Treasure and Trash in The Home Office Closet

Wall Closet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I finally got around to clearing out the home office closet. What a nightmare. It looked like a junk drawer on steroids.

The Husband and I both use the home office. I use it for actual work, like writing my blogs, freelance writing, research and storage of necessary books, magazine articles and research paperwork. He uses it for playing on the computer.  But I’m the (mostly) responsible party when it comes to tossing, stuffing and placing items in the closet. My cake decorating class paraphernalia, catering equipment, luggage, two sets of dishes, baking pans, wrapping paper, winter jackets, serving platters, large canvas tote bags and anything else that would fit.  Nothing was too oddly shaped, too large or too useless to put in there. The result was a precariously packed pile that needed paring down.

Pulling everything out was only half the problem. Then there’s the sorting and trashing, along with the inevitable wondering, “Why the heck do I still have that?” and “Wait…there was a reason I actually paid money for this?” Ninety minutes a few trash bags, one trip to the recycling bin and some NSAIDs later, the closet was not necessarily a thing of beauty or a joy to behold, but at least you could see the inside walls, ceiling and floor.

There’s always a sense of accomplishment when a messy situation is tidied, whether it’s a closet, a job or a relationship. Many of us find living with loose ends gives us a sense of tension, a feeling of disharmony, of something being incomplete. Cleaning up and clearing out is a wonderful way to give the mind repose, even if it does make the muscles ache for a while.

Oh, and I got a bonus when I cleaned that closet. I found two gift cards for a well-known sporting goods store. I checked, and they were still good. Of course I used them; I bought a pair of purple running shorts. A winning color, don’t you think?

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And In This Corner…Stands Another Race Trophy

OK, this one isn’t standing. Actually, it’s on a very nice pink-and-black ribbon, and it’s sitting on my desk, awaiting a frame.

I almost did not get this award. It’s for finishing third in my age category at the Mother’s Day five-mile road race I wrote about recently. Problem is, I left the event before the awards were presented. I thought I did so poorly there was no shot at a medal. Plus, I had other plans. Plus, it was hot.

Fortunately, a polite and apologetic email to the race organizers resulted in getting the medal sent to me, and they even refused my offer of postage. I did send a check for the race cause (pediatric cancer) and promised to run next year (all the while wondering when to start praying for better weather conditions for a year hence).

You’re probably wondering why a middle-aged woman would care about a bit of metal with a few words of commendation on it, suspended on a piece of fabric. It’s not that I missed athletic competition as a child. I played if I was picked for someone’s team. Mostly I sat on the stoop and watched. In school,  I played softball, volleyball and lacrosse, but I was purely third-string material.  Ribbons and medals didn’t figure into my life until I was close to fifty years of age, and then they were not awarded for team sports, but for endeavors I could pursue by pitting myself against a clock and other people (swimming and running).

I don’t resent the past. I would not care to go back and find those mean kids who would not play with me, poke them with a sharp stick and say, “See this trophy? I got it in spite of you!” But every ribbon and every top three finish means a lot to me. It puts those days sitting on the stoop farther in the past, and when I see a child in tears, sitting alone and watching the other kids play, I can relate. I can let them know it doesn’t have to be like this. They can find an endeavor they love, athletic or otherwise, and earn their own accolades and rewards. And those are important, whether they are the kind to be framed and admired, or simply remembered and enjoyed.

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Miles and Meters Deserve Pizza (Plus A Burger And Shrimp)

OK, fine, so I was hungry. Beat me for being a bad person. But I’ll warn you: it was a long, hard day, and I deserved every bite.

I decided to run a race in another county this morning – a five-miler in a town just over an hour away. We don’t get much in the way of distance races at this time of year, and the season is winding down anyway. A five-miler sounded like a good idea, or at least it did at the time I registered. As if that wasn’t enough, I’d go swim at a nearby pool after the race while I waited to meet a friend for lunch.

It was hotter than the Devil’s hometown during a heat wave this morning. No clouds and no breeze. The run did have a decent amount of shade, and water every mile, but eighty degrees at the start does not tend to get better as the morning goes on. My finish would have been awesome, if I’d had the sense to sign up for the 5K version of  the race. But why have any sense?

After finishing this event, I headed to the local pool for an hour of long-course swimming in a nicely chilled pool.

