What to do with all these shoes?

So this morning I wanted to wear my brown skirt. I absolutely love this skirt but haven't worn it in well over a month because none of my "barefeet" shoes really go. So I thought, I'll wear my sketchers. They are "flat" at least so it shouldn't be bad, right?

It's really the oddest sensation. They have the slightest of heels (about 2 cm) and from the moment I first put them on, I felt as though I were teetering dangerously, unsure of how to take the next step. Now I am getting shooting twinges of pains in the tops of my feet and up my calves every time I walk. No wonder babies are always removing their shoes at every opportunity!

So no more torture shoes for me, no matter how much I want to wear the corresponding outfit. A brief look online has been more frustrating than helpful as every time I come across a pair that looks like it might be OK, I read the description full of talk about "support" that scares me from trying them.

And WHAT am I going to do with this closet full of shoes?

Step 1: Step away from the couch

I took Roxy out this afternoon for our first "real" run of 2 miles (well, really only about 1-1/2 miles running and the rest walking)! My goal is to run with her in the 5k Dog Run in March, a race for dogs & owners at Fort DeSoto.  That gives me 3 months which seems like a reasonable time frame to acclimate fully to running barefoot. Hey, maybe I'll even be ready to run the 10k by then! At least that time of year should hopefully still be somewhat cool.

As for the run today, it went amazingly well. Of course, Roxy never breaks into much more than a trot running alongside me but it does keep her focused (e.g., not chasing cats) and she does seem to be calmer than usual now.  It wasn't as difficult as I'd expected for me either. The hardest part is getting over feeling self-conscious that (1) I have no shoes on and (2) I am running in a way that feels so different.  Now I feel pleasantly sore when I get up from sitting and the bottoms of my feet feel slightly tender after a couple of pine cone patches but that's it.  Of course, I might be singing another tune tomorrow morning but I think I was ready for something slightly longer. And who knows how far I've been running in the mornings with the dogs at the park already? Maybe that 10k isn't so far-fetched after all.

Whoooooo hoooooo. Me? A runner?

Even Sesame Street is into barefoot!

Even Sesame Street is on board! Just saw this via the Running Barefoot blog.

I've been more or less "traditional shoe"-free for almost 3 weeks now and I must say, it feels fantastic. Already it feels odd and unnatural to wear "regular" shoes. Even the smallest heel feels as though I am standing on a incline. If only I could go barefoot or wear my VFFs (the foot gloves) everywhere! I did cave and get a pair from the Vivo Barefoot line which look more like regular shoes and only has a 3mm sole. (Apparently, they use Kevlar to make the thin soles puncture proof.  So if I am ever threatened with an assassin, I can just whip off the shoes to use as shields. It's always handy to have dual-purpose clothing.) Luckily, I've been able to wear the VFFs to work most days which for walking is almost as good. There are advantages to working in a trailer!

The Vivo Barefoot "Odette"

The running part I'm taking much more slowly.  After doing a lot more reading on the subject, I am trying to focus on "training" without any shoes at all since the accepted wisdom seems to be even the minimal soles of the alternative footwear doesn't give your feet enough feedback to learn the proper form. I've taken the dogs out for their walks sans footwear a few times. Oddly enough glass and rough pavement are a breeze; my nemesis are ones I remember of old - the sandburs! Land on one of them at just the right angle and OW! Those suckers go in deep!

The park in my neighborhood though seems to be bur-free and so that is my preferred barefoot playground. The dogs and I run and run all over  and it is so much fun, I can do 20 minutes of running without even noticing. It's funny how running as an exercise (e.g., in my mind, punishment for overeating, etc) can be so painful and drudgery while running as part of a soccer game is just fun.

I am also listening to Born to Run  and hearing stories about the Tarahumara and their sheer enjoyment of running and life is inspiring. After years of believing that only certain people had the bodies to run, it is freeing and encouraging to discover that humans are made to be runners. We can outrun any other species over the long haul because we perspire, allowing us to cool off while we run. Women also seem to have an advantage when it comes to long distances, possibly because of our fat stores! (Ironically, women were not allowed to even compete in the Olympics for the marathon event until 1988 because the general consensus was that women were not physically capable of running long distances. It makes sense though when I think of some of the marathon-like labor stories I've heard. Talk about long distance!) If only the Greeks had known, they could have just sent a woman to warn the people of Athens...

