Runkeeper told me today that I’ve run ONCE in the past 30 days.  ”Training” is a word I basically abandoned about a month ago, when a bout with hip bursitis on my left side convinced me that I had missed too much training buildup to just jump in and try to be ready for the MCM that was then only about eight weeks away (I posted about this dilemma previously, and later agreed with my cousin when he said it was pretty clear I knew that the decision was already made.)  Instead, I’ve been going to physical therapy twice a week, re-acclimating to my work schedule with the beginning of the school year, watching torrential downpours, battling cold and sinus infections, and basically doing everything EXCEPT running.

So I had no idea what to expect from today’s 11 miles.  It was my furthest distance since the Historic Half back in May, and I hadn’t done anything more than 5- and 10Ks in the meantime.  I knew I’d finish, but when and in what condition was anyone’s guess.  I woke up feeling decent, and decided that 2:15:00 would be the ultimate but probably unrealistic goal, and the closer to that, the happier I’d be.  My hip was making a little bit of noise, but didn’t feel TOO bad.

I stood around in the pre-dawn, overcast gloom near the start line with my brother, Mike, his friend Matt, and my friend Leah, all of whom were anxious to start and to hopefully finish among the lead pack.  They discussed recent injuries, questioned their preparedness, and it was clear they were all going to demand great performances from themselves.  I felt kind of small and amateurish as I listened, knowing my pace was far, far slower than theirs, and that they would all be long gone from the site by the time I finished.  In a way, that was good, because I didn’t want to worry about keeping anyone waiting while I was on the trail…I wanted to be able to just do my best and focus on that.  But I knew it’d kinda bum me out to cross a finish line and have no one there to cheer me home.  Still, the desire to avoid anxiety about making them wait prevailed; I knew I’d finish at least 45 minutes behind them, and likely close to an hour.

As the start time neared, Leah headed towards the front of the pack and I drifted towards my usual place in the back.  I was surprised to find Mike and Matt had ended up there, too…Mike said he liked the emotional boost of being able to pass people.  I knew I’d lose sight of him in the first few minutes.  The gun went off…the phalanx of runners slowly shuffled forward, and we were off.

I rolled my ankle in the first few minutes of the race on a rock on the asphalt that I’d failed to see…but I was okay and kept going.  I made it 25 minutes before walking (something that would’ve barely made me break a sweat a year ago, but that is a decently significant accomplishment this year).  The turn off 234 and into the woods is about a mile from my house, so when I peeled off my sweatshirt, I dropped it just off the sidewalk in a grassy ditch on a drainage grate where I hoped it would still be in a few hours when I came back to retrieve it.  If it wasn’t, oh well…but I didn’t want to run the next 9 miles with it around my waist.  (It was there.) =)

As we made the turn into the park, we came upon a lady Marine…in a drill instructor hat.  I had my earphones in, but it was clear she was shouting at us.  Drill-instructor style.  She was intense and intimidating and inspiring and totally awesome.  I sped up a little as I passed her, relishing the boost of encouragement.  Not long after, a woman I’d been leapfrogging settled in next to me, and we paced each other, urged each other, encouraged each other, and chatted with each other for the next 7 miles or so.  It was a good match, and helped me stay positive where I’m sure I would’ve gotten discouraged and disgruntled had I been all alone.

The crowd around us had thinned almost immediately in the first mile…I knew there weren’t tons of people behind me, but I tried not to look, and instead focused on the road ahead.  I didn’t want to feel like a straggler.

And I didn’t feel like a straggler.  I am slow.  My pace at best is in the 10-minute mile, and within 4 or 5 miles drops into the 12s.  But I don’t FEEL slow.  I’m steady and consistent…unless there’s a significantly long and steep hill I don’t have the juice to tackle, my splits don’t vary much, even over a long distance.  I never feel like I’m sprinting, of course…but I DO always feel like I am maintaining the fastest pace I know I can, in fact, maintain.  To go faster feels foolish to me…like I would be guaranteeing that I’d run out of energy, injure something, or fail to finish.  My heart rate is high, my breathing is tough, I can talk a little but not sing…all hallmarks (or so I’ve been taught) that I’m exerting a high level of effort while maintaining consistency.

To say all that feels like I’m getting ahead of myself, but there isn’t much else to say about the race in a blow-by-blow fashion.  I walked some, but ran as much as I could till sore, stiff hips, tight calves, or bourgeoning blisters compelled me to take another walk break.  I kept my walks as short as possible, and frequently pushed myself to run to the next water stop, the next mile marker, the next Marine on post before I allowed another respite.

The only incident happened around Mile 9.5, where I was running along a stretch of asphalt that slanted away to the right.  I ran along the extreme left edge of the pavement, proud of myself for automatically seeking out the most level surface so as to ease the strain on my joints.  Suddenly, though, my foot caught on the edge of the paving and I was sent crashing to my hands and knees on the blacktop.  I immediately got up, looked around sheepishly, and started running again…no one was close enough to have reacted or helped me or even called out to me, which was probably good…there was nothing to do but just keep going, if only to preserve what was left of my dignity.  (I can’t remember the last time I had a skinned knee…it’s kind of funny and kind of humbling.)

There were a few drill instructors along the way, but the toughest one was at the end…another lady.  She might have been the same one as at the beginning…I was afraid to look at her, though, because I was exhausted and the homestretch was on an incline I was too worn out to handle, and she was berating the HELL out of me for having seen me walking so close to the end.  I muscled on past her the best I could, but I had hit the wall and was just DYING.  I saved enough to sprint the finish, and the first mat was far enough ahead of the finishing mat that I got to spring through the calling of my name by the announcer, which you just gotta love.

(I made a liar of myself, though…I’d worn my MCM “In Training 2011″ shirt, even though I’m not…and when the announcer called out a compliment on it and asked if I was running it, I nodded…because what else could I do?)

I finished with 2:23:11.  20 minutes under my half-marathon time from May, which is what I’d expected and hoped for.  Reasonably close to my goal time.  I was totally exhausted, and completely convinced I had done my very, very best.  I went into the Museum to buy an EGA sticker for my car, visited my dad’s and brother’s bricks for a quick photo op I’d thought of, and headed back to my car…very proud of myself.

Found my brother at his son’s football scrimmage, where he told me he and Matt finished together and barely passed Leah at the end.  They all crossed the line at about 1:28:00.  Leah was the third in her age group.  Mike finished 96th overall.

I was 631st.  Out of 657.

ALL THREE of them were in the top 100.  I was in the bottom 30.

