An End And A Standing Invite

This is my last post here at The Take Home Blog.

Thanks for stopping by this blog, which was a part of my graduate journalism class in blogging, taught at the Harvard University Extension School, instructed by Elizabeth Soutter.  It has been a great semester.  I loved this class, I learned so much. Too, I loved my professor, she is top quality.

If you like this blog, come over to I've Got My Best Shoes On, its where you usually can find me.
If you don't like this blog, come over to I've Got My Best Shoes On.  I'll try to improve.

Hope to see you over there.

Love The One You're With

Hubby devolved into an obsessive IKEA website devotee, rearranging and designing virtual kitchens well into the wee hours of the night.  I did not pick up on this warning sign, naively going about my day, using my kitchen sink with abandon, washing pots and produce willy-nilly without a care in the world.

A few weeks later, watching as brown cardboard box after brown cardboard box was carted into my basement by two wiry men in identical dark blue clothing like Thing 1 and Thing 2, I broke out in a cold sweat.  Hubby’s hobby was becoming my reality and I wasn't fully prepared. 

We are now 4 weeks into the kitchen rehabilitation and we have had a few adventures, like when an unsupported, seven-foot tall cabinet went into severe tilt while Hubby was trying to load it with groceries.

As I looked over the remnants of my former kitchen, the circa 1990's slate grey countertops sawed in pieces, the carcasses of mangled cabinets ripped from their berths, I said, “We are really in this now.”

"No turning back," he confirms.

I realize that we are deep - really, irrevocably deep - in the club of IKEA.

I am reminded of that song that goes, "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you are with."

I remember that in times of stress, a good strategy is to Find Your People.

I took a trip to ikeafans.com and it did not disappoint.

If you are chin high in furniture and furnishings with funky spelling and questionable pronunciation, this is the site for you.  This site contains forums that explicitly explain what Swedish-tinged, vague illustrations do not.  There are blogs detailing kitchen renovations day by day, making my current situation feel so much less catastrophic. Here you can find those long lost instructions on how to install shelves and posts like "Top Five Things To Do With Flat Pack Boxes."

As any IKEA customer knows, flat pack cardboard boxes are part of the IKEA lifestyle.  Not to brag, but bullet #3, Make Cardboard Castles, has been thoroughly mastered by the two princesses-in-waiting in our house. We now make giant treasure maps and dance floors.

I then took a trip over to positivefanatics.com, also for IKEA clients.  Here you can commiserate with somebody who has tried to retrofit the very same VARDE cabinet that is making your knuckles and brain bleed.  You can find the exact location of those missing 1'4" wooden dowels that are packed in a different box, taped, inside an unmarked flap.  You can even get a jumpstart on your next IKEA project courtesy of this scoop, "IKEA Fans Score Coveted 2011 IKEA Catalogs Two Weeks In Advance."

It is nice to know that when you are in the trenches, you are not alone.  Those days when you think you might lose your mind from the hammering and your back is stiff  from washing dishes and strawberries in the bathtub because the kitchen sink is not hooked up, you can always Tweet to Your People, those @IKEAfans who have gone before you on this adventure of 50 boxes of kitchen.

How To Get Back In The Saddle

Photo by D Medeiros

I injured my back almost two years ago, effectively putting my running shoes on ice. I have since healed and my running has resumed. But two years after my initial injury, I still hadn't run a race. Why the avoidance? In my mind, a less-than-stellar official performance would confirm my fear: I am not be the runner I used to be.

But really, who is the runner any of us used to be?

We had a tête-à-tête and my internal naysayer quieted. I laced up my big girl shoes, determined to get a race under my newly rehabilitated belt and reclaim the tag, "runner."

If you are also looking to get back in competitive mode after a hiatus, and you are not Lance Armstrong or Michael Phelps, please learn from me, a runner who runs like the rest of us.

1. Find a race and course within your comfort zone.

There is no need to go for a marathon your first time back out in the field. Like Bob says in the movie, What About Bob?, “Baby steps, baby steps.” For most of us, a 5 kilometer race should suffice. I found such a race, held on a Sunday, that went right through my neighborhood, which means I train that particular course frequently. Any more in my comfort zone and I’d be running in my pajamas in my living room.

To find local races in your area, try coolrunning.com or active.com.

2. Do not look up your previous splits and race times.

Times are not that important. The goal here is to get your running legs back and remind those muscles fibers, including those in your brain, what running a race feels like. The twitching nerves at the start, the jostling for position, the calm when you settle in your rhythm, the self talk, these are the components of racing with which you should get reacquainted.

3. Look the part.

Update your gear. Shoes, helmets, tires, they all lose their essential properties and break down over time.  Same as your knees and hips if you use old, worn gear.

You are a clean slate. Running on sneakers from 2002 in your favorite Frankie Goes To Hollywood t-shirt does not say "clean slate." Temper current fashion with comfort. However, you don’t necessarily need to buy Vibram Five Fingers or whatever shiny new toy has hit the market, which leads my to the next point:

4. Now is not the time to experiment.

No new training regimens or diets. Go with what has worked in the past.