Just thinking about things like this while running, experiencing all the sensations - breeze on my face, the textures of the ground - makes me feel so connected to my body and I can almost understand what ultrarunner Ann Trason means when she describes running as "romantic". Although I'm not heading out for any ultraruns...or even marathons anytime soon, exploring running as fun has opened up a whole new world for me.

Huh

Article in yesterday's NY Times from Mindy  (CEO at HSN). 

Boy, I sure wish I worked for this lady...

Networth

No time to write; just came across this and thought it was funny (and sadly, all too true!)

Going Bare

I love being barefoot. Maybe it's one of those things about growing up in Florida where cold weather was not an issue but, for me, the first indication that I am relaxed, whether at a friend's home or after coming home from a long day of work, is that the shoes are off. Barefoot is always my preferred state.   If I'm driving somewhere, I typically don't even put on shoes until I've arrived at my destination. (This had led to a time or two when I forgot to bring shoes along and I now carry an "emergency" pair in my car.) To me it feels safer, more controlled when I am barefoot (and yes, it is legal to drive barefoot, at least in most states.)

So I was intrigued to come across this article in the New York Times which started me researching the "new" trend for running barefoot. Christopher McDougall published a book called Born to Run a few years ago about a tribe in Mexico who run huge distances wearing basically nothing but a thin strip of rubber on their feet...and suffer few to no injuries in the process.  Unlike the case with western runners, where the incidence of injuries actually correlates to the price of the running shoe. (No joke! This article goes into it in more detail.) Yet another thing where we've bought into the idea that more expensive = better.

It is, in a way, a relief. I've started into running on a very small scale but had been intimidated by runners in the office who talked about the need to go to a specialized running store and having your feet tested and measured for shoes ($200+) before you "get serious" about running.  And, of course, even once you find those perfect shoes, then you have to replace them every 3 months or so! (Well, every 300-500 miles - ha! I don't think that was such a danger for me.) But that whole industry didn't even start until the 1970s! How did people ever run before then?

Barefoot running makes sense when you think about it. By creating all that support for our feet with the fancy running shoes, we actually do our feet a disservice. Having to negotiate terrain, adjust for impact, and all the things our feet do when barefoot makes them stronger and better able to do all those things. And stronger means less likely to suffer injury. (I should note that everything I read suggests that you go very slowly when adjusting to running barefoot, starting off with walking and gradually moving to short runs to let your body adapt.)

I just can't believe I missed all this before, particularly with all the research I've done the past few years with raw foods & back-to-nature projects! So now I am dying to try out these funny shoes which are supposed to pretty much let you run barefoot while protecting your soles from glass and the like:

(Mom, do you remember the socks with toes I had when I was a kid? Reminds me of those.)

I'll keep you posted but in the meantime, I am excited over the newfound license to go barefoot!


Other articles on the subject:

• You Walk Wrong
  
• Is Running Barefoot the Answer to Runners’ Foot, Ankle and Knee Problems?
• The Barefoot Movement
• NY Times: Wriggling Their Toes at the Shoe Giants
• Cure all Running Injuries (and Pain) with One Simple Fix….Barefoot Running

the golden mean - TMMO check-in

Well, aside from the major expenses associated with buying a new laptop, I actually spent very little money this month. I spent the majority of my "fun money" the first weekend and decided that I was still going to stick to the budget and cut out any extra expenses the rest of the month to make up for it. As a result, I did pretty much NOTHING social the rest of this month (Admittedly, it wasn't all drudgery since I did enjoy playing with my new toy.) and the lack has been very hard for me!

I don't know how these diehards on the TMMO do it. I've seen very little of Jenn because our primary means of communication was lunch once or twice a week. At first she kept offering to pay which made me feel even worse so I started making up excuses as to why I couldn't go (meetings, etc). Nice, huh? Lying to my friends! Plus eating at my desk every day, while doing wonders for my job performance this month, has been depressing. If only I were a true introvert, maybe I wouldn't even notice these things. Of course, if I were a true introvert, I probably wouldn't have gotten into this mess to begin with!

