Social Networking is not for sissies

Yes, I know I have not blogged in about 2 months. Again.

Frankly, I've been a little webbed-out lately and the blog has fallen to last place among the other self-promoting online presences and the cat-herding they require. I just completed my 3rd month as a small business owner and, in additon to this blog, I now have a website for the biz (www.ruthfrobe.com), a fan page on Facebook, and a Twitter account...these, of course, supplement profiles and professional networks on LinkedIn and Biznik. As of today, I've managed to get the Facebook Fan page to talk to/through my Tweets, but the rest of the cats are not completely herded. I'm sure "there's an app for that," and my love affair with my iphone grows daily.

This I have learned: Social networking is not for sissies.

However, I'm getting some tips here and there ...went to one workshop this past week on "The 10 tips for Marketing a Small Business," (guess what she said: use LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Biznik...cool, I'm on the right track) and another lecture by one of the inventors of Twitter, Dom Sagolla. He, of course, is about 12 years old (ok, maybe double that, but not much more) and talked about his 21 month old son who has-- and easily manages --an iphone and a laptop. Fortunately, Dom's presentation included a take-away copy of his book, "140 characters, a style guide for the short form" to coach my Tweeting. This book (yes, the irony of a book in actual print about using Twitter and Facebook was acknowledged by the author) is now on my stack of reading material with "Book Yourself Solid," "Outliers," and the book Seujan's mom recommended, Magic Johnson's "32 Ways to be a Champion in Business." I'm hoping that one has a strategy for how to manage 32 business building tasks at once.

The other small business owner trick that's not for sissies is improving the actual product as well as the promotion of it. That aforementioned book list also includes "Job's Body," (been trying to get to that one for a year)... and I also went to another workshop this past week on "Navigating the suboccipitals." Last week there was a skills calibration for the Washington State Sports Massage Team and I'm now on board with them and worked at the Seattle Marathon last Sunday (super fun). Believe it or not, I actually had a few clients in between all the training for how to get them and treat them this past week.

Massage School was great, but the business instruction was a little short on how to get and keep the plates spinning once you're "out there." I need a personal assistant. Oh yeah, that'd be me. And a librarian....oh yeah, that'd be me. And an accountant...think that's me again (did I mention my first conversation with the Dept. of Revenue on Friday as my first submission to the State Tax people was a little, um, tardy? Oops, all cleared up now though)...and a Marketing/Social Networking Director...K, think I'll pick up that job, too. But hey, bottom line is that what I don't need --and don't have--- is a boss or a requirement to have my butt in a cube every day from 8 to 5. THAT works for me and I'm digging it.

In unrelated and nicely familiar territory, I'm happily flattened from my longest run in 14 months. I did 11 miles today...10 running + 1 mile walk/run. I'm kind of on strike from the bike these days and the running has been fun and coming back again...not totally hammie pain free, but just being able to DO it is great...

Follow me on Twitter @FrobeLMP!

Tullamore dew drowns sting of crime

Usually, I'd be writing an entire blog entry about how we snuck in a (last? I hope not) open water swim in the dark and cold Lake Washington this morning...however, the sting of being a victim of wallet theft yesterday was far worse than the October lake water...

So yesterday was the last day of my first month "in business," and I was pretty psyched to have 2 new clients (a wife and husband) at 2:00 and 4:00 p.m. I was about 45 minutes into the first client's 60-minute session when I heard the little ring of the outer office door. Monica is out of town, and I was the only person there, so I excused myself from the client to quickly stick my head out and see who was there. A girl, probably early 20's, was standing there and said her phone was broken and she needed to use ours...my first impulse (yes, I read the book "Blink," but apparently I am one of the people he talks about who discounts a first gut reaction) was to think, "yeah, this is some kind of story..." but I wanted to get her out of there quickly and return to my client, so I said that yes, she could use the phone in the back desk area. (And, sidebar, this is in Wallingford, not exactly a high crime neighborhood for chrissake). As I showed her where the phone was, I impulsively grabbed my iphone off the counter (at least I paid attention to this gut impulse), shoved it into my pocket, and went back into my session. I heard the girl in the office area on the phone for a minute...then as she left, she yelled, "Thanks!" and I said "You're welcome!" Um, well, I didn't mean THAT welcome.

Within the next/last couple minutes of the session, I was already remembering that my wallet had been sitting in my open bag on the desk and had a sinking feeling. Sure enough...as soon as I was finished with the client, I went right to the desk and realized the reason for the enthusiastic "thanks!" she'd yelled upon her exit...bitch stole my wallet. AUGH!!!!!!!!!!! Of course, immediate panic and yelling of the "F" word a few dozen times ensued after which I tried to call Seujan...who was unavailable (and really, what could she have done about it anyway...) and I tried to calm myself down.

I had just enough time (and, fortunately the iphone and, therefore, google) before the 2nd client's appointment to call the police, stop my credit cards, stop my debit cards, and start a list of the other things in my wallet that need replacing (gym card, Starbucks card, AAA card, health insurance card...blah blah)...and simultaneiously re-set the massage table & sheets. As the 2nd client walked in, I was still on the last phone call and over the phone said "Nice to meet you...please fill out the health history...on the phone with Visa for stolen credit card...." Somehow, I managed to chill back down enough to give a decent massage (well, I think/hope so anyway), though I really thought I was losing it there for a little while.

I was supposed to meet my friend, Dave, right after work for a quick happy hour and to see Drew Barrymore's new roller derby movie. I'd gotten free tickets last week and was psyched to take Dave, Mr. Lifetime Roller Derby Fan, to the movie (and stupid thief left the movie passes in my bag when she took the wallet so this was still an option). However, in between all the calls to Visa and the 2 clients, I'd placed a few hysterical texts and messages to Dave letting him know what had happened, and he was already parked at Murphy's bar enjoying his first beer and poised to buy me drinks. He'd already decided when I arrived that we would just have drinks, calm down, catch up....and see the movie next week. He truly is my forever boyfriend! I ranted to the waitress who (thankfully, didn't card me and) recommended a shot (which Dave quickly approved and shared) to chase my beer. I learned that Tullamore Dew is a pretty smooth spirit...note to self. After a couple beers and a couple games of darts, I felt much better...went by to see Seujan for a little extra grounding and still got home in time to get plenty of sleep before the dark cool morning swim.

Today I learned (thanks to Duncan) that you can renew/replace a driver's license online and avoid the DMV...of course this requires a credit card purchase--if you still have a credit card which I do not-- of $15 (thanks, Seujan!).

Nice that good people always seem to show up and help fix things, especially when NOT good ones screw them up!!

Back on the RUN!

Yeah, I know...I said I was gonna blog more often and, well, I fell down on the job again.

It has been at least 8 months since I got to say, "I went for a run this morning..." and today I just might say it ALL DAY LONG! Yeah, look out, I'm a runner...I made it all the way around Green Lake this morning (that's 3 full miles) without stopping/walking...and in less than 30 minutes. What could have been viewed as a pansy rest day a couple years ago is now a major win.

I'm thinking what may have helped to make this possible in a wierd kind of way is that I've been sick as a dog this week...I lost my voice on Saturday and have been coughing, snotting, and slogging around with low energy all week (and, of course, gave the crud to Seujan, winning me lots of girlfriend points). Anyway, I've barely worked out this week--yesterday I walked downtown and feared I might not make it back up the hill without laying on the sidewalk-- so maybe the inactivity (and the Aleve I took for my pounding headaches) gave the dysfunctional hamstring more rest than usual? I was mostly concerned with the coughing, spitting, "farmer's blowing," and trying to breath without wheezing this morning, so the hamstring was kinda in the background. Whatever, I'll take it...and I guess I'll see later whether or not I'll pay for it.

In unrelated news, I'm slowly building up the massage practice...I'm now doing massage on Mondays/Fridays at Seattle Fitness gym downtown and am trying to network and build a client base for the space I'm sharing with my friend (the acupuncture guru, Monica) in Wallingford. Last weekend, I did several hours of volunteer sports massage for a team at the MS 150 bike ride (way fun!) and on Tuesday, I did 4 massages at the "Massage for the Cure" event at Massage Envy. I was fighting the cold and praying I wasn't contagious for that one and, even after being embarrassed and apologetic for coughing on my first client, she asked for my business card, so I guess I did OK. I haven't received any "Dammit, you gave me your cold!" hate mail from her, so I'm hoping she might become a regular client...who knows.