Trying new foods and new nutritional supplements risks stomach and intestinal upset. A port-a-potty crawl is not the way to enjoy your first race back. I eat easily digested carbohydrates and proteins, i.e., scrambled eggs, yogurt and a banana. It’s what I know works for me.

5. Stop about the splits already!

My first race back, I ran the first mile in 7:50. I was pumped. Then, during the second mile, a fellow runner collapsed, about 5 people ahead of me. Several runners stopped to help him. I heard somebody shout, “Call 911!” Since I run with my phone I call "iphriend" and follow orders well, I leaped into action and called for medical assistance. Once proper medical attention was secured, most of continued on to finish the race, though our times for the race were now shot. Why? Because times and splits are not that important.

I run because I can.

Maybe because I am female and have battled numbers my whole life - weight, height, GPA, BMI, bra size, all of it limiting and depersonalizing, I feel strongly that numbers are not that important in the grand scheme of things. Get over it and move forward.

6. Commit

If you sign up and pay for a bib number, you are more likely to follow through to your goal. If you tell your neighbor or friend to meet you on the corner so you can walk to the race start together, you are more compelled to do it . If you tell you family and friends about the race and they make a little cheering section for you and you alone, you are going to want to show them how strong and fast you look, even running up that hellacious hill on Hunting Ave., the Heartbreak Hill of my race. This is about pride and whatever it takes to get thee to the finish line.

I didn’t win this race, but I didn’t come in last either. It’s good to be back. Like I suspected, I am not the runner I was before.

I am happy to report, I am not that runner at all anymore.

Sweet Sweet Jane

Photobucket.com

I think my hairdresser is in the wrong business.

I think she should do my taxes.

We hardly speak, which is why I keep going back. Because what I really, really love about my hairdresser is that she doesn’t talk to me.

My last hairdresser was a peach of a guy, very friendly and chatty. But early on in our relationship I made the mistake of admitting I keep current on politics and news. So every time I was in his chair he would pepper me with questions and then describe – verbosely – his opinions. What do I think of Biden's latest gaffe? Is Palin a wingnut or what? What about that guy, what's his name, who wrote that book, what's it called? I had to get myself psyched up, anticipate what he would want to talk about and read the latest Time magazine just to get a haircut.

The haircut was fine but the chatter almost did me in.

But then I found Jane, sweet, sweet Jane. She is great with hair. And as quiet as a church at midnight.

Early in the appointment, we exchange the niceties: How are the kids? Are your parents back in Europe? How was Halloween? Did you have a good conference day? I like your shoes. That sort of thing.

Then we are all done. I browse People and OK! magazines, I check my email and text on my iphriend. I daydream and overthink to my heart’s content, while Jane studies hairs numbers 6 and 334, matches them up and coordinates them like long-lost identical twins.

I hear the soft snips, like a distant halo around my head, old, dry ends falling away. Jane is a like a ballerina, her face intently serious, her slim limbs gracefully arching with gentle, soundless steps around my chair. Snip, snip, pirouette, snip.

Just like marriage, when you find your match, it’s best to settle in. In my current follicular situation, I settle in for 2 hours and fork over $135 dollars plus tip when we are done. This is a fair price for a good haircut and some silence, better than a therapist’s couch.

If you like quiet, too, know that you are not alone, although you might want to be. Here is a list of top ten careers for quiet people from careerbuilder.com. #10 is writers. Hairdressers do not even make the list. Nor do tax preparers.

The Crazy Lady Stays Alive

In the middle of the week, in the middle of the day, I was in such need of endorphins, I went out for a run.

And it was indeed beauteous.

Photo by L McWilliams

The crisp crunch of rice crispy treat-like leaves in day-glow colors, the bright sun, the invigorating air, it was all wonderful, just what I needed.

I forgot about the hunters.

About half-way through my run, mile 2.5, I came upon this sign:

Since it is now officially hunting season, a run through these woods is fraught. Fraught with freedom, fraught with natural beauty, true that. It's also fraught with hunting folk that may or may not notice I am a human and thus, non-huntable according to law.

This sign says people should wear hunter's orange as a precaution. 

I look down at myself.  I am wearing not one scintilla of orange. I am wearing grey, black and white.

Like a white-tailed deer.

www.how-to-draw-funny-cartoons.com

I decide:

1. I will run, wee, wee, wee, all the way back to my car.

2. I will sing while running because deer do not sing.

I take off, singing loudly enough, I reason, to alert people. Possibly I am alerting them to a crazy lady singing by herself in the woods, but no matter. The crazy lady stays alive.

I imagine hunters whispering in the woods:

Shhhh....Henry, I hear something.

Oscar, I hear it too.

Wait...it sounds familiar. I can't place it.

