Category Archives: Nonsense

Finnegan, Begin Again…

Posted on September 19, 2019 | 1 comment

Losing Fisher the day after Emily’s 11th birthday was a blow to our family. For thirteen years I’d looked into his sweet face and asked him, “are you Mama’s best boy?” He never had to answer. He knew it. I knew it. Everyone knew it. He was my best boy.

Ridiculous? Yep. Guilty as charged.

I didn’t make it until Thanksgiving even until I was looking for a new pup. I couldn’t do it, the no dog life. My heart broke every time I opened the door. The quiet, the empty space at the foot of my bed. (Who am I kidding? Up near the pillows…) I am a dog person. And a dog person without a dog is just a mess.

A listing for a “black lab mix” named Adidas led me to meeting a ridiculous little pup with sharp teeth and no tail. I wasn’t sure he was the one, but how do you know? Puppies are adorable, all of them. How do you say no to a puppy?

Double ear infections for the baby

I asked the vet tech how old she thought he was and she flipped open a folder. “It says here that he was born on September 19th.”

Fisher left us on the very same day that this little black dog came into the world. Put him in the car, we are taking him home!!

He was a baby. So we spoiled him. My human baby was getting bigger by the minute, my big kid was a precocious pre-teen. I needed something to love and he was perfect. He was a menace, don’t get me wrong. But he was a puppy.

MQD and “the puppy” when he was about a year old.

And then he got bigger and he was kind of still a pain in the ass. He ran away when we opened the doors; he was just a pest in a way that I didn’t remember from the last dog, the best boy.

And then we got some answers in the form of those dog DNA tests. He was a beagle!

Turns out that he is an American Staffordshire Terrier and Chow Chow mix on one side. So, he is strong, stubborn, perhaps a little bit of a challenge to train. But the lineage on one entire side as far back as they can see? Beagle, pure pain in the ass.

So, we got down to the business of training him. Cue the laughter. We took a puppy class, we stopped yelling at him when he followed his nose right out the door. We accepted that he is food motivated and I had dog treats in my pockets for about a year.

The toddler. He is still carried around like the canine prince.

And here we are.

Today he is three. He whines at night if he is outside of the covers and will not simply burrow down on his own. You must lift the blankets and invite him to come back to bed.

He stares at me whenever I am in the house.

He steals food, paper, pens and television remote controls.

When I was pregnant with Lucy I worried that if I had another daughter I wouldn’t know how to love her as much as I loved Emily. It would be simpler to have a son, right? Then I would always have my favorite daughter and my favorite son. Experienced parents, including my own mother, had long told me that the heart expands. And sure enough, that has been exactly how it all turned out. I love my girls, both of them, more than I could imagine, and each so differently.

But my dogs?

Currently, as I am writing this.

You’ve heard the old song “Michael Finnegan?” We sing it in our house about the dog.

“There was a black dog and his name was Finnegan,

He fell down and broke his shin again,

The doctor said he will never swim again,

Poor black dog named Finnegan, Begin again….”

With Finnegan we truly did “begin again.”

I worried that I would not settle on new nicknames, new patterns of behavior. That this sweet pup would steal my heart and with time I would lose Fisher more and more every day.

I tell him every day that he is the “worst dog ever.” I put his face in my hands and I get very close to him and breathe in his god forsaken breath and I whisper to him “You are a terrible dog. Do you know that? You are a bad, bad boy.”

He remains unfazed.

The only thing he excels at – giving side eye.

The girls asked me yesterday what he was getting for his birthday. I replied quickly, “He gets to live with us for another year.”

1 Comment

Posted in Family, Nonsense

Tagged finnegan

Do moms bromance? Is that a thing?

Posted on September 2, 2016 | 3 comments

Being an extroverted introvert makes some things difficult. One of those things that is tricky is busting in on a group of people that are already established. They have a rhythm and a routine. I am kind of a big personality (shut up, I know that is an understatement.) And finding my place in a group of personalities that already have a vibe is delicate. I don’t really know how to take a back seat.

