Well, Mrs. RoSA is pregnant with baby RoSA, and we found out this past week the little dude is going to be a boy. What a relief.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm excited for when I have a little girl, but the relief part selfishly comes from the fact that because my father was the only son in his family, and I am the only son in mine, all of the pressure was on me to carry on my family's name. This, however, has provided no resolution to the problem and has left me feeling slightly guilty, as I am really only passing the same pressure I felt -- having the family name continue -- on to my son.
Is this what the federal government feels like when they continue to pass on the burden and pressure of our massive federal deficit to the next generation? My guess is "probably not."
We're all familiar with my well-documentedfear of clowns. The dudes just creep me out. I have accepted the fact, gone through therapy, and tried to not let it control my life. That's why, as I was digging through photos of my childhood I was initially surprised to find this gem from a long time ago:
That's right. I dressed as a clown -- the very thing I still wet my pants about upon even hearing the mention of -- for Halloween one year. Which leads me to asking: I wonder what the origins of my fear of clowns were, and when it started? Obviously it was after the day this picture was taken... otherwise my chubby little Japanese face would have been twisted in an expression of inconsolable fear immediately upon seeing my own reflection. Perhaps I don't want to delve into this. It could turn into a Bourne-like scenario where I find out crazy things about my past that were better left buried.
And of all coincidences, I was studying GRE vocabulary words yesterday and here is the example sentence for the word "engender". THIS IS VERBATIM: "His fear and hatred of clowns was engendered when he witnessed the death of his father at the hands of a clown."
I realize children aren't studying for these standardized tests, but this is a demented example sentence. Is this a sign I should just forget about some sort of further education? I mean, am I going to be physically assaulted by a clown whilst taking the GRE? Help?
Happy Monday. I'll be busy quelling paranoia about a clown attack.
It has been an interesting three weeks featuring all kinds of run-ins with sickness and death.
So there I was a few weeks ago, racked with unrelenting stomach pain for three hours straight, essentially dying of death. This landed me in the ER for a late night visit and a groundbreaking diagnosis: "stomach pain." Thank you, modern medicine. That would have been an informative diagnosis had it not been the exact thing I told you I had when I checked in. A parrot -- or my nieces, when they get in one of those moods where they repeat everything I say -- could have properly diagnosed me under those terms.
I suppose the one positive outcome of going to the ER was that I did get a nice, healthy dose of morphine, which I'm pretty sure is the greatest invention since the printing press (replacing the Snuggie, of course. Coincidentally, both Snuggies and morphine make you all warm). By the next morning, the mystery illness was gone, and I triumphantly declared in an opiate-hazed delirium something along the lines of "Death wanted to play chicken with me, and Death blinked."
Mrs. RoSA: "Yes, dear. Death came knocking at your door, and you slammed the door right in his face."
(These metaphors portraying my active and aggressive triumph over the Grim Reaper are actually to cover up what really took place that night: Me passively and resignedly doubled-over in the fetal position, body spasming, pleading for the sweet, sweet relief of painkillers or the surgical removal of my stomach and both sets of intestines)
I recovered within a few days. As my immune system limped its way to my sister's house for Christmas, however, neither I nor my family had any idea what lay ahead of us. The scariest incident was a grandchild having a finger almost severed in a slammed door, which required attachment at the hospital. But that wasn't the end of it... no, perhaps it was merely an omen of the coming doom that awaited us...
A plague that I can only surmise was the 5th Horseman of the Apocalypse, or some manifestation of the angel of death (perhaps we forgot to put that lamb's blood above the doorpost?), smote the household over the Christmas holiday, leading my brother-in-law Ben to declare 2010 to be "the Christmas of Vomit."
The plague waged war by first manifesting itself via the oldest grandchild, who woke up in the middle of the night (perfectly normal -- I do it all the time to pee), crawled into bed with grandpa and grandma (tender), and proceeded to vomit on the latter (perhaps not so normal). This was merely the first volley fired by the illness. Eventually, we were pretty much all toppled by the disease throughout the week, one by one -- pick your domino effect/chain reaction analogy, really, and it illustrates what happened. I'm personally going to go with the Pie-eating contest scene in Stand By Me, where the first contestant vomits, which causes another contestant to vomit, and then the audience to vomit, etc -- Only time-lapse the scene so it lasts over four or five days. This is basically what happened.
By day two most of us knew, deep down, the undeniable and inescapable truth: It was just a matter of time before we were sick. The resignation in the air was palpable. It felled most of the grandchildren with vomiting and most of the adults with flu aches and lack of appetite.