Me, too. I know this call. Is it a yellow-bellied warbler?

I don't know. Does a yellow-bellied warbler sound like ABBA?

Hmmmmmm....you are right, that's no warbler. That's "Dancing Queen."

Here is the new hunter's orange shirt I will now wear when I feel the need to take a gamble and run in the woods, which is never:

That was my fastest 2.5 mile run ever, a personal best of sorts.

UPDATE:
Just a few weeks later I found this article from the dailyGrafton how a recent jogger on the same trail was not so lucky and got injured from buckshot.

Hunter's orange is the new black, apparently.

Ketchup Is A Condiment, Not My Friend

Photo by L McWilliams

That I can "friend" my ketchup is confusing and even jarring. Ketchup is a condiment, not a friend. I consume ketchup in a way that is neither reciprocal nor friendly. Nonetheless, I see from the label that I can follow my ketchup brand on Facebook.

Facebook has been called many things, like a huge waste of time (said Betty White hilariously on "Saturday Night Live"), a piece of marketing genius, this generation's pet rock. After a bit of experimentation, I declared Facebook not for me. I'll take my email, my iphriend and my blog. I am too old for the web 2.0 wizardry.

Then I went on Twitter.

I thought Twitter users simply answered the question of What Are You Doing Now?

My life is not interesting enough to tweet that kind of information. I cut grapes for the kids at breakfast. I get dressed, cut some grapes for snack. Throw in a load of laundry, contemplate existential questions like "Is ketchup my friend?" and cut some grapes for lunch.

I certainly don't want to read anybody's grape-cutting Tweets. I don't necessarily care to get up-to-the-minute updates on some starlet's latest failed drug test or Mel Gibson's most recent rant.

My hand was forced. As per class instructions, I opened up a Twitter account. I browsed through feeds. Whatever.

But oh, there is McSweeney's. I love that online magazine. That's pretty cool. Oh wait, National Public Radio has an account? Awesome, I'll follow that one, too.

Then I found a running list of the Best Tweets of the Day and included was the Dalai Lama's tweet, "An authentic attitude of compassion doesn't change, even faced with another person's negative behavior."

The Dalai Lama tweets.

It was just what I needed. Because the Queen Bee of the neighborhood let her dog poop on the sidewalk and she talks around me, still, after 5 years of living in the same neighborhood. I needed a refresher on why compassionate thinking is worthwhile. If Twitter is good enough for the Dalai Lama then surely it is good enough for me.

Now, instead of existential questions around ketchup, I have Twitter on the brain: If I tweet on Twitter, does that make me a twat? Or just a twit? If I can't understand Twitterspeak, am I a twidiot? Am I twilliterate?

Questions to be answered on another day, I suppose.

You Tell Me

Photobucket.com

They might have told us that timing and delivery are key.

When my husband and I were first engaged, close friends revealed a tactic that helped diffuse their squabbles. When presented with an annoyance of the marital variety, one would say to the other, “Who cares?” Seemingly, the tension then dissolved, highlighting how trivial some issues can be.

We were relative newbies to coupledom and vulnerable to well-meaning advice-givers. We wanted that elixir, the mysterious superglue that keeps partners together no matter what.

One early morning, getting out of bed and blindly treading to the bathroom in the darkness, I tripped on a large speed bump in the bedroom. I stumbled, stubbed my toe, my ankle turned in at an angle it shouldn’t. Cursing and then opening my eyes fully now rudely ripped from the twilight of just waking up, I saw the speed bump was discarded shoes, dirty clothes and socks from the day before, a common occurrence we had discussed previously. I oh so delicately crafted my request with a loud, “Could you pick up your shi** please!?”

From underneath the safety of warm blankets and a bed a few steps away, a muffled voice said, “Who cares?”

There was a pause. I blinked and then gathered a large breath, like that behemoth monster face in "The Mummy" who blew up that tremendous windstorm…

This incident taught us some things. For one, it affirmed that I am humorless in the morning. I might have been more receptive after a few cups of coffee. Also, we learned that this little catchall phrase didn’t work for us. Because obviously I CARE THAT’S WHY I AM SAYING SOMETHING. SHITHEAD.

I think of this incident now when I browse the parenting magazines that stand at attention at the gym and when I hear couples “experts” on He Said/She Said segments on the “Today Show.” “A woman really wants…,” says one. “What men hear is…,” counters the other. Who are these people anyway?

Ten years into our marriage, Hubby or I will now sometimes say, “Who cares?” but only in jest. “Who cares?” is our nuptial hot sauce, to be used sparingly, with forethought. I’d like to report that Hubby now puts his clothes in the hamper but alas, that would be an untruth. I’d like to say that I can let little things slide in the wee hours before my coffee, but nay.

I’d like to say that I can let things slide period. I’m a work in progress, too.

That friendly couple with the marital advice? They got divorced a few years ago.

"The Mummy" trailer, circa 1999: