Memorial Day. Lake. Again.

We pretty much go to the lake every Memorial Day. Especially now that we have kids. It is free, sunny, and not home.

Todd and kids with vintage Coleco Turtle pool (mine and Leelee's as a kid). Yes, I watch too much Antiques Roadshow.

Tiller and Rollie in Pool. If I could only get both of them to look at the camera at one time, much less both to smile.

Some pastimes are classic and affordable. Like blowing bubbles, running races, and eating melon in the grass.

Tiller wearing "Grandpa's Sidekick" hat.

Hope everyone had as lovely a holiday as ours.

Saturday Run

I cannot believe i am not more tired after running six miles and then helping my sister move all day. Also? Ikea is affordable for a reason: You have to put a LOT of shit together. Like, seriously, hundreds of small pieces.

I usually run outside on weekends, but today was a definite no-go. There was smoke everywhere, so I headed to the gym. Running on the treadmill for six miles is just plain boring, but I knocked it out.

Saturday run: 6 miles - 70 minutes, 20 seconds. (11:43 pace, which is pretty fast for me at this distance.) Um, also, I have never run that far before.

How I Became a Mean Girl

There is a reason that I have always preferred friendships with guys over friendships with girls. Sure, I have found in my older years that it is nice to have girlfriends, that they understand the singular difficulty surrounding being a daughter, wife, and mother, but women are all so sensitive. Men, on the other hand, never get their feelings hurt, and you can bribe them with the promise of sexual favors and never make good on those, and they will still be your friend, for like 20 + years and going strong. (Seriously, guys, I am totally good for those promises. I promise. Just another ten years or so.)

I am not a sensitive person. I don't know if I am self-absorbed, or if I am just clueless. I do know that my guy friends don't have their feelings hurt about things, and then not say anything to me about it for months, while instead talking to other friends about how I hurt their feelings, while I sit around having no fucking clue that I hurt their feelings in the first place. Usually, the first friend's confidante in turn tells me about having hurt Friend 1's feelings, but with the caveat that I can't tell the first friend that I know that her feelings are hurt, thereby making it impossible for me to rectify the problem or apologize to Friend #1 without being a bad friend to Friend #2.

This is complete bullshit. If you have your feelings hurt, just fucking tell me. Otherwise, move on. Guys don't seem to get their feelings hurt, and if they do, they sure as hell don't talk about it to other people, and they don't hold grudges. They get over it.

People, I just like to have a good time drinking margaritas and beer on the beach. I don't really care who is sitting there with me. All are welcome. I buy what I can afford at the time. Contrary to popular belief, everything I do is not a calculated move to hurt people. Hell, nothing I do is calculated. I don't usually know what I am going to do in the next ten minutes, much less have a Machiavellian plan for being the Queen Bee or a Mean Girl.

Oh, and another thing? The clique thing? So eighth grade. Can't we all just be adults and get along? Better yet, can't we actually bring in some new blood every once in a while? We are thirty, not eighty. I still enjoy meeting new people. It makes life interesting. Let's live a little.

Love,
Heather

I'm Pooped and Negligent

I have been exercising a lot lately. I wish I could do all the things in my life that I just don't have time to do. Exercise more? Blog less. If I could just figure out how to get, like, 48 hours into one day. In the meantime, I guess I will combine the two.

My week so far:
Fixed chain on bike and pumped up tires to make sure the thing still works.
Monday: Ran two miles (2o minutes,) then ran up and down a hill for fifteen minutes to overcome fear of "The Hill." Did not work. Am still frightened of the hill.
Tuesday: X Train - Swam .5 miles = 19 minutes, 18 seconds.
Biked 13 miles (stationary) = 36.03. Also ran 11:54 mile to see what legs felt like. Answer: Jelly.
Wednesday: Ran 3.91 miles in 45 mins = 11 min 31 sec pace.
Thursday: Swam 1 mile. (Timed second .5 mile at 19:26:29)
Tomorrow: Off
Saturday: 6 miles, plus Lisa's move, minus kids, then drive to lake.

Tonight - Helping Leelee pack for the big move this weekend. There better be pizza.

Girls Night

I've written about how my brother-in-law calls our girls' nights "Girls Gone Mild." Not this past Saturday. I felt like complete and total ass on Sunday morning. Totally worth it, though, as it was good to go out and get a little crazy with the girls. Note to self: Beer good. Jagermeister shots bad. Especially after aforementioned beer.

