Moving Sucks

I know it's been eons since I posted, but hey, I'm buried up to my ears in cardboard and newspaper, and my fingers are swollen like lil' smokies sausages from the lifting of heavy boxes and cracked from all the scary cleaning chemicals.

Plus, in the middle of all that I went to Philly to teach.

Dad was right. What a bunch of assholes. Noisy ones too.

In running news, I haven't run since last Wed, when I attempted to run on my bum ankle in Philly. It didn't hurt too much while I was running, but as soon as I finished, I could barely walk on it....what's up with that? Is that some weird endorphin thing? I've heard about other injuries that don't hurt while running, but are painful when still. That's completely illogical if you ask me.

So I've been going crazy insane this last week due to not running, and I would be even crazier if I hadn't spent the last three days lifting and moving heavy objects to and fro. But I decided to really lay off it until I can't feel the ankle any more, so that I don't completely screw myself for Pfit in two weeks. And I think it's been working, because the last two days I haven't felt the slightest twinge, so I plan to venture out today for a very slow jog....

...after cleaning the garage out at the old house...sigh. When will it ever end?

Oh hey! I'm heading back to the ATL tomorrow morning! I'm scheduled to teach two classes there, so I'm extending my trip by a day so that my folks can see that their wayward daughter hasn't grown 'femmelocks', and so that I can see Erin and her new baby!!! So it should be interesting to see how violently I react to driving in the big turdville again.

... So I just got back from a run, but before that (and since that last paragraph), we cleaned out the garage, took stuff to B's storage space, other stuff to Goodwill, and dumped trash. So I didn't have a lot of energy to spare, but I put the Brooks on and did it. With no pain. Yay! I'm a runner again!

Cowabunga Dude

I'd like to shout out to my dear friends Troy and Jen in Tuscon whom I just found out are the proud parents of Lydia Christine. I am so happy for you guys- what amazingly cool parents you'll be!

So while everyone else is doing adult things like having babies....here's what completely childish thing I did today (Mom, Dad: cover your eyes)
WeeeeEEEEeee!!!!!

The pictures don't do that hill any justice- it is a LOT steeper than it looks. Besides, I'm usually terrified of hills. But B was at the bottom goading me, so I took a deep breath, pulled out the pixie dust, and FLEW!

I've been doing a lot of biking these last few days since my ankle has been super sore- I'm afraid to write the words, but I'm thinking it might be this .

What is with all the injuries lately? By the way, Caligula thinks my problem last week was Compartment Syndrome (what a dumb name) rather than a shin splint...but now my problem is Hurts Like Hell Ankle Syndrome. I really need this to go away soon since my training with Pfit starts in less than two weeks. What a bad way to start. So, again I become friendly with the bag of frozen peas. I hate those stupid peas.

Yay Spring!

Okay, well, it's not official yet, but glory be, today was absolutely gorgeous! B and I went up to NE Portland so I could run in a new spot, Blue Lake, while B accompanied me on his bike (lazy bum).
It was a nice easy run through a really picturesque park (click on pic for link to more pics). After a 27 min run (don't ask), B took off to go on one of his epic bike rides (okay, not so lazy after all), while I got in the car to begin my quest for cheap bookcases.

No such luck finding bookcases, but I did buy some nifty running shorts at Goodwill, since I currently have been running in either tights or Target men's "active wear" pants. So I need some shorts. I highly recommend Goodwill for running wear, since it's possible to find the Cool Max stuff for a few bucks- compared to a bazillion bucks brand new. Anyway, after Goodwill, I headed to new apartment to drop another load off, and take some pictures...Isn't the daffodil just the perfect harbinger of spring? They're just so dang perky, and they practically scream "Hey everybody, IT'S SPRIIIIING!!"

These are a sentimental favorite of mine and my family, since years ago my grandfather planted hundreds and hundreds of bulbs in his huge front yard, so that come March, there would be acres of yellow bobbing heads for all the neighborhood to enjoy. He was well known around the community for his daffodils. So I think it's a sign of good luck that I have several blooming in my new backyard. Click on the daffodil pic for more shots of the new place.

What's the craziest thing you've ever done?

Something like signing up for marathon training when the furthest you've ever run is 4.5 miles, maybe? That'd be the craziest thing I've ever done for sure.

But on their website they say if you can run, walk, or crawl at least 3 miles, then this is the training program for you. Plus I've read many good things about Pfit. Now, the disclaimer: I don't intend to run a marathon this year. My goal is to run a half marathon sometime late summer/early fall, but train as if I'm running the Portland marathon in October. The purpose of signing up for this is that I need to make some friends out here, and what better way than to share the pain? Along with the added bonus of becoming a better runner.

