Mia Dispenses Some Legal Advice

So I have a case that is set to start trial next Tuesday.  Unless, of course, it settles.  By unfortunate coincidence, Dave and I have long-standing plans to spend this weekend at the beach with the kiddos.  We’ve got a rental house lined up and everything.  Obviously, if I go to trial on Tuesday, I’m not going to be able to go to the beach.  Instead, Dave will take the kids there himself.  None of us wants that to happen.

At dinner tonight, Dave and I were explaining this to Mia.  She wanted to know more about why I might not be able to go.  It’s not easy explaining my job to her, but I did the best I could.  It went something like this:

Mia:  Why can’t you go to the beach with us?

Me:  I might be able to go.  I’m trying to convince the bad guys that they are wrong and my client is right, so that we won’t have to go to court.

Mia:  What are the bad guys wrong about?

Me:  They want my client to pay them a lot of money.

Mia:  Why do they want your client to pay them a lot of money?

Me:  Because they’re too lazy to get money some other way.

Mia:  Well, they should just go stand on a street corner and ask people for money.

Clearly she still has a lot to learn about the value of money, and how to get it.  But she clearly has a bright future in stand-up comedy!

(And keep your fingers crossed for me to go to the beach!!)

Texas Exes’ Lone Star Stampede 5K

Today was the Texas Exes’ Lone  Star Stampede 5K.  My second organized race – whoo-hoo!

The morning didn’t start off very well.  I slept through my alarm.  The only reason I even made it to the race was because Dave woke me up.  His sleep schedule is still off from his trip to London, so he was up at 5 AM.  The race started at 8:00 this morning.  At 7:20, Dave woke me up.  Fifteen minutes later, I was out the door in a panic.  Being so late to arrive, the parking situation was bad.  The best parking space I could find was about a twelve-minute walk from the starting line.  Luckily, I found that parking space fifteen minutes before the start time, so I arrived frazzled but on time.

The actual run was good.  The course was just a few blocks away from my office, so I was familiar with the locale.  Not that I’ve ever run there before, but it was nice being in familiar surroundings.  The course was on city streets, some of which were asphalt, and others of which were cement.  I continue to have this idea that running on hard surfaces like that is harder on my body.  That might be true; I don’t know.  What I do know is that I’ve now done a few 3-mile runs on roads or sidewalks, and I feel fine afterwards.  So maybe I need to let that idea go.

Or just as likely, maybe I just don’t run enough miles, or at a high enough speed, to really make a difference.  Who knows.  I’m just glad to still be running.

It may be silly, but it turns out that one of my favorite things about organized races is the opportunity to choose music to listen to that fits the theme of the event.  Since this race was sponsored by the Texas Exes, I chose music that reminded me of my time at UT and in Austin generally.  I lived in Austin from 1987 to 1998.  It was a time of great change in my life.  The years I spent in Austin included my first time living away from home, going to college (with all the adventures and misadventures that entailed), getting married, getting a job or two, and getting divorced.  Austin was the first place I was ever on my own.  The Austin me didn’t do a perfect job of living her life, but she did the best she could.  And based what I chose for this race, here’s some of her favorite music:

Texas Twister (Little Feat).  I had never heard of this band before, but I dated a guy for awhile who liked them.  I have a memory of driving along 2222 with him on some sunny day, with the windows down, listening to this song and admiring the lake.  It’s a perfect song for sunny Texas days, and it turns out to be pretty good for running, too.

Run-Around (Blues Traveler).  For some reason, Austin and harmonicas just seem to go together.

December (Collective Soul).  This song was popular during a time when my marriage was falling apart and I was drifting aimlessly in a dead-end job.  I felt lost and disillusioned, so this song really resonated with me.

Fly (Sugar Ray).  Great song for dancing on 6th Street.

Here Comes the Hotstepper (Ini Kamoze).  For awhile I worked in a bank vault, counting money all day long.  Locked in our own little cubicles, and not wanting to lose count of our money, it wasn’t easy for us to talk to each other.  Most of the time, most of us listened to music on our Sony Walkmans.  My cube neighbor introduced me to this song one day.  It’s totally mindless, but catchy and really gets you moving.  Even if it’s just bouncing in your chair a little bit as you count huge piles of cash in a tiny cubicle.

