One Looks Pretty Much Like Another

Now, this is a first.  Yes, I sometimes combine my Saturday and Sunday walks into one blog, but today was the first time I could not remember my walk from the day before.  Was it a morning, afternoon, or evening walk?  What was the weather like?   Have I just done so many walks that they have finally run together into one long strand, or am I in the early stages of dementia?  God help me

I sat and really thought about it.  Okay, it’s coming back to me.  Friday night’s rainy walk had left me feeling a little like I was coming down with a cold; I got up at 6:30, because I had a fairly early morning meeting at 8:30.  That lasted a couple of hours, I came home and walked THE WHOLE THING with Banks through both Big and Little Stacy Park because we both love the high and rushing water  there after a rain.  We came home and went immediately back to bed – I’ve found that sleeping is the most sure-fire way to stave off a cold. 

This morning I was meeting Sam at Le Madeline for breakfast at 9:00, and did my walk upon rising.  What a disappointment.  A cold front was supposed to have blown in, but it was mostly a blustery wind, and a pretty warm one at that.  Banks and I once again did Stacy Park, and he once again did the whole thing.  My left leg was bothering me, even with the brace, and we skipped the hills. 

This birthday (a couple of weeks late) marked a new era – the first time I can remember that Sam got me a totally unexpected present, rather than a gift certificate to a coffee house, bookstore or movie theater.  It’s a beautiful stainless steel Fossil watch, and  it showed me that he knows I prefer silver, and that I like big and clunky jewelry, as opposed to small and dainty.  I love it, but envisioning him at the Nordstrom watch counter, looking them watches over and trying to decide which one I’d like best, makes me absolutely cherish it.

Today is the last day of September, and officially the last birthday celebration of the month.  Julie and Robert, our old college friends, are taking Lynn and me out to dinner at a very cool-sounding place, Hillside Farmacy.  I think it’s new-ish, and works only with local farms.  I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. 

Finish what you started

Sometimes you're in the mood for a rain walk, and sometimes your aren't.  Today was one of the latter.  I always come home Friday dead tired, and today was no exception.  I took a short nap with Banks, woke up around 8:15 and prepared to walk. Banks had little interest; Jackson had taken him for a walk late in the afternoon, and he preferred to remain in bed.

So I walked outside, and it was drizzling. I walked down my driveway, decided I wasn't in the mood, would walk ten tomorrow, got back to the door, turned around again, said the hell with it, and kept walking. It was a weird but somehow satisfying walk.  I had fallen asleep in my work clothes, and just left them on -- tight jeans and a layered top, and on this warm and humid night, they weren't comfortable.  About 20 minutes in, the rain really started.  I had spent so much time on my hair this morning!  As always, I carried no umbrella and just let the rain fall. There was a time when I would have felt self-conscious about casually walking the streets in a downpour, but I'm resigned to the fact that at this point my neighbors and half the student body at St. Ed's must think I'm crazy.

I had a close call a few blocks from the house.  It was dark, of course, and I was walking on the edge of the street where it meets the sidewalk, and mud had accumulated which I couldn't see.  I felt my left leg go into an ominous slide, gasped, and somehow managed to right myself. Different scenarios kept playing out in my mind as to exactly how I might have landed, and none of them were good.  Especially the one about hyperextending my left knee and shattering my elbow.

I'm home now, with my wet and heavy clothes pulled off, and into my warm and dry sleepwear.  Nothing feels better than finishing a walk I didn't want to start. 

Book Club

Well, tonight was our first book club meeting, and we all thought it went great.  Our first selection was "How to Be a Woman" by Caitlin Moran, which I've mentioned before.  There were five of us (two more will join us next month) and none of us had ever belonged to a book club before.  So after dinner we kind of looked at each other and said, "Um, should we have, like, ground rules or something?" Lynn had downloaded some questions from the Internet, but we decided that it was our book club and we'd just make the rules up as we went along.  It was exactly as I had envisioned a book club discussion.  A couple of us loved the book, one did not like it, two liked it with reservations. Brian had problems with her cavalier attitude towards pornography, a sort of "If woman ran the porn industry, the movies would have a plot line," missing by a mile the larger issues of exploitation and degradation rampant in that business.  Lynn liked most of the book, but didn't particularly like the author, feeling that, at 35, she was a little too cocksure of herself on every issue; I felt that kind of ballsiness was exactly what propelled her out of the poverty and despair that was programmed for her.  We all were amused at her complete disdain for any type of plastic surgery and her certainty that she would embrace the sagging and the wrinkles as sings of a life well-lived.   Just wait, we all said.  In ten years, tell me how charming you find gray hair and jowls.  Next month's selection is "Gone Girl," which has been getting fabulous reviews -- a tense fictional thriller which will be a good counterpoint to Caitlin's comic rantings.