But we all survived. And aside from the whole health thing, it was a great holiday. Family time. Kids opening presents. Kids running around and sassing adults. Good food. True Grit. Ben trapping five mice in a single night (It was like watching some combination of the Predator and Bear Grylls practice their trade. Awe-inspiring). Some Call of Duty on PS3.
Mrs. RoSA (walking into the TV room and seeing me playing Call of Duty): "Oh-- well isn't it encouraging to find my husband engaged in bloodsport once again."
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So, Mrs. RoSA and I have a new apartment, which, of course, required moving into. (And more epic battles with the Swedes of IKEA. But more on that at a later time.)
As far as my list of "I like" activities, I think "moving houses" ranks somewhere between "being dragged to the bottom of a pond in the jaws of an alligator"* and "camping out to watch a Twilight movie opening night, surrounded by screaming teenage girls." Yup. It is a long, torturous process that requires manual labor -- something my callous-less, gentrified hands are not used to; and, quite frankly, something I look down upon.
*I watched entirely too much late-night Animal Planet at college.
We now live in a nicely landscaped, overly-secure, and regulation-heavy gated community that is inhabited by what I suspect are mostly old people (I say "I suspect" because I've hardly seen anyone actually wandering the hallways. They're all shut in their apartments watching "Murder She Wrote" reruns. Or possibly dead). I know that these apartments were very nice -- perhaps even elite -- at one point, as their front office has award plaques for "Best Community Association" for Northern Virginia; however, because the last award they received was from the early 90s, it kind of makes it feel like The Compound is the Uncle Rico of apartment complexes: desperately grasping on to past glory and taping itself clumsily throwing footballs. This is all a metaphor.
Anyway, the aged population, combined with the excess of security gates and security guards -- who are nice guys, but who are on constant patrol as if we were at war with the neighboring apartment complex -- make the apartment complex feel like a cross between an assisted living center and secure government facility.** These atmospherics are why I've begun referring to our complex as The Compound.
**Seinfeld standup referring to retirement communities in Florida: "I don't get these minimum security prisons. Are old people trying to escape? Are people stealing old people?"
The Compound adheres to the concept of "the Rule of Law" and order, which I am down with in principle, but they have taken it to an oppressive extreme. When I signed the paperwork to move in, they gave me a handbook of the association's rules, which are so many (the thing is thicker than some of the phone books that Shigeko used to fashion a makeshift booster seat for her car) and encompass every aspect of everyone's life ("No hammering after 5 PM or on weekends or holidays" <-- I kid you not, this is an actual rule) that I am probably unwittingly breaking some association bylaw by charging my iPod in my computer right now.
Sometimes I think to myself: "So this is what it was like to live in East Germany with the stasi..."The difference, of course, being that the stasi weren't waiting to kick down your door because you dropped your garbage in the trash chute between the hours of 10PM and 7AM. I mean, the association officials tell me all these rules are for our own protection, but doesn't that ominously sound like the type of rhetoric that totalitarian regimes use to placate the masses while they slowly take away their freedom?
The dormant iconoclasts in both of us now want to purposefully break as many rules as possible so we can be the rebellious young couple who all the old people wish they could be. Nothing radical, mind you. Just the standard guerilla tactics, e.g. not parking in designated spots, not sorting our recycling, capsizing cars and errantly tossing a molotov cocktail or two, etc. The funny/sad thing is that, no matter how many rules we purposefully break, we will always end up breaking more rules just out of ignorance. Or, as Mrs. RoSA just observed: "We're rebels without a clue." Our Broken Association Rules (BAR) Tally sits at a healthy and subversive 6. (That we are aware of.) Will keep you all updated as we continue to raise our fist and resist against Big Brother.
A Note From the Mrs:
By way of introduction, if any of you are wondering if I married Mr. RoSA just so I could get the chance to be a guest writer on his blog, you are wrong. I married him to be the beneficiary on his life insurance policy, what else?
I do not think we are cut out for life in the Compound. Spiky gates at the periphery and speed bumps every twenty feet; floral wallpaper and sickly sweet aerosol air fresheners in the hallway; invisible neighbors who are either too old to move or up to no good; one neighbor (either a bouncer or a chronic clubber) who leaves a potent trail of perfumed stench through the entire stairwell when he descends every night around 10pm; and ever vigilant security guards.
One of what I'm sure will be many experiences with the security guards occurred the day our couch got delivered. I met Ryan, the slow-talking, gap-toothed, smooth-faced young security guard when I burst into the front stairwell, broom and dustbin in hand, after the deliverymen had managed to get the couch wedged and break the hall light into a million pieces. There was our monolithic couch, hamstrung over the railing, and there were the small but remarkably agile deliverymen, slithering under the couch on broken glass, trying to extract overstuffed pillows. And there was Ryan--looming, watchful, considering. He turned his discerning gaze towards me and immediately launched into a phlegmatic recitation of my infractions:
"You've already broken three rules. [1] Their truck is parked out front, and they're blocking in about 4 cars. Delivery trucks can never be parked in the front of the building. [2] Deliveries can never be made through the front lobby or front stairwell. [3] All deliveries must be made using the elevator in the downstairs garage."
