Rock this Town

Let's take it from the top.

I woke up feeling good and ready. We met Amanda, Damon, Lynne, and Betsy. We all headed over to the start and were very excited.

Then we were off. We were feeling good and all that. It was very exciting. We saw our family at miles 1 and 3 and that was great. Everyone, runners, spectators, and volunteers, were all great. Then the heat kicked in. By mile 8 Amanda and I decided to just let it ride. We didn't want to kill ourselves in the heat and we wanted to have fun. We danced to all the music playing. We gave hugs to the singer of a band with a sign offering free hugs. I bet he regretted that. But we had a great time.

We saw our family again at mile 12. Keller was looking ill so that wasn't good. But we still hugged and took pictures and all that. It was fun.

I started having foot pain at some point, I don't remember when. I have foot problems in both feet that will most likely require surgery. They really haven't been an issue until recently. They've been bothering me mainly on my very long runs in the past couple of months. Anyway, that's the reason my race started tanking. Amanda was feeling yucky too so we decided to continue dancing and signing and having a good time.

We saw interesting things. Here is a list of some: a group dressed as Batman, Robyn, Supergirl, Batwoman, and the Joker. We saw a guy in a blow-up Sumo wrestler costume. We saw a sign that said "Poop if you gotta". We saw Elvis and some weird dude in a Frenchman costume with a sign that said, "Make baguette not war!". Gotta love it!

Time-wise this was my worst marathon in history! But Amanda and I had so much fun, the crowd was awesome, the other runners were great and the course was really nice. The things that made this race bad, the weather and my injury, were totally out of our control. I would definitely do this race again.

I met the womens winner as we were heading out for dinner. That was cool. And we saw Deana Kastor (the American woman who won Chicago a few years ago and the bronze medal in the Olympic marathon in Athens). She is a tiny woman.

Unfortunately now, Keller is sick with croup and we'll be heading to the doctor as soon as we get off the plane today. He was up all night and we had to do a steam bath to get him to sleep. My poor baby. UPDATE: went to the doctor and yes, it's croup. Got some meds and he seems to be feeling better.

Thank you to everyone for all your kind words and well wishes. My 7th marathon may not have been my best performance but it was sure the most fun. And you all have a lot to with that.

I don't know when #8 will be. I'm taking a break! Probably having surgery on my feet. But I'll be back. Ready to kick some ass.

BTW, this is my 100th post. Yay!

Manic Monday

Ugh.

Here we are, another Monday, another week ahead of us. Yippy.

The weekend was good. I love the weekend. Saturday we didn't do a whole lot. I ran in the morning, my friend Lynne came over for lunch. Then one of Keller's little friends, Landon, had a birthday party. Then I went out with friends for a much needed night out on the town.

Mary, Melissa, Mark (Melissa's hubby), Eric (Mark's brother who is in the band Black Gold), and Melissa's friend Susan went out drinking in Bethesda. We went to dinner at the yummy Olazzo first and then to Caddies for about 800 vodka tonics. Needless to say, we had a great time and Sunday morning was a bit ugly for me.

Yes, I finally got myself out of bed around 10:30 on Sunday. Then we went over to the pool. The sun helped me feel better. I wasn't hung over in the traditional sense of the word, it was more of just a protest on the part of my stomach. I just can't hang anymore. I'm old.

After the pool, we took naps (our usual Sunday afternoon activity). We then went to Trader Joe's, which has become my new favorite place. Seriously, I love that place and everything in it. I want to live there.

When the alarm went off this morning, I thought about throwing across the room, but just didn't have the energy. I was meeting my friend Connie to run. And I had to conserve. The run went well but I'm pretty tired.

I have to vent for a moment. My work computer sucks giant ass. It is so slow that I think I lose about 3 days of life between waiting and being angry over it. Come on! It's 2008 and we should not have to wait 5 minutes for a computer to boot up. Not to mention the wait to open a freaking document in Word. Whew. That's all about that.

Happy Monday, people.

What's the matter here?

Before I get into the post for the day, I have a game for all of you who (wonderfully) read this blog. I have decided to begin each post with a fitting song title or lines from a song. You have to figure out who it is and/or what song it's from. I've done it for a lot of my posts, now I'm just going to do it for all of them since when I start writing something, I start singing a song that goes with the theme of the post. I thought it would be nice to share my craziness.

Now, onto my soapbox...