But the back seat is exactly where you sit when you are the new kid that joins a group of people that regularly share a swim lane. Treading water next to the lane line while you wait for your spot to grab the wall and try to think of something clever to say in the ten seconds you have before the next swim set starts is exhausting. Never mind the swimming part. I always feel like a 12-year-old kid in the back seat of a car. I can kind of hear the conversation but the windows are down and the infinitely cooler teenage driver and their counterpart in the front seat are smiling and laughing and I am nodding along and treading water and trying to not look clueless.

5:30 a.m. Master’s swim practice is a strange animal. It’s not the retired folks from mid-morning or the work from home people from lunchtime. Both of those groups are happy to chat it up poolside. These people are getting in and out and getting on with their lives. They’re busy people or so it seems. And nobody is particularly chatty when it is still practically the middle of the night. So how do you get to know them? How do you find a rapport?

You keep showing up. Therein lies the problem. I can think of a zillion reasons not to get up before five in the morning. Add in a little social anxiety and I can convince myself to bail on practice. Easy peasy.

But on Wednesday there was this lady that made me laugh. Hard. She said “I’m going to make an art film called Sounds From the Pool” as we were all gasping for breath in the cold water. Later in the practice as the gasping had to turned to heavy breathing I said “If you started the film just with sounds – snapping of the swim cap, gasping and then creepy, heavy breathing – it would totally sound like a dirty movie. Condoms and then hot and heavy humping…” She didn’t miss a beat, guys. She immediately grabbed onto my ridiculousness. She was my people.

This morning I considered sleeping through practice. But I kinda sorta wanted to see her again. She was funny. At 5:30 in the morning. She’s a rare breed.

I make friends the way drunk girls in bathrooms make friends. I like to go from “Hi, my name is…” to “OHMYGODYOUAREMYBESTFRIENDEVER” in about four minutes. It doesn’t always work out well. I am trying to play it cool. I am.

But when I saw her this morning and she made me laugh again before I even had my goggles on – well, I was smitten. While swimming this morning I was thinking about how stressful it must have been to have been a swimmer in high school. Imagine sharing a lane with someone you are crushing on. You’d spend the 200 yards you were swimming thinking of something clever to say in the ten seconds you might share at the wall. And then when you said it there would be a 50% chance that it went unheard. So if nobody laughs did they not hear you? Do you try and say it again? Or would you then become that weird girl that repeats herself and thinks she is funny? (Again, shut up. I know that is self-referential.)

This morning as we were climbing out of the pool and laughing I decided to just go out on a limb and ask “do you stay home with your kids?” There’s a certain camaraderie among people who might not talk to anyone else all day that is not biologically related to them. Maybe it is a momentary “holyshitwebettermakethiscount” kind of feeling but whatever it is – she had it, I knew it.

We joked about how it is hard to MomFriend someone at swim practice when you only have ten seconds at a time to get your funny on. I mentioned that I write stand up routines in my head while I swim/bike/run and sadly the only people who ever hear them are my peeps at the grocery store.

“Do you do stand up?” she asked.

And it took everything in my power to not crumble to the floor at her feet on the pool deck. Only moments earlier she said something to the effect of “that’s a sleeper that will make me laugh again and again all day” and I could feel myself stand up a little taller. We’ve only just met. She thinks I am funny. That’s my in, y’all. (Granted, my ten second schpiel on how sprinting breaststroke is like fast walking was pretty damn funny.) I know I get myself into trouble when I dive in prematurely – but I think I am making a new friend.

So. Both kids will be back in school next week. I will once again have that “what do I do now?” feeling.

Maybe I will write some stand up, huh? Take this show on the road. And by on the road I mean to the Harris Teeter.

And it’s not like I need to find things to do. There’s new SnapChat filters on the daily, y’all.

3 Comments

Posted in Exercise, Family, Nonsense

Tagged bromance, masters swimming, mom friends, Swimming, training, triathlon

Goals: Smashing them

Posted on June 22, 2016 | 6 comments

I am not a super competitive person. Not in my life, not in triathlon. I am just not. I really believe that hocus pocus about how you’re only competing against yourself. It’s true. I struggle with my training because I want each run to be faster than the last. And improvement comes in incremental leaps not daily.