I may sign up for this race in the Redwoods in October, since I went camping in that park last summer and didn't get to fully appreciate the grandeur due to annoying circumstances beyond my control. Holy smokes, that place is beautiful. And I rode my bike through much of the route when I was there, and let me tell you, it'll be a really really sweet running route- think shaded canopy of majestic, ancient, and HUGE redwoods. I'd take that over city streets any day.

So, I'm still moving stuff over to the new place, and getting excited (like girls will do) over silly things like what color curtains to hang in the kitchen, and not so silly things like how the hell am I going to fit all my small kitchen appliances in this tiny-ass kitchen? Erin, I promise, pictures are coming- I will probably need much advice from you about storage solutions (to those who don't know Erin- she's the maven of gettin-it-all-to-fit). During my usual coffee/morning internet perusal I stumbled across this fun site that has some nifty ideas for 'hacking' Ikea stuff, and making smaller places as efficient as possible. By the way, Portland is getting one in June...Eeeeeeeeee!!!!!! I hate to admit it, but I kinda like Ikea's stuff. Not so much for the style (I typically prefer the mexican flea market hodge-podge look), but for the inexpensive, sturdy functional pieces like shelves and cabinets. I hate their couches, but I'll probably have the coffee table I bought there for many many years (it has cubbyholes!). Has anyone else noticed how sucky their website is? It's impossible to navigate! Do you think that's a Dutch thing? It is about as comfortable to navigate as the stores themselves are, which are designed so that you cannot leave until you've walked through the entire store. They make the exits intentionally difficult to find, which I have a bit of a problem with, but I'll forgive them because their products are affordable, and they're pretty conscientious of sustainable methods of production.

Anyway, I must flee. Thanks for stoppin by!

Back in da Saddle

Well, I guess I'm healed! I did an easy 3 miler and had no shinny problems. Weird. Maybe it was not a shin splint, but something else. The pain was so bad, I could barely walk just a few days ago. Maybe it's a tumor?

So posts may be few and far between for the next week or so since I'm moving, but I'll be sure to pop in every once in a while to say "hey"- by the way, where's the comment love, people?! Mom?

So, the real test of shin begins in 30 minutes, where I get to kick some serious buttocks with my kickboxing homies. Hope he goes easy on us tonight....

Deep in the heart of Texas

I think I have a shin splint. I discovered this while running in San Antonio day before yesterday. That occasional shooting pain on my shin suddenly got much worse after running two miles downtown, so I'm takin it easy for the next few days. I'm going to continue my weight training per Caligula and cross-train on bike or elliptical machine. But I was really hoping to try and run for another hour plus this weekend, but not gonna happen. So I'm kinda grouchy. Plus, I missed my big Pee Wee re-enactment opportunity. I did see the Alamo, but I didn't get to streak by as planned.

San Antonio was nice- had a good time despite splinty shin, ate delicious black and white soup with a prickly pear maragarita (to dull the pain!) at Boudro's on the Riverwalk, which was kinda cool, a little more touristy than I was expecting, but nice all the same. My favorite though, was El Mercado, right across from my hotel.

It was like stepping across the border and shopping in Mexico. Lots of inexpensive, colorful mexican crafts, piled up everywhere. I even ate at the supposed most touristy ticky tacky tex-mex place there- Mi Tierra a 24-hour restaurant that has decor that looks like mariachi band of christmas trees exploded all over the walls and ceiling (see pic above).

But I loved it.

The cab driver who took me to the airport later groaned when I told him I went there. He said, "don't you know there are much better places to eat tex-mex?". Yeah, but they're not near as sparkely as Mi Tierra.

Now I gotta figure out what to do with the 5 pounds of red chard I got in my produce delivery. Has anyone ever cooked with chard before? I need some ideas.

Fear of Flying

Can anyone tell me: is it absolutely necessary after some turbulence to drop a plane like a hot potato 5,000 ft within 1.5 seconds, and then make the announcement that we will now be flying at this lower altitude because the "flight began to disintegrate at 30,000 ft"?! Disintegrate?!

Since when did "disintegrate" replace "encounter turbulence"?

Don't all you pilots out there know better than to use those kind of words, especially after a major plummet?!!

It really doesn't help the blase/seasoned frequent flyer like myself (your bread and butter, dear sir or madam) who only half listens to announcements, and only then when there's fire, to hear "wawawahwahhhwa....DISINTEGRATE...wahaa" Whoa there! THE PLANE IS DISINTEGRATING?!

Maybe you're just testing us, to see if we're paying attention. Well, it worked. I failed.

Plus I nearly wet my pants.