Ice Ice Baby (Vanilla Ice).  I hate having people respect me, so I’m going to go ahead and admit that I love this song.  It may be one of the most perfect songs ever written, in my humble opinion.  Except for the part about having “the ragtop down so my hair can blow.”  Because I’ve seen Vanilla Ice’s haircut, and his hair isn’t going to be blowing anywhere!

I Know What Boys Like (The Waitresses).  Food, right?  That’s what boys like?  Because it’s a bunch of waitresses singing the song.  Right??

But Not Tonight (Depeche Mode).  Depeche Mode was my favorite band since before I went to Austin, I loved them the whole time I lived there, and I love them still.  Black Celebration was a favorite album of mine for a LONG time.  I would listen to it constantly, especially when I was walking around campus.  (That Sony Walkman got a lot of use.)  As someone who was away from home for the first time and really discovering who I was, the lyrics about “I haven’t felt so alive in years” especially spoke to me.

The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades (Timbuk 3).  I still love this song.  It reminds me of days when the future really WAS that bright.  And also, it reminds me that it still is.

So there you have it.  Stay tuned for an update once the times are posted.  I have a feeling this run was a bit faster than the last one.  Mostly just because it was all on level ground, instead of grass and a giant hill like Yuri’s Night, not because my pace has actually picked up.  Because that would just be crazy!

A Quarter-Century

I’ve started reading the book Weaveworld by Clive Barker.  It is one of the May book club books for Goodreads’ SciFi and Fantasy Book Club, and I’m hoping for some interesting discussions.  It’s been a long time since I’ve read anything by Clive Barker, and although Weaveworld is more fantasy than his horror novels I’ve read before, I’m really looking forward to it.

The copy of Weaveworld that I got from Amazon was published in 2001, fourteen years after Weaveworld was first published in 1987.  My edition includes an introduction by Clive Barker.  Among other things, he talks about the fact that during those fourteen years, the author who wrote Weaveworld had disappeared.  His point being that he had changed over those years, to the point where he was no longer the same person he had been fourteen years earlier.  When I read that, at first it made me sad.  The thought of losing your past self seemed like something regrettable.  The more I thought about it, though, the more I came to think that it’s not sad at all.  Instead, I think it’s inevitable, normal, and probably even beneficial.

It just so happens that I graduated from high school the same year Weaveworld came out.  Twenty-five years ago.  Clive Barker’s introduction got me thinking about the incarnation of me who existed in 1987.  Like the 1987 Clive Barker, the 1987 me has also disappeared.  I got thinking about all the changes in my life since then, which have necessarily also changed me.  Here are a few highlights:

Addresses I’ve lived: 13, including my parents’ house, two different dorms in college, six different apartments, two different rental houses, and two houses Dave and I have owned.

Cars I’ve owned: 6, including a stripped-down black Nissan pickup truck (my first car), a red Dodge Neon (unfortunately totaled during my first week of law school when someone ran a red light right in front of me, causing me to broadside them), a teal Mitsubishi Eclipse (bought used from my sister-in-law), a blue Volkswagen Passat (such a frustrating car that I’ve sworn off German cars for the rest of my life), a silver Infiniti G-35 coupe (my once and future car, I loved that thing way too much), and my current white Mitsubishi Endeavor.

Significant others: somewhere around 10, including two who became husbands.

Jobs I’ve had: hard to say exactly, depending on whether certain promotions or transfers count as different jobs, so let’s just count employers.  That number is 10, including American Airlines (a co-op job in college), HEB grocery store (as a bookkeeper during college and shortly thereafter), First Interstate Bank and Chase Bank (various jobs from working in the vault to bank teller to “relationship manager”), a federal judge (summer internship during law school), and five different law firms.

Pets I’ve had: 7, including five dogs and two cats.  I don’t have any at the moment, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.

Places I’ve traveled: various and sundry, including Scotland, England, France, Germany, the Galapagos Islands (my all-time favorite trip), Italy, Hawaii, Kenya, Tanzania, and Mexico.  Plus plenty of domestic travel, much of which was for work.

