Trying so very, very hard to maintain a level of calm and predictability around this place, even as little complications creep in. Sam has a trip to one of the hippie-dippy middle schools tomorrow morning (and the other one next week), to shadow an older kid around the place and get a feel for things, in the ever-tense situation of “where the heck will I be next year?” Gabe is going through another bout of separation anxiety, with tears and pleas for hearts drawn on his hand before he leaves for school every morning. Swimming lessons are going, well, swimmingly for Sam, not so much for Gabe, though I may go broke on Pokemon cards, since they seem to motivate cooperation in Gabe more than anything else I’ve tried.

Sam’s officially signed up for a junior triathlon this summer. I took him with me to an expo this weekend, where he tried on a pair of little tri shorts and was immediately struck with a rip-roaring case of Quaker-level appalled modesty. Too short! Too tight! Not in public! We ran into a church friend a few minutes later, a man who does tris, and he tried to encourage Sam to “just do your thing, and nobody’s going to care what you’re wearing!” A friend of the man was there, and he offered to sell us a pair of knee-length jammers he’d bought for his grandson that hadn’t been worn; Sam seemed almost okay with that, so I agreed.

Carl, our friend, handed them off to us last night, and Sam tried them on in his room. For a moment, there was a strong sense of

So, I hear there’s a football game this weekend. Since there are no Mountaineers or Packers involved, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t care less. You?

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So we were in the car later, and Gabe started chattering about it. “And I think you need to have a body to have a real funeral, right, Mom?”

“Well, not necessarily. What if somebody drowned, and they couldn’t find the body? Their family could still have a funeral to say goodbye.”

“Okay, but Sam and [neighborhood friend] said ‘rest in peace.’ I don’t think that bird could rest in peace if it’s gone.”

I muttered, apparently not quietly enough, “It’s resting in pieces…”

Sam: “MOM! That’s awful! It was just a poor defenseless bird!”

Gabe, without a pause, replied, “You don’t know it was defenseless. Maybe it just lost!”

I swam today! Been waiting on my shoulder to heal properly enough to allow me to swim for a long time, and now I can do a breaststroke without more than occasional small twinges when I lose form! Still can’t do a crawl without pain, but I’m just happy to be back in the water. It brightened my whole morning.

Eric’s medical prep peaks tonight. I don’t intend to get into details, except to say that we both snorted when we read the section of the instructions that referred to me as Eric’s “responsible adult.” So, anyway, keep him in your (vague) thoughts for tonight and tomorrow. Poor guy.

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Of course, this week, I’m taking things really easy, running-wise. I think I’m putting the kibosh on the Newton running shoes, once and for all, or at least for the foreseeable future. Every blasted time I put them on, my peroneal tendon – which developed tendonitis years ago, and that stuff is chronic – starts complaining, and it takes a solid period of babying it to get it to shut up again. I swear, I only went on a few very short runs this time wearing them, two weeks ago, and I’m still with the icing and resting. So this week I’m going to stick to other cardio for the most part and just let it be completely. I’m not a “Newton runner,” I guess.

Anyway, this week is already going to be goofy. The kids are off school today, which meant I had to go to the Y early to be home in time for Eric to head to work. Then on Wednesday, Eric’s got some medical tests for which I need to be on hand to help chauffeur him; might be able to get a workout in around it, but also possible I’ll want to be at his beck and call, so I’m not counting on anything. Saturday night is his company’s holiday party – a bit late, but nice to have, nevertheless. Lots going on, so juggling will have to happen.

Honestly, though, I have to say that probably the main reason I’ve had success with fitness since I started running (five years ago in June!) is that I decided it wasn’t going to be “optional.” Exercise had to be non-negotiable, like a medication I need to take on a regular basis. It’s not something I allow myself to skip on the basis of “I don’t feel like it” – that way leads to more skipping, and more skipping, until I’d have completely fallen off. I know myself well enough to accept that. I try to plan no later than the night before for the following day’s workout; early morning sessions necessitate having the gear and clothes lying right beside my bed, so all I have to do is step into them and go. It took a long time to become habit, but now it is, and I’m happy about that.

Speaking of habits, housework calls. Trying to make Mondays “Kitchen Days.” Rockstar life!

Sundays are for bathrooms. I think I got more satisfaction from this than from the Packers game...

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Among other things making me feel decrepit and ancient, we had the second middle school orientation. I don’t feel quite as frantic as I did when we were struggling to keep Sam out of his home elementary school; this middle school, although huge and with a reputation toward conform-or-be-bullied, sort of has the flavor of my own middle school: tons of what we used to call “related arts” classes (cooking, shop, technology, etc.), lots of extracurriculars, and a brief lunch period that seems to rely heavily on pizza. (Seriously, the teacher discussing lunch mentioned the pizza no less than five times within two minutes, including the “special pizza” on Fridays.) Part of me wants to believe that with a student population so large, there will have to be other boys like Sam around to, I dunno, share the load of being goofy and frequently strange. I mean, hey, I ran into an old friend there with whom I hadn’t spoken in a couple of years, and she’s nervous about her son going there, since he, too, tends to be the short, skinny kid who doesn’t fit into the group. Maybe Sam won’t be so alone?

Still crossing my fingers for Hippie School #1 or #2 (I visited the second one, and it turns out to be a smaller version of the first charter school in most ways). I get good feelings about Sam fitting in well in those. Heck, everybody I tell who knows Sam agrees. But not going to get my hopes up too high; there are only 75 spots at HS#1 and 50 at HS#2. (Joy, I’d have no problem home-schooling Gabe, but I can’t see it working with Sam. Maybe he’s too much like me; I have enough trouble just getting through a single work session with him. I’ve been having him use Khan Academy to help with some math issues, and for some reason, he takes it as a insult to his pride whenever I so much as glance over his shoulder. Mom is NOT ALLOWED. )

We finally have snow. I’m already over it.

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Told Mom I was going to make this shirt. She could have one, too, I said, since it affects her like it affects me; obviously, if I’m old enough to be sitting in a gymnasium for a freaking middle school orientation, then she, as my mother, must be ancient.

But for real. This kid isn’t old enough for middle school!

Right? And obviously this girl isn’t old enough to have a kid old enough to go to middle school…

…shut up.

(Oh, the memory; she plays cruel, cruel tricks.)

Anyway, it was a very nice middle school, if I have to send my kid off to the dark and horrible place that middle school holds in the recesses of my recollections. This one is a charter school, and it’s all alternative thinking, and no bells, and random dog in the hallway, and calling teachers by their first names. Sam would probably love it and thrive there, once he got past the initial bump of realizing that he would have to be more of his own boss. Then again, it’s a very competitive lottery, so I’m not getting my hopes up, and I’m trying to discourage him from counting his chickens, too. The orientation for his home middle school is tomorrow night, and maybe it won’t be so bad…maybe all those police calls for fighting are, y’know, exaggerated in the newspaper…(somebody hold me!)

So, say Sam doesn’t make it into the hippie-dippy middle school, and my little free spirit becomes a target for bullies at the home school. There are other options, too. Another charter school, from which I’m waiting to hear back. Maybe the Christian school, though it’s private and expensive. And maybe the home school wouldn’t be so bad, after all; some people are reassuring me that it’s not. Demons always seem to rear their heads more vividly in your rear-view mirror than they do through the windshield. He’ll probably be fine wherever he goes…probably.

Man, do I wish I was sending Gabe with him. Not wishing Gabe’s life into fast-forward, of course, but if ever there was a brother willing to step up and defend his brother against all comers, it’s that one, bless him. But they won’t be in school together again after this year – unless, of course, they get into one of the charter schools, which are sixth through twelfth grades. Another reason to keep fingers crossed!

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But the only thing sore this morning are my calves, which is completely unfair. I broke out my Newton running shoes again yesterday for another try at adjusting my form (I got them in June but quickly decided I didn’t have time to deal with a slow adjustment period before gearing up for JFK), and I did exactly what was suggested in Natural Running, right down to only a “slow, ten-minute jog to warm up.” Well, ouch. Darn it.

Side note: I did the workout in my “prison gym,” which is the dismal, run-down basement of the Y where they keep the indoor track. I wanted to jump rope and do the form drills, so it seemed the best place, but it was hilariously awful; I half expected to hear wardens yelling at inmates around me. Also, when’s the last time you jumped rope? I hadn’t since perhaps middle school, so that, too, was hysterical. I think I made it up to 45 jumps once before my wrists and feet got off-track from each other. Perhaps that lack of coordination, plus the balance problems revealed sharply as I was doing the form drills, explain why I fall down so much?

Anyway, going to be a slow run today, and in my regular shoes. Baby steps, y’all. On the plus side, my shoulder feels much better; I think I’m almost getting to the point where I could consider swimming again! Not now, but maybe in another week or two…

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Unexpected, this, to place in my age group after a year of basically running longer-longer-longer and pretending that things like speedwork and track time didn’t exist. Of course, it helps when the race gives medals ten places deep in each age group, which is practically unheard of, but still. After no speed training for more than a year, and minimal running for the past six weeks on a bruised knee and with a bum shoulder, I logically should have been midpack at best. Guess the legs remembered a little of what they used to do.

Not much to talk about with a 5K; it’s over too fast for a lengthy report. The sun shone, it was chilly but not cold, and everybody was…5K-ish. I told a friend who was there that I think I prefer the low-key “non-energy” before an ultra; no point warming up or doing striders and skipping if you’re going to be running all day. The corral was crowded, full of folks who were Super Serious and those who looked like first-timers. Nobody seemed to have any inclination toward lining up according to how fast you expect to run; I saw plenty of folks near the front who were obviously not interested in trying to hold the pace the people near them were going to be doing. (Quickly scootched out from behind the pack of girls I initially took to be fast, but who began making giggly plans to run holding hands and jumping together. Yeah.)

Within thirty seconds of starting to run, I took an elbow to my sore shoulder from the very tall man running beside me. Ow.

But once I got out of the traditional 5K mosh pit, it was pretty much smooth sailing until the end. Honestly, I could have pushed harder, but, well, I’ve spend a long time now learning to push my endurance and not really having to visit the particular Pain Cave involved with running fast. That’s a different sort of willpower, and I’m out of practice.

Finished in 25:38, which is nowhere near my PR, but which is pretty good compared to what I’ve been running lately. It was even good enough, as I said, for tenth place in my age group. What it mostly is, though, is a benchmark. That Pain Cave I mentioned a paragraph ago? I’m going to be going there in 2012. This will be the year I regain my speed (relative though it is), with plenty of shorter races and such to test myself. I hope to round out the year with a very nice half-marathon. It’s not a “vacation year”; it’s a year of changing the focus. Long is good, but you can be lazy while going long. Sometimes, I hope, it pays to rev the motor a bit, even if you’re more of a long-range trucker than a sports car.

So. Here’s to the end of 2011, which had plenty of ups and downs for my running. Lots of injuries, but lots of milestones, too. I gave up my toenails, and I gained insight into gratitude for the miles. I got to learn about pool running when I was hurt, but I also learned to love swimming as a cross-training tool. I ran 5Ks and ultras, and they both taught me things I needed to know.

Tomorrow? I’m going for a run with my running club. Hope you’ll be out there, too.

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Sometimes, I just don’t know, and exploring deeper seems like a bad idea.

I have a race tomorrow morning, which completely just registered in my brain as something that’s happening. Just a 5K, but still. Like, “Holy crap, I have to go pin on a number.” Not looking to PR, with my knee still playing games with me (bone bruises are a pain, literally and figuratively), but it’s still a fun way to end the year.

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On the other hand, we did get to that basketball camp, and Gabe is in love. Love, love, love. He’s decided that he wants to be on a basketball team NOW, and since we grabbed a basketball from the toy store when we were out spending Christmas gift cards, he’s been dribbling it all over the house, demonstrating his Mad Skillz, yo. I mean, he’s still very much a seven-year-old beginner, but as far as he’s concerned, he’s Michael Jordan. (Sam participated and had fun, but he wasn’t as taken by the sport as his brother. He wanted to get back home and wire things. I kid you not, yesterday he and Eric built a freaking theremin with his electricity set.)

But then Gabe’s ear started throbbing, and he burst into a monster fever last night as he wailed, so we took him into our bed and cuddled him throughout the night until we could get him seen by our wonderful doctor this morning. He feels much better now, thankfully, and the doctor gave him her blessing to attend basketball camp tonight if he’s feeling well (he’s not coughing or sneezing, thankfully), so he’s happy. Hopefully, tonight will go better than last night; nighttime is always the hardest for him.

Enjoy your Wednesday!

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Low-key sort of day. Goose is in the oven – yes, it should have been for Christmas, but when I started to prep it yesterday, one of the initial instructions said to “scald and dry it,” which involved a 24-hour rest period afterward – and quite a lot of Eric’s prized “schmaltz” has already been collected from it. The kids spent a good amount of time destroying various things on their video games this morning, and now they’ve switched over to build mode, having unboxed their electrical sets. (I’ve teased them that when they get all that figured out, they can repair the poorly wired light switch in the upstairs hallway.) Amazing; I don’t understand a lick of it, beyond “must go in a complete circle.” Gabe knows more than I do at this point.

I wanted to get to the gym today, but I’m waiting on a call back about a program happening there for kids later this afternoon; if there’s space available for the kids, I’ll just go work out then. Hope there is. These holidays result in a sudden decrease in regularly scheduled and enforced large-motor-skill time that aggression builds up pretty quickly. I’ve taken to sending them out for runs around the block when they start going for each others’ throats. (Gabe, naturally, has embraced this idea; Sam has a horror of it.) Another session might be approaching soon, from what I’m now overhearing. Maybe I can con convince Sam to take another try on his Ripstik; he was frustrated yesterday by being unable to hop right on and ride, so he decided it was “too cold” and came in after a few minutes.

Goose is done. Smells awesome…

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(For the record, Skylanders is in the basement, wrapped and ready to go after he’s in bed Christmas Eve. )

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Eric was in Germany last week, and a few days into the trip, a coworker traveling with him posted to Facebook a picture of part of the meal they were eating. It was bread, and a bowl of…something. Immediately, there was dubious speculation amongst our friends, made all the more incredulous when the men said it was a bowl of goose fat, brought to the table as a spread, like butter. According to them, and to the disbelief of almost everybody reading stateside, it was delicious.

So Eric came home, and he wanted to share the “joy of schmalz” with everybody here, so he asked me to call the local butchers to see if they had any rendered goose fat. Failing that, he suggested some fresh goose or goose pieces we could roast on our own, in order to get the fat. Nobody had any fat, but one butcher was getting in some fresh geese this afternoon; did I want to reserve one? Well, Eric had told me to…

Fast forward. I came to the store, and was handed:

That is what we call a Whole Lot of Goose. It’s about ten pounds of previously honking, vicious, beaked and winged animosity, and it wasn’t cheap, either – not by a long shot.

I suppose I’ll be roasting goose tomorrow. I’ve never even tried goose before (let alone the rendered fat of one!). This’ll be an adventure, but I guess I’ll have to follow it through to the end at this point. Stay tuned…

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The PT actually scolded me a little at the last appointment, telling me to grab some “me time.” Well, ordinarily, that’s my run, but my knee is still grouchy. Had an MRI that showed just a little superficial swelling, and they said I could run “as tolerated,” but since I know I could easily “tolerate” myself into a major injury, I’m still being stingy with the mileage. Makes me grumpy to look at running logs of other JFK participants and see how quickly they bounced back.

At least I’m mostly done holiday shopping,  except for a couple of things…including for Eric. Is it me, or does shopping for a spouse gift get harder every year?

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One thing puke has going for it, though, over other forms of illness: total disambiguity. It’s not like a sore throat or headache, or even a cough. Throwing up means No School, with no room for subjectivity. Sam’s looking actually pretty healthy right now, playing Legos and being talkative, despite admitting that his stomach still hurts a bit, and if it hadn’t been for the undeniable evidence of illness, I’d be waffling over whether or not he ought to be at a desk right now. But puke is puke. No choice involved, so I feel mental relief on that end.

It’s easier that it’s Sam, of course. Not that I’d wish illness on either of my kids, but Sam is completely blasé about it. Gabe is my drama child; Sam takes what comes with some mild complaint, but doesn’t flail and scream. That’s my child; if you can’t change what is, well, then there’s no point thinking any further about it. (“Man, I hope my stomach stops hurting by lunchtime,” he says, and that’s the height of his frustration.) Gabe…well, I’ll get my chance to experience that side of things soon, I expect; Eric’s out of town, after all, so LET THE LORD OF CHAOS RULE.*

And now Sam’s making something involving rubber bands. I can’t wait to see this.

Gabe was unsure about heading off to school without Sam – the bus makes him nervous when he doesn’t have his brother on it with him – so I sketched a little angel on the back of his hand, which made him smile again. This is a child who likes something at which he can glance occasionally throughout the day, something tangible and reassuring. He was the one who required a heart drawn on the back of his hand, or often both hands, for weeks when he started kindergarten, so that he could stem the flow of homesick tears. Sam, Mr. “Take It as it Comes,” required no such thing. I wonder if his transition to middle school next year will be as seamless. Hope so, but middle school…man, I still get shudders.

Keep you fingers crossed that I don’t catch what Sam’s got. I don’t know which would be worse, Gabe or me, since at least if I stay healthy, I can keep us in fresh blankets and bowls.

*I never did finish that series. Bugged me when I found out Jordan had no plans to come to a conclusion of the story so long as folks were buying the books. Gah.

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Anyway, I also bought a bunch of mixed nuts today, out of some sort of weird sentimental urge; my grandpa always had a bowl of mixed nuts out during the holiday season (or was it all the time, and I only associate it with now?), with one of those cheap metal nutcrackers in it. Had to buy one of those, too, and the little metal picks that come with it. Gabe is entranced. He doesn’t particularly like nuts, mind, but he’s very impressed with his ability to smash open walnuts. “I must be the strongest person on the planet!” he says, cracking open the nuts and handing over their contents to his brother, who doesn’t like cracking nuts but who finds them tasty. He calls the walnuts “Boss Nuts,” and he defeats them handily, crowing his victories loudly.

Neither child likes the cinnamon candies I got to put on the cookies. So, yay for pork chops, boo for cinnamon, and a mixed judgment on nuts. I’ll take it, I suppose.

Send more walnuts, pork chops, and wine! And pray for Saturday, and Eric’s plane to get here soon.

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Yawn. “Sure, Gabe…”

“And my whole group was supposed to be working on it, and they’re all fighting. So I went ahead and did the work by myself, but that’s bad, too, because we’re all supposed to work together, right? Right?”

Yawwwwwwwwwwn…

I feel so completely wasted right now, exhausted because I didn’t get a run in today or yesterday. My knee has been bugging me, and since pain three weeks out from the original fall is probably not good, I went ahead and called the doctor again, who sent me for an MRI and said not to run until we got results. So I’m not, but, man, do I ever miss the energy I take from a good run. Sleeping in would have helped, a little, but Gabe doesn’t see it that way. (“…pshew, pshew! Aaaaaaaa…boom! Ch-ch-ch-ch…” Battle sounds in my ear, from where he lay in bed between Eric and me, wide awake and imagining soldiers and monsters at war.)

