tenacity

Success! We have managed to trim corners and implement the ridiculous strategy of wearing extra layers to the airport, thus paring our pack weights to 1-1.5 pounds below the requirement. I left a buffer in case the luggage scale I bought isn't accurate. We are also stuffing underwear in our coat pockets, which sounds ridiculous, but I don't care. I'm not above such trickery if it keeps me from having to stand around a baggage carousel stressing out about what time the rental car place closes. I have a picture of the final gear, but I'm saving it for a packing post, which will happen we return unless by some miracle I am more prepared than I think Tuesday morning (fat chance). It's likely to bore the pants off most of you, but fellow packing crazies might find it useful. If all of my efforts are for naught and we get foiled in some other way (full overhead bins, a cranky airline agent who disagrees with my interpretation of top/bottom of the bag, etc.), I'm sure you will hear about it! For now, I leave you with this:

when you travel, there
should be no wrong or right way,
only this or that

picture: wet, moss-covered boulder near the top of Pico de Papagaio, Ilha Grande, Brazil, September 2012, digital 

frenzy

Well, I finally have all of our sleeping arrangements settled for the trip. There are 15 nights to cover because we are spending 4 days with friends in Melbourne, and we will be on a plane across two calendar nights, which boggles the mind. There are many ways to go about vacation planning, and I chose a medium level of insanity when it came to accommodations, with a few days of flexibility thrown in. To be honest, the "flexible" days are the ones that make me insane. I have nightmares about driving around the bush of New Zealand trying to find a freedom camping site that isn't full on the two nights that I haven't booked something in a holiday park (similar to the American KOA campgrounds with regard to "amenities," and ubiquity, and price, from what I can tell). There are two more days of work that bookend a weekend of packing, cleaning for our houseguest, and visiting with a close friend whose child delivery we are going to miss. Too much! and we have yet to begin. So why don't I get to the end and share today's haiku about that silly mutt:

wap-wap-wap! go his
ears every morning as he
stretches out of bed

picture: that silly dog while camera testing at low light with the camera sitting on the floor to avoid handshake, film, Leica M6 

pool hair

Going to get straight to the point on this sleepy Friday evening. Plenty to say, but little energy left for crafting complete sentences. Better to stick with syllables, although they also might not make that much sense!

chlorine mingles with
wafts of cat food while the dog
snores amongst blankets

picture: that silly dog taken while testing out the new camera last week, film, Leica M6

capital gains

I can see how people might sit around watching TV all night after they've come home from work. We watch shows during dinner, and it takes some serious effort to hit that pause button (because it's always on a computer) to come here and write whatever nonsense I have for the day. Then I move on to practicing my banjo in an attempt to play at least 5 minutes a day. How is it that 5 minutes feels hard most days?? Meanwhile, I can check gmail, facebook, and instagram incessantly with no feelings of sacrifice or effort, but the gains are almost always inferior to what I get from making music or from laughing over whatever silly joke I put into haiku (that might not actually translate, but I get to laugh at it anyway). The path of least resistance is so often the path of least reward, but we are wired for comfort. And on that note, I shall move on to the short version so I can get a little bit closer to the comfort of my bed:

everything takes more
time when you can't budget for
running to catch up

(because my usual emergency strategy for not being late is to be the idiot running down the street in business casual clothes)

picture: some sort of palm (?) that I love because it's so pointy, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, NY, June 2012, film, Canon Tlb 

hurry up and wait

Good grief it is effing frigid outside. Between that and the news of my grandfather's impending death, today has been a brain scramble. Charrow and I said fuck it, and went out for fancy cheeseburgers (at moderately affordable happy hour prices) and beer (well I ordered the beer and charrow sipped at it because she doesn't really like beer). Sometimes you just have to throw yourself off the wagon to feel the bumps. And now I'm ready for bed. Here's the short version:

they say you will feel
warmer if you don't tense up
what a bunch of crap*

//

when life hands you crap
ball it up and throw that shit
right into life's face

*sometimes this works, but not when there's a wind chill of 6 degrees (F).

picture: part of a manhole cover, Brooklyn, NY, Tuesday (the day of never-ending errands), iPhone 

cheese please

I'm happy about my decision to stay home last night. Felt much better this morning, although the junk food craving and the achiness persist. I had to walk from Grand Central over to my physical therapist's office around one this afternoon, and in the process I had to pass a cluster of hole in the wall food places (the kind that may as well be food trucks because there's no seating and people stand on the sidewalk while waiting for their order). My desire to rip a piece of pizza out of one guy's hand was so strong. Instead, I inhaled deeply and cursed him for his iron stomach or his ability to disregard whatever pain it might cause him. Glutards unite. I know, it's not a very conscientious way of saying gluten sensitive. Consider it a reflection of rage and not political commentary. And now for today's bite sized portion:

folded cheese slice
so close I could steal it and
run like hell. Oh wait*

//

I could sidle up
to that kid and make her laugh
while I steal a fry

*I STILL CAN'T RUN

picture: Fellini's cheese pizza (dear god, do I miss this pizza), Atlanta, GA, June 2008, digital (I've used this picture before, but it was 8 years ago, so oh well) 

