downtime

ugh. Am slightly drunk, so cannot be held accountable for punctuation or coherence. Played co-ed hockey tonight, we lost 2-0. As I hung out in the locker room drinking warm beer after the game I felt a sudden rush of appreciation and love for my team; we have been together for so long! For over 10 years I have been playing with these people; collectively our team has had 15 children since we started...enough to make a team for the next generation of co-ed hockey.

Have not been cleared for running. Am terribly upset about this because it is directly affecting my quality of life. Even playing hockey tonight, skating as fast as I could and chasing men down the ice was not enough to challenge my body the way running does. I didn't even break a sweat tonight. Oh tendons and ligaments...why must you be so weak on me??

beeewwwwwwwwwww (imagine the sound of the tractor beams being deactivated by Obi Wan...)

Have noticed that the longer J is away, the higher my alcohol consumption becomes. Hectic day, followed by another evening alone with the kids (J is away until Monday now)...I decided to take the kiddos to White Spot and eat dinner in the car. So fun! Yes, except that the battery in my car died a quarter of the way through our meal. We turned it into an adventure, a very cold adventure...the car broke down!!! Wooohoooo!!

We bought the Subaru in December of 2006. It was our yes-we-have-a-baby-and-a-dog-and-lots-of-gear-but-we-will-NEVER-drive-a-minivan car. To be fair, J didn't want the car...he conceded to buy the Subaru because I loved it, but it has always been a little small for him. For my part, I do love my car. I baby it. It still looks brand new. It's so sporty and fast and comfy...I love driving it, but I rarely do. After seven years the car has only 50,000 km's on the odometer. Truthfully, I prefer to walk, bike or take a bus. So after seven years of rarely being driven further than the grocery store the battery is challenged. I asked the roadside assistance guy if he makes a lot of calls to the White Spot drive-in and he said, "Not as many as you would think, most people get a new battery when the contacts start to corrode." Oh. I'm laying this one on J...definitely a "blue" job.

Coming up to the end of my week off running...still have pain. I sure hope this physio is right. I am banking on being able to run by Tuesday at the very latest, but hoping for Sunday.

another boring post about running

I finally went and saw a physiotherapist. For the record, I am aware of how stupid and egotistical it is to think that I can research enough on topics such as bio-mechanics and kinesiology to be able to self-diagnose. In this case, as with many before, I was waaaaay off the mark.

After taking a thorough history, watching me walk/jump/squat/run, bend my legs in all directions and pressing into various muscles it was determined that the tailbone injury I had just before Christmas (thanks to hockey) is to blame. When I fell, I strained the ligament that connects my spine to my hip. When I kept running, despite the pain and stiffness, my body compensated creating a serious imbalance/tightness that has over time and increased mileage, caused the excruciating pain and swelling in my ankle and heel. (At this point I feel like I should sing, "the arm bone's connected to the...") In short, it has nothing to do with my achilles at all. I honestly felt like crying when he told me. Only one week off running and I should be fine, and ready for the race. In the meantime...50 squats a day, rolling out frequently, sideplank, sideplank and more sideplank.

J is away right now and I have been putting in 100% effort and focus as a parent. Today, at around 4:15pm, I crashed. It wasn't that the kids were being difficult, in fact I can't even think of a particular reason other than the fact that I just really wanted to be alone for a few minutes and it wasn't possible. So I got grumpy. And then I berated myself for being grumpy. So then I got more grumpy. Was a rough couple of hours.

The day ended well. We played "spin the knife" at dinner - basically we spin a butter knife and whoever it points to when it stops tells a short story. The kids are getting really creative in their story telling. I was a little too apocalyptic with mine and told them a story about a family that wakes up to find that everyone else in the world has disappeared. The kids did not like the ending..."well, where IS everyone?" and so decided that all the other humans must have moved to China or England. We took the dogs out for a walk - I had four dogs tonight because the kids were puppies as well (is it weird that my children run around the neighbourhood in the dark, barking? Cause I think it's kind of awesome!) and then we played "battle puppies" until bedtime. Thank you red wine, for helping me out this evening ;)

blibbity blabbity

I should be working right now, but my mind is on fire. If I could sit down for more than 5 minutes and focus I could possibly scratch the surface of all the thoughts rambling around in my head...maybe.

