Final countdown

So this blog was supposed to be about my transition back into running. Specifically, I was thinking I'd have my stupid plantar fasciitis all cleared up and I'd get to running in time to do another half marathon, as I did last year about this time.

But no. Instead, it's been a place to document my failures. Failure to heal, failure to trim up before my sister's wedding -- now one week away, and with no improvements in ye olde waistline -- oh and my high school reunion's also this week. My 11 year. Yeah, I know. I went to an odd high school.

I'm close to considering the surgical option, though I hear that even that has risks, including flattening the arch in your foot, which can be an even worse fate than what I'm dealing with now.

Yeah.

But I was thinking recently, as an ad for American Apparel came up on my computer, about skinny people. They're responsible for a lot of stupid trends. I wonder, if I became one of those skinny people, if I'd suddenly get cool and trendy and start wearing leggings. Or, worse yet, if I'd see these and think, "Oh, those are really cute formal shorts."



















OK. I know that's ridiculous. I mean, I don't like imagining the kind of brain trauma that would lead me to such insanity.

Butter

A little unsolicited advice for y'all: If you have ambitions of weight loss, don't date a southern boy.

Sunday was R's birthday, and I think I went through a pound of butter cooking him his favorite things. And a quart of heavy cream, several cups of sugar, a half pound of bacon and about a third of a bottle of maple syrup.

The details? Pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Lunch didn't matter, because I finished making him two crack pies (Most of the butter went into the crack pie. It's a dairy-and-caramelized-sugary-goo pie in an oatmeal-cookie-crumbled-with-butter crust), and he decided because it was his birthday he could cut into a pie before we went to the movie and ate a tub of popcorn and just call that lunch. Dinner was Emeril's shrimp (with cream and peppers, garlic and cajun seasoning. Now, I think Emeril's a bit much, but if he knows how to make anything, it's southern-style shrimp) and Charleston-style grits (the grits contained two cups of milk, a cup of heavy cream and a stick of butter. it's really the only way to eat grits), which apparently in the south they serve with corn bread. After the cornbread came out of the oven, we frosted it with butter and honey until it weighed about a half pound per cube. I would've taken photos of some of this deliciously fattening food, but we were kind of busy stuffing it in our faces. (Exaggeration. He was stuffing. I was actually pretty restrained. One pancake. Half slice of crack pie. OK, I did hit the bacon pretty hard, but c'mon. Gimme a break.)

Since then, I've not let a carb pass my lips, and barely any dairy. It's been mostly egg whites salad and lean meats. A few nuts and avocado. I've walked the butte every morning and done pilates in the evenings. Too little too late? (Sleeveless maid of honor dress in little more than 2 weeks. gulp. thank the lord for spanx) Probably.

Oh, and in totally unrelated news, I went to see a new chiropractor, and hours after the appointment with the new guy, my old chiro called me to schedule my next appointment. It's like he knew I was cheating. But the new guy! He adjusts my whole spine! He doesn't try to rip me off by selling me $600 orthotics!

He also makes me take my shoes off in his office, but, you know. Win some, lose some.

Confessions

I didn't work out this week, as I was too busy coughing up bits of green goo and taking the kind of sick day that you pay for later by working 2 of the 3 days other people labeled a "holiday weekend," but I did manage to write something. Not for this blog, but for an old pal, the newly remodeled DatingIsWeird.com.

In it, I confess that I committed the only unforgivable crime. I dated a cop.

Don't worry, I've already washed my own mouth out with soap.

Marian's back!

I had to call a library yesterday, and I swear the lady I spoke with was Marian the Librarian. The voice was identical. Now, I totally get that the original Marian wasn't actually a librarian, but in fact a crazy yoga teacher with a giant camel toe, but the voice! The "hehe"! It was creepy. I had flashbacks.

In other news, I walked the butte yesterday morning with two friends. Bootie was so fast she jogged laps around the top while waiting for me and Jules to catch up. Jerk. I'm blaming my slowness on the fact that we were walking with wee Gertie, the world's cutest golden retriever puppy. Seriously. Why did I not get a golden retriever? Why did I have to get a "smart" dog? Dumb dogs are awesome. They obey. Did you know that? Also, Gertie gets tired. Toward the end of the walk Jules jogged a little bit, and poor lil Gertie (I'll find a pic, promise) was dragging on the end of her leash. Do you know what I have to do to tire out Margaux?

If you do, please, please tell me.

Wagon: The thing that I get off and on depending on my mood.

Yesterday was day one of not being a lazy whiner chubby-bunny face-stuffer.

Really. After more than a week of sleeping 10-12 hours a night, and evenings spent in the company of my couch and a bowl of spaghetti (you go through those phases, too, right?) I've decided it's time.