under pressure

Well I have emerged from the dentist with most of my mental faculties in tact. I lost a few during the numbing procedure and then a few more while the chunks of old filling were flying around as the drill jackhammered into my tooth. The dentist described the numbing process as this amazing thing that I should love because it would be even more localized than the traditional method, but he said the words "place the need in the hole between your tooth and gum" and my elbows started sweating. The verdict? I'd rather not be able to feel half of my face than have that kind of injection again. Well really it was 3 "injections" that lasted over the course of 4 minutes rather than the quick one or two usual jabs that render your entire check numb. I suppose this holey method might be more effective because I usually have trouble with the numbing agent not working very well, and there was very little physical discomfort during the actual procedure. Just all that mental horror as the instruments went over my face from the assistant to the dentist and then into my mouth for who knows what purpose. I can never decide whether it's better to close my eyes the whole time or to see the tool and try to guess its purpose in order to steel myself against whatever it might feel like. And the pressure. Dear god the pressure and the drilling noise make me sick to my stomach. While I was waiting for the doctor, I actually worked out a puking plan in the event that I lost my shit (use the paper bib because there was no sink within reach). I don't know why I did this because I'm not a puker, but it passed the time.

I'm sure if you asked the dentist about my anxiety level he would have said 3 or 4 out of 10 because that's about how I seem most of the time. In reality it hovered around an 8. I'm basing this guess on the fact that he was poised with drill in hand without having asked me if I wanted the laughing gas or noise-cancelling headphones we spoke about the week before. So I had to ask about them myself, which required him to take out the bits of cotton he had put in my mouth and leave the room to get the necessary supplies. I ended up not getting the laughing gas, partially because I felt like too much of a weenie to ask for it. My default "don't let them see you sweat" setting overrode the whole reason I went to this dentist in the first place: the drugs. Maybe next time. Now for the short version:

felt like a toolbox
sticking out of my mouth while
my knuckles turned white

//

fought the urge to slap
his hands away from my mouth
and head for the hills

picture: where I would rather have been this afternoon - the Blue Ridge Parkway, somewhere between Boone, NC and the Virginia border (I think), July 2014, film, Canon Tlb 

white out

Remember how I used the word allegedly when referring to that snow? There's no doubt about it now. The sky has been white since we woke up to about 6 inches of snow, which I'm guessing is now somewhere around 26 inches. Cars are useless white mounds and the streets are (or were, before nightfall) dotted with dark blobs that slowly transform into parents pulling their children in sleds or people walking with shopping bags or fellow dog owners forced outdoors by the call of doodie. We tried to take Red to the park this morning, but he curled his lower lip and hunched over as the snow pelted his face. It was pathetic, so we took him home.

I decided it would be fun to walk to the park anyway, so we left Red in his favorite place (the crate with a fresh peanut butter kong), and trudged back out to see what we could see. There were more people out than I expected, and there were plenty of dogs romping in the snow. We even saw runners tip toeing around the drive in the park. Neither of us expected that. but... Challenge accepted! So we went home to change into running gear (think gaiters and 3 of just about everything) and joined the ranks of fools on foot. We made it about 6 miles along the various loops of Prospect Park. The first 5 were pretty fun, minus a seriously painful windy stretch near the ball fields. I stopped to take a zillion pictures, people were skiing, sledding, running, walking, flopping around, etc. But by the last mile, the snow had really started to fill in because it was coming down so hard. It was like running along the edge of the beach where the packed sand gives just enough to make all your leg muscles work twice as hard. Manageable, but the novelty had definitely worn off.

The rest of the day involved a hodgepodge of resting, more walking in the snow (much to the dog's chagrin), and watching movies. I'm thankful that we don't have any pressing needs, and we can basically continue on as shiftless travel-planning blobs until Monday when we have to figure out whether we're going to work. I assume the trains will be running by then, but it's still snowing, so who knows! In the meantime, here's a short take:

woke to howling wind,
sipped coffee as the snow swirled,
who's ready to run?

top picture: a slice of the activity we saw this morning in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY, iPhone 5 
middle picture: a very unhappy Red willing me to take him, Brooklyn, NY, iPhone 5
bottom picture: charrow about 1/3 of the way through our expedition, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY, iPhone 5

cup or cone?

Every weekend we do a long run. This usually happens on Saturdays and is sometimes part of a greater training plan and sometimes it's just a reason to feel accomplished. If there's no required distance, we shoot for an 8 mile loop through Prospect Park. Then we run through a host of Saturday errands (e.g., compost drop off, dealing with library books, getting odds and ends at the grocery store, etc.). In the past couple of months, I have added "get ice cream at Ample Hills" to that list because the traditionally wired part of my brain says, "run more = eat food you normally avoid." The more open-minded, less fatphobic part of my brain knows that if I want ice cream, I can eat ice cream whenever the hell I want. There are other reasons I tend to avoid it, namely the craptastic way I feel afterwards, but it would be dishonest to omit the calorie-driven nonsense. Anyway, here's today's bite-sized version:

sugar headache comes
on quick, but it's worth every
last bite of goodness

top picture: an old Breyer's Ice Cream sign near California, MD, June 2011, film, Canon Tlb 
bottom picture: Charrow at an ice cream pit stop during a bike ride, Laurentians, Canada, July 2010, film, Canon Tlb