And the more I thought about that today, the more my proud red balloon leaked helium till it was squealing around the room in a wild, manic spiral till it collapsed, deflated, on the floor.

Disconsolate thoughts plagued me: I am really BAD at this.  Why am I so SLOW?  How come I don’t FEEL slow?  How could I have finished SO FAR back in the pack??  Were there REALLY only 26 people behind me out of almost seven HUNDRED???

I’m usually in the trailing end of the pack.  But not THAT low.  Granted, I was in the bottom 7% of finishers in my marathon last December.  But that was different.  One, my knee had gone out RIGHT at the halfway point.  And plus, it was a MARATHON.  And I FINISHED.  So anyone who laughs at my 5:55:50 can bite me.  But this one messed with my head.

Even the Historic Half in May, when my average pace was nearly a minute faster, I finished ahead of over a hundred people in my division alone.

Soooo…???  Even the good ol’ reliable “I lapped everyone still in bed this morning” wasn’t working.

So I talked this over with my friend Keith after puzzling it out all day.  And he said exactly what was in my head.  And hearing it come from someone else made it feel less like rationalization:

I was no slower in this race than I am in any race.  And my relative placement therefore reflects not on me, but on the cohort of people with whom I was running.  Therefore, I have to assume that the pool of runners in this race was far from the societal cross-section one gets in most 10Ks and nearly all 5Ks.  I simply have to conclude that I was running with a far more elite pool of runners than I normally run with.  This run, 11 miles, coincided with both Leah’s and Mike’s slack week in their marathon training, meaning that this weekend’s slated long run was about 12 miles, sandwiched between two 20-milers.  From that, I must assume that many of the racers there today are 5 weeks away from the Marine Corps Marathon, and therefore are reaching the pinnacle of their training.  They’re ready for a run of this distance; have been doing it for weeks now.  (Whereas I have been able to do little training at all, and nothing over 6 miles.)  If that fact applies to two of the three people I knew at this race, it stands to reason that it also applies to hundreds more who were there.

Therefore, while I may have been among the LEAST badass of Crossroads participants…

…I may possibly be among the MOST badass of runners of my own pace and skill level…many of whom evidently did not choose to run this race.

Is that right?  Or am I just trying to make myself feel better?

I do wish I were faster.  I wish I were a natural like Mike, or totally fit like Leah.  And while I know I COULD get to one or both of those points if I were wholly dedicated to it for a long, long time…I doubt I ever will.

But I will keep hitting the pavement.  Keep trying to heal this hip.  Start over at square one and build myself back up to 30 minutes, and take it from there.  I already know I can do it.

And I DID lap everyone still in bed this morning.  And I beat all my fellow tortoises who didn’t show up.  And 26 of those who did.

Semper Fi.

And it’s simple, in summary. I spent the day being as American as I know how to be.

I woke up to the radio playing God Bless America. Showered, put on a nice dress and my great-great-grandmother’s diamond ring, handed down to me this past summer, got into my new car and drove to Starbucks. From there to the local Farmer’s Market, where a bluegrass band full of kids no older than 20 were singing “Wagon Wheel,” and where I bought 4 perfect plum tomatoes and a handful of Honey Crisp apples, and made a mental note to set aside $35 or so for six 8-inch mums and some pansies next week for my fall gardening.

Headed off to church with my school-snack donation for the local food bank, and took my place in the pew to listen to the service, which featured candles, beautiful choir music, and our once-in-a-while anointing practice I love so much. I don’t touch my forehead the rest of the day in order to preserve the oil cross Pastor Jeff Carter marks there, and every now and then I can smell the soothing scent of the oil’s incense.  Listened to Jeff’s 9/11 memoriam and his sermon, right on the mark as always and not at all heavy-handed, just perfect, as I worked quietly on baby blankets for my friend George’s soon-to-arrive twin girls.  Chatted there with my girlfriends, a mother of twins and a local lady-cop, as well as my “surrogate family” and the old man who tearfully gave me his recently deceased wife’s yarn stash a year ago and who makes me feel like my hugs make his day.

Hit WeightWatchers, where I disregarded the scale’s indictment (which was a shockingly far cry from the blessing I received yesterday by my own), secure in the knowledge that my Sunday Starbucks guy declared me “beautiful” (he makes a fuss every single time he sees me dressed for church, claiming I’m not being fair to the preacher, who is, in his opinion, likely struggling mightily to concentrate on the sermon).  Got a beautiful little red-white-and-blue ribbon pin, which I wore the rest of the day.

Came home, put on last night’s NASCAR race while I took care of some much-needed housecleaning. Sorted old papers, threw out a ton of crap, dusted, vacuumed, took out the trash and the recycling, brushed and medicated the cat, and updated my finances while the boys on the screen battled Richmond’s .75-mile track and launched themselves into the Chase.

Cooked chicken breasts and chopped bell peppers bought at the local Global Food among other customers from Lord-knows-how-many other cultures (many clustered around those strange, bumpy, rubbery, green cucumber-looking things I can’t identify, which made me very curious). Made my spinach salad with diced grilled chicken and Craisins and hard-boiled eggs and my own homemade balsamic vinaigrette that reminds me of Italy and my mom, and put away the makings for at least three more this week.

Took the laundry in off the line, hung it and put it away.

Poured a glass of Pinot Noir and got things in order for tomorrow’s classes, hoping to engage my students in the beginnings of our English studies for the year.

Even painted my nails for probably the first time since high school, and am pleased to report that my 33-year-old self is no better and no worse at it than my 17-year-old self was. I never do it because, frankly, I can’t stand to sit with idle hands that long, and even typing this blog is likely compromising a few nails.  At least my own efforts are free, unlike the beautiful French I got last Monday that barely lasted four days and cost me $20.

Tonight I’ll try to go to bed early (and probably fail), after writing something in my Gratitude Journal that I’m grateful for, turn on my 10-minute meditation music my phone plays for me, set three different alarms for 5am, and try to fall asleep to good dreams that have nothing to do with planes and Pentagons and how hard I cried that night on the corner of my parents’ street, while my neighbors gathered with candles and a boom box played “Proud To Be an American,” and my mother gripped her arm around my shaking shoulders.  I’ll hope to dream, like last night, about a great 10K run that I inexplicably ran from finish to start, reaching a new PR and experiencing no hip or knee pain whatsoever.

And that’s my day.

That’s about as American as I know how to be.  It’s one of those days in which I know I was my best possible self, all day long.

That’s enough for my observance of 9/11, I suppose.

