Am I just NOT listening?

Do you think that an unrelated series of events that seem to point to one conclusion could be a message from the universe? Or beyond? Or, do you think that the human brain simply connects unrelated events in order to make sense out of our jumbled messy lives?

I think I'm receiving a message from Mother Earth or Karma or Something like that, and it's telling me to "Stop Eating Meat!" Oh, I know it sounds crazy, I love meat. I do. It's fabulous. I'm good at cooking it. Too good probably, which means we eat plenty of it. Too much really because H is a meataholic. But, in the past week I've had some "things" happen...

On Monday my Professor went on a little mini-tirade about how we get too much protein ("too many meats in our meals") for the enzymes in our bodies, and the excess lipids are stored, etc and so forth. Then, after that, we dissected a rat. It was a little hard for me because I had a pet rat growing up, and while I embraced the "Medical Science produced this rat for me to dissect" theory, it was still hard to look at the little rat hands and not think about Nici's hands and the way she used to ride around on my shoulder gripping my hair.

The next thing that happened has it origins a few weeks ago when I bought a hunk of meat for Pork BBQ. It's one of our family's favorite meals. Pulled pork. (Cook a cheap cut in some Orange Juice & H2O in the crock pot for 6 hours on high, drain liquid, shred meat, pour bottle of BBQ sauce over and serve on buns). I typically buy a certain cheap cut, but a few weeks ago they didn't have it. In it's place was a similar looking cut, only bigger. Way bigger. Like, instead of 5 pounds, 9 pounds. NINE. I decided to buy it anyway. Because I figured I could freeze some of the BBQ and have a dinner made for some night when I had a test or class or something. Well, this piece of meat was, uh, a little less processed than I am accustomed to... like, there was still skin on it under the packaging. And it was gross. I mean, grosser than a little rat pinned to a dissection board, for SURE.

And then today. Today's was the weirdest. I was driving home from the witch Dr listening to some music, and I thought about the pig leg that I had prepared for my kids for dinner last night, and I was just thinking about making a chicken for dinner tonight... when I saw a dead chicken with fluffy white feathers in my lane. I moved & didn't hit it and thought... "no, that must've been a seagull and I mistook it for a.... chicken?" I thought at I passed ANOTHER one on the side of the road. And then I realized, I'm on a road that truckers must take to the Tyson's plant. So those poor chickens must have jumped to their death or been thrown from the back of the chicken truck. My next thought was telling: I guess it's better to die on the side of 288 than at a meat plant anyway.

So. No chicken for us tomorrow. And the pork is slowly getting eaten, but, I'm having a hard time mentally separating my thoughts from the food on my plate.

I think maybe it's time to break out the Tofu recipes again for a little while.

I miss you SRG

Dear SRG,

I think I miss you. I do. There is no one to make fun of in my class this semester who satisfies my mean streak the way you did. There is "Texting Teachers Pet", but I'm on the fence about her, she might actually be a threat to my status as Teacher's Pet. And, she might be smart enough to pull all this off, but I won't know until after the tests are in....

TTP is a young woman who arrived in class tonight a few minutes late, and as such she was stuck sitting in the front with me. I sit in the front for two reasons. The first is that I can't hear worth a darn. The second is that I barely make it to class on time on Wednesdays and as far as seats go, I get what I get.

So because she came in after class started, she had to sit beside me. She's about 18-19 years old, cute, small... gosh I bet she's barely 5 ft and approaching 100 pounds. I haven't seen that side of 100 pounds in, well, too many years to worry about. I think I might have been 11. ~sigh~, what was I saying? Oh, right- she's tiny. Dark skinned, and very VERY pretty, with cute glasses that make her look... 12. I wonder if she imagines that they make her look more studious? Anyway, she was my entertainment and annoyance for the evening.

She has a crackberry and is obviously in need of an intervention.

TTP sat with her phone on her lap all night, and every time our prof turned to write on the white board she would text furiously... and then he would turn around and she would chime in with a comment or question about what he was saying.... so....

Dr Zoo, "an' dats why the uh, RTP is uh, transporting the infomation...." he turns... and, cue TTP.

"SO, What you mean is RTP is the Transporter?"

Dr Zoo, "Uh, yes, dats what I mean."

