Top 5 things I love about my husband

When we were courtin', Husband packed up my moving truck and drove me and my three kids from South Dakota to Alabama. Now, that's a dedicated man. So, it's when we're travling that I'm reminded afresh how much I love this man. Right now, he's out on a long run, after doing a sprint tri and driving ten hours yesterday. Having done a sprint tri yesterday, I summon up my sense of entitlement and decide that I have earned a day of sloth.

1) He's extremely dependable. I had former gentleman friend tell me that I was Chaos. It fits well with extremely dependable. I know that if I forget my razor, which I will, I will know exactly where to find his. Which I will.

2) He plans our excusions with air-tight efficiency, right down to the last detail, but yet is flexible enough to enjoy himself when the unexpected happens, which it will, because he married Chaos. This causes me a great sense of satisfaction. I always feel safe because, as I mentioned, everything is well thought out in advance. We will always have enough gas. We will always be comfortable. This may be part of who he is, or it may be a result of six years on the Corps. And he doesn't mind if I use his razor.

3) He has a great sense of humor, and he's awfully cute. Let's face it: it's nice to have a partner whose easy on the eyes, right? I loved the way he looked when we first met, when we both had the Freshman 15 (pounds), sophomore 15, and grad school 20, all at once...but now that he's been running and biking--wow. Just---wow.

4) He walks a very fine line between being frugal and efficient, and having fun. I never don't have fun when I'm with him. Right now we're on this trip with several new toys that we're enjoying, but he doesn't go an blow our savings on something whimsical, either. He indulges my fetish for magnets from every truckstop in nearly every city and state without complaining.

5) He remembers stuff I tell him, particularly stuff that makes me happy. That's a tough job because, as previously mentioned, I am Chaos. I'm libel to mention just anything off the top of my head that strikes my fancy, and then immediately forget it. He will catalog it, however, someone back in his bread there is a folder that's called "Wife's random utterings of things she likes and things that make her happy" That folder gets rifled through from time to time when he's making plans and a gift-givin occasion comes up.

Now you know. We had a wedding anniversary lately, and I thought it needed to be said.

Greetings from Lee Vining, CA!

Top 7 things I've learned about California so far:

1) I've finally determined the last place on earth that I want to live: Needles, California. All the expense of living in california without any of the benefits, AND it was over 100 degrees. Door handles had towels taped over them to protect customers from burning themselves. On the DOOR HANDLEs. and the windows of our car in the part of the world were HOT TO THE TOUCH. On the INSIDE.

1.5) They are extremely UNwaterwise. I saw sprinklers going off at 2 pm when it was over 100 degrees out, and LAWNS. In the MOHAVE DESERT.

2) They like to shutdown one lane of main arteries (I40) for no apparent reason. Here we were, crawling along in the middle of the Mohave Desert, at 10 mph. there will be signs that say, "damaged bridge ahead," and one surmises that one might plunge headlong into some rushing water. In the desert. I never saw a damanged bridge, by the way.

3) California drivers drive slowly on the right, and pass on the left. Or not. Depends on their mood. They pointedly ignore signs telling slow-moving vehicles to move to the right. Also, Califonia drivers driving 30 foot long windegegos do not consider themselves trucks, even though they suck gas and cruise around 40 mph on the highway.

4) I saw Lone Pine, CA, through which the Badwater Ultra Marathon goes on its way from Death Valley to the top of Mt. Whitney. Holy cow. These people run from 70 feet below sea level, at over 100 degrees, 135 miles to 12,000 above sea level, at freezing temps.

5) They really, really, really want you to know how to get to death valley from nearly every part of California. There are signs at most intersections telling pointing towards it and telling you hw far it is. I've decided that this is a clever way to keep too many people from moving in. Reroute them to Death Valley.

6) If you're going to drive through the Mohave desert, get your windows tinted.

7) As soon as you cross into California, two things happen. First, the cost of gas immediately jumps by a dollar per gallon, and armed people stop your car and ask if you have any produce or live plants. You can't bring either into California. They don't check for drugs or ask if you've been drinking, just fruit and plants.

Hello from Flagstaff!

I tried to upload a post yesterday, but all it uploaded was my title. So, here I am now uploading the comentary. I like Flagstaff. It's full of liberal elitist yuppies, not unlike myself, a veritable blue oasis in a very red state.
The mountainman triathlon took off on time this morning, and it was a BLAST. I was in the 2nd wave of the sprint: 700 meter swim, 20K bike, 5 k run. I think I did alright. i didn't have a podium finish, and I'll find out my placings on Wednesday. Husband got 1st in his age group. I'll let you read his report.

Top 5 things I learned about the Mountain Man Triathlon:
1) Unless you're from 7000 feet above sea level, you'll be sucking some serious wind. I'm from 5000 feet above sea level, and was short of breath most of the way through. It was like going back in time 6 months. Be aware of this, so you don't feel bad about yourself. You'll feel it first in the swim, and then again on the bike. The first thing I noticed on the run was my back started aching. I think it was because of all the rapid breathing I was doing.

2) Socks or cheapie sandals to walk the quarter mile across gravel to the swim start. That way, you won't be trying to shove your bruised and sore feet into shoes later on.

3) The transition area of LONG. I mean LOONNGGG.

4) There's lots of newbies and casual triathletes in this, so even if you're a back of the pack-er, you'll have lots of people behind you. Chances are you won't be dead last.

5) My ankle ROAD ID did a marvelous job of doubling as a timing chip holder. Get one.