Eric left for Germany this afternoon. He’ll be gone for a week. The boys didn’t much care for that.

I’m not pleased myself, come to that. Miss him already.

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First, I didn’t really sleep well at all last night; my shoulder and knee inexplicably decided to start hurting more and more, which bothered me and kept me from getting any good rest. Then Gabe had a nightmare that brought him into our bed, which meant an end to even the little good sleep I was getting between tosses.

Sam woke up late and on the wrong side of the bed and threw a horrible tantrum about being hustled into the shower before eating his breakfast. While he thumped around and growled, Gabe began wringing his hands about how “I hate it when my family fights!” (Man, I just know he goes off to school and describes to his teachers about how we’re the most dysfunctional family this side of the after-school specials.) Then, while he was in the shower, I discovered a sheet of homework in his backpack that didn’t get remembered last night, so I had to rush him even more.

The homework threw Gabe into a tizzy, as he was convinced that now he’d be late for school and miss a planned field trip. “I’ll have to sit in the office all by myself until everybody gets back!” he wailed. “I want to get out and see my world!” Never mind that the bus wasn’t even going to come for another twenty minutes; he was heading toward a panic attack over it, running around in his coat and gloves as though everything was falling apart.

Eric was low on laundry, which was entirely my fault, I admit, but the added stress of that caused more tension. I especially need to catch up there, since he needs to pack for his trip out of the country in a couple of days. I worked a little on that, which ate into my run this morning – the run that might have ordinarily been my sanity-saving measure. On the other hand, the knee was still grouchy, so perhaps that was for the best.

The physical therapist said I looked pale and drawn; instead of exercises, we focused on pain relief today, and she suggested I take some time to recharge today. Ha.

Got home, pulled into the driveway, and a squirrel stared me down from the side of the neighbor’s house. I should interject that these neighbors are the ones with a great, gaping hole under their eave, which they know about, which they’ve addressed only when the squirrels living in the hole managed to nearly yank one of the boards completely off, and then only by resecuring that board with a smaller one across it. So the squirrels still live there, feasting on the seeds the neighbors put out “for the birds,” and they’ve become quite territorial. This one began chattering and hissing at me before I even opened my car door…and then it spun around and OH MY GRAVY it had one eye that was completely pale and blind-looking and was the CREEPIEST THING EVER. I sat there staring, door shut firmly, until the thing sauntered away on its own.

Then I took my sore shoulder and my drawn face inside, where I did more laundry, found another incomplete homework assignment of Sam’s, and then discovered that I’ve managed to accidentally upset, through careless words, somebody I don’t even really know, and even though I’ve apologized, you know? I just feel like giving up.

I don’t feel like Christmas shopping, baking, any of it. I just want to crawl back into my bed and pretend today never happened.

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Been some confusion about where, who, and how it’s happening this year; there was no news at all, and some folks said the original maintainers weren’t doing it (I messaged and heard nothing). I thought maybe Facebook, and then Kat asked me to join in on a standalone site, so there was that, and then other people started saying that other folks were doing it, and…well, somebody’s doing something, and since the WHOLE POINT is to write entries on your own site anyway, I figure I’ll just do that and just wait for somebody else to tell me where to put the links when it all gets decided.

Not that it matters to you. You obviously got here via other resources. So this is just all behind-the-scenes stuff that can safely be ignored, other than to say: this is what is irking me. A little. But not nearly as much as my annual irritation:

I know. I know. I’ve said it before, but every year the radio starts playing overly ornamented versions of the carol from various pop singers, and they’re all doing it wrong, and GAH. If Santa wasn’t staring down my chimney, that darn list of his in hand with pen poised at the ready, I’d be tempted to start throwing elbows.

But I’ll stay somewhat cheerful today, because my physical therapist was happy with me again. I’ve got lots more range of motion in my shoulder than when I started, and she gave me more strengthening exercises on top of the ones I have, and I feel optimistic that this whole thing will be a memory sooner rather than later. Of course, I did try swimming with a kickboard this morning, and that was a failure after only 400 yards, but I’ve got patience. No rush.

Also, cheerful because my kids are now happily enjoying me reading to them each night from the Wee Free Men books which…just YAY. So glad to have them liking good, fun books that don’t pander. Thrills my heart.

What’s making you happy tonight? If nothing in particular, try this:

Helium walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Sorry, we don’t serve noble gases.” Helium doesn’t react.

Ba-dump bump.

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Should get my toenails tattooed back on. I’ll bet there’re a lot of nerve endings in nailbeds, though. Hmmmm.

Here, have a picture of the ornaments my children made at the company Christmas party. A snowman and a star. I’ll bet you’ll never guess who made what…

Bonus: their letters to Santa.

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– It’s good when the forgetful child is old enough that, say, when he forgets until the morning before school to tell you that he needs an all-disposable lunch, you can stick a couple of bucks in his hand, point him toward the corner store, and say, “Run.”

– Gabriel informs me that his class is making Christmas ornaments with clay, and he’s opted to make a dreidel. Combine this with how, since he can’t draw ordinary stars, he’s been scribbling Stars of David on everything lately, and I wonder if we’re going to end up in an interesting conversation with a confused teacher one of these days. (No, we’re not Jewish.)

– Second PT appointment this morning. I ran yesterday for the first time since JFK, and within a few miles I determined that the shoulder tolerates running, but the knee is dealing with both the bruise and ITBS. Ow! Luckily, it looks like using the foam roller doesn’t put too much strain on my shoulder, either. Freaked myself out reading everybody’s reports online about how their shoulder injury absolutely required surgery, but then I reminded myself that these were dedicated swimmers and triathletes (the only folks I could find discussing it in terms of endurance athletics), and I don’t need to be able to swim hard for miles.

– Tree is up. The boys were both very gungo-ho about that this year, for the first time taking over a major role in decorating it. Nice ages, this holiday! I barely had to do much ornament hanging at all, since they both dove headlong into the boxes and started hanging stuff all over. But, being boys – and strange ones at that – it got weird quickly. Gabe gathered all the wooden Santas and had them stage battles with each other. Sam started perching cars on the ends of branches. Then they both pretended that the ornaments were terrified of being “hanged” on the tree, and I heard a jingle-bell football player squeaking frantically, “Don’t hang me! I’m Aaron Rodgers’ son! And I’m too young!” I’ve said it before: boys are weird.

- Eric heads for Germany again here in a few weeks. So much fun – for him, that is. For us, it’s decidedly less so. But I’m grateful he has such a good job with a stable company, and he enjoys the travel, so I’m happy he gets to do it. Wish he’d blog about it or something, so I could enjoy it vicariously through more than a few camera phone pictures. Some of us have never left the country, other than a brief childhood sojourn across the border to the other side of Niagara Falls.

Gotta get dressed and head out. Does anybody know anything about Holidailies this year?

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Music on the show comes from the Podsafe Music Network. Tracks used were:
42 shades of grey – State Unsteady
Ella Fitzgerald – Get Happy

You can subscribe through iTunes or Zune, or download the show here (mp3 version). You can email or leave a comment!

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HER: “Blood in the urine is pretty bad…”
ME: “But rhabdomylosis doesn’t go away because you drank a couple of bottles of water!”
HER: “…it went away? Oh!”

So she was all apologetic, and the rest of the appointment was fine. She did some quick checks of my shoulder, which continues to improve, and said it was pretty classic rotator cuff injury. The fact that I can now lift my arm over my head, even if it hurts some to do so, means that if there’s a tear, it’s not complete. She gave me a referral for PT, and she told me to stop wearing the sling, since as it heals, I run the risk of getting “frozen shoulder” if I keep it immobile. My knee, she says, is probably just bruised, since it didn’t show any signs of ligament or tendon damage.

I’ll continue to rest until my PT appointment on Tuesday (using the same PTs I had before, when I did Devil’s Lake; I like that they match my preference for aggressive treatment), when I can ask what sort of exercise I can do as I heal. Something tells me running might not benefit this shoulder, but what do I know? I thought broken ribs this summer would mean no running, but I was wrong about that.

In the meantime, Eric’s elbow is bugging him, which he’s apparently been ignoring for a bit, until it’s now gotten pretty bad. How on earth are the two of us going to get a Christmas tree up, I ask you?

One of the boys brought home this brochure from school:

Go on; read it. I'll wait.

Proofreading: it’s your friend.

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Here’s the thing: the boys elected, when asked their opinion, to have a later Thanksgiving dinner today than an earlier one, so the meal preparation has been happening through the day, leaving me to wander through the kitchen, trying not to snack (oh, pearl onions; you seduce my heart completely) but contenting myself with sips of a lovely Shiraz while watching Eric in action. He says I get this way when I’ve had a few too many of those sips, but I’ll contend that this level of maudlin has been reached not via grape, but by watching the man I love in action, serving his family in this very special way, hour after hour.

He said he was going to “wing it” this year, leaving behind fancy preparations and complicated menu options. A roast turkey, with a simple stuffing; green beans with mini potatoes; pearl onions in a cream sauce; mashed potatoes; cranberry sauce; giblet gravy. A homemade pumpkin pie to finish. Knowing that my version of “winging it” would probably have involved StoveTop and Sara Lee as guests, I grinned as I watched him positively dance around the kitchen, juggling pots and pans as everything came into form. He stumbled at the giblets, momentarily caught off guard trying to identify one from another (apparently, the liver joins the gravy well after the other organ meats), but he figured it out quickly. The pie was completed soonest, a humbly perfect pie that sits cooling on the entertainment center as we wait for the rest of the meal.

This is Thanksgiving then, and though I’ve been waxing poetic about the food, that’s not what I’m saying. Thanksgiving is in the feeling I get when I see this man, this man I love, working hard for hours to please us in any way that he can. Thanksgiving is in the warmth in my heart as I see him brush flour from his pants, red-faced from the heat, not slowing a moment as he spins from stove to counter to table and back. I remember that he started cooking when I was so heavily pregnant with Gabe, so tired from chasing a toddler around all day, and he stepped up to help, though it wasn’t something at which he’d worked much before that. My husband, the man of many talents: he works so hard, and seeing him work is to see art in action.

Okay, so I have been enjoying the wine.

Thanksgiving is such a perception-based holiday. It’s hard to deny that we are so much more well-off than so many people in this country, simply based on the way our table begins to groan under the weight of the dishes piling onto it. I’m not blind to that, and I feel sincere gratitude that neither of my children has known hunger. At the same time, I know that the real gift here isn’t the food. It’s the love behind it.

Thank you, God.

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Actually, at this point, most of the ordinary muscle soreness has abated. If my shoulder and knee weren’t aching from the falls, I would almost certainly be gearing up to (slowly) trot through either the 2-mile or 5K Thanksgiving Day runs I have around me. (Not the 10K yet, though.) But despite the fact that I think I am seeing improvement – I was able to use both hands to wash my hair today! – I’m still playing things cautiously. I’ve raced enough miles this year, and I don’t feel guilty for not doing two races inside one week when one of those races was fifty miles.

Sort of difficult to snap a picture of a slinged (slung?) arm.

The official race photographs are starting to be processed. While a few are really nice…

Heading up the first, long, hill.

Feeling goofy on the AT

I just don't even know.

…only one really captures my late-race feelings with crystal clarity:

Bear and grin it!

I recalled reading in The Hip Mama Survival Guide, back when I was pregnant with Sam, how Ariel Gore scrawled herself a note during labor: “NEVER DO THIS AGAIN.” That came back to me several times during the race, making me wish I had paper and pencil to do similarly, since, like her, I had a feeling that amnesia would kick in and make me forget just how bad this hurt. That photo does nicely. On the other hand, I can feel that the amnesia is sneaking in. Would I do it again? Well…

I need to seriously assess whether I can become a better trail runner, or whether I’m destined to forever be the Queen of Fall, no matter what I do. Would practice help? Ankle strengthening? Balance work? Improving form? Or is it a case of general clutziness that can’t be eradicated? That would at least determine what kinds of these races I’d consider in the future, if not totally dictate the yes or no. I love going long, so maybe I should just avoid crazy technical stuff if I want to do that? St. Pat’s was a blast, and I could totally see doing the twelve-hour!

Doesn’t really matter right now; I have time. I’m taking time away from distance for the coming year. Over the course of this training, I’ve noticed my speed ebb away as my endurance grew, and while the tradeoff seemed acceptable, it’s something I plan to fix in 2012. Lots of 5Ks and 10Ks, maybe rounding out the year with a very nice half-marathon, but meanwhile doing all the speedwork I’ve been ignoring for a year. Good news? Fewer 4AM Saturday morning runs. Bad news? I hate sucking wind. Good for the soul, though!

I can’t wait for these injuries to get better. My house is a wreck, but between the knee scolding me when I bend it too much and the shoulder yelling when I reach for things…well, the clutter will have to wait.

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So I mentioned I hurt my shoulder, right? And that I was going to the doctor when I got home? Well, yesterday morning, I called my doctor’s office right as they opened, chuckling over my joking prediction, made directly to my doctor, that I’d be seeing her when I got back. We thought it would be for my legs or something running-related, but it was true nevertheless. Point is, my doc knew what I was doing this weekend, and she at least sort of understood.

The receptionist and I joked around about why I was calling (“Fifty miles?!”), and she told me that my doctor was busy all day. I could either wait until Tuesday, or I could see another doctor, new to the practice. I went with the fast. BAD CHOICE. All I wanted was a check on my shoulder, mind you…

New doc’s assistant was mildly freaked from the get-go, as she took my history, but I didn’t think much about it. I mean, I recognize that ultrarunning isn’t what you’d call a common hobby around here, but since I was there because of a fall, not the running, I pressed on. She left, wide-eyed, and I waited, trying to keep the kids calm. (Thanksgiving Break! Such good timing! )

The doctor came in with eyes already pre-popped. For some reason, even the fact that Gabe was hiding behind the table (just for fun, because he’s Gabe) made her look more unnerved. I tried to tell her the basics of why I was there: shoulder hurt in fall; knee possibly hurt as well, but I couldn’t tell if it was IT band or from the rock that hit it. She couldn’t stop thinking about the race, though. When she asked what painkillers I’d taken, and I explained that I hadn’t had many because I wanted to let my irritated bladder settle down a bit after the single incident of bloody urine, she completely flipped out.

“I don’t know how to say this,” she said, actually holding my hands, “but I want you to go to the ER. You’ve exceeded what this clinic can do for you.”

“Really? I just wanted my shoulder checked…”

“Blood in the urine can be a sign of a very bad thing after exercise.”

“I do not have rhabdomyolysis. The blood went away after I drank water, I had no fever, and there’s no pain.”

“Painkillers can hide it.”

“I didn’t take them!”

“But the blood…”

“It went away! There’s no more blood!”

“I need you to go to the ER now, because you might need an IV.”

“Oh, for…can it wait until this afternoon? My kids have school conferences.”

Her eyes bugged more. “Can your husband take them?”

“I want to go to the conferences!”

“Do you promise me that you will go? I will call ahead and ask them to look for you.” Apparently, I looked like a danger to myself.

So I left, highly ticked off. I called back from the car, trying to double-check with my own doctor, but apparently new doc had already talked to her, and whatever she said had alarmed my doctor, too. I went to the conferences, and then we went to the ER, where – oh, glorious day! – I finally scored some medical professionals who understood. The nurse who came to me said, “I just ran my first half-marathon! They told me I had to take you, and when I saw your history, I understood why!” The doctor was a runner, too, and nobody gave me any crap; they were just interested in hearing the story.

Of course, I did not have rhabdo. I did have a mild bladder infection, though with my history of getting those asymptomatically, I’ll bet it was there pre-race. The x-rays of shoulder and knee showed no broken bones, so they said to ice and rest, and if things don’t improve in the next few days, I have the number of an ortho guy. Oh, and I got stronger NSAIDs.

What I didn’t get all day? Rest. So today, that’s what I’m doing, at last. And nobody better look at me like I’m nuts, either. Had enough of that to last.

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Flew into Maryland, got to Hagerstown; went to the expo to get my race bib. I had prepared my parents for a teeny-tiny “expo,” since their only experience with a race expo was in DC for the Marine Corps Marathon, but I was surprised at how much was there to see. Multiple booths, nice things! I nearly walked out without a JFK50 car magnet, since buying one felt sort of like a jinx, but when I walked out of the hotel and saw all the cars that had those magnets, I decided it must be a “thing,” so I went back for one. It was very intimidating to walk around that crowd, I have to say. The race shirts folks were wearing were all for races I’ve only read about – hundred milers, etc. – and then there were folks in Ironman things, multiple Marathon Maniacs, and lots of people wearing shirts that declared them members of the “500 Mile Club” (people who’ve done the JFK 50 at least ten times). I felt so out of my depth!

I did sleep well the night before, surprisingly. Woke up before my alarm went off, just lying there in the dark and…not panicking. Yet, anyway. I felt pretty relaxed as I got ready, telling myself it was “just a little jog in the woods.” My parents friends showed up, and we all headed to Boonsboro together, where a race briefing was held at 6:20. I saw Mike Wardian stretching out a little ways away from me in the gym beforehand, which was a pretty cool experience. Later, when the race director was having race veterans who anticipated finishing in a certain time stand up, a man sitting right behind me made a movement, and the director said, “David Horton, you’re not even running this year!” I spun around and stared in awe. Ultrarunning fangirl, ’tis I.

Thing was, everybody looked crazy fit and not a bit nervous, which was making me feel extra-nervous. Was everybody there as collected as they seemed? Was I the only “JFK virgin” in the room?! Gah.

We left the gym, and the weather was absolutely perfect. I decided I wouldn’t need the headlamp I’d brought, and I planned to exchange my fleece hat for a cap when I saw my parents at the end of the Appalachian Trail. We all hiked down the road to the starting line, about 1,000 yards away; before I got to that point, I heard the signal to start, and the crowd started moving, but I honestly had no idea where the actual start was. Certainly, there were no mats in evidence, even though it was a chip-timed race.

I fell in with a woman who did the race a couple of years ago, and as we chatted, sharing stories, some of hers sounded familiar to me…turned out, she was Dana, whose blog I’ve read! After the initial climb up the road to South Mountain Inn, where we found the trail for the first time, I lost her; there was no way I was going to try to stay with a specific person on the AT, especially somebody with whom I didn’t train, so I let her go and didn’t see her again.

The trail turns out onto fire road, which is another steep climb that seems to go forever. Honestly, you don’t really get onto the Appalachian until around five miles in, but once you do…oh, my. My regrets about not training more on the Ice Age Trail immediately evaporated; the only way to prepare for running on this trail would have been to run on this trail. Far rockier, far more technical than anything, ANYTHING, I had available to me. I nearly fell very early on, grabbing a tree with both arms and feeling very relieved that I didn’t “kiss the earth” then.