Pictures below. I think I look fairly sedate, compared to the others, no?

Leelee, my sister.

Me and Leelee
Kit

Robin and Nessie. This one cracks me up.

Field Day

Yep. You heard me.

"Field Day."

Conjures up some memories, doesn't it? Hot May days, red clay on your tube socks, popsicles, tug-of-war, relays, and ice cream. My friend Vanessa, a schoolteacher, gleefully tells me come every May about what they call Field Day at her school. I think she enjoys watching me roll my eyes. I kid you not, they call it "Personal Record Day." Because God forbid that we might have kids who are actually winners over other kids, because . . . well, then there would be losers. We wouldn't want to teach our little ones that sometimes people win, sometimes they lose. Even worse, what if they were to learn that classic lesson about being a gracious loser? Nope, much better to let them run around a field like chickens with their heads cut off, achieving nothing, learning nothing, but with their precious self-esteem intact.

Oops. Totally got off the subject. This was about Rollie, and about his first field day. In his own words.

I Hate Nature

I thought that I liked nature, but I was wrong. We got home late last night (9 pm, go ahead and snicker - Todd and I already had a good laugh at ourselves and the sorry state of our Friday nights) and put the kids down. They usually go to sleep between 7:30 and 8:00, but last night didn't go down until 9:00. I foolishly thought this might mean I'd get an extra hour to sleep in this morning. I will never know if that was possible now, because at 6:30, Rollie came into our room complaining about a little noise that was "making me not sleepy." After much discussion, during which I may have been still partially asleep, we came to the conclusion that we have a Goddamn woodpecker.

Little fucker. The woodpecker, not Rollie.

I hate nature.

On the Cusp of A New World

More often than not, Todd will read to Rollie before bedtime, and I will read and put Tiller down. When I do get the opportunity to put both kids down for the evening, like last night when Todd went out with friends, I am always amazed at how far Rollie has come in his reading.

Okay, he can't really read, but he already knows his ABCs (big whoop, right?) and he knows all of the sounds that the letters make which is a little more impressive. He is driving me crazy asking what letter words start with, and in addition to being able to spell his own name, he can also spell mine. (He doesn't forget the E, either.) Last night he wowed me, though.

Damn can that boy memorize. I mean, when I think about the fact that I know every word to "Licensed to Ill" and "Paul's Boutique" and will probably be on my deathbed and still remember them, well, that kind of amazes me, because I was one class away from a minor in French, and the only thing I remember from that is how to say cheese. ("Fromage." Impressive, no?) I think I thought that repeated listenings while smoking cigarettes and drinking heavily were responsible for my remarkable memorization skills, but maybe it was just my inner child that accomplished the searing of whole albums' lyrics across my brain.

Because my little man can recite Where the Wild Things Are from beginning to end, with little to no prompting. He is a wonder. And there is nothing sweeter or cuter than a three-year-old reciting Where the Wild Things Are from memory. Must get on video. Must show the world my child genius.

In all seriousness, I am so proud of the boy. He is sweet and smart and funny and compassionate. And the three things that I want most for my children is to be happy, healthy, and lovers of the written word. I can feel that he is just on the cusp of making the leap from memorization to reading, and I am so excited for him that this whole world is about to open up for him when he cracks a book.

I think we are doing pretty good so far. Yay us. Yay Rollie.

Still Another Sign That I am a Better Than Average Parent

I was in the grocery store this morning, pushing the cart out the sliding doors to the parking lot. One of the guys in charge of retrieving the carts from the cart corral walked out to the car with me. He asked me if I liked the car kind of buggy. (I call it a "race cart;" It is the buggy with a car on the front of it for the kids to sit in, and it is a fucking bitch to navigate a grocery store with one of them, but it beats having them throwing your groceries out of the cart while you are not looking.)

I said, "Yeah, I guess so. Why?"

He told me that, on weekends when the store is crowded, most parents will wait until a race cart becomes available before doing their grocery shopping.

I just stared at him, then "Are you kidding?"

"Nope." We both laughed, then shook our heads in dismay.

Really, people. Don't you have something better to do with your time on Saturdays than hang out in the cart area of your local Kroger, just to appease your fucking spoiled brat of a child? That's ridiculous.