Even once I hit paycheck #2 for the month, I still stuck with it because once I'm committed to a venture, I can't seem to rein in my spending to less than $40 a pop. I guess it's a pride thing but once I'm there, I feel like a killjoy if I say I can't do something or insist on separate checks. But all this obsessing about money has not been good for the relationships I have;  I feel like my soul is becoming small and stingy

Maybe that's the way to become a millionaire but if that is the cost, I don't think I want it.

Don't get me wrong; I really, really want to get rid of this huge debt hanging over me. I hate it and the sooner it is out of my life, the happier I will be. But in the meantime, I don't think it's a good idea to cut myself off from life to this extent just to get out of debt a month or two faster.

So my new goal is to strike a happy medium between this self-imposed asceticism and the free-fall spending of my past.  A big part of that for me is to cut it into a more sizeable chunk. When I think about the total amount, it's just so overwhelming - it feels as though I'll be condemned to drudgery for years.

So instead I'm just going to focus on paying off the "little stuff" (car, etc) and excluding the student loan, at least for the moment.  The student loan and the house are important but they will get paid off eventually and maybe once I get past the rest, they won't seem so overwhelming. The important thing is to stick to the biggest principle I've learned this last year: spending less than I make each month (still no credit cards!) and to just keep at it. In the meantime, a little more "mad money" and giving myself permission to spend for the right things - like time with friends - is in order,.

So here's the check-in for this month. Despite the lack of social interaction, lunches, etc the total paid off, minus interest payments, etc,  is a paltry $238.54 for a grand total of  $11,089.10 to date.  Which doesn't even budge my percentage on the tracker I'd been using! So just to make me feel better, here it is, new & improved, without the student loan.  There now, that looks much more do-able. :)

For all you northerners living in Florida....

From xkcd.com

New Laptop!

I'm not sure whether to report this as bad news or good. It is exciting since it's been 6+ years since I've had a new computer (and I am not someone who is usually satisfied with older technology). But on the other hand, it is another serious set back to the old debt payoff. :|

However, it's done now so I am enjoying it. I got an HP Pavilion DV7 which I had actually researched a while ago when I was first thinking about getting a multimedia laptop. That aspect of it is very nice because watching things from online on my tv is as easy as plugging in the HDMI cable. It does all the rest automatically (which is pretty cool).  So now I am really not missing having cable at all.

But the biggest thing I love about the laptop is NO MORE WIRES! Here's a picture of my new & improved "desk":

 

I moved the wireless router & cable modem over to the bookshelf and was able to get rid of SO MUCH STUFF that was taking up space. I thought about keeping the monitor to plug into when I'm in the office but the one on the laptop is actually bigger (and nicer).

(P.S. - Extra points if you can name the dog shown in this picture.)

End of Sept TMMO Check-in

Ugh. It feels like this is just SO SLOW. Of course, didn't help that I had a trip up to Boston this month that cut in to my "snowball"...plus living without a credit card means that I have to come up with cash for expenses that come up like 80k car maintenance (~$500!), termite warranty, heartworm prevention for the dogs, etc.

On the plus side, when I look back to when I started, I've paid off over $11k so far, I've taken the plunge into selling things (still haven't tackled craigslist yet but I did get some $$ for some books, DVDs and games)...and I've got a much more realistic budget going. I think that has been the hardest part for me so far. I didn't realize how reliant I was on using credit to hold me over until the next paycheck, etc. (The sales I have passed up this month alone!)  Even though I usually paid off the balance each month, it feels like I am in more control over my spending now. And I'm actually enjoying the challenge of stretching every dollar.

It's going to be slow-going here for the next few months as I'm trying to build up a little more cushion plus have Christmas with all those hidden costs. I've added categories to my budget for every big expense I can think of that could come up - from vet visits to car maintenance to my sweetwater membership so hopefully once January comes, these big expenses will stop sideswiping me and I can really get going.

i won a camera

we had a baby shower for ronessa today (who is having twins!) and I won the contest that had us identify the pictures of double/twin things (e.g., Minnesota Twins logo, Double Indemnity,...) and the prize was a cute little point & shoot camera (which I looked up on Amazon and is selling for $299!) just in time for my trip to Boston next weekend!!

Anyway, here are some pics from the office today (we are not getting much work done this afternoon...despite how people are pretending in the pictures):

The whole crew

Shari, here to help you

Kenneth

Keven & Joe don't like having their pictures taken

Revenge...

Audrey turns a blind eye

Margie!