That didn’t happen until mile 8. I landed and slid hard on my side, arm outstretched, and I felt something go “pop” in my shoulder. I knew right away that I’d done a Bad Thing to it, but I also rationalized that you don’t need an arm to run, so I kept going. I couldn’t cross my arm over my chest without severe pain, even in reaching up to brush my cheek, but I had another arm for that, so I put it out of my head and kept going, ignoring the pain.

At mile 12, I fell again, this time gouging and bruising my knee. Surprised I didn’t tear my tights, really, which would have made me angry. I walked for a bit after that, feeling quite frustrated but determined not to be beaten; I did see one woman after that point whose fall ended her day out there, sobbing and unable to stand, so I felt lucky not to be worse off.

Once we reached the switchbacks off the trail, I honestly felt a little better; it was very treacherous and scary, but I finally felt like it wasn’t “just me” – everybody around me was struggling and going extremely slowly and cautiously. Mom and Dad were waiting at the bottom, and they said they saw lots of blood and injuries coming down, along with people tumbling the last part. I gave them my hat, jacket, and gloves and set off again for the towpath.

Now, at that point, I still had about 35 miles to go, and on a good day, that would have perhaps felt okay, but after beating the living Bejeezus out of yourself, it’s a different story. I went to my tried-and-true 9:1 run/walk intervals, which I was able to maintain fairly well, but I was exhausted. I started getting hot spots on my foot around mile 22, so I stopped and reapplied Body Glide then, and getting back up was hard. By mile 29 or 30, I was at an extreme low point. My shoulder was on fire, my knee was aching, and I wanted…something. Anything. I still had 20 miles to go!

Actually, just before that, I had a high point around mile 24, where a North Pole-themed aid station temporarily lifted my spirits. Got my photo taken with Santa and enjoyed a Christmas cookie and the BEST CHICKEN SOUP EVER. That high was great; just wish it had lasted. [EDIT: that was actually mile 34, not 24. My brain is so foggy about the sequence of events after such a long day!]

On and on and on. I leap-frogged particular runners, feeling pretty good if I could pass them with enough distance that they didn’t pass me again on my next walk break. (Blue shirt woman, you finally got the best of me; congratulations. ) I saw my folks a couple more times at different aid stations, but I was in such a haze that I barely recognized them. One interesting thing: several times, I was suddenly taken by an overwhelming urge to cry, out of nowhere, and a minute after that, I’d notice that I was having trouble drawing breath. I’d walk a bit, and both the tears and the chest tightness would pass.

We finally left the trail at mile marker 84, and I was given a reflective vest as we hit the road. There were only about 8 miles left, and I was feeling okay – exhausted, overwhelmingly sore, mentally in shambles, but at least confident of finishing. The roads rolled, and I tried to keep up my 9:1, making exceptions for the steep hills. And then, with about six miles left, the inside of my ankle, which had been aching, though not more than any other part of my body, suddenly decided to step up its game. I could barely walk, let alone run. It was so bad that I began to cry. I walked, and I walked, and I called Eric to cry to him, and I kept walking. When the pain dulled a little, I started doing a pattern of running 100 steps, then walking for 10. Repeat. Grit teeth.

Around the last couple of miles, I switched focus. Wasn’t hallucinating, but I focused hard on seeing Sam and Gabe on either side of me. They pulled me, grabbing my hands and giggling for me to hurry up. Sam told me he could run faster than me; Gabe told me to “man up.” I chanted their names and whispered to them, letting them drive me up the road, nearly crying when I saw the lights at the finish. “It’s here, kids. We made it!”

I finished in 10:19:35, 486th out of an eventual 941 finishers. My time would have been better had I not had to walk so much of the final miles, but I was elated with the time, as I stumbled over the line and immediately yelled for help with my ankle. They took me to the medical area and iced and bandaged me; they also checked my shoulder but weren’t as concerned about it. (Naturally, the ankle is fine today, but the shoulder? Yeah, I’m wearing a sling and going to the doctor when I get back. It’s in agony.)

A scarier moment came after I got home, went to use the bathroom, and urinated copious amounts of blood. Aaaaaaugh! I ran to the computer, reassured myself (it can be normal, from the jarring of the bladder, if there are no other symptoms like fever or abdominal pain, neither of which I had), then pounded water for the next couple of hours, until my urine was back to normal. Phew.

Anyway, I didn’t sleep at all well, due to the pain, and the soreness is getting worse and worse all over now, so the next few days should be interesting. I had been hoping to swim for a bit to help with that, but with a bum shoulder, that’s probably off the table. Not sure what I can do with that. But I’m wearing my medal, my JFK vest, and a huge smile, along with my sling, and I’ll limp with pride when I get to the airport and explain to the security folks just why I can’t get into the machine requiring me to hold my hands over my head. Because the pain? Worth it.

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Never done the whole “Go Go” airplane wireless thing before. I’m in the air, somewhere over…oh, who knows. Not Wisconsin anymore, probably, and not yet Maryland. On my way, and on a very uneventful flight, so far.

Sam was scared of me flying. Gabe was terrified of me falling off a mountain during the race. Nobody is allowed to give him any more scary race details, at least until after I’ve finished running; he was trying so hard to convince me to find another, less steep, path off the trail tomorrow.

Anyway. What time is it? Phone says quarter after seven, but I don’t know if the time zone has changed yet. Let’s just say we’re about 24 hours away from race time, give or take, and all’s as well as I could reasonably expect. Cross your fingers, wish me luck, and pray that this pilot is good at landing – because a crash right now would seriously torque me off.

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It seems that Gabe takes his holidays very seriously. He has been grousing for a couple of weeks, to anybody who’ll listen, that we’ve jumped straight from Halloween to Christmas, bypassing Thanksgiving. When we heard carols on the radio, he growled and muttered angrily; when he saw Christmas lights, he glared fiercely. Things belong in order, you see, and there’s simply no excuse for getting overeager and skipping around. (Well, except for one neighbor down the street, whose front yard is currently decorated with jack o’lanterns, wooden turkeys, and sleighs. By his reaction, Gabe seems graciously willing to allow those neighbors leeway to exist in their clear cases of dementia, bless-their-little-hearts.)

Anyway, we try to avoid confronting him with Christmas trappings for now, because if there’s anything you don’t want, it’s to get Gabe up on a soapbox; he doesn’t like to abandon it once he’s there, and if you don’t listen to him, the harangue grows personal. Simply better to fall in line, and it’s not as though we disagree, really – just a level of vehemence. I don’t decorate until after Thanksgiving, anyway, by personal choice.

Yesterday morning, we discovered a little of why Gabe might be into Thanksgiving so much this year. Eric was getting dressed for work, and he mentioned that he needed some new work shirts. “Maybe you’ll get some for Christmas,” Gabe said, then, “Or maybe the Great Turkey Spirits will bring you some for Thanksgiving!”

So that took some discussion. I’m pretty sure he gets it now, but I’m not sure he understands why both Eric and I screamed, “DUDE!” in unison. I mean, Spirit of Christmas, Turkey Spirits…they all sound pretty much the same to a literal-minded seven-year-old. (And (and do not read this part out loud, Carrie, if Gabe convinces you to read this entry to him before he gets much older!) I get the feeling he’s going to “figure out” Santa sooner rather than later, anyway. Sam’s still invested, hook, line, and sinker, thanks to the whole NORAD thing, but Gabe has been muttering that his friend Danny says Santa is just your mom and dad. He says he hopes Danny “starts believing soon,” but we’ll see what happens this year when Gabe starts watching us all with hawk eyes; he already says he’s planning to put up a hidden camera “to show Danny”…)

This year, I plan to do almost all of our shopping at local and small stores. No large chains or big box stores if I can help it. Both boys are on board, especially since the beloved downtown toy store went out of business earlier this year. That still chafes.

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That’s the feeling I want. I’ve been wearing my St. Pat’s bracelet for the past couple days as a reminder of that: I’m doing this race because I love to run. Running isn’t scary; it’s my playground. I can be spent and happy. It’s going to be wild.

And every time I start freaking out, I stare at the bracelet and think: “Happy. Happy. Get happy!”

So. Six days. I just gave myself a wonderful lower-leg massage, which I’ll continue to do, and I’m going to rest and chill and Feel Happy until game day. Whee! And if happy turns maniacal in the latter days, well that’s all part of the spectrum.

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And I had a sore throat and sinus headache for a good portion of the morning and afternoon. Guess how that played out for me, in terms of my calm. Probably just the heater, but still…

Tapering is destroying my mind. I have never been so in need of physical rest as I am this time around, and yet the act of stepping back is making me feel as though I’m throwing away all my training with wild abandon. I’ve never freaked about tapering for a marathon, or even for the other ultras, but fifty miles is a lot of miles, and how could I possibly be ready if I’m sitting on my butt right now? Ack!

Actually, I remember those potatoes from Devil’s Lake, and they were darn good.

Ten miles tomorrow – the last long run before the race. My stomach is in constant knots. I think we’ve finally hit that magical tipping point where I’m more afraid of the race than I am of the plane ride getting there, and that, my friends, is where I truly know that I’ve hit the great unknown. Wow…

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Swimming lessons went poorly tonight. Well, Sam did fine in his class, and I suppose the last third of Gabe’s was not so bad, but compared to the first two-thirds, it’d be hard not to be. Like the sensation you get when you stop hitting your thumb with a hammer, you know. When he stops howling and glaring death beams at everyone, it gets easier to tolerate the rictus on his face every time the water touches his head. (And yes, the cessation of yowling coincided pretty much with Eric’s arrival. That was predictable.)

I need sleep now, and a fresh day tomorrow.

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Silence. I peek at him sitting on the couch, staring blankly, his Bible in his lap. “Oh. That ‘Jude.’ I was talking The Beatles.” More staring with the suggestion of long-suffering.

I went toward the dining room, and he sighed. “You’re going to play them on the computer now, aren’t you?” he said. Apparently, I’m predictably pedantic. But why fight that at which you excel?

“Yes, I am,” I said, hitting “play” on the tune that started the discussion. “The Beatles are pretty darn important, you know. They influenced so many other musicians, as well as the entire sixties culture!”

“Music culture is boring,” he quipped, “except for Ke$ha.” I whipped around and caught a twinkle in his eye, which saved his life. I faked a swat at him, and he cowered in mock fear while Gabe laughed and repeated the funny phrase to himself.

The song changed to “Let It Be,” and Sam frowned. “Did they sing ‘Rockin’ Robin’?” I almost swatted him again before I realized he wasn’t yanking my chain.

“The Beatles, Sam! Not The Jackson 5! Nothing alike – not even a little! The Jacksons sang about the Robin…” I played that intro, then, “and The Beatles did “Blackbird.” I played that. “Two different birds; don’t confuse them!”

“Oh. But they did ‘Yellow Submarine, though, right?”

“Yes.”

We listened longer. Next came “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.” Gabe said, “I actually like this song. Wait, is it still The Beatles? Then it’s boring.”

Sam asked, “So, did they have guitars back then?” I winced and played some Renaissance guitar music to prove a point. Sam rolled his eyes.

“That’s different,” he said, the twinkle glinting again. “That just sounds like ‘MagiQuest.’”

Y’all, don’t sympathize with my kids when I tease them; they give back in spades.

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Gabe’s “reluctance” (yes, let’s call it that) to take his medicine continues. Tonight, flipping Sam took over the role of cajoler, and that worked about as well as it does for Eric or me; Sam pushed hard with the “I’ll play video games with you if you take it,” and eventually Gabe caved. I can’t believe we have to keep this up for about another week…

Spent a chunk of time this afternoon annotating an elevation chart of the JFK course with aid stations, cut-off times, and possible paces. Obsessing? Who, me? I’d say it’s how I’m staying sane, but I’m pretty sure sanity is a realm I left long ago. (A cut-off I didn’t miss.)

Sleepy now.

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As I’ve said before, what’s the point of having kids, if not to mess with them on a regular basis?

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Both Gabe and Eric are now medicated, though Eric’s feeling slightly worse now as Gabe feels perkier. Rather unfair, that, as Eric is willingly taking his antibiotic, while Gabe…well, he doesn’t like liquid medicine, and that’s what he is unfortunately been given. Also, it looks like milk, and he HATES milk. So we’ve done three dosages now, and each has required bribing and arguing and deals extraordinaire. Eric really took it on the chin this last time, taking a spoonful of jolokia hot sauce in exchange for Gabe finishing the dose. It was a sight to see.

Sam and I remain healthy, so far, though Sam’s allergies are acting up a bit in the mornings now. Hopefully, that’s all it is, anyway.

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But that was grace from above for other reasons. Gabe spent all of last night, from about nine o’clock on, in agony from a raging ear infection. I gave him pain killers, which gave him periods of slight relief during which he slept fitfully, but when they’d wear off, he’d wail and gnash his teeth again. We kept him in our bed, so as to avoid disturbing Sam too much, which meant that his every thrash met my body with a solid thump. Eric took him to Urgent Care this morning and got him some antibiotics…along with a set of his own, earned when, while trying to reassure Gabe about the pulse-ox monitor, he and the nurse discovered that he was a few breaths away from a horrid case of walking pneumonia. Now they’re both in bed, languishing. My heart breaks for them (and my head whispers that I might want to wear a mask for a while…); they look miserable.

Related to nothing, I got a pair of Stabilyx tights – a gift from Eric for my birthday – and wore them for the first time today. It was an experience just getting them on the first time. “Put the X around your knee,” the instructions said, and there I was, huffing and puffing to get it to my…ankle. Wow. After much exertion, they seemed to fit all right, and I’m not all that sore post-run, but I don’t know how sore I was expecting to be, anyway; time will tell if they’re truly the magic so many people claim they are!

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The car that hit us from behind took us all by surprise. I quickly rounded the turn and stopped at the curb, putting on my hazards and getting out of the van…just in time to see the guy hit the gas and take off. Gabe was howling: “I’m sorry, Mommy! I’m sorry!” (Somehow he drew a line between his tantrum and the crash.) Sam was flipping out, too, terrified that the van was damaged. I couldn’t see any visible damage, but I quickly grabbed the phone and called the cops.

While I was on the phone, another van pulled up next to me. The man driving said he’d seen the accident. “I tried to follow him and get his plate, but he turned off his lights and sped off.” He showed me the partial plate number he’d gotten, described the car, and then gave me his contact information. The police got there just after he left, took down everything, then gave me an accident card and said goodbye.

And then? I drove the two blocks home. All that, practically within sight of my own driveway…

Took the van to the garage today, since it was due for an oil change and tire service, anyway. They said everything looked fine, so, all things considered, could have been way worse. But I’d just like it to go on record that A) Eric went away on business, and B) calamity struck. The track record continues.

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Of Sam, since toddlerhood, I’ve often joked that he was just waiting for the perfect militant cause to which he could attach himself. He’d shriek to the heavens when he saw litter on the ground; he’d rail against the system when he heard about bullies or cheaters. Now, apparently, he’s been assigned a class project – the details of which are sort of sketchy to me; maybe a position paper? – and his topic is whaling. Oh, my. He found his current cause.

He and his partner, a young lady with similar passionate feelings, are getting more and more outraged with every bit of information they uncover…and their plans to “fix” the situation don’t appear to follow conventional paths. “So, working through the system isn’t your style?” I lamely said this morning, when he told me that his friend planned to use pepper bombs against the whalers, as “red herrings.”

(“Yeah, our teacher taught us that phrase,” he said, proud of himself.)

No, it’s apparently much more his style to go all rogue here, with stealth ships and weapons. He is morally disgusted by the images he’s seen (sidenote: I think I’d have been a little more wary about letting a bunch of ten-year-olds go searching the internet for images of whale slaughter…), and moderation isn’t something he’s really developed yet. So now I get to walk a fine line between letting him do his own homework and trying, for the love of Mike, to get him to please consider the ramifications of joining the Youth Ecoterrorist Brigade.

Meanwhile, Gabe’s education is following a more ordinary path, though he’s regularly cracking me up with it. He prefers to work extremely independently, with the result that some of his assignments look as though they were penned by Nell:

Click to embiggen.

This is an older paper, and in case you can’t decipher it, he was talking about birds in a tree. Yes, “brs” in a “teyu.” Now he’s getting a little better at the phonics, but he still surprises us. This next was from a “Day of the Dead” assignment, where he chose to write about his late Grandma Richmond:

Well, sure! Who doesn’t love to eat some fresh, juicy Florida “oinchjis”? Or maybe have a glass of “oinch” juice?

The spelling isn’t the only creative thing he does, though. From a math paper. Note: the questions he missed were intended to be related to the one above:

Instead of doing the math, deciding whether the numbers could fit logically into the comparison provided, Gabe went straight for practicality. No, Luz couldn’t paint eleven rocks; it would take too long. I guess Luz had other things to do. On the other hand, two rocks would fit neatly into Luz’s busy schedule, since those would take only a “hoat” (short?) time.

Oh, Gabe. You don’t disappoint.

(I didn’t ask what was hanging from the belly of the…fire beast? My best guess is a saddle or a weapon, not what you’re thinking. For all his craziness, Mr. Gabe has a strong streak of Puritan-like modesty in that arena. )

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November, finally/already. This whole year has been just bizarre, feeling in turns hurried and crammed, and yet creeping and slow. I don’t think I’ll miss it, though you’ll have to forgive me if I revisit that thought after finishing JFK. Could be a redeeming factor (or otherwise, which I choose not to consider right now). I think I just want to get to 2012 and see if it can be a more consistent year – though I’ll also press my luck and hope for consistently good. Don’t I just want everything?

Halloween was the same mix of strange. On the one side, both boys were in miraculous agreement as to when they wanted to finish trick-or-treating, without one howling at the moon to go home while the other begged for “just one more block.” On the other hand, their agreement stemmed from the fact that rain was blowing in our faces and wind was turning our umbrellas inside-out. Then they happily agreed that they wanted to go to a particular restaurant (a rare non-fighting event!), which was supposed to be letting kids eat free in costume. Well, apparently, that offer was good for actual Halloween night only, and our town’s trick-or-treat was happening the night before. I guess the restaurant got off lucky on that bargain; don’t know too many folks who would have been willing to re-costume the kids for the next night. Oh, well.

Gabe, by the way was “The Dread Pirate Roberts” from The Princess Bride – a choice which, while awesome, would have been obscure enough amongst the first-grade circle, but he made it more so by introducing himself all day long as “Wesley.” Sam went as a World War II flying ace, and Eric said people kept asking him if he was “The Aviator.” He just blinked.

(“Wesley” was wearing a laced black shirt beneath his leather jacket, but it was too cold to forgo the coat. Sam’s coat was part of his costume, so he was thrilled to not need adaptations.)

Gotta go get them from the bus stop!

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Music on the show comes from my friend Scott Simons, as well as the Podsafe Music Network. Tracks used were:
42 shades of grey – State Unsteady
Scott Simons – Start of Something

You can subscribe through iTunes or Zune, or download the show here (mp3 version). You can email or leave a comment!