Plus I totally embarrassed myself by asking the sweet old man next to me if the pilot really said the plane was disintegrating, at which point I noticed (too late) that he was wearing a hearing aid (but he still heard me), at which point he then turned to his wife on the other side and shouted (remember he is wearing a hearing aid) with glee that "this young lady thinks the plane is going to crash. Isn't that a riot!?"

Great. My cover as the seasoned-traveler-always-in-a-big-hurry-to-get-somewhere-important is now completely blown.

Oops, I did it again...

But I'm in Texas again...and remember, they have bbq in their airports! I'm sitting in the Dallas airport, and dinner looked like a choice between Mickie D's, Taco Smell, and a boring looking sports bar with a bunch of tools in golf shirts at all the tables, so....I drifted on down the concourse at the suggestion of very nice official looking airport guy, who recommended the Dickey's brisket.

So, how can I resist? It has been a whole WEEK since I last had bbq...

AND! I've only eaten a half a bagel all day.

I pretty much left the sides alone...okay, well...I probably should have left more of that potato salad alone. But the brisket wasn't bad- didn't rock my soul like the stuff in the Austin airport, but not too shabby (and by Portland standards, someone would erect a statue). OH! I forgot to mention- they had SWEET TEA TOO! Plus I get to keep souvenir cup.

Anyway, I'm headin to San Antonio tonight, have a free day there tomorrow (yay! I get to play at the Alamo!), teach on Friday, fly back to PDX, then ostensibly will be moving to new apt on Saturday. Ahem. If only I had packed. Oh well, at least I have all next week off to move my crap over there.

So, Dallas was pretty boring. The most exciting thing that happened to me (outside of teaching a kick-a** class!) was getting to watch "Return of the Jedi" (the eewok (sp?) scene) in the workout room while wrestling with an ancient universal workout machine, so Caligula (who has magical powers, by the way) wouldn't yell at me for missing my weight training day.

There was a cute-geeky couple in the workout room with me who put in a video of the movie, so that she could walk/run on the treadmill for an hour and he could sit on the stationary bike and watch the movie with her, pedaling very slooowly (I don't think he really wanted to exercise- he was wearing jeans after all).

Anyway, after getting hopelessly tangled up in the machine (stupid contraption!), I skulked out and back up to my room to finish my exercises sans equipment. Caligula would be impressed by how resourceful I am with things found around a hotel room.

After working out, I ordered thai food, which when it came, I noticed, strangely had hot iceberg lettuce and tomato halves mixed in with the chicken and noodles- and those were the "vegetables"? Sigh. So supper last night was disappointing.

Well, sorry for boring trip details. But, whaddya expect? I'm in Dallas fer gawdsakes! I promise tomorrow's report will be more exciting- plus, I'll have a running report, since I plan on running a route that will take me past the Alamo, at which point I plan on channeling Pee Wee Herman and singing at the top of my lungs, "The stars at night are big and bright, *Clap*Clap*Clap*Clap* DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS!!" while streaking by.

And then you can watch out for them pigs flyin outta my butt. Oh well, it's a fun thought.

I was Runnang!

Happy SUNday all!

B and I woke up this morning to SUN!!! Which has apparently been playing hard to get here in Drippytown, but I wouldn't know that if B hadn't brandished a knife at me for being so damn cheerful, since I was in sunny Tejas all week. (Don't worry, friends of B- he's not quite that bad. And it was only a butter knife.) Anyways, I decided to put off packing (I'm SO bad), and head out to the Springwater for my "long" hour run (stop with the snickering) with support by B and his swifty bike.

It was a fabulous run, I felt light and bouncy (probably had something to do with a sudden drop in ten pounds in the last few days due to starting blood pressure medicine again. *sigh* It makes me pee ALOT), and there were TONS of people out on the trail grinning like they had just won the lotto (I guess in P-town, the sun coming out in the winter is almost as good). I was able to keep up my end of the conversation with B, unlike last time, when just an innocuous comment like, "how ya feelin?" would disrupt my chi to the point of near collapse, and a mere glance from me contained such malice that it could knock him off his bike. So, today was much more pleasant, and I actually ran three minutes over the hour, which is not the 5 minutes I wanted to add, but there was a huge puddle at the end that stopped us in our tracks. He was gallant enough to carry me over the puddle on his bike, so I wouldn't get my feetsies wet. So, I feel fantastic, and fairly confident that I can do an hour a few times a week, and work on building up my weekly mileage.

Now I must run (figuratively) to Goodwill, since it is getting warmer, and I only have the long sleeve technical running shirts- I tried running in a regular cotton t-shirt once... f*** that. They make that fancy material for a reason, so I'm fairly confident I can find a few shirts at Goodwill- this is such a running town, that I bet I can find some there instead of paying $100 for one. Then, when I'm done with that, I will pack. I promise...