This month has been big for me. In the middle of my fourth season of triathlon I have started to make some improvement. I rode the bike leg of Ironman Raleigh 70.3 a few weeks ago and I didn’t ride my brakes downhill. And I did not die. At all. I used my aerobars even though I still feel like I am going to crash because my hands aren’t even touching my brakes and I figured out what it feels like to blow your legs out on the bike. (Awesome, by the way.)

This last weekend I raced my first sprint with a pool swim in over a year and I passed a bunch of folks so apparently I hugely overestimated my swim time.

And then I went all out on the bike and figured I would just see if I could run. At all. And I smashed my personal record for a 5K. Not a 5K in a tri. But at all. It was crazy. I felt like George Jetson. In my head I was all “Jane! Stop this crazy thing!!!!” but my legs just kept moving.

Another fitness related accomplishment is as much about my head is it is the rest of me. I started running without my shirt on. And it isn’t pretty. But I feel like a badass and it seems that people will not actually DIE if they see my stomach in motion. Stretch marks don’t tan so they are just whiter and more bold than ever but I am over worrying about it. I stopped in the bathroom on a run recently and when I looked in the mirror I noted that I looked like a “runner.” Intellectually I know that runners come in all shapes and sizes but I have always felt like a poser.

The last accomplishment is one that I hesitate to speak about. It feels more personal. You know, since I don’t get naked and stand on the bathroom scale in front of all of you. But it feels good to be proud of yourself, and dammit, I am. I have lost a good bit of weight this year in my “Get Your Shit Together Before You Turn 40!” plan and I have maintained it. I have had to change my race registrations from Athena to Age Group since I no longer qualify. And it feels weird. I have identified as a big kid for the last ten years. I actually enjoyed that moment when I told someone that I was just a little shy of 200 pounds and they raised an eyebrow and said “No fucking way!” But I am down almost 40 pounds and I run faster and sleep better and drink less alcohol and wear ALL OF MY CLOTHES because holy shit, they fit!!!

Silly that I had to go stand in a store and weigh myself and purchase three months of a diet program to put into practice the same dietary advice that my mother has been giving free of charge since I was a kid. “Mom, I am hungry.” “Eat an apple.” “I don’t want an apple.” “Well, then you’re not hungry.”

I don’t do low-fat food. And I don’t do diet food. But I started eating real food. And a lot of it. And I dropped weight. And then I got faster. And then I stayed the same weight for two months and got faster still. I can’t believe that those things are not connected.

I was eating an apple (from my purse because I carry snacks around like I am my own toddler) and thinking the other day as I walked into Target. I eat like an athlete. I am fueling my body and my workouts and caring for myself. I’ll be damned.

I didn’t turn into a different person. I still drink cheap beers in the shower. I just make better choices when I get out of the shower. Another perk? It seems that losing weight has made my boobs all but disappear so now I can share my shower beer pics with no boobs in sight unless I take them from the waist up! Long boobs, indeed!

I am not that competitive. Not with other people. But with myself? I want to get there faster than I did last time. Every single time. I spent ten years gaining and losing the same 40 pounds. But I can guarandamntee that I won’t do it again. Because this feels so good. I feel like me again.

Running last weekend I was thinking about how I am not normally motivated to speed up by other runners. We are all in our own race, on our own journey. But there was this kid in front of me. Well, he was behind me at first but then he was in front of me. And I couldn’t stand it. I gave it all I had to try and catch him. The weekend before I was climbing up a hill on my bike and feeling strong when I heard that whirring sound of fancy wheels and “On your left!” I moved to the side and prepared to be passed. Out of habit I looked at his calf to check his age. 64. I dug deep and passed him on the next hill.

I guess I am a little competitive. I don’t like to get passed by people I could have given birth to or people that could have given birth to me. That’s my window of shame. And I don’t want to feel like I live in a body that doesn’t feel like mine. Eventually the triathletes I could have given birth to won’t be in elementary school and I will have to revise my plan.