It’s the end of August. I’m 65 days from the Marine Corps Marathon.  My training has been either mediocre or nil, due to nagging issues in this year’s problem joint: my left hip.  And the training that hasn’t been decimated by injury has been pretty well done in by travel and weather.

I just got back from 3 weeks in Nevada, where I was living at 5100′, and planned to rehab my hip joint and improve my respiratory capacity in the thin air and challenging hills.  I decided to use Couch to 10K to help…since the physical therapist I saw prior to leaving VA told me to use the next month to “work back up to 5 miles” (his diagnosis, by the way, was hip bursitis, and the solution was supposed to be strength training and stretching).  So I did intervals of about 2-3 minutes, trading off walks and runs, and power-walking the steepest inclines when I just didn’t have any running left in me.

I wish I could say I ran most of the days I was out there, but I didn’t.  But I did get a resistance cord, and started using that a bit.  I was further heartened by the fact that my hip pain was going away…up till about 2 days before I came back to VA.

The past two days, especially today, walking around Washington DC for about 6 hours, have been as painful as it was at its worst before I went to Reno.  It even started out that way, early in the morning.  And the new painkillers I got from the doctor yesterday, which she said were good for arthritis (related to bursitis, I assume, since she made that connection herself?) didn’t seem to make a DENT in it.

And so now I’m stuck.  I know if I were to go out for a run tomorrow (hurricane or no hurricane a-comin’), I’d have the same results I was having in June and early July…I’d probably have to walk before long due to the hip, even if I had energy and breath left.

Did I mention I have 65 days till the MCM?

I have not done a SINGLE long run.  Not ONE.  My brother and my friends are doing 14s and 17s.  I haven’t done so much as a 6.  And my last 5 was weeks ago.

And I’ve been telling people that the hip couldn’t POSSIBLY be as bad as the knee was during the St. Jude Marathon in December, so even if I only got through HALF my training, I could probably still PR.  I was still saying that just yesterday.

But today…well, I hate to say it, but today, I started thinking about picking up someone on Craigslist or Facebook who is willing to pay to transfer my bib.

Yeah.  I’m thinking of washing out.

I just hate the idea of showing up to an event like the Marine Corps Marathon with anything less than my best efforts behind me and my best possible outlook ahead of me.  I can’t toe that starting line with doubt and failure in my heart.  It would feel like sacrilege to me.  Why muddle my way through, injured and (VASTLY) undertrained, just to muddle my way through?  I don’t think I’d even want a medal I got under those terms, finish or no.

Don’t get me wrong.  I have no delusions of competitiveness.  But I feel so woefully unprepared at this point, halfway through a full training program…hell, I haven’t even been DOING a training program!!  It’s SO unlike last fall, when I was religiously logging the runs, when I wasn’t injured, when I’d laid the groundwork prior to the start of the program, when I’d put forth the discipline and the dedication and the injury came long after I had already gained the necessary self-confidence.  I ran the race, I finished, and I took the winter off…and I’ve just never gotten anywhere near back up to a decent, respectable ability this spring/summer.  I just never found the flow.  And now, it’s nearly September, and I’m STILL floundering.

Should I just bow out?

The upsides are many.  I could start from the bottom again, no pressure, no stress.  I could do easy little 2 and 3 milers, work my base back up.  I could incorporate a strength training program, again, from the bottom up.  It would be a relief just to be able to focus on getting back into decent form and shape again without the constant calculation in my head of how badly I need to chop and hack and reassemble my training program in order to have SOME readiness in a mere two months…something that is foolish if not impossible.  And, if I transferred my bib, someone who REALLY wants to run this race – and is prepared – would have a chance to do so.

I really wanted to run this MCM this year.  It’s my brother’s first marathon…I wanted to do it with him.  I have so many friends registered.  But they’re all so much farther along than I am…and it’s frustrating and it’s wrecking my self-esteem and that just means it’s sabotaging my recovery anyway.

And it’s not like I’ll never have another chance again, right?  RIGHT?

I need some advice.  If my Running Gurus are still reading this, please weigh in.  If I bow out, must I hang my head, too?

I returned to running in mid-February and was staggered by how hard it was to get back into it.  I honestly thought I’d be able to knock out a halfway-decent 5k on my first run after two and a half months off.  I even agreed to do that first run with my brother, who had started running around the time I stopped.  I didn’t know then that he was fast enough, even early in his training, to run 3 miles in the time it took me to run 2…even back when I was in the peak of my ability.

So, in the past 3 months, I’ve been reconstructing things I had learned during my marathon training…some of them feel like brand-new lessons…others are things I already knew but had forgotten throughout the long period of inactivity.  The Marine Corps Historic Half, which I ran on May 15, 2011 and finished in a time of 2:41:10, brought a lot of these lessons home to me, both old and new.  I’ve been meaning to write them down all week, so here they are…in no particular order…just the thoughts of a newly recommitted runner.

Things I learned / re-learned / remembered during the MCM Series Historic Half….

