Rosary Resolution

As goodbyes go, I think the one I had tonight with 2011 was sweet. I was outside at dusk and the sunset was astoundingly pretty. Streaks of pink all across the sky in all directions. I worshiped God right there on the sidewalk. I thanked him for His beauty and I told Him I love Him. And that quiet moment was like a reminder of His love for me, too. I tried to say something about the new year, a sort of an acknowledgment of my screw-ups this year while at the same time an expression of thankfulness for the hope that He gives. And then I kept walking. I'm going to keep walking figuratively, too, because I don't need to stand around and watch the sky go dark.

There are people who think New Year's Day is just another day. And New Year's Eve is just another eve. I'm not one of those people. I LOVE new beginnings. Start-overs, clean slates, change and adventure - the whole bit. So I like to "do it up" when it comes to resolutions. But this year I'm lacking ideas, so I sought help from my husband and from facebook. Kevin's not a resolution kind of a guy, so that was a bit of a dead end. Facebook, though, turned up some good suggestions. There were running-related suggestions, travel ideas, reading and writing and learn-a-new-thing suggestions. All good. But nothing really stuck in my head until tonight.

Tonight when our early party wound down and the kids were in bed, Kevin and I prayed the rosary together. I thought of it as the perfect way to finish the old year and begin the new. And we prayed for our children in particular. So all that is nice and good, but surprisingly to me, I found my resolutions in today's joyful mysteries. These resolutions are short and sweet and yes, a little contrived. But they were pretty loud and clear while I prayed so I'm not discounting them.

The first joyful mystery: The Annunciation of Gabriel to Mary from Luke 1:26-38
My resolution: to listen to the Lord. I want to trust that when He has something important to say, He will get His message across (or He already has!) - and I can read about it in scripture, experience it in the Eucharist at Mass, or hear it through another person. Or, heck, an angel. If God wants to go that route with me, I'll take it.

The second joyful mystery: The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth from Luke 1:39-56
My resolution: to cling to my friendships as gifts from God. I said on facebook, in my "resolutions" post, (when a friend suggested I give it up for New Years) that "I would die without facebook." This is a slight exaggeration, as I am prone to slight exaggeration nearly every minute of every day - but it isn't completely untrue. That being said, I think I could move away from my dependence on the connection I enjoy through facebook if I instead went "visiting" in person more often. Those of you who live close to me - please be nice when I show up on your porch.

The third joyful mystery: The Birth of our Lord from Luke 2:1-21
My resolution: to celebrate His birth and life every day. We are in the midst of the Christmas season and the celebration of the crazy story of the birth of our Lord.  I resolve to enjoy His life every day through more disciplined prayer. I've been a little lazy lately and I've paid for it with an uncomfortable distance from Jesus.

The fourth joyful mystery: The Presentation of our Lord in the Temple from Luke 2:22-38
Don't laugh at my simplicity here, but I took this as: keep goin' to Church. Perhaps my resolution lies in a renewed desire to see our Mass attendance as a solemn responsibility and joyful privilege (simultaneously) rather than a hardship preceded by lots of whining from young children.

The fifth joyful mystery: The Finding of our Lord in the Temple from Luke 2:41-52
Hm. As we headed into praying this decade, I tried so hard to meditate on the familiar passage. All I got was the image of Mary and Joseph's misunderstanding. So I suppose my resolution is to keep seeking wisdom, in scripture, prayer, and spiritual reading so that I am not perplexed by Jesus' actions, in scripture and in my life and the world I'm living in. I might sum up this resolution in one word: trust.

Just a note: I do plan to run a lot this year. And read. And write. And learn some new things. But it's kinda handy that my real resolutions came out of the rosary and are centered on Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for this sinner. Nothing more I can ask for in the new year.