I chose abject humility as the best way to get out of this scrape. I claimed ignorance, apologized, offered to pay for the light, promised him my firstborn child, etc. He muttered a bit as he deliberated: "Have to assess the damage . . . write a report . . . she didn't know . . . not really her fault . . ."
Well, Ryan will get cookies this Christmas from two Compound rebels who appreciate his magnanimous, roguish, kindred spirit: "Just get them out of here really quick. And don't worry about the light. We have tons of extras."
I guess the point of this entire entry, with anecdotal support from Mrs. RoSA, is that we really don't fit in here at The Compound.
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Having the physical features that I do makes me no stranger to being on the receiving end of mistaken identity (Panera Employee: "You're the [Asian] guy who just ordered the coffee, right?" Me: "No. I'm the [Asian] guy about to order a bagel, though.") and mistaken ethnicity ("Can't you read 'dem Chineez pictures?").
And who can blame people, really... I mean, it's a common enough occurrence that websites like AllLookSame.com and its "Exam Room" exist, right? East Asians all kind of do look the same, and we all get a Discernment FAIL -- myself included -- when asked to say who is Japanese, who is Korean, or who is Chinese.
I've learned not to get upset about it or take it personally, for the intent to offend is not there, and I don't personally know any of the people. Most of the time I just wryly smile and chuckle about it, and make sure to log it away for storytelling purposes, because I might as well have my friends laugh about it.
Another case of mistaken identity struck about a month ago. Only this time it came from someone I knew. All of my family was in town and at the mall. I was out picking up a friend from the airport. When we all met back up, Papa D had a story to share:
"So we're all at the mall with the kids. Elise [my niece] then walks up to a young, Asian man with gelled hair, and glasses with frames shaped like yours..."
...oh, no. She didn't...
"...and she just walked right up to him and asks him: 'Are you my Uncle Josh, I think?' And she kept asking him and jabbering away at/with him, and would have continued, had we not pulled her away..."
Like I said, when I'm mistaken for another Asian man or vice versa, I'm usually not offended because I don't know the person. But this was different. I should have felt a sense of betrayal at the hands of one my own, right? Like Caesar with Brutus?: "Et tu, Elise? You mistook a random Asian man for me?"
But then I remembered that my niece is 5-years old, and so I laughed. And laughed. And appreciate that in a random and strange mall, my niece went looking for me.
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Let's face it -- in a figurative blogging sense, I'm feeling a bit like our Dutch friend, Mr. Rip Van Winkle: Slightly disoriented as I wipe the Blog Slumber from my bleary eyes; my blogging "muscles" are atrophied from sitting idle and have disintegrated into rolls of useless fat; and, as is evident from my greeting, my Dutch still sucks. So getting back into the blogging may require shaking off some rust.
Also, one actual and non-metaphorical thing that Mr. Van Winkle and I both did during our respective hibernations: We grew beards for a little longer than was prudent. See Exhibit A:
Exhibit A
...and, basically, the similarities end there. See, whereas Rip grew an awesome beard during his 20-year slumber, I grew an asymmetrical abomination. Even homeless men looked at me with pity in their starving eyes, thanking the heavens that, although they were without income, food, or lodging -- and possibly hope -- at least they could grow a decent beard.
AM described that "...it was part wolf, part molester, part santa, part amish", but I'm guessing that's just a kind way of saying "fully revolting." Sigh.
So, anything happen with you guys since June? Me? Oh, not a whole lot, really...
I went overseas for a good three months, where I got stranded twice in remote areas in the middle of nowhere and was able to witness the inner workings and daily living of the US Military (the latter basically means eating bad food three meals/day and living in poor housing conditions). It was an adventure.
The Beard in its nascent stages
Immediately after returning to the US, the beard had outlived its stay (see aforementioned homeless men pitying me as a possible reason), and let me tell you, trimming and shaving the thing was EXHAUSTING. The whole epic saga took at least 45 minutes and required the type of physical stamina and resolve that you only see/read about in classics like The Odyssey or Rocky. I unashamedly admit that midway through shaving I took a short break to rest my fatigued arm, and I may or may nothave given myself a pep talk in the mirror sometime along the way ("C'mon, man, FOCUS! Don't let the beard beat you" "Pain is nothing. You're better than this!", etc, etc). I collapsed, completely exhausted, at the end of it all.