I'm thinking I need to get a website up and in order, but haven't quite made that happen yet...

Shameless self promotion

So....I got my business cards yesterday and am strategizing how best to wallpaper the city of Seattle with them to drum up some clients (schedule now, schedule now...like my subliminal messaging?). My pal, Shannon, in San Francisco, did the graphic design of my cards and created the little "RF" logo. He is a rock star and did a fine job, dontcha think? He also did them in my favorite colors, blue & green...I'm digging them.

Front of card:

I've signed a one-year lease for the new practice space with my classmate (and now business partner, how wierd does that sound?), Monica, and paid my first/last month's rent, so I'm set to get things rolling Sept. 1.

Tatyana, ever a member of my support staff, scheduled an appointment with me for September 1, so I've officially scheduled a paying client in the new space on my first day! A journey of a thousand miles...and all that stuff.

Until September (and yeah, I do know that's about one more week, deep breath), I'm trying to get a few more of my ducks in a row, calm myself down from intermittent freak-outs (holy shit, I'm opening my own business!), and well...allowing myself to enjoy the end of the summer a bit. Since wrapping up work on Danskin and the Portland Century last weekend, I've been swimming in the lake and on my bike a good bit this past week and, although I've been up by 7 a.m. every day, none of the wake-ups were due to an alarm clock...that's been pretty sweet.

Today, Seujan and I did a really nice 40 mile bike ride from Log Boom to Marymoor, down W. Lake Sammamish to Newport, through Bellevue, and over Juanita. It was a nice, sunny ride and she was cycling pretty mellow and, mercifully, didn't flatten me. Later, we're going for dinner and to the Storm game...nice weekend and great that she doesn't have homework this weekend and we can both relax a bit!

(schedule now, schedule now, schedule now...)

What happened to summer???

I'm getting ready to move back to the Shoebox after 10 days of dog sitting in West Seattle...although I think I've visited my apartment daily for clothes/gear/bike/etc., it seems like a long time since I've been there! It's been nice to be in a big house with cute dogs, a LOT of cable, and, well...having the housekeeper come on Friday didn't suck, either. But the back-and-forth running around can be a bit of a hassle and it will be good to go home.

Yesterday I biked to the finish of Seujan's 13 mile trail race up at Cougar Mountain (as in I biked UP Lakemont to the trailhead/finish line). I've been riding hills a lot lately, it seems, and yesterday was another great ride, despite the fact that I started with 2 shirts and arm warmers on...and in August that is really unacceptable. Seems somebody fast-forwarded the calendar from the blissful heatwave of we had going a week or so ago right through August and September and landed us in October. Um, can I please have some August back??? 60's, cloudy, blech...I don't love it.

Today I went for a swim at an indoor public pool in West Seattle...the weather was crappy again and I didn't feel like driving back and forth to Seattle to get in the lake, so I went to a lap swim. I haven't been in a pool in a few weeks now and I have to say I haven't missed it much. I got through 2,700 yards (a mile and a half), but it was boring, the water was way too hot and chlorine-ish, and I had to share a lane. Desperate times call for desparate measures and I was glad to have a pool option, but I really belong in the lake for another month or 2.

Later today Seujan and I have a date to go see the movie "Julie & Julia." I've been Jonesing to see it since the previews came out several weeks ago and, fortunately, Seujan has put aside her ambition to see the latest Harry Potter movie (zzzzz) to see this one with me. A friend of mine just posted this link on Facebook...a cool interview with Julia Child on NPR from 1989. Julia Child says that people are too afraid of cholesterol, fat, and food in general...I keep hearing that fat is not to be feared (including from one of my teachers at Cortiva, who is a naturopath) and, well, if Julia Child made it to a happy 91 years old, I might need to re-think my relationship with butter! TBD and movie review to follow...

Vanilla Boston Creme Pie...+ coffee?

Yesterday I was in a consumer focus group about coffee creamer...or, well, fake coffee chemicals that don't actually contain real creme, per se, but that people like me use in our coffee pretty much daily. The totally artificial stuff that Seujan and I refer to as "goop." Yeah, I've read the label and use the stuff anyway...and now, having been paid $80 to discuss the tasty toxin (ok, that's not proven, but it certainly can't be classified as a nutrient by any stretch) for less than an hour, my little habit has only been reinforced. Anyway, turned out that the objective of the focus group was to review some potential new vanilla flavors/combinations being considered by International Delight. There were a few that I might actually buy if they hit the local grocery shelf, but there were some that were just gross. Like Boston Creme Pie? Cheesecake? Vanilla cardomom? Chai Vanilla? Blech....I'll just stick with my hazelnut flavored corn syrup, please.

Other activities yesterday included doing hill repeats on the bike (only 3, but they kicked my butt) on Marine View Drive in West Seattle and going to a free seminar on Energy and Bodywork at Cortiva, presented by one of the best instructors I had this past year. Kind of fun to hang out at school as an "alumni" and get a little more free education. I had a little "awareness" moment when I got into the building and realized that one year ago, I don't think I had ever even been in that building...then I was there a LOT for several months...and now I've graduated. Pretty crazy what can happen in a year.

This morning was our swim group's annual bridge swim. Once a summer, Julie organizes us all and we meet under the I-90 bridge, swim a Looonnnngggg out-and-back, and then have a tailgate potluck breakfast. The last few lake swims have been pretty choppy, so swimming along the bridge (i.e. with the floating bridge as a wind buffer) made for nice calm water and a good swim, despite the cloudy lack-of-sunrise conditions. I was a little late getting in the water, but caught up with the group at the turn around...just in time to get dropped on the return trip anyway. I'm not exactly speed racer in the water this summer. We didn't go all the way to Mercer Island, but Duncan and I guesstimated that we swam somewhere between 2.5-2.75 miles. I was in the water for about an hour and 13 minutes. The air temperature has tanked this week, but the lake is still nice and warm!

Back after another blog-less month!

Looks like it's been another month since I've blogged...and, as of this weekend, I realized...it's been a full YEAR since I've done anything that required a bib number. Troika '09 was last weekend and I have not raced since Troika '08. Granted, I did a really great bike ride with Ann in North Bend last weekend (way fun) and I've got some other cool pieces of paper instead of bibs (like a massage school diploma/license and a business license), but...it's not the same. Sigh. Twice this week when I was wearing my Ironman sweatshirt, someone stopped and asked, "Did you do an Ironman??" out of the blue. I said that yes, I had done one 2 years ago...but it almost doesn't seem like I was inhabiting the same body when I did.

My stupid hamstring is still a pain in the ass...literally...and I'm pretty sure it's not just hamstring related at this point (the latest idea from my friend, Dawn, who has a similar thing is that it could be bursitis...who knows...the whole sciatic thing is a possibility, too...or maybe that I just haven't really really rested it...or trained through it correctly? Hell, I don't know). As per an idea from the coach (who I keep on retainer, but haven't officially consulted in way too long), I'm trying a little run/walk thing a few times per week on the treadmill. I'm running 1 minute/walking 1 minute, 10 times...with a little extra warm up and cool down I do 2 miles in 25 minutes. I can do the short run bouts, but it's not exactly comfortable (OK, it hurts). I know the whole thing is a little better than it was a few months ago as I can walk uphill now without having to walk backwards the whole time and I can do some parts of my bike ride in the aerobars, but...it's healing very very slowly. Last weekend's 60 mile ride with Ann was my longest ride of the year. A whole season of "junk miles" is, on rare occasions, kind of fun....but often it's just wierd.

Anyway...I think I've blogged less because it just makes me think about how I'm NOT blogging about training for anything. I'm cycling a pretty decent amount and have had some really really great swims in the lake, but there's no real training goal. Trying to see the silver lining, I must admit that despite the absence of training and races, there have been some other fun and interesting things happening. The big news of the last month was the super HOT record setting weather (whoo-hoo!)...I've been working on some cycling events including the Seattle Century-- which was a bit of a crazy day...I'm getting ready to launch my massage practice in September (spent 3 hours yesterday at the dept. of revenue learning about state taxes, giddyup)...and today I'm going to be in a focus group about fake coffee creamers ($80 to talk about CoffeeMate for an hour, sure, why not...pretty great that one of my bad nutritional habits will pay off).

