Best Rock Riff---Ever!

Argue if you will "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd

BEST ROCK RIFF EVER!!!!!

The song is 9 minutes 11 seconds-think that might take a little endurance?

Soulful contemplation gives way to chaotic angst gives way to climatic peace and resolove--simply awesome.

I have got to upload "Purple Rain" by Prince.

Feeling fully recovered from TCM and the Holiday Lalapalooza I am ready to let the training commence-again.

I'll be meeting Nancy and friends in Frostbite Falls. Come along for the journey-it might help some of you warm weather tri bloggies toughen up a bit. While typical cold weather scandinavian food tends to be some burgoo white paste concoction, Trimama will indulge her western upbringing and make a hearty batch of SOB chili. That's "South Of the Border" for you puritans, Son Of a...upon first tast-guaranteed to warm those frozen toes, particularly when consumed with generous quantities of Padron Anejo straight up (none of this frilly margarita stuff-it's 10 below for goodness sakes.)

That will be the last sweet nectar for Trimama until November 4th, the greatest sacrifice (heavy on the melodrama here) following Kahunas challenge for New Year's resolution to sacrifice. Leaving Frostbite Falls, if it doesn't have "Light" and "Beer" in it's name it's not passing Trimama's lips. Hold me to it Tridaddy-glad Chang's comes and goes before we arrive at the Falls.

My first tri of the season will be Jan 1

when I join the likes of these and plunge into frozen Lake Minnetonka. Some geeks and I from the local tri club figure we will run the lake to warm up, take the plunge and then if we factor in a bike ride at some point- voila Frozen Triathlon.

There is still room to register, so come on in, the water's fine.

Happy New Year! Let's go get our geeks on!

Sometimes to go foward, you have to go back

With the commencement of my Non Training Training (NTT) I've used some down time to think through this Ironman endevour. In my pre- holiday/prep to hibernate- funk I bought the book "Becoming an Ironman" which I began to read and then promptly dropped myself from the Florida race. The stories in the first half of that book were simply not me-too much thought, too much technical, too much not Trimama. Understandably each race is individual, but for me triathlon is about this
and a little of this
It's about training hard when I train, and racing hard when I race. But not taking myself or the sport so seriously that I can't pause mid race to kiss an owie for my support team.

There was a day when I was a ultra competitive athlete, and those days have gone the way of this.

After the rush of Christmas subsided, I picked up "Becoming an Ironman" and began reading from the back of the book-which I should have done to begin with. That is where I found the story of Bob Babbitt who ran the third Ironman in Hawaii in 1980. His story was a delight, and enlightened my soul, put me right where I want to be for Florida and beyond, so I thought I'd share a few exerpts.

Thanks in advance for indulging me in a slightly longer post.

"In 1979 I read an article in Sports Illustrated about this thing called the Hawaiian Iron Man Triathlon. At the time I was rooming with Ned Overrend, who would eventually become the world mountain biking champion...We both thought the race sounded pretty cool and decided we were going to train for and attempt the event in 1980."

"Ned and I trained in the pool in our condo...it was maybe 12 yards long...the pool was 120 lengths to a mile, so we did 240 lengths...We would get dizzy. We would get out of the water and stagger on the deck."

That year of the race the swim was moved to the Ala Moana Channel so as to keep the race from being cancelled or moved a day. ABC offered to film the race but it had to go on schedule, so it was moved from the Waikiki Rough Water course to the channel because the surf was breaking at 7-9 feet. One participant by the name of John Huckaby, or "Huck" could run ultra marathons but couldn't swim a stroke.

"I was swimming in a shallow section [of the channel] because I wasn't very confident. On my way back on my first lap, I almost ran head-on into this guy's knees. John Huckaby was walking the swim. He walked 2.4 miles-the only guy ever to do the swim and get blisters on his feet!"

Huck was later lost in the middle of the night, and race officials didn't know where he went. There was no time limit on the race.

