Monthly Archives: June 2011

Not Good Vision

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YTurnerMiami

Not Good Vision

     At first I was excited.  I won.  That’s right – two free tickets through Vision Airlines.  The new hubby and I planned a short weekend getaway to Miami.  I went on Vision’s website and saw that they only fly in/out of Ft. Lauderdale on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.   I called the 800# to arrange our flight and was told “the lady” that does this was not working on that day.  Excuse me?  I call back the next morning and she isn’t in yet.  I ask for a supervisor, they say she’s on vacation for the week.  As you can tell, I already seem leery about my flight.

     Eventually the reservations get made and we’re packed and headed to the airport.  As we walk up to the ticket counter, the sign says you must check in 45 minutes before your flight.  No problem, we are there an hour early.  However, nobody is behind the Vision ticket counter.  All the other airlines have workers.  I ask one of them for assistance and they go find someone to come and help us.

     Finally get checked in, to our gate and start to board.  They board from the back of the place so once we (in seats 7a & 7b) board, the entire front overhead compartments are full.We must put our things toward the back.

     Off we go – I will give them credit for giving us a full size back of either pretzels or Famous Amos cookies.

     Miami – simply  amazing.  Weather – simply hot.  Bonding time – cherished.  Time to fly back.  We check in and go to our gate for our 2:05 departure.  2:00 comes and there is no plane.  Not only is there no plane, there is nobody from Vision airlines at the gate to help anyone.  So we just sit there.  Plane finally arrives, everyone boards, and we once again put our carryon luggage even further back.

      While on the plane, one of the passengers says that they didn’t have her ticket printed so they HAND WROTE her a boarding pass.  Can you imagine trying to get through security with a handwritten boarding pass?  She said it was not an easy process.  The entire trip home I had vision of Southwest Airlines, oh how I miss thee!

      It was a free trip so I can’t complain a whole lot.  I know they are a start-up commercial company.  However, I miss the great customer service and communication that I receive with most of the other airlines.  Sometimes you get what you pay for – so just be careful.

They Make My Day

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 YTurner gym

They Make My Day

I have absolutely found a job that I love and even better, I am surrounded by some of the most amazing people.  I think the fitness business is one of my callings and each day look forward to the people I work with.

Monday night was a typical Zumba (Learn the Steps) Class at my Fitness Studio.  At the end of each class, we go around, introduce ourselves and get to know each other.  Our groups are always so diverse in age, ethnicity and background.  This night we had one young lady from Iran.  She had a heavy accent and said she had been in the states since January.  After class, she came up to me and said how nervous she had been for the past couple of months to come to a Zumba class.  She actually almost didn’t come.  After attending the class, she had the brightest smile on her face and talked about how welcome she felt and how nice everyone was.  She made me feel good because she showed that the energy, dedication and passion that Jessica and I put into our classes in seen by our wonderful participants.  And, my smile was doubled the next day when I saw her return for another class.

I spend the other half of my time at the Fitness Center at St. Stephen.  There are many people there that are “young at heart” (but not necessarily young in age).  I’ll never forget when Ms. “E” came to the gym for the first time (she’s over 70 years old). Several of her friends brought her.  She walked with a walker at a slow pace.  She wanted to try to use the seated elliptical.  As she sat down, it was painful for her to even move her leg into position to pedal.  She didn’t even have enough strength to push the pedal down.  I suggested she take it easy her first day and not to do more than her body could handle.  She instead went and walked/pushed herself around the track two times.

Spring forward a week later and Ms. E is sitting on the elliptical pushing the pedals down.  Week later, she has a full range of motion.  Weeks later, she’s doing multiple laps around the gym.  And each time she comes in, her smile gets a little brighter.  Here was someone so down on her health unable to do much of anything, now feeling on top of the world and celebrating all of her accomplishments.

Both of these ladies showed me that when times seem fearful and you feel you don’t have the strength to go on – don’t give up.  Sometimes you have to take that first step in order for blessings to come your way.  Remember, an object in motion stays in motion but you have to start moving first!

