the pieces of my life

Some days just don’t go as planned. Today is one of them.

The weekend was good but hectic with lots of running running running to get to places on time. Doodles and Pie had their last morning of hockey. Hockey ended at 10:30. Pie had a birthday party to attend at 10:30. Run run run. On Sunday, Doodles had Hebrew School at 9. Pie had an introduction to Hebrew school at 9. So Adam took them because I had a 5k race at 11, a baby shower at 11:30, and, as it turned out, Cub Scouts at 3. Run run run.

I promised a friend to run this 5k with her, to make sure she got over the finish line, which she did in fabulous style. She ran faster than I think she had anticipated and it was great. And wet. Very wet. We’ve got a Nor’easter going on here with, if I may, wicked winds and rain. Oy, the rain. We were soaked before we even got into the car, never mind the race. But let me tell you, the St. Paddy’s Day crowd in Somerville is a dedicated one and the race was packed. And the lines for the pubs after were insane. Not that I went. Because I ran to the baby shower.

Show up at the shower, run upstairs to change my clothes. Only… I forgot a dry pair of shoes and a dry bra. So I put my lovely shirt on over my jog bra (which had been under both my shirt and my jacket), but as it was soaking wet, I soon sported what looked like two lovely milk leaks. Fun times! I spent the whole party with my hands crossed over my chest, a la a junior high girl with new breasts, until I got teased one too many times so I flipped my shirt backwards.

I got home with a whole half hour to dry off, greet my family, change my clothes and then get the boy to Scouts.

All the while, I was keeping my fingers crossed. Every Facebook status, it seems, of local folk, every message on the town’s Parents e-mail list, even some e-mails on the school’s PTO list, was pleading for help on how to get water out of basements. My fingers are crossed. My fingers are crossed. My fingers are crossed.

Guess what? It doesn’t work. Adam is home right now trying to concoct some Rube Goldberg-style contraption to get the water out of our basement. Of course, there’s not a sump pump to be found, so Adam asked his father who lives the next state over to scour the hardware stores there and to bring one to us. His father is currently searching. I won’t bother keeping my fingers crossed that he’ll find one. The next step is to build an ark. I swear I saw two squirrels and two raccoons waiting patiently by our back door.

But at least it’s a blessed Monday, so while Adam vacuums out the basement, I can give my novel that final read over and try to get it out the door. Oh, wait! That’s right. Pie has no school today. For some random conference. But she does have a room full of Polly Pockets and Groovy Girl dolls that she wants me to play with.

Good times, people. Good times.

If there’s a greater torture to mankind than Wow Wow Wubzy, I have no idea what it is. This has got to be the most vacuous, vapid, piece of TV crap ever created. But Pie loves it. And Doodles is off at the Cub Scouts, weighing in his car for the Pinewood Derby, and little Pie wanted to go along too, but can’t because it goes past her bedtime, so here I am watching Wow Wow Shoot Me.

I’ve been pretty focused lately (which is why you haven’t seen as much of me here). I’m not really happy with where my novel is at the moment, but I’m probably within days of a complete first draft, at which point my poor beleaguered readers will have to help me parse what I can do to revive it. But it’s a good feeling, knowing that I’ll at least have the beginning-middle-end all in one piece,albeit one that will need to be dissected and rebuilt. But the body is there.

The crafty world has also sucked me in. For Purim I baked mounds of hamentashen (the ones with Fluff came out fabulously! I highly recommend. They come out tasting like toasted marshmallow and were a huge hit with the under-10 crowd). I’ve been baking my own bread. I’ve made turtles and homemade gummies. I’ve been knitting (see those hand warmers on Pie?) and crocheting (I made that penguin for Doodles when his class was studying penguins). My photo albums are slowly becoming organized. Waiting through dance classes and gymnastics classes and Hebrew school is much easier when I have something to do with my hands.