When I get to the store, if there are no racecar buggies available, I tell my kids to suck it up and ride the old-fashioned way. They bitch and moan, but there is a lesson here for them. They learn that they are not the goddamn center of the universe, that there are times in life when you just have to deal with a little disappointment. Not a bad lesson to learn on a Saturday at Kroger.

70 Minute Run Mix

So, this is kinda sad, but my favorite part of running is that I get to listen to music, without interruption, for the entire time I run. That never happens to me anymore. I am constantly besieged by Rollie wanting to hear the "hoohoo" song, which is the Peter Bjorn and John song, Young Folks, that Rollie likes to dance to (I blogged about it here a while ago). If I never hear it again, it will be too soon. He has some other faves, and I have to say that he has great taste in music, but he needs to learn moderation. He is still at the point where he wants to hear things over and over and over and over and . . . well, you get the idea.

So, without further ado, here is my current running mix. I figure if I keep posting these, maybe someone else will, too, because i like to get ideas from other people for new running songs I might want to mix in. (Hint. Hint. I get bored with stuff easily - need some new blood on the IPod.)

Hold Up - Girl Talk
Knife (Girl Talk Remix) - Grizzly Bear
Feel Good Inc (Single Edit) - Gorillaz
What's Golden - Jurassic 5
B.O.B. - OutKast
Kool Thing - Sonic Youth
Common Reactor - Silversun Pickups
If I Should Fall From Grace With God - The Pogues
No Cars Go - Arcade Fire
I Still Remember - Bloc Party
Keep The Car Running - Arcade Fire
(Drawing) Rings Around The World - Super Furry Animals
Song 2 - Blur
A Good Idea - Sugar
Lose Yourself - Eminem
Jesus Walks - Kanye West
Thieves - Ministry
U-Mass - Pixies
Web in Front - Archers Of Loaf

Thanks to Nat for a few of these. Good additions.

Happy Mother's Day

To all the Moms in my life, and especially to my own Mom. I never knew just how much work it took to raise such perfect children. You did a good job - Lisa and I rock. [wink]

Moms, make sure your peeps are being good to you today. As Todd told Rollie this morning:

"It's Mother's Day. That means we have to be nice to Mama."

Amen.

Life in the Biz

One of the fun things about having a husband in the biz is that after shoots, we get our pick from the wardrobe. Now, sometimes it is crap, but yesterday's haul was better than usual. Except that two pairs of the cute shoes were not even remotely big enough to fit me. These Vision Street Wear sneaks were, though!
The other fun part is that sometimes the crap is funny crap, which we then proceed to dress up* in. Like this Addidas track suit in Todd's size, and also the completely blinged-out Marc Jacobs watch. You can't tell in the picture, but it has huge rhinestone-like stones around the face of the watch.
*Big props to T for humoring me and dressing up in wardrobe, despite being late for sneak preview of 28 Weeks Later with Ned.

Gender Shmender

My friend Vanessa and I had this very long, drawn-out discussion of the influence of dolls on young girls, and of marketing of sexualized toys to girls, etc. the other night over margaritas. Yes, I do most of my sorting out of world problems while under the influence of alcohol. To make a long story short, we are both very concerned about the media and other outside influences on our daughters, and about how we can minimize these influences in their lives.

The funny thing? I didn't need to be worrying about my daughter at all. She doesn't give a shit yet which bib I put on her at the dinner table. Rollie, though? The morning after margaritas with Vanessa, I asked him to put a bib on before breakfast, and walk over to the table to find him wearing Tiller's Disney Princesses bib. He then proceeded to put his Bass Pro Shops hat on Tiller and appropriated her white Easter hat, the one with the big white bow, for the ride to school.

Ain't nobody gonna put my kids in a gender pigeonhole. Nobody.

What Am I? Fifteen Years Old?

I got mad at my hair yesterday. I should say that over the past month or so, I have become increasingly dissatisfied with the gnarled knots I have to untangle every day in the shower. I haven't had a haircut in . . . well, I don't remember the last time I had my hair cut. I don't know why it is, except that one can't very well walk into a salon with two kids and spend hours having a cut and color, so I have just given up on my hair. My life is a constant vying of interests, hobbies, and duties for my precious time, and, well, I'm just not a very vain person. Proud to a fault, yes. Vain about my physical appearance? Not really. My hair gets short shrift every time. Not that I don't like having a new cut and color. I love it. But i hate the time involved in the process, so it gets pushed to the back burner and neglected for months on end.