What the hell is wrong with people? Seriously, where in life do people go from sweet, innocent kids to horrible assholes? I'm not saying everyone is an asshole, but there are a lot of them out there and they know who they are.

My good friend Lynne had some terrible luck over the Memorial Day weekend. She, her husband, and daughter were in Tennessee visiting her dad and some friends. She got a call from her neighbor informing her that their cars had been vandalized Saturday night at around 9:30 or so. WTF? Since they were hours away and there wasn't much they could do, they stayed for the remainder of their trip, arriving home Sunday night. This is what they came home to:





Can you believe that crap? Seriously, what is wrong with people?

I'm not going to go into the entire story. But I saw Lynne last night and they may have caught the MIDDLE SCHOOL kids that have done this. Yes, I said middle school. I'm sorry, but when I was 10, 11, 12 I wasn't allowed out once it was dark without a parent. I don't care if that's ridiculous, but kids that young shouldn't be allowed out at 9:30 at night (obviously). And where are these kids' parents? I know this is just paint and no one was hurt, but it's an intense sense of violation when something you have is either damaged or taken from you, regardless of if it was a random act (this was) or not. That's how I felt when my identity was stolen. You just feel like nothing is yours and there are people lurking everywhere waiting to pounce. I still feel emotional about it and it's been almost 3 years. I can't even talk about it without starting to tremble and wanting to vomit. It's a crappy way to live.

So, where does this leave us? As a parent, it is all the more reason to be involved and engaged with my child. To let him know we love him and care about him. To know where he is at all times. As a person, it is all the more reason to pay attention to what people are doing around you. Know your neighbors and report things that are suspicious. And love the kids in your life. Maybe if these kids had more love and parents that actually gave a crap about what they were doing, this wouldn't have happened.

Onto more happy things: my parents are currently en route to my house! Yay! I have a girls-night planned for tomorrow night. Yay! It's Friday. Yay!

I just always have to end on a happy note.

You say you want a revolution...

The latest obsession: tea.

Yes, tea. When I went to the concert and dinner with Lynne last week, I learned that she is a tea aficionado. I knew she liked tea and all, but the like apparently runs a little deeper than I thought. She's crazy for it. I was intrigued.

She said she orders a lot of her tea online and has certain preferences, none of which I remember. But she mentioned one tea that is good that you can get in the store: Revolution Tea. So, I decided to look them up.

One thing you have to know about me: I'm an advertiser's dream come true. I am a true sucker for advertising, packaging, labeling, etc. Revolution Tea's website is so pretty and clean. Their packaging is so sleek and inviting. I was instantly sold.

For the past few days I've been looking at their website and figuring out what I want to try. But I was unsure of how it was sold. Is it tea bags? Is it loose tea? I broke my infuser, I'd have to buy a new one. I decided to call the company and ask. The very nice lady explained that the tea bags are themselves infusers. They are a tea bag that is made of some magical fiber that allows for the perfect flow of hot water through the whole-leaf tea inside. And! They're see-through so you can watch your yummy tea brew.

I had to have this tea. I ran out of my office (not screaming) and walked very quickly to the Safeway down the street. I called John and he reassured me that I'm not crazy and tea is good for me so it's all right that I'm obsessing. Good enough.

I got to Safeway. There it was! And it was on sale! It was fate. I bought all the flavors they had, which was 6 flavors: Tropical Green Tea, White Pear, Dragon Eye Oolong, English Breakfast, Earl Grey Lavender, and Sweet Ginger Peach. I had the White Pear when I got back to work. Yum-my! Now I'm drinking the Earl Grey Lavendar. I normally have to put milk in black tea because it's kind of bitter. Not this! It's wonderful.

I can't wait to try them all! There are something like 30 flavors and you can buy them all online. There are coupons in the boxes! Seriously, there are so many signs pointing to me drinking this tea, it's scary.

I'm sure by the time you've read this, I will have bought and tried all the flavors. I'll let you know which ones are my favorites!

They say it's your birthday...

Yesterday was John's birthday. I won't say how old he is because he'll get mad at me, but let's just say he's older than me. :)

Anyway, I think John had a good day. We were up fairly early, as usual. I had a run to get in, so I was up. But Keller was up at about 6:00, which is par for the course. We started the morning off with the Birthday dance (we play Birthday by The Beatles and dance for everyone's birthday every year. Even for Lola and Percy's birthdays). That is always fun.