But for now – I have goals. And I am smashing them, friends. Set some. Aim high. It feels so damn good. It feels even better if those goals serve absolutely nobody but you. Be selfish. Take care of yourself. Take naps. Take risks. I triple dog dare you.

6 Comments

Posted in Exercise, Family, Nonsense, Parenting

Roll With It

Posted on April 8, 2016 | Leave a comment

On the back of his chef coat was a design – black octagons in a line down the center of his spine. He was laughing and smiling and everyone around him was smiling, too. The first time I saw the design on his coat I had no idea what it was but I was still pretty green. It was my first bartending gig and I was barely 21 years old.

By the time I saw the octagons on the back of his jacket a second time I had already gotten a few of my own on the knee of the jeans that I wore to work. Kneel down on a kitchen mat to get something off of a shelf and you, too, will have a greasy octagon on your pants. That explained what they were. But it didn’t tell me how they got there. Who in the hell would lie down on the floor in a kitchen?

I was working in a restaurant with an open kitchen. From behind the bar I could see the boys in the kitchen and I would admire their fast hands and their furrowed brows as they made delicious magic happen on dinner plates.

I would look into the kitchen window often for a whole bunch of different reasons. It was wise to take a peek into the window before you sent in a Sunday brunch ticket with a bazillion “Hold Food” special orders. You were a fool to not check and see if the boys were busy before you ordered your favorite sandwich for your employee lunch (turkey club with boursin mayonnaise.) Eventually I would marry one of those boys on the line so I suppose I was frequently just trying to sneak a peek at that guy I had just met.

On a busy night in the middle of a dinner rush if you watched carefully you would see one of the most extraordinary things I have ever witnessed in a kitchen. (Now you know if you have worked in the restaurant business that kitchens are like another planet and a lot of insane things go down back there.) But there is only one boy I have ever seen do a somersault on the line. Perhaps more astounding than the somersault was that nobody ever looked irritated by this ridiculous display of bravery (stupidity?) in the midst of hot pans and high tempers. And knives.

Nobody could roll with it like Skillet. “My name is Skillet and I rooooolllll with it.” He would pop up from the floor with a fresh line of octagons down his chef coat and that smirk would spread across his face and no matter how slammed you were and no matter how much you hated every single person in your station or how outrageously hungover you were all of a sudden you were smiling. And you were rolling with it, too.

In the last fifteen years I have seen Skillet less than a handful of times. Some of those times were a little hazy and some of them were a lot hazy (I am looking at you, Urbanna Oyster Festival.) But each and every time I was laughing.

I might not have seen Skillet in ages… but I think of him when I take a deep breath and smile. Sometimes the choice to remain calm and smiling in the midst of chaos is all it takes to make the people around you just chill the fuck out. So very many times I have thought to myself “My name is Skillet and I rooollll with it.”

There are times in your life when you must fight. You must not back down and you must be willing to give every last shred of your being to a cause. But sometimes, lots of times, you need to take a deep breath and roll with it. Because it’s really not that bad. And everyone around you is just way too serious. And it will be over before you know it and you need to put a smile on your face and roll on.

Today I learned that that boy who so many of my old friends will remember is no longer with us. To be honest, it hit me a little harder than I was expecting. A lot harder. But I am going to put a crooked smile on my face and roll with it, Skillet.

My deepest condolences to the Atwood family.

Free Crazy

Posted on May 17, 2015 | 3 comments

Have you ever been so sweaty and crying so hard that you were not entirely sure if it was sweat or tears that was all over your neck and getting on your sunburn and stinging? No. Well, isn’t that too bad.

I had a shit day today. For the first time in forever and ever a good sweat and a workout didn’t seem to cure what ails me. I spent two and a half hours on the bike trainer today (a special kind of hell that I actually quite like) because I am too disorganized to make a plan for a group ride and too skeered to ride on the road alone. I think I spent two hours and twenty nine of those minutes imagining every single thing that could go wrong during the bike portion of my upcoming 70.3. It wasn’t pretty.

And it was hot. And riding a bike in your backyard and not moving means you are a buffet for the skeeters. So when I set out to run I was beyond cranky.