"he decided to stop in a diner for breakfast. They spotted him coming out wiping his face...so it was a little different crowd than you see nowadays."

"I bought a bike from a police station auction. It had been in a fire and cost me sixty dollars. The whole back end was burned and I immediately bought a fuzzy raccoon seat cover, added padded handlebars, and had a Radio Shack radio mounted on top. I didn't know how to change a tire, so I bought solid rubber tires. I actually waxed the tire rims to get them on. And my training rides were never more than 30 miles."

Bob goes on to explain how a group of Navy SEALS had him confused with Gordon Haller, and were admiring his bike set up as the bike that had won the inaugural event.

"After my swim I met up with my support crew. One of the kids I taught, her dad lived in Honolulu adn volunteered for the job. He had a little Fiat convertible, and he and his two girlfriends decided it would be fun. First job was to get me ready for the ride. I had socks that came up to my knees and my Jack Purcell tennis shoes and my wool cycling jersy. I didn't know what to eat during something like this, so I had given them 20 loaves of Hawaiian sweet bread. I got on my bike and tuned my radio as I rode through Waikiki. The station played back a Rolling Stones concert from Maui. I was so jazzed...I rode thinking 'what a great experience".

"Twenty-five miles into the ride, I saw my support crew...I rode along and reached out and they handed me a Big Mac, fries and a coke. At mile 75 they got me a snow cone, a rainbow snow cone."

"The ride ended at Ala Moana Tower and as I pulled into the little transition area, I heard this touchy feeling music coming from a boom box. I looked over and saw bamboo mats laid out and there was my support crew. I got off my bike and put the kickstand down. 'We think you should have a good massage.' Sounds good to me. So I lay down and got a forty-five minute massage before starting the marathon."

In the early years of the race they weighed you and if you lost a certain percentage of your body weight they pulled you from the race. Bob continued on the race eating his Hawaiian sweet bread and drinking water and gatorade. His weigh in's were humourous.

"154 pounds?" "Can you repeat that?" "At the last weigh station he was 151."

"This guy's gained 3 pounds in five miles. How can you gain weight? You can't gain weight during this race!"

"I felt pregnant with all that Hawaiian sweet bread and water and Gatorade and my rainbow snow cone. Oh, and my Big Mac and fries."

Bob's Fiat support crew followed him through the final 6.2 miles of the run leading the way with the headlights on, as there was no one else on the course.

"I came into town and saw a little line across the road with a wire overhead and a lightbulb hanging from it. I slowed down and stopped at the line."

"Hey you," I heard this voice in the dark and looked over.

Yeah, I said

"You in the race?"

"Yeah."

"You're done!"

"Where was the brass band? Where were the big crowds? Where was the big ironman hoopla?...This is the stupidest thing I've ever done, I thought"

Bob Babbit went on to complete six more Ironman races. "The first one was an adventure because we didn't know what we could do."

"That's what I like so much about the wheelchair athletes. It brought ironman back to the roots of 'can I finish?" One of the funniest things I hear now is, 'I had a bad race. I had a bad day'. Maybe they finished 20 minutes off their time....none of us ever had target times. John Collins started this event and his son, Michael, did the race in 1979. Michael was out there more than 24 hours doing the race....[he said] "You know what a bad day is? A bad day is when you are walking in the marathon and you're walking through the town, and you see the paperboy and he's delivering the paper with results of an event that you are still in. That's when you know you are having a bad day."

That's food for thought.

For my own sanity I have to remind myself that all of my races are not about competition, but about adventure.

What can I do?

In balance with "what should I do?"

Thanks you Mr. Babbit for the dose of humor and perspective.