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Anyway, I talked to the director and found out the course was to be coned by 6AM, so that’s when I got there and started running, light in hand. I drove most of the course the day before, so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect, which came in handy in the tricky spots that hadn’t gotten fully marked yet. It was almost entirely a road course (about a mile on a paved path) and not closed entirely, but there was little traffic as I ran by myself. A bit chilly, but otherwise, it was very pleasant. I did 9:1 (in minutes) run/walk intervals, and I finished the first 13.1-mile loop in a little over two hours, taking it easy and enjoying myself.

There was a small crowd building back at the start, but I didn’t have to wait more than a few minutes for a portajohn. Then we lined up and took off! I kept going with the run/walk, stepping off the road shoulder into the grass to walk when I could, since there was only an extremely narrow strip of road marked off with cones for the runners. To top that off, we spent most of the race running with traffic instead of on the safer, opposite, side, so I got slightly nervous about the cars whipping past us.

In fact, midway through the fourth mile, I saw flashing lights and cars blocking half the road, and when I got closer, I saw a crying runner strapped to a back board with her neck in a brace. At the time, I didn’t know what had happened, but the story is slowly leaking out that she was hit by a car. The initial reports sounded minor, but now I’m reading that she may have been seriously injured with a skull fracture – a terrible thing to hear.

The second loop was harder in some ways and easier in others. I felt tired, of course, and where I’d been hoping for crowd support to buoy me, there was very little. On the other hand, running with others gives its own energy, so that did help. Also, knowing where the hills were to come (read: the last mile!) was better than turning the corner and being surprised. I finished the second loop a little faster than the first, in 1:59:18, for a total marathon time of 4:00:36 – not bad for a run-walk!

So now I taper. We now hit the period where I back off, rest more, and can finally see through to the end, when I’ll get to finally do – oh, crap…

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What put it into my head was that last night, we were doing our Bible lesson, and both boys are working to memorize Psalm 23. Sam’s pretty much got it, but Gabe…well, he gets the gist of the chapter, but the words are still elusive:
“He makes me lie on the grass and drink the water.”
“He sets a table with presents in front of my enemies.”
“You fill my head with oil.”

Last night, he got so frustrated that he declaimed the whole thing, yelling, “He leads me down the paths! Of righteousness! for HIS NAME’S SAKE!” and he reminded me so much of Homer (“Take thy beak from out my heart…”) that I couldn’t help myself.

They’re so funny, as they gather more and more tropes from which to draw their humor and references. I won’t spoil the surprise for Halloween, but I’m particularly pleased with Gabe’s choice of costume. Sam tried to base his costume choice around a toy gun that struck his fancy, but I drew a line; for one thing, he wouldn’t be allowed to take said gun to school, anyway, and for another, there are way better ways to choose costumes than by saying, “What will match this cheapo plastic Uzi, probably solidly constructed from recycled Happy Meal toys?” So we went head-to-head, and we came up with a costume that’s slightly more creative, while still allowing him to indulge his fascination in all things bang-bang-shoot-’em-up.

Sam’s trying so hard lately, struggling with the whole exit from young kidhood, that I hate, er, shooting him down like that. (Ow, tomato.) His math tutoring is going better than he expected it to, now that he’s seeing that the tutor is a fun young guy, not an extra taskmaster to please. A while ago, we had removed certain privileges, particularly online ones, and he’s trying to bargain to get them back in exchange for bringing up his grades, so I’m interested to see how this goes. In the meantime, though, I see signs of stress weighing on him; he’s becoming rather obsessive, for example, about making sure the last thing we say to each other at night and before he leaves in the morning is “Good night[/bye], I love you.” If I dare insert anything after saying that, it has to be repeated, as though I’ve negated the thought. The same holds for his interactions with Gabe and Eric. But he seems to be biting his cuticles less, so I suppose it’s a tradeoff…

Gabe has discovered Pokémon. ‘Nuff said.

Anyway, they’re off to have their heads filled for the day (with more book larnin’, not oil, Gabe), and as soon as I finish this cup of coffee (and the one after it), I’ll be running four miles in the rain. This is my last “peak week,” and then it’s taper time! Hopefully, this week beats me up less than last, though I’ve technically got more miles; my “Birthday Run” on Friday, at the Ice Age Trail, absolutely annihilated my quads, and they’re still a bit achey. I’ve got so much KT Tape up and down my legs, in various colors, that I look like a battle diagram. It’s sexy. Love the stuff, though. I wondered if it was just psychosomatic, but the times that I’ve removed the tape and delayed putting it back on, the aches that had faded have begun to return quickly, so I trust that it’s doing its job.

Still haven’t picked my own Halloween costume. What should I be?

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Music on the show comes from my friend Scott Simons, as well as the Podsafe Music Network. Tracks used were:
42 shades of grey – State Unsteady
Scott Simons – Keep On

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“So, how does it feel to be seven?”
“I don’t feel different yet. I still feel six.”
“Well, what’s the difference?”
“When I’m seven, I’ll feel all excited and hyper. I won’t feel seven until I’ve blown out my candle.”
“Well,” I yawned, “Then you won’t be seven until late tonight, because you’re not having cake for breakfast.”
“Just kidding!” he yelped, bouncing up off my pillow. “I feel seven now!”

And just like seven years ago, I started my day snuggling with my baby in the big bed. Of course, this time he was much more chattery and far less change-me-nownowNOW. But the wispy hair and the sparkly eyes are the same, as well as the complete unwillingness to be anything less than the center of attention.

He’s crazy, this one, but I think it’s simply impossible to get through a day with Gabe without laughing out loud at least once or twice. He’s a whirlwind of the unexpected; he’s a dervish of emotions. Even at the worst, most volatile moments, so long as you don’t “feed the fire” (a lesson we’ve all learned and continue to learn), he’ll change directions within minutes, apologizing sincerely and trying to make up for his outburst of anger. He’s pure life without a filter.

I could write a book, just of his hilarious takes on the world around him. Last night, in his bedtime prayers, he thanked God “…for mankind, and also for ladykind.” He says that when he grows up, he wants to be a dancer (“I’m comfortable with my dancing!” he says, then, when Sam snickers, “I need to get a new brother.”) and a crossing guard. He loves school; when I picked him up for swimming yesterday, he said goodbye by name to darn near every kid we walked past, then said, with emphasized casual swagger, “Those are my peeps.” In the morning, he vacillates between playing with Legos and doing bona fide front planks on the living room floor (because he wants “washboard abs”).

To think, this was the child who came into the world in the middle of the night with a resounding roar. I don’t think he’s stopped roaring yet. Happy birthday, Gabe. You’ll always be my wild one.

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That was a FUN race! I mean, sure, I was wiped at the end, and there were moments where I felt more tired than others, but seriously – fun was had. The course was a little over three miles, and it was over groomed grass, dirt, and a small amount of asphalt. There was one short downhill that I loved, and one short uphill that was fairly impossible to run (sandy, very loose rocks of varying sizes), and I loved it for its imposed walk break. I loved the whole course.

I played fast and loose with my 9:1 run/walk intervals, running through the breaks when I felt like it, but only really walking more at the end, after I’d covered my mandated 50K for the day. Met lots of folks, enjoyed their company, and never once was really tempted to go for the iPod I had stashed in my drop bag at the start of the loop. (Okay, maybe when “Praise to the Lord” was stuck in my head and I couldn’t recall any of the actual lyrics after the first phrase…”Da da da DUMMM da-da da da da hope of salvation” can only carry you so far.)

Took gels every five miles or so, Endurolytes on the hour, and tried a bit of solid food, mostly to test whether it’ll sit well at JFK. (Mostly yes.) Made a big error before my last long loop when I took a cup of Mountain Dew – and chugged it. Oof, that made me nauseated for almost a mile before the bubbles died down and the sugar kicked in!

In all, I covered 34.68 miles in 5:55:37, according to my Garmin. (Official results won’t be up until all the racers have finished, including the 24-hour folks who won’t finish until 8AM tomorrow.) I did the last mile on a separate 1/2-mile loop they set up for folks who didn’t have time or energy for a whole 3-mile left at the end.

All in all, a gorgeous, fun, great time. I would totally do that again! And my first prize bag included a lovely stoneware mug, some Wright socks, a coupon for a new Road ID (which I needed!), and a big jug of Gatorade Perform powder. Sweet.

Oh, and supposedly it was windy. Advisory and everything. I barely noticed.

 

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Caribou this morning, since we ran plumb out of beans here at home, and do you think I could go for a morning without? Ha. Think again, son.

So tomorrow is race day, and as of the official registration cut-off, I stand as the only runner for six hours. This made me fire off an email to the race director, because, honestly, when we made our original plans for me to run in South Bend this weekend, the thought was for a single night at a hotel, then showering and heading back that evening. But the awards ceremony isn’t until the 24-hour finishers are done the next morning…and now I’m the de facto winner of my division. (Never stops being funny.) Would I need to stick around? The RD assured me that they could give me my prize after my race finished – an unceremonious procedure, but it’s an unceremonious win. I thanked her:

Thanks; that helps with planning.

I also wondered: this is my first timed run, and I’m not sure about the mechanics. I know from reading race reports that the 24-hour folks, and probably the 12-hour ones, set up small “camp” areas, where they keep their food and supplies, but for a six-hour, should I plan otherwise? Or should I plan to have a bag where I can keep gels, etc. that I might want? As I said, I’ve never done this before.

Her response:

You will like the timed event.
We will have all kinds of gels, fluids, and food for you.
There will also be an area for you to have a drop bag with things you might like in it. The area around and in the red barn is the area for the runners so feel free to bring a chair or two, change of socks, etc in case you get tired and want rest a bit.

Sounds good to me. This could be my kind of event! Chairs and everything! (Not that I’m planning on taking any extended rest periods; by my calculations, on a 3-mile loop, I have plenty of time cushion to accomplish what I want to do, even accounting for slowing down, but I’m not going to abuse it, either.)

Here’s the only part that has me nervous. From somebody who posted on the event’s Facebook page:

…The challenge comes when passing through the trees in the woods on the bluff section as there is quite a few roots under those leaves. And trees along the river have dropped quite a few of their leaves to the tune of 3-4 inches deep. This area along the river has just as many roots to feel out for. The sad thing is that a recent Xcountry meet took place and someone painted the roots a yellow color. Duh! All the leaves are a yellow color to [sic].

Good practice for the Appalachian Trail, I suppose.

Anyway, wish me luck and good times! I do think I’m going to do this thing with just a handheld bottle, leaving my needed supplies by my bag. It’s just too convenient a plan to skip.

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I’m running the 6-hour in two days, during which I hope to cover the 50K distance called for in the plan. As things stand right now, I am the only person signed up to do the 6-hour time during the event (everybody else is signed up for the 12 and 24-hour times), so…I’ll “win”? Right. Go me. I’m just keeping my eyes on the immediate finish, because looking ahead of that point is Too Much. When I posted my last entry, I made a critical error; next Saturday, I have to run 24 miles, not 10. When I realized that, I felt like crying, just because it was such a shock to the system. I got over it, and it’ll be okay, but…darn, man.

Everything else is progressing as it will. Sam is handling school okay, with the exception of math, but we’re exploring ways to help that (a teenager from our church will be tutoring him once a week, for one). He switched to trombone instead of trumpet, and he’s all excited over a new unit on architecture they just began in class. Gabe is chugging along, enjoying schoolwork and activities, except for swimming – that’s going poorly at the moment for him, but I have faith we’ll have another upswing sooner or later. He hates the water temperature most of all, despite wearing a shirt over his torso to help it. He’s turning seven in a few weeks, so that’s a big obsession for him, too.

Eric has the patience of a saint, putting up with all of our ups and downs. I’ve promised him less chaos from my end, at least, by mid-November. JFK is only about a month away now, and that just never stops getting freakier.

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Tomorrow I’m running 22 miles. This is not a problem; I can run 22 miles. Cool beans. Next Saturday, it’s 24 – also not a problem, though that, combined with 22 tomorrow and 22 last Saturday might just leave me a bit taxed. The Saturday after that, I only have to run 10, which sounds like a veritable tip-toe through the meadow. Might wear a tutu. (It’s not a taper – it’s a “taperette,” because…)

In three weeks, I’m driving to South Bend and running for six hours, attempting to get in around 31 miles in the course of the race. Whee. “Only” a few more miles over what I’ll have been running, but what I’m trying hard not to remember is how 31 miles felt last July. Of course, the difference between repeating a simple three-mile loop course until my head spins and running a “trail” designed by a descendant of the Marquis de Sade might bear mention, but…that’s a lot of miles, and a long time time to run.

In four weeks, it’s 10 more tutu miles, and then in five weeks, it’s 26 miles, which I intend to do as an “out-and-back” on a half-marathon course here in town. (Might go as a crazy person. Would I even have to change?)

Seven weeks, 16 miles…eight weeks, 10 miles…and then…then…

…it’s show time. (Can’t! Stop! Laughing! at those first fifteen miles!)

So. I’m just sitting here, wrapping my brain around it. In nine weeks, I go home, possibly to die falling off the freaking Appalachian Trail. This seemed like such a good idea back in June. After this, I might take up water polo, or competitive miniature golf.

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Eric has a short business trip this week, but it works out that the only night he’ll be gone is the night he’s typically out past our bedtimes, anyway, with his weekly Scrabble game, so it’ll only be the next morning that we’ll miss his presence. (Well, except for me missing him in my sleep, but that’s understood.) More little trips scattered over the calendar, though, and they do add up over time. Can’t be helped. When I think of friends whose husbands are deployed overseas, or who are single-momming it full-time, I don’t feel like I have a whole lot of room to complain.

I’m blathering. My brain feels too fried to type anything of value.

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Good thing I’m recovered; I had a 22-miler this morning that I definitely didn’t want to miss or reschedule. I started at 4 AM, running on the bike trail, and it was almost surreally peaceful; I switched off my flashlight after a few minutes and just ran through the darkness, soaking it in.

Anyway, so much for any family activities today, but that’s fine. Gabe’s perfectly happy to stage elaborate play scenes with his miniature figures – a little more subdued than normal, but still entertaining – and Sam’s actually doing homework without being forced into it, simply to have something to do other than focus on how miserable he feels, poor thing. Eric’s eating lunch, and then I’ll bet he’ll spend some time resting, too. Another reason I’m glad to be recovered; I don’t mind at all running errands and whatnot to allow the rest of the family time to get better.

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Somebody hopped off the bus with a plan this afternoon.

Now, we’ve had a few false starts with regards to music and my older son. Violin came to a tragic end when he couldn’t handle the idea of having (::shudder::) people adjusting his fingers for him, and he fought me every time I mentioned practicing; even lessons with the teacher, who was clearly an Educational Ninja, couldn’t resurrect his willingness to try. Choir was a a let-down for him, since it meant giving up all his recesses in the end, not simply the single one the teacher had said would be enough for the group. I don’t blame him for not wanting to do that again. And our church musicals made him uncomfortable, standing in the spotlight, so he’s the sole junior member of the scenery crew for those now.

There is a difference this time, though: with the violin, the choir, and the musicals, I have to admit to being the propelling factor. Well, can you blame me? (Don’t answer that.) I mean, music was my life for so long, how could I help but hope my son might want to share it with me? I didn’t actually force him (except for the church plays, since his age group at class is primarily based around the staging of plays for much of the year, and there’s no other class for him), but I didn’t hide my desire that he’d give them a try…and he did…for a while.

This time, I thought I’d learned, so after some initial asking whether the band started this year and whether he’d try it (“No!” he said “I don’t want to give up my recesses again!”), I let it go. Then, today, he jumped down the bus steps and said, “I want to play the trumpet!”

Okay, so I know the shtick. The band director goes around, demonstrates all the instruments for the kids and makes it sound like being in the band is the rockstar life. I can even remember my own elementary school band director doing the same thing. He let us try all the mouthpieces, and the only one on which I could make a sound that I liked was the flute, and so there I went for the next ten years before switching primary focus to piano (mostly based on instructor preference, but also on practicality; a piano is a much more useful instrument for an aspiring composer, especially with so much being done electronically). Apparently, Sam’s teacher didn’t go so far as to let them try the mouthpieces yet, but Sam liked the sound of the trumpet best.

Well, that was Eric’s primary instrument, so we happen to have a couple of them in the basement. Reasoning that, even if it goes south again, at least we can mitigate cash outlay, I pulled out some mouthpieces for Sam to try. He did a couple of times, puffing out his cheeks like Dizzy. “It TICKLES!” he yelled. After failing to get a good buzz after a handful of attempts, he sighed and said, “I guess it’s not for me.”

“What?!” I laughed. “Did you think you were going to be Louis Frigging Armstrong on your first try?” Gabe barked with laughter, and Sam shrugged and said, “Well, yeah.” At least he’s honest. I told him of my fledgling attempts and failures, and he seemed cheered.

I am not getting my hopes up again. I am not going to push it. If he wants to try this, I’m supporting him, because music education is so very important, and I want him to have every benefit I can give him. But I’ve seen what pushing brings. Time will have to tell, as it always does.

(Gonna suggest he puts down “percussion” or “flute” in the “Second Instrument Choice” blank, though. The latter will also save money, since we’ve got that downstairs, too, and the former is less likely than any of the above to hammer on his sensory issues. No spit valves there, you see. )

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Somebody who’s done this, please reassure me on the point? ::Frantically re-reading Running Through the Wall again::

School is progressing normally; due to Labor Day weekend, they’re only on their third day of school today. Gabe’s got his first test coming up at the end of the week, a reading test (small “sight words” that he should be able to recognize without sounding them out), and he’s a little nervous about that. Sam has his laissez-faire attitude going on again, and I hope that doesn’t extend again toward the bringing home of homework, but we’ll see. His new teacher, new to the school, said that he’ll be keeping us up to date on missing assignments (not that they won’t be marked down or even not given credit at all), so I hope that’s reliable.

Labor Day weekend itself was fun. We hit the closing weekend of the Renaissance fair, a bonfire with friends, and had lots of time to just relax and let sore muscles heal. Wait, maybe that was just me. It’s a running step-back week (FINALLY), and my body is thanking me profusely now!

Getting my hair cut now. (Might just get ‘em all cut. Ba-dump-bump.)

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SAM: “I have a very funny teacher who gives us a lot of time to read. I was very nervous at first, because I didn’t know how to act as a fifth grader, but then I got over my nerves and felt better. Two of my friends were in my class – well, three, actually – and I can’t wait to learn more in school.”

GABE: “I was scared and very nervous, because it was my first day, and I might not make any friends. But it was fun – I don’t know why I was scared! And my teacher is very nice. My favorite thing was when we were doing a scavenger hunt in my room. You have to find a friend that’s wearing red, and a friend that’s a boy, and a friend that’s a girl. And we had Spanish. I only cried at lunch, because they told us to sit where we wanted, and I sat down, and my whole class sat really far away, and I was scared, and they wouldn’t let me move. But then it was okay.”

There were some major teardrops shining in Gabe’s eyes as he got onto the bus this morning, but he had two Sharpie hearts drawn onto his wrists as a reminder of how much I love and was missing him (one wasn’t enough; he demanded one for both arms), and that seemed to help a little. Sam, meanwhile, didn’t show a blink of either excitement or nervousness until he looked around and realized that he was going to be the oldest one at the bus stop this year. Somehow, that brought it all home for him, and he was filled with the “importance of his position.”