6) Be on the lookout for the triathlete characters, as usual. One of the people doing the 70.3 had a full tray of Krispy Kreme Donuts bungied to the back of their tri bike. Now, I spent some time mulling over he purpose of this juxtoposition of values - tribike - Krispy Kreme - tribike - Krispy Kreme - I thought my brain was going to explode until I finally got it. I saw one laying on the bike course. What if his/her plan is to toss them onto the road way, distracting and slowing down the other drivers?

Just because schools out doesn't mean I can't learn something new.

Did you know that if you boil water in an enameled pot on an electric stove, and then start surfing the Internet and forget so that the pot boils dry, that the pot can melt and become part of the burner?

Neither did I.

Today my S stands for simple-minded.

Dawn of the Childless Vacation

I'm almost ready for our 11-day Vacation Blitz! This was the one where there will be (did I mention this?) NO KIDS. Just Sweet Baboo and myself. I've stopped the mail, and hired a neighbor kid to water and feed the cats, fish, etc. Today I'm going to mosy into 'Burque to see if I can pick up a running skirt, to pack with the rest of my skort collection.
Mini-me is headed out for camp for a week, then staying with friends. Here's our itinerary:

• Day 1/2: Flagstaff, AZ for the Mountain Man Sprint triathlon.
• Day 3-4: We hit Lee Vining, CA and Lake Tahoe. Maybe a long swim in Lake T?
• Day 5-7: Portland, OR to visit relatives, and check out their legendary commuter cycling trails.
• Day 8/9: Bend, OR for the Deutches Dash Sprint Triathlon.
• Day 10/11: Pocatello ID, then home.

Did I forget to mention there will be NO KIDS on this vacation?

My daughter called me yesterday. She seemed hurt and bewildered that I was THAT excited about not having any kids along on vacation.

"Dearie, let me explain something to you. Imagine that you have a great life. In this life you have a job, and some money left over to play with. In this life you have a roommate, whom you adore. Can you picture that? Are you with me so far?
"Now, imagine that your roommate is unemployed. You pay for everything. In return, she steals your stuff, throws up on your furniture, floods the bathroom, eats all your favorite food without asking, ruins the carpeting with nail polish, and lies about you to her teachers for sympathy. Do you have that in your head? Can you picture that sweetie? That's parenthood."

"Awright, I GET IT mom. You can stop now"

"Now, you can't legally do anything about your freeloading friend - you have to keep feeding and sheltering and clothing her. Sometimes she's nice to you, but then she runs up the phone bill, calls you names, screams at you, tells you you're stupid, tells your friends (her teachers) to F---off, and then sulks because you won't get her an mp3 players or an Internet connection..."

"I SAID I GET IT, MOM!!"

Not that I hate kids. Far from it. I've chosen to spent my life teaching, counseling, coaching, and what have you - I consider it a calling. However, I became a mother at 19. I've never, in my adult life, had my own space that wasn't constantly being invaded.
My home should be a sanctuary, so that after being told directly or indirectly by the eighth-graders I teach that I'm an idiot all day, the theory is that I would come home, relax, and gear up for another day.

Except...well, I get it coming and going. I have one 15-year-old left at home, 15-year-old Mini-me, who hates it when I call him that, (so I do it as often as possible, because it's all I've got). Mini-me is actually a pretty good kid, but developmentally, he's a teenager, so he's required to reject all our dearest held values and beliefs while he forms his own, and act in an irrational and irascible fashion. In our family, our dearest held values are education and sound mental health. In school, he endeavors to overcome the stigma of being "the teacher's kid" by making my collegues' lives hell, and I get phone calls about it while I'm teaching, including the once-yearly, "Mom, I overslept. I'm still at home and I missed the bus. What should I do?" (Answer: pretend it's a 5K and start running, triathlon boy.)

Did I mention this vacation would have NO children??

The open water threshfest.

I saw this video on Dread Pirate's blog.

Train like you race!

Girly triathlon stuff

I hate pictures of myself. I used to blame my image on bad camera lenses, but then I started to notice that while I looked unusually large, everyone else looked exacly like, um, themselves. Reality check! A good example is the latest team picture taken after Bottomless Sprint Tri. I'm the one that's clearly an Athena, on the far right.

I've become obsessed with girly triathlon things lately. I want to wear pretty strappy things, like the tiny girls wear. (I usually refer to the tiny people as "bird people" because they seem to have hollow bones and fly along like they're winged.) Anyway, I'd like to think that maybe some day I could wear a strappy little crop top. Forget rankings and placings; my goal for the 2007 season is to appropriately wear something strappy and tiny. (Unfortunately, I have to earn that by more miles on the run, because little strappy things do not contain Athenas in an efficient fashion.) Notice that I said, appropriately. As I've told my teenager daughter, just because you can get it on doesn't mean it fits.

I keep looking at the different kinds of athletic bottoms with attached skirts. I just love the idea of these things! not just because they're girly, but because I think they'd do an efficient job of hiding, in the words of David Letterman, "pasty white thighs". Lots of companies make them, but just for inspiration I like to look at Skirtsports, Inc. I want to get one like this one for Duathlons, and this one for running events, and this one for Tri's, if they start making it in black. I got one last year for cycling, which I wear in spin class, but I'm planning to get Black ones to match the Outlaws uniform. I've been putting it off because I figure I can get 20 soy mocha lattes for what one of these things cost, but the pull is just to great.
After all, in the greater scheme of things, covered in sweat, chain grease, and road grime, I just enjoy being a girl.