I'm also dog-sitting in West Seattle for about 10 days, currently on day 7. This time I have 2 big dogs, Max and Zion. Max is an older yellow lab (apparently, I have a type) who lets me hug on him all the time--so sweet. The last time I sat for these dogs, Max was on a 2x per day feeding schedule and now he only gets fed once per day...of course, we know that I plan my own days around the periodic feedings of myself and Seujan (whether I'm training or not) and I find this one time a day bowl filling for Max a little tragic. Thus, I've been contributing to some bad doggie habits like allowing Max to hang out with me on the king sized bed watching "Nurse Jackie" on demand. He would prefer "All you can eat" food to all-you-can-eat cable, but he's getting through it and we're totally caught up on all of this season's episodes. With a few days left of HBO and Showtime, I need to maximize my opportunity and find some other trash to watch for the rest of the week.

Here are my roommates for the week....

This is Zion:

And this is Max:

I'm hereby re-commiting to more regular blogging...I do miss writing when I don't do it.

Lucky Foxy Belle

No, that's not my new stripper name (I'm not done with the current midlife crisis and career change quite yet so I can't move on to another one and well, I don't think that would be a viable vocation anyway, though it COULD be a good stripper name).

I'm dog sitting again...it's been a while! This time I'm sitting for a massage school classmate, Christine, and her husband who've gone sailing to Victoria.

This is Lucky, the 13 year old lab...super cute, super old, super sweet.

And below is Foxy Belle (seriously, I'm dogsitting for straight people, not gay men, though I didn't ask who may have named this one, maybe someone has a brother...). Foxy is 2 and, like most small dogs, "large and in charge" as far as attitude goes. There was a note about the possibility of "dingleballs" that could occur (doesn't sound so "foxy" to me, how about you?) and where the soap for such occasions might be...I'm hoping I can pretend I didn't see that note and/or any dingling things that could necessitate finding that soap (yikes, that's worse than dealing with a litter box, dontcha think?).

There's a cat around here, too...named Pixie...but we all know that I generally consider cats an after thought....except, now that I mention the cat topic, I need to admit that I've become almost-friends with Wally, Seujan's (kinda dog-ish and that's why I like him) cat. He's pretty cool...so perhaps I'll give this Pixie a chance.

So far, so good...just arrived a couple hours ago and we've all been fed (yes, the cat, too) and are relaxing for the evening. I'm here till Sunday.

50 miles for 50 states

So it seems I could be a candidate for having the most neglected blog ever...just realized it's been about a MONTH since I've updated it. Oops. When I let it go for a while, I start thinking that well...too much has happened to catch it up, it's all old news, and now there's not that much happening...I mean all the interesting stuff makes me too busy to blog and then when I have time I'm kinda boring. But...there were some cool things to report and today has been a stellar holiday, so I'm back.

OK...quick catch up on the last month: I finsished massage school (see photo above of my favorite classmate, Mari, and me at last Wednesday's graduation), I took (and passed) the massage licensing exam, I have made a few feeble---and not particularly successful or pain free---attempts at starting to maybe run but they're really to lame to even document, I supported Seujan at her 4th Ironman, and my I biked 4 of the last 6 days (140+ miles this week!). Oh, and I'm working on a few upcoming events, including the Seattle Century. And the weather has been beyond great the last week...lots of sun and I'm loving it!!

Today Seujan and I drove out to Enumclaw to bike the course of this coming September's Black Diamond Half Ironman, the next race on her list. It was nice to have the whole day free and to have a change of scenery...as much as I love riding Mercer Island, it is nice to get out of town and do something different. And it didn't hurt that there was almost NO traffic and no stoplights. We did manage to get a little off course on the first loop, but we never got truly lost. This summer, "riding together," has come to really mean just riding simultaneously as Seujan is uber-fit and I'm still struggling to get the hamstring functional and recover my cycling fitness. Fortunately, both of us are fine to ride alone and we end up in the same place within a few minutes of each other. After one of our route diversions today (OK, can I just say that Seujan over-shot a turn about 5 minutes after we discussed that we'd both be taking a left...and she had already dropped me, of course, but was in my sight, creating an uninvited interval for me as I watched my HR monitor go up and chased her down), we were backtracking on Kent Kangley road when a car just in front of us slowed slightly and a big black BEAR sprinted from our side of the street to the opposite side. Yeah, that's right, a bear!! A runner coming toward us commented on how fast the bear was running and I agreed whilethinking I was glad to be on 2 wheels and not 2 feet just in case...

Anyway, Seujan did a few more miles than I did in between the 25ish mile loops and we both went around the course again, ending up back at Nolte State Park a little after 2:00. I was at just over 48 miles and thought I should make a patriotic gesture in honor of the 4th of July and do 50 miles for 50 states. I was feeling pretty flattened and didn't feel like pedalling any more, but managed to get it done, probably because I knew I'd get to hop in the lake at the end and because I knew she had to do a brick and run after the ride. We both went for a brief post-ride dip in the lake and, after not getting invited to any of the barbeques going on by the lake but smelling all the grills raging in full force, we headed home (via 2 grocery stores for sustenance). It was a great day and a perfect way to spend the 4th of July!

2/3 of a triathlete...

Until yesterday, Seattle had about a 2-week stretch of phenomenal sunny weather...I was LOVING it. On Wednesday, I declared "Carpe diem!" and skipped class to go for a bike ride...

The hamstring is still a bit problematic, but I've been back on the bike for a couple of weeks with a few 50ish mile rides...I figured hell, if it's going to bug me regardless, I may as well get out in the sun and do what I want to do. It's improving a bit and I'm hopeful that I'll be able to try running sometime soon. With the sun, it's been really nice to be back in my natural habitat and out on my bike...the good news is that I'm back out there riding, the bad news is that 50 mile rides have pretty well flattened me...seems those 45 minute workouts on the step mill at the gym helped, but didn't quite cut it and I lost a bit of fitness (how come consternation about losing fitness does not result in a training effect?? It's not like I wasn't willing this not to happen...). I keep trying not to, but continue to think that last year at this time, I'd already done a half ironman and was getting ready for the Lake Padden race...sigh. With the return of cycling to my repetoire, I'm just starting to almost feel like 2/3 of a triathlete...a hell of a lot better than 1/3, so I guess I'll take it.

Only 2 more weeks of school!! I'm in the home stretch and looking forward to being done and getting out there...I've scheduled my licensing exam for June 25 and graduation is on July 1...

Back in the lake!!

Seujan is doing Ironman Idaho in about 3 weeks...she ventured into Greenlake on Monday afternoon for her first open water training swim of the season. Being my conservative and usually cold self, I opted to (kinda) study for a test on the beach that day and watched carefully to see whether she froze... When she got out, she claimed that the water was quite comfy warm and her story was pretty believeable--there was another pod of wetsuited swimmers who hopped in about the time she did and none of them were shrieking...

Watching SJ's happy swim on Monday--and another 3 days of solid sunshine--was just what I needed to bust out my wetsuit (ok, and the neoprene socks and insulated cap) this morning for the first Friday morning swim of the season.

Whoo-hoo! I'm happy to report that Greenlake was, indeed, comfortable and the first swim of the year was GREAT! Ann, Barbara Rose, Seujan, and I had a great sunny early morning swim. I was in over 40 minutes and was NOT cold! I still prefer Lake Washington to Greenlake, but hey, I didn't get hit by any stray oars of the rowers and it was a lovely MAY morning...we're almost never open swimming in May and this weather rocks.

Bring on summer!!!

It's like riding a bike...

Oh, wait, it's not LIKE riding a bike, it IS riding a bike!! For the first time in, well, months, I went for an outdoor ride today. The hamstring is not exactly done giving me grief, but it's improved a little bit lately so I took it for a test drive today. The step mill at the gym and the indoor pool (my only cardio for many weeks) have gotten really old, especially with the return of the sunshine lately, so it was great to be outdoors for a little spin. I made myself leave the HR monitor at home and I also made myself stay on a flat route...but of course I kept an eye on the bike computer cause a girl needs at least a few numbers for validation! I rode from Madrona to Seward Park twice, so I got in 20 miles...and I averaged 16.8 mph. It definitely felt a little foreign and I'm NOT in bike shape, but I'm hopeful about the possibility of actually getting my body back this summer and was pretty happy with the ride.

