9 March 2013

Back in January, I signed up for a Nike virtual 10K; instead of a run/walk event where you get up at Too-Fricking-Early to show up with a thousand other people to run or walk, this one is DIY. You run/walk, use the Nike running phone app or other Nike+ device to track your distance, synch your device or phone to Nike+ when you're done, and bingo...you're done.

This appealed to my inner night owl. I wouldn't have to get up early, I could walk wherever the hell I wanted, and the frosting on the cupcake: it was to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

AND I could pick a day: March 9th or March 10th.

So I registered, paid my fee--and happily, because that's the money that goes to the charity--and waited for my even t-shirt. Because...t-shirt. I am a t-shirt whore.

In between signing up and today, the first day I could do the 10K, I got a new toy. And that new toy, when I'm not using the motor, is a hell of a lot harder than just walking. Even when I use the motor, I'm using my body enough that my heart rate goes higher than it does when I walk.

So I caved to my inner 8 year old and decided to do the 10K on the new Trikke.

Because...toy.

I headed out this morning, and holy hell, the wind was blowing. I thought about waiting until tomorrow, but the odds of wind tomorrow are probably as high as they were for today, so I jumped on and headed out...and at the .15 mile mark started to think that maybe I would just go home and risk tomorrow being windy. Because carving that Trikke into the wind...not fun.

But then I got around the corner and had the wind at my back, and decided it was a hell of a lot of fun...as long as I could figure out a way to keep the wind at my back.

Yeah, that didn't happen. But once I was really going, getting into a rhythm with the Trikke, I figured I might as well keep going.

It felt a whole lot like cheating even though I was working harder, but I rode the Trikke for the 10K and didn't walk any of it...but really, I wasn't going for a 2nd chance slot in a marathon as some participants were today, so I didn't think it mattered. I just wanted to do something for the LLS and have fun while I was at it.

And I did.

This guarantees that tomorrow there will be no wind at all...I might have to go out again, just for the hell of it.

5 March 2013

This is why we can't have nice things...

I swear, Buddah intentionally waits for it to be wiped off, and then gets into the litter box, digs for China, and then jumps up onto the fake fireplace. And when he's done, he laughs his little asterisk off.

Max has taught him well.

2 March 2013

I walked into Starbucks a little after noon today, and the place was packed. All but one of the tables that lines the back walls was taken, my favorite table on the far wall and the two near it were taken, the long table with a good twenty chairs was partially filled, and the comfy chairs and sofas were occupied.

I felt a bit lucky to snag the little table that I did; and little is all I need. I’m half-heartedly working on an outline/taking notes for a new story, and I have no books or papers I need to spread out before me. I have my little MacBook Air (yes, be jealous, it is freaking awesome) and computer mouse, so all I need room for aside from those is my Venti Black Iced Tea.

That, by the way, now rolls off my tongue like I’ve lived in a Starbucks for ten years. One day I’m going to come in here intending to get hot chocolate, and by rote I’m going to ask for a Venti Black Iced Tead, unsweetened.

Looking around, nearly everyone here has a laptop, books, notebooks, pen and pencils and worried, furrowed lines on their foreheads. They’re young, I don’t see anyone older than about 25, and seriousness swirls around like a desperate cloud.

None of them are quite this cute

Welcome to the weekend before midterm finals at UC Davis.

I’m guessing.

It was packed like this just before last semester’s final exams; the bakery bar was kept loaded with munchies, and young adults staked out tables, only venturing forth to run to the restroom, get coffee and tea refills, and to buy sugar-laden snacks to keep themselves going.

I don’t remember being so seriously studious in college. Which might explain a lot about what little I’ve retained from those days. I can’t even blame drugs, booze, and a party lifestyle for that. We were Mormon, we didn’t have fun like that.

Dammit.

I almost feel bad that 60% of what I’m doing while I sit here is surf around Facebook. Though I did take a break from that to look in the files I have stored at Dropbox, and found 5 pages of something I started around 3 years ago, and it’s actually pretty good. I think I abandoned it to work on The King and Queen of Perfect Normal. Or The Flipside of Here. And then I forgot about it. I wrote Rock the Pink and helped =ahem= Max with Bite Me.

(Yes. Yes I did insert a little pimping there.)

I might have to pick it up soon.

But the kids here…so serious, and apparently somewhat frustrated. At least the girl sitting next to me seems to be, judging by the Oh shit…two hours on the wrong damned chapter I heard a little while ago. And by the kid running his hands through his hair, fingers so tight he’s also pulling more than a few strands out, I think.

I think most of them feel like this

Part of me wants to stand on the bench and announce that it’s not worth obsessing over; you either know it or you don’t, the tests will be a piece of cake or they won’t. Life won’t hinge on a few tests, and in 30 years you won’t really remember what felt so urgent about it all.

But then I remind myself that hey, I had really good grades but I don’t remember 90% of what I supposedly learned. Which is why I dangle participles and mangle passive/active voice, and why I tend to. Write incomplete sentences.

