Poo

Best part of today's outing? When Margaux rolled in human poo.

Wait, did I say "best"? I meant worst. Yup, that was the worst. I couldn't even bring myself to look when R took her over to the pile to be sure she knew what she was in trouble for. But I'm also a lil pathetic; her terrified yelps when he dunked her in the creek to clean her off still sort of broke my heart.

Another awesome thing about when your dog's wearing human turds? Being paranoid that she's going to brush up against you for the rest of the day.

And why do dogs like to roll in turds, anyway? Google tells me it may be to mask her smell so she can hunt more effectively, but, hello Margaux: Humans are the most dangerous animal on earth. Masking your pathetic little 45 pound dog smell with the smell of the poo from some jerk who doesn't know not to leave his turds and toilet paper in the woods isn't going to help you catch a squirrel. It's going to make the squirrel think that you may be a human, so you may have a gun.

Okaaaaaaay

It's Tuesday, and my big plan for the week is already blown. The big plan wherein I wake up early every other day and walk as fast as I can up the hill behind my house. Except, you know, the hill behind my house is Pilot Butte.





(I like the nasty industrial stuff in the foreground from this pic. This town was suuuper classy in 1984.)







I know it's only 500 feet up, but -- wait, yup. 500 feet is a lot. Or it feels like a lot in a 20-minute fast walk. Especially at 6 a.m.


Anyhoo, here's how I've been entertaining myself this week:

Blogsite soundtracks via Frequency (Click the button! You know you want to!):






Imagining the awesomeness of living in New York and thus being able to participate in Karaoke Chatroulette, a combo of everyone's favorite things, creepers and karaoke, over at Unapologetically Mundane.


And lastly, if you, too, are depressed by junk weather (it's snaining here today), and you don't already know who The Snuggler is, go check it out. I'd embed the video, but everything I try keeps on not working (I know, I'm a blogger extraordinaire). So now I have to go watch it on a different page, because the weather and Adult Swim are out to get me.

Also, if it happens to be nice and spring fresh where you are, please shutupaboutit already.

Schadenfreude

If I was feeling whiny about my stupid heel injury, I got a dose yesterday of how much worse it could be.

A girlfriend of mine came over to show off her favorite new toy:



(That is not my friend. She is actually quite attractive, and has a very full head of hair.)









She has the knee scooter (name brand: Kneal. You know, get on your knee while you heal? Get it?) because she just had surgery to fix a broken metatarsal in her foot. She broke the foot by dropping an anvil on it. Yeah. An anvil.




(don't worry, she's aware of the hilarity of the situation)











You know who else gets anvils dropped on him?








This guy.








But honestly, watching her scoot merrily on the hardwood floors of my living room the other night I was impressed. "Check out the action on this thing!" she said, flipping a gear and letting the back end of the scooter spin. "The brakes are better than my bike. And it has a basket!" she said, loading up the salad dressings from the fridge to carry into the dining room. In her eyes, the scooter was a modern marvel in comparison to the bane of crutches.

And this is someone who has a lot of reason to complain. She recently got accepted into nursing school and was just embarking upon a hectic six weeks in which she'd try to power through 10 weeks of classes (while also packing up her belongings) in order to hop states in time for the beginning of her first term -- for which she hopes to begin in a walking cast and cane. And these are not easy classes, the kind I favored in college. (Sociology, anyone?) There's, like, sciencey stuff. Chemicals? Anatomestry? Something like that. She told me, but I wasn't listening because I was too busy complaining about how hard my life is with my sore heel, my tight hamstring and my annoying little dog.

I think I need to take a lesson from this one.

Heeling

Lordy it's been a shitter of a week. Especially considering that I'm about to work my 12th day in a row, so that shitter week? Extra long.

Tuesday morning, a friend and I decided to try doing a wee jog/walk together. We decided to meet at 6 a.m., which she was nervous about. She asked me to text her at 5:30.

"Good morning! I'm about to go watch the beautiful sunrise!"

A couple of minutes later, as I was putting the I'm a Mean Mommy Pinchey Collar on Margaux, I got a text reply.

"Dude. You are not allowed to be perky."

Fair.

But we did it, and the sun rose by the river as we trotted and chatted and our dogs sniffed beside us. It felt wonderful, but within two hours my heel, the one with the dreaded plantar fasciitis, was hurting badly enough I knew it was too much, too soon. Eff.

But my gym membership is about up, and I'm too broke to buy a new one. I have only one option.

As long as I don't have to be the pole

Some co-workers and I talked awhile ago about doing the Pole, Pedal Paddle this year. It's an annual event that I avoided even spectating the first four years I lived in this town. Last year, though, I ran support for my pal SGL, who did the whole thing by HERSELF.

In case you don't know how crazy that is, let me outline the event:

First, you go to Mount Bachelor and ride a chairlift up to the top, put your skis or board in place then walk down hill 200 feet. Why do you walk downhill 200 feet? Why, so you can run uphill in ski boots, of course! It's even more fun than running in soft sand.