Post-Race Reflecting

My brand new half-marathon medal, emblazoned with its sparkling Vegas skyline is hanging from a shelf near my bed. If you look closely at the ribbon, there is some discoloration. That is because I barfed all over myself about an hour after the race. But doesn't that paint the perfect picture of athletic endeavor?-- The pride and the pain are part of the same package.

Walking to the start line for Sunday evening's Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon was pleasant enough. We walked with lots of people, plenty dressed as Elvis, numerous women and men in tutus. How tutus became the "in thing" for runners I may never know, but they were all over the place.

With music in the background, and announcements over the loudspeaker when the full marathon started, we dove into the crowd and tried to check our "gear" and nibble on snacks and stand in line for the porta-potties. Still an hour before our start time, and with all the pre-race energy and optimism, I was mainly concerned about staying warm. Not until we tried to make our way to our starting corral did the weight of the enormous crowd become a burden.

I don't want to go on and on about the overcrowding. If you're interested, you should read Review Journal articles about the masses of people: there were 44,000 runners, plus all the spectators. Better yet, "like" Rock 'n' Roll Las Vegas Marathon & 1/2 Marathon on facebook and read their apology for the "inconveniences" of the race. The hundreds of comments following that post are revealing. They capture both sides of the issue: 1) This is a for-profit race organizer with an iconic race location. No matter what the complainers say, there will be thousands more racers next year. They're predicting 60,000-100,000 according to some accounts; 2) Someone should pay for the extreme lack of organization and resulting fire code violations. I see both sides. I lived both sides.

Once we jogged over the start line, I felt thrilled to run past so many towering Las Vegas landmarks and through the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo with no cars, only runners. It was magnificent. But I couldn't gaze up for long because I had to dodge people. There were walkers who had evidently skipped their designated corrals and became obstacles right away. When I could squeeze between people, I'd speed up. Then slow again. Then speed up again. I kept overhearing people say, "It will thin out quickly," but it didn't. It didn't really thin out comfortably until about mile six or seven.

At the 5K mark, we were at 36 minutes, and whatever positive outlook I had maintained past the billions of walkers was dashed. The second 5K was a similar pace, and shortly before the 10-mile mark I felt like crap and wanted to collapse on the median. Taking stock, I didn't have any pain, but I also didn't have any energy. That was a strange sensation. My only mental boost at this point was the presence of so many people around me, and plenty more behind. I kept an eye on my GPS and knew that if I could at least maintain a jog, I should be able to accomplish my goal of beating my first half-marathon time of 2:43. Soon after the 10-mile mark, when I kept sputtering and stopping to walk "just to the next stoplight," I realized that unless I could really pick up the pace (like, to a 9-minute mile) this marathon was going to be slower than my first. No way I could do nine minutes at this point. But I managed to jog the last mile without stopping even though it wasn't pretty and I stopped seeing and hearing the cheering crowd at that point. I just wanted to be done.

According to the "Rock 'n' Roll Marathon Series Medical and Fluid Replacement Information" pamphlet that was in my race packet, blood is directed away from your internal organs to your legs during a race. It reads, "YOU MUST CONTINUE TO WALK AFTER FINISHING YOUR RACE. MOVE FOR AT LEAST 20 MINUTES!" I walked for about 15 seconds after finishing, and then was herded into a slow-moving mass past medal pick-up, past Mylars, past water and green bananas, and into the reunion area and gear pick-up. I was too grouchy and nauseous then to pay attention to the time, but later estimated I stood in a slow-moving horde of people for 15 minutes immediately following the race. Another 15 minutes was spent waiting to pick up my dry sweatshirt. While waiting in that line, I had to sit twice for fear of fainting, and felt sick. All around us, in the Shark Reef lobby, there were people sitting or lying on the ground, next to medical team members. It looked much more like a Red Cross tent after a natural disaster than a post-race scene.