Except that maybe I haven't given up at all. With due respect to my stylist, Robin, who is first and foremost my friend, I have to say that I didn't do a bad job with a pair of kitchen scissors and my own two hands.

Who is snickering right now?

The funny thing is, almost every girl I know has done this at one time or another, but most of them grew out of it in high school. Not me. I wait till the day before I start my period (coincidence? I think not) and then I grab the scissors. I don't know why, but i don't have a fear of my hair looking stupid. If anything, I kind of relish the thought of the change, good or bad.

It really doesn't look bad, though. I whacked off about three inches (I am guessing), and since I have curly hair, I can get away with it. Todd didn't even notice that I had cut it at first (men!) and then when he did, he didn't realize it was an autostyle. He is going to have to clean up a couple locks in back, but he has been doing my color in a box for the last 6 months or so. I think he can handle it.

And it cost me nothing. I am the master miser.

You've Come A Long Way, Baby

I've written about how I just don't have time to keep up with new music like I used to do. It frustrates me at times that music is just one more thing that gets short shrift in my life next to my children. I think that means I am a good parent, but I still miss buying a new CD (and holding it and opening it, and smelling it, and reading all the liner notes while I listen).

Anyway, in a shotgun blast attempt to hear new music, I often listen to KEXP online (LOVE the morning show with John. Okay, love John) and I record MTV2's Subterranean weekly and watch it when I get a chance. (I am a first-generation MTV child, after all.) I hadn't watched in a while, though. Boy, was I surprised.

I think over half of the artists or bands they showed were female! And they weren't just bassists, either. (With apologies to the Kims, of course.) Feist, Lady Sov, Amy Winehouse, Charlotte Gainsbourg, new Bjork (great video, as usual), Lily Allen, new Tori Amos. I don't even like Tory Amos that much, but damn, she is looking good. She seems to have shed the hippy dippy, new agey blue-green look she always has going, and was pulling off more of a PJ Harvey attitude. Plus, she's got ginormous balls - I don't know if there is any amount of money that would make me utter any version of the statement "I am a MILF," much less have it flashing in my video in huge Frankie Goes to Hollywood block lettering. It was cool stuff.

Seems like music is such a male realm that the females that were there in the past packed a huge punch for me. I was elated that last night, I actually had the option of saying, "God, she sucks," or "Eaaahhh, not bad, but not really my style," or "ooh, it's nice to see a female playing guitar, even if I am not sure if I like the song or not." (Which usually means I will like the songs after a few listens.) There was a band, CSS, with more girls than guys from Brazil. Brazilian women, can't beat that.

Okay, now I went and looked at the Subterranean website, just to see if I missed anything, and there is a "Girls of Indie Rock Heat Up Subterranean This Week" headline. That explains that. It was a farce. That would explain the segment with Atlanta's Mastodon in between the videos; It's not like any female artists might have something interesting or intelligent to say about their music.

Guess we haven't come such a long way, baby.

Raising Precious

Okay, I know that I said here that American Idol is indicative of everything that is wrong with our world, but I think that I was too quick to pin the blame on one source. After receiving it in the mail yesterday, and then flipping through it in the bathroom this morning while taking a shit, it became quite apparent that the same can be said for the Pottery Barn Kids catalog.

Page four is all about "The Creative Backyard" or something like that. As if my kid can't learn creativity without a teak sandbox, lime and seafoam-striped sun umbrella, and monogrammed sand pail. (Metal, of course, because plastic is just tacky.) Creativity comes from within, Pottery Barn - Just see the idea my kid came up with while helping me garden. And, no we didn't have a monogrammed trowel and sunhat for him.

There is a section just on shit you can buy for a kid's party: Themes include pirates, surfers, and luaus. Who the fuck would buy a real teak kids' outdoor dining set, with little precious' name monogrammed onto a surfboard for a birthday party? To look at the catalog, you would think that not only are you supposed to have the director's chair that your kid will sit in while eating his cake monogrammed, but you are supposed to have the names of all the other little kids monogrammed on their items (chairs, towels, plates) presumably to take home as party favors?

So, not only are we training our kids up to think they might be the next American Idol, or the next movie or sports star, rather than teaching them tools to succeed in the real world, but now some parents are creating this fucking dreamworld that is so magnificent that nothing in the real world will ever hold a candle to it, and they will continue to be disappointed by life.