So I’ll just sit here and kind of pay attention to them while I get little real work done, and feel stressed for them by extension.

Hey, it’s the least I can do.

And while I’m at it, I can ponder why I thought it was a good idea to use profanity in a piece that was clearly intended to be in the Young Adult genre…

1 March 2013

Today, I should be in Charleston, and right about now I should be close to finishing the first day in the 3 day, 50 mile Challenge Walk for MS. Instead, I’m sitting in Starbucks, not working on the outline of a book I intended to be working on because playing online is way more fun, and sitting far away from anyone else because I may or may not be riddled with cooties.

DKM and I were supposed to fly out there this week and walk with Jeni and Dean McCaughan, but real life things got in the way and we had to bail. I’m just a little grateful I realized I wasn’t going to be able to go before I really started fundraising; I still feel bad about not doing the Avon Walk last year, and if I’d had to pull out of this one with any funds raised at all, I would have felt like a huge failure.

Seriously. I would have felt 20 kinds of upset and embarrassed.

In any case, Jeni and Dean are out there pounding the pavement and keeping us updated on Facebook, complete with a few pictures, which is all kinds of cool. I’m a weird level of Very Happy that they’re doing this; I know the experience of that first long walk, and it’s an amazing kind of cool I wish everyone could try, even if it’s only once.

On the end of the maybe-it’s-a-good-thing-I-didn’t-go spectrum… A couple of days ago I rode my bike up to Sacramento—it has a funky issue with eating batteries and we want to know why, even though I’m 99% sure it’s my fault for letting the bike sit in the garage off a charger for way too long this winter—and on the way home I started feeling not so great.

I felt not so great yesterday, too, and today…still not so great. It might have been something I ate—the Spouse Thingy wondered if I’d gotten another stealth mushroom, but I think I would be sicker if I had—but it also might be errant cooties coughed my way at some point.

In any case, I might have headed east and gotten sick out there.

For the record, I’m getting really tired of feeling like this. I haven’t been sick as often as I was last year and certainly nothing that’s been anywhere near the eruption that kept me from the Avon Walk, but I still have more days than I like where I don’t think venturing from home is a good idea. Or if I do, I make sure it’s someplace like Starbucks, where I can bolt to the restroom and not worry it’s going to be a gross mess of other people trashing it.

I’ve still committed myself to a few things this year: next weekend I’m walking the virtual 10K for the Leukemia & Lymphome Society, I’m crewing for the SGK 3 Day with DKM again, and I’ve been trying to register for a half marathon for the American Heart Association but I’m having issues with their website.

I’m also registered for the Avon Walk in September…but I’m not fundraising for it. I’m doing that one largely self-funded (I’ve had one good sized donation from someone who said they could care less if I walk it, ride the sweep vans all day, or spend the weekend shopping…I’m not arguing with that) and I’m doing it this way to more or less make up for last year.

Plus…I can take the tax deduction for it next year.

Also…if I find I can only walk part of it, it’s my money, so I won’t feel bad. I’ll feel bad if I can’t walk it at all, because I don’t want to miss another one and I want to hang with DKM, but if I have to hop a sweep or two…I’ll just count it as having paid for the ride ;)

(Y’all know half of why I do these things is to hang with DKM and talk about you guys, right?)

((We say nice things. Really.))

You know how when you’re trying to figure something out and you can’t because you’re too focused on it, but as soon as you stop trying to figure it out and concentrate on something else it comes to you?

The culprit, perhaps?

Fine, now that I’m sitting here not thinking about why the hell I started feeling like crap on the way home the other day and how I don’t feel as bad as I would if I’d gotten a mushroom, it occurred to me that what we had for lunch was from an Asian place in a mall.

It probably had soy in it.

Guess what I can’t consume?

Well now. Perhaps I’m cootie free after all, which kind of negates the whole, I could have been sick in Charleston thing, because I wouldn’t have eaten there on Wednesday if I’d been headed east for the walk.

And now…this post has truly become Thumper Thinking Out Loud…

Yay?

26 February 2013

WooHoo, it's Trikke season. There are more warmish days in the 60 than coolish days in the 40s, sunshine, breezes light and stiff...time to play outside.

Now, I stopped riding my Trikke for the most part when I started walking for the first 3 Day I participated in; that was out of necessity, because I really needed to focus on being able to handle mega-miles, and it became apparent once my mileage was over 6-8 miles a day that I couldn't do both.

But now...I know I can handle the miles on foot once my feet are beaten into shape, so it's time to hop back on the Trikke, which is a much better cardio workout.

The thing is...I am nowhere near in Trikking shape. Ten minutes and my shoulders ache, my back hurts, and I kinda want to throw up.

But...

BUT...

There was hope. Rather than frustrate myself into never getting back onto a Trikke--which I live when I have the wind for it--I took advantage of a chance to get one with an electric motor at a pretty spiffy price. I got the lightest one (and consequently, goes the least amount of miles on a single charge) because you can still use it just like a regular Trikke. I can go without using the motor at all, I can use just a little bit of power to keep myself going and still get a good cardio workout, or I can go full tilt, motor only, and zoom down the street while I giggle endlessly.