 

It lasted from 7-9, and since I hadn't had time to do my walk before then, I came home, grabbed Banks and his new leash, and off we went.  His endurance is growing as the summer heat wanes; now he's up to 45 minutes before I bring him home and complete the other half myself.  It was still a little hot and humid, so I finished up at St. Ed's to take advantage of the open buildings and drinking fountains.  Not to mention bathrooms.  I'd forgotten that strawberries have that effect on me.

 

 

 

American Airlines Strikes Again

Remember my disastrous trip to Virginia this past winter?  When not one, but two of my flights had to make emergency landings, complete with fire trucks and ambulences on the ground, and reached its nadir with an overnight stay in some godforsaken town in West Virginia a few miles from the airstrip where we touched down?

The only upside to that trip was a cash voucher for a future AA flight, which I used for my Nebraska trip.  Getting there was uneventful, coming home was a nightmare.

My return trip was scheduled for 4:10; I got to the Omaha airport and it had been rescheduled for 5:30.  Then 6:30.  My heart sank as I realized I would miss my Dallas connection.  But we finally boarded, and after sitting for an unusally long time, the pilot went into a detailed story about a light which had gone out, would have to be replaced, it probably wouldn't affect the flight, but better safe than sorry, we're waiting for the mechanic now, okay, he's showed up, he's fixed it, but now we've got to be sure we've filed the proper paperwork.  Another hour and a half. 

We arrived in Dallas.  I had not only missed my original connecting flight, but my rescheduled flight as well.  Not to worry!  They had a plane leaving for Austin at 11:10.  Well, that one sat forever as well, giving the passengers plenty of time to swap stories of earlier flights that day, with pilots whose over-explained tales of minor maintenance problems sounded suspiciously familiar.  This was the first time I heard about the impending strike, and the pilots trying to force the airline's hand with these tactics.  Now it all made sense. I had been living in a cocoon for the three and a half days in Omaha, and knew none of this.

We finally got into Austin arouund 1:15.  I got home and into bed at 2:00 AM.  As tempted as I was to sleep in, I knew I had something on my calendar that morning, so I got up about 6:30 and went in.  I put in a full day, came home and collapsed on my bed.  I was the kind of bone-tired you get every once in a while when you skip dinner and sleep straight through the night. 

Except I woke up around 9:15.  I had decided to make today my off day, purely for convenience, but was feeling a little restless, and couldn't get back to sleep.  So at 9:35, Banks and I headed out.  Despite the odd hour, it felt comfortable and familiar; as much as I love getting away, I love coming home even more, and returning to my life and my routine.  I dropped Banks off and continued on a simple neighborhood walk, making long and random loops and repeating them again and again.  I liked the mindlessness of it, and the fact that it was late enough that no one was out and wondering why I kept walking by their house over and over.

My tiredness is back, in full force.  Off to bed.

My, um, Half Marathon

This could only happen to me.

Susan and Lynn dropped me off at the starting point.  It was 36 degrees.  I had on shorts, a long-sleeve T-shirt and a heavy hoodie.  I can't really estimate how many people were participating -- a couple thousand? -- but I knew that the numbers under 1,000 (mine was 477) meant you were doing the full marathon, and other numbers meant you were either doing the half-marathon or the 10K.  I got a little nervous as I noticed that virtually all the under 1,000 looked like serious runners.  No walkers.  I started making conversation with those around me huddled towards the back.  Most of them were running the 10K or walking the half-marathon.  Was no one else walking the full marathon?  Someone told me she had heard another participant make that claim.

So the gun went off and we all shuffled towards the starting line.  It was fun watching the tops of everyone's heads, seeing wave after wave of them start to bobble as the reached the starting point.  It was so cold at the beginning that that was all I was focused on.  After about mile 2, I could feel my feet. 

If I thought my daily five miles gave me an advantage, I think I was wrong.  I had to fight to stay in the middle of the walking pack.  I picked a few people whose stride I liked, and would shadow them.  If they started pulling ahead, I'd jog to keep up. 