For my part, I got in my run, and then I settled down and into the inordinate amount of paperwork required to send kids to school these days. Exciting times, I know. (RIP, acres of trees.) The boys were home, climbing off the bus (on the wrong side of the dangerous intersection, which had better not be the way things will be all year, or I won’t be the only disgruntled parent at our stop) before I could blink much, both full of stories and relieved that everything looks optimistic for a pleasant year. Hurray!

This may well be the last year they share a school. That feels momentous to me.

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I read to him, though early bedtimes often mean no story, and I tucked him in; he smiled with his eyes closed and melted into my hand as it stroked his forehead. “Mom? Can we do this every night?”

“Well…seven o’clock is pretty early for bed, Sam, don’t you think? You might wind up waking earlier than you want to.”

“That might not be so bad, with school…”

And I came downstairs, feeling both warmed at the nice time I’d spent with Sam and guilty at the idea that perhaps I’d really been neglecting him. He’s been very prickly lately, snapping at people for no reason, deliberately provoking Gabe and starting fights, rude when asked to do things he doesn’t want to do. It’s hormonal, I know, and I’m sympathetic, but it’s all new to me, too. When a kid’s refrains have become “Nobody talk to me right now” and “I just want to be alone,” it’s hard to know when he means it literally and when he just doesn’t know how to handle the storm in his brain and body.

At his eye appointment, he confessed to the eye doctor (when asked whether he’s focusing well on written pages) that he’s been sneaking out of bed at night into the bathroom, to sit and read. No wonder he’s grouchy and red-eyed in the morning.

Gabe is demanding of individual attention at all times, and Sam is pushing us away – sometimes gently, sometimes forcefully – as he heads into his tweens. It’s too easy to accept that as the way things are, to cuddle Gabe close while letting Sam drift. I’d already been giving Sam more and more privacy (both in our home and, if it hasn’t been obvious, online), but then moments like last night happen, and I get smacked in the face with the realization that it’s the toddler years all over again, when they push away for independence, then come careening back in terror when they think they’ve gone too far.

Instead of the terrified return, though, the reaction is subtle and easier to miss. The slight clinging to my hand as I stroke his head in the dark…the suggestion of a bike ride…the request to sit next to me in a restaurant. If I don’t pick up on it, he lets it go so easily, so easily, and maybe next time it won’t even be there at all. This is how it happens, maybe. I guess it’s different for all of them, but maybe this is how my Sam grows up and away.

He’s so young for ten. That makes sense to people who have or work with kids; there are ten-year-olds who act their age and more, and then there are ten-year-olds who cling to their “little kid” years with their fingernails, trying so hard not to go on. Sam’s in the latter camp; only moving into “big kid” activities when the closest of his peers can convince him that it’s worth the exploration. He’s the boy who’ll happily carry a stuffed animal with him into the grocery store, oblivious to any strange looks he’ll receive; he’s the one who wanders through stores, looking for something shiny to hang around his own neck, looking startled and appalled when clerks try to suggest he might be shopping for a girlfriend. Knowing that about him, it’s easy to forget that time is passing so fast that none of us had better blink.

He starts fifth grade on Thursday. If you can believe that, you’re doing better than I am.

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There were eye drops involved. No coincidentally, there was screeching and red-faced struggling, as well. In his defense, halfway through the appointment, he did stop, unprompted, to say, “I’m sorry I said mean things.” That’s my Gabe: shoot first, apologize later. (And, also in his defense, Sam did corroborate his story that the drops stung.) The eye doctor was very gracious and said that, aside from the drops tantrum, Gabe did very well. He even refrained from saying “I told you so” when she told him he didn’t need glasses (he had insisted quite loudly that this was the case, as she stood over him with the eye drops)…though he did barely restrain the eye roll when she had asked him to tell her when the letters on the screen started to “turn all fuzzy.”

“I know what ‘blurry’ means,” he said, sounding slightly offended.

So, I think that’s all the body parts that need checked, cleaned, or trimmed before school starts next week, which is a good thing for my nerves. I can tell they’re really fraying, because I lost my temper and laid down the freaking law last night at dinner. Among other things on their plates was a tiny slice of grilled zucchini, and you’d have thought it was fresh excrement from their reactions. After one too many rude remarks from Sam, I made a decision: “That’s it! I have one more zucchini in the fridge, and it’s for dinner tomorrow! And I’m hitting the farmer’s market for more zucchini, and there’ll be zucchini at every dinner from now on until it gets eaten without a fuss!”

Anybody got any good zucchini recipes? I’m thinking a gratin, maybe…

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(But we won’t talk about the dental hygienist who asked me, right in front of him, whether the whimpering, upset Gabe was autistic.)

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Perhaps Sam would have, too, but Gabe, the early riser, wanted Sam to get out of bed to help him with something this morning, so he prodded him awake with the temptation of one more full day of brotherly service. You know, in the hands of some older brothers, that could be a bad thing, but with Sam…I can see the attraction for Gabe. Sam hasn’t enslaved him – he’s knighted him. They’re outside now, where I can hear swordfighting lessons in progress.

I wish you could hear it, too. Some highlights:

“This isn’t a good idea, Sam.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m not aiming at you; I’m aiming at your sword.”

“Go!” Crashcrashcrash!
“Ow! Gabe, I have to say ‘en garde’ first!”

“You need a better sword, I think.”
“And a shield!”

And now they just came clamoring inside. Gabe yelled, “Guess what, Mom? Sam made me a prince! Because I’ve learned how to use my environment against my opponent!” Yep, I can see the draw in being one’s brother’s servant, I guess…for a day.

EDIT: Oh dear.
“Sam, I don’t want to ride that down the hill.”
“You’ll stop at the bottom, then stab me. Let me finish tying it…”
“When do I jump off?”

I think The Queen Mother may need to step in now…

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We were watching the construction crew across the street demolish an old driveway. A forklift was loading slabs of concrete onto a pickup truck, where a couple of guys attacked them with sledgehammers to break them into smaller pieces. Gabe looked thoughtful.

“I’ve always wanted a sledgehammer,” he said. I asked him why. He eyed me. “It’s complicated,” he said, waving his hand.

Sam, meanwhile, terrifies me in other ways. Little Mr. Daredevil wasn’t technically breaking any rules as he whipped up and down the street on his bike, but with all the construction equipment (small stuff, but still), he was making me nervous. I told him to get on the sidewalk.

“But, Mom! You told me I wasn’t supposed to ride like that on the sidewalk, since this is a serious bike, not a toy!” Well, true. I told him it was just the equipment, so he obliged…and came blurring down the sidewalk, moments later, barely clearing Gabe and me as we stood there. I told him to slow down for sidewalk riding; he gave up and went inside. (I did suggest, before he did, that he go over to the bike trail, which interested him until I reminded him that, as it was an hour before bedtime, he couldn’t really go on any really long trail rides.)

Is my hair grey yet?

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The kids are being kids, which, well, duh. It’s the last couple of weeks of summer vacation, and they’re apparently all out of energy, except what they can expend in manic bursts as shouts at a computer screen or video game or each other. (Oh, yay, there they go again. “IT’S MY LEGO PIECE! GIVE IT BACK!” as though we don’t have giant plastic tubs overflowing with Legos. That one is special.) We did almost all the school supply shopping yesterday, with the exception of Sam’s oil pastels and erasable blue pens. Beyond the weird specificity of the latter, haven’t we all decided that erasable pens are pure evil by now? They smear, they blot, they don’t really erase anyway…and he already bought some black ones, also found on the list. Why do we need blue ones, too? What’s the bizarre importance, here?

Perhaps I’d mind less in a better mood. But you should have seen the epic tantrum Gabe threw when we couldn’t find them at our second stop yesterday, before I managed to make him understand that we didn’t need to go searching in another place that day. Of course, he was only expressing the frustration probably felt by every one of the parents packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the narrow school supply aisles, but he was doing it with panache. And volume. And what we’ll call “interpretive dance,” so as to give his six-year-old pride a little break. Heck, I was hot and tired, too, so I can understand how his breaking point got smashed to bits there.

My ribs are still fiercely aching, and even my face still hurts some, usually when I forget about it and go to rest my cheek in my hand or put on moisturizer a little too slap-dashedly. Swimming on Monday morning was a failure from the get-go (had to use a kickboard for the entire workout, since stroking with my arms was agonizing), and I called the doctor afterward, who prescribed me some pain pills with instructions to call her if things didn’t improve after a while. Funny thing is, she wants me to take them at bedtime, but the pain is the worse when I wake. That’s when I need help; the first hour after getting out of bed, I’m creeping around like an old lady who can barely stand up without wincing. By bedtime, it’s not so bad; maybe being upright for that long just inures me to the pain or something. Who knows?

Need a cheer-up.

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One of the only “misses” on the trip was the Top Secret attraction, which Gabe was desperate to see, and which he begged and begged for us to go to, and which he happily pranced into…and which he and I had to flee through an emergency exit provided by the tour guide midway through, with Gabe howling in my ear, “THAT WAS HORRIFYING! Why would they SHOW ME that?! I’m going to be TERRIFIED FOR LIFE!” He even grabbed a little girl by the elbow, as she was crossing the parking lot with her parents, to say, “Just so you know, it’s really, really scary in there!” (As a footnote, when we left the Dells this afternoon after Gabe had exchanged an extremely tearful goodbye with his grandparents, he said, “Now we just need to go back to Top Secret! This moment is so bad, that would even cheer me up!”)

But that was the only down side, other than the occasional squabbling about whether we should be splashing in the water park or waving wands at Magiquest, or whether it ought to be the restaurant featuring paper moose antlers or model trains for dinner. That’s to be expected, and there were no catastrophes.

Well, I say “no catastrophes,” and that’s true, though I guess it did come close. I kept up with my running while I was there, and I saved my longest midweek run for a trail run at Mirror Lake. It was worth it; the views were incredible, and I had the whole trail to myself. I picked the one marked with the highest difficulty, a mountain bike trail, and it was very rolling, with plenty of steeper hills mixed in. No human souls, but plenty of wildlife; I shared the morning with wild turkeys, a doe with two fawns darting in front of me, and an adorable pitch-black squirrel that kept popping up. I was in a great mood right before mile four, when I passed a “Do Not Enter” sign; it made me giggle, thinking it really needed a pink ribbon tied to it (I guess I didn’t mention in the race report; the “course” was so rough that every time we saw a “Do Not Enter” or “Keep Out” sign, it was nearly always marked with a pink ribbon indicating that we needed to duck under any barrier and plow forward.)

So I was giggling about that, and my mind wandered for a crucial second, and a root jumped up and grabbed my toe. I took a hard fall to the ground, landing heavily on my rib cage and face. Ow. It took several long minutes for me to regain myself, just lying there, staring at the tree canopy, trying to breathe. After a while, I sat up and spat out big mouthfuls of mud, trying to see whether I’d broken anything really important; my hat had flown off my head and up the trail a ways, and I was a little worried I’d broken my face. My ribs were killing me, but my legs seemed okay, if scraped.

The last two miles were slow and painful, but, you know, you have to finish what you start, especially if you’re the only one on the trail and your car is at the end. Got back to the hotel and iced my face and ribs; happily, that kept my cheek from swelling up into my eye, but there’s still a shadow of a bruise there, and the ribs are pretty sore. My mother-in-law was a nurse, though, and she agreed that I probably didn’t need to go to the Urgent Care, since all they’d do is tell me to ice it and take ibuprofen. It’s not debilitating, just achy. Could have been a lot worse, I suppose.

Anyway, we’re back now, and there’s laundry to do and routines to resume. School starts in a few weeks, and I haven’t bought a single supply for that. Time to get cracking!

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I was at running club this morning, and one of our regulars brought a friend with him. I could tell from a distance what the guy was, in his mud-covered trail shoes, compression calf sleeves, bottle waistpack, and big bushy beard. I was right; he was introduced as a grizzled ultrarunner, with a few handfuls of 100-milers under his belt. So, naturally, I was thrilled to run with him and pick his brain, and the conversation was great; he was a really nice guy. It was a true pleasure to share the trails with him!

At one point, while we were talking, I asked whether he did set intervals when he was doing ultraruns. He laughed quietly. “I can tell you’re a marathoner,” he said. Only in the company of ultrarunners would that be a gently derogatory comment! I laughed, too, because he’s right; with only one ultra to my credit, I am much more of a marathoner. But it was a misunderstanding; he thought I meant, like, distance intervals, such as you might do on a track, when I really meant loosely-timed run-walk intervals. When I clarified, he said he often does 15-minute runs to 5-minute walks.

Then, skipping ahead an hour, I found myself in a drugstore, sweating profusely and waiting for Eric to get me. (Explanation coming.) While I stood there, an older man came up to me, clearly shocked and bewildered. “What’s wrong?!” he said. “Are you okay?” I explained that I was running just prior. “But it’s too hot out there!” he gasped. “And you’re just a BABY!” I’ll admit to having to hide my giggle when he said that. He left, shaking his head, after making certain I didn’t need help from him in any way.

So, I’m a marathoning baby. I’ll take that over the much more deserved teasing I got from Eric, when he came to get me from the store, three miles away from my car, where I’d run completely accidentally after missing a turn and getting totally, mind-bogglingly lost. It was hot, muggy, and I was exhausted and apparently had sweat my bloody brains out through my pores, because I have no better explanation for how I managed to get so confused. It’s a planned city. I’ve run there many, many times. I had a GPS on my wrist and another (my phone) in my pouch. I just…I have no excuse. Complete dunderhead. Good thing trail races are usually marked. (Also, good thing I have such an understanding spouse, who is willing to get out of bed and drive twenty minutes to rescue me, with only the aforementioned deserved ribbing in exchange.)

I’d kill for ice cream right now.

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ME: “…so you guys just go straight to the pool, and I’ll be in after I clean up, since I smell like a dead goat.”
GABE: “I know!”
ME: “Gabe! You’re not supposed to agree so fast. Say, ‘Why, Mother, you smell like nothing but the finest spring flowers.’”

There was a long pause, then…

GABE: “I can’t smell any flowers, just a sweaty goat. But I’m sure that’s not you!”

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“Bob,” he’s dubbed his temper. Yes, he gave it a name, and he views it as both the enemy and as part of himself that can’t really go away and maybe even shouldn’t, since it’s him. Pretty astute for a six-year-old. “Bob’s coming out again!” he yells in a panic. “I can’t control him this time!” He’s not trying to be funny, either.

Right now, we’re alternating between two different methods of dealing with Bob. The first is a code phrase, which he invented; if he comes to me and says “Tiny Cowboy!”, I’ve promised to drop whatever I’m doing and hug him hard until he feels more in control of things. I have no idea what “Tiny Cowboy” signifies, but that’s not the point. He feels freaked, and the hug helps him regroup.

The second method is a little more advanced, but he latched onto it. Basically, we drop to a seated cross-legged position, palms upturned on knees, and pretend we’re cupping a baby chick in each hand, feeling it breathe and wiggle slightly. Can’t grip too tightly, or we’ll hurt the babies! We breathe slowly and focus on the baby birds until things are all better. He even named the chicks (well, of course he did): Chick-Chick and The Fuzz. This morning, when Sam was bugging him and making him angry, he asked if we could switch to baby puppies, too small to crawl out of his hands, for variety.

Thing is, with Gabe, timing is paramount. As I said, if you can get to him, or he can get to himself, before he’s really and truly in the Red Zone, then these things have a chance at working. If we’re busy and don’t notice how upset he’s getting, or if something pushes him over the line too quickly for him to see it coming, then all bets are off, and any attempt to calm him down is going to backfire. I have yet to find anything to help in that situation; that’s when he’s screaming the worst things he can think, trying to throw things and hurt people, out of his mind. All you can do then is put him in his room – not simply to punish, but because most of the things in there are soft, unbreakable, and won’t hurt if hurled. Talking fuels the fire; hugs aren’t welcome. Nothing to do but let it burn out as quickly as it can, then regroup afterward, when he’ll still be upset, but he can see through to the other side.

In some ways, it’s more complicated than with Sam, who, like me, tends to get snappish instead of explosive, but lacks the attention span to hold the anger for very long once distracted. On the other hand, fire is about as simple as it gets, and that’s what Gabe is. The embers are frequently there, but he’s learning how to keep them as a controlled little campfire instead of a raging inferno. And he’s right when he sees “Bob” as enemy-yet-not. That fire is going to serve some purpose eventually; our sermon at church a couple of weeks ago stressed that anger itself isn’t bad, per se, but what we do in anger that can be great or terrible. He’ll get it, I have faith.

In-laws coming in this weekend! Exciting times ahead! I told Gabe to tell his playground leaders yesterday who was coming to visit him and he said, “Santa Claus?”

Anyway, lots of picking up to do before then. I warned the boys, but it’s their playroom that’s in the worst shape and in need of the most effort. That should be entertaining…

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That’s fine, but can a vegetarian and a Paleo eater coexist and dine under the same roof? I’m all “a bean, a green, and a grain” for a balanced meal, and he’s cocking his eyebrow at two out of the three. He’s in the “Slay me your finest beasts and bring me their flesh!” zone, and I’m going, “Um, tempeh, please?” It’s very weird. No idea how dinners are going to work, now that even our side dishes won’t match. (And I’m telling you right now, spaghetti squash might be all right in and of itself, but it is not spaghetti. This is not a viable compromise area.)

I’m telling you where this is really going to be bad: pizza. Specifically, Eric’s fabulous homemade pizzas, which are beautiful and delicious and do NOT need to be adapted to involve almond meal-based crusts. I mean, really? I’ll give it a try, because I’ll try anything once, but that just sounds bizarre.

Don’t get me wrong, though. Health comes first, and if this is the path toward greater health for him, then I’m all for it. It’s the logistics I’m sweating here. Might be premature, though; perhaps I need to wait and see whether he really enjoys the diet enough and sees strong enough results to stick with it long-term before I start fretting. (And, meanwhile, Gabe was gaping at both of us in horror last night as we offered him our options – leftover noodles with vegetables, or grilled skirt steak – for dinner. He lobbied hard for just being allowed to make his own meal instead. )

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This time, I feel…different. More dubious. I mean, I know I’m going to do it, but part of me is afraid in a way that I wasn’t before. Probably, it’s all the little injuries I’ve had this year, so that the idea that nothing will jump up and bite me if I so much as sneeze too hard is difficult to swallow. And fifty miles is fifty miles. Take your best marathon time, double it, and add two hours: that’s how they tell you to calculate your fifty-miler expected finish time. Ten hours seems like a ridiculously long time to be running, doesn’t it?

Today’s ten-mile long run marked the first time I’ve broken double digits since last month’s marathon. It was fine. Well, it was like running through a swimming pool, by the time I was done (seriously, my shorts were completely saturated and clinging to my legs like a soggy diaper, which is, I assure you, far grosser to experience than to read here), but I felt otherwise fine. Tomorrow, I’m meeting Rachel for a six-mile cross-country run in the morning, and I anticipate that, too, being fine.