Bikes 'n Ballard

I'm on the Board of Bike Works and today was the annual community kids' bike swap. This is a super great annual feel-good event where people can bring used kids' bikes, get a value estimate on them, then shop for a "new" used bike with their trade-in credit...hundreds of bikes get traded/bought and many of the same bikes and families show up every year as the kids get bigger and the bikes don't. I was working the checkout for about 3 hours today and it was really fun (plus, a sunny spring day in the park, what's not to love about that). The little kids get super jazzed to get new bikes and some of the bikes are pretty damn cute, albeit too often pink, too (see example above...unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of the kid who was wearing a superman cape on his new bike and sporting a red cast on his arm-adorable). And here's the people-aren't-all-bad-have-faith-in-the-human-race story from the event. A guy came in with 3 kids and wanted to swap 3 bikes. The value of the bikes they brought was less than the ones the kids chose and wanted to buy, so he needed to pay the difference of $45. The guy was a little frustrated and obviously didn't have the cash...he went into the bike coral to look around again for other options. The guy who'd been behind him in line gave us a credit card and asked if he could anonymously pay for the other family's bikes. How's that for pay it forward??

At the moment, I' m in a coffee shop in Ballard behaving a kinda like a tourist. I'm dogsitting for Maddie & Winnie, my favorite Ballard residents (aka the velvet-coated Labs) this weekend. I don't hang out much in Ballard and there are a ton of cool places to eat, drink, shop, and people watch...I'm avioding the homework in my backpack and waiting for Seujan to meet me so we can look for a good happy hour location...

Here's Maddie after a chuck-it session this morning...she looks like I've been feeling the last week.

I'm a winner!

On the first day of school back in October, some people from Massage Envy came to our school and annouced that there would be a competition for a $500 cash scholarship at the beginning of 3rd quarter. They announced that the criteria would be perfect attendance in the 2nd quarter, a 3.5+ gpa, and an essay...and that they'd be back at the end of the 2nd quarter to give out applications. Of course, when I heard the words, "competition," and "essay," I tuned right in and filed the idea in my head...where I fortunately re-visited it every time I considered ditching class (and there was at least one snowy morning when, I must admit, this little contest was the only thing that made me get myself to class and only about 4 of us showed up...fortunately, they didn't make us document whining about being in class, just the attendance stats were recorded). So anyway, the applications came out at the end of March and I was all over it. I wrote a super boring essay and fortunately asked Seujan and Carie to read it...they both gave me some good editing and some ideas so jazz it up. I took their advice, sent in my applications and...today...I got a $500 check. SWEET! Granted, it's not exactly enough to bankroll a small business, but it's my first "official" income as a massage therapist and I'm feeling pretty good about it (not to mention that I haven't had the opportunity to compete in anything else with my stupid hamstring and ok, I'll admit, I've missed seeing whether I placed in my age group, wearing a bib number, and having some external reinforcement--and, I also just realized that I never won cash in a triathlon...). And...as my mom says, "Money can't buy happiness, but it sure helps." Lucky for me, Seujan was available for a happy hour drink on me at the end of the school day today! Cheers!

The contents of my sock...

So my friend Holly in Portland has this saying she uses when she's a little scattered and re-organizing herself or her space. It makes me laugh every time she says, "I gotta get my shit in one sock..." I have no idea whether she made it up or where it came from, but I love it (and always find myself thinking of a big tube sock like I wore when I was about 12...never thought to ask what kind of sock she means...). Lately, I'm hearing myself say this in my head almost constantly as I'm trying to keep a lot of plates spinning and feel like I'm chasing my tail most of the time. I guess most everyone has a lot of plates in motion and god knows I don't do well being bored...but holy cow, it'd be nice to learn how to sit still at some point. A week ago, I went to Portland for a day for work. I took the train and Amtrak provided a small gift of down time that I'm sure I would not have taken any other way...I took a nap, read several chapters of a novel (!), and actually studied for a test. I'm wondering when I can have another excuse to get on a train...in the meantime, I'm going to bed before 9:00 p.m. with that novel...

Good day sunshine!

Whew, the old blog has been starving again the last couple of weeks, huh? Quick re-cap...got home from the Georgia/Spring Break "get spoiled by the parents" trip , the Brontosauruses have since accessed high speed internet (of course, after I left), I dog-sat last weekend, went back to school last week (serious cobwebs in my head that had to be sand blasted after 3 weeks off), and dog sat again one night this weekend. This was the cute face I woke up to yesterday morning...Maggie, the Great Dane, so sweet!!

I have a friend, CJ, who has a dog walking business...she has a couple of big dogs herself, so she can't offer overnight dog-sitting...and thus, I am benefitting as she is starting to hire me out for gigs like this past weekend's sleepover with Maggie.

Other than school kicking back up and my hamstring continuing to make me depressed, angry, and kinda insane-- alternately and sometimes simultaneously-- depending on the day-- spring has appeared and so have some of Seujan's family members. Seujan found her birth mother and 2 sisters that she didn't even know she had a few weeks ago...and at the moment, her mom, one of her sisters, Heather, and Heather's fiance, Johnny, are now visiting Seattle. I was fortunate enough to be asked to drive the airport shuttle on Friday night for the (re) union of the family and also got to take SJ's mom to SJ's latest nutcase race, a 50km trail run in North Bend yesterday, and to partake in the post-race party where SJ's mom cooked a seriously great dinner for several of us last night. It's been fun getting to know Seujan's family a bit as she does...good times.

Seujan's family, who are visiting from Georgia, appear to have brought real live spring weather with them...today was GORGEOUS...70ish and sunny. SWEET! I didn't have class today, so I slept in and went to 7 a.m. swim team workout with Tatyana...then later I had a nice walk downtown to the gym and to REI where I opened up my birthday week with a purchase of some new sunglasses (thanks, Mom!)...then spent the afternoon doing 2 practice massages. The Shoebox makes a pretty decent spa environment with the sliding glass door open, birds chirping, and a great view of Mt. Rainier. Nice!

Blogging with the brontosauruses

Yesterday's planned adventures to the Masters' Swim workout and the pro tennis tournament, both experienced some curveballs. I ended up swimming indoors at lap swim alone instead of outdoors with a team (a little disappointing, but I got in a really good swim) and, well...we didn't exactly find the tennis tournament. Long story and let's just say there was a lot of family time in the car and some general crankiness, but we never saw any tennis. However, we did get back to the Island in time for me to get a nice long sunny walk on the beach and I was really psyched about it.

When I returned from my walk, my parents were in their usual happy hour poolside positions with many of the neighbors, one of whom produced a glass of wine for me before my butt even hit a chair. Love the neighbors!! These people know how to do retirement right. They all, also, understand the necessity of cable internet access...well, except for my parents...who are quite computer savvy, but insist on living in the "Land Before Time" and having a dial-up internet connection. For the love of god. I had conversations with several of the neighbors who are also fed up with trying to call the Brontosauruses on the phone only to get a busy signal. I was pleased to hear that the community has various strategies in place for getting them to conform to sane communication practices and I'm really hoping the village can come together and help solve this situation soon...It would be great to visit and actually load Facebook when I click instead of flossing, brushing my teeth, texting and taking out my contacts to pass the time while the damn page loads.

Today I hear it's sunny in Seattle and I'm watching/hearing a big thunderstorm here at the moment. This morning was OK, though, and I improvised something akin to a normal workout. I took out the mountain bike again and went to the Causeway, the highway bridge to the island. It's the only hill for miles and it was a godsend. I did 6 round trips over the bridge, making for 12 hill repeats. Each hill was only about 1:30, but it was great to actually be sweating, riding outdoors in shorts and doing something sort of resembling a real bike workout...and with the flat pedals, no hamstring pain (well, until later after I got off the bike). I was wondering, of course, whether riding without toe clips is creating some kind of bad triathlon-threatening pedal stroke habits and/or further muscle imbalances, but the endorphins trumped the worry about that. Also got in a nice walk on the beach later, too, with the parents before the storm (and accompanying tornado warning nearby) hit.

Toes in the sand

So it actually WAS 80+ and sunny today...that's what I'm talkin' about!!