About a mile in I thought “Fuck it. I will just go back home.” When you are considering turning around and bailing and you only have to run three miles – it is a bad, bad day. Bad. So, I started to cry. Naturally. I kept running. And crying. And feeling stupid and slow and defeated and tired.

And then I saw a piece of trash on the side of the road. It was a Little Caeasar’s advertisement for Crazy Bread. It was folded in half. All I could see were big block letters advertising “FREE CRAZY.”

I was running and sweating and crying and thinking about maybe peeing in my trisuit just to see if I hated the sensation and I saw a sign that said “FREE CRAZY,” guys. Umm. Nope. No, thanks. I have plenty of my own crazy.

So, I did the only thing I know how to do when I think I might totally lose my shit on a run. I started singing along with the crappy music I run to… “Oh, don’t you dare look back. Just keep your eyes on me. I said, “You’re holding back!” She said, “Shut up and dance with me!” This woman is my destiny!!!!”

It must be time to take a few days off, dude. I actually cried and serenaded myself today during a workout. This might have stopped being good for me, huh? Took a peek at the calendar and whaddayaknow? Taper starts this week. Right on time.

3 Comments

Posted in Bad Mood, Exercise, Nonsense

Tagged half ironman, triathlon training

The Tooth Fairy

Posted on November 3, 2014 | 1 comment

It’s a gamble to take a shower with a toddler in your house. As desperately as I want to get clean I know that I must also want to Magic Erase crayon from a wall, scoop dog food out of the water bowl, re-roll a roll of toilet paper…. something.

I got out of the shower and I heard her start running. She was up to something. “Luuuuucy,” I cried. “What are you doing?”

I did not hear her customary response, “Nothing.” Instead I heard her dive-bomb onto the couch. “Are you hiding?” No response.

I peeked into the living room to see a pile of blankets on the couch and assumed (correctly) that Lucy was hiding with some kind of contraband. Whatever it was, she already had it. I figured I could quickly get dressed while she was hiding. I threw my clothes on and took a deep breath and prepared to find out what she had been up to during my 87 second long shower.

“Lucy, where are youuuu?” From under the blanket I heard her “Hiding!” only it sounded more garbled than usual.

“Do you have something in your mouth, Lu?” She pulled the blanket down, eyes shining. “What do you have in your mouth, Lu? Spit it out.” I put my hand in front of her face the way a parent does and steeled myself for halloween candy, a beetle, part of a magazine.

“Rocks!” she announced triumphantly as she spit into my hand eight teeth. Yes. TEETH. Two days before Halloween Lucy was living out some kind of twisted horror movie and she spit into my hand a mouthful of TEETH.

They weren’t bloody. She wasn’t crying. And yet still for a brief moment I thought “This kid astounds me. She has fallen and busted out all of her teeth in the time it took me take a shower and it didn’t even slow her down.” I am not sure what made me turn back and look into my bedroom. But there on my dresser was my jewelry box. It was open and on it was a small blue box. I started to laugh. In 87 seconds she had climbed up to open my jewelry box, dig to the back where I hide Emily’s teeth after the Tooth Fairy does her thing, stolen them and shoved them all in her mouth.

With a fistful of spitty teeth I started to laugh. “Yes. Rocks. Do not put rocks in your mouth.” And I started to count. I counted the “rocks” and I dug through the couch and carefully ran my hand along my white bedroom carpeting until I had accounted for all of the missing teeth. Teeth safely returned to their hiding spot I all but forgot she had done this. (Now that is indicative of how absurd life with an almost three year old truly is, she spit teeth into my hand that she had stolen from jewelry box and I all but forgot it happened hours later.)

Emily got off the bus later that afternoon. “Look at this, this tooth is loose.” We had the usual “Let me wiggle it” “No, don’t pull it” “I am not going to pull it, just let me wiggle it” argument. It wasn’t very loose. Nevertheless, an hour later she came back downstairs with a fresh gap and a bloody tooth. “It was a one day process! Loose tooth to missing tooth, Mom! Just one day!”

The world is weird. That night as I reminded her to put her tooth where the the Tooth Fairy would be sure to find it she smiled at me. “You’re the Tooth Fairy, too, right?”