My friend and ride home was waiting in front of a restaurant, which under normal circumstances would be a 3-minute walk from the Shark Reef area. It took us 90 minutes. We were in a throng of wall-to-wall bodies, most of them sweaty, and moving only a few inches a minute. There was no way out. It was one way with no side exits and it was horrid. I can honestly say that it was one of the worst experiences of my life. After a very miserable hour, just as the crowd began to move at a slow walk, I started vomiting. I should have employed this strategy sooner, because a 3-foot space miraculously opened all around me right when the retching started. I heard comments and murmurings from several men behind me. Oddly, I detected a hint of "this is to be expected" intermingled with the repulsed horror. Moments later, there was a place to pause and try to clean myself up. I stood near an area full of gurneys and EMTs and runners worse-off than me, but wondered if an ambulance ride might get me home quicker. Thankfully, I felt better after my "episode" and survived the remaining walk and monorail ride. Bodies were so close on that monorail that my friend's husband said we all needed to go to Confession afterward.

Today is Tuesday. What little hip flexor pain I had yesterday is now completely gone. I have no limp, no soreness. I suppose this is because I didn't run that hard, physically. Mentally, I am still in recovery mode. Given another couple days, I expect to label this run in my memory as the amazing experience it was: the third largest race of its kind after NYC and Boston; nighttime; on the Las Vegas strip. But for now, I need to get over missing my goal.

On Running Shoes and Knitting Needles

I started running in 1992 because my brother ran and I wanted to have something in common with him other than, you know, our family tree.

I raced and finished my first 5K in Las Vegas in 1997. Cindy Crawford ran one around the same time and it was heartening that my pace was comparable to hers.

While I concerned myself with marrying and beginning to produce offspring, I only ran intermittently. But in recent years I've picked it up again. I love it because it calms my Irish temper, keeps my heart healthy, and people clap for me when I race.

I started knitting two weeks ago, because I am intrigued with the idea of turning string (well, yarn) into clothing and useful household items, and because I want to challenge myself to persist with things even when they're difficult and even when I can't accomplish them perfectly. For you normal people out there, this is no biggie, but for me, it is a giant undertaking. As my friend, knitting instructor, and fellow recovering perfectionist has challenged me: "Dare to be average!"

In recent days, I find myself comparing these two "hobbies" of mine. Here are the findings of my analysis:

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN RUNNING AND KNITTING

Yarn is cheaper than Asics.
Running carries the higher risk of being hit by a truck.
Knitting doesn't require a special bra.
Strangers hand you Gatorade when you run.
I have never once seen my shadow while knitting and thought my butt looked fat.
It is easier to screw up knitting than running.
Someone is teaching me to knit. Running came way more natural.
Knitting can be done in a recliner.

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN RUNNING AND KNITTING

Both make me sweat. One from physical exertion, one from mental and motor skill.
Both distract me from eating large quantities of unnecessary food.
Both indirectly benefit others: knitting produces things like scarves that can be given as gifts; running increases my overall sanity, which helps my children live another day.
I prefer to knit, and to run, in the company of others. But both are also totally acceptable solo activities.
I hope to pass both on to my grandchildren.

Where Is My Gum Specialist's Restroom?

It's quite alarming, really - people turn forty and immediately complain about how their bodies suddenly fall to pieces. I would wholeheartedly object, but out of nowhere my gums are receding!

I can tell by his name that my gum specialist is Korean. And though I have just days before read about the War with Korea - I determine that this might not be the best conversation topic at my gum consult. I vow to keep the dialogue mainly centered on what is to be done about my rapidly elongating teeth.

I've recently taken up coffee drinking, and gum-consult day was particularly stressful, so I downed three cups of coconut coffee right before driving a LONG way across town to meet my new specialist. This means I had to pee like crazy even before I got lost three times, within a block of my destination.

Evidently, disorders of the gums are rampant, because this office is NICE. I only had a moment to take in the opulent surroundings before asking for the potty.