At about mile 7, a woman about my age caught up with me and started making conversation.  Was I walking the half-marathon?  Actually, the whole thing, I said.  Had I EVER walked a half-marathon?  No.  "Then why are you walking a marathon the first TIME?"  she shrieked.  I smiled and said I just felt like it.  I put my head down and walked a little faster.  "This is my third half-marathon.  I'm proud to walk a half-marathon!  I don't feel like I have to PROVE anything by walking a full marathon!"  Good God.  I flashed another smile, and kept moving.

A mile or two later, a very friendly volunteer on a bike pulled up beside me to make sure I was doing okay.  I was.  I said "Am I the only one in this thing who's walking the full marathon?"  She looked at me blankly.  "I didn't know you were allowed to walk the full marathon."  I looked at her equally blankly.  "Well, that's what I told them I was doing, and nobody said I couldn't."  She was very sweet and very supportive.  "Well, they'll be pulling up the cones and the roadblocks pretty soon,  but as long as you stay on the sidewalks, I don't know why you couldn't do it on your own."

My first instinct was, I don't care, I WILL do this on my own.  I came up here to walk a marathon, not a half-marathon.

My second thought?  There were few walkers as it was -- sometimes there would be a quarter mile between me and the person in front of me -- and as the miles pulled up, the route, which was not spectacularly marked in the first place, got a little confusing.  There would be cops or volunteers at major intersections and I would have to say, Do I go this way?  What would happen if I tried to do the whole thing on my own, with my sense of direction? 

But here's the kicker:  I don't know if I could have finished.  By about the 9 mile point, I was hurting.  I had pulled a muscle in my groin (do women have groins?  You know what I mean), and my left everything was hurting.  And I know why.  The people that I was pacing myself against?  They were walking the 10K!  No wonder they were going so fast.  I overdid it right off the bat, in the near-freezing cold, and I was paying the price.

What if I had been allowed to finish the marathon, and there were hundreds walking with me? As much pain as I was in, I don't know if I could have handled just giving up.  Maybe I would have just walked very slowly; I don't know. But as I got to mile 12, I decided I was more relieved than disappointed

Lynn asked me if I still plan to walk a marathon.  Yes and no.  I will walk 26.2  miles before the year is out, but I won't do it in an "event" setting.  Once was enough.  Just as I get up every day and walk five miles, and sometimes get up very early and walk 10, or 12 or 15, one day I'm going to get up and just walk for seven hours.  At my own pace, on my own route.  I'll either walk the Austin marathon route, or I'll make up my own.  But I'll do it. 

After it was all over, I freaked!  I just remembered that I'd built my whole week around the 26.2 miles, and I'd only done 13.1.  How many miles would I have to make up?  None, as it turns out.  I'd walked 2.5 on Thursday, took off Friday and Saturday, and got up this morning (still very sore) and walked five with Lynn.  I'm right back on track. 

Right now I'm in the Omaha airport.  My plane has been delayed 3 hours.  I'll be getting into Austin at 10-something rather than 8-something, because I'm going to miss my connecting flight in Dallas.  At least they gave us a meal voucher. 

And tomorrow I'll show you some pictures of the amazingly wonderful time I had with my cousin and her amazing family, including four dogs, four cats, a parrot, a cockatoo, two cockateels and a couple of aquariums full of fish.

Take-off

I've been planning on writing my blog semi-daily, as always, and then last night it occurred to me that there is zero chance that there is wireless access in Susan's house, I have no idea if she lives anywhere near a place with WiFi (I'm going to ask her, and I promise you she'll say "What's WiFi?"). So as much as I was looking forward to writing in more or less real time, that may not happen, and I may not get back to you til Monday.  But we'll see. 

Tortured Math

Okay, bear with me, because it's complicated and I'm sure you find it a lot less interesting than I do.  I did 2.5 miles this evening, and I'm done.  Can't do any more.  I'm exhausted, all I want to do is fall into bed, but I can't, because I haven't even packed yet, and I lost my check card, and my sister is going to have to front me cash for this weekend jaunt, and I am STRESSED!  But I'm always like this just before a trip, no matter how small.  I'm anxious about leaving my animals and home behind, I worry I've left loose ends at work. 

So, back to the 2.5 miles and the tortured math.  My original plan for this week was:  walk Monday and Tuesday, take the day off Wednesday.  So far so good.  Walk Thursday, take of Friday and Saturday before the marathon, walk like crazy on Sunday, take off Monday and Tuesday and gradually transition back to five a day.  The crucial part of this is that it still has to add up to 30 miles per week, and if I walk 2.5 on Wednesday, then 5.0 on Thursday, I'm completely back on track.

