The Secret Lives of Dolphins

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I decided to go sea kayaking. I’ve been kayaking on numerous occasions. It was a past time of mine in the days before babies to check out the various kayaking locations around the state of bliss I lived in. So I was game for a little paddling adventure on the Atlantic Ocean, at lest I thought I was. As it turned out, paddling was half the issue really. Getting in the kayak was another thing altogether. Though the water was relatively calm, my beloved insisted on getting in right at the shoreline instead of on the lovely sandbar I could see was just ahead of us. Having grown up on an island, I know a sandbar when I see one. He was not aware that there was a shallow spot looming ahead of us. And the problem with getting in where we were was the waves. They kept crashing right in my face as we tried to get past them. At one attempt at getting in they knocked me out of the kayak. And I’m not as small as I used to be. I have a feeling I looked something like a sick whale attempting to climb into a small boat. Eventually, though, after much swearing, a threat to quit and a large scrape on my knee, I did make it into the boat and we got out past the waves.

It was a nice day on the water. Out past the shore there were no waves; it was quite calm. We were enjoying ourselves, paddling around a short distance from the beach, when all of the sudden we saw and heard dolphins jumping. We paddled as quickly as we could in their direction, and soon found ourselves in the middle of their pod, with dolphins jumping near and far in several directions. It was an amazing experience; the first encounter I’ve had with dolphins in the wild. So we tried to figure out where they were going, and position ourselves nearby. However, when we would paddle, the dolphins would stop jumping. It was a constant challenge to get to a good spot, and wait long enough for the dolphins to reappear, but not so long that we found ourselves too far away from them. It was amazing to hear the gentle blowing sound they made as they surfaced for air and to realize they were so close. At one point, 2 came up just behind our Kayak close enough to have touched them with the paddle. What a thrilling adventure.

Now I have been a lover of marine life for years. The ocean was all around me as a child, and I delighted in learning all about it and the animals that lived in it. At one point in my life I wanted to be a marine biologist, until I learned it was hard to eat on their average salary. Dolphins are one of those amazing creatures that I’ve never been able to get too much of. For my birthday, on our honeymoon (yes, the 2 event coincided) I asked to go swim with dolphins while we were enjoying the Florida Keys. It was thrilling experience.

So now that my 2 year old also loves animals, we indulge her requests to head over to Sea World regularly. Our first stops are very predictable: Manatees and Dolphins. While other folks line up for hours in the hot sun to feed the dolphins, we know what they do not discover until after they’re hot, sweaty and sunburned: there is an underwater viewing window that allows you to get even close, and it’s AIR CONDITIONED! We head there and watch as long as we like.

Yesterday we visited our friends the dolphins once again. They were swimming, playing, eating and…what were those 2 doing over there? Was that what I think it was? Oh my goodness, right in front of our eyes 2 of them were going at it! There was absolutely no denying what was happening. I was a little shocked and embarrassed for them. Such graceful creatures, only sex while swimming appears to be a bit of a challenge. I’m sure it wasn’t made easier by the relatively small enclosure they swim in with several other dolphins, and all of us humans standing there gawking at the, um, “activity”.

I have to say that while I have loved dolphins for much of my life, I have never exactly felt a need to see dolphin love. Sex has always been a rather taboo subject in my life. I suspect my mother thought it was a bit dirty. I wasn’t concerned for my girls, they’re too young to have noticed. But there was a mother, and her son, maybe 10 years old, standing behind us. He pointedly asked “Mom, what are those 2 dolphins doing?” Embarrassed, she tried to offer a polite, and misleading answer about maybe they were fighting. However, this was no stupid 10 year old, he turned to his mother and said “I know what they’re doing, they’re mating!” It was kind of hard to deny it at that point. I felt badly for that mother. One doesn’t normally take the kids to Sea World for sex education!

I have a feeling that this was one of those defining experiences which forever after shapes your view of a subject. I think some of my dolphin innocence slipped away that day. Sure I was able to enjoy the dolphin show half an hour later, but as we walked past the dolphin nursery on our way out, where several mommy dolphins are expecting their babies later this summer, I couldn’t help snickering thinking “someone else is going to be joining you soon.” And I wonder if I’ll ever be able to look upon these majestic creatures again without images of “the act”

Waisting Away

I was standing in line at the grocery store checkout the other day. Being blissfully free of children (which those mothers of you out there will know is second only to lying on the beach with a fruity drink in your hands), I was not too wrapped up in mediating sibling tensions to peruse the wide selection of magazines targeted at women like me. I was briefly distracted by a magazine that claimed to hold the key to turning your passions into employment, until I noticed that it was a magazine for women age 40+. While that is fine and good, and certainly women age 40+ should have magazines just for them, I felt like it would be cheating to read it. You know, like the beautiful young blonde who is under-qualified, under-experienced, but overly buxom, who comes in and steals a coveted position from the older, more experienced, more intelligent mother of 3 who sags a little more around the curves than her perky young rival. That is not to say that I’m perky or young, or buxom or blonde. But I felt like it would be wrong, nevertheless, to steal wisdom intended for my esteemed elders, and appropriate it for my own use.