I took it out for its inaugural ride this afternoon; the Spouse Thingy rode on his 100% body powered T12 Trikke and kept up with me when I used the motor on its light setting...which tells me he's in better Trikke shape than I am (and the bigger wheels on his Trikke help) but that we'll also be able to ride together because I won't peter out after 20 minutes. When he decided he was ready to head home, I cranked it up to full power and took off--and holy hell, that is way more fun than I should be having.

I still managed to use my legs to carve the Trikke back and forth, so I got a little bit of a workout even going 10mph, and I was a touch winded when I got home.

I am so going to have a blast on this.

And I'm going to want a 2nd battery...most I'll get out of this one is 6 miles on the high setting, and Thumpa wants to zoom.

For my heart health! No other reason, like being pretty much immature. It's for my heart...

25 February 2013

All right...the aforementioned little black and white furball so far has not thrown a temper tantrum about the removal of the second litter box. I don't think he's happy, but he's not issuing rapid-fire complaints at me.

Could be he's happy because there's been lap time? I've had more free time since Saturday when I uploaded the files for his book to the printer and distributor. It's already gone live on Amazon for the Kindle version, but it'll probably be a couple of weeks before the print book is available. I haven't seen a proof copy yet and the distributor won't release it until I do. And given that there's already been one minor hiccup with the cover, a proof will likely be delayed for a couple of days.

The hiccup really was a small one; the front cover image lapped over the spine by about the width of a hair. I could have told them to leave it, that's fine, but when I looked at the original file I spotted a typo on the back...might as well use the opportunity to fix that.

Because I opted for 90 days of exclusivity with Amazon for the digital version, it won't be available for the Nook for a while. I went with that because sales through Barnes & Noble only accounts for about .5% (that's point-five, not five) of our overall sales, and giving Amazon exclusivity for 90 days opens the book up to a few markets at a better royalty rate than we would have gotten.

So yeah, you in India...buy the book to make it worth it.

While we wait for the proof copy of the print book--there will be signed copies available--I'm taking a few days to do fun stuff, like taking my motorcycle in for repair (it eats batteries), and then getting on the Trikke (because I got a new one and it's RED), but I'll head back to work on Thursday or Friday.

I'll be suffering Starbucks withdrawals by then, I'm sure.

And before you ask, no, the next book is not by Max. I've had a project on the back burner for almost a year and want to play with it a little bit. I have most of the story swimming around in my head...b ut I don't have character names. I'm really close to assigning them numbers instead.

Or I'll name them all after friends.

Which one of you wants to be the bad guy?

24 February 2013

Well, that was a short and miserable experiment. While the kitties were thrilled to have a litter box in the bathroom, I was not. I could live with the litter tracked out of the box. I could get over the litter they were tracking into the bathtub, because apparently after one pees and digs around in the litter the bathtub is a mighty fine place to jump into. I could even live with the sudden assault on my senses while I sat in my office when Buddah decided to bomb the litter box.

But one of them--and I won't specifically name his little furry black and white ass--can't keep said ass in the box, and was peeing all over the bathroom wall, the side of the tub, and the floor. He's already got the biggest litter box I can find short of resorting to a giant storage bin (which won't fit into the bathroom) so they're back down to one litter box.

They'll survive.

I might not, if the little black and white furball doesn't like it. Cripes.

22 February 2013

Someone small and furry and black & white has been a royal pain in the butt lately, meowing his damned little head off around 4:30 every morning. We haven't been able to figure out exactly what he wants: food (of which there is plenty available in his dish), company (which he is not getting), to tell us someone in the neighborhood just got home from or is headed for work (we don't care, really), or that he's not happy with the condition of his litter box.

With the mockup with his new book cover

He's picky as hell about that box, but I'm not getting up in the middle of the night to check it, much less to scoop it. Since we're not feeding him more, throwing him a midnight party, or tell the neighbors to be quiet, we did the one thing we could think of: we added another litter box.

In my bathroom. Because that one will get scooped more than once a day.

Joy.

This has thrilled Max to a ridiculous degree. I barely got litter into the box before he was jumping in it. And now...if I go in and close the door, when I open it he's there looking at me like how dare I take 2 minutes in HIS new bathroom, because GAWD, what if HE had to pee?

And Max? He likes to kick litter out of the box. It's such a joy to walk in there at 2 am with bare feet and have litter pieces imbed themselves in the soles of my feet.

I hope to hell this shuts him up at night. But I'm not counting on it.

17 February 2013

Out of context post warning.

Look, every kid who has a sibling knows that each parent likely has a favorite child. But your kid should never, not ever, be able to guess which child it is. Not when they're 5, not when they're 15, not when they're 40, not when they're 65 and sitting at the reading of your will.

And never should a parent actually tell any of their kids which is their favorite.

Never.

13 February 2013

The Spouse Thingy has to work tomorrow, so we decided to have Valentine's Day today. And what better way to celebrate anything on a beautiful, sunny day?

