August 31, 2008 @ 12:36

This morning Trixie and I went out to Bell Slough.  We went early enough to beat the heat and it was beautiful.  What I enjoyed more than anything was how beautiful everything was.  I hadn’t taken my camera, but kept snapping pictures with my camera phone (read: wasted time pointing my phone at pretty things making blurry digital images of them).  There were mushrooms everywhere.  Pale white, deep brown, gold, half a dozen shades of red and these pale ivory ones with slate and violet blues streaked in their flesh.  There were flowers blooming all along the trail.  Giant golden colored locusts, dragon flies, and of course spiders everywhere, too.  Trixie bent down to look into a deep web funnel that must have been a foot across.  She said she could see the spider inside and that he could probably have carried off a field mouse.  I took her word on that . . .  We even came across a turtle, sunning himself beside the trail.  He was totally brave with his neck craned out into the sunlight, front legs splayed out enjoying the sun.  He barely moved his toes and blinked lazy eyelids at me when I leaned in to take a picture, if it had been the good camera I would have showed you the bright tangerine spots running down his neck.  The trail has two loops, if you take the first, you do two miles.  If you add on the second loop, you can up your trip to about three.  My old running path was long loop, short loop, long loop again to make five miles.  Today we just did the long loop once.  Because of the last wildlife encounter we had for the day.  At the top of trail just before the end of the long loop, we heard rustling in the leaves above us on the ridgeline.  Trixie saw them first and slapped me on the arm, pointing silently but very very urgently.  They were about fifteen feet up the ridge from us.  Two of them.  It took me a minute to register what they were, as their markings were so slight.  One looked completely black and the other just had one bright white spot on the top of it’s little head.  Are you beginning to feel Trixie’s urgency?  If you are, then you are totally invited on our next hike.  Because I was slow on the draw.  And that’s really bad, because as you might have already guessed, it was a couple of these . . . 

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Did you have the same slow reaction as me?  Because of the initial cuteness?  Yeah, not smart of me, was it?  But there I was, thinking, oh, wow, you know in person they are totally cute, when one of them looked right down at me and opened it’s little mouth and started to squeal.  Just then a third, much larger one topped the ridgeline running towards them.  The second of the smaller ones lifted his tail and rear . . .  Trixie found her voice and yelled. 

“RUN!!!” 

Which we did.  It’s a shame really, that we couldn’t have clocked it.  I’d bet we totally obliterated our previous personal bests.  A few seconds and several yards later we got a whiff of it.  Oh, holy crap it was a close one!  We ran almost all the way back to the car, laughing so hard we were crying, thankfully, instead of eyes tearing from the smell.  This could have been a very bad day indeed.  We kept thinking of all the “could-have-beens” on the drive home.  Having to call Miss Weight Loss to come hose us down in the middle of a wildlife management area so that we could get back in the car?  Or riding home in the back of Dano’s truck while they drove Trixie’s little VW bug back to keep it from being tainted.  Whether or not our phones would have survived!  How inneffective the whole tomato juice thing is.  Because it is, you know.  More positively, I’d have had the number one call in excuse of the year at my office.  But, instead, I got a a really good story to tell and a totally great kick start to pushing myself out of the slump and back into running, eh? 

August 29, 2008 @ 16:12

Domestic Spaz requested stories for new Mommies about the mistakes we all make.  As I was sitting here thinking about all of them that I have made over the last decade and nearly a half, I realized that the most recent cringe-worthy one that I made was just three weeks ago.  The first day of Kindergarten Camp week I had to pick up Puppy at 11 am.  No problem, right?  Except that my auto-pilot mode is wickedly tuned in at work.  Sitting at my desk, I realize that I’ve been in a work groove for quite some time, I look up, it is 11:15.  OH.  MY.  GOD.  I run.  When I pull up to the school, it is deserted of all parents and children, except my sweet boy standing with his teacher at the front doors.  She is an incredibly nice lady and says it’s no problem.  But we all know it is not okay.  Except for this, the fact that I knew I’d screwed up made it okay that I had.  It is the parent that worries that I like the most.  Not the ones that spend copious amounts of time and hand sanitizer fussing over nothing.  I mean the ones that know that this job matters more than any other job they have ever or will ever have.  So, if you are worried about how good a parent you will be?  Good, that’s a really good indicator that you’re gonna rock it.  Because you give a damn.  The cringing after a screw up let’s the rest of us know your kid is gonna be just fine.  Even if once you did accidentally send him to school in a pair of your embroidered-on-the-back-pocket jeans because you were half asleep and he’s a teen aged boy suffering from male pattern blindness and didn’t catch it . . . not that that has ever happened to us . . . 