Yesterday, I did my first pilates class in ages, and discovered my that one of my instructors' sister is a poet. Now, when I heard that, I thought, "Oh, poet. Uh huh. Sure. I'm sure she's a real good poet." But it turns out she recently won a prize I was familiar with, and was recently published in Poetry, the journal I have a collection of going back to 2007. She's a real capital P Poet, y'all. Not sure why that matters, except to think that there are real poets out there who are related to real people I know somehow lets a tiny light into the black-ass darkness that's descended over my head, Eeyore-style.

(Poetess also apparently went to college with a close friend of mine, who doesn't know the pilates instructor. It's all very strange in my world. Everyone knows everyone. Especially ex-boyfriends.)

Then this morning a good friend came and met me and Margaux to walk the butte. "Somehow, today, they made the road to the top extra long and extra steep," I thought all the way up, as my friend disappeared ahead of me as the road curved around the butte. I think it may have had something do do with a) Only getting about 5 hours of sleep last night b) Did I mention all that couch time? All that delicious, wonderful, yummy nummy snoozy couch time? Mmmmm, I could go lay down right now ...

Everything sucks

I thought about not writing about this here, because it's just so depressing. But I have to. (How's that for a winning lede?)

Wednesday morning last week, I went to wake the dogs up and let them out, and right away knew something was wrong. Rio (of turd fairy fame) had moved a few steps from the bed the three dogs share, and was lying on the floor on his side, whimpering quietly. His front legs were quivering. When I moved to the door and called the dogs, as I do every morning, he pushed up on his front legs into a sit and looked at me.

"Rio, come on buddy," I said. He tried to push forward, but that was it. His eyes were wide. He tried to shove forward, but his bum stayed put.

Now, I've lived with Rio for a year. He's a little bit of a drama queen. A hurty paw, a tiny sliver in the pad, could leave him three-legged. A subtle breeze could elicit a squealing plead for mercy.

But this was no drama queen moment. He was paralyzed from mid-waist down.

Over the next couple of days, the vet tried a few of the less expensive diagnostic and treatment options, but the prognosis wasn't good. There was little hope for recovery. He was going to be paralyzed. He was going to be incontinent. And his personality wasn't going to change; he would still be an anxious little guy. The kind of dog who, at the slightest bit of stress, would lick his paws raw.

And now, as he wizzed all over the pee-pee pads we'd tucked underneath him, with medication and stress-induced diarrhea all over himself and his bedding, it bothered him. He fretted. He tried reaching his back side, tried licking himself clean. He buried his head in his paws when we were cleaning him.

You see where this is going. We decided to put him down. It was one of the hardest decisions I've ever been a part of -- and I won't even begin to imagine or explain what it was like for R.

As I've gotten to know dogs over the last few years, I've realized the degree to which dogs have soul -- and I don't mean they have something crafted by God that other animals don't have. I mean they have the kind of soul James Brown talks about. Dogs totally look at you and see you, (all Avatar-style) whereas cats look at you and you might as well be a lamp. Perhaps your cat looks at you and sees a lamp that gives good belly rubs or a lamp that puts food in his bowl, but you're still a lamp.

The last morning we had Rio, we took him to McDonalds and bought him an egg McMuffin. We took him to the park and pet his velvet toffee ears. And we stayed with him until the end. If you've never put an animal down, you can probably imagine what it's like, and how much it sucks. I thought I could imagine how awful it would be before I had to go through it on Friday. But here's the thing: It's so much worse.

The day we put him down, I went to the going-away party of one of my best friends, who's moving to Utah (Ugh). The next morning, R left for most of the next month for work. Oh and the tire store called and won't put my summer tires on because they're bald and 'we have a nice tire we can put you in for $6,000 and why don't you also bend over for us lady.'

I think I'm going to write a country song. I'll start with something about how I haven't been sleeping right. How at first, I can't get to sleep, then, in the morning, I want to stay in bed all day. I'll also write about filling up two bowls with breakfast instead of three, and about Margaux pacing the back yard with too much energy, looking for someone who wants to play.

And now, with apologies, here are some pictures of Rio. He was even cuter in person.

Miracles

When I visited Sadie in Idaho last summer, I was a runner. She was not. She'd go to the gym with me and hike with me, but the few times I tried to get her to run with me, it just wasn't happening.

But since I've been down with this (grumblegrumblegrumble) heel injury, she's picked up her running shoes. Oh, and roller skates, too, since she's now a derby queen.

This weekend, she ran her first race, a 12K. She loved it, of course, and came back with this little story:

About .5 mile from the finish I heard a man clapping and hooting (like a gazillion other spectators). "You're all amazing, keep going!" he cheered, "Almost there, it's a blessed miracle you're running today!"

I turned my face to send him a weary smile, and I saw him; an old man, perched awkwardly on a stool. He was an amputee.

It's hard to run and cry at the same time. fyi.