A nice long bike ride.

We geared up, intending to ride for a while and then stop for lunch, then ride some more. I got on my bike and fired it up, backed out of the garage, and it died.

And then would not start again.

Every time I tried, I heard =click=

Now, this is a PITA because it's not the first time in the last few weeks. It's like the third or fourth time. And we're already on the 3rd battery in less than 2 years in this bike.

=sigh=

So, in the shop it will go next week. And since we really couldn't think of anything else we wanted to do, we worked on cleaning out the garage.

Yep. Excitement. Thrills.

We got one whole corner sorted out!

I went back into the house after, and walked into the living room to see this:

 

This does not happen. For one, this is Buddah's tree; he claimed it and until recently, Max has respected that. I've seen him on it quite a bit in the last month or so, but not when Buddah is also on it. And I'm frankly surprised that Buddah relented his treasured spot on top.

I don't think it means anything more than they were plotting against us, and stopped when I came back into the house.

And no worries...our Valentine's Day didn't stop there. The Spouse Thingy did take me out to dinner.

Yep. I got a Big Mac at McD's,

He got Chinese take out and brought it along, but yeah...McD's.

We are so classy.

8 February 2013

Oddz N Endz # 9,4827,2874.34x/221

Stood in a shortish kind of line at Starbucks today; the woman ahead of me had a long and complicated order, which was no big deal, but I heard the women behind me chatting and one sighed, "I really should have planned this out better. I'm going to be late for work." Since I had no where I needed to be, I told them to go ahead of me, I was in absolutely no hurry. Cut to a few hours later when I went into Burger King: one of those women was working the counter, and remembered me. Instead of the small drink I ordered, she gave me a GigantiCup. After all the tea I had at 'Bucks, I'll be floating through the rest of the day.

While I was sitting there in Starbucks, Josh, the guy who owns Algood Ink sat down at a nearby table and was working on a piece of artwork. I don't know if it was for a custom tattoo or if he was just creaitng some art, but it made me really want to get my next tattoo.

I know what I want, I don't know why I haven't just gone and gotten it.

WTF is it with all the spam comments lately? I try to keep on top of them, but they're getting pretty bad, especially on Max's blog. I don't want to limit who can comment, but I have a feeling that pretty soon I'm going to have to cut off Anonymous commenting. I hate that; I hate limiting comments in any way, which is why I don't have immediate moderation on comments and have always allowed comments from everyone, and have never used word verification. That last one...I'll only go to that as an absolute last resort, because it sucks.

The Boy's Polar Plunge is coming up soon; in six days he's giving away a spiffy Bulova womens' watch. It's two-toned, shiny and spiffy, quite classy, and retails for a little over $300. If he hits his goal he's jumping as Princess Peach...and he's only $555 away from reaching it. I do hope he's already ordered his dress.

I want pizza.

But not like RIGHT THIS MINUTE. Sometime this weekend.

I kind of feel bad for whining about feeling cold when the east coast is getting slammed with another major, major winter storm, but...I'm freaking cold right now.

The Spouse Thingy is in the garage playing with his wood.

Yes, I'm that immature.

Back to 'Bucks tomorrow...getting very close to finishing this manuscript, plus it beats the hell out of housework, even though the house looks like it barfed all over itself and needs a good cleaning. If you promise to sit there quietly, you can come watch me work tomorrow.

It's exciting! Really it is!

Phfft.

4 February 2013

With red being the slowest, yellow being slowish, and green being the fastest...

...you can kinda figure out exactly when I realized I realllllly needed to get to a restroom.

That was a l o n g .65 miles...

2 February 2013

Nike running app...

Okay, I walked it because I just don't run, but it still thrilled me. I normally walk a 20 minute mile, and have no idea how the hell I pulled off a sub-15 minute mile.

I got new shoes, so that might be it.

Two of my other miles were at a 20 minute pace, the other two were at a 17:15 pace. So, yay.

I have to enjoy this now because it may never happen again.

I have to admit, too, that the other day when I went out for a walk (walking to Starbucks instead of taking the car or motorcycle) I realized that 1) I haven't been taking deliberate walks much lately, mostly because of weather, and 2) I really missed it.

Also...I like walking a hell of a lot more than I do riding my bicycle, but I think that's largely because I'm not in biking shape. My heart rate doesn't skyrocket and I don't get to where I can't breathe and talk, but my thighs are on fire by the half-mile point and stay that way.

Soooo out of shape...

But...I'm ready for the NWM 10K next month, no worries there. And if I ever freaking remember to register for it, I'm not worried about the American Heart/American Stroke Association half marathon in May (as long as I have enough time to finish...) and the big one, the Avon Walk, isn't until September so I have plenty of time to get ready for that.

For now...just going to enjoy the amazing weather we're having, and walk when I can. Only thing better would be if we were close enough to SF to go wander through Golden Gate Park on a whim, or even wander around downtown, but strolling around town is nice enough for now.

