden. In any case, there are no marked trails going up to Crow's Hill.

Shula and I tried to go but the approach is very thorny and her leash got tangled up. I lifted her off the ground, but did not turn around. Instead I tried to climb up with a terrified Wheaten in my hands. When we finally turned around and she was safely back on the ground, I worried she'd just flop down. But she was as eager as ever to continue the adventure.

While writing this post, I spent a lot of time looking at the Breakheart geocaching.com map. There are caches all over the trail. Now I'm reenergized to go after them...just in time for winter adventures.