And that, my friends, is exactly why I will continue to exercise every day

Internets, my heart, it is all a flutter.

Quite literally.

Fluttering and palpitating.

I have been noticing some palpitations and flutters for about a week now, and since we are of the highly insured variety, I popped myself into the cardiologist's office this week.

I liked going. I was the youngest in the waiting room by like 30 years at least. Made me feel pretty and attractive, sitting there next to the little old people and their spotted hands. As they called my name, I felt proud standing up without a walker. Almost turned around and gave the old peeps a wave -- and would have, too -- had I not tripped over my own feet like an idiot.

Stupid youth and hubris.

So my palpitations and flutters are probably nothing, but the cardiologist decided to send my highly insured self for an echocardiogram. Just to be safe. (Oma, are you dying reading this? Sorry.)

Getting an echo meant another day of sitting in yet another waiting room full of the lovely old people. And their walkers. And their canes. With me and my bad self. Strutting my youth and vitality. Nimbly bending and reaching without so much as a crack or a creak. Reminding them of the former glory they once had. My beauty, frozen in time...

Oh, all right. I'll stop now.

So finally my name is called by a technician who just so happens to look and sound exactly like Saddam Hussein. He takes me down a series of hallways and we end up at the doorway of a very dark room. Which was outfitted with a bed.

Saddam smiles, tells me to take my shirt off, put on a paper gown, and lie down on the bed in the dark room.

I mean, it usually takes at least dinner before I'll go to first base with a dead foreign dictator. Geez.

So I take my shirt off, put on the hideously loud paper gown, and lie in the dark room on the bed. After several noisy, paper-crunching minutes, Saddam comes back. He starts looking at my heart with the ultrasound/echo thingie (yes, that is the technical term) and makes a "Hmmpph" sound.

When one is lying there topless in a dark room with a Saddam Hussein lookalike, "Hmmpph" is not exactly the word you want to hear. He then asks me what I do for a living. I reply, a little too boldly, that I am a self-employed photographer. (Code for stay-at-home mom who likes to dabble in photography on the side). Saddam whistles through his moustache and says,

"Wow. By de looks of your heart, I would say you were a pro-fessional ath-a-lete. You have a veddy good heart. Do you, uh, work out?"

But see, he says this with a mixture of surprise and disdain as he is appraising my very, shall we say, un-athletic-like physique.

I reply that, yes, I work out every day.

Saddam turns back to the monitor with another of his Hmmphs. Which was code for, "Wow. Chubby over here is healthier than she looks. Go figure."

Well, at least I now know one thing: My heart can totally beat up his heart.