The final thing I have right now is running. I’ve signed up to do the Chicago Marathon in the fall with my friend Fish. I’m a little worried about him backing out, and I’m not going to go to Chicago on my own for a race, but I’ll have a back up marathon, just in case. But I’d like to get my marathon closer to 4 hours (from 4:13:46). It’s already giving me the motivation to run and I’m antsy to get out there. The hint of spring we’ve had is helping a lot.

So for now, it’s Groovy Girls (Pie received a mother load of them as hand-me-downs from Tab, and she wants to spend all afternoon with my playing Groovy Girls with her) and Wow Wow Wubzy. If you were doing this, you’d be anxious to run, too. Far far away.

I have this freakin’ cold that just will not die. I ran yesterday for the first time in a week and a half–a week and a half!!–and the run itself felt fabulous but the hour-long coughing fit that followed it was not so much. Luckily all major training for the time being is over. I have my yearly Thanksgiving race this Thursday, which I’m very much looking forward to, cough or no cough, but I have no other real races planned (4 miles, of course, not counting as a “real” race). I’ve committed to doing one of those 24-hour relay races, but it’s not till May. I figure for the next month, I can do bare minimum training (meaning about 15 miles a week) and then get back into the swing of things in December in Miami. Then, when I get back home, the light will start to return to the morning and I can give more of a push then. I’d like to do at least one marathon next year–a friend promised to do Chicago with me, and then there’s a spring marathon in New York that I’m considering. We’ll see how it all goes. Depends on how fast I can outrun this cold. (Ha ha ha ha! Okay, this is why I don’t do puns.)

I announced to the kids on Monday morning, “Daddy’s going to be in London for a couple of days. It’s going to be just us.”

Doodles replied, with eyes open wide, “You’re not going to be able to run!”

I choose to believe that, when he said this, he meant, “Mom, I’m concerned for your health and well being because I know that running makes you strong” and not, “Ack, Mom, when you don’t get to run, you’re a bitch on wheels!” Both statements, I fear, are equally accurate.

I’ve been playing with my running routine, as last week a friend introduced me to Walden Pond. I mean, I knew it was there. I pass by it all the time. But I had never deigned to stop and swim. So last Friday at 5 a.m., she picked me up and we headed over. It was an unbelievably foggy day–we met with a friend who swims there every week and even she got lost in the middle of the pond–but the swimming was phenomenal. I’m a strong swimmer, but I’ve never loved doing it because, let’s face it, swimming back and forth, back and forth, back and forth… in a pool is about one of the most mind-numbing activities there is. It’s about equivalent of running on a treadmill (blah!!). But swimming in Walden Pond, that’s swimming! We were out an hour and a half that morning and then went back for another hour on Sunday. I could have easily and happily swam for twice as long. I was completely sore after, in a good way, and it was such a soothing way to workout. I think that next summer I’m going to add a triathlon into my summer racing schedule.

Speaking of racing schedules, I’ve been following a training program pretty hard core and I’m having a hard time getting to speed. I can’t decide if it’s the extra pounds or the old age, but my motor is just not revving. I have two half marathons–the BAA in October and the Maine Coast in November–and I’d like to PR at one of them (I think the BAA is my best bet). The way things are going, I’m not sure it’s going to be doable.

Last week I ran 31 miles, including intervals and tempo runs. For the tempo run, I was supposed to run five miles at an 8:09 pace, but I couldn’t get my body moving faster than 8:20. And then the intervals. I really despise interval running. Every Monday night I think, “Ugh, gotta go to bed early so I can do intervals tomorrow.” Every Tuesday morning I drag myself to the track. This week I had a sudden revelation as I was dying my way through my interval of 1 mile-400 rest-2 miles-800 rest-2 x 800 that I didn’t actually have to do intervals. No one was making me. It made me feel both better and worse to realize that only I was inflicting this pain on myself. And yet I keep doing it. Can’t help myself.

