Nonsense

Science says I’m not an a**hole

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Clocks at Great Northern in Manchester, UKI’ve had a problem with being late since I can’t remember when.

People fuss at me about it. They’ve even tried to compensate for it by telling me something starts earlier than it does.

Okay, that may have only happened once, but now I just assume everyone around here is telling me I’m late when I actually have gobs of time. The moral of which is you should never lie about the time to a tardy person. It’s bound to backfire.

But backfire on whom? Me? The lying liars waiting on me? It’s a stupid kind of karma.

Pondering this sort of thing usually makes me late.

I’m not the most tardy person I know. There are people I know who will do things like say they’ll come for dinner on Friday at six … and then show up the next day. Honest to God.

If I say I’m going to be somewhere at a specific time, I almost always show up on the same day.

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Nonsense, Parenting

Summer in the whipping by age

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river_funI have a little confession to make: despite the amount of complaining I do about summer, about working from home surrounded by unproductive kids and their dirty dishes, about feeling like I’m having a stroke every time I run outside, I actually love summer.

I love dinner on a patio with misters and fans going full blast. I love long walks in the evening when it’s light until ten. I love concerts in the park and sundresses and pedicures and weird sunburns left on that spot on my shoulder I missed with the sunscreen. I love the smell of the neighbor’s barbecue fired up, and spontaneous trips to the snow cone shack.

But here a full third of this summer has passed, and I haven’t had a chance to really lean into it. We started with that mad dash toward the end of the school year, and its ridiculous amount of activity, and it seemed like everyone’s kids were graduating all at once, and then there was the family road trip of the century, and our exchange student’s mother came to stay with us. When she and her daughter left, a former exchange student arrived with her boyfriend for a visit.

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Nonsense

There isn’t any ice cream in Death Valley

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So, it’s the time of year we have this kind of action.

IMG_3126This is weather that inspires everybody to crank down the AC until it’s reminiscent of a Minnesota winter and we’re all wearing sweaters to meetings and complaining about the heat. Which I think, if you look it up, is the clinical definition of “cracked in the head.”

But I’m no doctor, so don’t take my word for it.

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Nonsense

You might not recognize me later

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My not too distant future self? I think I have that sweater.

A few years ago I was having lunch with mom, when I recognized our server. She was about my age, and I couldn’t place her. She could have been a distant relation or someone I see every day in some other context.

She gave us our bill, and I saw her signature in big balloon letters. “Chrystal,” with a cartoon smiley face. I remembered who she was.

“Did you go to grade school over here? Over at Franklin?” I asked, bobbing my head toward the window. “I think we were in, like, second grade together.”

She tucked some hair behind her ear and looked at me, then snapped her fingers and pointed.

“That’s where … I thought. Yeah, I remember you,” she said.

“Beth,” I said, putting out my hand, but she slapped her thigh instead of taking it.

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Nonsense

Beer Girl, Wine State

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IMG_2555(This could be called something more clever, like The Blog in Which I Out Myself as one of the few non-wine drinkers among moms, writers and social media mavens, but that’s one of those titles that’s going to mess with my SEO in ways I’d prefer not to).

I know there is an etiquette to wine tasting, and I should have looked for an online primer, or something on Saturday before leaving the house. The thought didn’t occur to me until we were at the first winery and I was looking at a pitcher of water, a little bucket and a basket of wafers, and thinking Oh crap, I’m gonna screw this up.

What I had been thinking about before leaving was whether I had enough time for a pedicure, or if I could find some non-frumpy closed-toed shoes to go with my capris. It was going to be warm, and I am woefully undergroomed for late spring.

I ended up procrastinating enough that I had to get in the car with ugly toes and no idea whether I’d stick out as a total outsider: beer girl on a wine tour.

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Nonsense

The dog ate my homework

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Terrier Rasberry

I couldn’t remember what I was saying. I turned to the screen, but there weren’t any words.

bark, bark, bark-bark, bark

I thought I’d had bullet points on this slide. Did I bring the wrong slides?

bark-bark, bark

I turned back to the group, I’d lost their attention. Some were staring at their phones. One guy actually had his head down on his desk.

“HEY,” I yelled at him.

bark, bark

The ones still turned to me had blank looks on their faces. No …they actually had blank faces. As in: no features at all. Just smooth surfaces where their eyes, noses and mouths used to be.

This was going to be one of my worst presentations, ever.

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Fitness, Nonsense

Musings and Mind Games: A Runner’s Race Day Countdown

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skullTomorrow is the Race to Robie Creek, the self-proclaimed toughest race in the northwest.

It’s not so bad. We’ve done it. It’s actually quite a pleasant ascent through a rocky canyon, up a dirt road and over a mountain and back down to a little valley where nudists and tree-huggers and hillbillies live in harmony.

True, the rocks of that little canyon direct heat like a suntan reflector cone right down on that dusty road and the hoards of people ascending more than two thousand feet over 8 miles to the summit. That’s not so pleasant.

Then there’s wildlife. Not the gentle, hoofed kind, either. The kind that coil behind a rock or stalk you from a cliff face. My strategy for avoiding wildlife is that slow thing I do. Think about it. One of little known dangers of being a faster runner is the higher likelihood of getting picked off by carnivores. Because, you know, you’re first.

It does too make sense.

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Nonsense

Gwyneth and I have more in common than I thought

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Healthy groceriesLast week, Hollywood icon and occasional social activist Gwyneth Paltrow took on Mario Batali’s #FoodBankNYCChallenge to live on a food stamp budget of $29 for one week.

For me, this conjures an image of the statuesque starlet hauling her sustainably produced, fair trade, organic canvas shopping totes down to Whole Foods for nothing more than a photo op. Apologies to Gwyneth and her fans, but she is, after all, the woman whose Holiday Gift Guide did once famously include a nearly $1,000 cashmere throw blanket. Everyman, she is not, nor will ever be.

Gwyneth tweeted a photo of her weekly food purchase on a $29 budget. It took all of about 29 seconds for the ridicule to start.

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Nonsense

They really only want us to be happy

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phone_purseA friend shared an article recently on the psychology of happiness; how experiences matter more to our long-term joy than material items.

Good thing this wasn’t one of those list articles. You know: 17 ways I’d know happiness if it hit me like a city bus. Or a quiz to determine how much of a hipster/vegan/gangsta/foodie, I am. I’d have forgotten it by now. And then we’d have no blog.

This article probably stood out because it was the first thing I read on my newly upgraded phone that is roughly the size of a clutch purse.

No, it wasn’t lost on me that I was reading an article about experiences mattering more than material items on the very gadget for which I’d probably be ignoring my family all weekend.

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Fitness, Nonsense

I clearly have shirt issues

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realrunners2
Not an example of a run with a “unisex” shirt. I just like the goofball selfie attempt.

As awesome as a well-organized run event can be, there’s one little thing that bums me out almost every time. I’ll give you one guess.

No I won’t. It’s the damn t-shirt.

A couple weeks ago, Mike and I ran in an event that was new to the area. We steeled ourselves to be patient. By which I mean we did our normal bitching and moaning getting up and ready, and then sank into silence on the ride to the park, lost in our respective head games until we got to the starting line.

Usually, new events take a couple of years to shake out the kinks. Kinks come with the territory, considering the complexity of organizing a 13.1-mile event that sprawls over congested city streets and public pathways where clever adolescents like to rearrange mile markers and directional signs.

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