There is no need for me to draw out what happened in the restroom. Let's just say that I was going about my business like normal when the room went pitch dark. Where once there was light and the hum of a fan --- nothing. Perhaps it was instinct that caused me to immediately flail my arms and wave my torso. Whatever, it worked. The light came back on and the annoyance that began with the receding of my gums and grew with the distance of the specialist and getting lost on the way was now enormous.

I finished, situated myself and what's left of my gums on the plush sofa in the lobby, and began the tedium of doctor's office paperwork. Part way through, a man in a tie approached me with a clipboard. He told me that as soon as my chart was complete, he would commence our tour of the office.

What reaction am I to have upon hearing I'm to be given a tour of my gum specialist's office? What purpose does it serve to know the layout and workings of such a place? In my life, I have been to pediatricians, general practitioners, gynecologists, obstetricians, dermatologists, dentists, orthodontists, radiologists, neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, chiropractors, massage therapists, hair stylists, midwives, ear nose and throat specialists, orthopedists, optometrists, and ophthalmologists, and never once before have I been offered a tour of their office! All I can assume is that this is some sort of customer service gimmick and that they think if I've been shown around the digs, I will feel loyal to this specialist forever.

Included in the tour: the restroom (I'd already discovered it, thank you), the coffee maker (as if), the orthodontic room, several staff members in scrubs, and two cutting-edge-technology machines which were explained to me as if I cared one whit (or even understood). My one question: if you pride yourselves on this amazing new technology, could you please do something about the motion-sensor light in the bathroom that leaves your patients in pitch-black mid-pee?

Around three thousand dollars from now, I will have a small piece of tissue grafted from the roof of my mouth and relocated to cover my three nearly-naked teeth. I will drink only milkshakes for a week, and the stitches will dissolve on their own. This was all explained to me very kindly, with the aid of state-of-the-art video. On the way out, I stopped in the restroom to pee again before my trek back across town to home. And yes, the light went out and I sat in blackness. Just forty feet or so from the eight million dollar imaging whatsit machine that my tour guide was so proud of.

I remember the days...

... of college summer Saturday nights in Ridgecrest. I'd arrive at the house of a friend where a bunch of us would gather to hang out and eat and usually watch Saturday Night Live.

It is a vivid sad memory that "Deep Thoughts with Jack Handey" would come on and I would be laughing so hard I'd be doubled over on the carpet. Everyone else (like, nine people) would be silent and stoic and not getting it.

Is it the same thing now with "Catalog Living?" Well, not exactly, because I'm reading it on my computer, usually by myself (some glorious days Kevin reads over my shoulder and laughs, and this is a big part of the reason I married him and not any of those guys from Ridgecrest - even though one of them had the last name McCrary. And Teri McCrary is an epic name.) So typically there is no one around NOT to laugh. But it is all I can do not to post it every single day here or on facebook. It is my fear of the silent and stoic reaction that keeps me from doing so. Go read it! Only tell me if it cracks you up.

Scene at a Suburban Park

I always try to avoid fights. In fact, I have always succeeded. I have never once been in a fist fight. Or even a slap fight. I have been known to raise my voice a time or two, but only rarely at strangers, and the time I hung up the phone on a guy at my library job, I got fired for it. Everyone thinks I'm quite demure, so when I flare for a moment, the troops dive for the bunkers, so to speak.

Recently, I've taken up a friendship with a person who shall remain nameless, who used to "organize" a "fight club" at his/her place of work after hours in a big city. Frankly, all the talk of this makes my heart palpitate and I wonder when his/her old "associates" will "catch up" with him or her and I will have to witness a "payback."

Truth be told, I'm not even entirely sure what a "fight club" is, but the notion is rather gripping, isn't it? And herein lies the problem. I like gripping. Not much in my life is gripping. Never has been. This may be why I once wanted to be a reporter. Reporters crave gripping, and they go after it, and then they write about it. I'm a housewife. But I still crave gripping, and I go after it, and afterward I write about it.