Remind of that when I'm bored with the city streets...I was having a good time in February.

And holy hell...it's February already.

Cripes.

1 February 2013

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting in Starbucks, minding my own business, when a kid who had apparently noticed me there a time or two asked what I was doing; his response to my answer was to brighten up and inform me that he had written an entire novel just the week before, with six more planned for this year.

I was so impressed, I shared it on Facebook.

 

No, I was not impressed. But today while I was sitting there in Starbucks again, working on Max's book, he was back, a rolled up manuscript clutched in his hand, and he approached me again, this time with an obvious mix of excitement and Oh My God I'm Going To Barf painted on his face.

Would I please read his book? The only other people who would read it like him too much to give him an honest opinion. 

It was twenty pages of double-spaced, 12 point Times New Roman font, maybe 8,000 words. 

Twenty minutes of my time.

So I said sure, with the caveat that I would be honest enough to hurt his feelings, and he gushed that he would walk over to Taco Bell so that he wasn't breathing down my neck, because he hated it when people did that to him.

I was grateful for that, because I hate it, too.

I expected very little from it. I mean, the kid thought he was writing an entire book when what he had was a short story at best. It wasn't even a long short story. And the vibe I got from him...well, I just didn't expect a lot, but it wasn't going to cost me anything to read it.

Thirty seconds after he bounded out the door, I was hooked.

I raced through it, sucked into the story so quickly that I was afraid I had missed something, so I went back and read it again.

His short--a story about a teenaged boy living in a world of black and white, whom everyone thinks is mentally challenged but in reality is gifted and sees the world in color--was exquisite. The narrative was tight but not so tight that it choked the wonder out of the way he wove his words together, and it was so lyrical I could practically hear the music in each syllable.

I had very little to say to him on the critical front when he returned. He wasn't upset to be told that he did not, in fact, have a novel, but a short story. He didn't mind that I pointed out the misspellings and typos. He accepted everything I told him graciously and seemed excited when I told him I thought it was a phenomenal basis for a full length book, or that it would be the shining star in an anthology if shorts are what he really wants to write.

Just keep writing.

When I originally mentioned his initial approach to me on Facebook, it started a little bit of a conversation. I mused that anyone who got through high school English should know the difference between a short story, a novella, and a novel.

I still think so.

But this kid got through high school and had no clue; why, I don't know. It's less an indictment of him than it is schools today, I suppose, but the truth is that he has an enormous talent, and I was given the opportunity today to get a glimpse of it.

Truthfully, I don't usually enjoy it when people ask me to read their work; there's a burden of expectation I loathe, and 90% of what I do read is fairly horrible and I have a hard time finding nice things to say to cushion the inevitable this-sucks-really blow. Of the other 10%, half of what I'm asked to read is largely outside of genres I'm familiar with, so my judgement isn't the best, even though I know a decent story when I see it.

But this one? I'm very glad I said yes.

And I hope he keeps writing and has the nerve to start submitting his work for pay.

I had to leave after that, because honestly, what I was writing felt inferior to what I had just read, and I didn't want to push that out of my head for a while. The rewrites on Max's book can wait until tomorrow.

30 January 2013

How I feel most of the time when someone asks me to do something:



I just can't walk away quite as adorably.

27 January 2013

All right, I'm starting to take this whole thing about my gadgets not registering everything personally.

I've taken three very short bike rides in the last couple of days; I rode to Starbucks and back, and I've gone out just to go out. I have an odometer on the bike, but for the hell of it I downloaded the Map My Ride app to my phone so that I'd have a little more data to peek at.

Now, I've walked the route to Starbucks dozens of times. I know that measured on sidewalks, it's 1.6 miles. But the app had me at .78 miles on the bicycle, and even less on the way home. And I felt kind of crappy about that, because it took me over 10 minutes to ride those short distances.

Then today I went out for a short for-the-hell-of-it ride. I went a route I know well on foot, about a mile and a half. I turned the app on jsut before I started, turned it off when I got home, and it read only .56 miles in almost 10 minutes.

I'm slow, but I'm not that slow. And I know it's a lot further than that. My bike's odometer read more than that.

So I fired up the computer and went to the website to look at the maps...and damned if it didn't stop recording about halfway each time. I don't blame the app for that; I blame Dixon, where getting a good cell or satellite signal is like getting a surprise gift.

I edited the maps, adding in the parts the app missed, and felt a whole lot better about it. Today's sub-10 minute ride was actually 1.45 miles. The ride and back to Starbucks was a little over 3 miles, not the just under 1.5 the app read.

But really...I'm starting to think I'm just some weird gadget killer.

And I've got to take longer rides, because so far, it's just been pathetic.

25 January 2013

Um...why???

No, I'm not itching to get a treadmill bike. I'm trying to figure out why anyone would, though... Let's take the thing that lets us walk indoors, slap wheels on it, and then we can walk outdoors! How novel!

I love my toys, but this one just baffles me.

This is how I felt I looked

Today, instead of the car or the motorcycle, I rode my bike to Starbucks. It's all a part of the whole getting into better shape; why waste the gas when I have a perfectly good bike?