Today marks a new level of abuse to my body...slogged through 13 km's with a sore achilles, although by km 10, I couldn't feel any pain anymore...just elation, joy and peace. Now, am playing hockey in an hour and my team only has 7 on the bench. I know I will love the feeling tonight when I finally fall into bed, my body will be calm and my mind will be awake, ready to wander.

Listening to "Kelpe"...such a rich and diverse sound. It's making me think and dream of all sorts of things...mainly to do with running. Have been asking myself lately, what do I fear? What do I think is impossible? Ultras. I have to laugh out loud just looking at that when I, so far, can't even run longer than three hours. But, today was a real eye opener. I have always feared running with pain. Today I did it and it was awesome. Running is such a good analogy for life; it's hard work, it's never ideal or perfect conditions, but if you want to succeed and be happy you just have to keep going. So simple. Am going to start building up my times instead of focusing on mileage. My goal is to be able to run "comfortably"  for 4 hours by March. Easy. One foot in front of the other.

i'm an adult now

On some misguided notion that it might be "fun" we took the kids to Metrotown tonight for dinner at the food court, a trip to the Apple store (daddy), a trip to the dress shop (mama) and a trip to the big-box store for a booster seat (sniff, no more car seats!). Was not "fun". Was a gong show. A1 is obsessed with guns lately. Despite a lifetime of being denied television, movies and all "character" books and influences he has managed, through osmosis alone, to learn every single blaster sound from all six Star Wars movies. Now, I am a huuuuuge Star Wars fan, however once I've spent an hour listening to a little boy repeatedly make blaster sounds and pretend to shoot his sister and all the other shoppers I'm f'ing hating George Lucas and anything to do with Industrial Light and Magic. A2, for her part is completely 4 years old. She is asserting her independence while also driving me f'ing nuts! Whining, crying, getting overtired... she was almost sucked into the escalator twice...well, ,maybe that's a slight exageration. But she did fling the dressing room curtain open while I was half naked and storm out because I wouldn't let her try on my bra...I'm terrified for the teenage years.

After the trip was done though, as we were driving home in silence, I thought, "This moment will never be repeated. They will never be this age again." Just like every moment with the kids up to now and every moment after this point...I love it all. I miss having them as babies and someday I'm going to miss having them as preschoolers and someday I'm going to realise that I just miss them and why the f*** won't they call me back. So, I just look at J and smile and shrug of the stress and the tiredness and the reality of rarely having a quiet moment to myself or getting to do what I want...because it's all awesome and I love them like crazy.

my achilles heel...literally

Sometimes my lack of consideration actually extends to myself, like deciding to run 18km in brand new running shoes instead of breaking the shoes in slowly. After Sunday's run my achilles is f***ed. I managed 6 km at an agonizingly slow pace this morning and was then forced to *gasp...walk. Am web-stalking every training tip and video by EricOrton, so hopefully by Saturday I will be fit and pain free. In the meantime, I guess I have to get on my bike.

Had something amazing happen on Sunday, but I should first explain. When I was young, and all the way into my twenties, I could close my eyes and, by lightly pressing on my eyelids, see a cacophony of colour and movement resembling fractals. Sometimes it would look like paint being splashed with colour after colour bleeding across my field of vision. Other times it would start like coloured pinpricks in the dark, slowly growing into a colour filled, nebula-like field. Other times it would look more like coloured Rorscharch. No matter what, it was fantastic; magenta was always highly represented. But, at some point in my mid-twenties I noticed that it was gone. I attributed this to loss of brain cells since research suggests that the brain starts to "die" around the age of 27 ( this I learned from a friend who was a world chess champion and who, at 25 was almost past his prime). Anyway, I have mourned the loss of this fantastic show of colours ever since and on Sunday, they came back. I was in the bath, it was slightly too hot, and when I leaned forward to push the drain plug I took a moment to press my hands against my eyes and there it was! An explosion of monochromatic shapes and contortions! I immediately lay down and blinked my eyes shut hard a few times and slowly but surely the show turned to colour.