English: PIZZA BURGER (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Then showered and tidy and gear stowed in my car, I walked a few blocks along the beach to lunch. By the time I arrived at the restaurant, hunger only slightly tamed by a small pre-race bowl of oatmeal and a few post-race sips of a protein shake,  I was ready to chew on the menu.

My friend was a bit late, so I tried the old “I’ll sip on a drink while I wait” trick. Unfortunately, I cannot fool brain and stomach, especially while sitting on one of those high-top seats. Famished and her BFF Dizzy tend to show up and deliver a punch when I am at my most unbalanced, which I am on those chairs. So I ordered coconut shrimp, a dangerous dish tempered  by the fact that there were just eight of them. I inhaled the shrimp and picked every bit of coconut off the shells.

Friend arrives, and I order a burger and fries. I did show some restraint by leaving most of the bun and the fries, but that was called for after the appetizer plus four iced teas. This evening’s meal was two slices of homemade pizza (sausage plus three cheeses). Again, I displayed some  discipline in leaving over some cheese and crust. But I still consumed enough calories to fill one-and-a-half of me.

Every now and then, it’s good to literally feed the beast. We spend a lot of time on diets, exercising and trying to look the way society thinks we should. Our friends and families say they want us just the way we are, but we keep working on and working out anyway, chasing the ideal. I espouse the idea of the “90-10″ rule: 90% of the time, treat your body like a temple, with love and kindness and reverence. Ten percent of the time, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.

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A Birthday’s Worth of Gratitude

English: A chocolate birthday cake (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You don’t get but one day a year to celebrate, or at least quietly admit, that you’ve gotten a year older.

In my case, it came with a little baggage (the start of a pension and aging up for competitive swimming and running purposes), but it’s still good to be here. Dinner tonight was out; after all, what’s a birthday celebration if  you’re doing all the work?

Dinner was about wine, seafood, truffles, cream sauce and a small piece of chocolate cake. I shared the cake with The Husband. Normally, I don’t share chocolate anything with anyone. I’d sooner use my fork to stab you through both hands, in fact. But he was paying for dinner, and by dessert I was getting a bit full, and thinking that my cholesterol meds deserved to work less tonight.

On the way home, the passing scenery, so familiar because I see it going to work and coming home, caught my attention anew. It wasn’t the buildings, trees or the sunset. It was the people.

I saw people walking home with big packages, and I know these people do this because walking is their only means of getting from Point A to Point B. I walk a lot, but I do it for exercise and by choice.

I saw people hauling groceries from store to car, shopping on a Saturday night because they have no other time to get it done. My time is tight, but I have options. I can get groceries on my lunch hour, on weeknights or on the weekend.

I saw people pedaling old bikes, coming from hard labor jobs: dirt-streaked, sweaty, sunburned; carrying lunch boxes or bags of takeout food home to waiting families. I cycle, but my ride is nice, and it’s because I want the workout.

I know many people did not eat as well as I did tonight, and never will. For them, the words “fine dining” are as foreign as any language besides their own. Their food is discounted, donated and found via dumpster diving by necessity. Their homes are often not their own, and not places of safety and comfort, as mine is. Their job choices are dictated by how little education and access they have, not by how much they know, who they know and the technology that’s available, but not to them.

Happy birthday to me. It’s not bad to be me, though it can be better. But at least I have choices.

 

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Travel That Broadens Your View, Not Your Waistline

One of the many produce stands in Toronto’s Kensington Market area.

I had the good fortune to spend a week in Toronto, Canada recently. Having said that, I have to tell you it cost a small fortune.

The airline tickets were a bargain, relatively speaking, about $750.00 round trip for two, plus another $100 for baggage fees. A decent hotel in GTA (Greater Toronto Area) is not cheap; our hotel was about $1,200 for the week, and that was for the smallest room in a downtown boutique hotel. The tradeoff was that the hotel was literally near everything we needed: shopping, public transit, great restaurants, sports venues and Lake Ontario.

It was my first time traveling anywhere that required a passport, and for the record, Customs was no problem. Yes, I was honest and declared what I bought. Yes, I brought back only the legal amount of alcohol (and no one is willing to ship any from Canada to the U.S., unless you are a commercial distributor). I brought back Grade 3 maple syrup (almost impossible to find in the U.S., unless you live in maple syrup country), twenty bars of chocolate (for my other blog), a half-dozen food books and very nice things to say about our northern neighbors.