Still waiting on my “Raar!” though. If you happen to find it, could you tell it I’m waiting on its return?

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So yesterday, I was picking up the boys from their respective playground programs, and as I approached an intersection with a stop sign, I became aware of a small buzzing sound in my ear just before the screeching started. Sam shakily announced, “There’s big bug on the door, and even I’m afraid of this one.” I turned my head and saw a Japanese beetle, clearly confused as it tried to parse its new location, away from the park trees. Now, the van side windows don’t open, so as I stopped at the stop sign, I pushed the button to open the door, hoping Sam would quickly brush the bug out of the opening.

What happened instead was that Gabe whipped off his seatbelt and yelled, at the top of his lungs, “PEACE! I’M OUT OF HERE!” and jumped out the door. Into the street.

Thankfully, there was no traffic coming our direction at the moment. I grabbed behind me frantically, snatching at his shirt and shouting for him to get back in the car, where as far as he was concerned, Certain Death by Insect awaited him with sharp, pointy teeth. He did come to the conclusion that the street was not a particularly safer place to be, though, so he climbed back in and stood between the seats, keening wordlessly while I tried to see whether the bug was even still in the vehicle. It seemed to have made a hasty retreat from us (who could blame it?!), so I managed to get Gabe to at least sit down and buckle up (thank you for your non-honking patience, car that pulled up behind us in the meantime) while howling.

So. Much. Fun.

Looks like the in-laws are coming to visit in a couple of weeks, which should be the better sort of fun. Every year, it appears, we’re destined to have family in from out of town during the week of State Fair. This is a good thing, since the more adult people keeping tabs on these children, the better. Stands selling Deep-Fried Butter (I’m so not kidding…) are probably bound to attract insects, and I don’t relish having to dash through crowds in pursuit of a terrified six-year-old.

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Ah, the faces of the heat wave. The manic, tired eyes and the humidity-wrecked hair…the sweat sheen that never dissipates…the pupils dilated from the sugar rush you get when you try to medicate with ice cream…the brain frazzled from the complaining and whines that inevitably follow said sugar crash…And we’re all snapping at each other for any and no reason. Lovely, right? This was the best of several pictures I tried to snap here before finally giving up and declaring it honest, if not flattering.

School got cancelled today, too. We’re in a nearby hotel, using Rewards Points Eric’s earned from all that travel that I sighed about earlier this year. (I’d say I’ll not sigh again in the future, but who am I kidding? ) It’s a luxury, but probably a necessity, too; Sam started barking with asthma coughs just stepping into the lobby this morning. This air is No Joke for people with breathing issues. Even I had trouble drawing breath during my very brief “run” this morning (which was meant to be in the hotel fitness room on a treadmill, before I found out we didn’t have one), so I have strong sympathy for anybody with involuntarily stressed systems.

Gabe’s having nightmares. Sam’s butting heads with me at every opportunity, and I’m butting back. Eric walked full-force into a door last night. It’s…it’s…

COUNTING BLESSINGS!
1. It’s only a handful of days a year, when you add them up.
2. Pistachio ice cream with almonds.
3. The kids are playing peacefully with cheap plastic army men, and nobody’s arguing!
4. Tomorrow’s a swim workout day, and I’m looking forward to that.
5. Post-sugar crash leading to lethargy now, which feels not unwelcome, all things considered.

Oh, swim workout: forgot to say. My plan for JFK is going to involve Saturday and Sunday long runs (well, long and recovery), sandwiched by cross-training days. Swimming will feature heavily, being so wonderfully non-impact. I’ve been continuing to go for about an hour a couple of times a week, and I think I’m really getting the hang of it now, with the Swimplan.com drills.

Lethargy hitting full-force now. Must lie down.

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I did my run today at 5 AM, hoping to avoid the worst of the day’s heat-advisory-level temps, but I was sticky before I even got out the door. Thank God this is a fall race, so I’m still in the low mileage zone.

This whole basement thing is creating an interesting phenomenon. My elementary school kids are turning into bona fide frat boys down there. They’re hooting and hollering over video games, sprawled out all over the floor (oh, by the way, want to know what’s better than $45 bean bag chairs for which you also have to buy your own “beans” to stuff them yourself? Giant doggy beds. You’re welcome.), completely oblivious to any kind of social mores; last night, unable to fathom cooking, I ordered pizza, and when I went down to check on them later, the scene was so very Animal House that I almost went looking for hidden togas and kegs. Terrifying.

Unrelated, Gabe now says he wants to be a judge when he grows up. This can in no way end boringly.

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And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to go barf.

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Only “down side” this week has been that I haven’t run. On Friday, the slight thigh twinges I’d been feeling on some of my runs began to make me nervous to the point where I decided that rather than risk worsening it, I would take some rest time and swim. So swim I did! I even went so far as to sign up for free swimming plans at Swimplan.com, which generates workouts based on your ability level and goals. It’s been an interesting little sidebar, and I think I’m already beginning to see some improvements in my skills! Not that I’m training to be a real Capital-S-Swimmer, or even a triathlete, but I figure that a thing worth doing is a thing worth doing well, and there’s no point in using swimming as a cross-training activity without working on developing it.

Going to hit a running form clinic tonight, at a brand new running store. Education and information, all around!

Sam had a playground field trip to a water park today, and Gabe had a “mess fest” through his playground program. You may remember when Sam had this experience:

Gabe has stayed home and refused to participate in the activity for the past two years, but this year, he decided to give it a go, reserving the right to not take part in anything too gross. He met with success:

That’s mostly paint, though at one point he sat in a chair, playing Musical Chairs, before realizing it contained spaghetti with sauce. Ewwww!

Back to the regular grind now!

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- Swam 1400 yards
- Washed and dried a load of clothing
- Emptied out a chest freezer full of rotten food, which got unplugged some unidentified time in the past without notice
- Aided Eric in vacuuming out the…liquid, we’ll call it.
- Mopped the floor around the freezer
- Called a haul-away service
- Re-dressed a child who refuses to admit that this weather is what Wisconsinites refer to as “summer” (i.e. not thermal shirt weather)
- Stripped said child’s stinky, sweaty bed linens (he also refuses to go without pajamas, for similar reasons)
- Made and am enjoying what I think is a well-deserved pot of coffee

Coming up next: dropping kids off at school, then mowing the lawn. Whee!

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Gabe is currently out riding his bike along the sidewalk, which…okay, awesome. It’s Sam’s hand-me-down Trek, currently with training wheels, and I’m not at all worried about anything going wrong, since he is beyond cautious over it. It took real strength of will for him to convince himself to hop on, but he’s going at it doggedly, and he’s hit a point where he feels he’s “going really fast!” (swiftly enough to make me break into a power-walk next to him). He did have a crash yesterday, when he tried to make too sharp a turn for his skill level, and, as I predicted, he immediately insisted he didn’t want to ride anymore. Luckily, we’d had that talk already, he and I, and I jumped right in, reminding him that he had to get back on right away and show it who was boss. So he did, and it was all good.

This morning, I discovered that at some point, the chest freezer in the basement got unplugged. The seal on that thing is impressive; I had no clue until I opened it, and then…oh, the humanity. I’ve plugged it back in, for now, hoping that letting it freeze a little bit before cleaning will make the stench a bit more tolerable.

Gabe pulled me over to a framed family photo this morning, propped against the wall where it will hang. “I saw this, and I don’t want it to change,” he said. I told him we couldn’t leave it there, since it would fall over and break, but he stopped me. “I mean, I don’t want that to change. I want us to stay just like that.”

“We look nice there, I know. We’ll have other portraits, though, that look nice, too, as we grow up,” I said.
“But…when I’m a teenager, will I still live in this house?”
“Yes.”
“Can I come sleep in your bed, then, too?”
“If you really want to.”
“I’m just going to miss us all.” Then he ran off.

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(Moment I came upstairs, Sam demanded to watch the video, giggling, “Do I really sound like that?” And the little rocking chair was safe from catastrophe, too.)

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Now, this has arisen before, only then, it was “K. can’t play with Gabe unless Sam is out there, too.” I get that. She’s about twelve years old, and her parents find it a little uncomfortable for her to be playing alone with a six-year-old, even one who sees himself more as a teenager trapped in a first-grader’s body. (Maybe even especially that kind of kid.) This was different, though; Gabe insisted that the new rule excluded him without caveat, which…what?

So she came to our house when finished with chores, and I went to learn the truth. As she explained, since she doesn’t play with her own sister, Gabe’s age, she’s not to play with Gabe either. That’s a bit muddled in my mind; if I had to guess, I’d say her parents are aggravated that she’s “too cool” to play with her sister, so they’re making a statement about that. But that leaves Gabe…devastated. “All right, then,” I said to her, “but if you guys are playing in our yard, Gabe will be allowed outside. I’m not keeping him in when you come over.” She agreed quickly. Then she and Sam went over to her house.

Gabe was forlorn. It’s not fair that he should be punished in this situation, and I had a hard time coming up with a way to console him. I suggested that we go see if K.’s little sister could play, but he didn’t want to play with her; he wants to play Big Kid games with Big Kids – his friends, as far as he’s concerned. I took him on a bike ride up and down the street, trying to distract him with the novelty of it, but he kept sighing. “What if they’re happy that I’m not with them?” he said. “What if they’re laughing and happier that I’m not there?”

Then they came back to our garage, entranced by the lure of shade, and Gabe decided to lurk on the sidelines. He took out bubbles, trying to attract their attention, but when it didn’t work, he whispered, “Don’t they miss me?”

I want to punch somebody for him.

Cleared to run yesterday by the podiatrist, who said my toes were healing “phenomenally.” I celebrated with a short run, using 2:1 run/walk intervals, and felt great. Then today, trying to come back cautiously, I went swimming instead. Yay, adrenaline.

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Happy Father’s Day to my wonderful husband, the father of our awesome little men. We love you so much!

And to my own dad, who I miss so much and cannot wait to see in a few weeks. Happy Father’s Day to you, too!

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It’s no secret that we’re, shall we say, less than fond of this house. It should also be no secret to anybody who’s watched more than a couple of news shows, glanced at a newspaper, or, heck, driven through their neighborhood and noticed at signs in people’s yards that selling a home right now is something of a risky proposition. Houses are sitting on the market…and sitting…and despite all our wishes to dump this house faster than we could blink, it’s probably not a good bet as something we could count on happening. I have friends in the area trying it. I also have friends who have given up and rented out their houses instead, which isn’t something we want to do.

So, what’s a family to do in a situation like this? They make the best of it, take a look around at the things that really, truly bother them about the house, and do what they can to make it better. In our case, that’s started with trying to purge and get rid of piles and piles of crap. I actually started to do this a while ago, when there had been a possibility of moving out of this place, but when it fell through, I lost my momentum entirely; now I’ve returned to the task with a vengeance.

On Thursday, the day before garbage pick-up, I started hauling things out to the curb, where I staged an “Alysia-style” yard sale; I tagged nothing, put up no signs, and managed to make $40 on stuff I just wanted to see gone. Most of what didn’t sell went to trash pickers overnight before the garbage truck came by the next day. Then yesterday and today, I hauled out loads of stuff out of the basement and took them to Goodwill; today, in fact, Eric helped by getting rid of piles of old hardware that has been sitting downstairs for years. Boom. Gone. It’s liberating.

Won’t lie; I’d rather focus on just dumping the place. But we’d have to do this part, anyway, wouldn’t we? No point in waiting until then.

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Well, somebody had the audacity to wake up ten years old this morning. Can you believe that? The nerve! I told him to knock it off right this instant and go back to being the little ball of baby he’s supposed to be, but he just giggled at me! In a voice that, while not exactly changing yet, is way deeper than the giggle I know he had yesterday, when he was pushing his little Elmo lawn mower around the yard, or even playing on a blanket, surrounded by soft toys. That was yesterday, wasn’t it?

Or perhaps not. This Sam has huge feet, and he’s “maybe, sort of” interested in girls, perhaps. This one wobbles wildly between sweet and gentle and filled with raging hormones with which he’s only barely acquainted at this point and has no hope of controlling. He uses that shower gel that’s supposed to surround you with women wild to run their hands through his hair. (Hasn’t happened yet, thanks this mom.) He rolls his eyes at the injustice of having parents who refuse to buy him video games that feature eviscerations and flying intestines.

But he actually cooed this morning when he saw the origami crane and butterflies his great-grandma sent him in his birthday card. He snuggles stuffed animals, and he sees absolutely nothing wrong with taking them out to dinner in restaurants with him. He draws in notebooks, frequently and with great detail. He still can’t quite wrap his mind around schoolwork and organization skills that many kids his age are beginning to handle with ease. And he’s singing to himself in the kitchen right now, completely without self-consciousness: “It’s my birrrrrrrth-day! Happy birrrrrrth-day!”

This Sam chose a bike for his birthday, as he did four and six years ago.

  

The bikes keep getting bigger. That’s easier for me to focus on noticing, not the fact that the kid riding them is also growing, up to my chin with no signs of stopping. In the end, it’s still the same look on his face as he flies down the street, laughing at the wind in his face and loving the way he can move so fast, riding farther and farther away from home, away from me.

And then he turns, looks back, and flies back to me. For now.

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After we left, we had another, longer talk. He was utterly appalled, thankfully, and I was very relieved that he hadn’t taken the time to help Gabe sound out the words on the locker. Thankfully, Gabe was uninterested in the actual vocabulary used; he was far more freaked by what had caught Sam’s eye first: the rest of the sentence, which made reference to hanging. (Can I just say, once more, that these are the milestones you really, really don’t want?!) I told them both that the sort of people who write those things on lockers are usually cowards, the sort of people who would probably drop the pen and run if anybody caught them at it.

I didn’t say that they wouldn’t have had much to worry about, anyway, being the “right” color of skin for this racist vandal. That lesson, the one about privilege, can wait.

I hope the graffiti is gone when the kids enter the locker room next time. Honestly, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m a little less comfortable sending them in there next time than I was today. The time they go in, the locker room is full of young kids, not grownups, but I don’t like it. Sadly, Sam’s just undeniably too old for me to take him in the women’s or the family locker room, even if Gabe wasn’t hitting the borders of that stage, himself. I felt fine about Sam being in there with Gabe before today. Now we’ve hit yet another of those bumps that make me want to whisk my family away to some safe, clean place…that doesn’t really exist, I know, but I can’t help wishing, and mourning yet another loss of innocence.

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And just like that, school’s out for the year, and vacation ends/begins. (How is it that I never fully appreciated just how much of an anti-vacation summer is for parents when I was a kid? Mom and Dad never seemed more stressed than usual during the summer…but, then again, I suppose they weren’t as shy about administering heavy doses of “eat your breakfast, then get outside and don’t come back until lunch.” I’d try that more often, but it seems to end in more tears and recrimination with my kids than I recall it being with me and my brother. I suppose we had more neighborhood foils to stand between us and distract tension than my kids do.)

Luckily, the playground programs began today, seamlessly bridging the gap between when school ends and summer school begins. Both kids enjoyed their programs, so that’ll take care of afternoons for a while. The rest of today was a bit madcap. I spent the morning on the phone with doctors and pharmaceutical providers, trying to argue my way into not having to mail out monthly paper prescriptions for maintenance meds (don’t ask), in between which headaches I managed to get the grass cut and the kids to the library.

Then, when they were at the playground, I got out the bike, intending to top off the tires with air and go on a ride…but after futzing with the valves and the adaptor for a while, I finally admitted defeat and walked the bike to the bike shop, pump on my back, for a lesson in how to do it properly. Turns out, “properly” necessarily involves a pump that isn’t broken. Well, who knew? At least it wasn’t my fault the tires wouldn’t get full. Rode home with a new (heavier, bulkier, pointier) pump in the bag on my back (jabbing me in the ribs with every jounce).

Then I fed the family, scrubbed the stovetop with the assistance of copious scrubbing powder and red wine (the wine for me, to make the task more tolerable), and sent the kids out to play (“and don’t come back until bedtime or until somebody’s bleeding!”). (No, not really.) (Though it was tempting.) Now I sit here, soaking my healing toes, counting down the minutes until bedtime.

I love vacations, don’t you?

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Gabe’s kindergarten class staged their “graduation” ceremony yesterday. It was an in-class thing, with no parents, so I have no idea what he did besides get a graduation cap and a diploma…and pick up a brand-new set of anxieties.

“I’m scared,” he mumbled this morning, curled into a corner of the rocking chair. “I’m scared of first grade.” Of course, he still has two days left of kindergarten before this should even be an issue, but never mind that; the cap was placed on his head, so in his mind, he’s on to the next step. “What if I get a mean teacher?”

I had Sam try to tell him about his own first-grade experience, for which he had a perfectly lovely teacher, but it didn’t help much. Gabe is a fretter, not the optimist Sam tends to be, and change – specifically, change that he hasn’t weighed in his own mind and made with deliberation and autonomy – isn’t anything he seeks, as a rule. It took him a fairly long time to adjust to kindergarten, and it seems like that might a recurring theme, not a one-off. Doesn’t help that, having the big brother that Sam didn’t, he’s learned about the concept of “mean teacher” as a reality, not a television show anomaly. Mean teachers exist at his school, and it doesn’t matter that he’s unlikely to get one next year; their confirmed presence is enough to inject uncertainty into his mind.

I sort of wish this could have waited until at least midway through the summer. The last few days of school are supposed to be about celebrating the end of one year, not dreading the next one already. Besides, first grade at this particular school is fun especially for a little ham like Gabe is. Remember this? They work on that musical for a huge chunk of the year, and if I know my second-born, he’ll love it. But he’s building terrors already, which means they’ll be huge and hulking by summer’s end. Wish I could know now which teacher he’ll have; if it’s the sweet one Sam had, we could really console him all vacation long.

Oh, well. We’ll just have to keep him too busy to worry much – although, with that child, that’s a tall order. In any case, both kids are signed up for summer classes (Gabe is taking a pottery class, which his friend Nathan is also taking, and Sam is in a science one where they’ll do crazy experiments to solve problems), and then they’ll be in the playground programs as well. (Sam wasn’t wild about how he’s aged into the program devoted solely to sports, instead of the mix of sports and crafts the younger kids do, but there’s nothing I can do about that part.) We changed our gym membership from the barebones gym we’ve been using over to the YMCA, and the kids will continue their swimming lessons and be able to do other activities there, as well. It’ll be a fun summer…if Gabe can get his mind off his troubles.

Oh, and if I can get back on the road running. Okay, four days of no running, and the novelty has officially worn off. Maybe it has to do with how this week’s oppressive heat broke last night, and now it’s perfect running weather out there, and I’m still benched, but…ugh. My toes are healing nicely, with very little pain, but I’d almost welcome a little (a very little, mind) discomfort if it helped to console me about not lacing up just yet. I feel fine! Waaah!