The two weeks after returning home were complete chaos, but I suppose it was for a good cause, because at the end of it all, I got married, which was all pretty awesome. It was all a blur of dresses and flowers and having my picture taken (ugh), but most importantly, a day spent with my lovely wife (formerly AM and now Mrs. RoSA, who I'm sure you'll hear from from time-to-time), my family, and all of my closest friends throughout the years.* Honeymoon involved flying to London to hang out for a bit, then catching a Transatlantic Crossing from England back to the US. You know, just like the Pilgrims did in the olden days!
*The whiffleball games played at my bachelor party were some of the funniest moments of my life
So yeah. That's been the last bit of the happenings here. Now it's back to normal life, and normal life involves blogging. Like I said, gotta shake the rust off, so bear with me.
PS Apparently this video going viral was the biggest development back in the States whilst I was away? This is brilliant, and I'm proud that -- despite a still-recessed economy and Sarah Palin actually being taken seriously as a political figure by some -- America was able to come up with this:
-Via Email from Pops Dalton, who felt the need to clarify the Ewok entry:
The scene you refer to about asking you on camera what you got for X-mas, I was probably trying really hard not to burst out laughing out loud, which would have harmed your growing sense of self-esteem. It's OK to embellish stories for dramatic effect but let's try and keep the basic story straight.
Well, I stand corrected. The patriarch has spoken.
-Via Email from Jay, sending me an article about the arrogance of Priuses and their owners. My favorite line:
Prius owners work very hard to get as many miles per gallon as they can to win a game they like to call Getting in an Accident While Staring at a Screen with a Dumb Graphic.
The article is quite hilarious, and helps put things in perspective for consumers that think a little too much of the products they own/use...off the top of my head, I can think of a few groups of people: Mac users; 'LOST' watchers; Whole Foods shoppers. You get the idea.
Back in my Ewok days, I not only bore an eerie resemblance to the plump-faced, furry little creatures from Return of the Jedi. I also spoke English like one. Yes, my first four years of existence and the spoken English language were at odds with one another, as my attempts at verbal communication were really just a flowing cascade of blathering, inane nonsense. Either I was being lazy (probable), or somewhere in the back of my young, innocent mind I was already trying to frustrate those around me (more probable).
Either way, bless my dear sisters, who were my interpreters and communication medium to my parents. I imagine it's what negotiations at the UN are like. Let's compare the two scenarios:
UN Security Council, 2003 Colonel Qaddafi, dictator of Libya: (Arabic) اذا كانت الامم المتحدة يفرض مزيدا من العقوبات على ليبيا ، وسوف نستمر في تطوير اسلحتنا من برنامج اسلحة الدمار الشامل. /Qaddafi looks to interpreter to translate/ Interpreter: Colonel Qaddafi says that if the UN imposes more sanctions on Libya, we will continue to develop our weapons of mass destruction program. UN Envoy: The Security Council finds this unacceptable.
Dalton Household, 1985 Me: Mawm, i jwio weh3 hoh& goerre ehre? /mom and dad look at Jen and Juli/ Jen or Juli: He says he wants green M&Ms. Mom or Dad: Not until after he finishes his dinner.
Seriously, there are home videos where Pops will ask me an innocuous question like "And what did you get for Christmas, Josh?" -- mind you, this is a question he already knows the answer to -- and then I will spout some slurred combination of sounds that will be met by my father's befuddled, non-comprehending silence. You can almost HEAR his puzzled look and agape mouth from behind the camera, and his eyes looking pleadingly at my sisters to interpret his little boy's Ewok tongue. It's pretty classic.
End of story, according to Shigeko, is that one day when I was four I came upstairs and spoke flawless English. I guess with some it just takes time.
Anyway, Sara Boo shared something with me on Facebook that reminded me of this story:
Saw this and it reminded me of the story you told about your Christmas video where you didn't say any english words and spoke Joshese. Enjoy!
ohh my. I wish you could understand the narrator. So this video is of a real simulation that the Japanese zoo did, in the case of an animal escaping.
My personal favorite is the first zoo worker that gets mauled and then is "dead." Hope the dude got some hazard pay.
-Via Google Buzz from Ben:
Is this facebook? Where is my farmtown? Did someone just email me? What is the difference between an email and a facebook inbox message?
I echo my brother-in-law's confusion. Has anybody figured out what Google Buzz is, besides yet another thing to check? Anybody?
Speaking of confusing layouts, I switched up the format of the blog...for all you RSS feed readers, let me know what you think of the new look.
-Via Email from Mike M, who actually sent this a few weeks ago, but in commemoration of the Olympics:
PETA's protest pins are going to be a huge hit at the Olympics. Much bigger than the green jello pins at the SLC olympics.