At least I feel ready for the marathon, if not the trip.  Aimee lent me her Velcro Ipod armband, and also gave me an Itunes giftcard, and I hope I have time to have Jackson download some new tunes for me tonight.  I flirted with the idea of wearing two knee braces for that distance, but decided I'd look ridulous, so I'm going to wear it for the first 13 miles on my left leg, for the remaining 13.2 on my right leg.

Okay, I'm too exhausted to pack, I'm going to make an early night of it and set the alarm for 4:00 AM.  See you in Omaha.

Susan

Check out these parrots.  At least I think they’re parrots, they may be something more exotic. They belong to Susan, the cousin that Lynn and I are going to be staying with in Omaha this weekend, and as excited as I am about many aspects of this trip, it’s these stupid birds about which I keep saying to everyone “Can you believe I’m going to spend the WEEKEND with these guys?”  Susan swears they both talk up a storm and promises they’ll be all over us. 

I haven’t seen Susan in about ten years.  She and Lynn and I grew up in the country together, in western Pennsylvania.  You had to cross a field of cows to get to her house from ours.  The three of us were inseparable until my dad was transferred to Pittsburgh when we were all about 9 or 10.  We kept in contact throughout junior high and high school, then Lynn and I took off for UT.  We knew it would only be a matter of time before Susan joined us in Austin, and she did, about a year later.  But Susan had no interest in college.  While Lynn and I lived in a dorm, she found a trailer and lived out in the country.  She couldn’t stand not being able to see the stars at night. While we plugged away at our classes, she worked, mostly as a waitress, and explored her wild side.  She married young, had three kids, divorced, and for the past 20 years or so has lived in Omaha with her second husband.  We would have loved to have kept in closer touch with her, but she flatly refused to get a computer and an email account.  Oh, she’s a character.  I think the increased contact we’ve all had since deciding to go up there for the marathon has sparked her interest in keeping in touch, and just a couple of weeks ago, she got an email account.  I had to talk her through the first few she sent to me.  With one foot in the 21^st century, she decided to go all the way, and got a smart phone.  I can now count on a text from her roughly every two hours.  I love that free-spirited girl, and you will too after you get to know her a little better this weekend.

I’m still not completely over my funk, and when my mood is on the fence, not walking is not an option.  Even though I thought I might make today my day off, I had to get it out of my system.  Banks and I went to Stacy Park again – my go-to until the marathon – where he became enamored of a certain dog, refused to walk away from her, and when I gave the leash a good hard yank, the tether broke away from the retractable hand piece, and we finished the walk with a 15-foot cord wrapped around my wrist.

Flattening out

Although I fully intended to go into work today, around 7:30 I realized that on my actual birthday, I really wanted a fun, relaxing day to myself, so I took some vacation time.  Very early on, Banks and I did our walk.  Stacy Park's creek is still high and rushing, and I know from experience that Banks loves it like that, so off we went.

The first round, with Banks, was moderately paced and pretty flat, and since it was exactly 45 minutes when I brought him back, I replicated it exactly.  I decided along the way that until I do the marathon on Sunday, no more hills for me.  I'm going to put as little stress on my knees as possible, and my plan right now is to probably take off tomorrow, walk Wednesday and Thursday, and then take off the Friday and Saturday before the marathon.  For just this one time, I'm going to have to break my rule about not letting "off" days on different weeks overlap.  It's just not going to be possible since my week starts on a Monday.  So, after I walk on Sunday, I plan to take off Monday completely, probably go a couple of miles on Tuesday and Wednesday, take off Thursday and get back into the swing of it on Friday.  Of course, all this is subject to change depending on how I feel, but no matter how I feel, it's still going to add up to a total of 30 miles for the week.

I feel better today. 

Crazy Walk

That is the only way to describe today's five miles. 

It's been raining nonstop since I woke up this morning.  I love rain, so that's not a problem.  The problem is the storm -- a quiet kind of turmoil -- inside of me.  It's been going on for four or five days.  I can't identify it, or name it.  And so I can't fix it.

