same old, same old. no problem.

I've decided I'll watch the Amazing Race this season. Fox Reality channel (who knew there was a channel dedicated to reality tv?) played a marathon of the show over the weekend in prep for tonight's premiere. They succeeded in reeling me in. It's an easy show to watch, on a dead night for tv (other than Mad Men) and I can have it on in the background while I work. I've dedicated too much time to this topic so moving on.

What have I done in 10 days? I don't know. Worked. Ran. Slept. I worked today, so lucky me gets a 6 day work week. I messed my hip up in my huge run last week, which messed my left I-T band up, so I ditched out of the 8 mile run Saturday around mile 3. I'm not exacerbating an I-T problem two weeks before the marathon.

Saturday afternoon Nate and I took Audrey to the dog beach. You know I have to say this: it was totally snoozeville compared to Fort Funston. Audrey hasn't been to a beach in two years, and Fort Funston has limitless running, no fences, crabs to chew on, good stuff. This 'beach' on Lake Michigan was fenced-in, small and had no crabs or fun stuff to dig up. Audrey seemed to have fun despite my 'tude towards the place. She met some other dogs her size and they stuck together. She also faced her fear of water by almost touching it to steal a tennis ball on the shore. I think she is the only dog ever to be afraid of water. Figures she's my dog. We took lots of pictures but Nate hasn't uploaded them yet for me to post.

Then we sat at home. He's constantly swamped at school, like 12-14 hour days multiple times a week and 7 day work weeks swamped. I'm pretty busy and exhausted too from the course I'm teaching and from running. So when the weekend hits neither one of us is up for doing much other than vegging out in front of the tv. This has been the typical weekend for us since his school started. At least we're saving money.

trips

Three weeks from Sunday is the marathon. Whoa. This Saturday is 23 miles. Whoa. Been working really hard for it: eating appropriately, not drinking (although that's not new), going to bed on time, doing all my shorter runs. I'm ready.

Two exciting things:

1. Nate and I are going to New York at the end of October. He has to go that weekend with his class and I coincidentally have to be there for a wedding. So now we get a mini-vacation! Too bad we don't really like New York. It'll be great anyway, and now I have a date for the wedding.

2. Then a month later we are renting a car and driving to Minneapolis (with Audrey!) for the Alternative Family Thanksgiving at Kevin and Paul's place. I. Can't. Wait. I don't even know when the last time was that I was at their house. At least a year? Too long. Heated tile floor here I come.

Rain Delay

Thanks to the downpour all weekend my 23 mile run was canceled. I woke up at 4 a.m. Saturday, stretched, ate a huge carbo-breakfast, Body Glided my feet, and braved the nasty rain to get to the Damen bus at 5:18 a.m.. I transfer to the Lawrence bus, where some scary bums were hanging out. I get off at the lake, and this guy is running. He shouts out "Chicago AIDS Marathon?" I say "yes." He tells me they canceled the run. Thanks for the email dudes! I spent an hour getting there, I was drenched, and I got to turn right back around on the bus. This is a time when a gal wants a car.

It was better to have it canceled than attempt to run in that monsoon. However, it sucked going to bed at 9 on Friday and waking up so early for nothing. I also spent the whole week mentally and physically preparing for this run, and now I have to repeat it all over again. Including the stress and scary feelings. I also missed hanging out with my running buddies.

So Saturday was a wash (a wash, get it? rain..wet...wash...). Sunday was much better. Nate and I had waffles and coffee, read the paper, watched mythbusters, watched Walk Hard (stupid but good for a Sunday), played katamari for hours, ordered a pizza, watched Fringe and BB10. So lots of lounging. He left to do homework and I've spent the last few hours grading papers.

This week will be just like last week, only hopefully this time it will culminate in a 23 mile run.

the human fund

You know that Seinfeld episode where George gives people fake gifts that say "a donation has been made in your name to the Human Fund"? If you don't it's right above this sentence. The Human Fund is "money for people." I'd like some of that right now. Audrey had her annual vet visit which includes various vaccines and prescriptions for flea/tick/heartworm meds, and a poo sample. She cried the whole time and had to be muzzled again. She shed everywhere - the hair was coming off in clumps. It was heartbreaking to see her so upset. The price of this experience? $400. Four.hundred.dollars. I had to charge it. It'll be months before I have this gone. I hate that just when I'm about to make a dent in debt I have some huge bill. I'm also paying a bunch for a ticket to New York in October. I'm accepting human fund donations.

Audrey's lucky I love her so much and have a super awesome time on our awesome walks and dog park visits with her and Nate. Otherwise she'd be working the corner to pay me back. She's a cute bitch, many a stud would take her.

What can 400 dollars get me?
-four months of therapy
-half of the HDTV I desperately want
-a plane ticket to San Francisco for a trip I desperately need
-the arm chair I want for cozy reading time
-1.5 night stands
-over 200 cups of coffee from a coffee shop which would be almost a year of coffee before work
-a new fall wardrobe

These will all have to be put off now. Boo.

Season finale and fall previews

The whole summer's-over-on-Labor-Day thing is sort of funny because it was over awhile ago for me. Academic calendars care not about normal people calendars. For lack of anything else to write about let's recap my summer. For me summer starts at the end of finals in May, which is a week or two before Memorial Day. In semi-chronological order:

I entertained people at my house for my birthday, which is noteworthy because I never have people over.

I went to Anaheim for a work conference. It was dumb.

I ran a shitload. If I had to estimate I'd say I've ran around 300 miles since mid-May. I love it but it has been so much more time consuming than I had expected. Gone are the Friday nights. Instead I have 5 a.m. wake-ups on Saturdays and two more days a week of running on my own. Usually I'd be so tired from the Saturday run I couldn't even go out Saturdays. Didn't get out much but it didn't bother me much either.

I went to my first Chicago beach. It was unimpressive. Only good thing was that I felt pretty a-ok about bikini-time thanks to running.

My friend and my uncle both got their cancers into remission. My cousin had a baby - the first in the new generation of our tiny family.

I got a promotion. Then another one. I now have three job titles, and the work to match. More not going out resulted. Also more stress and responsibility. Boo. And money. Yay.

Nate reappeared. Hung out a lot. Coffee and waffles in the morning followed by baseball-watching afternoons resumed. Threw him a surprise BBQ. Been good.

I saw only one movie in the theater: Dark Knight.

I went to two weddings. One really nice, one the exact opposite of anything I'd ever want for mine.

I made in-roads at sprucing up my apartment.

Continued hanging out with my 'new' friends. Can't call them new anymore huh? Made more new friends in my running group.

Went to a bunch of White Sox games.

Did not watch nearly enough films.

Had my brother visit for a few days.


I feel like I'm missing something but probably not. Running and work has dominated my summer. Overall rating? 4 out of 5 stars. I told Nate today that I was looking forward to the coziness of fall, the electric blankets, sweaters (more importantly doggy sweaters!), leaves falling, warm soup dinners, Christmas tree in the corner... Someday the world will invent a winter without cold temperatures but with all the good stuff.

Fall plans: completing my first marathon, making it through teaching this class, finishing my 'office', paying down some debt with my new income, visiting Kevin/Paul for Thanksgiving, Matty's wedding in October, and hopefully seeing a White Sox world series victory.