Babies I’ve had: 2, and I’m done.

So it’s been a busy quarter-century.  Is is any surprise that the 1987 me has disappeared?  Is there any other way?  I saw this quote the other day: “He who rejects change is the architect of decay.  The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.”  (Harold Wilson)  I think that’s probably right, on an individual level as well as a societal one.

How about you?  How have you changed over the past 25 years?  How will you change during the next 25?

Running Update

I’m very happy to report that I’ve been running pretty regularly lately.  So far this year, I have successfully completed the Couch to 5K program.  As advertised, once I completed that program, I successfully ran in a 5K race.  I’m signed up to run another 5K next weekend.  Things are going so well, in fact, that I think I’ve started training for a 10K.  I am almost starting to think my old dream of running a marathon might actually be possible.

My “normal” run now is 3 miles.  That is amazing to me considering that I was pretty much sedentary four months ago.  Also amazing is the fact that my knees are feeling fine.  They have been kinda messed up for years, since an unfortunate roller blading mishap back in the ‘90s.  An unfortunate skiing mishap in the ‘00s made them even cracklier.  Although many people talk about how bad running is for your knees, so far I have found that the more often I run, the less knee pain I have.  Recent studies suggest that perhaps running is actually GOOD for people’s knees, or at least not harmful, and so far that seems to be true for me.  Let’s hope that continues.

I am a very slow runner.  My current pace is about a 13-minute mile.  All the other runners at the park pass me.  Once I was passed by some woman who was walking.  (She was doing that freaky Olympic-style walking that looks completely bizarre.)  The competitive part of me – and sometimes I wonder if there’s any NON-competitive part of me – feels like I need to do something about this.  I have seen plenty of training plans designed to help increase running speed.  For the moment, though, I think I have come to terms with my speed, or my lack thereof.  At this point in my life, I am clearly never going to be in a position where my speed matters to anyone but myself.  Train as I may, I’ll never be an Olympic runner.  (Sob!)  Therefore, my running is only about my health.  And I suspect that the health benefits are about the same regardless of whether I run fast or slow.  Thinking again about my knees, I even suspect that running slowly is easier on them, and therefore healthier for me personally.  So I’m coming to the realization that my competitive side needs to just suck it up and accept the fact that I’m engaged in an activity where other people are always going to be WAY better than me.  Now that I think about it, that’s probably as healthy for my ego and my psyche as running is for my body.  Win-win!

I wish I could say that all this running has helped me lose a bunch of weight.  I suppose I COULD say that. I also could say that I’ve recently purchased a herd of unicorns and moved to Neptune.  Doesn’t mean it’d be true, but I could say it.  No, I actually haven’t lost any weight, nor are my clothes getting any looser.  I’m neither disappointed nor surprised by this, though.  I have been engaging in the fallacy of thinking that “Since I’m working out more, I can eat more!”  And of course when I eat more, it’s not like I’m eating more fruits and vegetables.  I eat more, and I eat worse.  Boo!!

I think that I may be approaching the end of my patience with myself about my poor eating habits.  I am proud of myself for making time to go running, and it frustrates me to be sabotaging my efforts by mindless overeating.  Running as much as I am, I could be making real progress towards my weight-loss goals if only I would get my eating habits back in order.  So today I restarted keeping track of what I eat.  I’m going to do it for one week and see what kind of results I get.  I can do anything for just one week, right???  Then we’ll see what happens the week after that.  And so on, and so on, etc……

A Shout-Out to My Husband

I don’t talk about him very often on this blog, but it’s time for me to give a much-deserved shout-out to my husband.  This past weekend, he rode in the BP MS 150.  For those of you who haven’t heard of it, the MS 150 is a two-day, 160-mile fundraising cycling ride organized by the National MS Society.  This ride is the largest event of its kind in North America.  In 2011, the event raised more than $16 million for MS.  The ride begins Saturday morning in Houston.  Riders cycle about 80 miles to La Grange, where they spend the night in a huge campground at the Fayette County Fairgrounds.  Sunday morning, they wake up and cycle another 80 miles to Austin.