After the experience I googled the phenomenon and discovered that it is actually called "closed eye hallucination". It is a form of lucid dreaming...actually makes perfect sense that I used to see these hallucinations so readily given my "strange brain" when I was younger. There is also some mention that LSD use can facilitate the experience, ahem. Anyway, am glad to have them back.

sadness and the ride

The ride begins. At first you're not sure, but after a few rounds you are loving it...it's so fun! After a few more revolutions you begin to notice that every once in while the ride stops and people get off...the reality of the ride sets in; the ride can't last forever, it will end, and you don't know when. Sadness about the end of the ride is inevitable at first. After that there are several ways to approach it. You can go crazy and enjoy only the highs thinking only about the thrills with your hands up in the air, you can be scared and hang on to the bar keeping your eyes closed until its over, or you can do what I do. I like to hold on to the hands of the people I'm with and laugh about the highs. I also like to occasionally lift my arms up and abandon myself to the feeling of fun. Ultimately the ride will come to an end. Hopefully quickly instead of slowly winding down until everyone is depressed and wondering when it's finally going to be over that they can't even remember how fun it was. I'm going to enjoy the ride for as long as it goes on.

free association

evergreen bathtub stupefy bengal steed valet gorgeous bailey tailor bellhop gamble distill vapour dominate spell tickle despise dabble berate gangster portrait valance step-stool gas-stop parking parable bathroom ambiance philistine garage stable table blare gash skag pickle detritus fable colloquial beroosh standard palatable tickle grate plate late ambivalent stale plain plush single glade

It's interesting how thoughts are formed, how the human brain is hardwired to scan for connections and map experiences based on the familiar. Let the mind wander and it will usually connect the facts of life faster than we could if we tried to figure things out on purpose.

Today is "Hockey Day" in Canada (at least according to the NHL, ScotiaBank and several corporate sponsors) so we took the kids out in the brief sunshine to play road hockey at the school. Reminded me how much fun the simple things can be.

need-less

Well, I've really done it now. Have officially signed up for the 25km trail race in March and am already planning to win it. This is exactly why I thought I should stay away from races...I am waaaaay too competitive. Actually am loving the excitement of training for it...I really do want to at least place and I know that if I can keep up my pace I will.

Have been back from Bahamas for a day and a half and already the trip feels surreal, like it never happened. I miss vacation life. I miss my kids. I miss the ease of having no possessions except what will fit into three duffel bags and a couple of backpacks; seriously, why do we have so much crap at our house? Most of all I miss the attitude on the islands. I took A2 to the coffee shop after preschool yesterday and while I was sitting there enjoying my misto (I did miss some things from home) I started noticing how false and pretentious all the other patrons seemed. In particular I was watching a woman sitting with two friends and talking to a fairly attractive man who had just walked in. Her reactions to the things other people were saying were so over the top that she was almost a parody of herself. But, I get it, The city breeds this frenetic pace that bleeds into everything we do; in the Bahamas everything is slower, even the way people speak. Am going to try and retain some of the slowness that has followed me home. Listen, watch, think, react. I want to be calm.

More crazy dreams lately. Last night I was lost in a furniture and mattress store in Alberta. It was dark and suddenly who should turn up but the "anonymous" looking superhero with no merits from my pixel man dream. He was prancing around with the most exaggerated grin on his face, which now also has a ridiculous moustache, telling me how fantastic he is. Woke up feeling creeped out. Wish pixel man would come back instead.

abroad running

Was up early again this morning for the sake of running. My initial goal was to run a few times on this trip, nothing serious since I am on vacation; after seeing how easy it is to run when the elevation gain is only 30 meters instead of 500 meters I decided this was a good place to go all out and run longer and more frequently. So, I've stepped it up to running every second day. So far, after four runs, have logged 47.5km!

We're having an amazing time - being together with the kids all day every day is such a nice change of pace from the daily grind back home. Things I love about this place: driving in golf carts, happy hour with the kids at Pineapples, the electric blue wild-Atlantic, the calm Abaco Sea, the brown sugar sand, the fragrance of the air at night (intoxicating!), the accents of the locals, the little grocery stores...it's all going by far too fast.

untethered

We are so far from home...makes me feel both unsettled and excited. Arrived in time for New Years eve which we celebrated with locals at a tiki hut on the Abaco Sea. Campfire and a sing-a-long followed by a fireworks display; was one of those moments in time when everything felt so perfect and beautiful, almost as if it were scripted. 

The view after we slipped through the clouds...Green Turtle Cay.