August 29, 2008 @ 07:24

I’m calling in sick today.  This is not a surprise to anyone.  I had a crap day yesterday.  A file sharing fiasco followed by a tainted lunch followed by more file sharing hijinx.  Last night Bear, the perfect child seriously, made dinner while I lay on the couch feeling like crapola.  It was a long bad night, and yes, you’re welcome for my not sharing the details.  This morning I am going to drop the boys off at school and then take it easy today.  Then I’ve got the long weekend ahead, so here’s the plan.  I’m going to take all this open time over the next four days to hit the trail every day. And, yes, Trixie, you may whip me with this if you like.  We may have a couple of surly moments to be sure, as my inner couch monster fights for control.  But I think it’s important that we keep the fellow trail visitors guessing anyway.  Are they sisters?  Gay couple?  Scary feminists?  All of the above?  Ewww!  That is one of my fundemental life’s joys, ya know, watching people try to figure us out.   The end result that I’m thinking might happen is this, if Puppy can have extra attention on these next four days as I work it back into our mostly-daily schedule it will be a gradual change and if we are very careful about it and cheerful everywhere else and ply him with ice cream and a pony he might buy in.  And if I can get four straight days in, maybe my endorphins can kick my sad-sack enzymes in the behind. 

So, here we go, wish us luck.  I’ve got life rearranging to do . . . Surely there is room in here for the boys needs and mine. 

August 27, 2008 @ 22:47

Today I had to call Bear’s school.  Somehow, in a complicated twisted chain of events, a required class was left off his schedule.  He was offered two options.  Take the safe road, which was stick with what he was given and lose out on a pre-AP (advanced placement) class.  Or take a class with a group of highly motivated ubersmart kids.  This group is not just pre-AP but were placed in pre-AP a year earlier than the other kids.  Where Bear tests 96th percentile, I was told, these kids are 99th.  This choice came with an unfortunate additional consequence, he cannot eat lunch with his friends, but will be forced to eat with the grade behind him.  It’s a long story why this is the way it wound up.  But the important part here is this . . .  Last year we discussed what classes he’d take.  We talked about how many pre-AP classes he should shoot for.  What did he think he could handle?  What path was he going to take?  Last year his grades were not perfect.  Being thirteen is a tough business.  I made a tough decision midway through the year to let him suffer the consequences of some slipping grades.  It was a scary thing to do on my part.  But I firmly believe that consequences like that are what it takes for some lessons to be learned.  If your mommy bails you out every time you make a mistake, your lesson learned is not to bother, mommy will fix it.  And today, I got to see some of the results of parenting choices like that.  He had to make his first choice that truly would have an impact on his future.  Because taking that additional pre-AP class will show on his high school transcript.  No dress rehearsal.  The infamous permanent record.  And his choice was to take it head on.  He opted to add that additional pre-AP class to his load and gave up lunch with his peers.  He made a grown up choice.  And I’m very proud of him. 

At bedtime tonight, I lay down beside Puppy to settle him in.  He was a little bit restless and rocked one foot against the bed in a soft thump, thump, thump . . .  he was twisting a curl of his hair, the hair that everyone keeps telling me I should cut, around his fingers over and over.  He gave me a half smile as he closed his eyes at last and feel asleep. 

Some days, you get exactly what you need to make you feel like you are making the right choices as a mother. 

