Pink Bizarre’s Neighborhood

Today I did my first run.

Actually, it was about 70% run, 30% walk. I have discovered that what your elliptical machine thinks you can do and what you can actually do are two different things. I have also discovered that my earbuds suck and I need a new set. To Le Target I go tomorrow.

I started at Inglewood Hill road and East Lake Sammamish and ran/walked south to SE 8th Street, along the lake trail. Because of the many driveways along the way I was able to make little deals with myself: "run to the third driveway and then walk to the fourth, then run again". At 3 miles round trip, that means I ran about 2.1 miles and walked about 0.9; so my goal for tomorrow is to shave half of that walk time so the ratio is more like 85/15.  My boss (who is up to 5 miles now) says the first 3 miles are the hardest. I'm really hoping my inability to run all of it was because of my recent week of non-exercise.

The lake trail is beautiful, level, and peppered with very expensive homes. Actually, no, it's olive-oiled with very expensive homes, and there's the occasional garlic clove of an old cabin; it's peppered with boats. Those are the best to gaze at as you run/walk past; usually they have nicer gardens and a Ms Lisa cabin feel to them. I think they all have plumbing though.

Speaking of which, I need to shower. And get ready for my first PTSA meeting. I feel so very very vanilla right now.

I've been thinking a lot about my Aunt LaJuana these days.  Nothing nostalgic or sentimental, but every time I hike up my pant leg or skirt to check on the progress of my bike-wreck scab, I can't help but think of her.

Aunt LaJuana was a scab picker.  One of those people who love to scrape off the dead, battered skin of injuries.  She didn't just pick her own scabs, though.  She liked to pick other people's scabs.  She loved to peel sunburns.  As a child, this always frightened me.  Like most kids, I was a walking scab factory.  Always with a scraped elbow or knee.  Some crusty half-healed contusion or abrasion.  So there were few things as creepy and terrifying as going to Sunday dinner with a banged up knee.  Invariably, someone said, "Oh, and little Redz took a spill on her bike/on the roof/on the monkey bars/on her own two stupid feet.  Really banged herself up."

Then Aunt LaJuana descended upon me with her long, vicious claws extended, ready to pick.  She didn't care if it hurt or bled or made you squirm, and she was big enough to hold you down if you tried to resist.  Plenty big enough.  She clocked in around 500 pounds when I was a child, so the only real chance of escape was to run.  Unfortunately, my grandmother's house was small and filled with many ornery uncles and cousins who were happy to capture and return an escaped scabbee. 

Blood_ruby

When I was very young, four or five years old, the worst part wasn't even the scab picking.  The scariest part was the proximity of the Blood Ruby.  Aunt LaJuana wore a ring with a large, dark, glossy, evil-looking ruby in it.  She said that if you touched it without her permission, you would disappear.  I was predisposed to believe, because my other grandmother had a ruby ring that she claimed had killed someone every time she wore it.  Three times she'd worn it since her mother-in-law gave it to her and three times someone she loved died: her mother and two of her sisters.  That ruby was remade into a ring for my grandfather, who as far as I know never killed anyone with it.

As for Aunt LaJuana's Bloody Ruby, I knew what she said was true, because I'd seen it happen.

My cousin, Stu, touched it once.  Stu is eight years older than I am and he was one of the ornery cousins.  So ornery he was dangerous.  The kind of kid you wanted to keep your distance from.  One Easter, he decided he was too old to believe in things like the Blood Ruby, so he marched up to Aunt LaJuana and touched it.  Laid his finger right on it.

Aunt LaJuana let out this terrible moan.  A sound of anguish and mourning that made my grandma run in from the kitchen.  "Oh, he touched it!  He touched the Blood Ruby!" Aunt LaJuana said and she put her head in her hands and sobbed.

Grandma took up the moaning and crying and pulled her apron up over her head.  Stu, who'd been laughing and strutting until then, looked concerned.  Everyone got involved, crying and carrying on about what a reckless fool he was.  He never could obey and he was always in trouble, but they loved him!  It broke their hearts what he'd done. 

"That's bullshit!  That's fucking bullshit!" Stu said, knowing he'd get smacked for that.  Only nobody smacked him.  Nobody said, "Watch your potty mouth!"  Nobody but us other kids could hear him or see him, but none of the adults believed us.

When lunch time came, Grandma set the tables for 18 instead of 19, even though I told her, "I can see him, he's right there, Grandma."

"Don't you tease me, Redz, I know he's gone," she said.  "If you try to pull my leg, why I'll pinch you."

That was no idle threat.  The mothers of scab pickers are natural pinchers and vicious, to boot.  The rest of the kids kept their mouth shut about being able to see Stu. 

So while we ate fried chicken and mashed potatoes, with chocolate cake for dessert, Stu stood in the kitchen and cried.  The adults just went on like he was invisible.  They couldn't see him or hear him, and after a while they stopped talking like it was his funeral and just went on with their usual conversations.

Stu's disappearance lasted all day, until dusk fell and everyone got ready to go home.  We packed up our leftovers and started out toward the cars.  Some of us looked back at Stu, still huddled up in one corner, but after a moment, Uncle Jack got up from the sofa and put out his cigarette. 

"Come on, Stu, let's go," he said.

"You can see me?" Stu said.

"Of course I can see you.  The Blood Ruby wears off after a while.  Have you been there all along?"