At about 2:00 pm, I obeyed a crazy instinct which told me to head out into the pouring rain and just walk.  I put on my canvas shoes because I knew they would get soaking wet, and I didn't care. Maybe two blocks in, and soaking wet, I rethought my wardrobe decision -- a long-sleeved white T-shirt over a dark-pink bra -- then thought, the hell with it.  I wondered if walking in a cool rain for an hour and a half might make me sick.  I think a part of me wanted to get sick.  A fever and a scratchy throat is something I can fix.  Another part of me was hoping that the rain would wash away my soul sickness.

I walked to Stacy Park. After a few days of hard rain, the creek is high and roaring. I walked alongside it.  I came to the wooden bridge, the site of my big tumble last winter, in the same kind of weather, in the same shoes.  I stepped across it carefully.  I walked the whole length of the park and back, walked another length, and realized I needed to pee.  I crossed the road to the other side, on the border of the woods, and hid behind a big orange sign that said "Road Work Ahead."  I climbed one of the steepest hills off of East Side, walked back down the slick road carefully, then walked halfway up the next hill, and took the long, gently sloping uphill road most of the way back home.

I ran into three runners and one walker.  Two of them greeted me warmly, the other two looked grim and averted their eyes.  I wondered what they might be working through.  I thought of all the times when, in the warmth and safety of my car, I looked at walkers and joggers slogging through a storm, rolled my eyes, and thought "Get over yourself, it won't kill you to take a day off."  I won't say that anymore.

I did a lot of thinking, and I came up with a lot of thoughts, but that's another blog for another day.  I came home, got out of my cold and wet clothes, took a hot shower, and fixed a cup of green tea.  The Cowboys are on TV, no doubt poised to break my heart.  Lynn will swing by and pick me up in an hour or so.  We celebrated our birthday last night, and tonight we're driving to San Marcos to continue the celebration with one of our friends from grade school, from Pittsburgh, who now lives in San Antonio and shares a September birthday. We will have dinner and a glass or two of wine, and I won't have to worry about finding a way to fit in a late-night walk. 

Relief

It was a dicey thing to wait until evening to do my walk tonight, because as everyone in Austin already knows, we've had steady rain over the last 24 hours or so, and more's on the way. But it was a beautiful night. Cool and clean, with seemingly all the impurities in the air washed away.  I hope that this respite is only for a few hours and we get a replay of last night -- a steady, hypnotic downfall that paces itself and lasts the whole night.  The only thing that broke the mood was Wally, sitting on my bedroom windshield, yowling pitifully.  I got out of bed, opened the door off the kitchen and called him, but apparently he preferred the relative dryness of where he was (the window has a slight overhang) to making a dash through the storm to come in through the door.

I talked to Susan last night, my cousin in Omaha, and she reported that the high that day was something like 72.  The high!  As much as I enjoy "winging it," I'm going to  have to do some ressearch on what to wear in what kind of weather for a marathonj.  I mean, I won't be running, but I assume I'll work up SOME kind of a sweat.  The top part is easy -- layers -- but should I wear shorts?  Shorts with tights?  Better check out some blogs.

Lost

What a difference a couple of days make.  I have done serious penance for the binge (marble cake, chocolate ice cream and fried chicken) of earlier this week, and have nibbled daintily ever since on oatmeal, scrambled eggs, half sandwiches, Greek salads and yogurt.  Do I even need to tell you what a difference that makes in my walking?  I remember reading somewhere that when you overeat, all of your body’s energy goes into digesting the food; there’s very little left over for things like, well, like walking five miles. 

It occurred to me last night that I am coming to the end of the serious sweating that happens on my night walks, and as sick as I am of the heat, I will miss that.  I like sweating profusely, especially as I traverse the hills, and then when I come home and wash my face, there is almost no make-up left on it.  The trade-off will be that Banks will be with me during those cold mornings and evenings, and I will have my old energy back. 

This morning I met Brian for breakfast at Mi Madres.  Please refer back to an earlier blog on my sense of direction.  How many times have I walked there, not to mention driven there?  I got lost.  I still don’t know exactly how it happened.  At some point in the walk – I can take many different streets and end up with the same mileage – I am supposed to be on Red River, traveling north.  Okay, I probably got on Red River at about 15^th St.  I was rocking along, kind of lost in my thoughts, and got to what I assumed was 24^th St/Manor.  Crap.  I was only at 19^th St.  And at this point I took a tragic turn, probably onto 19^th rather than proceeding straight on Red River, and about 10 minutes into it, I was like, Huh?  What am I doing on Trinity?  Where did all of these ROTC students come from?  I was on campus, and completely turned around.  Some helpful joggers directed me out of my fog and onto 24^th St., but by then I had lost some serious time.  I called Brian, who was fortunately also running late.  I thought about making up an excuse – there are times when the humor that others find in my perpetual lostness is less charming than others – but by the time I finally got there, 15 minutes late, I found the whole thing pretty funny myself.  So, needless to say, did Brian.  And this time, she didn't have to drop me off somewhere along Oltorf to make up the .4 miles; I probably walked well over 5 1/2 this morning.