Yes we had a nice Christmas weekend. As I am getting older Christmas seems to be getting easier, to which I credit my far more relaxed approach to the festivities. I'm a pretty patient, low key person but the holidays could make me nutty. I think you can spend a lot of your early married/kids Christmases trying to recreate or definitely not recreate the holiday of your youth and as you age and mature you are able to make them more to your own style, which your kids will spend years trying to do or undo. This year was a weather anomaly in that we had snow and warmth. For a few days we worried that the snow might all melt, but our rockin' hill faces north and the sun is securely tied in it's southern sky ellipse-so the hill was great, and fast and covered with jumps. A fun time was had by all. So much fun that when we went down the hill leaving our boot at the top, we didn't notice our foot was naked until we reached the bottom and had to devise a way to ascend on one foot.


Oh, come on you guys, bring me my boot!

Finally someone spared Soap the trauma and us the drama and chucked her boot down the hill to her. So she climbed the hill, retaliated with snow and

SNOWBALL FIGHT!!!!

And when it was over and all energy was spent the crew returned home for hot cocoa and snacks. Tri hubby's sister is a single mom of 5 kids-4 girls. The Tribe has a lot of fun with their cousins and they spent the afternoon with presents and video games. Trihubby, who has spent some quality male bonding time blowing up his buddies with a nuclear arsenal in Total -World- Destruction -and -Domination- video game (I know virtually nothing about video games except that they are loud and they always ask me to play when they want to laugh-I humor them sometimes) and he set the girls up to play. He had to leave when the girls turned the game Utopian and had the tanks holding hands rolling across the countryside, occasionally shooting at targets in unison. Another friend of ours, also a single mom, came over with her son. That was a lot of estrogen in the house so poor Trihubby who had incinerated some wood in the backyard and had quite a nice bon fire crackling, departed to smoke a holiday cigar with his brother. That left us girls to chat and PlayStation for the balance of the afternoon.

I continued my non training training and managed an 94 minute 11 mile run Saturday. It was lovely. Reminded me why I like to run. Ran with Christmas music, through the snow, looking at holiday lights along the way. Followed it with a great Christmas Eve meal, late night church service and a ride home to look at lights.

Aaaahhh, life is good.

Happy Spring

So, when are you going to start your Ironman training? questioned Trihubby.

I figure I'll start pulling it together about October 1st-that should give me enough time.

The 3100 yards in the pool last night-final 200 in full on sprints must be the "non training" training.

Trihubby joined the 5 or 6 million other people with dirty cars at the little car wash assembly line place. (I always have to go through the octopus ones with Buck Naked Boy-we have a great time pretending we are scared) While he was waiting in line he spotted a car with a 140.6 circle on it, and a very geeked mom in it. He caught up with her in the waiting room, turns out she did Couer d lene (sp?) this past year. He was very impressed with her physique. "She was totally fit!" he offered enthusiastically. I forgot to mention he began the conversation saying he had something very sobering to say. "She looked like a teenager, but better!" "So when are you going to start training?"

Apparently the Holiday cheer accumulating on Trimama isn't what he had in mind. I was thoroughly sobered. But wait there's more.

"She was cute like you, and just so fit. Not sinewy or too thin, she looked like a teenager but better."

He seemed to be stuck on the teenager thing. But I understood his point. And he said I was cute. Within the confines of marriage it seems to work to talk about athletic bodies and not offend each other. He can observe a woman's backside, comment and there I am agreeing or disagreeing along with him. Only in the context of sports can a man get away with that.

"A little girl was run over by a car at the car wash." "It was awful, everyone was screaming and they called 911"

Oh, that's the sobering part.

It turns out the girl was ok as far as we knew. They move the cars quickly and she had gotten in front of one and been bumped aside by it. She was hysterical, the mom was hysterical, the waiting crowd was sobered. Trihubby had that stunned, "that was awful", effect for the rest of the afternoon. Life is so precarious at times, accidents tend to remind us that nothing is certain-so go hug your loved ones. Preferrably after you finish reading my post :)

So, as part of my non-training I went to the pool last night and did 3100-felt great! SLJ and Soapinator had swim team practice at the same time so it was a family swim of sorts. I had a nice chat in between sets with the girl I split the lane with, a runner in training for her first marathon. I assured her swimming and biking are a great complement to running, and then she could try a tri.