Yup. Seal clubbing is now an Olympic sport. And you know who's going to dominate, don't you...That's right, the Japanese. They's gonna rack up all kinds of medals, son, and there's nothing you cuddly animal-loving countries can do about it.
Is it cause for concern when my 3-year old niece makes her grandmother start talking like Dick Cheney? "Don't give into her demands. Then she wins." I suppose if Shigeko starts talking about launching some sort of preemptive strike against her in order to protect "vital interests" and "American lives," or my niece starts growing a beard and I find her cleaning parts to an AK-47 -- then I'll start worrying about things.
For now, I think I will continue chuckling about how cute she is, even when she's a little assertive.
This dude next to me at the bank just withdrew a hundred ones no joke
Uh, well, let's see...you can buy tons of different things for $100, so I'm not judging -- but the possible list of purchases that require 100 separate one-dollar bills is pretty short. So now I'm judging.
-Via IM from White Josh, completely out of the blue:
have you ever been sitting down somwhere and had to ask yourself if you are wearing any underwear? Just had a drafty moment and had to think about getting dressed this morning
Uh, maybe? I have had mornings where I get so little sleep I accidentally put my facewash in my hair and my shampoo in my washcloth, but I'm pretty sure I have not left the house without underwear.
-Via Email from my sister Jen, who actually sent this years ago, but 'tis the Christmas season:
Unfortunately, listening to this has become an annual holiday tradition for me.
I would like to enlist this man to sing a few hand-picked classics, such as: Any Mariah Carey song, just for more kicks and giggles; "The Star-Spangled Banner," because let's be honest, it's time to replace Carl Lewis's straight murdering of the national anthem with a newer rendition, and he would do Mr. Key proud, I'm sure; and last but not least, "Nuthin' But a G Thang." Why Snoop and Dre, you ask? Because the song is generationally-defining, son, and I want to see if this dude's rhythm is as impressive as both his vocal range and command of pitch when he delivers lyrics like "Fallin' back on that ass with a hellified gangsta' lean / Gettin' funky on the mic like a' old batch o' collard greens."
Instant classics. All of them.
Let's end on a good holiday note, shall we?
-Via Facebook from sister Juju, about her daughter, Elise:
I found Elise this morning in front of the Christmas tree. She'd pulled a chair right up to it and was just staring at it and when she saw me said, "Isn't it so beautiful?"
Ah. That's the Christmas season I know and love. And I love my nieces and nephew, because they always help me relive a little bit of childhood.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays, all.
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-Via Email from JoshM, an article presenting "research" on "The 10 Most Obscene Cities in America":
Herndon, Va. is a suburb of Washington, D.C., in the heart of the area's tech corridor and right next to Dulles Airport.
It's also the most obscene city in America, as determined by analyzing data from Google.
I lived in Herndon for two years; on top of that, #5 on this list is Reston, VA, where I currently reside. I take umbrage with this research and the methodologies used to draw such conclusions. Would the study results hold up to any sort of academic or empirical rigor?
This study is bull*&%#.
-Via Chat with a friend who asked to remain Anonymous:
don't judge me for what i'm about to say
One sec. I'm just going to get out my powdered wig and gavel... Ok, continue:
but i think i saw the coach for Team Ugly at the gym last night. seriously josh, this guy was like stop-you-in-your-tracks ugly. i don't know if he plays basketball or not...and i know you have been lobbying for an NBA player to take the position
Anonymous Mean Face proceeded to try and rationalize her lack of human compassion by saying that if I, JD, can get away with trying to compile an All Ugly NBA Team, why can't she say things like this? The reason: The NBA team is full of dudes who are STACKING MORE SCRILLA THEN WE WILL MAKE IN OUR LIFETIMES. Ergo, if I want to call them goofy-looking bastards because deep down I'm actually jealous, then yes -- yes, I am justified. Now, Joe Schmoe at your local gym...? I dunno...
SINGLE MOM OF 7 SEEKING BON JOVI PIT TICKETS AT GILLETTE STADIUM. DON'T HAVE MUCH (ANY) MONEY, BUT CAN TRADE THE SWINE FLU VACCINE FOR 6 OF THE KIDS.
Now, the thing that I'm interested in finding out here is the Chicken or the Egg: Does Bon Jovi turn his fans into idiots, or are idiots inextricably drawn to Bon Jovi? This question may forever confound scholars and the educated -- much as the beginnings of the universe, the construction of Stonehenge, and the unremitting tabloid coverage of Jon and Kate Gosslin will continue to puzzle us.
