Tragedy Strikes West River Community Center

I'd like to apologize now for the gross exaggeration of the title of this post.  It's not so much a "tragedy" per se, as it is a gross display of injustice.  Again, that's a bit of hyperbole.  Let me explain:  West River Community Center is the gym here in town.  It's the one thing I really love about Dickinson.  As much as I hate to admit it, I've already fallen into a pretty solid routine in my workouts, and if something throws me off my routine, or GOD FORBID I miss one of my classes....Let's just say it's not pretty and I'm like a junkie who needs a fix.  Two of the classes I take are Pilates and Beginner Pilates.  I really like the class because it's a great workout, but I have some issues with the instructor.  Correction:  I despise the instructor.  She's creeping up my list to be Enemy #2.  One day, I was debating whether or not to go to Pilates (because of my extreme dislike of the instructor), I reluctantly went and was very pleasantly surprised when we had a sub. She.Was.Awesome.  I found out she teaches the Power Pilates class which I have become completely obsessed with.  If my gateway drug was Beginner Pilates, Power Pilates has become my crystal meth.  It's serious.  In fact, I have become so enamored with this Power Pilates class that I decided I would stop going to the classes taught by my enemy.  Imagine my disgust when I walked into Power Pilates today and saw that my enemy was teaching.  I think I tasted bile.  She started class by saying that Shannon, our normal instructor, had gotten a new job and they were going to change up the classes, but for now, my nemesis is going to teach it. The instructor, I like to call her Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, because that's what she looks like:

She's a large, busty gal who shows up to class wearing clogs.  I've never seen her show up with a parrot on her shoulder, but it wouldn't surprise me.  She'd probably train it to squawk at the class about how they're doing everything wrong.  So here's why she irks me so; she's awful at her job.  You should not be able to teach a class called "Beginner Pilates" and make no effort to accommodate the people in the class who are actually beginners.  She does a terrible job of explaining what the moves are and the proper technique.  Instead she just yells out the completely nondescript name of the move and then looks at you and screams "WHY ISN'T YOUR HEAD UP?  WHY AREN'T YOU PULSING YOUR ARMS?"  Because, you jagweed, you never told me to.  Also, on each move, she has us make this obnoxious noise every time we exhale that that sounds like you're saying "Shhhhhhhhhhhh" and you have a terrible lisp.  She's able to do this extremely loudly, but she never explains why she does it, so halfway during class, she'll just scream "WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE BREATHING?! IS EVERYONE ELSE DEAD?!?!"  No lady, we all just thought you had a terrible speech impediment.  She also enjoys making the class do an exercise far beyond what anyone is capable of except for her.  For example, we normally do a series of different leg lifts.  Today we did 5 minutes of leg lifts without resting--up and down, front to back, circles, the whole thing.  Everyone's legs were burning and we all gave up at like the four minute mark.  Meanwhile, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is just pluggin away, watching us, perfectly aware that everyone is too sore to keep going and she's like "you feel it burning yet?".  Nope.  We just all decided we'd rather watch you.  IT'S A BEGINNER'S CLASS, LADY.  ACT ACCORDINGLY.  And today, she couldn't figure out the stereo and we'd be in the middle of a move and she'd just hop up and mess with the stereo for like 3 minutes, then turn around and be like "why did you guys stop!?"  I can't even tell you how many times I gave her the stink eye today.  She just does a terrible job of communicating exactly what we should be doing and for how much longer we will do it.  So now I'm just super bummed that this lady is going to take over the one pilates class I loved.  She's got a monopoly on pilates! 

The good news is that Jacob's home!! The boys were super excited, which means that they're completely passed out now.  And tomorrow (Tuesday) is Jacob's birthday!  Not sure what we're gonna do yet, but hopefully we'll do something fun (that doesn't involve Applebee's).  Maybe I'll casually suggest Pizza Ranch.