• They are very polite, I never entered or exited a building without someone holding a door.
• Pedestrians rule, at least from what I saw on Toronto’s streets. Cars stop when you step into a cross walk; you’re not considered a target.
• Public transit is cheap, clean and fast.
• Gay marriage is legal.
• The bookstores are locally owned, independent and carry an array of titles that will blow your mind and fill your suitcase.
• People drink at lunch on business days.
• The coffee and pastry shops are fantastic.
• Torontonians seem to be a pretty fit bunch, in spite of all the good food and drink. There are lots of outdoor activities and gyms and frankly, the city is built into the side of a sloped plateau, so it’s constant uphill and downhill. The Husband and I lost almost ten pounds combined on this trip.
• For every ethnic group you see on the streets, there are restaurants and food shops somewhere, providing the food that reminds them of home. Toronto has several ethnic neighborhoods: Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Italy, Little Portugal, Roncesvalles Village (Polish), Corktown (Irish), The Danforth/Greektown,  and many more small, old enclaves featuring well-preserved homes and small shops.

We did a lot of walking in our week’s visit. I believe in on-the-ground contact as much as possible in a new place, because it’s the only way to understand the lay of the land and meet the people who live there. You cannot talk to the locals on a tour bus or in a taxi, though you certainly can on a subway or streetcar. Shopping the weekly farmers markets, eating in the side street restaurants and visiting the back alley music venues is the best way to find out what people are doing, thinking, buying and how they are living. Turns out they are doing it all pretty well in Toronto. I hope to return some day and experience more.

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Boston Won’t Forget Or Forgive, And You Will Be Found

If you watched today’s Boston Marathon, you already know how it ended. With the worst kind of bang imaginable.

Two explosions, one on each side of the street near the finish line, killed two people and injured two dozen more.

2011 Boston Marathon finishing line pavillion on Boylston Street. Looking west; runners would be coming from the east. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It appears to be a planned attack, not the fault of a natural gas line or other accidental mishap.

Whoever you are, you sorry bastards, you did far more than ruin the oldest marathon, or steal the pain and joy finishers hope for when they cross the line.

You killed and maimed people and forever left a horrific mark on a city that no doubt did you no wrong, and will never understand why you chose them and one of their most hallowed sports venues to vent your rage, prove your power and show the world that you could leave a mark someplace.

You did just that, you coward(s). There is blood on the streets, people missing limbs and a large section of the city where no one can enter or leave under police lockdown.

Worse, you make people afraid yet again to be in public places and open spaces

. But runners – and people in general – are resilient, and we don’t back away from danger, nor do we back down from a challenge.

It may be a challenge to find you, you antisocial, inhuman, conscience-deprived, soulless wreck. But you won’t hide forever. And we won’t be afraid forever. That would be giving you the very power you crave. You’re not getting that. But the authorities will get you.

 

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Break A Race Record, Get A Trophy…I’ll Drink To That

Half marathon (Photo credit: bostjan_rudolf)

 

I’m consuming a (non-alcoholic) libation, number thus far unknown. All I know is, it was hot out there today.

 

Not the best day to run a 5K. And certainly not the best day to set a personal best. But I did it, and beat the old mark by 21 seconds.

 

Oh, and no mere medal at the end, either. I took third place in the Grand Masters (50 and over) category. So this time, it was a trophy.

 

I have no Academy to thank, but I would like to thank The Husband for putting up with the sound of the alarm clock at #!*% -what-time-is-it o’clock. He’s retired, and not running, swimming or biking. Alarm clocks are now foreign to his world. And my dear friend Steve, who is training for a half-marathon. He’s the one who got me onto a stricter running program (not more running, just smarter running) and using a protein powder for recover. Six weeks of change made all the difference. It was smoother, less stressful event and the powder helps ease the muscle pain.

 

I’m happy with the way it went today.

 

 

I still had enough energy left to fix breakfast, weed the yard and do a load of laundry. I’ve got two more 5Ks for the season, then a racing break over the summer. I’ll drink to a good result, and look forward to getting the time down a tick more before the final event in May.