One week out from the marathon.  I am getting very excited. 

Good Secrets

I DID make yesterday my off day, and probably will for most of the rest of the year, because I just started a bible study on Monday nights.  I'm in fast company with this group.  An accountant, a neurologist, a St. Ed's professor, a software engineer.....and perhaps most intimidating of all, a professional baker!  She makes cakes and cake balls (apparently I'm the only one who's never heard of these) and teaches a class in cake decoration. Oh, here's the coolest thing of all -- the discussion leader is a TOTAL Francophile!  Since high school she has been in love with all things French, knows the language, and just a few years ago, picked up and moved there for six months.  Can you imagine all the things I can learn from her?  The books she can direct me to?  The fashion tips she can impart?  The food???

During our introductions, we had to describe ourselves a bit and then tell the class one secret thing they might never guess about us.  I referenced my "outstanding parallel parking skills."  Some instinct told me not to talk about my walking and my blog.  If I'm reading it correctly, I'm looking for a safe, pressure-free place where no one will ask me if I've done my walk that day or if I'm going to blog about something that someone said.  As we continued around the room, that instinct proved exactly right.  The accountant's "secret" was that she's a cancer survivor, and for the past five or so years, she's been participating in the Susan B. Koman walks.  They walk 20 miles a day for three days in a row, and she flies around the country participating in those walks in lots of different states.  She described herself as "obsessed with walking."  Okay. That decided it. I get all the attention and applause that I need from friends, family and coworkers for my little project; she can be the walker in this group. I love the idea of carrying my small, sacred secret within me, just in this one part of my life.

Tonight's walk was hideous.  Out of sheer necessity, I was forced to include the mile that I did with Banks this morning.  I was sluggish and irritable -- what do you expect after marble cake and chocolate ice cream late in the afternoon (yes, another office birthday), followed by, God help me, fried chicken for dinner. (A line of Louie C.K.'s kept going through my mind: "The meal is not over when I'm full.  The meal is over when I hate myself.") I thought it was cool enough for Banks to walk comfortably for an hour or so, but he kept lying down in the grass and rolling around.  I just didn't have it in me to push it tonight. 

Tomorrow.

The French Thing, Continued

Oh, how tired of this you must be getting of all this, but please indulge me just once more.  I told you about my wonderful, perfect French dinner on Saturday night, and the fact that I overdid it, both food and wine-wise. But here's the thing -- when you overdo it on Mexican food, or American classics like fried chicken or hamburgers and French fries, you feel it in a big and greasy way.  When I woke up Sunday morning, not only did I feel completely fresh and energetic, I was in no way affected by the wine that I drank.  Come to think of it, I was unaffected WHILE I was drinking it, and that is unheard of -- those first few sips alway give me a tingly, aching feeling in my jaw, which everyone tells me means that I'm allergic to red wines. This was of course a French wine, and was completely smooth, and, I assume, expensive -- I was the birthday girl so wasn't allowed to ask. 

To top it all off, Sunday was the first truly brisk, even cool morning in months, and Banks and I enjoyed a wonderful hour-long walk together before I dropped him off to finish the rest.  And even better -- my first day without nursery duty in six months.  I lingered over the paper, allowed myself a few extra cups of coffee, and overall, just began the day with a sense of well-being.

I got very little sleep last night, for a variety of stressful reasons, and since I had two work meetings over the weekend, I'm leaving at 2:00 and going straight to bed.  Today may or may not be my day off.  We'll see.

Chez Nous

I don't know what it was about this morning, but I got up and I just worked. I cleaned up the kitchen, tackled the bathroom, hard, and then threw in a couple of loads of laundry.  Okay, the paper was uncharacteristically late this morning, so I didn't have that distraction. When it still hadn't arrived by 6:30 -- it's usually here by 5:00-something -- I decided to go all the way and packed up Banks.  We walked the old 1.7 route that we haven't done in a while, I took him home, tretraced my steps to get to 3.4, then went to St. Ed's and finished the majority of the walk around the soccer field. 