No Music for the Kids

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No Music For the Kids

There’s a summer camp for youth going on for the next couple of week (luckily, there are a lot of summer camps offered around Louisville!).  But, this one in particular asked me to do some exercises with the kids.  Sure!  Chelly Chell loves the kids! So, I put on my thinking cap for a fun way that kids could exercise.  When I taught, I used songs off the radio to do our exercise.  This sounds like a great plan for my current project.  Now, I admit – I am not ‘hip’ when it comes to today’s music.  I couldn’t tell you what the most popular tunes are right now.  Heck, I’m still jammin to “The Show”.   So, I went to Billboard.com and looked up the top 3 urban hits.  The songs seemed pretty catchy – until I looked up the lyrics and saw what they really said.  Here are the top three songs and some of the words:

Look At Me Now – Chris Brown

Lil n-gga bigger than gorilla cause I’m killing every n-gga that try to be on my sh-t.  Better cuff your chick if you with her, I can get her and she accidentally slip and fall on my d-ck.  Ooops, I said on my d-ck,
I aint really mean to say on my d-ck, but since we talking about my d-ck all of you haters say hi to it.

Roll Up – Wiz Khalifa

I try to stay out your business, but on the real you’re so obvious. And if you keep fitting me in your plans and f-ckin’ up, your man’s gonna catch onto us.  That white sand surrounding us. He be handcuffing, he should work for them officers. If you rolling I got a spot where I can put you on this medical, and send you home doctored up. You wanna ride with me cause you say that he boring.   Wake up you rollin’ weed, cooking eggs in the morning, ain’t scared to spend this money I know I’ll make more of it.

My Last – Big Sean

Ok, now where that alcohol, you aint even got to ask cause I’mma drink it all like, like its my last.  She a 7 in the face, but a 10 in the a$s. She even look better by the end of my glass.  See I just walked in fresher than the shirts off in this muthf-cka. I’mma, I’mma need a bad broad to twirk off in this muthaf-cka.  I’mma go hard till it hurts off in this muthaf-cka. I’mma ball so you gotta work off in this muthaf-cka.  The work, and I can get you anything you want I could, I could, I could, I could put you on.

So, as you can probably guess, I didn’t use any of today’s popular music for our exercises.  Yeah, I know there’s a clean version to most songs but the last thing I want is for young Andre to yell out the explicit words he knows.  Instead I brought back the wonderful “Planet Rock” where no words are necessary and all you need is a good beat! ROCK ON!!

Mug Shot, Really?

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Mug Shot, Really?!
Before traveling to the Dominican Republic, I had my hair braided in cornrows so the heat and humidity would not expose my half natural and half relaxed hair.  It was wonderful to wake up each morning and just be hair ready.  No brush or comb needed.  Just get up and go.  Well, let me correct that.  There were the spritzes of oil sheen in the crevices of my hair that itched and called out my name to be scratched.

After two weeks of braids, it was time for them to come out.  I started unbraiding them while driving down the street.  I finished while watching a reality show on TV.   I didn’t look in the mirror during the process, but once I went upstairs to look I saw a full head of hair – and I loved it.  Although there was no true style, hair products or anything on it, I loved the potential that it could have possessed.  So what did I do?  I took a photo of it and put it on Facebook.  I received some interesting comments –

“Oh my. That could be a mug shot picture!”  “From all the glam pics this is truly different. All you need is a name plate with a number.” “Time to DEEP condition, straighten it out, and trim! Hey now!”

Wow, I was pretty caught off guard by the comments.  Who would have known that a picture I admired would be seen as so horrendous and negative by others.  It wasn’t until I posted a comment about liking the photo that others started writing positive comments.

I hate that so many people see natural hair as such a negative and ugly thing.  It’s a good thing that I don’t do things in order to impress other people or else I would have run as fast as I could to get a “Just For Me” Kit.   By the next morning, my hair was back to straight and I looked “acceptable” again (see below).

I don’t know how people will treat me once I am completely natural and let all my hair do whatever it feels like doing.  Who knows, I may cut it tomorrow.  I may flatiron it forever.  I may rock an afro puff cocked to the side.My hair does not define me.  Whatever I do, I hope people will still love me for being me.

YTurnerFlat

M.Y. June 2011