• Walking doesn’t make the 13 miles go by faster.  If I have to walk for a few minutes, fine, but I didn’t come here to walk this thing.  Run as much as possible.  The more I walk, the longer it is before I get to the finish line.
• The brain is a liar.  The body knows what it can handle, and it can handle far more than what the brain says it can.  When my mind is telling me I’m too tired to go on, and I’m close to overload, and I must stop and walk or I’LL DIE, I have to remember to say to my brain, “You’re lying.  I’m not anywhere near the limit of my capability.  My legs know they can keep going.”
• If I have to walk, I’d better be walking an uphill.  There’s really no excuse for walking on a level stretch or a downslope, except in case of injury.
• My eventual goal is to not walk at all…I hope to run the Rock & Roll Half Marathon in Virginia Beach in September from start to finish with no walking, hills included.  I will not accomplish that goal unless I start, NOW, forcing myself past the exhaustion and continuing to run when I feel like walking.
• On a related note, pushing past exhaustion is a learned thing…a skill acquired through practice.  The body (and the mind) learns to overcome exhaustion by…overcoming exhaustion.  I won’t learn to do it until I start doing it.  I have to practice this just like I have to practice my form.  I have to acquaint myself with exhaustion mindfully: learn what it feels like, pay attention to what my body feels like when I encounter it, practice the positive mental exercises that combat it, and re-train myself to welcome the feeling, not dread it.  Eventually, I have to get to the point where I can feed off it.
• Mike (my brother) told me last week: “No one is making you run.  You’re doing this because you decided to.”  No one else in my life would care a whit if I stopped running.  Whether I run or whether I don’t does not affect anyone but myself.  No one else benefits from my running.  It is perhaps the only thing I have ever picked up that has no value to anyone but me…which means it is perhaps the only thing I have ever done entirely for myself.  Writing, crocheting afghans, teaching, the various things I do to be a friend to those around me…all those things are done at least partially for someone else’s approval…sometimes entirely for someone else’s approval.  There are people in my life whose approval of my running I may crave, but that could never be enough of a reason to get me out of bed early in the morning on a Saturday to do a long run, or make me sign up for a marathon, a half-marathon, even a 10k.  It’s nice to get a pat on the back for running a race, but at the end of the day, I am the one who decides to do it, and no one benefits from it but me.
• And that thought leads me to something I read just a few minutes ago…a quote from George Sheehan, one of the greatest runners in American history and winner of the 1968 Boston Marathon, as quoted in A Runner’s Guide to the Meaning of Life, by Amby Burfoot: “The most important thing I learned [about life, from running] is that there is only one runner in this race, and that is me.”  My brother’s version of this sentiment on Sunday was the ever-popular “Run your own race.”  Another article I read yesterday expressed it as, “Running a race is not about winning…it’s about finishing what you started.”  Usually, I have no trouble remembering that it’s my race (my Camino) and that I need not compare myself to others.  This has become more difficult since my older brother (my only sibling, and, as is the case with many sibling pairs, my first and most natural rival / adversary / opponent) took up running and immediately eclipsed my ability level, and by FAR.  Despite his best efforts to remind me of what I already know, that I need compare myself to no one and nothing but my own PR, it is a daily struggle to overcome the all-too familiar feeling of inadequacy next to the person I have watched excel at his every endeavor for my entire 33 years.  In the Historic Half, which at the last minute he decided to enter, he finished 50 minutes ahead of me and walked back along the course to run it in with me, gently urging me on all the way with praise and encouragement, sometimes from just ahead of me, sometimes in my ear over my shoulder.  Once or twice he ranged farther ahead and I took the opportunity in my exhaustion to walk a moment, and then found that his purpose was to crouch and take a picture of me, and had to force myself back to a run with a wry grin, knowing that he knew full well that I wouldn’t allow myself to be photographed walking in the final stretches of the race.  My brother has been a source of motivation and support, and I know that the last thing he wants is to be a source of discouragement…so I know that it must be a primary goal of my mental training to return to what I knew back when I was beginning…that winning has nothing to do with the order in which you cross the finish line.  It isn’t even about crossing the finish line.  It’s about crossing the threshold of your front door with your running shoes laced up, and closing that door behind you. 

There is only one runner in this race, and that is me.

Excuse me, but I’m half in the bag here…visits to the White branch of the Smith family at Donner always involves generous cocktails, wine with dinner, and, if you’re really lucky, Brandy Alexanders for dessert.  So I’ll do my best with this….

We did the drive out of Salt Lake City today.  Not much to say about the launch, except that my Find-A-Starbucks app failed me for the first time…the little coffee cup on the GPS map kept receding as I approached on foot, with the folks waiting for me to come back before they headed out…so I had to abandon the hunt after about 5 blocks (that was supposed to be a block and a half).  Nice little brisk morning constitutional, though, with the snowcapped mountains of Park City ahead of me.

We picked up a tank of gas and a pseudo-Starbucks stop at a Hyatt…which is where the gas station man said there was a Starbucks, but when I got there, it was just “We brew Starbucks coffee.”  The desk receptionist did her best to come up with a mocha for me that I ended up regretting, both for the lackluster taste and the wearing-out I got from my mother for delaying our departure for Reno.

Out we headed into the Salt Flats.  They’re salty.  And flat.  Very, very flat.  They were cool in a couple places, where the mountains in the distance reflected in the glass-like surface of the Great Salt Lake, but other than that, it was a long, straight road paralleling a railroad track and a defunct power line.

After we left the Salt Flats, nothing much changed except the salt (?).  It was alternately flat and rolling, always with spectacular mountain ranges on the horizon…some snowy, some rocky…they were amazing.  And other than that, there isn’t a whole lot to say about the drive.  We stopped in Elko for lunch at the Cimmaron Family Restaurant, which was pretty much the day’s excitement (other than a “rest stop” which was basically a glorified port-a-potty in a wooden lean-to, which I had to check out and declare its unsuitability as a throne for the Queen).  We saw lots and lots of trains (forgot to mention them yesterday…they’re ever-present), and several exits off the highway that led to NOWHERE (Pequod? Exit 156? Where is it?).  No wildlife to speak of today…a few cows (and no more than a few), but also two clear rodeo arenas.  Passed the Bonneville Speedway on the Flats, but I never saw anything identifiable, just the sign.  Entrance into Nevada was a relief…later, entrance into Washoe County (my folks’ new home county) was exciting…and by the time we had a visual on Reno, it felt like we’d been on the road for…well, five days.

We got into Reno…sailed up the hillside to Somersett…made it to the house…and walked in to the same smell I’ve smelled since I was 8…new house. =)  Brand-new carpeting…newly patched walls…beautiful job done by my aunt’s cleaning crew (she’s a ski-rental realtor and has some serious hookups for this sort of situation)…unloaded the pickup and the Acura and the cats…started trying to load our paltry cooler load into the giant sub-zero fridge…set up the cats in the laundry room…and I wandered through the house trying to get my bearings and keep from getting lost.  We tried to get houseplants out of the way for the movers (who are now coming Friday instead of Thursday…bummer)…and the folks took a slug of Crown Royal left on the bar by my aunt to celebrate their arrival (see FB for the shot). =)

About an hour after arrival, Marbles wandered to the center of the great room, tipped over onto her roly-poly little side, and rolled on the carpet.  Mark of approval.  They’re home.  No more trips in the bed of the pickup truck (poor babies, the sedative hasn’t touched them since Day 2).  Their HCB is even in with them now (HCB = Heated Cat Bed…a 30-year-old plug-in hot pad in a wicker basket…they’re incapable of living without it), so now they KNOW they’re done being on the road.

A rainstorm showed up outta nowhere as we were sorting through the things we’d unloaded into the house…and as we left, the sun came out and gave us a full-on, half-circle rainbow.  My folks arrive at their retirement and get a RAINBOW in the sky.  Message from God?  I think it’s clear this is where they’re supposed to be.  As my mom puts it, “We’ve arrived.”  Yeah, Mom…61 years you’ve been waiting for this day. =)

We got done at the house and headed up the mountain (sans cats) into California (14^th state for this trip, in case anyone’s counting) to my aunt’s house for an awesome pork roast dinner and LOTS OF BOOZE (mentioned above).  And here I am.  On a laptop that still won’t pick up the Wi-Fi, and is now down to 15% of its power.  So I better close.  We’re here.