I think we have a cadre of divorced dads on the swim team. One was sitting on the pool deck watching practice.

I noticed during a rest interval he was watching the swimmers.

Almost makes you want to jump in and join them, doesn't it?

"Well, only if I had a suit like yours"

I got it at Sports Authority, they had plenty.

"But I wouldn't look as good as you in it"

That's true, because I don't have a hairy chest.

Thank goodness.

I moved into the next set.

I'm not very good at the pick- up game, thankfully don't have to be. In my attempt to seduce Trihubby later I told him about the pool conversation. Turns out while I was swimming he was checking out my backside from the observation window.

"You do look good in your swimsuit." He says matter of factly.

Like a teenager?

"Even better. You have a sexy butt."

Which he can grab any time he wants.

Merry Christmas All!

Who am I?

So the "list things about yourself" got me thinking, and thinking...

and I realized that I've spent 10 years thinking intently about who I am not. Growing up in a violent, cruel household tends to turn your thinking upside down and backward. I've spent a lot of time undoing that. Don't worry, this isn't a post about abuse, I promise, for every 1 thing I'd tell you about myself, there are 5 you'll never know-it would ruin your sleep and we all know how important sleep is to the endurance athlete :) and it's my burden to carry, so...

Who am I?

I think I'll come along for this ride, I might even learn something.

1-I'm 37
2-Married 15+ years
3-I like being married
4-I have 4 kids known as "the tribe"
5- Hyphen Girl 12, Soapinator 9, Standing Long Jump 7 and Buck Naked Boy 5 (they named themselves for this blog)
6-When I was 18 I swore I would never have children.
7-I thought I had no chance of being more than the least common denominator of my family
8- I also promised myself I wouldn't get married until I had a career established.
9-I met trihubby when I was 20
10-he changed my mind
11-God changed my heart
12-I had Hyphen girl when I was 25
13-Amazing what a little unconditional love can do for the soul
14- I love my kids- a lot
15-I'm not the least common denominator
16-I was a multisport varsity athlete in high school
17-I love sports
18-I used to dream of being on the women's national soccer team
19-I love to coach
20-I can never remember if it's coach or couch
21-I live in Minnesota
22-I started life in southern California
23-I moved to Colorado when I was 6
24-I consider Colorado my home even though I've lived in Minnesota longer.
25-I'd move back in an instant
26-That's a much more difficult statement than it was when I was 20 because my family and friends are here.
26-I tried my first triathlon 6 years ago-I trained for a week, it was a reaction to a bad event, it sucked so it's been stricken from the record
27-I first heard about tris in college-1986-damn that was a long time ago
28-I put that on my lifelong to do list
29-it took me 20 years to fulfill
30-now I'm signed up to do an Ironman
31-I am a moron
32-I like training
33-maybe I'm not such a moron
34-I love country music (not top 40 pop country, but real blue grass, old timey, country music)
35-I also love alternative, classical, jazz,
36-my favorite group is U2
37-Tequilla and cheap champagne make me goofy
38-I drink only red wine and light beer when I'm in training.
39-I lost 35 pounds since last year
40-I'm proud of the inches of space in my skinny jeans
41-I've gained back a few pounds, but my skinny jeans still have room to spare-yea me.
42-I'm a Denver Bronco fan
43-I can be equally cynical and naive at the same time
44-I am far more content giving then receiving
45-I pretty much hate shopping
46-Bike stores, camping stores and office products are the exception
47-Don't ask about the office products one, I have no idea.
48-I love to find bargains but I don't like cheap.
49-I loved cheap when I was younger but now it's just not worth the time and landfill space
50-I'm a political anomaly-I tend to agree with both sides to some degree, have strong convictions about what I believe but won't die on many political hills if it means the cost of friendship. I'm not a politician or policy maker so I can afford that luxury.
51-If I had a million dollars I would buy a large house in the country and adopt 16 kids. I want 20 kids and even I can do that math.
52-I am not so good at math but I graduated with honors from high school and college and I'm a member of the National Honor Society-so what does that say about the state of education?
53-I have a bachelor's degree in nutrition and I'm a dietitian
54-I'm a personal trainer at the YMCA
55-I like people
56-I'm an intracortical thinker and tend to write a lot in my head. Someday I'll download my brain and perhaps have a book to publish.
57-I began life as a pagan but left the dark side and am now an firm believer in Christ and Christianity
58-I despise arrogant "Christians"
58-My pagan roots generally make me feel like a wort on the buttock of the body of Christ (that's christian-ese for church) then I remember that Jesus said he came as a doctor to the sick and I feel right at home again.
59-I think actions speak louder than words
60-I think it is better to "be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry"
61-my heros tend to be the little guys who do extraordinary things.
62-there are dozens of "one another" verses in the bible like "love one another, respect one another, be kind to one another" I want my life to be goverened by those
63-I've been a pagan, catholic, epicopalian, charismatic and a baptist. The baptist one is current and really makes me laugh because if you've read my blog long enough you know I pretty much break the baptist mould-shatter it actually. Maybe that's why I feel like a wort.64- I like to joke and laugh a lot
65-Laughter is a good antidote for serious
66-I like to read-current titles: "Going Long, Surprised by Joy, Healing the Hardware of the Soul and Tale of Two Cities" My favorite books are the classics.
67-I love the outdoors
68-Someday I will own a horse farm
69-I love the mountains and the ocean
70-If you dropped by my house I'd welcome you in for a snack, but you'd better be ready for chaos. I'm not a meticulous house cleaner by any stretch.
71-I love to cook-baking is another story
72-I have a Lauren Bacall gap in my front teeth. I could say I have a David Letter gap but I prefer to be compared to a sexy aging blonde than a bald middle age man.
73-I don't like having my picture taken and I really shirk having my picture on my blog or any other public venue.
74-I prefer the background but am not shy-rather the opposite
75-I have a tendency to think too much-and therefore could probably list another 75, but that might be presumptious and rude, so there you go

