November 27, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

I hope you all survived Thanksgiving weekend…no salmonella, no fisticuffs at the mall over the last wool sweater, no crazy relatives with Dick Cheney-like aim and access to firearms.

As for me, I made it through the 10k healthy enough to stuff myself full of Turkey Day goodness. I’m sure you’ve been on pins and needles, waiting to hear all about the race, and far be it from me to keep the people waiting.

The race itself wasn’t very exciting, no good stories to tell, so let’s do it by the numbers, shall we?

[The mildly entertaining moment of race prep came last Friday, when I went to Fleet Feet to register for the race. In the course of conversation, the sales guy and I were discussing appropriate breakfast choices for the morning of the race. At one point he suggested a couple of bagels. I pointed out that was approximately four times as many calories as I usually intake. He then suggested a banana, which I readily agreed to. And a Power Bar. (which puts us back in the 450-500 calorie range) Okay, um, well, thanks for your help!]

Where was I? Oh, right. 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) in 1 hour, 12 minutes, 30.1 seconds. Pace of 11:42/mile. 2169th place.

I felt good, probably could’ve pushed the pace a little bit, but my goal was 12-minute miles, which I obviously did. The funny thing is, I was happy with my time when I finished the race, but when I checked the results page and discovered I was 2169th…well, buncha ignorant sluts I was a smidge less than happy. (Never mind the fact that the winner ran it in less than half an hour, a feat which I not only cannot match, but do not even aspire to.)

Eh, onward and upward, right? Just after my knees finally stopped hurling tiny little daggers at me from the inside out, I started looking for a 10-miler. Which, apparently, no one puts on. Or no one who lists their events on active.com sooooo, I’m left with only one option for increasing my distance: a half marathon. Dammit. Perhaps before that race I won’t find myself negotiating the breakfast menu!

November 23, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

There are a million things to be thankful for this year, but here are a few highlights:

• That my family and friends still love me, despite my moving to the end of the earth. Or the end of the continent.
• That here in Sacramento I’ve got enough close friends to necessitate accepting TWO Thanksgiving dinner invitations and turning down a third.
• A Democratic Congress.
• That I finally got to enjoy that bottle of wine from Indiana in the celebratory manner for which it was intended.
• That all of you come here to read and comment on my musings, mishaps and rants about the world.
• Wireless internet everywhere. Please, someone give the inventors a Nobel Prize…they deserve it!
• That I have enough — no, way more than enough — and have the opportunity to share it with others.
• That there is not a pumpkin pie sitting in my refrigerator, begging to be eaten for breakfast every morning for the next week. Because I totally would.

What are you thankful for?

Operation Turkey: 2006
There’s nothing like giving strangers a turkey that’s been basted with an entire stick of butter. Heart attack waiting to happen? Sure.
But, mmmmm, tasty!

November 19, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

Thank you all for those lovely, supportive comments. Most days I’m really happy with my life, but some days I just need to kvetch a bit, and I come here to do it. Therefore I feel like I should clarify my position a little bit, and relieve you of the duty to continually reassure me on this front. (Oh, who am I kidding? Please keep reassuring me.)

For starters, I do not particularly want to be married Right This Instant. I am definitely not equipped to care for crying, helpless beings these days, and that extends past husbands all the way to small children. As K pointed out, such a life would seriously deprive me of the freedom to travel, volunteer, campaign, work 60 hours a week, etc. — none of which I’m currently willing to give up. Rather, it is the uncertainty that kills me. If God would please just send me a little save-the-date postcard, I could quit fretting that it will never happen.