I'm sick to death of my summer clothes -- which stay in heavy rotation for six months in Texas -- and went shopping.  I am very, very pleased to announce that I now fit comfortably into a size 10 pair of jeans. I didn't find a pair that I liked enough to buy, but I wanted that size 10 validation.  But here's the best part!  At a fancy resale shop in Westlake Hills, I found a fabulous pair of Prada flats.  Oh, I love them.  Thirty-five dollars for a pair of Pradas! 

Although my birthday is not for another week or so, my GNO group took me to dinner tonight for the celebration.  I couldn’t figure out where I wanted to go, but Brian had the brilliant idea to celebrate my recently discovered French side, so we went to Chez Nous, a "casual French bistro" downtown.  Every single thing on our table was exquisite.  The carrot soup, the escargots, the salmon mousse, the lamb chops, steaks, filet, two bottles of excellent wine and, good Lord, the bread.  We were there for well over two hours, as were all of the other diners.  The perfectly prepared courses were timed to encourage the savoring of every dish, as well as relaxed and unhurried conversation. But it was not sedate; it was animated and even raucous, and gave me another chance to realize how incredibly lucky I am to have these three women in my life.  Cindy, Janette and Brian -- I love you all, don't know what I'd do without your frienship and support, and thank you again for adopting me into the group when I arrived in Austin 17 years ago.

Winging it

Two weeks from today, I will be winging my way to Omaha to participate (I actually wrote "compete" and burst out laughing) in their annual marathon. I have no idea if I am prepared to do this.  I assume there are websites that provide training guidance, but, consistent with the way I've conducted this project and this blog from the beginning, I prefer to wing it.  Remember how, about a week into it, I suddenly realized I had given not a moment's thought to what kind of shoes I should have?  And Brian reminded me the other day of my several pouring-down-rain-complete-with-thunder-and-lightning walks because it had never occurred to me to have a back-up plan.

Twice, when we were 15 and 16, Lynn and I, along with a group of friends, participated in the March of Dimes 20-mile Walkathon in Pittsburgh.  Preparation?  Training?  Who even thought of that? None of us were athletes, none of us had walked more than the normal daily amount, and then we woke up on a Sunday and walked 20 miles.  Good lord, did we even wear tennis shoes?  My memory is that we started in the morning -- not insanely early, like 7:00 AM, but early -- and walked until it was dark.  I seem to remember us all just kind of strolling along.  And remember, there were no ipods back then.  The more I think of it, the more amazing it all seems.  I remember getting blisters on my feet, but I don't remember hobbling into school on Monday.  How resilient the teenage body is.

The other day, in a particulary boring staff meeting, I was hiding in the back and trying to figure out my projected time for completing 26.2 miles.  You should have seen the scratch paper.  Since it takes me anywhere from 15-18 minutes to complete a mile, I multiplied 18 x 26.  That's 468.  Then I divided that by 60.  That came out to 7.2  What does that mean?  By now I've forgotten what I'm trying to figure out -- miles or minutes?  Okay, let's attack this from another angle.  Let's say it takes me 18 minutes a mile for the first, oh, five miles. I'm coming up with 90 minutes.  Then let's say it's 20 minutes a mile for the five miles after that.  That's 100 minutes, so we're now at 190 minutes.  Do I divide that by 60?  Help me, Jesus.  My head was swimming.  I think I'll have Aimee come up with some kind of chart.

Jackson had taken Banks on a good long woods walk yesterday, so I took the opportunity to do my whole five miles alone.  There are many songs on my iphone that I love, but two in particular that make me walk very, very fast:  "96 Tears" by Question Mark and the Mysterions (I defy any Gen Y-er to tell me that has not held up as a great song) and "All I Want" by Toad the Wet Sprocket. I played them over and over again as I tackled hill after hill.  This weekend I'll be downloading a bunch of new ones, and am going to try very hard to save them for the marathon. 

This is Dedication

I had a late meeting and didn't get home til almost 7:00.  I ate a quick dinner.  The Cowboys' first game of the season was starting at 7:30.  I've been waiting for this moment for seven months.  But I took my walk.  I was in a bad mood, and needed the endorphins more than I needed to keep the streak going.  Well, I take that back.  Nothing is more important than the streak.

Banks and I did our usual neighborhood walk, and when I brought him back, it was exactly 45 minutes, so I duplicated the walk.  Got back a few minutes ago and turned immediately to the game.  The Cowboys were leading the Superbowl champs 14-3!  Three minutes later, they were leading 14-10. There's another quarter and 5:00 minutes left, plenty of time to break my heart again. 