“No. Go to bed. I love you.”

“But you’re the Tooth Fairy, right?”

“No. Go to bed.”

“I know that you are. You can tell me.”

“Do you want your dollar? The Tooth Fairy won’t come if she hears you talking like this.” She smiled and pulled her blankets up to her pierced nine-year-old ears.

In the morning she came down and said “Dad, I got a dollar coin from the Tooth Fairy.” He asked if it was Sacagawea or Susan B. Without thinking I responded “Susan B, 1979.”

Em just smiled at me and said “Yep. Silver. From the Tooth Fairy.”

1 Comment

Posted in Family, Nonsense

Tagged chaos, Halloween, loose tooth, Parenting, toddlers, tooth fairy

Happy Third Anniversary, MQD!

Posted on May 1, 2014 | 15 comments

I got lucky. I met a super boy that became a wonderful man and we got married. And then I got really lucky and all that worrying I did about being able to get pregnant turned out to be for nothing and we made a honeymoon baby.

So, wedding anniversaries tend to disappear in a mess of kids and baby and soccer practice and mother’s day and my birthday is next week, anyway.

But lately I have been thinking about how important it is to stop and take a breather and honor the marriage that the rest of my life hinges around. We’ve got a good thing. So, it seems easy. But a marriage needs to be fed. Nobody likes a hungry marriage.

Sunday afternoon, after my race, I asked MQD if he wanted to go out and grab a pitcher and some burgers at The Wooden Nickel and call it our Anniversary Dinner.

As evidenced by the sippy cup behind the pitcher, we had company. But she came home from our honeymoon with us, after all. It didn’t bother me to have her tag along on our Anniversary Dinner. We laughed and talked and we fed our marriage.

Nobody left hungry. Cheeseburger plus fried egg plus tater tots plus beers equals a happy marriage, FYI.

We’d planned on eating dinner at home last night. I would pick up cupcakes from Sugarland (they did our wedding cupcakes!) and MQD would grab sushi from a local place and we’d lay low. And then I got lucky again. The stars and the soccer and softball schedules aligned and my kids were invited to eat dinner with my nearest and dearest and her family. With the kids out of the picture I had to amp up the Wedding Anniversary Shenanigans. Quickly.

Wedding Dress plus Apron equals a sweet surprise. MQD called to let me know he’d picked up dinner and asked what I was up to. “Just playing with the kids and waiting for my husband like a pretty princess.” MQD He thought I was kidding.

“When are you not just hanging around like a pretty princess?” I had mentioned wearing my wedding dress all day for our anniversary but evidently he didn’t think I would bother. He got out of his car and we met him on the porch as we often do, only I was a wee bit more glam than normal. I opted to switch up my greeting from my typical still sweaty in gym clothes “Dinner is almost ready, I am taking a shower” and went with a “You have ten minutes to change your clothes, kids are having dinner across the street. We are going out for a drink, home to eat cupcakes and we can have sushi after the kids go to bed?”

Three years and counting and he still rolls right along with my nonsense.

From our wedding vows (and Tom Robbins’ Still Life with Woodpecker)

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words “make” and “stay” become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.”

Thank you, nice lady, for taking our picture in front of Mystery Brewing Company! And double thank you to the nut that asked us if we were going to prom when we ran into the store to grab beers on the way home.

15 Comments

Posted in Family, Nonsense, Parenting, Wedding Planning

Tagged Family, hamburgers, Marriage, MQD, wedding anniversary, wedding dress

I dug a big hole today. It was fun.

Posted on April 15, 2014 | 3 comments

I was not a fan of this bush. It blocks the light. It has big dead leaves all the time. Recently MQD and I discussed the fact that he isn’t really a fan of this bush, either.

I am also not much of a fan of sitting around on my ass. Unfortunately (for this bush) I woke up this morning not much of a fan of doing laundry or emptying the dishwasher or going to the gym.

So, I started hacking at the bush with a bolt cutter (like you do.) I gave it an all over inspection and made peace with the fact that my ordinarily green self was most definitely going to kill this bush. Sorry, little birds from last spring, but you will not be moving back into that old nest. I saved that branch with last year’s bird nest for last and captured the Horton Hears a Who-ness of the moment.