Tomorrow (I hope) is a massive spending spree for them.  They sold (and gave to my brother) lots of furniture, a washer/dryer, their TV, etc…and with the household shipment delayed a day, hopefully they’ll take care of a lot of that stuff tomorrow.  I’m hoping a lot of it happens while I’m still here.  If I don’t have thousands of dollars to spend setting up a brand-new house, I’d like to be as close as possible to people who ARE doing just that…maybe I can catch some of the high.   Also on tomorrow’s docket: GO TO THE GYM WITH MY AUNT.  That’ll be fun after all the rum, wine, and brandy tonight….

So that’s the saga.  We made it.  2,824 miles.  5 days.  I didn’t kill my mother.  She didn’t kill my father.  He didn’t kill either of us.  He drove the entire way.  The cats survived.  The plants survived.  There was Crown Royal at the end of their (literal) rainbow.  And we had family, a DVR’ed Talladega race, and a home-cooked meal waiting for us.

Word.

No Wi-Fi!  No Wi-Fi!  The iPad is picking it up, and the phones are too, but not the laptop.  And I ain’t typing this whole daggone thing on the iPad.  So I’m sorry it’s late, but it’s beyond my control.  I can’t get Javier the Construction Dude off the lobby computer.  He’s not responding to the thousand-yard stare AT ALL.  Jerk.

So today was Colorado, Wyoming, Wyoming, more Wyoming, and Utah.  Did I mention Wyoming?  My GOD Wyoming is big.  And we didn’t even come into it from the eastern border.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We woke up and Dad decided we could take some time to look around Boulder a bit before hitting the road.  So we piled into the Acura and headed out, following our noses around town.  We followed a Buff Bus to the Colorado University Campus (home of the Buff(alo)s.  It was a really, really pretty campus…red brick buildings in a rough-hewn style with angled rooftops that mirrored the Flatiron Mountains behind it…and the whole campus looked relatively new.  All in the same architectural style.  Very different from JMU, which had a Bluestone area, a Village area, a brand-new ISAT area…CU looked like it had all sprung up at one time.  The stadium looked cool, and had a Buffalo statue out front with his horns all golden…clearly rubbed for luck, like the Wall Street Bull’s nose.

The area surrounding the campus looked a bit cluttered, but we think it was mostly student-rented housing…plus, it’s only April and they’ve just had a rough winter, as Dad pointed out…it’s a bit early in the year to expect perfectly manicured grounds in the neighborhoods.  The houses were small and close together, but each was unique…they had plenty of character.  A bit farther from campus, we found the Historic District of Boulder, which suddenly sported very nice, much larger, vine-covered houses that had some beautiful lawns.  No garages…how the heck do they plow the streets with so many cars parked on both sides??

Dad was trying to get to the mountains to see if we could get up high and see a view of the town.  BOY, COULD we.  The road picked up quick as we headed through a park area…and suddenly the rundown-houses-becoming-Historic-houses became Holy-Crap-These-People-Are-Loaded houses up on the mountainside.  Amazing architecture, amazing-er views.  We could see. For. Miles.  And miles and miles and miles.  Way past Denver off in the distance.  Way past the Flatirons, way past I mean EVERYTHING.  It was spectacular.  There were picnic tables up on the vista where we parked.  The crags of the Flatirons rose behind us, and gnarled trees with no spring buds yet framed our view of the city.

Boulder is just a perfect size.  It’s not too big, it’s not too small.  The university doesn’t seem to TOTALLY dominate the town…but it’s clear it’s a big part of it.  There are students everywhere.  We stopped in at a Starbucks (one of a MILLION coffee shops of all kinds throughout the city) and everyone in there was a twentysomething pecking away on a Mac laptop.  No joke.  All Macs.  All students.  Lots of bikes out front.  Very granola.

I could get used to that place.  It was really cool.  And as we drove away, we went through several other little outlying hamlets that looked just as cozy.  The gridded, wooded streets gave way to wide open spaces and farmhouses with long white fences…I even saw a huge jumping arena that stretched along the road for at least a quarter of a mile…there must have been 40 different kinds of jumps scattered throughout.  I didn’t see many horses, though…which in retrospect seems a bit strange.

Can I just rewind about 15 years and go back and attend Colorado University instead?  Be a rodeo groupie and marry some outdoorsy cowboy-type guy and live the rest of my life healthy and strong in some rugged mountain landscape?  How different would my life be…?

The cats are learning the routine.  Pilling is less dramatic (I did Marbles in record time, though she was no more affected by it today than she was yesterday) and they’re sick of the crates, but doing fine overall.  We got out onto the road around 9:30.  Headed north towards Cheyenne, across the Wyoming line.  There we were going to pick up I-80 and head West till we hit the Sierras.

Wyoming was, by turns, gorgeous and barren.  It was gorgeous first.  Craggy rocks jutting up out of giant earthen mounds…from blue in Boulder, the sky went white along with the ground, gradually showing a dusting and then a deepening of snow on the grassy plains and the trees dotting the landscape between the rock formations.  I made the folks stop at another Point of Interest (unspecified) and found myself looking at Tree Rock…a landscape that has commanded the detour of highways and railroads for 150 years.  I think it’s an Ansel Adams photo…am I right?  (I’d check, but no internet!)

The higher we got, the snowier and colder it got, the prettier it got.  Wyoming was just hypnotizing for those first hundred miles or so.  We hit some kind of welcome center at what felt like an elevation summit, and saw an awesome stone sculpture of Lincoln up there, but didn’t stop, and after that, it was a lot of downhill and the snow started to fade again.

We came into Laramie, and all I could think about was Matthew Shepard…and what it must have been like for him to be tied all night to that fenceline in the freezing cold, never-ending wind of Wyoming.  What a shame that that’s the only thing people like me know about Laramie.  Never even caught a glimpse of the University of Wyoming.

We stopped in Rawlins for gas and lunch and booze (because the folks were out of gin and didn’t expect to find much in Salt Lake tonight).  To get to Rawlins, we had to drive past the Sinclair oil refinery and the cruddy little cluster of trailers huddled next to its endless, belching, grimy acres of twisted machinery.  It even claimed to be its own proper town…Sinclair, Wyoming.  What on EARTH would possess someone to want to live there??  I even asked the gas station attendant how she ended up in Rawlins, and she told me she and her husband both lost their jobs elsewhere and moved here to live with her dad.  They came TO Rawlins for work.  You’ll miss Rawlins if you blink.  The downtown main street hasn’t been touched since the 20s.  Yet the most visible church in town looks almost Byzantine.  Very strange.