Have a Very Merry Christmas Blog Family!

Link

The hunt is over-almost

So, the hunt for a "real gun" has concluded. I found an entire arsenal here and what little boy couldn't use a master of weaponry starter set? Yikes! I found a nice replica cap gun for Buck Naked Boy and oh joy, Santa will have it here on Friday. The wonders of UPS. I fully endorse raising young boys to be men, but this site might be overkill (apologies for the pun). That means shopping is almost complete, just a few presents and the food to go. I have no idea what we are eating this weekend, which for me is rare. I love to cook and usually have that part mapped out the weekend of Thanksgiving-I need inspiration- I will become a food network tv whore today (since I have no idea how to link to a specific post, scroll down to Susan's discussion with hubby about ESPN-) I'm also working another part time job this week-like I need that, but Trihubby is a painter and he has a long time client who is trying to turn a house around and needed it painted. Trihubby is busy in a bazillion dollar home, so Trimama is painiting normal home. That will be #55 in my list of 75 things about me, I'm a professional house painter :) I've got the list compiled in my head, editing should be complete and the list posted by tomorrow-I hope. At any rate BONUS for me, I told Trihubby I'd be happy to help him (we had a few extra bills this year) but I want a bonus. I get 10% of the job for cash in my pocket for the holidays. $400.00 bucks cash!!! Best Christmas present ever-where it will go:

1) red buckets-I love those bell ringers
2) old people in line in front of me at the pharmacy who are chagrined at the cost of their meds
3) a dairy cow for an AIDS orphan family in Africa
4) the old vet who stands on the corner every Sunday morning with a cardboard sign
5) pretty much anyone who asks me for a buck in the next 2 weeks-trifamily excluded
6) christmas gifts for some of my neighbors (next door lost her mom a few weeks back-that would stink)

What would you do with $400.00 cash?