I admit to having a violent thought wander through my head at one point when I considered *itch slapping her after she piped in a random thought when I knew she's written exactly nothing down nor heard a thing he'd said during the lecture. She simply repeats his last sentence. I'm not sure if he knew she was texting, or not. But still, very annoying whether he knew about it or not. This campaign to be the teacher's pet either needs to be run with some respect - aka without text-aholism, OR it needs to stop.

Seriously, if someone is going to be the teacher's pet, it's going to be someone who's actually deserving of that position. Specifically ME. So let's just get that straight.

For those of you in Richmond

I found a contractor who

1. Shows up on time.
2. Does good work.
3. Doesn't cost a fortune.
4. also does "handy man" type work incase your H isn't, uh, "handy".

Yea, crazy talk. He's on Facebook, you can find his page if you search Creative Design Homes.

Sweet Nathan Giveaway!

Check out this sweet link on Endurance Isn't Only Physical for a FUEL BELT giveaway HERE! H2O is not optional people, you must hydrate!

speaking of comic relief

TONIGHT, AT THE DINNER TABLE, WE PROUDLY PRESENT

B

DOING HER OWN STAND UP ACT

WITH HER UNIQUE BRAND OF HUMOR...

B: "Today a' scool, we payed Duck Duck Goose. And the boys they said Duck Duck Poop!"

and she dissolves in to hysterical laughter.

My entire family, H included, is trying HARD not to laugh. Not successfully, I might add.

And I'm left to be the straight man and say, "that's potty language, we don't use that language at the table."

But secretly, I'm cracking up inside, because seriously, she thought it was that funny.

The Void in my Life

I know, we're all supposed to pretend like the void in our lives was filled by our Husbands. And yes, my husband likes to pretend that too (about me), but in all seriousness, the voids in our "lives" can only be filled by ourselves and our own passion for life.

And our girlfriends.

I G, take you T, to be your faithful running mate.

To run with and train with, from this day forward, for PR's and PUs, through knee pain and foot pain, Through torrential rain and sunny heat, As long as we both shall remain injury free. And hereto I pledge to you my runningness.

We've been faithfully reading each others minds (weird but sometimes true), scheduling our lives and race calendars around each other for almost 2 years.

This injury really left me OUT of the LOOP and it left T as an island running alone in a sea of runners. How do you run without your running mate? Your exit buddy? Your navigator? Your copilot? How does anyone run without their other half? Their therapist? Their trainer? Their motivational speaker? Their comic relief? I don't know, and I'm SUPER happy to be back!!!

Official RETURN to RUNNING!

I got the WORD from the man that I can start running again! YEA BABY! It is a HAPPY DAY here in Chez moi.

This morning I leashed Desidog and dressed in my wicked cute runningskirts.com choco skirt and put on my TALL SOCKS so I could look cute and be warm, and went for a CORE Run. The rules of a CORE run according to the witch Dr:

1. run EASY.
2. concentrate on FORM.
3. stop to STRETCH at .5 miles and again at 1.5 miles, and again every 10 -15 minutes of running (hip flexor stretch)
4. PLANKS for 2 minutes at 10 minute intervals.
5. LISTEN to my body and stop if the knee pain gets distracting (i.e. compromises form).

I decided to do my usual 3 miles, broken into a 2 mile loop and a 1 mile loop, incase the pain was bad and I had to walk home. I started my Garmin and off we went.

It was slow. Desidog requested to run free because I was not running fast enough. I agree Desidog. An 11:20 pace is not fast enough for me either. My legs felt like lead. My stomach felt weird. My back hurt. My head was spinning. It was going poorly.

5 minutes in I stopped to stretch. I got a "look" from a fellow runner. Get over yourself dude, stretching is my new BFF.

I got up, and started to run again. At a 9:15 pace. And that's how the rest of the run went. I stopped for planks, got up, felt sluggish, looked down at watch - 9:20's until they turned into 9:15's. And then I let my mind and heart wander, and ~sigh~ this is love.

At mile 2.5 I stopped to stretch, and this time when I got back up, it wasn't exactly perfect feeling. So I jogged until mile 2.66, when I had to stop. Then I walked home for another 2 minutes of planks - which was the hardest 2 minutes of planks EVER. Total distance, 3 miles.

I think I stopped at the right time too, because 10 minutes of ice and the pain is GONE and I feel great. WOO HOO!!! I want to RUN again tomorrow... and, I think if the weather cooperates, that's exactly what I will do.