I'll tell you why.

Because the road to Starbucks is uphill, both ways. In blasting wind. With snow and ice and a a sharp, sharp 35 degree grade.

Hey. Would I exaggerate?

It's only a mile and a half--or probably only a mile since I'm not on the sidewalks and not looping around the park partway--but I haven't been on it since the Great Colitis Debacle in July. I didn't feel like my heart rate was getting too high, but holy fritos, my legs were burning before I was even halfway there.

I survived. And I'll do it again.

I haven't been slamming myself trying to get into shape RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE. I figure I'll be more likely to stick with it if I ease into things. I'm not obsessive about my diet yet, though I need to be fairly soon; I've noticed that the days I don't eat a lot of processed carbs that my gut does better. I'm moving a bit more; there's a DYI 10K coming up in March benefitting the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and I'm walking it. I can walk 10K easy.

Worn at the same time; that's a huge difference

My big complaint with it is that, because it's a Nike event, you have to use a Nike device to upload your data after completing the 10K. I bought a Nike FuelBand, but it is so inaccurate I would have to walk an 18K for it to register all my steps. Seriously. I contacted Nike support, and after having me do a soft reset and then a hard reset, the answer was "Well, they're only 80% accurate. We're working on that."

Really? Why the frak wouldn't they work on that before taking peoples' money? You know, like FitBit and Body Media and a bunch of others got mostly right from the moment they launched.

Yeah, not happy. But they also allow the use of the Nike phone app, so I'll wind up using that for the 10K.

I'm only doing it for the t-shirt. If not for the t-shirt, phfft. 10K, 4K, whatever...

Really.

Fine, don't believe me...

21 January 2013

Wherein I bang my head on my desk...

 

This from the writer who blew me off when we were in Vegas in November. The one who blew me off once before that. We're going for our son's 30th birthday in April, not to wait on someone I know will "lose" her phone or "write down the wrong date" on the calendar.

I get points for not saying OH HELL NO, right?

I better.

18 January 2013

Things I don't care about right now.

I don't care one way or the other that Lance Armstrong is now admitting that he doped and lied about it. Partly I don't care because it's a part of the sport culture and he was by far not the only one doing it; he was simply better at it and lied harder and longer about it. Partly I don't care because...meh...in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter. Mostly I don't care because I just can't be bothered to work up enough giveadamn about the whole thing.

I don't care if the dancing toddler in Starbucks bothers you. She's not hurting anyone or anything; she's not being loud. She's just dancing to the music. I don't care if my not caring bothers you, too. She's cute, and you suck.

I don't care if you're in a "huge hurry." I was there first, in line before you, and therefore am ordering before you. If you're in that big of a hurry, don't come into an almost always busy Starbucks during the lunch rush. Go across the street to Burger King to get some coffee. They're never busy. Or the Starbucks inside the Safeway across the street. But I am not buying your excuse for poor behavior that you're in a huge hurry...I don't give a damn today.

I don't care if some football player had a pretend girlfriend who pretend died, whether or not he knew she wasn't real or not. People create relationships online. Some are very real. People get fooled by some. Sucky people lie. Sometimes people meet up, sometimes they just talk online for years and never meet face to face. It's not new, and it's not especially newsworthy. It's just...gossip.

I don't care if that chocolate cinnamon bread I tried today has a bazillion calories. It was damned good and totally worth it. But cripes...now I'm always going to know how good it is, and will have to restrain myself from buying more tomorrow.

Dammit.

12 January 2013

I didn't feel especially spiffy today, but headed over to Starbucks anyway; even with a gurgling gut I figured I could sit there and work on rewrites, and thought the change of scenery might do me some good.

There was a group of kids in line ahead of me, ranging in ages from 17 or so on down to about 11, and I was behind the youngest of the two. The kids all seemed to be making orders in pairs, and the two ahead of me were ordering together.

The guys at the registers took them seriously, which gets them bonus points from me. I've been behind kids trying to order in fast food places before, and the teens at the registers often look right over them to the next adult, even when the kids are obviously trying to put in an order of their own.

Yeah...it looked really good...

These two kids ordered the same thing, some giant strawberry concoction that would probably give me diabetes, and then the boy asked how he would know when their drinks were ready.

"We'll call your name," the guy answered, cup and pen in hand. "What is it?"

"Sponge Bobeesha," he said with a straight face.

His companion, a girl about 12, piped up, "Mine is Fried Chickeniqua."

The two guys behind the counter lost it..it was a full minute before they could stop laughing enough to take my order.

Now the kids...they were smart. Instead of hovering around the counter to wait like everyone else, they went to the other side of the store and sat down. When their drinks were ready the barista looked at the cup and muttered,"Sponge Bobeesha?"

"You have to call it out," one of the guys that had been on register told her.

The place was busy; all the Mac people were lined up on one wall, their little apples glowing, and there were several people hanging near the counter waiting for their drinks. She obviously did not want to, but she took a deep breath and called them out.