August 26, 2008 @ 21:46

Puppy had a bad day at kindergarten today.  Last night I went out for an hour and half to the trail with Trixie.  And today, Puppy had his first day of meltdowns since school started.  It is the only thing that we did differently, my taking that hour and a half for me.  What am I supposed to think?  I’ll tell you what comes to mind, that god wants me to die fat and alone.  Yes, yes, I know, that’s decidely not Polly Anna of me.  But the hell, people?  Seriously, it’s not like I was out at happy hour getting tanked on a school night.  I was trying to stave off diabetes and premature death.  I have cancelled vacations.  Not renewed my gym membership.  Stopped doing anything for myself for months!  And the first night in ages that I try to crawl out of the hole he rebounds?  Seriously.  So, I stayed in tonight.  Although Trixie was available to hit the trail again and I could have really used it.  I stayed in.  To test the theory.  If Puppy has a good day tomorrow?  Then what? 

Apparently spooking easy is hereditary. 

Dammit. 

August 25, 2008 @ 21:24

Tonight at the walking trail with Trixie (yes, I know, ssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, remember I spook easy) we were passed by two young men on almost identical bikes . . .  wearing matching helmets . . .  and . . .  matching t-shirts. 

Trixie:  Maybe it was an accident? 

Me:  Yes, it is, but not the kind that you mean. 

Unfortunately, they were very clearly not team shirts of any kind.  This was either the cutest gay couple ever, or the saddest pair of brothers ever.  Moms, please remember, matching garments for siblings stop being cute super duper early.  If they’re old enough that they can bike out on the trail after dark without you tagging along?  They’re too old for matching helmets and outfits.  K?  K.  Of course I’m talking to the women out there who ensure that outfits for little boys with peter pan collars and smocking are available over the size of eighteen months . . .  

It’s a dark and mysterious world . . . 

August 24, 2008 @ 09:19

Okay, first, thanks for the support and a small back track to the dark moment yesterday.  I am better today than I was yesterday.  I will be better than that tomorrow.  I might collapse a little on Wednesday, but I’ll be back.  You know those feelings you get.  The ones that sit on your skin.  And you can’t shake them off.  Eventually they run up your spine and you shiver and it’s over.  That’s what self loathing is for me.  It hangs out, surreptitiously, in my head, until I shake it off.  Not to dismiss it.  Just . . .  shaken, thanks, moving on . . .  But I think I’m best not talking too much about it, I spook easy. 

Puppy first week of school was brilliant.  Perfection.  How is it possible that we got so lucky?  I’m almost afraid to say it out loud.  But I think we may have gotten his medication right the very first try.  And apart from that one day where his teacher did find it necessary to explain to him that yes he was going to sit on the story rug with eveyone else even if she had to drag him there . . .  My sweet boy.  Every afternoon after that his teacher has told me he had a great day.  Bear has settled in from the summer away from his friends and hd a great first week, too.  I always feel like Bear gets the short shrift around here.  But he is so . . .  untroubled.  And really that’s 75% of what I’ve been doing lately.  Here, another short backtrack to the yesterday.  Trixie called me and told me something Bear had said to her the a few days ago after reading the post.  She had come over to the hosue and we were watching Big Medicine.  A show about beyond morbidly obese people.  It ran past Puppy’s bedtime and I had gone to put him to bed.  A segment about a bedridden man and a mother of two about to undergo some seriously scary surgery was on, I believe, and Bear looked over at Trixie and said “That will never by my Mom.  She’s a runner.”  This boy is a miracle. 

Oh what else, randomly . . . 

Go by some music from Jukebox the Ghost.  It’s fixing me this week.  I love this album. 

I had the most incredible and unexpected dream last night about a friend.  I’d tell you all about it, but this isn’t that kind of blog . . . 

I miss roadtripping.  Damn big oil . . . 

I just ordered about a million prints from the photos Janet took last weekend.  They are all incredible. 

I want to go to New Orleans or Salem for Halloween this year.  Anybody else wanna go? 

And here, two perfect things to start this week off right . . . 

One, music . . . 

Jukebox the Ghost - Good Day from Eyestar Pictures on Vimeo.

And two, the sweetness of the boys . . . from the incredible pictures Janet took . . . 