The hacking at the branches was a good time. It was satisfying. Quick actions and immediate results. And then I started to dig. And dig. And dig. My tiny helper grew weary and began to ask “You can’t do it, Mom? You can’t do it?”

Oh. I can. And I will. But it was not a particularly good time.

I dragged the zillion pound root ball to the end of the driveway. Lucy asked “All done? Nap time?”

Nope. I explained that the fun part was over and now we had to clean up.

So. That’s what we did today.

I skipped the gym. But I got good and sweaty.

I suppose I will go back to the gym tomorrow. I can’t just keep digging up my yard. Right?

3 Comments

Posted in Exercise, Nonsense

Tagged chores, half marathon, landscaping, sweaty moms, whatthehelldoyoudoafteryouaredonetrainingdforsomething

Premature Double Fist Pump

Posted on April 6, 2014 | 9 comments

It was supposed to sound casual. “I’m still filthy from my run, I will just mow the grass really quickly.” I was afraid to sound too excited. Spring could throw the brakes on and it could be snowing before I had the shed door unlocked.

My fondness for mowing the grass is not a secret. The girls and I spent much of Spring Break at the beach and when we got home Spring had sprung There were buds on the azaleas and the trees were green. There were weird spots of long grass in our yard. I could mow. It was time. You know, just pull the old lawn mower out and give her a whirl. Why not?

I pulled the mower out of the shed and confidently pushed it around to the front yard. I gave it a yank. I gave it another yank. Years ago I had a mower that I could never start and I routinely had to suck up my pride and ask our neighbor to start it for me. Not anymore. This puppy is only a year old. It starts up like a beauty every time. I gave it another yank. Nothing. I stepped back. I took a deep breath and I gave it one more yank. The delicious sound of “I can’t hear you, Go ask your father, I am mowing the grass” filled the air and I was off.

And silence. The mower would only run for five, maybe six seconds. Shit. Tried it again. Same thing.

Things that do not work make me insane. Tools, technology, teenagers – I look at them all with my best RuPaul face and think “You better work, Bitch.”

I took Shop instead of HomeEc. I am not afraid to get my hands dirty. But I didn’t opt for the Automotive Technology Certificate in high school. Engines and I have a limited understanding of one another. The only thing I knew about this lawnmower is that I had done nothing but put gas in it since we bought it last summer.

Aha! Gas. I sort of lost a small part of our gas can last summer. It has sort of been plugged with a piece of duct tape for months. I know. Not smart. Not the losing it or the having a not exactly closed gas tank in the shed for the better part of a year. I have already been informed of my stupidity, rest assured. But maybe my semi-open gas can was to blame for this? To the store I went for a siphon and a new gas can. I would get this crappy gas out of my beloved mower and it would run like a top once again, right?

It is easy to feel like a high roller when you are buying two gallons of gas. Super Premium for me, please. Old gas removed, new gas poured in. Started right up! And stayed running! By this time I was feeling a little over-confident. Maybe I should check the oil.

One more trip to the store and my mower had oil, premium gasoline and I was considering wiping the blades down with a rag. I had all but made love to this machine in my driveway, I was ready to mow the damn grass.

Halfway across the lawn on my first pass and I looked up to see my beloved family sitting on the porch. I did what any full-grown woman would do and I leapt in the air and did a double fist pump and shouted “Yesssss!”

I looked like this most of yesterday, except I was much less clean.

You know what happened, right? A terrible choking sound and white smoke billowed out from the engine. Too much oil. It had to be the culprit. By the time I added the oil I was kind of in a hurry and my checking of the dipstick was more of a cursory glance than a legit “checking of the oil level.” Not a problem. I happen to have a siphon now.

Oil removed. Oil checked. More smoke. At this point there was only one small compartment left on my mower that I had not investigated. Wasn’t there an air filter? There had to be, right? Engines have those, right? Yep. When I popped open the door and removed the filter it was dripping with oil. Dripping. This was an air filter, not an oil filter. It did not look good.