Oh, we wanted to believe it wasn't real.  We wanted it to be a cruel prank the adults had played, but as we hurried across the gravel drive to our cars, Aunt LaJuana stood on the stoop and cackled like a witch.  None of the rest of us ever touched the ruby, except perhaps the mortician who prepared her for burial.  Yes, it was buried with her.  Stu didn't learn his lesson.  He went on being a disobedient, reckless fool, until adulthood snuck up on him, like the delayed effects of the Blood Ruby.  In that sense, maybe we all touched it.

Since I heard about the Verizon takeover of Unicel in Maine, I've been dreaming and planning what I'll do when they change calling plans.  Verizon costs double what Unicel charges for their unlimited plan.  With Unicel I get unlimited calls, long distance, and text messaging for $50 a month.  There is no way they'll keep this plan available for customers.  I called Unicel, but all they know is that changes will be made the first of the year.  They don't know what the changes will be yet.

What kind of sucks is that I just signed a 2-year contract on Mother's Day for my phone.  The phone is okay, but it's nothing special.  It does what I need it to do, but it doesn't have any of the good stuff like web access and a nice screen.  I'm hoping Verizon will allow customers to get out of their 2-year contracts when they change Unicel over.  That way I can go to TMobile and get me a Sidekick, my dream phone ^.^

Sidekick

As you may well remember, Clever & I have recently undertaken to complete NLP Practitioner's training, " prac" the kids call it. The training being what it is, we were often "working on" some personal issue or another, to the point of which personal prollems from which to choose were getting fairly thin on the ground for our fair heroine.

Phobias? covered. Work related stress? cured. Childhood trauma? timeline friendly, already used it.

So it was on this, our last weekend of prac that I found myself dredging up the

This being the angle of approach, stage fright to cure, means color me surprised when I dredge up a heretofore undiscovered belief regarding requests & directives. I can't exactly draw a straight  line from cause to effect, but tripping lightly up and down my timeline through the Alignment of Logical Levels Process I have the sudden full on realization that I often think that people are fucking with me. When maybe they aren't.

An unusual request  often gives pause. Did they mean that, is this a joke/test/hidden camera program...? Further, a curiousity about the role of my own jugement regarding the request and 'must I be so uptight?" was aroused.

It is fortunate, then to live in a universe which so arranges itself to give the odd humble yeoman an opportunity to explore the suspension of the critical thinking skills habit in favor of her Captain's pleasure and to provide such a Captain as warrants trust and rewards obedience in a most compelling manner.

Today was complete day one without cable. I watched Dr. Strangelove. I'm sorry but that whole initial phonecall between the President and Dimitri is just priceless.

However, my "going without" seems to have extended to work connectivity, for, at about 8:30 tonight, I began to be serially locked out of things. First it was the test server. Then it was the dev server. Then it was the production server. Then I decided to log out and log back in, because the SQL Server geek was playing with things IIS and perhaps I needed to do that. So I logged out.

And could not log back in.

And could not log in via Web Outlook to ping our IT geeks that they have locked me out.

Tomorrow I shall be taking the Child with me to work. Not for long, just long enough to get this sorted out and then meet a friend-- Oops, coworker -- for lunch. Ms Lisa will be picking my brains about IT Governance and Our Team, and it just so happens that we're friends, and it just so happens that she likes the Child, and it just so happens that there's a Z'Tejas nearby.

Maybe I should deprive myself of that, though, since tomorrow night is my first run.

I'm really nervous about this. I am fully aware of my innate stubbornness being helpful in situations like these -- the fact of the matter is I do about 2 miles on the elliptical (when I can work out, which I have not been allowed to do this last week) and I have no idea how that translates (if at all) to the ability to run. I've mapped out routes of differing lenghts (and variations in grade) around my house and GH's and I have a good pair of shoes, so I'm ok as far as planning and preparation. It's just that complete X factor of "Am I going to like this" and "Is this going to kick my ass?"

I can't join the other 3 happy hoofers on the weekday runs, as schedule is driven by someone who stood in the livingroom today and quoted miscellaneous Harry Potter spells while wearing a Clone Troooper helmet backwards and socks on his hands. My run days are therefore to be Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, with elliptical days on Tuesdays and Fridays. I'm telling you this because this will keep me honest, it's *out* there so I will have to *mention* it and if I don't do it I will know that you know that I should've and so it will further incent me to do it.

I think.

Diet tip #46: Sometimes if you totally obsess over the food you really really really want to scarf, like talk about it and pore over pictures, and watch videos about it constantly--it is almost as good as actually scarfing that food. So in the end, you eat less.

Diet tip #47: Sometimes Diet tip #46 doesn't work so well.

The monstrous pancake orgy at the end is my favorite bit.

23.  Fables v.1: Legends in Exile - Bill Willingham - This is the first graphic novel series I've ever been able to get into.  All the Fairy Tale characters have been kicked out of their lands into the human world.  They are living disguised in New York.  King Cole is the mayor and Snow White is the brains behind the mayor.  Prince Charming is a scheming player.  These are very enjoyable.

24.  Fables v.2: Animal Farm - Bill Willingham - Snow White and Rose Red go on an adventure in upstate New York where the animals have to live to escape detection.

25.  Nemesis - Agatha Christie - Miss Marple receives a directive from a dead man and must figure out what she is investigating from clues she recieves in pieces along the way.  Any further information would spoil the story for others so go read it for yourself!  I enjoyed it, but that's no surprise since I always love Miss Marple mysteries.

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