Venous Reverb, or the Untold Story of Eglentyne's First 5k Day

Waking up early and getting ready for the fun run went very smoothly, but there were two things I didn’t have time for: finishing my morning caffeine and stretching properly. I have subsequently paid for both of these things.

The run went well, the weather beautiful and the wind light. I accidentally met some great people who happen to live in my little town. Small world. And I might have an occasional running partner now.

I did not expect the course to be as hilly as it was. My wee town is as flat as flat can be, and the biggest incline I tackle during a run is a sidewalk ramp. The race began with a steep uphill climb, and then meandered up and down, finishing on a long slow downhill slope. The hills and the lack of a good knee stretch have left my calves and knees very unhappy today.

After the race, there was a lot of standing around, sweating, chatting, and waiting for race results while they passed out some raffle prizes. That was fun, and the Sonars thought it was great to play on the fantastic structures at the park, as well as to run up and down up and down up and down a steep hill about five-thousand times. When we finally left the park, they were covered head to foot in mud.

After cleaning up the Sonars, Partner hauled them off for much-begged-for haircuts, while I showered and stretched and snacked and blogged.

When I posted my triumph yesterday, I was already feeling the aura of an impending migraine. It hit hard and fast, and was complete with the most lovely and distressing visual aura (pretty golden wavery lines at the edges of my field of vision). Medicated, hydrated, caffeinated, showered, and stretched, I sprawled out on my bed.

Now, some people can’t stand light or sound when they have a migraine. I don’t mind either of these in moderation. What kills me is movement. Even the slightest little muscle twitch is amplified through my veins and into my head, making it feel like my skull will surely explode. So stillness, profound stillness, is the key to migraine comfort for me. Difficult in the best of circumstances considering I must continue to breathe, which moves my body ever so slightly.

The good news is, that after a hearty lunch and a long, quiet nap, the pain had receded somewhat. I was left with an uncomfortable sort of hollow feeling, but that too waned before dinner time.

What has yet to wane are the cranky after-effects on three children of getting up too early and running up and down a hill five-thousand times. They totally had a blast. I’m sure they ran more than I did yesterday. The experience has even inspired Sonar X7, equipped by Partner yesterday with fresh shoes, to start training with me. But their little bodies are worn a bit tired. And tempers are frayed around the edges. No insult or discomfort passes today without dramatic complaint.

Still a bit tired myself, I’m having to work very hard to maintain my patience and understanding with them, and admit to flipping out once this morning over yet another whiny breakdown by a child. But calm has settled over the house as everyone rests quietly. We have plenty of groceries and I made some rosemary foccaccia this morning that is begging to be eaten. We have nowhere to go, and nothing to do but enjoy our day.

Now, if I can just finish this d#$% sweater.

Stacked

From the top:
Clive Barker’s Mister B. Gone
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little Town on the Prairie
Janet Evanovich’s Plum Lucky
Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men
Michael Pollan’s Botany of Desire
James Burkes’ The Pinball Effect: How Renaissance Water Gardens Made the Carburetor Possible
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Mercer Mayer’s What a Bad Dream
Jarrett J. Krosoczka’s Punk Farm on Tour
Lila Prap’s Daddies

Not Pictured:
Fred Rogers’ The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember
Alison Hansel’s Charmed Knits
Debbie Stoller’s Son of Stitch and Bitch

This is the stack of books I am reading or will soon read.

HP6 and Little Town are being read to the Sonars a few pages at a time at bedtime. We’ve read all of the HP’s so far, and we started this one back in December sometime. I marvel that I have chosen, as a parent to read such complex and sometimes horrifying books (bone white, dead bodies floating under inky black water, anyone?) to children age 3, 4, and 7, at BEDTIME no less. And I further marvel at the way they sit, completely absorbed and emotionally engaged with these books, yet somehow capable of leaving their feelings in the book when it’s time to sleep (if not when it’s time to play).

The three picture books on the bottom are Sonar X3’s to choose from for a bedtime story. Punk Farm is really fun (“Peace Out Colorado!”). I could add here another picture book that we have recently loved and read at least a dozen times: Woolbur by Leslie Kelakoski (“‘I know!’ said Woolbur. ‘Isn’t it great!”)