Margie has some big shoes to fill

(she is actually wearing her shoes inside of these ones belonging to Joe)

I am so smart

So I took a look at Quicken last night and could not for the life of me figure out how that loan would work unless Chase not only waived closing costs but PAID ME an additional $7k. So it was not a huge surprise when I got a message from the processor saying that he'd been wrong; that he couldn't figure out a way to do it for less than $7,000 in closing costs. At least with that, I didn't even have to ponder what to do.

As soon as this market comes back....I am so anxious to be done with these crazy mega banks!

High Finance

So the refinance is back on. I think. I'm hesitant to say anything for sure at this point since they have been so...inconsistent but I just got a phone call from my processor saying that he'd had to run it through underwriting and had a counteroffer for me - all the closing costs can be rolled into the loan + the total loan amount will be $1,500 less than before (which also makes my monthly payment about $50 lower). According to what he told me today, I will only have to bring about $150 "to the table". Huh?

I'm not sure whether they miscalculated before or if they just decided it makes more sense to lower the costs in order to keep me with them. But since it costs me nothing to keep going at this point (other than the inconvenience of getting another appraisal done), I told him to keep going. So stay tuned, I guess.

Best Profile Pic

OK, long overdue in updating profile pic. Finally took a slew of pictures after haircut today (hurrah!).

What's your vote for which to use on facebook, etc?

OR



OR

I, of course, have issues with all of them but trust me, these are the best ones of the bunch...

or maybe i should just get kristi to take some tonight that AREN'T so close up!!

Happy Anniversary!

Since my (probably by this time) solitary reader is hinting that I have been remiss in posting to this of late and since that reader is also celebrating the 43rd anniversary of her marriage to my father, I decided I would create ANOTHER post in the span of less than 24 hrs(!) to assuage her and also commemorate the event.

So....

Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad!

Makeover Progress

Here's my current status on the TMMO (Total Money Makeover). The teeny percentage that still runs into the zero is a bit discouraging but I've called off the re-fi so I'm looking forward to starting in really hardcore on this now. I'm thinking it will be good to go by percentage markers since the student loan makes up 70% of the total and all the "easy wins" are going to be loaded up here in the next few months (I hope!) Boy, do I wish I could go back in time and not get those things to begin with. I swear they never seem to decrease!

I'd decided to reward myself at each payoff so i might need to add in rewards at the 50% and 75% markers too, just to keep myself going...

Easter Break

Made a quick trip over to West Palm for Easter weekend. Here are some "highlights":

• Saturday morning, Roxy ate about 6 lbs of chicken all at once and then walked around looking sick, making me think she had bloat.
• Dad & I took the dogs for a long walk around the neighborhood.
  
• Went down to where Tina & family (mom: Dora, sister: Norma, daughters: Kathryn & Aryn) were staying in Boca with Norma's son, Eric & his new wife Martine. The plan was to all go out boating. Major drama the evening before ended up with both Eric & Martine storming out (they were fighting with each other), leaving the rest stuck without transportation, house keys or even computer access! Change of plans!
  
• Tina, Kathryn and I ended up going down to Las Olas in Ft. Lauderdale. Went to lunch, and did one of those boat cruises around "millionaire row" since the other boating was out. (By the end, I mostly just felt sorry for the millionaires. All these beautiful properties with luxury pools, etc right on the water - and tourists floating by with loudspeakers detailing how much they'd paid for the house and all the scandals attached to their family 3x a day.)
• Colored lots of Easter eggs with mom, dad & Gail Saturday evening to take to church for the brunch they were having.
  
• Forgot to take the Easter eggs to church; Roxy & Romeo had their very own Easter Egg hunt while we were gone.
• Had delicious Easter lunch, courtesy of Boston Market catering. Original idea was to avoid making a big meal. Somehow coordinating all the elements of heating the ham (90 minutes!) and transferring the sides to their appropriate dishes and then coordinating the timing...it was not as easy as advertised. Still it was very tasty.
• Happened to mention to Mom that I was looking at buying a bike and discovered that Chris rehabs bikes! Went with Dad to look at them & ended up getting a beautiful 1960s one, complete with bell & speedometer! He is still fixing it up so Mom & Dad are bringing it over in a few weeks. Cannot wait!
  

.