Yesterday I left Seattle and it was about 40 degrees and raining...as if I needed any more convincing to snow bird myself south. My mom called before I went to the airport to supplement NBC's report that there were thunderstorms and tornado warnings in Georgia...When the first plane bounced into Atlanta for my connection, it seriously looked like I hadn't left home...gray, rainy, blech. Atlanta's airport was packed with travellers who'd been delayed by the storms for hours. Pretty easy to figure out that when my flight was delayed (less than 2 hours for me, no big deal) and I went to the bar for a beer (wait, that wasn't the easy to figure out part...or, OK, maybe it was), I met some people who'd invested a large portion of their day and their credit limit in the overcrowded bar while waiting to get to Phillie...whoa, boy, were they lit. I had a single Michelob Light and chatted mostly with a dude named Maurice who had spent at least $100 in that bar. He apparently lives part time in Seattle, has run several marathons (he runs faster than he slurs, I assume), hadn't been "this drunk" since college--or maybe in the military, it was a toss up, and told me about a guy under his command in the army who shot over a hundred goats for target practice one day. Not sure why he thought that would be an impressive story...yikes. The bartender kept putting people's checks on the bar and the guys paid theirs. When it was finally time for us all to get on our flights, there didn't seem to be a tab sitting there for me...although I know I'm probably going to hell for this, I didn't ask the bartender for my check and decided that my weenie little beer was on the house. Although my karma didn't bite me in the ass immediately (i.e. the puddle jumper plane to Brunswick didn't crash, just a bit more bouncy turbulence), I'm hoping that somehow somewhere I'd paid this one forward or that it was simply a gift from the Universe.

En route yesterday I also read the first issue of "Triathlete" magazine that I've read in several months...Due to my hamstring, I've either not felt worthy of my subscription or have not wanted to get more depressed by reading it. However, I was pleasantly surprised. Reading it made me feel a little more connected to the Tri world rather than less...like maybe I'll be back out there again...and today when I finished the magazine on the beach, I came upon a great article advocating regular massage for triathletes...whoo-hoo, marketing material.

Today was a great chillax day...slept in, grocery shopped via my mom's cabrio with the top down, hung out on the beach with the Spring Break crowds (holy crap, when did college students start looking like they are 12? I'm old), and took my stepdad's mountain bike for an easy 10ish mile spin before a great fresh shrimp dinner. One way to bike and not aggravate one's injured hamstring, I learned, is to make it impossible to USE the hamstring. Flat pedals, no toe clips, and an upright position. Bingo...I decided this is biking for "exercise" and tanning, not for a "workout." At least it's biking and in a tank top and 80 degrees; for the time being, that works for me.

Tomorrow's plan is to hit an early masters' swim workout in Brunswick and then go to watch the prelims of the Bausch & Lombe women's pro tennis tournament down near Jacksonville and tan while watching healthy hamstrings in motion.

I heart vacation.

Rain, rain, I'M going away!

Today it was 80 degrees with sunshine and bright blue sky in Seattle...APRIL FOOL! Actually, it was about 37 and snowing this morning after I came home from swimming...seriously not OK. I'm about as tired of being cold as I am of my hamstring hurting...ok, maybe not quite THAT much, but both conditions seem to be persisting long past what should have been their due date...sigh.

Anyway, I'm a week into spring (yeah spring, use the term loosely) break and have had a great relaxing week so far...did a short trip to Portland last week on Amtrak, have been cooking a lot, went to the Bikeworks auction, slept in most of the time, and have had a front row seat view of some major life happenings for Seujan...cool stuff. I'm not quite sure how I burned right through a week of leisure time, but my ability to lounge has been honed quite well lately.

Tomorrow, thankfully, I'm flying to St. Simons Island, GA for about a week to see my parents...while it may not quite be sunny and 80 there, either, it's looking like 70ish is likely and that'll work. I'm hoping it'll be warm enough for the favorite chacos and cargo shorts I've packed...oh please, oh please, oh please...

2-legged and 4-legged photos

Gus & Graham are my weekend companions this weekend while CJ & Nadia are off to Portland. They and their cat friend, Charlie, are cute couch surfers and good hosts (cable--whoo-hoo!), although they had a few loud barking outbursts during the night. They also have a home alarm...I hate those things and this one, of course, is a little different than the one I proudly mastered last month at Michele & Jill's. It seems pretty idiot-proof, but...I did have a dream, I think, about screwing up and setting it off.

Also, Heather just sent me a photo of she, Chase, and me from their party last weekend, in Oly...

Finals week, 2nd quarter

Whoa, my blogging has been pretty dang lame and sparse again lately...sometimes I think "Crap, I gotta update my blog because SO MUCH has been happening," and other times I think, "Um, nothing is really happening and I haven't done anything resembling triathlon training in months, so why blog?" Plus, now that the Seattle P-I in hardcopy has died and gone online, there's even more competition online for readership, so my 4 faithfuls could be drawn elsewhere to catch up on the haps in Seattle...

Let's see, what's up...I'm one clinic session (Monday) and one more Final Exam (Tuesday) away from being done with the 2nd quarter of school. Holy crap--it's flying by! Things have been busy lately and I'm definitely ready for spring break...looking forward to visiting my mom & Rolf the first week of April where it's recently been 81 degrees. Last Sunday, when it snowed yet AGAIN, the irony of simultaneously seeing daffodils on my counter and snowflakes the size of my hand out the window was not lost on me. I'm so DONE with winter! Tomorrow is the first day of spring (according to the calendar, anyway)...bring it!

My hamstring is still a pain in my ass, literally and figuratively. I've had several dreams about running and I tend to look mournfully at people jogging around the city and my 'hood when I'm out and about. I really wish one of the $%*&#! sedentary Americans (that'd be about, what, 98% of the population?) would just give me one of the hamstrings that they obviously aren't using. People who bitch about how much they hate to run and don't want to do it are getting even less sympathy than usual from me. Anyway, the ham is up and down day to day...and I guess it's a little better overall. My lovely classmates have been awesome about working on me, I can spin on my trainer a couple days per week (sidebar: I caved and had to bust out the HR monitor just to feel a little normal within the last week or so) and I have been swimming about 4x per week...although my shoulders have gotten a little cranky now, too (crap!). I often walk to school and, when I hit an incline, I usually walk backwards since that doesn't hurt...I look pretty wierd, I'm sure, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Fortunately, I have not yet fallen on my butt or run into anyone while walking backwards. A few of my pals at school have noticed the contrast between my left and right hamstring in the last few weeks...since they hear me whine and work on my legs frequently, Mari, Shannon, and Phoebe have all told me that the left (healthy) hamstring is larger than the right. Great, I'm an example of atrophy at its finest. SIGH.

Tomorrow is the beginning of the weekend (yea!) and another short dog sit gig. Last weekend, I was at Stacia's with her dogs, and this weekend, I'll be at CJ & Nadia's with their 2 dogs (and cable!!). I'm thinking that, even if massage doesn't work out well, I'll have practiced other things during massage school that might, i.e. a laundry service (good god, massage generates a lot of sheets) or a pet sitting biz.

Short road trip report...

Last week I had 2 tests and a paper...it was a(nother) pretty busy week and I was really happy to get to the first totally "free" weekend in a while (i.e. all mandatory massage hours for this quarter are DONE and I'm just doing them for fun now-boo-yeah!). Friday was one of my favorite days in a long time...in the afternoon, I went to see Dale, the pain guru, for a hamstring treatment. A friend from school, Shannon, went along, and a 1-hour appointment turned into a 3-hour tutorial as Dale spent a lot of extra time with us. We walked out feeling like we'd gotten a semester's worth of instruction and I think Dale enjoyed it as much as we did...he's becoming a great mentor. Friday night, I had a fun girls' night dinner with Tatyana, Liz, and Rebecca that gave me a long overdue reason to make a huge batch of chicken enchiladas...I've been craving the chance to cook for people lately, and we had a great evening over on Mercer Island (The Shoebox is a great place to create food, but not such a great place to host guests, so Liz hosted!).

On Saturday, I went south to Portland to play with Holly...followed by a stop on the way home in Olympia on Sunday to couch-surf at Heather & Chase's for the L-Word finale. Holly and I went to the Portland Saturday market and then to this cool micro-brewery called Hopworks Urban Brewery (HUB), where one of the master brewers, Jamie, is a friend of hers. Jamie....seen here...gave us a cool tour and, of course, some samples. Way fun and some super great beer.
We also went for sushi with some fun girls on Saturday night and I got to see more of Portland on Sunday before I drove north.