I have no friends that like the man or his music; the closest I have is Casey, who enjoys playing the drum part on Guitar Hero for "Living on a Prayer." His knack for things like common sense and caring for his family don't make him a good case study for the effects/causes of Bon Jovi, though.
-Via Email from JoJo, for your Thanksgiving viewing pleasure:
YOU'RE WELCOME. Happy Turkey Day. Be thankful.
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This week's is relatively weak, but LAY OFF ME I'VE BEEN BUSY. Let's do this:
-Via email from JMill, this picture and accompanying description(the link):
The police department in the small Minnesota town of Proctor will put a motorized lounge chair up for auction next week after it was seized in a drunk driving incident. The black and blue pleather lounge chair...comes complete with stereo, footrest, cupholders, headlights, a nitrous oxide power boost system, drag racing style steering wheel and a parachute.
Well sure, it's got some nice features, but if it can't automatically parallel park itself, I'm not even interested.
-Via Blog Comment from Melody N, who, without forewarning got to hear from Shigeko about my hair whilst spectating the marathon:
I just want to know if your mom cut your hair in your sleep the first night you got to WA.
No, surprisingly, in her handling of my hair Shigeko has not taken radical and drastic action, like drugging my dinner and taking garden shears to it while I'm passed out on the kitchen floor. No, she has chosen silence as her weapon. Like n The Dark Knight when the Joker gets captured and placed in the jail, my mom remains relatively silent, not saying anything, but I know she's looking at my hair, and I know some plot is being concocted in that head of hers.
As for post-race plans with the hair, the plan has always been to cut it short again. Some have asked if I would consider bic'ing it; my hesitation is that I have no idea what my head looks like. For all I know, it could have all kinds of ghastly deformities and mis-shapens all over it, and I might become the human equivalent of this bear:
Well, neither of my worst-case scenarios happened while I was out for my little run on Saturday:
(If given the choice, I personally would have preferred the fate of the former [collapsed, naked, and about to die] than the latter [streaming, bloody nipples... you ever try to shower with those?] Luckily, it came to neither)
Some might view traveling 2600 miles to run 26.2 impractical; or training for 10 months to run for 3.5 hours disproportionate. But it was worth it, and Nartker and I finished Run the River Marathon with the help of supportive family and friends. Couldn't have done it without them.
The smiling, un-pained looks on our faces are indicative of these pictures being taken at the 4-mile mark, and not at the end. If they were at the end, my face would have been contorted and twisted in a display of unbearable pain.
Some quick awards:
Mike Ditka Award: Coach. He may not have the mustache, but he had the same demands for discipline and high-performance that Dit-KAH demanded of his football teams. If I didn't have Coach driving me, I would still be collapsed on the side of the race trail today.
Pre-Race Comic Relief and Gutsy Performance Award: Nartker, who grabbed his Body Glide stick (anti-chafing material) before the race, headed into the bathroom, and came out declaring something along the lines of: "I think I just violated myself with the Body Glide." The man's legs also fell apart like a Saturn sedan, but he fought through a hurt knee, an Achilles heel issue and his body sucking up electrolytes faster than he could put them in in order to finish. Well done, sir.
Traveling Fan Base Award: Ma and Pops Dalton. Flew down from WA State to watch me a total of five times over the course of 3 1/2 hours. Granted, the painted faces and incoherent, drunken screaming of die-hards were not present in my parents, but their support was greatly needed and appreciated.
Dale Earnhardt / "I didn't plan on running 1/3 of a marathon today, but I did" Award: J and Casey Tanner. Tore through the suburbs of Sacramento, CA, channeling Fast & Furious driving skills (likely scaring my passenger parents half to death in the process) in order to get to as many spots along the trail as possible. They also ran a ridiculous amount alongside myself and Nartker as encouragement.
"They say patience is a virtue -- but damn, virtues are boring and lame" Award: AM. For having to deal with my "I've gotta go for a long run today" statements over the last half year.
The Consummate Dumba** Award: The Idiot-Girl in Sacramento. Unfortunately I wasn't there for this, but at one of the stops my parents and the Tanners went to, some imbecile impersonating a 20-year old girl got out and started dropping f-bombs on my mom and J because they thought they were dropping off marathon runners by car to get ahead. Right. The Imbecile, of course, could not be reasoned with because the capacity for logic and intelligent dialogue is housed inside of the cerebrum, a part of the brain that is reserved for the more evolved species -- like people, or reptiles, or amphibians and such. Well done, ma'am, and let's just say that the two fingers I'm throwing in your direction are not my thumbs.
Lest you get Marathon Recap Fatigue, I will end this entry here. I may have some more thoughts on it later, but for now I am going to go enjoy my vacation.
Happy Monday, all. Time for me to nurse my sore legs.