Dave has been cycling regularly for over three years now.  Most days, he cycles about 20 miles.  Two or three times a week, he does a long ride that is currently around 40-50 miles.  (Those of you who know Dave know that he is not a creature of moderation!)  Because he cycles so much, he felt pretty confident that he would be able to finish the MS 150.  He expected it to be difficult though, because a) the weather forecast for Saturday included a strong headwind, and b) the course travels through the Texas Hill Country, which is – you guessed it – hilly.

Dave finished the whole ride.  Saturday was tough.  The wind was as bad as predicted.  More experienced riders told Dave that the winds on Saturday were the worst in at least the last ten years.  Once he made it to La Grange, it was time for refreshments and camping with his team.  His team is from the local bike store where he gets all his gear.  He now has three bikes, with quite a bit of gear.  He has also bought a bike for Mia there.  Plus, it seems like he needs bike repair and/or maintenance at least once a month.  Consequently, he is a regular at the bike shop, and has come to know the owners pretty well.

By long-distance cycling standards, his team is apparently a bunch of tattooed hooligans.  They spent the evening bonding with each other by trading stories about their wild-and-crazy exploits.  Dave enjoyed it, because it let him relive some of his glory days of bartending his way through college at UT.   Having just finished a hilly 80-mile bide ride into a headwind, they also spent the evening eating.  Their team was catered by a taco truck.  It was called The Pink Taco.  The slogan was “Eating Out Never Tasted This Good.”  Some of you Dear Readers may be giggling right about now.  If so, your mind is in the gutter, right where the taco truck people wanted it!  His team also had a custom-made piñata in the shape of a “Nasty-Ass Honey Badger.”  Instead of candy, it was filled with biking goodies like tire repair kits and little food packs that you can eat while you’re riding.  It was a big hit, so to speak.

Sunday, Dave headed to Austin.  It was another hilly ride, but the wind was gone.  Dave finished easily.  The kiddos and I went to Austin on Saturday so we could see him cross the finish line.  Some of his friends also came out to cheer him on.  Overall he had a great time, and he plans to do it again next year.

The whole point of the ride is fundraising.  The organizers require that each rider raise at least $400.  Anyone who doesn’t is allegedly banned from ever riding in it again.  It is not uncommon for see individual riders who raise over $10K, although most riders raise around $1K.  Dave’s goal was to raise $1,200.  He met his goal, raising $1,275 so far.  I say “so far” because it’s not too late to donate!  If you want to help contribute to the cause, click here to go to Dave’s fundraising page.  Any donations are appreciated, and go to a very cause.

Congratulations to Dave!  And thank you to everyone who has supported his efforts along the way.

Toddlers and Tiaras

Sometimes I am judgmental.  I try hard not to be, but sometimes I can’t help myself.

Like when I happen to see the show Toddlers and Tiaras.  Alone in a hotel room tonight with an hour to kill, I watched an episode.  I know that my time would have been better spent doing almost anything else, but it was a long and tiring day, and I just wanted to turn off my brain.  In the immortal words of W, Mission Accomplished.

By Toddlers and Tiaras standards, this episode was actually pretty tame.  None of the little girls were wearing fake boobs.  Neither were any of them dressed up like prostitutes.  Still, it managed to be an incredibly shameful display of bad parenting.  This episode featured little SamiJo, who (like Cindy Lou Who) was no more than two.  SamiJo apparently usually does very well in pageants, but she wasn’t really into it this week.  She just stood there on stage, not really doing anything at all, while the announcer introduced her as follows: “Her interests include dancing, pageants, traveling, and modeling.  Her ambition when she grows up is to be Miss America.”

This sent me right into full-blown judgmental mode.  How sad for this little two-year-old girl.  What kind of toddler is truly interested in doing pageants, or modeling?  Or wants to be Miss America?  How sad that those are her alleged interests, instead of normal 2YO things like splashing in puddles, finger painting, or even playing with Barbies.  That’s right, this show makes me feel good about Barbies, which is really saying something.