Mister B and Plum Lucky are pure escapism for me. I read and loved in a slightly twisted way, a couple of Barker’s books as a teen, and have perused his books for younger readers recently. This is his return to fully adult literature, and I was curious. It’s… ok so far. I am intrigued by the use of Gutenburg’s development of the printing press as a locus for an epic battle between heaven and hell. I accidentally discovered Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books a year or so ago. And while I’m not normally ‘mystery’ kind of reader, I quickly fell in love with this quirky heroine and quickly devoured all twelve novels and two novellas that were available at the time (seriously, I think I read them all in less than three weeks, which is amazing considering the complete lack of free reading time that I have). Plum Lucky is the third of the so-called Between-the-Numbers stories (the regular novels all have a number in the title: One For the Money, Lean Mean Thirteen, etc.) that let’s Stephanie explore the not so down-to-earth potential of her life in the Burg. Really fun, funny, and sexy, even if they are a teensy bit predictable sometimes.

Partner is actually reading No Country right now, but I plan to steal it sometime soon. He’s read a few passages to me, and we’re both taken with the bizarre prose, though it is sometimes challenging to tease the meaning out from the unpunctuated passages. Not for the weak of stomach, this one.

The Pinball Effect is one that I pick up from time to time and read a few passages. It works that way. Letting us all be dilettantes of cultural history. Anyone familiar with Burke’s television show, Connections, will recognize the format here. Burke’s approach to history illuminates the fact that there was a world-wide-web of culture and influence well before the internet was even imagined.

Michael Pollan’s book is another that I want to get to. His writing never fails to remind me why I *want* to eat the way we do most of the time, providing many and varied reasons for thoughtful consumption of food.

In the background of the picture you can also see a tissue box, a pile of pink something, a domed plastic Krispy Kreme cup, and maybe the corner of the backup drive.

The pink something is the sweater I’ve finally sewn together, only to discover that it’s too short for me. I’ve embarked on an epic quest to Make It Fit, which I will blog another day.

The Krispy Kreme donut hole cup, purchased in a moment of weakness embedded in another moment of weakness (donuts, during a rare trip to Walmart), and now devoid of donut holes, is now a micro-greenhouse where we are trying to sprout Banyan seeds. (We like to watch It’s a Big Big World sometimes) Awesome, really, that a tree that big comes from something the size of a poppy seed.

The knitting books will soon be responsible for three small owls and one very large sweater.

And as for Mister Rogers. *happy sigh* Well, let’s just say he holds a special, if not schlocky place in my heart. The fortieth anniversary of Mister Rogers Neighborhood passed last week, and what would have been Fred Rogers’ 80th birthday is coming up next month. See more on this when I talk about Sweater Day.

Vector Analysis

The Knickers will have to wait. I’ve been sick for a few days and I’m feeling a little rambly(manic).

Now, I’m not the world’s best housekeeper. I like to think of our aesthetic as comfortable and lived in, but not necessarily *dirty.* Some would decry the decided rarity of bleach application in my house (my mother would be one of these, but even before she was institutionalized, I found her attitude toward dirt and germs a bit extreme). I find that we can keep things clean and sanitary in other ways, and prefer to save the bleach for extreme circumstances.

There *are* times when various forces conspire to let our “comfortable” aesthetic slide into something else altogether. In the past few weeks we’ve all weathered one cold, then an allergy onslaught. Sonar X7 was home sick on Friday, then again for a President’s Day holiday on Monday, further throwing our routines out of whack.

Sonar X7 has asthma and is allergic to everything that blows on the South Texas winds. Administering his puffers this morning, I noticed that there was some powdery build-up on one and realized that I hadn’t washed them out for a while. And that led me to notice that I also hadn’t washed his peak-flow meter (the little thingy that helps us measure his breath capacity). The puffers get a little filmy from sucking in the medicine, but he blows *into* the meter, which was coated inside with a fine green film of concretized mucus. Ick.

I put the apparati in some warm soapy water to soak and shuffled to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea and sit. While I stood there waiting for my hot water, having to shove aside a pile of dishes to make a spot for my teacup, I listened to the rattle of legos from the Pre-school Sonars and started to wonder what other little bits had fallen under my radar this past couple of weeks. What other sneaky vectors of reinfection were lurking under my nose.

Yeah, the dishes were obvious, and don’t get me started on the Legos and the K’Nex. But there are several things that I normally think of as more or less clean that were decidedly not. My teacup, for instance. I normally drink a cup and then rinse it and set it in the dish drainer. The build-up happens so slowly as to not be noticeable, but today there is an oily tea-film that I could scratch a lovely landscape picture into. (Now Scrubbed) For that matter, the measuring cup that I use only for boiling water in the microwave. That should be clean, right? Um. Yeah, all except the field of spatters on the underside of the spout where tea and coffee splashes up against it during pouring. (Now Washed)

I started to feel sort of creeped out, and though I am still sick, I just couldn’t help myself.