After Rawlins, we hit the Continental Divide (a few times…someone explain THAT to me), and entered the sprawling, empty wastelands of southern Wyoming.  Nuh. Thing. There.  Dad says ranch men rate land by cows-per-acre.  This was ONE cow per 200 acres…the worst land there is.  We ran over bona fide tumbleweeds.  We saw triple-tractor-trailers.  Oversized loads nearly ran us off the road on the downslopes.  We’d top a bend in the road and see the highway stretching out before us like a ribbon, all the way to the horizon.  Enormous white propeller blades on towering stalks farmed the wind that never stops blowing over the sagebrush.  And the road went on and on and on and on and on.

We entered Wyoming at 11:00 am.  We didn’t get out of it till 5:30 pm.  And like I said, we entered from the south at Cheyenne, not even from the east from Nebraska.  356 miles of Wyoming.  The snowbanks returned, as did the rocks, but it wasn’t pretty anymore like it was at first.

We started to see black cows dot the landscape…sometimes in small clusters, sometimes sparse.  We saw one black-and-white magpie and two antelope and a peppering of trailers, pipeyards, and broken-down old sheds seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  Exits off the highway would lead to one lone, scrappy, solitary building.  The interstate overpasses would pass over unpaved road after unpaved road.  Once in a while there would be a hotel with an adult store nearby.  There was a penitentiary…’cause, what better place to have one?  Where would anyone escape to?  They’d die on those plains.

Mom and I both commented on the thought of what it would be like to cross this terrain at oxen-and-steel-rimmed-wooden-wheel speed, rather than at 70.  We couldn’t even cruise at 75, the speed limit, and our gas mileage was terrible at this elevation (Wyoming has the second highest average elevation after Colorado, I learned today)…thankfully, gas was right around $3.50 all day.

It was, like I said, early evening when we finally hit Utah and headed through the Wasatch valley (I got that info off a postcard at the hotel desk!).  As SOON as we crossed the Utah line, suddenly there were trees.  It was like trees had been outlawed in Wyoming, and therefore grew right up to the state line and dared go no further.  They began to dot the mountainsides…and gradually the landscape turned green.  There was a little town called Echo that stretched along the banks of a beautiful river.  It was really quite picturesque.  I commented to Mom that if I’d been in a wagon, I’d’ve been happy to stop here.  We got an up-close of Echo when we had to make a rather urgent fuel stop and then got turned around trying getting back on the highway.  One of us knew where we were going, one of us went the wrong way, and one of us was simply following.  I won’t tell you which was whom.

Into Salt Lake City we came…between the amazingly steep and snowy Wasatches…I guess we’re close to Park City, which by the snow board in the lobby is still wide open for ski business!  The hotel is nice (except for the Wi-Fi problem) and the cats are happy to be out of the car.  We even caught Dancing With the Stars: the Results Show, which was kind of a bummer after missing the competition last night.

We have less than 24 hours left in the trip.  Tomorrow we’ll be out on the road early, cross the salt flats (shudder) and some endless Nevada, and find the new house.  We’ll drop the cats and the houseplants and head up to Truckee to stay the night at Donner Lake.  The household goods should arrive the following day.  It’s gonna be fun, I think.  At least more fun than 10-hour days in the car….

Got into the room and Mom was in a panic.  There were only so many places she could be.  First thing I did was look behind and underneath the recliner, where there was barely a few inches’ clearance between the floor and a metal bar…but I pushed on the back of the chair, tipping it forward, and there was a giant gray-and-black coffee-cake swirl with reddish eyes looking forlornly at me.  Dad was boggled…swore he’d looked there, but was sure there wasn’t any room for a fatso like Marbles to squeeze under.  I dragged her out and passed her to my mother, who looked about ready to faint with relief.  I started to consider our friend Lynn’s suggestion that Marbles might look good in the rearview mirror by the side of the road tomorrow.

So, off to sleep, up this morning at dawn, and ready to go by 7.  The folks pilled the cats without me, so I can’t regale you with another episode of that little drama.  However, the meds today didn’t affect EITHER cat at ALL, apparently.  Belle was as awake as ever on her single dose, and Marbles was wide awake on her double…nothing like she was yesterday.  The mysteries of life….

So we trekked through Kansas City…which, I must admit, has been some of the prettiest terrain we’ve covered so far on this trip.  Everything is blooming, the houses are quaint, you’ve got farmland and white fences on the outskirts…we even saw the Royals Stadium and…AND…Kansas Motor Speedway!!

Made it to Topeka before we stopped for breakfast at a Denny’s.  Along the way, we saw a billboard advertising a historical site for Brown vs. Board of Education…the court case that desegregated public schools.  THAT was cool to see, even if just the sign (it’s not exactly a sightseeing trip).  When we pulled into the Denny’s, Mom’s Acura MDX’s creepy GPS voice decided it had a serious oil problem that would require us to tow it to the nearest dealer.  Uh.  We got Dad on it…he opened the hood…and everything looked fine.  It gave us no more trouble the rest of the day, and we decided it just wanted to be tickled some.

We placed our Denny’s order, and as the waitress walked away, I noticed a bald man, about 50 or so, in a pink shirt, coming out of the restroom area near our table.  Except he came from the ladies’ room.  And the strap across his chest wasn’t a messenger bag, it was a purse.  And the pink shirt wasn’t a shirt, it was a dress…mid-thigh, button-down.  And he was wearing beige sandals.  With heels.  And had a beer gut the way older men sometimes do that makes them look about 6 months pregnant.  Bald man, dress, purse, heeled sandals…with a woman his age.  Had this been Oakland, or even Adams Morgan, I wouldn’t have batted an eyelash.  But it was Topeka, Kansas, before 9am on a Monday morning.  Just caught me a little off-guard.

(We lost track of where we’d stopped for breakfast, and had to ask an elderly server lady where we were…she managed to keep a straight face, and no one even made any Dorothy jokes.  But she did point out rather surreptitiously that we were in Kansas’s state capital.)

Off we go across Kansas.  It’s not as flat as they say…it’s an endless series of gentle, rolling hills.  With cows.  And Baptist-y anti-abortion billboards.  And adult novelty shops.  Usually within the same 100 square yards of each other.  You know, like “HELL HAS NO EXIT” and “JESUS SAVES; PORNOGRAPHY DESTROYS.”  That one was directly beside the porn shop.  I found that amusing.