But then it got even worse.  After little SamiJo froze up on stage, the camera cut to one of the other moms.  She had in the past had run-ins with SamiJo’s mom, who allegedly called her daughter ugly in a previous episode.  (Her daughter was named Camarie, because apparently she really liked eating calamari during her pregnancy and wanted to name her after that.  I couldn’t make this stuff up.)  Anyway, Camarie’s mom gloated about SamiJo’s poor performance, confiding that “All the moms feel kind of happy when one of the other girls flubs it.”  Wow, there goes the only possible redeeming quality of these pageants – the opportunity for everyone to cheer for these little toddlers.  I have to at least give her credit for being honest, I suppose.  But geez, it’s just so sad thinking of the little kids growing up in that environment.

At the end of the show, SamiJo ended up winning a higher award than Camarie, despite her poor performance.  And SamiJo’s mom ended up giving a more quotable quote than Camarie’s mom.  Here’s her very insightful take on why her daughter won:  “I definitely think that sometimes beauty is all it takes to win an award at a beauty pageant.”

Thanks for that.  I wasn’t sure how that worked.  And now I don’t need to watch the show again, hopefully ever.

Yuri’s Night – UPDATE re Results

The results from the 5k are in, and I am officially slow, but not quite as slow as I thought. Turns out I ran it in 42:42. Which is pretty cool, since 42 is also my age! Speaking of age, one of the nice things about being so old is that my whole age class is slow. I was 18th in my age class, so that’s not too shabby! That time would have placed me 44th if I was in the 30-39 year old class, or 41st if I was still in my 20s. Looking ahead though, I see that my time would only put me at 15th if I was in my 50s. So I guess from now on if I want to move up in the standings I need to actually run faster. What a radical idea!

Yuri’s Night 5K Race Report

It feels very odd calling this a “race report” considering how slowly I run, but that’s what these things are called, so so be it.

This morning I participated in my first organized running event, the Yuri’s Night 5K Fun Run. I had two goals going in: (1) to run the whole way, and (2) to have a nice slow time that would be easy to beat later, so that I can experience the thrill of setting numerous “personal records” in the future. OK, that second thing wasn’t actually a goal of mine, it was just unavoidable. I was hopeful that I’d be able to run the whole way like I wanted, but I wasn’t sure. I’ve just finished the Couch to 5K program, but the farthest I’ve ever run on the program is about two miles. A 5K is 3.1 miles, so that’s significantly farther. But I kind of figured that if I was getting tired, I could always run slower, right?

Well, I was very happy with myself, because I did manage to run the whole way. It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t too bad. Here are some things I learned during the run.

1. Organized races mean big crowds. I prefer to run alone. Running is my “me” time, the only time I can be alone with my thoughts and have some peace and quiet. I typically run outdoors, in popular running areas, so it’s not like I’m not used to having people around. But it was still very foreign to have so many people around me. I don’t really do well with big groups of strangers, so I felt very much outside my comfort zone at the beginning of this morning. Before the run, I took a walk by myself to a part of the park that was deserted. Once the run was under way, I had gotten used to all the people, and by the time the run was over, I was beginning to feel some camaraderie. I almost wished I had time to stick around for the post-race barbecue. Maybe next time…

2. Running in new places means new challenges. This course seemed difficult to me. It was laid out in a loop around the park, and we did two laps to get to 5K. The start/finish line was situated in the middle of an uphill stretch, which meant that we had to start the race going uphill, and also had to end the race going uphill. That kind of sucked, in my opinion. I felt like we were never going downhill! Also, that stretch of the loop had us running on a cement road. This also made it seem more difficult to me, because cement is such a hard surface to run on. My crackly knees don’t appreciate it! After the cement portion of the loop, we turned off road to run across a field, up a pretty steep hill, down the other side of the hill, and then a fairly long stretch of trail running through a forest. I disliked running across the field almost as much as the cement. The field was uneven, dewy, and muddy in places. This was challenging for someone who like me, who has been dubbed “occasionally clumsy” by my friends. I tend to trip over things. Sometimes I even trip over things that are hardly even there. So if you make me run through a field with grassy clumps, ditches, and mud piles, there is a high potential for mishap. Somehow, though, I managed to keep running through the field, up the hill, and even down the hill without tripping, falling down, twisting my ankle, or really doing any damage at all. I was going pretty carefully though, kind of running on my tiptoes, which was probably a pretty amusing sight. The trail run through the woods was by far my favorite part of the course. It was cool and shady, the woods smelled good (there was even some honeysuckle in there somewhere), and the path was soft but reasonably level dirt.