Why, just today I loaded my four offspring into our automatic-door minivan and drove up past the nine-million-gallons-per-minute fake fountain into the country club neighborhood of Anthem. Ah, Anthem. Not really a gripping place. But I parked my minivan and stepped out and smelled trouble in the air.

Dozens of middle-school-aged youth were swarming on the playground equipment. "Don't they have anything better to do?" I complained to my friends who had accompanied me to the park. We should have been an intimidating sight to those middle-schoolers. Three housewives, one of us nine months pregnant, walking in slo-mo toward the playground with eight children between us. But these are middle-school-aged youth, as I've mentioned, so they didn't disperse as I hoped they would. Instead, they turned up the volume on the swear words, blocked my daughter from climbing on the play equipment, and one of them, inexplicably, pulled his pants down. I didn't personally witness the pants incident, but my housewife associate did and I'm just lucky it didn't bowl her over, because she is the nine-months-pregnant one and I would have had to help her up in the midst of all the gripping turmoil.

Add to all this craziness the fact that I had recently ingested two cups of coffee, and am still new to caffeine. The psychological drama, paired with the coffee gave me the shakes. Or maybe I was just scared of a brawl. I don't care how brawny I am...  no one, NO ONE can take on several dozen junior high misfits at a park. Well, maybe my fight club friend could, but he/she wasn't there. So I did what any self-respecting middle-aged suburban housewife in her right mind and with a penchant for "gripping" would do: I called the cops. I didn't mean for it to turn into fodder for my facebook page, but I can't help it - it just was.

After Little Miss Non-Emergency Dispatcher in her safe-haven control center got through asking me questions like, "Are there drugs?" (No.) and "Are there weapons?" (Well, no... but they're cussing, Little Miss Non-Emergency Dispatcher! Cussing! And I don't get out much!) --- she agreed to send an officer on the double! (She didn't actually say "on the double!" - but I wanted to somehow work that in to my story. You understand.)

Mr. Officer was so nice! But don't confuse "nice" for "not intimidating." As soon as those kids (read: hoodlums) saw him coming, they picked up their backpacks (maybe chock full of knives and nunchucks) and skedaddled. Mr. Officer followed on foot and issued a "stern warning" to some of their remnant to "keep their pants on" and "find another place to play." Then he came back to chat with me and assure me of my safety in this mean suburban jungle. During this chat, some other friends of mine arrived on the scene and were intrigued to see me talking to a law enforcement officer, since the last time I invited them to this park, there was a bus load of convicts cleaning up trash on the grounds. I know what you're thinking - action follows me. Come with me to the park sometime!

Flying Kids

I grew up flying over town in my dad's single-engine airplanes and playing in grease in hangars during Summer while other kids played in swimming pools. My dad is an A&P mechanic and a workaholic, so I learned the NATO alphabet at the same time I learned the regular one. Therefore it makes perfect sense that I try to introduce aviation to my kids.

Until recently, my efforts included meals at the municipal airport cafe around the corner; watching jets land in the designated observation lot near the runway at McCarran; and trips to see Grandpa at the hangar where he's working now - even at the age of 74.

But earlier this month, we took advantage of a very cool program which is part of the Experimental Aircraft Association - the Young Eagles. You can read all about it by following the link to their website, but for the purposes of my blog, you only need to know that Joseph got to fly for free over our beautiful Nevadan desert for about half an hour in a homebuilt airplane. I have included a photo of the plane, just before landing safely, in case that word "homebuilt" makes you nervous. Preceding the flight, he was given a basic explanation of the parts of the plane, how it flies, and a logbook of his very own. Any child between the ages of eight and eighteen is eligible for this and you can find a chapter in your area on the website.

The experience impressed my often-stoic ten year-old. And I was proud to have done my part to promote an ongoing affection for aviation in our family. Plus, four more children have been taught to "walk wide around the propeller." Heard that a time or two growing up.

Cayna declined a flight, but liked the right seat.

Bethie wanted to fly, but has to wait a couple years.

Coming in for a landing!