My Geek is frozen

I mean literally-my geek magnet is frozen to the back of my car. He looks cold. Maybe this geek thing is just for you people in warmer climes. My training brain seems to be hibernating right now, waiting for the storm of holiday season to pass.
Not training makes me feel like this. And it makes me want to chain smoke. I finally figured out that craving connection last night. Haven't touched the things, but they sure sound good. I bought "Going Long" which is a training manual for Ironman. Enjoyed it so far, but has me convinced that I will never be more than a m.o.p. largely because of the nutrition chapter. The author contends that the final step toward greatly improved status is to eat like a cave man. "Most energy should come from lean meats, fresh fruits and vegetables." No processed foods (no loss) and carbs only during intense workouts or races. On this out and back course of dust to dust I can see the turnaround point ahead and am more focused than ever to living life to it's fullest. I don't know any other cave men, so I think no carbs would greatly infringe on my pursuit of relationship. There is a whole post here, but suffice to say, I don't value the podium more than my abiity to share tea and cookies with my elderly neighbor. I imagine that one response to this might be, well you could visit and pass on the cookies. No for two reasons, that would be rude and hurtful, and I don't want to go through life explaining why I'm being rude and hurtful. This sport infringes on my life just enough right now, I don't mean to make an obsession of it. I eat a lot of whole grains, vegies, fruit etc and encourage my family in the same, but if I don't eat carbs I feel like this By the way, this is what Soapinator and Buck Naked did on their sick day. They both have asthma, both were getting behind on their battle of the bronchitis so both stayed home for a day of rest. The rest part didn't work out so well, but they had fun. Come to think of it, they both got better too.

For the record, Buck Naked wants a "real gun" for christmas. By "real gun" he means a starting gun and it factors into every current life pursuit. "Mom, do think I will get a real gun from Santa? Then Neighborboy and I can race when we sled." Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a decent cap gun? He decided he wanted a starting gun after he manned the finish line at Hyphen Girls track meet last spring. He has the whole start procedure down, he just needs a gun.

Rome wasn't built in a day.

It actually took four, and about forty bucks from the craft shop.
Some day 2000 years from now some mom is going to be cursing the existence of microwaves in antiquity.

Finally, the Adventure Girls say Merry Christmas!

WWYD?

What would you do?

This race in Colorado allows you to choose the order of the three disciplines, what order would you follow?

I have this sense that I wouldn't want to struggle into my wetsuit after running or biking-however I like to run and it might be fun to start with that for once....

About wetsuits, a friend in my local tri club offers this little piece of advice



Never fart in your wet suit.

Sunday rumble

My bike is sitting on the trainer right now, and a really bad Packers/Lions game is on Sunday night football-so why am I blogging? Because I have guilt.

To be precise, I have blogging guilt. Did post some great ones in the head over the weekend-that isn't very helpful though is it?

I need to bike for 90 minutes to keep on schedule, so it's off to train.

Saw Narnia-loved it! "It's the world dear, did you expect it to be small?" (great quote) Working alot because of people out on vacations. Neighborhood Christmas party last night-riot! The main soundtrack for the night was from an "all 80's truckstop cd" classic. Broke training-what can you do when Bailey's is floating around the room.

Decided if I ever give up Tri's I can go in for the rollerderby thing-in the event you missed it that was in the ad space for my site counter last week what the ???????? So, irony intact, this week is an ad for in line skates. Maybe fate is trying to tell me something. Dang it, I need to go train-good night all.