And then there’s the fact that I am picky as all get-out. (See samples from the reject pile here, here, here, here, here, and here. And those are just the ones I’ve blogged about!) As Clueless suggested, I am waiting for my perfect match. (Please note: I did not say I’m waiting for the perfect person. He does not exist. But maybe there is someone who is perfect for me. I’ll take him, thank you.) And I may have to wait indefinitely and maybe that perfect match doesn’t exist, and that will just have to be ok. If I’m going to end up alone, I would rather not take a detour through couple-dom. I am firm in my conviction that spinsterhood beats marrying the wrong person, both for emotional and financial reasons. There are lots of things I want to spend my money on; a divorce attorney is not one of them!

[As an aside, one of my biggest, most irrational fears is that someday some guy who I do not want to marry is going to propose to me, at Christmas or some such, surrounded by my entire extended family, while we're opening gifts or something. And I am going to have to figure out how exactly to say "um, no thanks" in a delicate yet decisive manner. It will not be fun. It will also be the Christmas no one lets me forget. And every year when the jewelry stores start running their holiday ads with people gathered around the tree and the guy with a sparkly thing in a velvet box, I am reminded of this fear anew. Cease and desist, Zales! Cease and desist! Please let me watch football the way God intended -- filled with ads for beer and pickup trucks and maybe the occasional power tool.]

Finally, and I said this last week but perhaps I didn’t focus on it enough, my angst was caused more by the I-don’t-fit-in feelings than the I-suck-no-one-will-ever-marry-me feelings. Because, really? I’m pretty awesome. Everyone should want to marry me. Even people I will crushingly reject in front of my entire family, thus ruining a major holiday for the rest of his life and possibly mine.

So. Now that we’ve dispensed with all the heavy relationship crap I can handle for one day, let me tell you about the other insane ideas my brain has recently come up with.

Numero Uno — I am cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving. No, I’m not hosting the big event, nor do I have to take anything with me to the meal I am attending. No, I volunteered to cook a turkey for the Thanksgiving dinner sponsored by a local shelter (said shelter is affiliated with the Junior League, so our combined efforts will yield the entire meal). Feed the hungry, be involved in the community, generate some warm fuzzies, yada yada, sounds good in theory but when the heck do I have time to cook a freakin’ turkey? I foresee at least one late night this week.

Numero Dos — I am running a 10K on Thanksgiving. Right. Because apparently I just can’t stand to have a day off with nothing to do. Or nothing to do but eat. The race goes right past my house, and I vaguely recall seeing these people last year as I went for my pre-Thanksgiving-dinner jog. I signed up for this 10K on Friday, leaving me exactly five days to train. Excellent staff work, huh? My accelerated “training schedule” consists of a long run Saturday, a day off Sunday, short runs Monday and Tuesday, off Wednesday, then race day. This is not exactly the recommended preparation, and in fact, I made it up myself, but whatever, it’ll have to do. I don’t think I’ve actually run six consecutive miles before, but there’s a first time for everything, right? I figure it’s got to be easier than a 7-mile hike up and down a mountain.

Numero Tres — I headed back to the salt mines (a.k.a., Banana Republic) last weekend. (See above re: morally opposed to having a day off, ever. Moron.) So in addition to being tired from foregoing sleep to cook the turkey, and sore from all the running this week, I have a lovely day-after-Thanksgiving to look forward to. Hopefully all the crabby people will have left the mall by the time I get there. What do you think the odds are on that one?

November 17, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

I’ve been thinking about how to write this for a few days, because I hadn’t figured everything out yet and I didn’t want to be overly dramatic or anything, you know? But, here it is: I hate the Junior League.

Of course, I really don’t. Life is never that simple. Rather, I love the League and I strongly believe in its mission of promoting voluntarism and developing the potential of women and improving communities, all while wearing your best strand of pearls. Junior League was one of my favorite activities in DC and I met several women who are just to-die-for, both on a personal and professional level. Oh yeah, and we did some amazing things for the community, which is why I joined in the first place.

