"How many pounds do you have?" (and other health and fitness stories)

After a month or so of watching the kids play tennis, I decided it would be fun to get back into tennis so I signed up for lessons. I played tennis in high school. I was just a member of the team. But basically anyone who showed up for practice made the team so I certainly wasn't a standout. And then I played some intramural mixed doubles in college which was a lot of fun. I have hardly played since then--close to 20 years.

The tennis coaches are Egyptian. They all speak English but in varying degrees. My lessons were twice a week with Coach Khalid. The best phrase from him was "In the deep! In the deep!" He learned the word "deep" from me. He asked me once what the word was for hitting the ball to the back of the court so I told him it was "deep." But instead of telling me to "hit it deep" he would tell me to "hit it in the deep." Close enough.

But that's not my favorite Arabic/English conversation with him. A couple of weeks ago before the lesson he said to me "How many pounds do you have?"

Now, that could mean a lot of things. In a matter of a couple of seconds, several things went through my mind. The currency here is Egyptian Pounds so I wondered if he was asking me for money, or maybe he was asking how much money Todd makes, or how much money I had in my bag. I really wasn't sure because he's never asked for money before but it's very common here for people to ask for tips so then I thought maybe I was supposed to have been giving him tips this whole time. I didn't know.

So I gave him a confused look and he said it again. "How many pounds do you have." But this time he was pointing up and down at me while he said it. Then the next set of thoughts raced through my mind in mere seconds. "Is he asking me how much I weigh? Is he REALLY asking me how much I WEIGH? Do people do that? That can't be what he's saying. There must be a mistake."

So I decided to confirm what he was asking and I said "In kilos or pounds?" (They use the metric system here.) He said "In kilos. About 60 or 65?" So now I knew for sure he was indeed asking how much I weighed. Yikes! I don't tell anyone how much I weigh. Todd doesn't even know.

So in my uncomfortableness and sheer shock at what I was being asked, I just laughed and thanked him for being so kind as to say 60 or 65 because that was definitely under what I really weighed and then I told him what I really weighed. Yes, I told him. I couldn't believe it came out but I couldn't think fast enough to come up with another answer other than just tell him the flat out truth.

So if any of you want to know how much I weigh you'll have to come to Egypt and track down my tennis coach because I'll never tell unless you catch me off-guard in some twisted English/Arabic dialect.

Another story--I was having my lessons twice a week both times with Khalid. However, schedules had to change and so for the last few weeks, one of my lessons each week I have a different coach--Omar.

Petey tells me Omar is everyone's favorite tennis coach. He's funny, he doesn't get mad at them, etc. So she told me I was very lucky to have Omar as my coach. I saw it a bit differently. It's not that I didn't like him. It's just that I had a hard time taking it seriously with him. Sometimes we'd play a game and he would seriously get into it like he was in some world-class tournament. If he hit a shot I couldn't return he'd do the whole fist pump in the air and yell "YES!" and things of that nature. In my mind, I'm thinking "Dude! You're a twenty-something tennis coach. I'm a 40+ year old mother of 7 who hasn't played in 20 years and even then I wasn't very good. It's not that hard to put a shot past me."

But in a way I think it was good for me because then my competitive side would come out and I would play harder so that he wouldn't have the satisfaction of beating a woman nearly twice his age.

Last story--After a couple of months of tennis I started developing a pain in the heel of my foot. This was in addition to pain in my knees. I started taking Glucosamine Chondroitin and that took care of the knee problems. With the help of my collegiate track and field athlete friend in the branch, we diagnosed the pain in my foot as plantar fasciitis. It kept getting worse almost to the point that when I got out of bed every morning I could hardly walk. I researched treatments online and people who had it swore that by wearing this boot at night while you slept, your pain will go away. It keeps your foot flexed while you sleep. So I ordered one. Here's what it looks like.



Now I have to say I've rarely made it through the entire night with it on. About 3 or 4 in the morning I take it off so I can get some comfortable sleep. But even just wearing it for the first few hours of sleep my pain is almost completely gone after wearing it for about a month. Yeah! Now bring it on, Omar.