We stand alone-sometimes

As triathletes and endurance sport athletes there are times that we stand alone, together. There are times that I fully embrace my unique passion to go farther, faster and there are times when I simply want to fit in with the broader population, to belong to the masses. We were at church last night and I was reminded of why it can be good to stand alone sometimes. Several weeks ago an earthquake shattered the villages of northern Pakistan, people who were already poor lost everything. With winter fast approaching an urgent call went out to aid organizations for housing construction before winter set in, potentially and likely killing the thousands left homeless by the quake. The supplies to build temporary housing were quickly available in abundance, but there were not enough hands to build shelters. An email arrived at our church imploring any able body men to please come help rebuild. Bear in mind, this was not a call to help build housing in Wisconsin, this was please fly half way round the world, take a four hour bus ride up into the mountains then travel by foot or military helicopter up into the remote and impassible road region of Pakistan where there will likely be bands of traveling terrorist that would just as soon kill you as receive help from a westerner (there was a reason that women were not asked to come). This was work in frigid cold under primitive resources, sleeping in plastic tents, eating whatever you can pack in, come and help us. 50 men dropped everything and started packing. One of those men is the husband of a friend of mine, the most unlikely of relief workers. Ben is around 6 foot and maybe weighs 150 pounds, a desk jockey with bad knees. He had 2 weeks to prepare and asked me to construct a workout schedule for him to get some sort of base of aerobic conditioning to prepare him to work-hard-at 8000 feet. He is the father of six kids, one with a wedding pending in June, one entering kindergarten. His wife didn't want him to go at first, but they prayed and realized the need was greater than their reservations. They left on Tuesday. Sometimes it's good to stand alone.

On Wednesdays I help with an Adventure Girls Club, an eclectic band of 5th and 6th graders hailing from inner city projects and affluent suburbs. Marlene leads this club she formed thirty years ago; a place for young girls to come and learn about life and value and unconditional love. Marlene knows every one of the 75 girls by name, knows their families and knows every girl that has passed under her care. She has changed lives and some of the current small group leaders who were adventure girls themselves bear that out. Marlene also teaches preshool kids every Tuesday for a mom's group. She knows every one of those kids, and their moms. Her co teacher told me that she has personally driven kids throughout the years, at times going in to fetch them on a cold morning, going into their homes to find a coat when someone comes shivering to the van in a t shirt, at times walking over passed out mom, to bring them to preschool, to love them. She does this month after month, year after year, and she has never been paid a dime to do so. At one low point she was ready to hang up the entire project when she coincidentally met one of her former "girls". This girl had overcome a thousand obstacles in life and had Marlene to thank, and she did. So, Marlene didn't quit then, and is an inspiration and a mentor to me today, for which I am grateful, there is only one Marlene.

Sometimes it is good to stand alone.

All things winter

Winter in the great white north can be brutal, but it can be quite beautiful as well. Hyphen Girl and Trihubby created a winter photo montage yesterday. The snowflakes were very cooperative, each one showing their distinct personality-kind of like the tribe. We thought this one looked like two swans-and note the little snowflake?
Six or so inches of fluffy white blanketed the homefront-yea a white Christmas. As I've contended here before, if you have to have cold, you might as well have snow to enjoy it. Recess duty for me today and the old axiom, sometimes it is better to beg forgiveness than to seek permission was well appreciated. The kids have an 8 foot slope at the edge of their playground domain which takes about 2 seconds to descend. A short trek through the woods lies an 80 foot, mogul studded sledding paradise, which coincidentally lies outside of the normal playground boundary. When queried about using the hill there was no one to ask, and the kid in me took over, heck yeah. Suddenly 45 kids were running pell mell through the woods and great delight and laughter ensued as they spent recess throwing themselves down the hill on plastic sleds or simply on their backs. Round two is second and third grade and once the announcement was made, melee followed to "the hill". As I jogged alongside, one little girl with complete trepidation asked me, "are you sure we can go to "the hill"? Did you ask the principal or something?" Better to beg forgiveness....I'm in charge and we're going to "the hill". One bloody nose and two bumped heads later, but I bet they had a better afternoon having fully exhausted themselves over recess. I'm a big advocate of fun exercise, and what is more fun than plunging down a hill in the snow-beats standing and shivering by the door. Oh, it was 3 fred (thanks Bolder) with 4 below wind chill. If you're going to have cold...
The basement is complete, which also means my new training area is ready, complete with Christmas Tree. I can spin and look out of the windows, or watch the television. I've decided to work through The Lord of the Rings trilogy-works well because each disk is about 1:40-I just tack on 20 of normal tv and I've got a good two hour spin. Not sure what I'm going to do when I have to bump it to three hours.
The tree is complete, yea for us. We were a white light family for a few years, so this year thought we should shake things up with blue and white lights. Perhaps I should have stayed with the white lights, for some reason the three strings of light ended up on the tree fully segregated-blue on top, white in the middle and blue on the bottom- an oreo cookie tree-somewhat dressed for Chanukah-and of course the kids love it- so it stays.