This morning, I woke up at Heather & Chase's to snow (AGAIN??!!) and drove home in time for clinic/school this afternoon and book club...it was a good full low-stress weekend, and pretty much all fun except for sitting on an icepack in the car for the hammie...did I mention that twice in the last week, I've had dreams about running? Can't wait till those dreams become reality again...

Dog days

These were my lovely companions...or, more accurately, I guess I was theirs this week. Maddie and Winnie are 2 of the cutest silky-coated residents of Ballard, and they hosted me in their home since Sunday while their moms have been in St. Maarten. We established a nice daily morning "chuckit" routine at the local school (aka the "do it yourself off-leash area") where we managed not to get busted the entire week. I'm calling it a success. The up sides of sitting for these guys include the fact that they have a zillion cable channels so I was able to "on demand" the last episode of the "L Word" that I missed and I also gorged myself on "Big Love" and am almost caught up on that, too...I took my bike + trainer over and did a few workouts with the TV as Winnie sized up the trainer and wasn't quite sure it was something that should be in her living room. The down sides of this gig were that I didn't make it to Seattle U this week to swim until today, and that the family has a very vociferous fat cat. The cat is not only upstaged by the 2 beautiful labs, but she is also on a diet and really not interested in being the feline "biggest loser." She has been at the mercy of an automatic feeder thing that dispenses very small portions of food 2x per day, at 4:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. The dispenser ran out of food yesterday, so I had to scoop out the food for her...and this morning, at 4:30 (the usual dispenser time), she was incessantly yelling that she was absolutely starving to death. And we all know how much I love cats in the first place...somehow, yelling "Shut UP!!" from the bed didn't cut it and I got up and fed her...

Anyway, it's been fun to hang out in the animal kingdom and I'm also quite happy to be returning to the Shoebox tonight...competing with the dogs for bed space hasn't been as restful as my own bed and I'm very much looking forward to crashing at home tonight!

Forgot to post...

Malia sent me the photos from a couple of weeks ago when she was here...late now, but what the heck.

Here's Maddy, my favorite 3 year-old, and me...and Malia and me...It was great to have Malia home for a few days!!

Passing out, pedalling, and pondering...

As usual lately, my blog has been a bit under-attended...so I'm heeding the prod (thanks to Carie and Penni) and am back at the keyboard. I had a bunch of stuff happen last weekend in Portland that was excellent blog fodder, but it now seems like ancient history as another week has sprinted by, but I'll recap...

Last Friday, I went for a great treatment from my guru, Dale, for my hamstring, tucked an icepack in the seat of my pants, and drove myself and my sore ischial tuberosity to Portland for the weekend...It was a combo work/fun trip for the "Worst Day of the Year" Ride and some time with my new pal, Holly and her cool dog, Shade, who is a currently long-haired rasta standard poodle. I had to work most of the day Saturday as well as a marathon day on Sunday for the ride, so Friday was to be the more fun/social evening...and it was until I fainted for the first time in my life late that night. Holly, a most excellent host, took me out for a couple good beers, some great conversation, and a great (salty pasta, anchovies included, super yum) dinner and well, I didn't drink much water (and, come on, why would you if there's a good beer and a glass of wine?). I went to sleep at about 10:30 p.m. and woke up at about 2:30...by instinct, I got up and went downstairs to the bathroom where I suddently realized that not only did I not need to be there (dehydrated, didn't really have to pee), but also there was something that felt like a wave of gross "Am I gonna puke? Am I gonna faint? I feel like CRAP!" energy going through my body...the only time I remember feeling anything like this was after my IMC 20 mile training run when I was writhing on another bathroom floor (and that time I did puke, so I thought that might be what was happening, but no). I felt horrible, my T-shirt was suddenly soaked in sweat, and I set a goal to make it from the bathroom to the couch. Unsuccessful. I collapsed in the hallway just outside of the bathroom and all I remember was how good the cold floor felt when I hit because I was burning up. Holly heard me hit the deck and yelled, "Are you OK?!" to which I replied, "NO!" and she and Shade sprinted to the hallway...in time to see the triple scrape down the left side of my face (still not sure if I hit the floor or the wall or wtf)...and to sympathetically listen to me whimper about how crappy I felt. She (ok, they, Shade was involved) was really great and took care of me, and pumped me full of Emergen-C and water, and got me back to a bed. I conked right back out and within a few hours I was totally fine, I just looked like a victim of domestic violence (I was kind of horrified when I saw myself in the mirror in the a.m.)...the last of the scabs is just now starting to peel. In the morning, I felt totally normal and went to the gym for a short swim (despite Holly advising me not to and thinking I was a total nutcase). I was tired during the day on Saturday, but more just wigged out about it than anything else. Since I was working at registration for the ride all weekend, I had a few inquiries about my battle wounds and was SO tempted to say that yes, I'd fallen off my bike as I was doing 50 mph down a screaming descent...but...I'm such a bad liar I just told the stupid boring truth or dodged the question...

The rest of the weekend was good/busy...the ride was really cool and hosted at a micro brewery in Portland called the Lucky Labrador that has lots of dogs around and really great beer...it's a great scene. There were almost 3,000 cyclists doing the ride on Sunday, and I got some good experience working with my new colleagues at Good Sport Promotion--it was a totally cool event. On Sunday, I worked from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m., said a quick farewell, grabbed the icepack, and drove back home to the Shoebox, totally whipped. Since then, another good busy week of school has gone by and, thankfully, it's weekend again.

Today, I swam and had coffee with the usual suspects (Julie, Duncan, Tatyana) and did a practice massage with Penni this afternoon (I'm pretty sure I just committed a HIPPA violation by saying that, but who cares, I'm still a student and let's just pretend it's a made up name). I hadn't seen Penni since a lake swim last August and we had a great visit. Although I was supposed to be the practitioner, I think she did an equal-- if not greater-- service for me as we swapped athletic injury stories and she continually reassured me that (1) I'm still a triathlete despite the fact that I'm not running and have not donned a bib number in 6 months, and (2) that resting my hamstring is really PART of my training...She also obviously mentioned that she's a loyal reader of my blog (GREAT! there are now 3 including my mom and my friend, Carie in Colorado!).

After Penni took off, I got re-aquainted with my bike and took it outdoors for an easy ride (No HR monitor) to Seward Park and back...it was a gorgeous sunny afternoon and the hamstring was only slightly peeved, not totally cranky. It was a nice hour to ponder and pedal...I have had a lot of things on my mind lately between school and life and it was nice to have a leisurely ride to mentally chop some wood. I came home and made myself a big everything-in-it spaghetti...and am having a nice start to the weekend.

Love the one you're with

Above is a lousy photo of my bedmate this week, Zoe. I'm housesitting for Michele & Jill who are in Mexico. I'm proud to report (dare I speak too soon, I still have 2 days to go) that I've managed to arm/disarm the house alarm daily without setting it off. I am also happy to report that Zoe and I may actually be friendship material. The last time I sat for these guys, I was completely convinced that she hated me (we all know, I'm not exactly a "cat person," so this was not super surprising) and, to be honest, I was a little more engaged in the care of Roxie, the chihuahua, than with her. Oh, and she pissed me off when I had to get her off the porch by climbing into the bushes a few times. This time, they farmed the dog out elsewhere and it's just Zoe and me. Maybe she's just missing her humans and her dog--and is in the mentality of the old song "Love the one you're with"--but she is way more into me than the last time. I keep waking up during the nights with a cat on my stomach and she is in the bed with me all night even when I make her move OFF of my person. I must admit, she is a gorgeous fluffy soft cat and I've very much warmed up to her...we have 2 more nights together before I'm done with this gig on Friday.

The other good news of late is that I got on my bike trainer this morning! After 2 full weeks of swim-only workouts, my shoulders were/are annoyed and my hamstring is feeling a little better...so I came home this morning after feeding Zoe and got in a 45 minute spin before school. I did NOT use my HR monitor--despite wanting to-- and just tried to focus on high cadence/low resistance. I actually got a decent workout and then walked down to school...figured my hamstring would inform me if I'd made a bad decision to get back on the bike, but we agreed throughout the day that it was OK. I'm not going to push it, but am quite happy that I may actually heal at some point!