"Sponge Bobeesha! Fried Chickeniqua!"

I have never seen so many adults so close to synchronized spittakes nor heard as much abrupt laughter as I did then.

And now...I so totally need a really good Starbucks name...

11 January 2013

So.

Last year I was going to participate in the SF Bay Area Avon Walk, and y'all funded it and I was all set to go...until I wound up in the ER and spent the entire weekend of that walk--and beyond--sicker than I've ever been. I've attempted 3 times, I think, to go to SF and spend a couple of days making up those miles, but either weather or real life has intruded, so it has not yet happened.

But.

Unless something big happens, I'll be walking them on January 23rd and 24th. Since the beginning of the year I've been peeking in at Hotels.com, waiting for a decent room rate, and connected with one tonight, so I grabbed it. Funny enough, last night when I looked, I couldn't find a room for under $250. Tonight...nice hotel right near Union Square.

I love walking around San Francisco. You get to see the most interesting people and tons of funky and funny things.

Like this.

There are some things you just don't do in SF, and a stretch limo in most parts of the city is one of them.

'Course, you're just as liable to see stuff like these guys. An until recently the guy with his pants down wasn't breaking the law.

Public nudity was allowed in San Francisco until late last year, when they decided enough was enough, because a few guys who could control their own freaky little impulses ruined it for those who were going about it quite quietly and mostly tastefully.

But...I digress.

I like walking in the Bay Area, and am looking forward to getting these miles behind me.

I've heard from more than one person that I don't have to do this; it's not like I intentionally bailed on the Avon Walk. It certainly wasn't by choice.

I know I don't have to. I want to. Y'all paid for those miles, the least I can do is walk them.And as long as I'm walking them, it might as well be in my favorite city.

No, this won't be me...I can't ride a unicycle...

Once I've walked them, I won't feel so squirrely about fundraising for 2013*...because I registered for it again. This year the Avon Walk is in September, so I have tons of time to get extra ready for it. I'm ready now--I have no doubt that I can walk the distance, which is why I'm doing it in a couple pf weeks--but I want to be really ready this year.

2013 is the year I get my personal chit in order. I'm tired of feeling a little off all the time, I'm tired of getting sick so often, and I'm tired of doing something fun and then getting sick because of it. Travel is a problem, because I get sick after. And dammit, I want to go places. I need to do whatever I need to do to change that, and a lot of my free time over the last couple of months has been researching and reading about the various illnesses that have kicked me in the asterisk over the last 15 years, and much of it seems to boil down to diet.

Two of the big ones, FMS and all my digestive disturbances, may be connected, and at the very least there have been some major (albeit anecdotal) successes treating them with a diet rid of most processed foods. FMS in particular, I've been reading about people going Paleo and being pain free within a couple of months...it seems to be a problem with gluten, although it's not celiac related. It's certainly worth trying, and I don't have anything to lose (other than some addictions I'm better off without. I really need to break the diet soda addiction...and make no mistake, I am addicted to it.)

I'm still learning about it...but phase one of this is changing my diet slowly (it would be better for the FMS to just do it, but might be too much of a shock to my gut, so I'll start in bits and pieces) and seeing where it takes me.

To that, I'm hitting the training again; I have the walking thing down pretty well, but I'm getting back on the bicycle--the Spouse Thingy has fit it with nifty baskets so I can take it shopping, even--and the Street Strider, and the Trikke, and working on my cardio.

In March I'm doing a 10K.

In April the Boy turns 30, and we're taking him back to Vegas, where I will walk my asterisk off. [And where he intends to jump out of a plane; this alone will be good cardio for me, since I'll be on the ground with my heart rate at nearly 200 until he hits the ground safely (he has wanted to do this for years, so I will support it. I just don't have the cojones to do it myself...) ]

In May DKM and I are doing a half marathon to benefit the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, which means a lot to me since my mom has had both heart attacks and strokes.

In June DKM and I are crewing for the SGK 3 Day again, chasing walkers around with a van. I might scare them a little, but I promise to not run any over. On purpose.

And in September, the Avon Walk.

By September my goal is to be fit. Losing weight would be nice, but more than anything, I want to be fit.

Well, more than anything I want to win the lottery, but being fit is a much more realistic goal.



*Can't help it, I won't feel right raising funds again until I fulfill my personal obligation to last years' walk.

6 January 2013

I actually feel a little bad for laughing at this.



But just a little...

5 January 2013

This, boys and girls, is a glaring reason why everyone needs health insurance. Or perhaps more accurately, it’s an example of Billing Gone Wild, and why the average Joe can’t even hope to pay off an emergency.

July 2nd, the Spouse Thingy takes me to the ER for what turns out to be a nasty bout of colitis. We were there for about 3 hours, maybe a little bit more. While I had what I consider to be attentive care—I never got to the point where I was in real pain after the first injection of dilaudid and was checked on with reasonable frequency—I saw the ER doc 3 times, perhaps 4. I saw the nurse more frequently, I’m guessing 5 or 6 times. Two different ER techs; one to bring me the contrast solution to drink for a cat scan, the other to actually come get me and take me for the scan and to take me back to my room.