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." - Michael Pollan

Well, my 30-day raw experiment is officially over and I thought I'd write a bit what I learned.

• Aside from day 4, eating only raw food makes me feel amazingly good.
  
• I felt full with about 500 fewer calories a day than I would normally eat.
• I am still not sure whether the above is due to the fact that the food is all raw (and the whole enzyme theory of digestion, etc) or just that eating only raw food forces one to eat whole foods. (Unlike vegetarian diets, there is not much - any? - raw junk food.)
  
• There are people out there on the raw diet who take it to scary & extreme measures. Thankfully, these are not the only raw foodies out there.
• I did not miss dairy products as I thought I would.
• I learned that my body adjusted quite quickly...and was quite clear that it did not take kindly to suddenly going back to heavy or fried foods.
• On the occasions when I would cheat, I found that the food I thought I was craving - things like pasta - did not taste as good as I thought they would.
• I *really* missed sweetened iced tea from Tijuana Flats. Drinking water there was *not* the same.
• It is impossible to stick to just eat raw without LOTS of planning & preparation. If I forgot to chop up veggies or stop at the grocery store one day, it would throw things completely off since there's nothing in the vending machine or even at the cafeteria at work to eat. (Seriously! Pre-made salads - all with cooked chicken - and orange juice were my only options!)
  
• It is impossible to eat a raw diet on a business trip to Birmingham, AL. (The restaurants we were taken to there did not seem to be familiar with the concept of *raw* vegetables. Fried, sauteed - yes. One person actually told me that eating raw vegetables was dangerous due to all the bacteria.)
  
• It is hard to socialize with friends, family & co-workers and eat only raw food. I felt very difficult and found myself spending whole meals trying to explain the concept. The other alternative was to just eat "normally" (or as the raw foodists call it the Standard American Diet - aka "SAD") and suffer the inevitable consequences. (see #6)
• I really like the green smoothies that the raw foodists all rave about but I thought sounded a bit disgusting when I first heard of them. I avoided them for the first week and finally gave in and tried one. Even things I thought would taste nasty in a fruit smoothie (greens, etc) only neutralize the sweetness a bit. Smoothies of just greens are amazingly refreshing (and a good antidote to heavy food lapses).
• A lot of people told me that eating raw could not be healthy since there are limited sources of protein (pretty much raw nuts, sprouted beans and possibly sashimi). However, I found that I didn't seem to have problems I would normally associate with insufficient protein. My energy level seemed to stay constant (I expected to have more ups & downs due to all the sugars in the fruits) and when I gave blood about 2 wks in, my iron was higher than it normally is.
  
• My cholesterol level was about 50 pts lower than my average.
• I did *not* drastically drop pounds but noticed that my face was thinner and clothes fit better.
  
• I like oatmeal better raw. I soak it overnight in the fridge and eat it cold with lots of sliced berries or honey. Really quite good.
• I have become much more conscious of just how processed everything is! I knew this before - intellectually - but spending so much time scouring menus for *something* I could eat made me realize just how pervasive un-food is!
• I learned to differentiate a bit between what my body is craving and what my mind is craving (usually connected to associations rather than actual needs).
• I discovered that physically it's not difficult at all and makes me feel really good to eat 100% raw.
• It costs too much for me to do full-time in terms of stress (finding time to do all the preparation involved) and guilt, particularly when hanging out with friends (either for being "that person" or for not sticking to my diet).
  

I would like to try to go completely raw again sometime and stick to it 100% for a full 30 days just to see if you really reach the nirvana of weight loss, clear thinking and muscle definition claimed by the hard-core raw foodists but for now, I plan to return to being "flexitarian" and simply try to get 70-80% of my calories from raw food.

U2 in Boston!

Just found out that we got tix to see U2 in Boston in September! Pauline & I are going up to stay with Amy in Southie, no less. All Irish weekend, can't wait!

More good news - day 3 with Romeo out during the day with no problems! Good week so far.

I am feeling overwhelmed right about now. Came home to find that Romeo had done his best to escape from the bathroom as well. Bathroom floor & walls peppered with black dog hair and paint chips and pools of water everywhere. Door and door jamb all scratched up. It looks as though he becomes frenzied and was throwing himself around. What am I going to do with this dog?