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Summer is over, and while I will NOT miss the stifling humidity and resultant SwampA**, or large women wearing disproportionately small clothing (OMG MY EYES ARE BURNING I AM SCARRED FOR LIFE), there is a huge list of things I will miss about summer.
Some fun activities that are essential to every summer? Here's a short list: BBQs; swimming; disappointment in more overhyped blockbusters movies (ahem... Wolverine, Terminator); watching Wipeout!; watching the "will he /won't he?" fiasco that is Brett Favre's (non)retirement; eating ice cream and other flavored frozen goods; reading outside in my double-wide fat-person camping chair; wrestling grizzly bears, only in my case I get the bear to submit with an armbar, and I do it shirtless; you know, standard summer stuff.
The new love I discovered this summer: Wiffleball. It's simple. Anyone can play. You don't need a lot of people to play. You try to hit people with a ball. Very rewarding.
More important to me, though, is that wiffleball has helped me reconcile with a long lost friend: baseball. My complaints with baseball are well-documented. It's boring. It's slow. These dudes aren't athletic. Baseball slang is just a bunch of thinly-veiled innuendos. Whine whine whine. I actually loved baseball growing up, but somewhere along the way we had a falling out (partially due to his solid decade and a half of heavy steroid usage).
Wiffleball helped me remember why I enjoyed baseball in the first place by taking me back to being a kid. It reminded me of playing catch with my pops. Of smelling freshly cut grass, watching The Sandlot, and especially of playing Little League baseball.
In Little League, just like every other kid, I imitated the batting stances and the mannerisms of the famous players. I tried to swing my bat like Griffey, tried to crouch in fielding position like Ozzie Smith, and itched my crotch like Cal Ripken Jr. Did I know what I was doing at 9-years of age? No. But hell, these guys were my heroes, and somewhere in the back of my head I thought emulating the greats would help me be great. This thinking, of course, pre-dated my knowledge of things like natural talent, work ethic, syringes, and the Dominican Republic's baseball farm system. So if Cal was going to go to town on his cup region, I would, too.
I write this because when I played wiffleball for the first time this summer, 18 years after having played in Little League, I picked up right where I left off. I looked at my bat contemplatively before stepping into the batter's box, dug in my feet with my non-existent cleats, took a wide stance and tilted my bat slightly back, just like Albert Pujols.
Even if it was only for a few hours, I was a kid again, imitating the greats. And while the sound of the plastic wifflebat hitting a ball doesn't have quite the same ring that metal on cork does, it still made me smile like a 9-year old as I ran the bases.
Thanks to a scarring game of Risk ("Ukraine is not weak!!") back in 2000 I tend to avoid board games; the exception, of course, being the occasional game of Mah-Jongg. Who doesn't want to place vital organs as collateral for a $10,000 bet every once in a while, am I right?? Anyway, regardless of my professed dislike for board games, I have recently become addicted to Speed Scrabble.
What's Speed Scrabble, you ask?
Speed Scrabble (SS) is to nerdy board-gamers what cocaine was to 80s celebrities: It is fast-paced, exhilarating, addictive, and the source of numerous unnatural nosebleeds. In the case of SS, the reason is either because the game got so intense participants came to fisticuffs, or the breakneck pace and overexertion from the game melted their brains. (***If you're bored enough to read the rules, I will put those at the bottom***)
Let's just leave the Speed Scrabble-Cocaine analogy there.
One friend, whom I will anonymize, put it this way:
This is utterly ridiculous to admit, but I dreamed about Speed Scrabble last night. I actually awoke to myself arranging words beginning with "q". Kinda weird.
Lessons Learned
SS has even taught me some valuable life lessons. The two that come most readily to mind are "pride cometh before the fall" and "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."
Let me share a story that illustrates both. In the first game of what would become a 3-hour SS marathon, I came storming out of the blocks -- jumping out to a quick lead and catching my opponents at unawares. I foolishly declared:
"I guess you could call that my Pearl Harbor."
I guess it seemed like an apt analogy at the time, what with the quick strike and my Japanese heritage and all. For all of you not familiar with the Pacific Theater of WW2, however, here's the major problem with my poorly thought-out analogy: Japan LOST WW2! It was decimated!! Japan may have "won" Pearl Harbor, but even Admiral Yamamoto said afterward: "I fear all we have done is awakened a sleeping tiger." And he wasn't talking those pansy circus tigers that jump through hoops. He was talking the mean ones that want to tear your limbs off and eat you (avid PETA supporters being no exception). Pearl Harbor was really just the beginning of the end for Japan.