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Sitting here in the land of the nailless. When I went in to the podiatrist on Monday, he shook his head and said, “So close.” The nails did indeed decide to dive into the ends and sides of the toes, which meant, er, ejection from the game. I will say that if you’re going to have nails removed, a podiatrist is definitely the way to do it, especially one who takes you seriously if you happen to say, “Look, I go through anesthetic like it’s dime-store chewing gum. Gimme all you got.” He mixed up a couple different kinds of anesthetic, shot me up with them, and I didn’t even notice he’d removed the first one until he asked me if I wanted to see it. (No. No, I didn’t.)

He also gave me an Rx for some “accelerated healing gel,” which was a little tricky to lay hands on, but which works…in the most disgusting manner I’ve ever seen, but effective. It’s this stuff that, well, looks like this:

You break off a piece (sort of like flimsy, thin clay) and put it over the wound, and as it absorbs the nastiness coming from the (in my case) acid-scorched nail root, it turns clear. And (as was not foretold to me) turns sort of gelatinous, conveniently showing everything it has absorbed. I really don’t think there’s a word in English to quite encompass the squick factor, here.

So I’m off from running for two weeks, until he sees me again, but in the meantime, I can do “all the cross-training [I] want.” Since he knows me pretty well at this point, I’m trusting that he knows what that means for me. I walked six miles yesterday, and I’m going to walk more today, along with possibly a bike ride. My legs are still pretty stiff since the race, which I know wouldn’t be the case if I was able to run and loosen them up, so I’ve got to try other means of working out the kinks.

Three more days of school, and then the beasts are freed from their cages for a few months.

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When my alarm went off, I laughed at the silliness of the dream, and I felt calm about the real race. Put on my gear, had some toast and coffee with Kelly, and felt completely at ease with what we were going to do. Mind, I didn’t particularly enjoy the fact that at 5 in the morning, it was already in the upper 60s, with every sign of getting warmer by the minute, but you can only control what you can control. The heat was out of my hands.

I guess pink was the order of the day.

Sean drove us to the start, and we found our way to the crowded corral. I quickly found the four-hour pace group, and I was encouraged by the fact that everybody seemed very friendly, and the leaders seemed capable. One guy in the group led us in some sort of “Penguin Dance” warm-up, which was very silly and got our laughs going.

Then the gun went off, and we started running. We all chatted as we went, and I called out to a fellow running in shorts printed in the Maryland state flag. I don’t know his name, but I called him “Terrapin” for conveniency. “Hey, Terrapin! Where you from?” He was from the southern part of the state, but was happy to meet another Marylander. The chat kept us going through the first few miles, before things started to get tougher. The heat kept creeping up, and the slight rolling nature of going over bridge after bridge was making me wonder…

…and then we got to what was to be the first major climb, around the 7-mile mark, and it became crystal clear to me that there was no way on earth I was hanging with the four-hour pack. My training had been too cautious; in trying to prevent another injury, I hadn’t done much hill work, and Minneapolis is decidedly hillier than Racine. The group took off, and I let them go. Just over the 10K mark in a full marathon is no place to try heroics. (Far later in the race, after a turnaround, I saw that “Terrapin” had fallen back, too, and was well behind me. I hope he did well enough in the end!)

I noticed, around mile 9, that I was playing “leapfrog” with a woman in a black tank; she’d pass me on the run, and then I’d pass her when she took brief walk breaks. By mile 11, I ran up to her and asked her if she minded company. That turned out to be an excellent decision. Julie and I stayed together for the rest of the race, each going through ups and downs, but somehow managing to time our “ups” with the other’s “downs.” We took turns with the “You might have to drop me” and the rebuttal “No way!” I had nausea; she had a sore knee. It all worked out in the end.

Speaking of nausea, it was bad. I got very dehydrated in the heat, despite draining my entire 64-ounce water bladder and taking a cup or two of Powerade from almost every aid station. I hadn’t had time to train with salt back here, so I attempted to try the Margarita-flavored Shot Blox with extra sodium; that turned out to be a mistake, as they made me feel like I would throw up, so I switched back to my regular Shot Blox (Black Cherry) halfway through. My fingers were like sausages, barely able to bend, and at one point, I began getting goosebumps and chills, which frightened me a bit. Thank goodness for the aid stations with sprinklers, too!

The steepest hill, coming out of Fort Snelling, had been decorated with chalked warnings: “THIS HILL SUCKS!”, followed by “WE TOLD YOU IT SUCKED!” and “STILL GOING UP!” As we were power-walking at this point, it was much funnier than it would have been if I was trying to keep up with the pace group and running. Honestly, I didn’t see anybody running at that point. But Fort Snelling was the best part of the course for me, aside from that. When we left the pavement to run on dirt, I almost immediately felt spring reenter my step, and my nausea all but vanished. Wish that could have made up more of the course!

The end was tough, as I was flagging, and of course, the race ended on a big uphill. I wish I could have felt stronger at that point, but my quads were cramping painfully and I was exhausted. We finished in 4:30:44, which is my worst marathon time yet, but all in all, it could have been much worse, and you know what? There were such positive parts (the beauty of the course, meeting Julie) that it’s hard to feel bad about the negative ones. Kelly was at the end, having finished her first half-marathon well under the time she’d hoped for, and she and Mel, the friend I met the night before, cheered me in. (Mel and Sean now say they’re doing the half next year!) We had our photos taken, then Julie and I said goodbye, and we headed for home.

Kelly and I had Indian for lunch, and then I said farewell as she dropped me off at the airport – part three of “The Weekend of Impossible Things.” But this flight was even more smooth than the one out, and the merciful gate agent moved me up to a bulkhead seat so I’d be able to move my legs more freely and alleviate some of the soreness. (The soreness, incidentally, is exquisite; my quads have not forgiven me yet for the hills.) I have no good reason to complain at all, so I won’t.

Anyway, on to other things! The toenails did start to get a bit ouchy during the race, and last night they began stinging; I don’t think there’s any hope I’ll be keeping them beyond the podiatrist appointment later this afternoon, which means they’re gone for good. Good riddance, and don’t come back. So that’ll be interesting, right?

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I began calling it “The Weekend of Impossible Things” in my head, what with the flights and the race, but honestly, the flights probably couldn’t have gone any more smoothly. Eric dropped me off early at the airport on Friday mid-afternoon, and I drank a cup of coffee until it was time to board; the plane was a little late arriving, but they got us on as quickly as possible when it did, so I got to Minneapolis almost when I was supposed to. It was much warmer there than it had been in Wisconsin, which gave me some sense of foreboding, but what can you do?

Kelly and Sean picked me up, and we went for dinner at a sweet little Thai place, where I had a delicious curry; then we went home and I got to meet their adorable puppy, Jetta. Make no mistakes, Jetta is a Good Girl.

Got to take lots of walks with her over the course of the weekend, and she’s really taking to training very smoothly!

Next morning, a friend of Kelly’s came in with her mom, and they, Kelly, and I hit the Minneapolis Farmer’s Market. Oh, but before that, I got up and did a quick 3.5-mile shake-out-the-legs run around gorgeous Lake Harriet, which was only a couple of blocks from their house. Talk about convenient…and talk about busy! The paths around the lack were positively packed with runners, walkers, and cyclists. I was amazed at the number of active people out there! And Kelly and Sean told me that every lake is at least that busy on a regular basis! Most impressive! The Farmer’s Market, huge and bustling, reaffirmed the idea in my head that Minneapolis is powerfully focused on health. Wonderful!

After Kelly’s friend left, she and I went to packet pickup, which was quite well-organized and very “green” – no bag full of coupons and junk that would probably go to waste. Got my chip, bib, shirt, and hat, and then we browsed. I knew my New Balances were going to be officially retired after the race, and I scanned the sale shoes available…but then made a last-minute switch.

Baaaaaaa. Let’s jump on the bandwagon, shall we? But I’ve got assurances that should these Newtons not work out for me, I can deal with a local shoe store and head back to my motion-control clompers. Also got a copy of Danny Abshire’s book, all autographed. Neat.

Went home and showed off our stuff to Sean, his dad, and another good friend, Mel. Sean and his dad worked on various house-related projects, and then dinner preparation got underway; meanwhile, after having listened to me bemoan the state of my own house, Sean’s dad actually sat down and helped me sketch out some plans for fixing things around here! I could actually begin to feel optimistic, almost!

Shared a lovely meal of grilled veggies and some lentil soup, then retired early, a bundle of nerves…which somehow evaporated overnight. When I woke up the next morning, I was feeling bizarrely relaxed, not at all afraid of what was to come…

To Be Continued…

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Eep. I’m cleaning my living room in a frenzy (why do we have so many Legos? Where are they all coming from?!) because I can’t tolerate sitting still. Ack.

The weekend’s saving grace: Kelly! Hurray for hosts who are also running, and who have the impeccable manners not to be blissfully on the other end of the confidence spectrum over their own race. On the other hand, she says she does well running in heat, a talent I lack, so we’ll just see. (I keep trying to remind myself that Devil’s Lake was in the 80s and for a lot longer and harder running, but somehow, that memory isn’t comforting me much…

I also screwed up with my shoe rotation this training cycle, doing more runs in one pair than the other, and I just noticed that I’ve got over 400 miles on these New Balances in which I plan to race. Now, I haven’t noticed any problems from them yet, but I’d rather not have had that knowledge in my head at this point, I believe. Fret, fret, fret.

Somebody tell me something cheerful and fluffy?

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Just made these for a choir potluck tonight. Started as a thing where I thought, okay, I’m making my own baked beans to take tonight, because in years past, all kinds of beans showed up and smelled so gosh-darn good but were full of meat, so instead of feeling sad, I’ll bring vegetarian ones. So that was settled, but I wanted to bring something else, too, and since my mind was wandering along vegetarian/vegan options anyway (I’m making the beans from The Veganomicon), it landed on Katie’s Fudge Babies and how I’d been wanting to make them for a long while.

I went with the Cashew Cookie Bar and the Peanut Butter ones, since, truthfully, I don’t really like the Larabar recipes that combine dates and chocolate. It’s never either “chocolatey” or “datey” enough for me; the flavors fight and both lose, in my book. No chocolate in my “babies,” then. And they are goooooood. Oh, good heavens. Too easy, too. This could get dangerous. On the other hand, they have just about perfect proportions for long trail-running fuel (I know lots of people who use trail mix, dried fruit, or even Fig Newtons already), so now I’m wondering about that…

Have to get started on these beans now.

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Turns out, “lightweight” is really subjective. It’s been a while since I tried to actually run with him in it, and it was an effort. On the other hand, it gave me an opportunity to talk to him about the freshly placed flags, and we took a moment mid-run to read the decorated headstones and think about what it all meant. He was very quiet for a while after that.

The rest of the day has been very low-key, with a brief veterans’ parade in the morning, followed by lunch and a return to home so Sam could finish up his homework. It was warm today, warmer than it has been so far this year, I think. I took advantage of it to go out and finish some yard work, the latter half of which Eric came out and joined me to complete. Thing is, I hate yard work; we both do. Honestly, it’s probably one of the biggest motivating factors which makes us think that our next move might be to a condo. I get no pleasure from trying to tame green things. It’s not that I don’t like them; it’s that I like them best when I can leave them to their own, or someone else’s, resources. I don’t get the idea of trying to grow grass. It’s…grass. Look at a field; it seems to be growing quite well without help. Why does surrounding it with a fence, or putting a house in the middle of it, suddenly cripple its sense of independence? Sissy little plant; I didn’t sign on to be your mother…

I swear, though, the Attack Weed-Trees were in full force. Eric battled them. At one point, I heard a loud crack! and his shout, and I turned around to see Eric lying on his back, triumphantly gripping the tree he’d managed to yank from the ground, at cost to his own balance. Victory! We ended up with four big bags of yard waste of which I now have to figure out how to dispose.

Got to go call my dad now. He’s a veteran, so it’s his day!

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SAM: “Okay, I want to stop working.”
ME: “How many days do you have left?”
SAM: “…not counting days 14 and 15…five.”
ME: “So, seven?”
SAM: “Yeah.”
ME: “You had nine left when you started. It’s taken you this long to do two, and at that speed, there’s no way you’ll finish tomorrow without crazy work.”
SAM: “Okay, but can I at least take a break until four o’clock?”
ME: “That would be fine. But no arguing when I say it’s four, and you need to get back to-”
SAM: “ALL RIGHT! I’ll work now!”
ME: “Um, okay…”
SAM: “Stop talking to me! I said I’d work now!”
ME: “Okay.”
SAM: “STOP SAYING OKAY!”
GABE: “…I’m almost done my Lego guy.”
SAM: “NOBODY TALK!!!”

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Fourteen years today since the day we said “I do” to each other. The fourteenth wedding anniversary is traditionally the “ivory” year, though we’re forgoing that (or any other material gift, opting instead to spend the afternoon together while the kids are in school). I laughed at the website that suggested that couples could take a trip to Africa to admire elephants. That’s not exactly in the cards for us right now, though maybe someday it could be fun.

The modern anniversary calendar proclaims this year to be the year of “gold.” Ah, impatience. Is it that so few couples stand a chance at making it to fifty years, the real Golden Anniversary, together, or is it just that nobody feels like they can wait that long? I don’t like the modern calendar; it feels like it’s trying to hurry things that shouldn’t be hurried, rushing to get to the end of what’s meant to be savored. Gold is for fifty years, and it should take a while to get there. That’s the point.

I’ve been with my husband for fourteen years, and while that is a very long time, it’s simultaneously just the beginning of a journey. He sighs dramatically when I relate it to running, but this is just past the half-marathon mark…and we’re running an ultra. Still so much to see, to learn, to experience together. Those elephants are waiting, and there’s no pressure to get there tomorrow. What might we miss today if we felt like that?

It’s raining today, just like it was then. Rain on your wedding day is good luck, they say. I think luck is overrated, but there’s much to be said for standing in the rain (real or metaphorical) with your partner. Call it luck, or call it love. Just be together.

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GABE: “What? What’s funny?”
ME: “My book made me laugh.”
GABE: “Tell me!”
ME: “It’s complicated and long. I’d have to go back to the beginning.”
GABE: “So? Go back!”
ME: “It’s a grown-up’s book!”
GABE: “Tell me now!”
ME: “Well, okay…there’s a king who had a baby, and he invited everybody to see her, and he accidentally invited vampires, and they -”
GABE: “I’m going to laugh now. Ha, ha. See? It was funny, and I got it.” (He stomps off.)

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But I’ll live. ::sniffle::

By the way, that’s the teddy bear, in the picture, that the boys sent along with Eric on his trip. The photos are all tooth-achingly precious, especially where the folks Eric met decided to get involved. Nothing like seeing your teddy bear perched between a couple of grinning German hotel desk clerks to make a kid howl with laughter. Gabe actually laughed hardest at the photos showing Miles the Bear enjoying his meals, I think. Can’t wait to see the hijinks a stuffed animal can enjoy in Orlando.

Twenty days until marathon day!

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Went downstairs; heard silence. Opened lid…and saw washer full of soapy water. It had stopped near the beginning of the cycle.

Being mechanically minded, stared thoughtfully at it, closed lid, reopened it, closed it again, and finally gave it a slight whack with the palm of my hand. It started back up again.

This…this can’t be good.

(Crap, I can hear that it’s now stopped again. Any suggestions?)

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The kids brought home their new school pictures.

  

And I insta-aged about ten years, just looking at them. Seriously, between Sam’s “too cool to giggle out loud” facial expression and Gabe’s Casanova-ish swagger, I just…where did my babies go? I think I’ll just make myself feel a little better:

Ah, yes. There they are.

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So Rachel dropped by my place at 5:30, and we ran for a lovely hour, chatting and enjoying the morning; the rain never materialized, and my legs felt great. I was feeling really optimistic as I got home, grabbed my things, and piled into the car…and then, about fifteen minutes down the road, I realized I’d forgotten my gel for the race. Now, I didn’t panic too much. I had eaten a couple of prunes before running with Rachel (no time to eat anything substantial and have it do anything but sit like a brick in my belly), and I was eating a Clif bar in the car, so I though that I’d be okay for now, and surely there’d be aid stations with fuel along the course. (Dun-dun-dunnnnnnn… [huzzah, foreshadowing!])

Got there, and no rain appeared! I strapped on my race belt, wandered to the start, and chatted with some folks while waiting for the bathrooms (ooh, posh: hotel restrooms right by the starting line!). Then, right on time, we were off. Almost immediately, the people running the Euro Cross-Country route split off from us half and full marathoners, which was a bit confusing, since the guy directing us was speaking realllllly sloooooowly as we approached, and I was nearly on top of him before I knew which direction to go. The answer: up the hill. And for the next eight miles, that was to be the only answer. Up, up, up.

After about five miles, I was beginning to really regret the extra miles I’d done before the race. My hips and hamstrings, especially were unhappy. And perhaps the Euro runners were getting good scenery (they kept meeting back up with us, only to duck down between shadows into what looked like people’s driveways…), but what we got was cattle farms of the more pungent variety. Phew! But we did see one calf frolicking at us as we passed, which was precious and lifted my spirits a bit.

Eight or nine miles in, my hip decided to lock up a bit. Ran through it, and it went away. I was getting a bit annoyed, too, by how the mile markers were placed quite wrongly, and my assumption about the race course fuel had been wrong as well. No fuel. No gels. I did the race on Gatorade alone, which…well, it left me feeling quite bad by that ninth mile on. I wanted to stop, but that wasn’t an option. For one, I’ve never yet DNFed a race, and for another, this was a point-to-point course, and I needed to make it to the end to reach the shuttle back home. I kept running. At least it was flat at this point.

Around mile 12, there were two punishing downhills. My hips and hamstrings got joined by my quads and shins in the chorus of complaint. Everything below my waist felt like lead. Good times.

I finally reached the finish line at 1:57:42, which put me 5/11 in my age group and 95/259 overall. Grabbed my medal, grabbed my water, ran for the boat the finish line volunteer told me was the shuttle back, waited around a bit until it became clear that they were wrong, then hobbled to the bus that was the correct shuttle. I made it back home about 15 minutes before Eric got picked up for the airport, thank goodness.

Ow.

Mother’s Day, on the other hand, was as restful as it could be, considering my husband is in another country. I got bath salts from Gabe, and both boys gave me potted plants they assembled at church. We ate out at a nice vegetarian restaurant, then had gelato afterward. Nothing fancy, which was as my legs would have it. Oh, but I do wonder if I’ll ever be able to make it through a Mother’s Day sermon at church without tearing up when the kids come in to hand out little flowers or candies to all the moms…

Denny’s: not the vegetarian restaurant.

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(Watch: it’ll pour cats and dogs on June 5th, the day of Minneapolis.)

Wet doesn’t bother me much, but really, the whole point of picking Lake Geneva was to have a pretty race. I’d sort of like to be able to enjoy the scenery, you know? Anyway, it’s still fifty-fifty for showers, so the whole thing is all up in the air figuratively as well as literally.

After the race, I’m supposed to go to a Kentucky Derby party. Tomorrow, I’m heading to some thrift stores to find the base for what will hopefully become a lovely race-day chapeau. Of course, as always, I’m likely overestimating my crafting ability, and what appears in my mind’s eye as a tasteful accessory is probably going to look like a kindergarten craft project. A for ambition; (projected) D for execution. Keep fingers crossed that I at least manage to avoid hot gluing the brim to the coffee table. (I doubt my neck could support dangling furniture.) Gonna have me a mint julep, though, and that’ll take the edge off any fashion faux-pas I’ve made.