This week, with Adam gone, I’m deliberately taking it slow. The swim on Sunday. Yesterday, I ran after dropping Pie off at camp for five miles, and was so miserable in the 85 degree heat (today is day three of above 90 degree weather here) that I decided to take another rest day today. Tomorrow night I have a four-mile race, an hour swim on Friday, and a shorter long run on Saturday (I’ll probably stick to eight or ten miles). A nice, easy slow week meant to recharge the body.

And you know what else a slow week means? Bitch on wheels. Poor kids. Next week I’ll be running regularly again. And they can go back to having a (more or less) happy mom. In the meantime, hide.

Here I am. Me and my computer. Well, technically me and Adam’s computer. My computer seems to be on its last legs. Or RAMs. Or whatever the hell it is computers have. Once upon a time, I was a tech savvy person. Those days are gone. I know how to operate my iPhone. I know enough to want a new iPhone. But that’s pretty much it.

Of course, now that I’m having some good quality time with a computer, all I can think is, “Peach crisp is calling my name.” Adam adds, “Nothing Pizza Hut makes is good. You should blog that.” My father just called to tell me he sat next to Peter Greene on his plane ride to Miami. I, however, hadn’t heard of Peter Greene before.

I’ve decided it’s time to get back on the Weight Watchers wagon. Of course, now that I’m doing that, I’m obsessed with food. My BMI is actually in the healthy range right now at 23.3 But I’m anxious to improve my running PRs–so far I’ve signed up for six shorter runs (well, seven, but I’ve already run one) and I plan on signing up for a few halves–and the best way I know to run faster is to haul less weight. Runner’s World has an article this month about avoiding aches and pains, and it said if you’re doing longer runs, you really need to have a BMI lower than 21 to save your knees. I’m at that point of life that my knees need to be safeguarded. But that’s not going to happen. I’d have to lose fifteen pounds to get to a BMI of under 21 and 1) really? and 2) I’d be a little bony. I’m not exactly a small-boned gal, and 3) really? So now I’m obsessing over the peach crisp in the fridge that I made for our weekend guests, but on 18 points a day, that’s not happening. So–

Oooh! iPhone commercial! Shiny! Pretty.

Wait, where was I? Eh, there’s nothing more boring than a person watching his or her weight. But it might slip in sometimes. Because there’s nothing more obsessed than a person watching his or her weight. Did I mention the peach crisp? It is an exquisite peach crisp.

Of course, my son needs to be watching his weight. But in the other direction. The girl is solidly a pound heavier than the boy. That kid is a peanut. I measured both of them today: Doodles is 41″ and 38 lbs. Pie is 38″ and 39 lbs. (Does that make her more or less a square?) I still have him in his car seat in the minvan and he’s been a real trooper about being the only kindergartner in a full car seat. In Adam’s car we have him in a booster with a back. He’s definitely a full year away from the backless booster unless he has a serious summer growth spurt (the rules for the backless are 4 years old, 40 inches, and 40 pounds). I’m ready to cave and put him in a booster with back in our car (he’s more than big enough for that one. For that you need to be 3 years old, 38 inches, and 30 pounds). The five-point harness is the safest for as long as possible, but he’s suffered long enough.

I’m cooking for the boy. I’ve been making magic out of our Boston Organics delivery (a home veggie and fruit delivery service). I’ve been putting my haus frau skills to the test. One night, we have zucchini, peppers, and yellow squash. I didn’t want to make multiple meals. I peered in the fridge and we had cheddar cheese, salsa, green onion, and in the cabinet, I found a can of beans. So I made do-it-yourself burritos. But wait, tortillas? I didn’t have any tortillas. So I made them. From scratch. In time for a family dinner. I was pretty impressed with myself. Of course, Pie refused to eat them.

Me: Look, Pie. Even Doodles is eating them!
Doodles: Yeah! They’re good!
Me: See, Pie! They’re great! They’re even better than the store-bought kind.
Doodles: Well… I don’t think I’d say they were better.

Why do I even bother? Okay, no more food talk. I’ve got to go and not think about peach crisp.