The cat scan: $13,230
Dilaudid, 2 injections: $430.00
Antibiotic injection: $215.00
Physician Fee: $7153.00
Lab Work: $2576.00
IV Bag: $101.00
Office-being checked in: $1000.00
Fees I can’t figure out: $2300

Total: right around $28000.00

Now here’s the kicker. We have insurance, pretty good insurance. We also have military insurance that picks up what the primary company doesn’t. And the military insurance company sends a This Is Not A Bill statement once everything is settled and paid out.

Just under $28,000 was billed to both companies.

Our primary insurance paid $1750.00…that’s not an error. They paid one thousand seven hundred fifty dollars. The military insurance paid. $50.02. Fifty dollars and two cents.

The most we will owe, if we are ever even billed for it, which experience tells me we won’t be: $30.00

The hospital agreed to this. They accepted less than two thousand dollars for services they value at $28,000.00.

If you don’t have insurance, and you wind up in the ER for the same thing I did, you’re not going to be on the hook for just $2000—you’re going to be on the hook for $28,000.

Something about that is very, very wrong.

4 January 2013

File this under stupid things that make me weirdly happy.

I went into Walmart to look for an insulated lunch bag, because, dammit, I’m going to start taking healthy food with me when I go to Starbucks to write. Shuddup. I am, too.

As soon as I got past the entryway I spotted what appeared to be a couple of aisles of school supplies up front, and school supplies always call to me.

I don’t need anything. I have paper and pens and notebooks and other assorted school-type things in my office. I have a stack of virgin notebooks, and an unopened pack of pens, but went to look anyway, because I use pens a lot, and well…they called to me.

I mostly glanced—no pens—and headed towards the end of the aisle where I would then go lunch bag hunting, when I spotted the stacks of Composition Notebooks.

You already have a STACK of notebooks, I told myself.

But these are different! These are red and yellow and blue, and I don’t have any like THESE! I replied to myself.

I’m about 85% certain I did not say those things out loud.

Okay, maybe 70%.

But, I was strong. I left the aisle and headed towards that which I had gone shopping for, and found it not too far away. And as I picked out a pretty purple insulated bag from the massive color choices (um, purple, and a Disney Cars oriented bag) I realized I needed a small ice pack, because…warm leftover meat, yuck.

My brain then formed an image of where I had just spotted some blue ice packs, and I went back to the aisle where the Composition Notebooks were stacked. The blue ice I needed was right next to them, and as I bent over to pick one up, I spotted the price on the notebooks.

Eighty cents.

You would be an idiot to pass that up, my notebook-loving self pointed out. That’s practically free!

Indeed, agreed my stack-of-notebooks-noting self. They will be quite happy living amongst the Mead notebooks, the Moleskin notebooks, and the stenographer’s pads.

They will.

Shuddup.

1 January 2013

2012 wasn't the greatest year; it wasn't horrible, but looking back, it could have been a whole lot better.

This time last year I was sick; not awful sick, but enough that I remember it. It started the day after Christmas and rolled right on through to the first couple of days. I had no way of knowing it, but it was the first salvo, so to speak. I was sick at least twice a month right through to July, when I got sicker than I have ever been in my life.

Given that I have a history of chronic pain issues, all the assorted childhood illnesses, and a damned brain tumor, that's saying quite a bit.

So 2012 was not especially kind to me.

It was also not especially cruel. There was a lot of fun sandwiched between the bouts of ick.

The Boy took us to Reno, where I discovered I really kind of like spiced rum and coke, even if it doesn't like me back.

DKM and I did a walk for MS, where I got a spiffy orange t-shirt and a surprise Hey You Finished medal...and I am an attention whore, so shiny medals make me happy.

Two of my sisters spent some time in SF and the Spouse Thingy and I got to spend a day with them, which was a smidge beyond awesome.

DKM and I drove a sweep van for the SF 3 Day and had an absolute blast, and she never tried to clock me upside the head with a can of Diet Coke, though I expected it at some point, because I can seem like I'm pissed off when I drive, even if I'm not.

The Spouse Thingy and I did a lot of walkign around SF, which always makes me happy.

The three of us went to Las Vegas, the first real family vacation in forever; I was blown away by Cirque du Soleil's LOVE show and laughed so hard at a Lewis Black performance that I damn near peed my pants.

We had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving, and then a Whovian Christmas, which should totally become a tradition.

All in all, the good outweighed the bad. I still got sick a few times after the Bog Horrible in July, and I enjoyed =coughcough= a colonoscopy in September, but considering how bad it could have been and how bad it was for a few friends... I'll take it.

Normally I'd be all HAPPY NEW YEAR, but instead this year I think I'll simply wish for you a warm, wonderful, healthy, quiet, uneventful-unless-it's-spiffily-awesome, light and love-filled 2013.

And that's kind of the same thing.

But, perhaps, a little better.