At some point, we started to notice the hills on one side or the other of us were blackened.  A little further, and we saw what we assumed were controlled burns, being tended by a frighteningly low number of men, quite spaced out from one another.  But the hills are all grass, and sparse grasses at that, so we figured there isn’t really any way for the fires to get out of control…there’s not enough to feed them.  And the burns apparently kill insects and restore the soil or whatnot…it was just odd.  Every now and then we’d get a big flame in one spot, but for the most part, they were just little bright orange lines, eating away at the grasses and clouding up the air.

Not too much farther, and we saw SNOW.  In big drifts.  Some DEEP drifts.  All along the side of the road.  In APRIL!  And it was about 60 today!  Unexpected, to be sure.

Before we hit Colorado, we noticed Dad had a headlight out.  (Today was Car-Trouble-But-Not-Really Day.)  We had to drive through about 100 miles of Kansas nothing before we could find a Wal-Mart and get him a replacement.  And in the 10 minutes it took us to figure out how to pop out one light and wrestle the other one in, it had somehow dropped about 15 degrees and it was COLD!

Along the way on the Kansas interstate, Cross-Dressing-Pink-Dress-Man passed us on the road.  With his lady friend in the passenger seat.  If you’re on FB, you can see a picture of him.

Into Colorado.  Which is just like Kansas.  Except straighter.  And flatter.  And less to see.  At least that’s what the first 150 miles is like.  At one point, we passed a sign advertising (but not specifying) a “Point of Interest.”  We figured about 2 miles later that it referred to a tower out in the middle of nowhere on a hill, billed on a hand-painted sign as the “See Six States Tower.”  Uhh…Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas, New Mexico?  I don’t think I’m buying that.  But it was cute.

We drove over 600 miles today, breaking the cardinal rule Dad referred to (origin unknown) that goes, “Never drive more than 600 miles in one day.”  Might be an Engelenism.  Anyway, we broke it.  It did feel like forever today.  We listened to lots of NASCAR radio and some Oprah radio and lots of The Highway on XM.  I drove about 3 hours…Mom did the next.  Dad has not had driving relief yet…but it isn’t because I haven’t offered.

After entering Kansas City during the morning rush, we finally hit Denver in the evening rush.  Awesome timing.  Came in through the industrial part of town, so there was nothing scenic about it.  Plus, Dad was OUT of gas, and we had a somewhat frantic wild-goose chase through an industrial park looking for a gas station, battling our numerous incomprehensible smart-whatever-devices along the way.  Finally found a gas station next to a corner crowded with no fewer than FIVE Denver cop cars, lights flashing, one guy getting handcuffed, and another guy sitting soberly on the curb in what looked like a giant black rubber bag that came up to his neck.  Cuffed, stuffed, and…bagged??  By the time we finished filling our tanks, they had all vanished.  We followed suit rather quickly.

Back into the traffic, heading northwest to Boulder.  We’d secured what sounded like a good hotel deal (another Best Western, Christa, if you’re reading this!), and as the traffic thinned and the road left Denver behind, the landscape started to improve dramatically.

Ohhh, and the Rockies.  The Rockies are HUGE.  They seem to rise straight up out of the plains.  Steep and RIGHT THERE.  Just gorgeous.

We got into Boulder and found our hotel with no problems.  Got situated, unloaded the cats (who are starting to get used to the routine), and decided to walk from our hotel on 36 and Canyon down to the Pearl Street Mall District (downtown) and find a bite to eat.  It was a good mile or more to the downtown area, which THANK GOD because we’ve all been sitting in cars and stuffing our faces for three days (albeit only twice a day).  The historic district was beautiful.  We were looking for a microbrewery, but stumbled upon the Boulder Café, which looked great from the outside…and gave it a shot.  It was long on character and short on expense, and let me tell you, the surf ‘n’ turf there was TO DIE FOR.  Mom said the same about her French Dip.  We all had wine, too.  It was a GREAT dinner.  If you find yourself in Boulder, GO THERE.

We walked home afterwards through Pearl Street, past little bistros and coffee shops, bead stores and ceramic shops that let you paint your own crockery.  Law offices…financial planners…outdoor shops…trendy little gift shops…lots of apartments/duplex-type buildings that would be great locations if not for the road noise.  I really liked it.  I imagine in the summer, when it’s green and much warmer, it must be a great spot to hang out.

By the time we hit the hotel, it had JUST started to rain.  Great timing.

I wish we had a bit more time to poke around here, but a stopover is fine for me for this trip.  I could come out here for a long weekend and get a better feel for the place, maybe.  But I like what I see so far.  The question is, am I enough of a winter person to get along here?  Mountains and studded tires…?  I dunno…I do love my warm summer nights on my back porch, and there would probably be no such thing here.  But it is everything I’d heard it is, no doubt about that.  I like it.

Tomorrow – over the Rockies and into Wyoming…thence to Utah…and stopping in Salt Lake.  We’ve got a bead on a great little local restaurant for breakfast tomorrow, too, before we leave Boulder.  I’ll let you know how that goes.

PS – Lots of Subarus here.  LOTS.

PPS – Lots of backpackers here.  Mom says they’re hobos.  I say they’re backpackers.  Either way, I made a karmic down payment here with one who asked me for some change for pizza.  He rolled a giant yoga ball at me and called it bowling.  I decided he was cool and obliged him.  St. James was watching.

PPPS – No Dancing With the Stars tonight.  It comes on earlier in Mountain time, and coincided with dinner.  Bummer, dude.  Plus, we’re 2 hours back, and it’s only 9:30pm but it’s really 11:30 for me…I’m exhausted.  G’night.

We were up early to get on the road as soon as possible, considering we were 100 miles short of where we should have been, and were expected in Columbia, MO for a lunch with friends we knew in Okinawa. Our original plan was to be there around one or so for lunch…our modified plan had us arriving around 3:30 or 4.  Couldn’t be helped.

But first, we had to medicate the cats. This is far more dangerous and dramatic than it sounds.

I declared myself the “piller,” as I’ve often had to pill my own cat ALONE, and without help. But the folks weren’t taking any chances, and used a towel to “burrito” both of them…which may have added more stress to the situation than was necessary. Plus, we got a “pill gun” from the vet yesterday, which is like a little syringe with a plastic hollow tube the pills go into, and then a little plunger in the back to pop them down the cat’s throat so you’re not sticking fingers down there and risking getting bitten.  This also complicated matters, as I kept forgetting to hold it upright, and the tiny little pink pill quarters kept falling out onto the multicolored bedspread, leaving me to hunt them down amid hissing from the cat burritos and cursing from my mother.