OMG! A huge run, and the Cowboys are on the 25 yard line!  Gotta go.

Indian Summer

It is very unusual for me to take an "off" day on an off day -- like Labor Day -- but yesterday I decided to listen to my body and give my knees a rest.  Those barefoot walks definitely took a toll, not just on my knees but on the muscles in the front of my calves.  It was the right decision; I woke up this morning feeling great, let my boss know I was extending my vacation until noon, and took Banks to Town Lake. 

Poor Banks.  I knew he'd been walked minimally while I was out of town, so I decided to take him for the whole five. And, you know, it's now September, and the weather is getting cooler....

We got to the trail at 9:30, and I rather nervously noted that it was hotter and more humid than I'd expected.  Well, too late now.  Our first setback was when we got across the pedestrian bridge, to the orange barrels and they were all empty.  At 9:30???  Well, we were two miles from the 0 mile starting point, we could hold out that long.  Those barrels were empty too!  What planet am I on?  I could stop and drink hot water at the fountains, but Banks was limited to the few places around the lake he could drink from on the shore without fear of tumbling in, and I didn't even have a cup to fill up for him.  The walk got slower the longer it went on, and I was actually getting a little nervous on Banks' behalf, but once you start around that loop, there's no going back.  He came home and CRASHED.

I wonder if I'm coming down with something.  Why do my arms ache?  Do you think it could be all that driving I did over the weekend?  Does holding the steering wheel for prolonged periods sort of isometrically work those muscles?

I'll google it.  Thank God for Google.  I spent most of my lunch hour poring over articles that matched "Are leggings appropriate for the office?"  There is no consensus.  Okay if you work for an ad agency or in the fashion industry, but stick with the wool/cotton thicker blends; definitely not okay if you work in a law firm or in the financial industry. Avoid the shiny ones, they'll make you look like your're going out clubbing. The one thing everyone agrees on is the butt MUST be covered, preferably with a tunic.  And leggings with heels are slutty. 

Galveston

I knew it was going to be a good weekend when, about 1/3 of the way to Houston, a rainbow appeared.  I haven't seen one in a good while, and the appearance always seems as magical as it did when I was a child.  Lynn and I stopped at a great little chicken buffet in, I think, Columbus, and proceeded on.  We spent the night with her good friends Stacy and Shub, I woke up Saturday for my business meeting, she took her godson out for pancakes, and off we went to Galveston.

Elizabeth and Carl live in Houston and spend most of their summer weekends at their beachhouse. This weekend, in addition to Lynn and me, they'd invited 7-8 other people, all of whom were wonderful and fun and gave this introvert not one moment of discomfort.  After a delicious dinner of three kinds of fish that Carl had caught that morning, it was time for my walk.  I think it was about 8:30, and I'm glad Lynn came along, because I don't think I would have felt entirely comfortable going alone. The beach was pretty isolated, and dark, and we brought a flashlight.  I LOVE walking on the beach at night.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, for the full moon and the sound of waves crashing on the shore.  Nothing is more soothing to my soul, nothing calms my pettty anxieties and neuroses like the ocean -- even if it IS the gulf.  It was 45 minutes in one direction, 45 minutes in the other and the best part of it was getting invited to join a beer and pot party along the way.  It was too dark for the cute 20-something guy who persisted in asking about our beverage preferances to ascertain our true ages, and we got tremendous giggles out of imaging his horror once we got closer to the campfire. 

The next morning we got off and did the same thing.  So much for my rhapsodizing about the "restorative powers of walking barefoot on the beach."  The sand at Galveston is packed rock-hard, and really, I decided, it's not too different from walking five miles barefoot on concrete.  If anything it was harder on my knees, but I don't care.  It was worth it.

Elizabeth, who turns 50 in a few months, has the most gorgeous skin, and graciously granted me permission to show you what it looks like first thing in the morning, no make-up.  Not a wrinkle, line or brown spot in sight, and of course that's no accident.  She gets a quarterly facial, and every night and morning applies glycolic acid, and something else on top of that.  It's not cheap, but if I can get my skin in that condition, it's more than worth it.  She's given me her facialist's email, and I'm going to get a referral here in Austin; failing that, at the very least, I'm getting those products shipped here IMMEDIATELY.  I love starting new fall projects, and I can imagine few more rewarding than making a really signficant improvement in the condition of my skin.