Then you ski down to where a friend (like me!) is waiting to exchange your board for your cross country skis. After a quick change, you slog through five miles of melty mashed potatoes and gravy spring snow until you meet up again with your pal to trade skis for bike.

Next, you bike 22 miles. Now, in fairness, most of the bike is downhill, since you're coming into town from a mountain, but those uphill stretches are a real bitch.

Still standing? Good, it's time to run five miles through town.

The boat portion involves paddling "upstream from a put-in point for 1/2 mile on the Deschutes River" then "back downstream for 3/4 mile, then back upstream for 1/4 mile." Yeah, up, down, up.

Oh, and then you have to run again. This time, it's even supposed to be a "sprint."

So, SGL may be a little crazy. I definitely can't do the whole thing. In addition to my serious lack of physical fitness, I also can't downhill ski. But I can ride a bike (though I don't think I can use my single speed '68 Sears Spider for this race. A damn shame, because my sparkly purple banana seat would probably really help my performance), and maybe by the end of May, I can run five miles? I mean, I still can't run, the heel's still effed, but maybe by then I'll be in ship shape again?

The real question though is costumes. Some teams dress up in leis, or with bridal veils. I saw a pretty sick cops and jailbirds team last year (the cops had thick handlebar moustaches and wore hotpants, natch). What should we out of shape cubicle jockeys do?




Google, from whence I stole this picture, seems to think this woman's name is Karen.

Signs that I should not get up at 5:30 a.m. to work out

I actually dragged myself out of bed this morning to go to the gym, thanks, in part, to a phone call from the Sadie. As back-up, I also had my own alarm set to go off. I warmed up my car (it's STILL snowing here) got dressed, grabbed my iPod and an Aleve and went to the kitchen to grab some water. Right in front of the sink, I took a step and my gym shoe went flying out in front of me and I nearly fell against the counter and broke my neck (Saying I nearly "broke my neck" and admitting that I start out the day with Aleve makes me feel super old. Maybe I should change that to "I nearly broke my hip."). I caught myself and looked down to see what I'd slipped on. It was a giant dog turd.

Oh, and best part? We're out of paper towels.

Thing is, I alked through the kitchen on the way to bed last night. No turd. The dogs came with us and lay (Lie? Laid? Unno.) down on their own beds. I went to brush my teeth and shut the door after me. In the morning, all three dogs were on their beds.

Turd fairy?

Eventually I pieced it together. I got up to pee at about 2:30, at which point Rio must have scurried out, quickly shat on the kitchen floor, then scurried back into the bedroom, unheard. He was the only dog who woke up in a different spot than he started. And he totally looked guilty this morning.

Like this:



I've decided to rename him Turd Fairy.

Also, between this morning's workout, yesterday's power yoga class (Which was wicked hard, by the way. I know yoga, even power yoga, doesn't probably sound hard, but side plank is basically an ancient Sanskrit torture pose. Wait, Sanskrit's a language, not a culture, right? Hm. Not sure on that one. Point is, side plank sucks.) and Sunday's cross country ski, I'm real real sore today. And for no good reason, most of the pain's located in my left buttcheek. I have no idea why, but if anyone would like to offer free massage services, let me know.

The first 10

The first time I ran 10 miles, I cried.

I'd started running after I left a 5-year relationship. I was living with a good friend temporarily, and she ran, had in fact started running to treat her depression. So we'd get up in the mornings and go for runs, and spend the whole time talking and processing and working through all of the psychological garbage I'd collected over five years with a guy who I loved desperately despite the fact that he was a ... well ... let's just say few people in my life are wondering why I left.

After awhile, another runner friend suggested I do a half marathon, 13.1 miles. I decided to go for it. I printed a training schedule off the internet and got to work. By this point, I had gotten into another relationship and fallen in love again. He was tall and skinny and funny, a former bike messenger and road bike racer. Sometimes he'd drink a Pabst before we ran, but then we'd head out together, and he was a slow loper of a runner, so I could keep up with him. We'd take my little dog out and run by the river and talk. He called me Sporty Spice.

But then he dumped me.

So I started running alone. Just me and my little dog. And it was good for her, and I felt good, and lost a little weight and even more inches despite my regular diet of carbs, cake, cheese and beer. I'd do several short runs a week then one increasingly long run on the weekend. I'd tried to get to 10 miles a couple of times, but kept getting held back by little injuries. My hamstring would bother me, or I'd uknowingly pick a route with bodacious hills that I simply could not run up. I knew all I had to do in my training was get over that ten mile mark. As someone told me, "If you can run 10 miles, you can run 13."

As I was coming to the end of the trail, my breath started catching in my throat. At first, I thought something was wrong with me, that my lungs were seizing. Then I realized it was just the pride catching in my lungs. I didn't know until my eyes started to sting with tears how glad I was that there wasn't a man with me. The rest of the day my body buzzed warmly, and I couldn't stop grinning. And I finished the half marathon. I ran the whole way -- I mean, other than when I was drinking gatorade or peeing. I understand that some people soil themselves in marathons in order to get good time, but that ain't me.