Not to mention that if I pay those kinds of prices for a fucking surfboard, I'm damn well gonna monogram my name on it.

Sign My Fat Ass Up

I wrote here about my workouts, and obviously, if you read Dogwood Girl, you know about my battle with my weight (which is really just a battle with my love for food and drink). Well, I read the most interesting article in The New York Times this morning about the fat-burning effects of interval training. Basically, that means that you alternate spurts of all out exertion with periods of moderate exertion in whatever activity you are doing.

I am so not a professional athlete; The workout for me is putting down the beer and getting my ass off the couch. Then, once I'm there, I just go (run or swim) for at least thirty minutes, but usually for an hour.

Not now! I am convinced that I need a day of interval training during my week. Because, according to the article:

After interval training, the amount of fat burned in an hour of continuous moderate cycling [for example] increased by 36 percent.

Thirty Six Percent. That's a pretty big increase. Sign my fat ass up.

Now I just have to figure out whether I should add the intervals to my runs or my swims. And then i can eat more, right?

Okay, I'm Out.

I'm gonna go ahead and out myself before someone else does.

I watch American Idol.

I have never watched it until this season. I thought it was stupid, mindless, and indicative of just about everything that is wrong in this world. I still think that. But in a moment of weakness, I started watching the first few weeks when they were still auditioning the really crappy whack jobs who think they are good singers. I got roped in, just like crack. Pop always told me to stay off dope, but he never warned me about American Idol.

Even so, I was able to watch with some indifference as people were voted off each week. Until this week. Cute little Chris. Not that great a singer, but Good God that boy is gonna take the teenybopper's money with a flash of that shy smile. Phil, devoted father and husband of two little girls? The tragedy!

Even more indicative of my addiction? If that spoiled brat Jordin (hate names spelled "uneekly!") doesn't get voted off next, I'm . . . still going to watch anyway.

Fuck.

Woohoo

So, I am still running, although I have had difficulty running as regularly as I want to with the crazy stuff going on with my Mom, and being out of town, etc. I am really trying to stick with it, though, because I feel so much better when I get enough exercise, that it is almost like I am a different person. Just ask the people who live with me.

So, on Saturday, I ran the farthest I have run yet: 4 miles. This doesn't include a few times that I have alternated walking and running for over an hour. I have done more distance, I guess in the past. I have definitely done longer hikes, but there is something so mentally challenging about making oneself primarily run a distance like that. It probably doesn't seem like a lot to people who run a lot, and it probably sounds like an insurmountable distance to those who don't run. (I know. I thought it was insurmountable a year ago.) But for me, it was big. I am at least 40 pounds overweight, and I did it. I ran at my in-laws in Dadeville, AL. They live in a golf community on a lake. It is huge and much of it is undeveloped woods. Lots of deer and buzzards. When I mapped it online, i just figured out how to do 4 miles in their neighborhood, and I didn't know all of the roads I included in the route. Big mistake. Actually, if I had known what part of it was like, I never would have attempted it. I walked a couple portions. One was the hill from hell. It was fairly steep and went. on. for. ever. When I got back to the house, I gave my father-in-law the evil eye, because I had asked him if my route made sense, and when I mentioned that road, he didn't even bat any eye or mention anything about the hill. Anyway, I did it, and it felt great.

The crazy thing, though, is how much easier it made my short run last night! I was just doing a 35 minute run, and I ran farther than i ever have before in that amount of time. Now, to be fair, part of the speed can be attributed to the fact that I live in the hood, and I ran from my house to the village, which requires running through what my cousin and I affectionately call "Little Afghanistan." I am not sure the origin of this name, but it seems to fit, and what it comes down to is that if you are out running after 8pm, you do not want the sun to set on you in Little Afghanistan. Anyway, the 5K I ran back in October (I know! I need to run another!) was my first and I ran it in 35:06. Granted, the hills were from hell, and the weather was windy, whereas last night's weather was awesome, and the route was pretty flat. But I still ran it in 33:24, even when sucking Marta bus fumes, and stopping for a little traffic at crosswalks, so I am happy that I am getting my time down closer to the 11 minute/mile pace.

Oh, and I started swimming about a month ago for my cross-training, to give my poor knees a break. I swam a mile this morning. It wasn't fast, but it was easy as hell; Time permitting, i could have kept going forever. Which makes me feel pretty good.

Yay me!