LTFRMAO...

I hate those stupid abbreviations. So I'm going to make up my own, such as "laughing on the floor, rolling my ass off."

So, I just got back from Austin, TX last night. Had a nice time- fun students, good meals, my second favorite city in the country. Unfortunately, my hotel was in a northwest burb with nothing close by, and no car- really annoying. The hotel was stuck between a major interstate on one side and a railroad (with huge fence) on the other side, and even if there were places nearby, I wouldn't have been able to get there, because there were no DAMN SIDEWALKS. That kills me. I rarely have a car when I travel, so I have to rely either on cabs (expensive) or my feets to get me places. Also, since I'm traveling three days a week, I gotsta run on one or two of those days, and we all know by now how much I despise dreadmills, so it sucks when I'm in a dead zone with no access to neighborhoods or parks. What have we done to our landscape? Why do we hate pedestrians so? Ugh. Okay, enough with the rant.

Anyway, I lucked out the first night cause the hotel was putting on some promotional catered "social" with a rockabilly band and FREE BBQ!!! Jiminy Cricket, Batman! FREE BBQ!!! And it was goooood. Pulled pork with sweet/spicy baked beans, mustard potato salad, and chocolate cake. I listened to the band for a few minutes until they ran me out with a lame version of "Hot Rod Lincoln". Well, I guess any version of that song is lame. I hate that song. But, it could be because that song was on the jukebox at the bar I used to work at, and all the rockabilly boys had to play it every. damn. night. But, whatever. I got to eat good bbq. Which is a rare thing here in Soggytown.

The next night I took a very expensive cab ride to the South Congress Neighborhood to experience Austin's relatively new thing, First Thursday, an idea they got from Portland as a matter of fact. It's basically a big street party where they open galleries and shops up until late, artists sell their goods on the sidewalks, buskers converge, and street food vendors sell giant turkey legs. Austin is the only town I know where you can eat amazing chocolate cherry torte on the sidewalk while listening to a fantastic bluegrass band. And that was after eating the crack steak at a new restaurant, Woodland, which came highly recommended by one of my students. So, if you ever find yourself in Austin, you will not regret a meal from those folks.

So after eating 12,500 calories, I went shopping. I stopped into one of my favorite boot stores and panted over gorgeous vintage-style cowgirl boots (my graduation present from mom look like the third boots from the right on the top shelf, only they're red/yellow/blue),

but instead settled for these things (plus a "Texans for Obama 2008" t-shirt, not pictured)...

The red bull, "Ferdinand" (of course) was found at the exact same place I found "Edgar" the elephant, 5 years ago when mom and I went to Austin for the first time. Don't they make a cute couple?


B made fun of me for buying a "Georgia" glass in Texas. And he was not at all impressed by the pink cat nail brush (with a tounge for really digging under the nail). I think it's the cutest thing EVER.

So, for those of you wondering after the debauchery of steaks and torte's, "well, did she run?" I can say with pride, yes. I ran. I only lasted 40 minutes on the dreadmill (10 of that was walking). I just don't have the mental fortitude for the incredible boredom of running in place.

So I plan on another hour run tomorrow, maybe with 5-10 minutes added, so I can work up to the 10K distance. I wanted to run today, but (WARNING: gross bodily function description ahead) I ate some jelly beans with Splenda earlier today, feeling very virtuous, until an hour later, pure liquid was pouring out of my rear. I thought for some reason that if it had Splenda in it, then it wouldn't have that evil Maltitol in it, which causes many folks to have torrential anal explosions. I was so wrong. So, I've been close to a potty for much of the day. B and I had been talking earlier about the herb Stevia; he wanted to know why it wasn't used as a sweetener in grocery products. I told him that the FDA banned its use as a food product, probably because of the sugar (and artificial sweetener?) lobby. So after my episode, he pointed out the irony that the FDA would approve a sweetener that causes explosive diarrhea, but wouldn't approve a harmless leaf to be used as a sweetener, which has been used safely in other countries for years.

In happier news, I got some really exciting news a few nights ago, from soon-to-be grandparents (again) of a baby on the way! I'm going to be an auntie again!!! Yay!!!! My little sister M is having a tot in the early fall. How much fun is that! Now, my niece, the angelic Hannah, will finally have a cousin, since her Auntie P-town Peach, does not yet appear to be ready for mommyhood.

Seems to be a bug goin around- my dear friend, Erin (whose most embarrassing song is Journey's "Open Arms") back in the ATL just had a drop-dead gorgeous baby girl several weeks ago. Meet Elise Jewell... (and no, that is not a wig.)