And so it was with me; my initial victory accomplished very little except to "awaken the tiger" (read: gave Mitch a reason to shut my gloating mouth up and decisively trounce me and everyone else under her feet). It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I doomed myself to suffer the same fate as the Empire did in WW2 because I declared victory too soon.
So, chalk one History Comparison FAIL for me. Sigh.
***Speed Scrabble Explained*** You lay all of the scrabble tiles facedown in the middle of the table, everyone takes seven, then tries to build their own set of words as quickly as possible, using all tiles. Once they have used the seven tiles in their own hand, they say "go" and everyone draws two from the pile and so on until all the tiles are used up. Then you count up points based on the points on each tile, subtracting points for the tiles left over.
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This one was taken a while ago. However, no other image conveys what I would rather be doing right now. And no, "drooling on your friend's mother's leather couch" is not what I meant. Sleep. Sleep is what I meant.
It was a fun weekend, but after lots of driving, chasing my nieces around, taking calls from work at 2am, and my sister Juli taking me on a "jog" (read: Bataan Death March) through some perilous jungle, I am exhausted today.
Regardless, Happy Monday to you. To temporarily distract your minds from the restrictive, fluorescent-bulbed hell that is your work cubicle, I have created a survey on the right to get your take on the Bournemovies.
Origins of survey: After listening to a lesson at church, BiL Ben was insistent on conveying the following principle to me: If you're in a brawl with someone, always have something in your hands to fight with. He cited the rolled-up magazine in The Bourne Supremacy. Don't ask me how this related to the lesson topic in any way -- I know for sure the lesson wasn't about Samson and the ass's jawbone -- but I'm sure it was related. If Ben has taught us anything, it is that his mind is unfailingly logical. Enjoy.
Went with my sister, BilB, and nieces to the National Zoo in DC. This orangutan was there.
I didn't know the Zoo here was running a rehab program for formerly strung-out and now homeless primates, but man, if ever there was evidence of it, it's gotta be this guy. He looked more downtrodden and morose than any other captive animal I saw that day.
Immediately made me think of "Under the Bridge," that Red Hot Chili Peppers song about heroin addiction. I kept checking his arms for track marks.
Regardless, I could speculate on his past/present drug addictions all I want, but he definitely had the homeless thing going, with the cardboard box on his left side there. I suppose he just needs a stolen shopping cart and a sketchy underpass in which to live. Poor thing.
Happy Monday. (Apologies for posting negligence. Have been vacationing and otherwise preoccupied with productive things)
--There are a lot of common, everyday catchphrases ("Love is a battlefield," "Payback is a b***h," "Battlefield Earth is a crime against humanity," etc). After spending five days with my nieces, I have a new one: "Parenthood is a negotiation." It has all of the elements: Bribery (Eat that one piece of broccoli and I'll let you eat a quart of ice cream). Threats (If you don't stop smashing the sides of your little sister's head with your cymbals, you can't watch Dora). And as a final resort: Shameless pleading. All part of parenting.
...except unlike a police negotiator, if you lose your patience, you can't fire tear gas and send in a SWAT team to take care of business for you. This places the immutable advantage in the hands of the children. They may lose some battles, but they will always win the war.
I suppose the glass-half-full perspective would be that any parent has the proper training to, if needed, take over as the head of a major crime family. Negotiation. Bribery. Coercion. Threats. Grovelling (if things go south). Sounds like a pretty good resume to me.
--Helped a friend assemble an IKEA chest-of-drawers in what she accurately labeled as a "battle of wits and skill against the Swedes." After the experience, I'm convinced that the Swedes can/will take a very simple process -- think preparing a bowl of cold cereal, or toasting a pop-tart -- and write a manual with such vague illustrations that it would confuse the hell out of anybody. IKEA's inability to provide clear instructions on assembling their furniture is mind-blowing. I felt like the Egyptologists must have before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone: I saw the pictures. I know the pictures were trying to convey something. I just had NO idea what it was. I realize I'm not a skilled handyman, but I'm not a handymoron, either. Thankfully, it came together -- I suppose time and use will tell if it was done correctly.
On top of which, has anybody seen these weirdformless men in the instructions? What. The. Creep.
Moral of the story: Don't trust the Swedes. They were neutral during WWII; they don't see the sun for half the year, etc etc
--Ironic Happening: Driving home from NC, I came up behind a car with the license plate "ANGELIC." As I passed, I saw a frizzy-haired, plaid-shirted, tattooed woman taking a long drag from a cigarette. Look -- I'm all about irony -- but when I pass on, if I see seraphims chain-smoking Marlboro's, I'm peacin out. It's disgusting.
--New Fear: Women rugby players. Chalk it up with clowns and creepy children. Yeah, I dunno. Came up in a convo with DJA.
