One Weird Shopping List

I just jotted down a short shopping list of things I need to pick up before heading to book club tonight. It reads like this:

Dog Food
Tequila
Chocolate Frosting

If I could find all three items in one place . . . that would be one wacky store. But since said store doesn't exist - in our galaxy anyway - looks like 3-stop shopping this evening. Rats.

Things That (Thankfully) Didn't Follow Me Home

It's springtime! Supposedly. As long as you only look at the dates on the calendar, not the weather forecast for the Twin Cities, you might believe it.

Anyway, springtime means another installment of Things That Didn't Follow Me Home from the Antique Fair! Just a few this time.

Drum coffee table, reminiscent of the famous wagon wheel coffee table immortalized in "When Harry Met Sally" (which I've only seen, oh, maybe 22 times).

Harry: Someday, believe it or not, you'll go 15 rounds over who's gonna get this coffee table. This stupid, wagon wheel, Roy Rogers, garage sale COFFEE TABLE.
Jess: I thought you liked it?
Harry: I was being nice!

The Incredible Hulk sur la tricyclette. Looks like he's winning a stage of Tour des Superheroes . . or something.





The hubby spotted this one and deemed it spycam-worthy. Huh. I wonder why? Anybody?






Shell Hell - Part Une.









Shell Hell - Part Deux











Shell Hell - Part trois.

Me 'n Mr. Darcy - a Quote

“I just met a wonderful new man. He's fictional but you can't have everything.”

The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

Cecilia (Mia Farrow)

Onward and Upward

For me, there's a big elephant standing in the middle of my blog, and it's name is Hellweek. Time to finally say some words to close that topic and move on.

Thanks to the big blowout with my left SI joint, and the cascade of problems which resulted from it once I started spending time on my bike in Texas, I was only able to ride 3 days, run one, ride part of 1 more. But then I was brought to my knees, kind of literally, when the pain edition of dominos ended in VMO attachment pain, my piriformis and glutes having formed a big knot as they battled it for alpha status over my upper leg. Ultimately, I couldn't even descend 3 stairs without crying out for mercy. Unreal.

What a mess. I have gained even more knowledge regarding sports injuries, anatomy, biomechanics - subjects I barely would have given the time of day 7 years ago. I now find such things entirely fascinating - but I really would rather learn about them from books than from my own body's travails.

Though I tried to make the most of being on vacation, it was tough being on the trip at all. When I was injured only a week out from departure, I really wanted to cancel. Looking back, I wish now I had just given my traveling companions my greatest mea culpas and a lump o' cash to cover a good part of my absence from gas and hotel expenses, taking the vacation time to lay low and recover. But I've never been a quitter, and certainly didn't seriously entertain thoughts of backing out on an obligation I had made to 5 other people. Perhaps to my own detriment, that's just not my style.

Until you're an athlete who has experienced injuries, you can't even begin to imagine the toll they take. If you talk to athletes who have been injured and down for a good deal of time, they will honestly admit that the injury is almost as hard on the people around them as it is on themselves. But man - no offense to my kind traveling companions - honestly, it is really tough to be around uninjured, endorphin-charged people when you're hurt. It sucks all the way 'round.

There is a fairly sunny side to this story. I ended up learning more about the beautiful state of Texas. Not being able to ride, I had time for an outing to San Antonio. I LURV a road trip, and felt positively giddy as I drove along the highways of Texas, uncommonly cheered by the opportunity to visit the Alamo (no, I didn't ask about the basement), Missions San Jose and Concepcion, La Villita, The Riverwalk, as well as wander through the gorgeous and historic Menger Hotel. It was a great day. In retrospect, I wish I had taken a trip to Austin, as well. But 3 more hours of driving, on top of the 19 I was to drive in just a couple of days, seemed unstomachable at the time.

I love Texas. The landscape, flora and fauna are so entirely different from Minnesota - it feels like being in another country completely. I became infatuated with the great-tailed grackle and was endlessly amused and amazed by their seemingly endless vocabulary of sci-fi noises (listen here and here (the Yucatan Peninsula grackle sounds just the same) - check out the "machine gun" calls, especially). Fantastic!! (To me anyway - I suppose the Texans get tired of their racket.)

With race season breathing down my neck, I'm still trying to get healed up from the SI joint mess. I think I will eventually be ready to compete this year, but without the ability to train with much volume, let alone any intensity, the season will be well underway before I'm in any kind of race form. In the meantime, I'll be out there doing my best, training through races and waiting for all my ducks to be in a row so I can finally perform to my potential.

For now - some pictures from my ambles around Texas (all courtesy of my cell phone, as my camera broke when snapping my very first photo at the Alamo).

Pretty water crossing where I had to finally cry Uncle and wait for a ride back to town when my VMO/knee hurt so badly I couldn't keep riding.



The Alamo!!!!










Mmmm, deep-fried cheesecake and cherry limeade in Luckenbach.









I spotted some interesting buildings from the road, pulled over to have a look. Turns out, this school and the teacher's residence (behind it) are most of what remains of the now ghost town, Grapetown, TX. A lovely spot.






New fangled outhouse behind the Grapetown school building.












The beautiful Mission Conception.













Gardening San Antonio style.













Texas roof tiles (cacti) at Mission San Jose.









Even the bugs are bigger in Texas. This one landed on my hand - yipes!













Cool amphitheater on the Riverwalk.














Beautiful old door at Mission San Jose.

Quotes that Make You Go Hmmmmm

“There are too many ideas and too many people and too many directions to go. The reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.”

Adaptation (2002)
Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep)

Dear Pioneer Press -

I'm so tempted to cancel my subscription. On top of the spotty service we've received since defecting from the Strib a few months ago, now this.

See my e-mail to the Pioneer Press below and their lackluster response - although it WAS a personal response, which I appreciate. Even if it DID take them 5 days:

Hello -

I would just like to express my disgust at how little coverage I found in your paper of this past weekend's Paralympic swimming trials.

Perhaps the stories were just too tiny to be seen (which is still a big problem), but I looked through both my Saturday and Sunday papers and found nothing on this very important event.

Certainly, if these had been the able-bodied Olympic swimming trials, there would be
stories and photographs splashed all over your front page and the sports page. Do you find this event less newsworthy because the competitors are disabled???

You need only watch these swimmers for a few seconds to know that they pour their hearts and souls into this event. Where is the Pioneer Press' heart? I can't find it.

PPress responds:

Thank you for your feedback. Wecan certainly understand your passion and support of this event. Though we did not cover it, that does not mean we don't appreciate it and what it means to the people involved with it. We have to make many coverage decisions of many different events in a market filled with high-profile sports; some you may agree with, some not. Fair enough. Yes, we do generally focus on the sports and sports figures with the highest overall interest level to the general public because they do have the highest overall interest level to the general public, so the limited resources we have are usually going to go towards that. Still, we as a department and the paper as a whole do at times write stories on all different types of athletics and athletes, and we can appreciate that you want more.

Take care,

Weak, PPress. Very weak. Get a heart and grow a spine, then you might be a paper worth reading. Want to be inspired? Read this.

How Old are We?

Thusan found this library notification in her e-mailbox this a.m.

I hope this wasn't a maturity test, cuz it made us both laugh out loud, which I think earns us each a big, fat F.