John and Keller then ran the Germantown 5-miler kids run, which was 1K. Keller ran almost the entire thing! But he ultimately hit the wall and needed a ride from Papa. But they finished the race and Keller earned a nice medal.

After the race, they played in the moonbounce together and that was really fun. We then had breakfast (yum! Chick-fil-a breakfast rocks). We danced to the Birthday song again and John then went on a nice bike ride for some quality John-time.

Once John got home, we were going to go to the Strawberry Festival in Potomac, but Keller had different plans. He slept until 3:15, which was about a 3.5 hour nap. The festival ended at 4:00, so we figured by the time we got down there, we wouldn't get to do very much. Oh well, there's always next year.

We went out to dinner with Lynne, Randy and Elena. This past Thursday was Lynne's birthday, so it was nice to celebrate two of my favorite people together. We went up to Frederick and had dinner at Isabella's. It's a Spanish tapas place that Lynne, Randy and Elena had been to a bunch of times, but we had never been. We love Spanish food, so we were up for it. It was so good! We ate so much and everything was so good. Keller enjoyed the paella the most. He ate tons of that. I can't wait to go back there.

Then we walked around downtown Frederick for a little while. There are some really cute shops and restaurants along Market Street. John got some rather unique Nikes at one shop. They are interesting, to say the least. He likes them and that's all that matters.

We then came home and everyone went to sleep. Overall, it was a nice day and I hope John had a great birthday. He deserves it! He is such a wonderful person, I hope he knows how much we all love him. We are very lucky to have him!

Happy Birthday, John. Je t'aime, mon petit chou!

Sleep is for the weak

I am flying high on caffeine right now, so if this doesn't make sense, I apologize.

Last night, I went to a concert with some friends I haven't seen in months. I got home pretty late and now I'm exhausted. I have some important meetings today, but I should be able to get through them.

I went to see Joan Osborne at the Ram's Head in Annapolis with Lynne and Betsy. I met Betsy in 2003 when I was training for my first marathon with the AIDS Marathon charity program. We were in the same pace group. We became pretty friendly. And every so often, her sister, Lynne, would join us. Well, Lynne and I both got injured and had to defer our registration for the race until the following year. But we decided we would train together for it. So, Lynne and I ran together the following summer.

Lynne and I were instant friends. We share much of the same interests and beliefs. I believe our first conversation was about how the present Commander in Chief is severely lacking in several key areas. Though we used much less tact and far more colorful language. Anyway, Lynne is so the person I want to be when I grow up. She's fun and smart and completely down to earth. You feel instantly comfortable in her presence and you want to be part of her circle. And Betsy is the exact same way. The two of them are the older sisters I never had but always wanted and I'm so grateful to have them in my life.

So, last night we went to see Joan Osborne. Lynne is a super music hound and goes to shows as much as she can. Since I don't get to see her and Betsy very often, I joined them and another friend, Kim, for the show. I don't know anything about Joan Osborne other than the "What if God Was One of Us" song. Plus, today is Lynne's birthday, so I wanted to see her anyway.

The show was pretty good. Joan Osborne is a great singer. Most of her current music is very blues-y. She did a lot of covers and some of her own songs from an upcoming album. She did sing the God song, though I figured she wouldn't since she seems so far removed from that. But I enjoyed the show. I really enjoyed the blues-y music. It's very sultry. It's like that Friends episode when Phoebe gets a cold and loves her voice so much, she starts singing the blues.

The show was at the Ram's Head in Annapolis, which I've never been to before. It's a restaurant in "downtown" Annapolis that also has a bar area for shows. It's small and low-key, which I like. It seems like they have a good variety of shows, even some for kids. So, I think we'll be going there more often.

The only bad part of the evening was getting home at 11 PM, a mere 6 hours before I had to get up for work. Well, that didn't happen, as expected. But I was still able to get to work on time, which is what matters! The fact that I'm in my pajamas is insignificant. (I'm really not in my pajamas) I have a pretty busy day, so hopefully I'll make it through. Bring on the coffee!

You know, when I was in elementary school, we sang this song about coffee. Why, I really don't know. It's kind of a strange song for little kids to be singing. But, I still remember the words to this day. So, imagine a little 8-year old me singing this:

C-O-F-F-E-E
Coffee is not for me.
It's a drink some people wake up with.
That it makes them nervous is no myth.
Slave to a coffee cup, they can't give coffee up!

How funny is that? Sing it proud!