
The newspaper article.
Rachel Maddow Does Funny Vladimir Bit
Photo On Left Is The Best Dog In The World
Thursday night I was at the gym, doing my walking workout, tweaking the incline, speed and time. I’m incrementally increasing my efforts from 30 minutes to 45, pushing the speed faster when the incline is lower and vice versa. I’m bopping along, plugged into Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, swinging my arms, checking my heart rate every few minutes. I love to see the miles and calories increase. In fact, I’ve been keeping a fitness journal for almost three years. I guess I can call myself a gym rat at
this point.
All is quiet on the treadmill front, except for the bam, bam, bam of the joggers and the hardcore rock that’s supposed to motivate. Every now and then, someone in the weight room drops a ton of dumb bells. Boom, scares me to pieces. Hey, get a spotter for goodness sakes.
The elliptical folks behind me enjoy a machine I just haven’t taken to. It’s exhausting and I feel like my feet are going to go flying off. While I’m walking religiously during the month of September, for the past three years I was a biker, images of the Tour de France racing in my head. I was a lean machine scaling the Alps, until I’d catch a glimpse of myself in the mirrors. I read somewhere that women work out better when they can’t see themselves. I have experiential proof. I now rate my efforts only by how sweaty my headband gets.
Anyway, Rachel is promising us some chuckles at the end of the show, which means I’m committed to a long set. Finally she stops the teasing and presents us with one of my current favorite international leaders, Vlad the Impaler Putin. Does this guy practice mugging in the bathroom mirror while he
shaves? He has the ‘I may have to kill you, Mr. Bond’ stare down pat.
It seems that someone has found a picture of a dog that looks just like the Man from Moscow. The photo pops up on the screen and I break out in a guffaw. Remember, few people talk to each other when they are huffing away. So extreme laughter does not go undetected. The high school cross country teenage girl to my left looks at me as if I were her embarrassing mom. Believe me,
I know the look.
Rachel’s Putin pix continue. She overlays the photo of the dog on to Vlad’s face. OMG, the canine looks like the Head Honcho Himself. Her studio crew cracks up and I do Guffaw #2 which leads into #3 and #4.
I’m having the best time as I continue to pump those knees, but I don’t hear myself too well because of the ear buds. High School Track Star continues to give me the stink eye.
Definitely one of the high points of my day. Along with – wait for it – a full hour of walking mania just so I could see Comrade Putin. Rachel, I hope you have some high energy hijinks planned for my workout next week. Maybe Putin reading "War and Peace" while riding shirtless across the snow covered Russian steppes to the sounds of the love song from "Doctor Zhivago."