Feelin' cheesy

My butt is still broken, I've worked out less in the last 2 weeks than I have in years, and I don't want to talk about it (besides, everyone is tired of me talking about it by now I'm sure). Tatyana told me that backing off the training "opens up time for other things..." to which I replied, "But I don't WANT other things!" However...maybe...there are other things out there and slowing down COULD be (maybe, I'm not quite convinced and for godsake don't quote me) less than catastrophic. Hm.

So a cute girl in a striped dress swept me off my feet last night...she is 3 and my friend, Marci's, daughter, Maddy. I met her the first time a day after she was born 3 years ago and have seen her several times every few months since. Until recently, however, I basically admired her from afar and didn't think I hit her radar as anything with any appeal at all...I actually thought she didn't like me. About a month ago, I somehow made some kind of positive impression on her at a group dinner and Marci told me that she mentioned "Root" a few times since then. Last night, I went to Marci's 40th birthday party--which was a total blast--and Maddy and I really hit it off. I was beyond flattered that she hung out with me throughout the evening and informed me that they should come to my house to play Candyland sometime. She also insisted on emerging back out of her bed after her story was read to give me a hug and wish me good night. I will post some photos of my little pal as soon as Malia sends them along to me...the kid is about the sweetest thing ever and for some reason has taken a liking to me. I'll admit, I pretty much melted.

Either my new smitten-ness with Maddy --or PMS-- or something (did somebody slip me a super zoloft?)--is in the air because all afternoon today I've just been thinking about how many great people are around me and how much love is in my life. Malia was in town the last few days and it's always great to re-connect with her...my friend, Erin, has recently become my carpool buddy for school saving me time and cash on commuting whenver I need it...and today after working for about 7 hours schlepping boxes on and off a truck at the "Love 'em or leave 'em Valentine's Day Dash," (where 2700 people paid money to run around Green Lake, wtf?) I felt pretty beat up and called my school buddy, Shannon to ask for an "SOS" massage. She had me come right over and land on her table immediately. Then there's my text message good-vibe sending friends in Colorado and Portland...and that's just the short roster of my cool human support staff and people who make my life pretty great and fun every day.

I refuse to believe that my current warm fuzzy moment is in any way related to the current lack of exercise-induced endorphins...but...it's kind of cool.

Growing gills?

So...my learning curves in various parts of my life are still going upward... Starting with my hamstring/butt thing which is continuing to cause a good amount of pain and inconvenience. Yesterday in my anatomy class, I was taking notes about pain and the nervous system while sitting on my tennis ball yet again and constantly re-positioning. No irony there.

I went back to Dale, the trigger point/pain guru guy, last weekend and then made a decision to lay off almost everything that hurts for a while--including the elliptical machine and cycling. Of course, the laying off hurts emotionally/mentally almost as bad (ok, no, let's be honest...it's way more) as trying to work out on it hurts physically, but...I'm trying to be smart(er) and really try to get it healthy. And it appears I'm supposed to be learning something(s) here. This leaves me swimming, swimming, and occasionally walking for workouts. I don't love it, but at least I love swimming--and I can do kickboard workouts when the shoulders aren't in the mood. Someone (ok, I'll admit it, my kickass brilliant therapist) pointed out this week that my body is teaching me some things instead of me training IT...I'm trying to give myself a break, slow down a little, and face some demons. Yeah, it's a good time.

In the meantime, school is still really good and there are some new fun things and people to get to know. My new friend, Holly, just sent me my "Real Astrology" horoscope for this week and it's pretty right on:

"There's one supreme standard by which your progress in the coming weeks should be ultimately measured: Will you understand yourself better at the end of the adventures than you do at the beginning? A new privilege may come your way, or an honor that'll perk up your résumé, and maybe even a breakthrough that'll help dissolve your phobia of success. But they will only manifest a fraction of their potential unless you heed my updated version of Socrates' best soundbite: Know thyself -- or else."

"F" Words...

I'm dogsitting my favorite 12 year old mellow beagle, Rosie, this weekend! She's the best and I love it whenever I can bring her to the Shoebox!

So...it appears that I haven't blogged all week again...week #2 of school hit and it was the usual busy week. I kept thinking, "Was I really BORED 2 weeks ago?!" It's been a week of various "F Words" since Monday...

After Sunday's stellar bike ride, I thought I'd try to repeat the experience on Monday. It was sunny at the Shoebox at 11:00 a.m. when I went out...but by the time I got down to Lake Washington Blvd., I was in cold, socked-in (first "F") fog and was wishing I'd worn my uber-cold weather gear. My extremities were numb/painful and I was having fantasies about hot chocolate, hot coffee, just about anything hot by mile 7. The next F words for this day were frostbite (as in, "I am sure I'm getting it") and the most famous F word that, yes I know, I tend to overuse anyway... By the time I'd looped Mercer Island, I had to stop at the park/bathrooms to get some (next F) feeling back in my (next one) fingers. On the way back over to the Seattle side, though, the F-ing Fog was melting and I warmed up a little in the sun... just in time to get a Flat (next F word) right at the hairpin turns by the Bush School...augh!! At this point, I'd already used up my week's allocation of the usual F word and started paying it forward into next week's usages. I was less than 5 miles from home and just didn't want to deal with it. I tried to buck up and changed the tire once only to have it go "ssssss" as soon as I tried to inflate it (at this point, I'd used all of next month's bank of F word exclamations). At this point, I got out my most favorite trusty tool, my phone (ok, it's a "ph" not an F), and started calling people who could possibly scoop me with a ride home. After a few near-misses, I got a hold of Nancy who promptly dispatched her husband, Harry, to pick me up (thank you, thank you, thank you). My bike hung on the rack with its flat tire till this morning...

Moving on to the school week...the next F word was fascia. We are continuing to learn about superficial and deep fascia and the techniques of myofacial release. Fascia is kind of the saran wrap of muscles and is a webbing that runs throughout the body---the fibrous evidence that everything is interrelated. This technique of MFR has been something very difficult for me to embrace---for the very simple reason that it requires patience and sitting still. It's possible to hold an area of tissue for a really long time (our TA says it's like watching paint dry, totally true) to enable the fascia to "melt," change, and unstick itself...Of course, it's against my nature to wait for anything, especially with movement the speed of a sloth...so experiencing and working on my presencing with it has been pretty powerful for me. And, of course, it's not lost on me that it's a bit of a metaphor for the slowing down/being patient that the universe is suggesting-- via my broken butt muscle--that I do elsewhere in my life. Kind of like fascia, things all over the place seem to be webbed together and related.

Today, I fixed the flat with my last tube and set out for a bike ride again, wearing the proper gear this time. Since I'd blown through at least 3 tubes on Monday's little F-ing episode, I drove my bike to Leschi and re-stocked at Triumph Multisport before the ride. It was definitely brisk, but I had a nice 28 mile ride out-and-back on the long side of Mercer Island.

Later this afternoon, I went back to my trigger point guru, Dale, for a treatment. My butt has been killing me constantly and it was good to have him work on me again...and, of course, he talked with me about how valuable the pain is and yelled to me on my way out the door, "Remember, this pain is a gift..." I'm really really trying to hear that and accept that he's totally right (he's not the first person to suggest this lately), but was leaning more toward using the old F word again...!

Sunny winter bike ride!

Look out...I'm about to use the words "sunny," "January," and "bike ride" in the same sentence...yeah, and without the words, "frostbite" and "pain." As in....I went for a comfortable 30 mile sunny bike ride today, January 18th, without freezing or wincing.

On Friday evening, I went out to Ocean Shores with Heather & Chase and their family (i.e. Heather's parents, and the kids). As always when Candi (Heather's mom, the restaurant owner/Chef) is around, there was a mountain of food and good wine on site the whole weekend, including tons of homemade bread (super YUM). So great and cozy. The weekend started with the first season episode of my favorite show, "Friday Night Lights," and some amazing clam chowder. It was sunny on the coast and fun to hang out with everyone, watch movies and the waves crashing, and relax. I took my massage table, too, and was able to give 3 massages yesterday and log some good hours. This quarter I have to do a lot more practice hours for school, so I was happy to get off to a good start.