3. I am a very slow runner. OK, I actually knew this already, so I didn’t really “learn” it during this run. But I don’t normally time myself over any given distance, so I never really knew what my pace was before. Now I know just how slow I am. The official times haven’t been posted yet, and I was too tired at the end of the race to remember to stop the timer on my watch, but I think I did the 3.1 miles in about 44 minutes. Maybe a bit longer. So I run a 15-minute mile. I’m pretty I sure I know people who can walk faster than that. Oh well. At least I didn’t make the rookie mistake of starting out too fast and then getting so tired that I couldn’t finish. I was very tired at the end of the race, but not so tired that I couldn’t speed up and finish (relatively) strong.

4. This is fun! Despite my slow pace, I really enjoyed myself. I usually find it difficult to enjoy things that I’m not good at, or don’t win. But for whatever reason, I had a very good time this morning. Maybe it’s because all that matters is how I measured up compared to my own goals (which I achieved). Or maybe it’s because running is such an internal thing that I don’t really care how I stack up compared to other people. Or maybe it’s because I’m old enough now that I don’t expect to be able to compete with the really good runners, so there’s no pressure. Or maybe it just feels good to be outside on a pretty morning, running through a park. Probably it’s all of the above.

All I know is, I’m already checking the calendar for that next race…

UPDATE: Say Cheese Photo

A little while ago I posted about my experience with having my photo taken for work.  The finished product turned out pretty good.  I guess those professional photographers know a thing or two about how to take a decent picture after all.  Here it is:

 

Dave agrees that it’s a good picture.  He said he likes it because I’m smiling, but still it’s a smile that says (in his opinion), “I’ll f*ck you up!”  I don’t see that myself, but who am I to argue with him?  After all, he sees my facial expressions a whole lot more than I do.  So watch out, world!

Outer Space Music

This Saturday, I’m running in my first 5K.  Technically, it’s not the first time I’ve run a 5K.  Back in the day, I would run 4 miles a few times a week.  But that was many years, many pounds, and a couple of pregnancies ago.  Consequently, this feels like my first 5K, so that’s what we’ll call it.

Being such a monumental occasion, I gave some thought to choosing the right 5K for me.  This one is near Dylan’s second birthday, which is an obvious milestone.  It is also close to Mother’s Day, which seems like an appropriate time for me to do something good for myself.  My favorite thing about this 5K, though, is that it commemorates human achievement in outer space.  Specifically, it is the Yuri’s Night 5K.  Yuri’s Night (which actually falls on April 12) marks the anniversary of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s first manned spaceflight in 1961, as well as the inaugural launch of NASA’s Space Shuttle twenty years later.  So I am staying true to my geeky roots, which I love.

I don’t like to run without music.  And such a special race deserves a special playlist, don’t you think?  I think so, so I’ve been gathering space-themed music for the occasion.  During the process, my standards have loosened, so that now I’ve got songs in there that are more about flight than space flight, or that happen to have some astronomical word in their title, just because I like them so much.  Here’s what I’ve got so far:

Major Tom (Peter Schilling) – obviously; great for running and also directly on point – this one will be played more than once.

Rocket Man (Elton John) – again, obviously, although it doesn’t really have a very good beat for running.

Vertigo (U2) – not really about space, but I’m sure I’d have vertigo if I was up that high, and this one DOES have a good beat for running.

The Final Countdown (Europe)

Under the Milky Way (The Church)

Man on the Moon (R.E.M.)

Paper Planes (M.I.A.) – this is one that’s not really about space at all, I just love it

Magic Carpet Ride (Steppenwolf) – because a magic carpet could take you to outer space, right?

Drops of Jupiter (Train)

Starships (Nicki Minaj)

Circling Around the Moon (John Mellencamp) – awful for running, but pertinent, so it gets a spot in the cool-down

Did I miss any biggies?  I know there are other space songs out there, but I exercised my veto power over many of them because they were either too slow, or too trippy, or too long, or all of the above.  Or I just didn’t like them.  If you have one that deserves consideration, let me know.  This is still a work in progress for sure!