No more Pleasantville...

Friends who come visit me always remark on how my neighborhood looks like Pleasantville or the set from The Truman Show. Everything is "perfect"... manicured lawns, neatly-trimmed hedges, house colors all go well together, no cars up on blocks...

It always looks empty... except for the hired gardeners keeping the properties toeing the HOA's 'perfectness' line. My husband and I joke about how we never see anyone because they all are part of the Federal Witness Protection Program. In fact, I was so surprised to see evidence of life the other day that I took this picture... trash collection day and there are cans in front of every house! Trash=people, right?

I've written before about how this makes it feel safe to run at night. Sure, there is the olderwalkingcouple... hardly a threat. And once there was the hooptycarguy... but that concern was addressed. Since my husband left me... temporarily... my running and biking needs to happen at night. Usually not a problem. But as Murphy's Law would dictate, this past weekend night running saw its share of surprises!

Saturday was Dogs on the Loose and Party Central.

I started out with a run... and within moments was accosted by two free-roaming, yapping, fluffballs who almost took me out! They weren't biters, but they were trippers. Thankfully, I was able to leap over them. But after the last three weeks of mishaps, I was concerned :P A bit farther along, a very large, excited, and again, free-roaming golden retriever spied me running and wanted to 'engage.' I stopped dead in my tracks. As I said... after that series of silly mishaps, getting bowled over by a happy dog was the last thing I needed. Thinking The Force was working against me running that evening, I headed home and hopped on the bike.

Why did I think that would be safer? 

Some teenagers were having a kegger. Sharing the loop road on a bike with drunk kids driving cars... way safer than happy dogs... not. And then more dogs jumped out at me. All of this freaked me out. Maybe the fact that it was late (after 10 p.m.) and had been a long day played into that. I headed home and hopped into the shower.

Last night was single mommy hell before I even set foot out the door.

All the kids were going to have a slumber party in my room.

Why did I think that was going to work? 

After giving it an honest go, one person was banished... in tears, of course. Screaming, of course. And it wasn't me :P I needed to wait until the dust settled before I could start... 10:30. Yes, I went outside at 10:30 p.m. to get my workout on. You do what you gotta, right?

No one was out. It was awesome. I rode my bike the speed limit for 30 minutes. don't be too impressed... 15 mph  And then something surreal happened...

I decided to video it on the second pass instead of a taking a photo because I was worried the flash would startle him... sorry for the poor quality, but it was very low-light conditions....

I have no idea what was going on there. Maybe he was just getting his bike on, too? Maybe he wants a training partner? Maybe I should have followed him and asked?

***** dang it, that video is so dark you can hardly tell what it is... it is a guy riding a trike and wearing a headlamp!


***** and remember to enter my Hood to Coast DVD giveaway... click here! 

"Mom, how was your run?"

My 11-year old, Big G, has taken to asking me this question after every run. Tonight was no exception.

"It was GREAT!" I said smiling, because it was, in fact, GREAT!

"Anything interesting happen?" He's been reading my blog...

He wants to know if I've raced anymore drunken bums or been scared by anymore hoopty car guys.

Not lately.

But being a mom who doesn't like to disappoint, I thought hard for a moment...

"Well, there were these weird ducks..." I said.

"What did they do?"

"It was a male and a female... kind of like a couple... but they seemed to not know each other yet. She was up on a lawn and he was down on the sidewalk. She was looking over her little duck shoulder at him like she was saying, 'whaaaaaaat?' and he was gazing longingly at her. I think it might be mating season," I told him.

"So was it sort of like two teenagers? You know, where the boy wants to ask the girl to the prom... but he's kind of scared? And she's trying to be all cool or something?" He is getting too smart or big for his britches or something.

"Exactly!"

"How long were they there?" he asked.

I had to think. I realized they were there for quite a while...

"At least 4 laps," I replied. "Maybe even 5... that's about a half an hour."

And that was the most exciting thing that happened on my run, except...

That I freakin' smoked it!  Woo hooo! Well, as smoked it as I am able anyway ;-)

After my struggling tempo run on Monday wherein I actually did pretty dang well for me, I was curious as to what would come of tonight's maintenance run. The schedule was telling me to hit 10-minute miles for 70 minutes, and I was ready for it.

I ended up doing 6.3 miles in 60 minutes. My splits for each 0.75-mile lap were remarkably close... yay! The fastest was 7 flat (9:20 pace) and the slowest was 7:13 (9:39 pace) but the others were 7:03, 7:04 or 7:05... even as I can hope for :)  I felt smooth and relaxed and great! My hip started feeling tight about 5 miles in, so I made the executive decision to play it safe and finish up a wee bit early.

I am feeling right on track for my upcoming race. May 15th... 7.46 miles of hilly goodness... the San Francisco Bay to Breakers. The good news is... at this point, I know I can finish it! And there is no bad news. How awesome is that?

Mother's Cure.... Laughter

Driving driving driving...

Isn't that the story when you're a Stay-At-Home-Mom?  Yes, it's true that I drove more back when I was a florist delivery driver...no gold lamé suit or winged hat for me, though I was speedy and polite ...

But I do drive a lot.  This morning, the issue was not so much the mileage as the juggle... 4 kids, 3 different things all before 11 a.m.

• 9:00 Certificate of Merit piano exam to be administered 30 minutes away from home for Big G.
• 10:00 Skateboard Class at a location heading back toward home for a 20-minute drive from the piano thing for Q-Man.
• 11:00 Gymnastics heading back in the original direction another 10-minute drive from the skateboard thing for Big G and Baby X.

Lots of back-and-forth going on.  Every time I got in and out of the car and had to look at how hoopty it's getting, this video came to mind.  You see, there is a medium-ish dent in the driver's door of my minivan, a ding in the hood and another on the tailgate and enough food on the floor to keep us all alive for about a week... if we were stingy with the portion-sizes and desperate enough to tolerate subsisting on stale Cheerios, rice cake crumbles and broken pretzels.  Thinking about this video kept me sane because it makes me laugh.  I find laughter really helps me in the insanity-prevention department.

Of course, the fun didn't end with the arrival at gymnastics.  Nope.  It was at this point that momming kicked into high gear.  Chasing a bored-now-rampant toddler who has been being schlepped all over town for her older brothers' and sister's activities while simultaneously coping with the whining of a bored, Doritos-craving kindergartener is grueling... especially in a confined space filled with lots of observing parents drinking cups of coffee without handy lids.  Finally, after 55 minutes of that, we got to go home to have lunch and fight with our siblings and drive mommy more batty and eventually settle down when the toddler went to nap.

After my rough housewife/mommy morning, I was in serious need of some REAL housewife humor.  I know where to go when THAT is my jones...  and if off-color language offends you and/or your kids are in the room, consider yourself warned... I don't let my kids listen to this one!



No need for oxycontin washed down with Jack D for me.  Listening to Sally Brooks and laughing so hard no sound comes out is my Mother's Cure :)

Do you spend a lot of time in the car?  Do you enjoy driving?
–While I spend more time in the car with my kids than I prefer, I do enjoy driving quite a bit :)  I love road trips and would love to do that with the kids... not loving all the kid-commuting as much.

What is your go-to for insanity-prevention?
–Other than a great laugh, I pick running.