August 23, 2008 @ 08:59

I have a confession to make.  I don’t want to, god this is so ugly.  But . . .  Here . . .  I am a coward.  I am also a self loather.  One of the ways I have kept it together over the past year is by letting me go.  Setting up a pretty solid plan of inner self punishment and sticking to it for over a year.  For those of you who’ve been around long enough with me here, you have seen the change.  Others who are new friends may not have caught it.  This is where I was just one year ago.  But several things happened.  Primarily, Puppy’s diagnosis.  Plus a love fiasco which I didn’t share too much about because I should have known better, a set back at work which I did not mention to anyone because of plain old fashioned shame, and the biggest set back of all . . .  my inner dialog got switched back to the bitch setting.  I even went back to the old blog and looked around.  I realized it was tricky little misdirection I pulled on myself and my closest friends.  At the same time I moved to this address and started talking more about cake, I stopped taking care of me.  But I hid it with cake talk.  For a while I did post my miles and pounds lost and other details with the weekly stats.  But slowly began posting them late, then sticking them at the bottom of some other post, and then not posting them at all.  I haven’t posted in the Run, Hike, Eat category in months.  The result of this slow descent backward to the person I have hated all my life?  I have lost my mile.  For a year I pounded the trails and went from being the fat cow I hate to being a runner.  I had a wall, a big invsible wall, that stood between me and the mile.  For all the work I did, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t break that barrier.  I even tried hypnosis.  Then one day, at Bell Slough, it happened.  I was cruising under those trees.  I was an animal.  I ran five miles.  For a woman who used to be an over three hundred pound teenaged girl, this was a miracle.  I thought I was home safe.  I would never go back again.  But then, last summer . . .  The reality is my inner monster is still there.  And I do not know how to get rid of it.  It squats inside my head and makes me feel like I am the monster.  I know that it is the monster, not me.  But I don’t know how to turn it off.  I just don’t know.  I’ve gained seventy pounds and I don’t know how to stop hating me.  Every time I drive past Bell Slough my minds says how did you do it?  How can we get it back?  In the grocery store, I ask myself “now what was it that you bought last summer, those foods that were fuel and not pitiful fake friends?”  I can hardly remember.  I’ve read a hundred books and a thousand magazine articles and heard the advice of a million friends.  But there is something deep in me that seems to be broken and I’m not sure how to fix it.  And I’m so tired of it.  It gets in the way of so much of my life.  The first week that I didn’t run at all last year, was the reeling from Puppy’s diagnosis week.  But he’s had a roller coaster ride of a year and just like the feeling you have on a real roller coaster, we’ve come out the other side exhilerated and happy.  But in that year it took to get here, I seriously ignored me.  And now I’m unsure of how to get back there.  I’d ask somebody to help me out.  But that bitch in my head is tricky and resentful.  I’ll find an excuse.  And I don’t wanna lose Trixie in the struggle.  Maybe just posting this in Run, Hike, Eat will be a pitiful little start.  And while I’m still crying I’ll call Trixie and hope she’s home and ask her to come over and kick my ass. 

August 21, 2008 @ 22:59 

August 21, 2008 @ 16:33

Trixie has given me a beer, and god do I ever need one. 

 Thanks, sugar. 

And Willow has presented me with this . . . 

Thanks to you, too! 

It seems to me that a lot of people that I love, and some others, too, have been having rough days lately.  You know this past Friday was a full moon.  And my horoscope says that I am in a “very potent period”  and that ”one chapter will end and a new chapter will begin”.  That’s vague enough for me.  I like vague horoscopes.  They are a nice little opportunity to say “See!  I was right!”  And don’t we all need that?  Have a great weekend everyone . . .  I’m going to try and get out of the house and go for a walk in the rain.  Those really are my favorite.  Maybe Trixie will be patient enough to go with me.  If she’s in town.  And hey, would it be just an incredible breach of blog ettiquette for me to roll up the passing on of these things into one?  As I think that I’d like to have a beer with my brillant favorites, even if I have to wait for some of them to give birth . . .  Here are the girls that I’d like to buy a round for because they are brilliant . . . 

• Apron Strings and Angst
• Coffee, Shoes and Ramblings
• Miss Weight Loss
• My life, the living sitcom . . .
• Ordinary Average Girl
• Peerless Panther
• Pitter Patter of Pink Piddy Paws