2 hour bike to Monday Night Football tonight, swim 2800 yards tomorrow.

Core Training? Any Questions?

This is what I want my mid section to look like when I break the tape at Florida.

Wishful thinking?

No. Not with help from my new friends "two handled medicine ball", "stability ball", "roman chair of torture" and "inverted back extension machine"

I have ridges. I thought they were my ribs-but that's muscle baby!

Now if I can just find a way to get rid of the last bit of fat, extra baby skin, and, oh I'm torn on this one, the stretch marks.

I think stretch marks are a trophy in and of themselves, but dang are they ugly.

Any useful suggestions can exclude any magic lotions, wraps in saran plastic, or costly spa treatments (unless there is a gift certificate enclosed :)

Irony-even with all the above wish list, I probably wouldn't wear a split uniform like that-modesty. (For those thinking this is a contradiction to the "strip to jog bra performance on T day-it was a full tank-sorry"

I just want to know that is under the hood-it's a confidence thing.

Kashi Exorcism

My gut has been giving me grief for the last three weeks-a circle of nausea, heartburn, bloating, nausea had finally settled or should I say unsettled into my lower gut. Voices in my head I'm used to but Barry White or worse yet Willie Aimes in the colon freaks me out. So, I followed the dr. Trimama prescription and performed a Kashi Exorcism. If I knew how to attach an mp3 I'd attach audio-it was ugly- but I feel better now.

I heard this on the radio today and it made me laugh--enjoy

Dear Technical Support:

Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 and noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources. No mention of this phenomenon was included in the product brochure.

In addition, Wife 1.0 installs itself into all other programs and launches during system initialization, where it monitors all other system activity. Applications such as Poker Night 10.3, Drunken Boys Night 2.5 and Saturday Football 5.0 no longer run, crashing the system whenever selected.

I cannot seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run some of my other favorite applications. I am thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0, but the uninstall does not work on this program. Can you help me, please!!!

Thanks,
A TROUBLED USER


Dear TROUBLED USER:

This is a very common problem men complain about, but is mostly due to a primary misconception. Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 with the idea that Wife 1.0 is merely a UTILITIES & ENTERTAINMENT program.

Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and designed by its creator to run everything. It is unlikely you would be able to purge Wife 1.0 and still convert back to Girlfriend 7.0. Hidden operating files within your system would cause Girlfriend 7.0 to emulate Wife 1.0 so nothing is gained.

It is impossible to uninstall, delete, or purge the program files from the system once installed. You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is not designed to do this. Some have tried to install Girlfriend 8.0 or Wife 2.0 but end up with more problems than with the original system. Look in your manual under "Warnings-Alimony/Child Support".

I recommend you keep Wife 1.0 and just deal with the situation. I suggest installing background application program C:\YES DEAR to alleviate software augmentation. Having Wife 1.0 installed myself, I might also suggest you read the entire section regarding General Partnership Faults (GPFs).

You must assume all responsibility for faults and problems that might occur, regardless of their cause. The best course of action will be to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE. In any case avoid excessive use of YES DEAR because ultimately you will have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the operating system will return to normal.

The system will run smoothly as long as you take the blame for all the GPFs. Wife 1.0 is a great program, but very high maintenance. Consider buying additional software to improve the performance of Wife 1.0. I recommend Flowers 2.1 and Diamonds 5.0.

Do not, under any circumstances, install Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3. This is not a supported application for Wife 1.0 and is likely to cause irreversible damage to the operating system.

Best of luck,
Tech Support