I emerged from the kitchen nearly an hour later. Dishwasher was running, dish-drainer piled high with clean pans, sponges were all cooling from a sterilizing stint in the microwave, cutting board sprinkled liberally with baking soda, and counters scrubbed (including the icky residue of last night’s blueberry scone adventure -> the Sonars helped make dinner). My tea was cold, but in a clean cup, and I felt wrung out like a slimy rag. I didn’t have the energy for the floor, but I hope we’ve all outgrown our floor-licking stage.

[Side-note: Anyone who would still consider visiting my house after this little confessional who might need a toilet while here should really try their luck with the convenience store down the street.]

In other news, I’m trying to get some knitting done. I feel a bit knit-rich right now (go ahead, reread that last phrase. No, see, it didn’t say what you thought it said the first time). I’m not a big-stash kind of knitter. I prefer generally to only gather yarn that I’m ready to knit into something. And I usually try to finish one thing before I start another. This doesn’t always work out. I’m working on (finished now) some Easter surprises for the Sonars, and some socks for the Partner. Those of you who know my tendency to procrastinate and knit myself into aching, twisted, gnarled hands the night before holidays might be surprised at my advanced planning here. Frankly I am too. I’m not sure where it came from.

On other needles is a knitted rocking chair seat that has been languishing for nearly two years (three?!). Then there are the pieces of the pink alpaca sweater that are completely knit, but have been waiting many many months to be sewn together. I have a bag of bamboo yarn from Christmas that is still waiting for a deployment plan (summer sweater? moebius wrap?). And another Christmas present, Charmed Knits is calling to me to make something. AND. I’m awaiting a box of sock (for Sonars probably) and sweater (for Partner) yarn, and Sister hinted that she tucked in another knitting book for me in a box of books she’s sending the Sonars.

Phew. I wonder if I could knit and run at the same time? Maybe not. For now, I’ll just go collapse into a wheezy heap.

Happy Day Lovelies

Knit and felted hearts, LionWool

P.S. I opted not to take the little guys to see Hillary yesterday; the pragmatics were just too much for me. But we did watch her live on tv, and I was inspired, knowing that she was in my neck of the woods.

P.P.S. I am still undecided.

Next Time: My First Race

One thing or another

So, I fixed the shoe problem, figured out a pre- and post-running stretch routine that has ameliorated the pain, varied clothing to account for warmth and cold and wind.

Oh, and I have asthma. Which I totally forget about sometimes because really, it only bothers me when I’m sick.

Or when there’s a brush fire down the coast, apparently.

Who knew.

I had been outside with the kids for much of the afternoon, thinking every now and then that I could smell smoke. And not good smoke, like some whacko burning a nice fire on the hearth (anyone who uses a fireplace in this Semi-Arid, Sub-Tropical climate must be whacko, right?), but bad smoke, like some whacko burning yesterday’s trash in their back yard. But the smell came and went and there were no tell-tale black plumes of smoke in the sky as a giveaway.

When I set off running, the air felt cool and sharp and dry, which is ok, but it also burned, deep in my chest, in a totally not nice way. The sensation lessened as I ran, probably as wind currents shifted near sunset. And when I came home I collapsed on my bathroom floor with my pair of puffers to try to sooth my sore lungs.

Turns out from the news last night that they were doing “Controlled Burns” on King Ranch, that sort of got out of control due to high winds and low humidity. I’m thinking you check the weather before you do so-called “Controlled Burns,” but that’s just me. This is really nowhere near us, at least thirty or forty miles away, and blew into our town over the water, hence the lack of obvious smoke. The acrid smell was diluted and spread on the high winds, but not so much that it didn’t cause my lungs to scream in protest.

Two possible outcomes here: carry the inhaler with me (not desireable) or don’t run when the air quality stinks. The latter seems more reasonable to me for many reasons, but could be problematic considering the high rate of brush fires this season (heavy rains last summer were followed by several months of drought), and the fact there is a high concentration of petrochemical and heavy industrial work in the area.

This leads to a third option, keep running, but move somewhere else. :D

P.S. My apologies to CM for attributing her shoe solution to CT. It was very funny and I was simply confused. Clearly y’all need to change your names. ;)