To add to all of this, I took them to the new dog park thinking to at least give them some real play time before going out to dinner with Lantie. Fine for a while but then this annoying little dog started barking like mad at Roxy and would not stop. She finally got fed up and got into a little tiff with him. So I pulled her off, no damage done and took her outside the park to "cool off" for a bit. I returned to the big dog park just as two girls walked up with their dog. They were following us in but of course the annoying barking dog was right on top of us and squeezed his way out in between us. The owner starts yelling at me because his stupid dog has escaped. (Not far, he managed to catch the dog about 2' outside the gate.) It is a stupid set up for a dog park. Every other one I've ever been to has a staging area of sorts where you put on/take off leashes and generally just prevents that same scenario from happening but still, he was very rude - which I guess I should've expected after the rude behavior from his dog!

I promptly left the park and on the way home started crying. I know it's most likely just a cumulative reaction to the sleepless week, time stresses, worrying about Romeo, etc but still, it made me even more angry with myself that I let that stupid jerk's behavior get to me like that.

So now I have no idea what to do tonight with Romeo. Should I call & cancel? I would feel like a torturer leaving him in the bathroom again (not to mention the further damage to the door). I guess it'll have to be the crate since at least he only seems to scratch his nose there. Hopefully I won't be gone long enough to cause a problem tonight.

"Weekends are like rainbows. They look good from a distance but disappear once you get close to them." - John Shirley

Only a few hours (or 2 meetings, depending on how you look at it) to go until the weekend begins! Tonight I am meeting up with Lantie (my best friend from school days) who is over in St. Pete for a medical conference. I'm a little stressed contemplating the logistics (ok, if i leave work at 5:30, get home around 6:30, walk dogs, then drive back over to St Pete - what time do I say we should meet up for dinner? Is 7:30 wishful thinking? 8:00 is more realistic but seems too late to suggest. Should I try to leave work early to make it? and so on) but I am really looking forward to seeing her. It's been a long time since we've had a chance to do more than make small talk and I am looking forward to real soul-to-soul conversations.

The rest of the weekend isn't looking quite so exciting. Major cleaning is on the agenda since it looks like I will have company visiting for the next 3 weekends after that (!). The northerners must be getting to that "fed up with winter" time of year since they are all calling with Florida plans!

Dog Days

It has been one of those weeks. Not sleeping well (if at all) the last couple nights - maybe worrying about what to do with Romeo who seems to have developed full-on separation anxiety somewhere along the way. After paying $27 to the Hillsborough County Library for a book I didn't really enjoy anyway and losing several items of clothing along the way (random socks, a sandal), I started keeping him confined to the bedroom, making sure to do a sweep to remove anything that seemed to be even remotely chewable. This seemed to work for a few weeks until the day I came home to find my bedskirt & mattress cover in shreds (luckily the mattress itself was spared). So on the advice of numerous books & Kathy (the trainer I take them too), I broke down and purchased a crate.

They technically have a crate already and I *know* that dogs do not feel the same about crates as I do/would...but it's one thing, in my mind, to have a safe space available for them to hide and another altogether to confine a dog for multiple hours - especially given the typical length of my work days. But Kathy assured me that this is temporary and once he believes that this is his home (she says it usually takes a year before they fully regain their confidence), I should be able to dispense with the crate altogether. So I purchased an extra-large one wire one, supposedly indestructible, even for GSDs, and began crating him. For a while, all went well. He likes the crate and even goes in there at other times to chill out or gnaw on bones.

Then last week, there were several harbingers: first i noticed the water bottle dislodged from the holder two days and then came home last Thursday to find the bed in the crate all torn up. (I have noticed that he is worse on Mondays & Thursdays so am wondering if his fears are connected to the garbage truck?)

Then this week, Romeo discovered a way to break out of the indestructible crate entirely. I am assuming that either the GSDs cited in the reviews were older, calmer dogs or that they had only tried to chew through the crate. At first I couldn't even figure out how he was getting out because to all appearances, the doors are all closed and the crate appears intact. Then I realized that he is maneuvering it so that the elaborate hooks, etc are detached until he gets a corner worked loose that he can squeeze through. Genius.

So far this has been the extent of his endeavors, and aside from a very scratched up nose on his part, there haven't been any casualties but I fear the day that he adds back the random destruction of household objects to his routine.

Today I tried reinforcing the crate joins with picture frame wire. We'll see how Houdini does with that one!