But out here, it’s a different story. I’ve been to seven general meetings now and each time I leave, I am just SAD. (Ok, one time I left and wasn’t more than two steps into the parking lot before I started sobbing.) The women are perfectly nice people, it’s just that they’re married and have children and stay at home and drive expensive SUVs and my god I was in a room with thirty of them the other night and there had to have been fifty carats worth of diamonds on display. And it’s not that there’s anything WRONG with that life, in fact, it’s a life that I very much want (yes to the diamonds, no to the SUV), and I don’t begrudge any of them that life, but IT’S NOT MY LIFE, and while I am fine one-on-one with people who are married and having thriving families and whatnot, I cannot take the overwhelming, smothering effect of being in a room with that many people who have what I want but don’t have and may never achieve.

And it’s that part about “may never achieve” that feels like a weight bearing down on my chest, right over my heart, that causes the cloud of sadness and is, as I write this, enough to bring tears to my eyes. And then I feel guilty about being whiny and sad about it, because you know what? Life’s not fair. You get what you get and you don’t get to cry about it. (This has to be my second-most common mantra, after “We all make choices.” Which, yes. Moving to California was a choice. Deal.)

As if that weren’t enough, there is the added bonus of feeling that I DO NOT BELONG HERE, which is a pretty tough thing to accept, as it implicitly casts doubt on my decision to move to California in the first place. And doubt is simply not allowed to be a part of my life. Finally, I end up feeling like a terrible person because if the worst thing I have to worry about is that there are too many moms in Junior League, well then I’ve got it pretty damn good, so just shut up already.

And then, 24 hours pass, and I get to hang out and drink martinis with one of the four unmarried, unchildrened women in Sacramento and life is all better, even if I can’t prevent myself from spilling things. Twice. Thanks, darlin’.

November 14, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

Ok, so remember when I actually had a weekend to myself and I went hiking in Yosemite?Just barely, huh. Me too.

BUT!

I figured out how to make the music work with the video because I am a frickin’ genius. The scary thing is that I finally figured this out in the middle of putting together the music played over the PA system while the candidate walked into the ballroom to give his victory speech. At midnight, on the eve of the election, somehow it was I who was doing the multimedia crap. Because I am good at it??? No. But maybe because I am better at it than anyone else in the room, which is a frightening thought. (Ok, there I go doing that girl thing of minimizing my accomplishments. No, dammit, I AM good at this crap, once I figure out how to make everything work properly. Apple QuickTime, you’ve been pwned.)

ANYWAY.

I went to Yosemite. I spent Saturday hiking the Upper Yosemite Fall trail — 7.2 miles round-trip, 2425 foot elevation. It was challenging, but not as painfully strenuous as I expected. My biggest concern was making it up and back before nightfall. The Park Service says the trail takes six to eight hours to do. Considering I started around 11am and the sun sets by 6:00, I knew I didn’t have much leeway.

I reached the top in 2:20.

(The only thing worse than the pain of hiking uphill for three miles is thinking about how much more painful it’s going to be on the way down. My poor, weak little knees hate me.)

My plan for Day Two was to take it easy, maybe do a mid-distance trail without too much elevation change. Trouble is, there are no such trails within the Park. In the national forest surrounding Yosemite, yes. Actually in the park, no. I needed to leave around mid-day, so I found a trail and promised myself I’d just go an hour in and then turn around and head out. No problem.

Right. Except the trail I selected was the Mist Trail — 3 miles round-trip, several hundred feet of elevation change, culminating in 600 steps to the top of Vernal Fall. Of course I did the whole thing, because I am just that kind of idiot. And because it only took me an hour and three minutes to reach the top, and I said an hour in and an hour out. I just didn’t know that was going to include 600 steps, oh my hell.

I hurt like you would not believe on Monday. And Tuesday. And still somewhat on Wednesday. But, the trade-off for not being able to walk down stairs comfortably for a week was the gorgeous scenery, which you can now view below. Set to music, even!

Ok, shutting up now. I am clearly not awesome enough to make the video box look pretty below, but for now it’ll do. Must sleep.