Yep, Saturday’s going to be fun. It better be, because it kicks off a two-week stretch without Eric again.

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Mind you, our long-standing policy is that if you try to eat your dinner, you can subsequently make something else for yourself (not doing it for you, though), but if you don’t at least try, the kitchen is closed. So there will be no snacking tonight for little gentlemen, which they both claim to accept.

Anyway, Eric’s almost recovered from the strep throat; he doesn’t feel great, but he didn’t feel bad enough to stay home from work today. Gabe had a bumpy day back at school, and Sam has had his rocky evening, so between all of us, it’s the sort of evening that begs for everybody to stick to his own corner as much as possible, avoiding interaction with everybody else.

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They go back to school tomorrow. Gabe’s been singing “Monday, Monday, going to school on Monday…”

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I hear there’s a wedding tomorrow. No, really; I’m not as “Get this crap out of my face!” as some folks I know, but I’m not as “OMG PRINCESS!!! (and ponies!!!)” as others. Honestly, what I am is nostalgic – for my high school European History classes. A discussion on Facebook evolved into debate over whether Catherine was going to be Queen one day or not, and I found myself desperately, and futilely, trying to recall that particular lecture for a while before finally breaking down and looking it up. (Answer: Queen Consort, but not Queen Regnant.) I loved that class, with all the tangents and sordid tales of intrigue we soaked in every day.

Spring Break is over halfway over, and nobody’s yet killed anybody else. Been quite a lot of this:

…which is fun, though it inevitably leads to the “Somebody please pick up all these pieces of fort!” stage of battle, which in turn leads to “He’s not helping!” So that’s not as much fun.

Easter was low-key this year; we never did dye eggs, but we did a plastic egg hunt in the house, as well as search for hidden baskets outside. (No snow for Easter this year, but it was too cold and damp to want to spend much time outside searching for much.) Candy was eaten, eggs were pelted at each other (“It’s a grenade, Mom!”), and another year passed without question of whether certain characters were real or imaginary. (Honestly, Sam still seems to believe in everything from Santa to the Tooth Fairy, without a hint of suspicion, but I’m not sure whether that’s genuine innocence or part of his complete refusal to want to grow up in any area of life, ever. )

Spring might finally be here; my bushes are starting to get green at the ends. Miraculously, the cherry tree seems to remain alive, too (the pear tree didn’t survive that summer). Someday, I have faith…it might have a branch. Perhaps two. (I won’t even dare to dream of actual fruit; those are things that happen to other people. )

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The first day of Spring Break has been a bit tumultuous. Sam had a check-up with his doctor regarding a recently-begun medication, and in the course of that check-up, she determined that the cough we’d been writing off as an allergic flare-up was something buried firmly deep in his lungs and needing to be treated in a different fashion. So we had to get those pills, and we had to grab construction paper for a homework project, and we stopped by the bookstore for some “Spring Break Emergency Quiet-Time Reading Materials” (Sam chose a book on the sinking of the Bismarck; Gabe picked a Pokemon handbook), and by the time we finally made it home, the boys were nigh on feral. They’ve been snapping and biting, figuratively, ever since. (And if you think homemade banana waffles would soothe their nerves, you’d, apparently, be wrong.) Eric wisely opted for an outing with a coworker tonight over the waffles, but that’s okay; I’ve got running club tomorrow morning, and he can deal with the early morning bickering.

We haven’t dyed eggs for Easter this year. Not sure we will; it’s one thing, as it was when I was a kid and we did Easter at my grandma’s church, when you’re dying a bunch to take to church for a big ol’ Egg Hunt, but it’s another entirely when the only people to see your eggs are yourselves, and not that many people in the family are wild about hard-boiled eggs, anyway, but it hardly seems worth it to break out the dye for the small number of eggs you’ll realistically consume (and egg salad isn’t a favorite, either)…isn’t there something else we could dye? Hot cross buns aren’t piquing their interests, in the alternative.

The secular celebration of Easter is definitely something that loses its charm on the other side of the adult-child equation, at least for me. Christmas? Birthdays? Sure. Not this one, though. Way more fun to hunt for a basket and squeal over chocolate eggs than to manage the behind-the-scene workings on this one. But perhaps I’m feeling a bit grumbly; I’ll probably be over it as soon as the sun makes another (fleeting) appearance.

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I have to do all my runs before dawn for a week, before Eric goes to work. Whine-whine-whine…

And tomorrow, that means having to do six miles in wind and rain and dark, and there’s no escaping it this time. But it’ll be nice and dry, though dark, for my long run this week. There’s that, anyway.

Sam came home from school with testosterone poisoning again. He’s got this sporadic attitude that I didn’t anticipate appearing for another few years, where everything anybody says to him is obviously the most idiotic thing ever spoken aloud by another human, or else it’s a horrid insult against his own intelligence (“I KNOW I have homework! You DON’T have to SAY it! MAAAAAAAAAN!”). It’s fun. Seems to appear most often right after school, which leads me to believe he’s mainly have trouble code-shifting when he goes from playground to my house, where we Will Not Be Having That. (But it also doesn’t help that Gabe’s forté is, often, insulting his brother’s intelligence…)

I need to get into the whole Spring Break attitude, I know, but it’s hard when Wisconsin is still firmly of a mind to stick with winter for a little while longer, at least.

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Eric’s home today. It started as a “Man Cold,” but now he’s running a fever and has chills, and his throat is killing him. He’s heading to the doctor here in a bit; they think it might be strep. (So help me, if either the kids or I get it…) Hope he gets better quickly; illnesses tend to linger with him, considering his other, chronic illnesses and the sleep apnea machine that likes to blow congestion into his sinuses.

It’s weird, having this snow and grey weather outside, and illnesses inside, after yesterday’s prettiness. Sam played outside with a friend, and I took Gabe (ostracized by the older kids after an argument) on a long, pleasant walk to a friend’s house. The reason for the visit wasn’t so pleasant; her adult son passed away this week, and I assisted with the funeral just before, so this was the mourners’ gathering. But the spirits were strong, and everybody was drawing comfort from the group. Gabe was very polite, talking with her about her dogs. Easier to think about that than other things, for all involved.

Anyway. This is the last week before Spring Break, for which we’re not doing much; Eric has a business trip, just for a day, in the middle of the week, which precludes any larger plans. Low-key is good, though. I’m learning to appreciate that as I get older.

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It was a swimming lesson night. After discussing the matter with both the boys’ teachers, it’s safe to say that both of them will be repeating this class for another go-around. The upside is that Sam’s teacher says that, with the exception of one little girl, all the kids in the class will be repeating. I’m not sure what that says, but whatever; Sam’s more at peace with the idea of not graduating so long as he’s in the majority. Eric and I are looking at it as though it’s simply a two-semester class; the kids will all come away stronger for it. Despite his best efforts, Sam still sinks and sputters when he tries to paddle for more than ten or fifteen feet, and Gabe has only just screwed up the courage to swim a yard or so using a kickboard, the teacher standing an arm’s length away, in chin-deep water. But there are no more shrieks!

Had a moment of panic trying to leave the Y tonight, when I put my hand in my purse and found my keys were gone. At first, I thought it was just my house keys, and I guessed that I had left them on the table after having them out with me when I went for a run earlier today (six miles, no issues or points of note). But my car key was gone, too, and since I distinctly remembered having driven to the Y in the first place, I was flummoxed. The kids helped me search the ground and ask for help, but no key was found. I nearly dumped my purse in the search…and then I found the small hole in the lining of the pocket that had held my keys. (Oh, Mr. Choo, you let me down. ) Stuck a finger in there, and found both house and car keys. Oops.

Now Sam is working on a report on ancient Roman military, yet another assignment in the long line of growing topics designed to make me feel thoroughly ignorant and uneducated. Meh.

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The long version: I had originally planned to do a three mile warm-up, then the race, then three more miles to accumulate my planned nine miles for the day. After fretting and worrying, though, I changed my mind and decided to do the whole six miles with running club before the race. I knew I’d be a little tired after that, but I figured I’d also feel mentally better for having done it, and it would eliminate a little of the time coordination. Running club’s route was right next to the race course that morning, so it was simple on that end. I ran those six miles with a new friend, casually and easily, which left me with some pep in my legs.

I went and registered for the race after that – nothing like the last minute! – and ran into another newer member of our running group. Nate and I hung around, waiting for the start; it was grey, windy, and damp out, with a chill that had us all shivering with chattery teeth. Greeted a few other folks, including a man from our church, whose son, Eli, just a year older than Sam, was running the race and expecting to do extremely well. The boy was perched right at the starting line, raring to go.

Nate and I headed off at the gun, doing a quick pace and feeling okay. About a mile into it, though, I found us passing Eli, who was visibly struggling. He had a hand clamped to his sides and his face was grimaced. I immediately fell back beside him, checking if he was okay and getting him breathing more slowly. Once he was more settled, I hung with him, encouraging him to keep going; a boy just ahead of us looked to be in his age group, and I muttered, “See that kid? He keeps looking back at you, scared. You got him!” And around mile two, we finally passed him.

By the final curve, just before the finish, Eli said, “When we turn, I’m going to go as fast as I can.” “You better!” I said, and when he kicked, I hollered after him, grinning. It felt awesome to see him fly over the finish. I was thrilled later to find that he’d finished second in his age group – that was more satisfying than learning my own place. (Nate, who had gone on ahead when I dropped back by Eli, came in fourth in his age group.) I crossed in 25:20 Garmin time (I forget the gun time; the results aren’t posted online yet, either).

And my legs felt just fine. Worries? What worries?

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I also managed, through total fluke, to bring along a book I was idly rereading…having completely forgotten that I’d promised to loan it to the friend I sat with for the meeting. She was all, “Are you reading that again?” and it still took me about fifteen minutes to put two and two together and remember I’d said I’d give it to her. Precious. I swear, the hair is naturally red, not blonde…

Yum, soup.

I’m theoretically racing tomorrow. Ask me if I’ve registered. Part of this brain still thinks that the moment I plunk down the money to run, my leg will immediately implode. Gotta love paranoia, don’t you? I’m also aggravated that new travel has made it back onto Eric’s work schedule, and it’s trying to mess with both the half-marathon I wanted to run in early May and the marathon I planned for June. Not completely, mind you, just nibbling at the edges, coming too close for comfort. Can I make it back from the race in time for Eric to catch his flight, you know? (He says it’ll be fine; I say that it’s not what I wanted to be worrying over as I run…)

Of secondary concern to me is that he’ll be out of the country for Mother’s Day. That’s secondary mostly because we can still celebrate another day, but it’ll be a bummer to wrangle the kids by my lonesome if I try to brave a Mother’s Day brunch. Not a huge issue, though. The biggest issue, beyond races and brunches, is my husband is going away again. At least it’s Germany this time; I won’t be nearly as terrified for his safety. (Note: this is not the cue to start telling me about bizarre violent crime sprees that might be currently happening in Deutschland. Seriously.)

Anyway, might go run in the rain now. Gently – not out of fear, though, of course! No, it’s just…taper! Yeah, taper! For a 5K…

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It can be really tough to be somebody’s hero sometimes.

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So I didn’t get many people this year. Apparently, it was more believable that I’d get a “GOT MILK?” tattoo or sign up for a stage race across the Sahara than that I’d edit books about boobs.

On the other hand…it turns out that some relatives read now that didn’t read then, and they’re not “onto me.” For posterity: April Fools Day is one of my most favorite holidays. I adore it, and I always do my best to participate in silly ways. I won’t do “mean” pranks; absurd is more my style. If something I write sends your eyebrows into orbit or seems 100% out of character for me…check the calendar.

By the way, Mom was totally in on it. Asking before involving someone else is just courtesy,  y’know?

Anyway, looks like I gotta step up my game for next year! But I swear, one of these years, the joke will be that it’s not a joke…

Ran twelve this morning. Building back up to my pre-injury levels is hard some days; those last couple of miles were much slower than the others. Getting there, though!

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Also, apparently Gabe works better if the bath toys used for the babies’ “splash class” are incorporated. Yes, my six-year-old will doggedly swim across the pool to reach a green rubber ducky. I don’t know what that says. Nor do I care.

Sam, meanwhile, is doing splendidly, outside than his reluctance to put his face in the water and risk getting water up his nose. I keep trying to tell him that if he puts his face in flat, instead of up and down, and if he breathes out of his nose, it’s not likely to be a problem, but so far, he hasn’t gotten the knack, so he keeps getting his sinuses soaked. It’s not dampening his enthusiasm, though; despite being the oldest one in the group, he also seems to be the least reserved about things, so I could hear him gleefully hollering from across the room, “CHICKEN…AIRPLANE…SOLDIER!!!”, swimming his arms in the accompanying pattern as the teacher towed him along on his back. (Part of the shouting was due to his ears being submersed; when he reached the end of the pool and stood, he asked, “Was I yelling?”)

Three more lessons. I don’t know if either kid will “graduate,” but at least there’s increased comfort in the water. Gabe was most impressed with his progress last night, asking me if I was proud of him, over and over. I tried to tell him that I’m always proud, but he knows well enough to be able to compare the previous weeks’ efforts with last night’s. He knows there was a difference, and I think we’re turning a corner.

(So long as next week doesn’t involve face-dunking, anyway.)

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Then I couldn’t help but return the familial love by picking up Cthulu Dice for Eric. I cannot wait to play it with him, and I think the kids could play, too, though it’s marked for ages 10 and up. At a five to ten minute game time, I know they’ll at least have no problem keeping their attention on the game. I’ll come back with a better review after we have a chance to try it out. (Also got Cuponk for the kids, but I’m not sure if I’m giving it to them now or waiting for Easter.)

While I was out, Eric called to ask if I’d gotten the Vitamix he’d told me to go ahead and buy before he left for China. Now, that’s a whole other ball game, a world apart from little jackets and dice games. I want one desperately, but it’s SO expensive that it well and truly crosses the line of comfort beyond which I have a huge block about spending money on myself. He can say “go ahead” all he wants, but…gah! Can’t! Didn’t! He reminded me that there was a store that sold them right there in the mall where I was, but even then…no. Can’t. (No, I don’t know how this barrier got erected in my brain.)

But I have a berry-colored jacket to console me. It can’t make soup or grind grains, but it makes me smile anyway.

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(Funny story about the purse: at customs, the man asked, “Did you buy any bags?” Eric answered in the affirmative, and the man asked what kind. “I don’t know. Brown,” Eric said. “Not Prada or Coach.” The customs guy let Eric through. I later chided Eric, laughingly, since he’s the one who watched almost every episode of “Sex in the City,” so he’s the one who really should have remembered Carrie Bradshaw’s fondness for the brand. The wallet brand, we both had to Google, though.)

Sam’s back, too, from the Dells. He’s lucky to be alive, that one; I discovered on Sunday night that he had hidden an inch-high stack of late homework assignments in the back of his closet so that I wouldn’t find them and make him work on them before (or possibly instead of) going on the trip. He’s being suitably punished; no screens of any kind until every single assignment has been placed into his teacher’s waiting hands. (She emailed me to check on the stack; that’s the only way I even would have found out about the ruse.) He’s taking it in stride, thankfully, after an initial freak-out and a few minor panic attacks over some of the work that he hadn’t begun because he thought it was too hard. Not that it isn’t hard stuff, some of it; I honestly have vivid memories of tackling some of these specific topics in high school.

Gabe’s bugaboo continues to be swimming. After yesterday’s screamfest, one of the senior teachers approached me and said that next week, he’d like to take on Gabe one-on-one in the therapy pool. Gabe, when he heard that, flipped out and tearfully insisted that he’d be just fine in his regular class (I think he got scared about the idea of not being able to “hide” behind the rest of the class), but he’s come to terms with it and told my mom last night on the phone that he was doing it this way by choice. We’ll see how it goes.

Dragging today. Last night’s thunderstorm got a little bit of an overachiever complex, pelting the windows so loudly that I had to close the doors to the rooms on the windward side of the house or the noise would have been deafening. I think there was hail, too, and the ground had a light covering of snow when we woke. Sheesh. And, yes, I’ll be going out to run in a few minutes, before the “wintry mix” kicks back up again.

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Eric’s on his way home, and not a moment too soon. I’m so incredibly excited to see him! He’ll be exhausted, but we’ll let him get some rest – after the initial attack, of course.

Gonna go snuggle my Gabe now!

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(Unrelated to anything, I woke up this morning with a wretched cramp in my calf that won’t go away. It’s demanding attention right now, pulsing at me. Argh.)

Anyway, it’ll be a quiet weekend here, though Gabe’s now lobbying hard for fun activities to mollify his disappointment. I’m down for some fun, but, sorry, kid, we are not checking into a waterpark hotel for kicks. After hearing the screams at your last swimming lesson (honestly, are you ever going to stop that?), I don’t know why you’d want to go to a water-themed place, anyway. By the way, it’s water in the pool, not acid-laced quicksand; I promise that if you stand up at the shallow end of the pool, you will be able to breathe and not “DIEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Eric gets back Saturday afternoon; I’ll be able to do my long run, but not early with the running club. This past week was a step-back week, and this week I’m back up to a whole (gasp!) nine miles. I’m doing it right, careful and cautious as can be, but a little part of me is so frustrated at the slow increases. Then again, another small part of me is, well, afraid. This year has been one injury after another, and I can’t help but worry that every time I add on an extra mile or two, I’m risking yet another malady. I haven’t signed up for any races yet, even the 5K in a few weeks that I know I’m in fine shape to do. Just can’t wrap my mind around it; something could still Go Wrong. I know it’s not rational; like I said, the rational part of my brain is being patient and calm in the face of the slow-but-steady build-up. Those two little warring factions in the corners of my mind, though, can get pretty noisy.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Here’s a question: Lent is considered to be forty days, as Sundays are considered by the church to be “feast days.” But St. Patrick’s Day is also considered a feast day by the church, so why isn’t Lent considered 39 days? Just occurred to me this morning. Then again, I wasn’t raised in a liturgical church, so maybe this is a “duh” question that gets explained easily during confirmation or something.

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Eric just called from a bar in Changzhou, where his work contingency is spending a couple of days at another plant. I heard three women singing very loudly in the background; it sounded like a lot of fun was being had. Eric says that in many ways, it’s not all that different from visiting any other large city (though Changzhou is a little more rural); his hosts took them for lunch yesterday at Papa John’s pizza, and today they were given bao dumplings and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Today is swimming lesson number three. (Cringing preemptively, I am.) It’s going to be very interesting if/when they get to the end of the class and Sam graduates, while Gabe, if he continues on his current trajectory, doesn’t. I expect fireworks in that “unfair!” situation.

Need more coffee now.

(By the way, today’s the last day of round one voting for my friend’s contest. I’d love to see them advance and get closer to a goal that would help Todd provide for his family when he won’t be able to do so himself any longer.)

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