Perhaps sensing my frustration with this project MQD promptly put the filter in a ziploc bag and sped back to the store.

I did mow my grass yesterday. And it usually makes me feel accomplished. But I also diagnosed my engine problem (shitty, old gas,) fixed the problem by siphoning the gas, changed my oil, adjusted my oil and replaced my air filter. Did I buy a 22 oz beer at the gas station on my last and final trip? You bet I did.

Just in case you are one of those sexist assholes that wonders what my husband was doing while I was fixing the lawn mower you should know that he was elbow-deep in a heart attack in the kitchen. What did we have for dinner last night? Bacon Explosion. And a salad, of course.

Bacon Explosion by MQD

9 Comments

Posted in Nonsense

Tagged grass, Harriet Homeowner, lawnmower, oil filter

An Exercise in Letting Go

Posted on March 23, 2014 | 7 comments

I am a creature of habit. Wake up. Eat. Do stuff. Sweat. Do more stuff. Eat. Shower. Do more stuff. Eat. Repeat. Last week was tough on me. There was a lot of Eat and plenty of Do stuff but not enough Sweat. The plan was to taper my running back in order to feel fresh and strong for Saturday’s 25K. It didn’t work out exactly as I had planned.

I went to yoga. Twice. The first time I went I boogied out of there before savasana. The idea of just chilling, flat on my back for ten minutes was making me crazy. I had a routine to maintain. I wasn’t Sweating. And now I wasn’t evening Doing stuff. I ran a few miles and called that my savasana. Savasana is your Happy Place, right? Running is my happy place.

The second time I walked in to class hell-bent on staying. It is not uncommon to focus on an intention at the beginning of class. “Stay until the end…. Stay until the end….” I sat, cross-legged and eyes closed, and focused on what was surely the lamest intention for a yoga class ever. Don’t leave. Quiet the mind? Forget it. I just wanted to stay physically present in the room.

We were still in seated meditation when I noticed the clock was missing. Surely it had been hung up elsewhere in the room. I’d find it.

Standing. We were finishing a set of sun salutations and I had managed to inconspicuously look all over the room. There was no clock.

It is hard enough for me to unplug. My cell phone was on the other side of the room. And now there was no clock. I had no idea what time it was. This laid-back yoga class might just have me sweating yet.

We were in triangle pose when I started to freak the fuck out. How long had we been here? And I was freezing. The class before ours had turned the air conditioning on evidently because even our teacher finally remarked on how cold it was in there. She kicked the thermostat up and we carried on.

Through pigeon and into some seated twists. We had to be half-way through, right? An hour class, we’d have balance poses last in all likelihood and that would leave time for ten minutes in savasana. I was really struggling in this absence of Time. Was it tomorrow? Had we been here for an entire day? Was it yesterday? Oh my god, what in the fuck time is it? And now I was sweating. Like, really sweating. I took my jacket off and I could feel warm air all around me and I almost felt feverish.

In the moment that I was convinced I had eaten some kind of LSD with breakfast someone remarked that the air conditioning was definitely off but that it seemed the heat had turned on in its place. Ahh. I was not alone in this imaginary hot flash.

Up on our feet. Tree pose. Dancer’s pose. Half Moon. Warrior III. We were almost done. And down on the floor. Savasana, corpse pose, reflect on your intention for the class. I made it.

We were seated and smiling. Namaste.

I waited until our teacher had turned the lights on. People were talking. I opened my mouth and without any control of the words spilling out, I spoke. “So, the clock is gone. That was kind of crazy. It was like I was eating acid and I was all “Oh man, whoknowswhattimeitis, Ifeelsofree.” and five seconds later I was freaking out because “Holy moly, isittodayortomorroworyesterday!? Add in the whole Iamfreezing, no, waitnowIamsweating factor and wow. That was some yoga class.” It is common that following these bouts of verbal vomit there is a strange silence.

My teacher smiled. “Yeah. We are going to need a new clock.”

My desperate attempt to take a few days off paid off. The Merge Records 25K was a smashing success, finished strong, had fun and I am not crippled! Took a short run this morning and I feel super (thanks for asking!)