I woke up early today and solo road tripped myself back to Seattle...as was the case on the drive down, I took Aleve and sat on an ice pack in pain almost the whole way...my hamstring just KILLS sitting in the car, it really sucks. When I got home, it was sunny and warming up nicely, so I decided to try a bike ride. Fortunately, sitting on the bike is way more comfortable than sitting anywhere else and I had a really nice ride around Mercer Island. It's been weeks since I've been outdoors on my bike and the poor thing has been cleaned and sitting on the rack looking forlorn for weeks...it was great to get out in the fresh air and sunshine. I got home just in time to shower and head downtown to meet a bunch of fun girls for the "L Word" premiere at Cinerama (they killed Jenny--whoo-hoo! I've hated her for 5 seasons!)...and then we went for drinks at Purr. Super fun weekend with lots of my favorite people.

I have the MLK Day holiday tomorrow, so I'll have some time to get some stuff done before hitting the ground running again at school on Tuesday...

Bring on the sports massage!

Whoo-hoo, I'm back to school this week! As much as I love having time for leisurely coffee and a lot of the "Today Show," our winter break from school was really just too damn long. Back in class today, it seemed that several of my classmates also wouldn't have minded coming back last week instead of this week...glad it wasn't just me who was getting stir crazy.

I had my first day working in the school clinic yesterday and it jolted the cobwebs out...and today was back into the full classroom days. We have a few different instructors this quarter and our Anatomy teacher is my new favorite. He is a cool uber-knowledgeable naturopath with a lot of interesting experience. I love his energy and think I'll learn a lot from him. Our practical classes this quarter will include sports massage, chair massage, and myofacial release...I suppose it goes without saying that I'm totally psyched about the sports stuff. We already started learning it today and, of course, I'm digging it and looking forward to learning more and practicing on people!

Obviously, school is the good news. The less good news is that my pain in the ass hamstring (perhaps the piriformis?) is still, literally, a pain in the ass. The most painful thing is sitting in the car (I went to Olympia over the weekend to play with Heather & Chase and was pretty miserable in transit). Sitting in class today was not so fun, either. I just spent almost half an hour rolling on my foam roller and tennis ball to try to start breaking things up...thanks to massage school, I have a visual impression of the scar tissue and am trying to implement a little cross fiber therapy on myself. But I think this may be a long healing process. Again. Sigh. I'm able to swim (though flip turns hurt) and am doing a lot of hamster impersonations on the elliptical machine at the gym. I don't love it, but am quite thankful to have SOMETHING I can do to maintain some fitness...I haven't tried the bike, but may try my trainer a little in the next couple of days to see how it feels.

Spoke too soon

As I write this, I am sitting on an ice pack. The Goddess of Chronic Injury apparently frowned upon yesterday's blog post and my (apparently premature) prediction that I was on the comeback trail...that b*&$! swooped in with a "Not so fast, sister" snap of the bad hamstring today.

I had a good swim this morning and then went to the gym a few hours later. I was done with my regular workout and was stretching on the floor...nothing funky, wierd, or unusual, and I swear, I wasn't trying to push it. The second time I stretched my hamstring, I felt it go SNAP-POP...kind of like it rolled itself medially right over the butt bone attachment (same location that's been painful for months). For a brief second, I had this fantasy that maybe the pop was a super self-healing thing that it did to push the last of the pain OUT. Um, no surprise, fantasy was not reality. It didn't start killing me immediately, but gained painful momentum within an hour and worsened through the day. I met Stacey for a while after the gym and, since she had a stash, I threw 2 Aleve at the problem as soon as possible. Later, I walked downtown to meet Michele for a movie...thought maybe some slow downhill movement might be a good idea...I was right that going downhill is better than uphill or flat, but movement in general seems contraindicated. By the time I got to the theater, it was really hurting. We saw "Gran Torino," (I recommend it) while I continually shifted trying to be comfortable. After the movie, I begged Michele for a ride up the hill and thankfully, she obliged, although sitting in a car friggin' hurts, too. Yeah, pretty much anything more than breathing sucks at the moment and I'm pretty bummed.

I'm hoping sleep will help and am headed to bed shortly...

On the comeback trail

So...the yoga thing seems to have been a good idea. I slept late with the dogs and woke up a bit stiff this morning--the hammie was really feeling it when I first got up. But...I stretched with the morning coffee (I'm becoming pretty religious about stretching--old age and wisdom? OK, more like old age and necessity) and went for a run a couple hours later. I was able to run 5 miles on Saturday and went for 5.25 today. Both times I didn't push it hard or do any hills (ran at Greenlake) and I DID feel the hamstring...BUT (butt), it was only a dull roar so I'm calling it progress. I stretched again after running and later in the day felt much better than I usually do after a run. I'm happy to be getting re-introduced to my running body...I've missed it and hope I'm really on the mend...I can hardly remember running without some pain and hope it happens again!

Today also included hanging out with my friend, Shannon, from school. We had a great chat and it was good to hear that I'm not the only one who's ready to get back to school soon...we're both enjoying a bit of leisure, but starting to burn out on TV and chill time. Later today I got my report card from first quarter and was happy that I did better than I thought...guess you could say I nailed it :)

What's so hot about hot yoga?

These are my companions this week, Ruby and Rafiki. I'm staying at their place until Thursday and have thrown the tennis ball more times with more weather variables than I can remember at this point. Ruby is Ms. Fetchy McFetchington and would chase a ball until her paws fell off if given the opportunity...she will beg to play in the dark, in the snow (when the ball is frozen and gets lost or she slips on the sidewalk and the deck), in the rain, in the mud, at 5:30 a.m., and most recently in crazy wind.

Other than throwing (and throwing and throwing) dog toys, I'm managing to find things to do in this last week of the llloonnnggg winter break. Yesterday I got in an almost 2 hour ride on my bike trainer, went to the gym, and met up with a friend I hadn't seen in years.

Today was my first day back to swim team at Seattle U...woo-hoo! As always, I'd missed it over the holidays and was psyched to be back in the water with my regular lane mates...the other good news is that we'll be able to have slightly longer workouts this year. Sweet.

After swimming, I went out to Preston and Redmond to sleuth out some route stuff for the Seattle Century this July...kind of wierd to be thinking about a summer ride in gray, rainy, windy winter, but I got some good work done.

I came back through Kirkland and went to The Ashram to try out a Bikram yoga class. I'd never done a "real" Bikram class and know a few people who rave about it, so I wanted to give it a try. Hot yoga does have some selling points...I love being warm, my hamstring stretched further in the warm conditions, I love being warm, it was challenging (OK, I'll admit it, it was hard), I love being warm (did I mention that?) and well, the instructor was nice to look at. Unfortunately, it did make me a little light headed at times and my hamstring/butt thing was killing me in the car on the way home (the drive in rush hour was over an hour, that was probably the problem). Also, Bikram yoga turns Nuun into something resembling hot cider which is not so appealing. Anyway, not sure I'll be doing it regularly, but it was definitely humbling/challenging and a good change of pace...I don't totally love it, but I certainly have respect for the practice...some of those human pretzels are damn impressive and strong!

Happy new year?

Back in Seattle and, of course, have been colder than I prefer to be since I stepped off the plane on Wednesday evening...I made a showing on New Year's Eve with some girls on the Hill, and lasted almost till midnight, but crashed while barely still in 2008.

I guess the good news is that the days will start getting longer again now...onward and upward toward spring! Note to self: keep working on that someday strategy of being a snowbird. I'm dogsitting at Jenny P's till Thursday and throwing the almost-frozen toys for the dogs to fetch often results in some pretty cold fingers.

2009 will hopefully be a good year and things should pick up when school starts again a week from Monday. So far, though...things are mellow and not exactly stellar...I guess the solo down time is prodding some food for thought (dare I say resolutions?) and some vision for how I want to show up for 2009. I got a cool tarot card reading yesterday (becoming an annual traditon) that is slowly putting me in a hopeful mindset for a coming "year of strength."

This morning was great, too...I went to the swim team workout at Green Lake and, after swimming alone for the last 3 weeks while our team has been on break, it was really good to be in the water with some of my favorite swimmer pals. Rebecca, Tatyana, Karin, and Liz were all in the pool and I got in a good 4,000 yard swim. Then we all went for a long coffee/chat afterwards...perfect morning. Today: hair trim and Hot Flash with the usual suspects on the Hill.