So I turned my gaze to the other side of the aisle and my eyes landed an a pseudo tabloid I suppose. A magazine on newsprint called Woman’s somethingerother…I’m not exactly sure. This was a magazine targeted directly to me. The thin, smiling woman on the cover was offered up as proof that you could start shedding belly fat TODAY! Now that is something that was meant for the under 40 housewife in me with an enlarged belly that appeared when I got pregnant the first time, and has never since retreated. This magazine had no age limits or guilty pearls of wisdom intended for others.

I turned quickly to the page that promised to help me shrink my grand belly. “Foods that help you burn belly fat” it promised. I was quickly captivated and read the break out sections, and bullet points they highlighted for those of us with little time or attention span. And quickly I was terribly disappointed. It was as if any idiot could write a weight loss article. The promises of new revelations faded quickly in the face of information I already knew!

Limit you calories to 1400 daily: What? 1,400 Calories?! Anything more than 1,200 daily for me and I grow more rapidly than one of those magic dinosaurs in a capsule that expands to 15 times its original size in 24 hours.

Eat meals of no more than 500 calories: It went on to say that while a woman over 30 couldn’t burn a 1,000 calorie meal as well as her younger counterpart, there was little difference in how both women burned a 500 calorie meal. Let me just point out to my reader (who is no doubt of higher intelligence than the writer of this article) that it would be rather STUPID to eat a 1,000 calorie meal when you’re limited to 1,400 a day. Eating 71% of your daily caloric allotment in one sitting is rather like spending 75% of your monthly budge on a single item of clothing.

Eat 6 times a day: Okay, small, frequent meals is a popular diet strategy, proposed by many of the most popular diets including weight watchers. But if we take the first 3 items together, it would be impossible to do this diet. I’m supposed to eat 500 calorie meals, but 6 times daily while not exceeding 1400 calories…you do the math!

Avoid refined carbohydrates: So I see the author has read the South Beach diet, and probably Dr. Atkin’s book as well. Thank you very much for adding nothing new to the diet dialogue!

Avoid highly processed foods: You mean I can’t live on wonder bread, hotdogs and velveeta?! What a shocker!

Eat lean protein: Here we go again with the south beach/ atkins wisdom. I’m glad to know the author of this “article” can at least read and comprehend a book, even if he has nothing original to add.

Do aerobic exercise: the point here is to choose whole body workouts instead of targeted abdominal work. I’ve done enough sit-ups and abdominal isometrics in my life to tell you they don’t work.

So I put the magazine down, thoroughly disappointed. Yes, I was the intended target reader, the frazzled mother with more belly to lose than will power. However, I was supposed to have those children in the cart wrestling over control of a pocket pack of tissues snatched off the shelf next to them. I wasn’t supposed to have time to pre-read the article and find out that it had NOTHING NEW to offer, or that there were no magic fat burning foods.

Hanging my head in disappointment, I placed the contents of my shopping cart onto the conveyer belt. Yes, there were 2 half gallons of ice cream (I know, that’s a whole gallon, but somehow it feels better to say half gallon). And here is where the truth comes in. I know all of this stuff already. I’ve read and tried Atkins, South Beach and Weight Watchers. I’ve lost weight in the past, I’ve walked miles and miles in the process. I know how to do this.

My problem at this point in my life is that I don’t want to give anything up. I want to be able to eat my ice cream and still watch the pounds drop off. I decide to try one diet, and then another in rapid succession. And apparently it doesn’t work to eat an Atkins meal for lunch and a weight watchers dinner. I don’t want to stick to any one plan and miss out on the flavors I love. Frankly, at this point, I like food more than my size 4 dresses that hang ever hopefully in the back of my closet.

So I sigh. At least I’m only buying double churn ice cream that claims to have ½ the fat and 1/3 fewer calories. Surely that will make a difference in my waist line.