Christine – 2, Cats – 0.  We got a double dose into Marbles (the fat one), and took our life in our hands with little scaredy-cat, declawed Belle, who is terrified of everything, but could easily shred us to bits if only she still had front claws.  When she gets worked up, she bats those little arms out like a boxer, slapping whatever she can reach and hissing and spitting like she’s possessed.  I came out of it with a bite that landed with molars instead of canine teeth, so I was okay…we were too afraid to double her dose because she’s only 7 pounds and Marbles is almost 13.

Loaded ‘em and headed out.  Made it over the Indiana line to Richmond for breakfast at an IHOP, scored myself a Starbucks on my Find-A-Starbucks App (KEY) while dad filled the tank on the truck, and headed back on the highway.  It’s like the Camino on this trip…up early and westbound, the sun behind you…which is a blessing every day.  It’s hard enough to drive early in the morning without being blinded by the sun.  I’d hate to do this drive eastbound.

We’re DEFINITELY in the buckle of the Bible belt, though.  We saw at least four or five megachurches once we hit Missouri.  Giant, scary warehouse-sized megachurches.  And two ENORMOUS crosses that looked like they were made out of house siding.  MONSTROUS.  A bit frightening.  And the billboards in Missouri are primarily about the following things: Jesus, Hell avoidance, pro-life propaganda…and adult novelty stores.

Other than that, today was mainly characterized by two things before midafternoon – the NASCAR race on satellite radio (another blessing…yes, you heard me) and the fact that neither my mother nor I were able to keep ourselves safe from “road trance.”  It doesn’t matter, apparently, whether I get a full night’s sleep or not…I get behind the wheel and before long, I’m drifting around in my lane and struggling to keep my eyes focused.  When I’m not driving, it’s like I’ve got narcolepsy or something.  It’s ridiculous.  I dozed almost the entire day, other than my three hours of driving.  Coffee didn’t even help much.

Dad reported the same.  And at one point, he suffered from a rather extreme case of “old-man blinker.”  I made the comment to Mom after he had his left turn signal blinking for a mile or so, and it persisted even through a lane-change back to the right…this from my compulsively-signalling father, who NEVER makes an unnanounced move in traffic.  Mom called him just to tell him.  He was mortified.

The Talladega race was great…even on the radio.  Can’t wait to get home and watch it.  And we finished it RIGHT before we arrived at the Walkers’ house in Columbia.

The Walkers are friends of ours from our time in Okinawa…another Marine family who followed their Oki tour with a 2-year tour in Ivory Coast, Africa.  Their house is an amazing wealth of beautiful Okinawan and African art and artifacts.  They had Japanese paintings everywhere…an elephant molar…beautiful wood carvings on the wall…clocks EVERYWHERE…and strange items like a Civil War-era folding dentist chair and an old-fashioned barber’s chair that had to be about 100 years old.  Fascinating place.  Enormous kitchen.  Beautiful yard.  Pulled pork BBQ sandwiches for late-lunch-early-dinner-whatever-meal-it-was…mmm!!  It was great to see them.  They have a huge totem pole, about 5.5” tall, on their front porch.  Their house tells the story of their travels together…just fascinating.

We didn’t go too much further after their house.  The clock said 5:30, but for us, it was 6:30 when we left.  I spent the next hour on the iPad, researching pet-friendly hotels that would be on our way through Kansas City, and the one I picked is a great success.  Much more spacious rooms…Mom and Dad are happy and even the cats are calm and acting normally.

Oh, I forgot to mention.  The double on Marbles worked like a charm…she wasn’t OUT, but she was definitely “out of it.”  Her big blue eyes were at half-mast, and she kept peering at things like Mr. Magoo, the inner membranes creeping up over her huge pupils.  She was quiet all day.  Not so much with Belle.  We may pound her with a double tomorrow…we’ll see.  To be honest, they seem to be doing fine with the travel.  It might not be necessary to actually knock them out…and I’m sure a double will do that to Belle.  A single dose doesn’t seem to affect her at all.

The weather was gorgeous all day.  It was a bit chilly for most of the morning, but here in KC, it’s beautiful…it was about 70 when we arrived at 7:30pm or so.  I hope that holds out for a while.  Especially the part where there isn’t any DRIVING RAIN!!

Anyway, we’re on the east side of Kansas City now…planning to leave early and make Topeka for breakfast, and then do about 8 or 9 more hours (various GPS devices disagreeing) on our longest day and end up in Boulder.  This stop is for me…to check it out and see if it’s a place I’d like to try out.  If we can make Boulder tomorrow with no one falling asleep and plunging off the side of a mountain (good thing it’s mostly flat Kansas tomorrow, haha), we’ll be caught up to our original plan.  Then, just Salt Lake City and Reno await.

About 1,200 miles down…about 1,500 to go.  Keep us in your thoughts.

PS – Virginia readers: Today, we passed at some point: Winchester, Williamsburg, Cloverdale, Centerville, Danville, Springfield, Richmond, Stanton, NEW Stanton, and Staunton.  Will we EVER get out of VIRGINIA??  (haha)

We made it as far as Dayton, Ohio today…about 100 or so miles short of our target, Indianapolis.  It’s after 10pm and I’m trying to write this as my mom talks on one cellphone and my father talks on another, all three of us and two cats sitting in a rooms slightly larger than a postage stamp, and the muted television shows bands of green and yellow rain sweeping across the route we just drove today for 8+ hours.  So forgive me if it’s a little convoluted….

The day began for all of us at about 6am for a 7:30am family breakfast at IHOP, complete with Mike, Andrea, and little Eric.  The plan was to pick up a pair of weighed and fully sedated cats from the vet (they were boarded two days ago, before the movers arrived to pack the house), meet back at my house, load up my stuff, and hit the road by 9am.  Eric tucked away an astonishing amount of food for an almost-seven-year-old, and solemnly gave Grandma his stuffed moose from Maine so it could be waiting for him in Nevada when he comes to visit in July.  The service was faster than we thought, and we reordered the plan and went to my house first, hugged and kissed and choked up as we told Mike and Andrea and Eric goodbye, and merrily caravanned off to the vet, waving goodbye to Montclair in the rearview mirror as we went.

That’s when everything ground to a screeching halt.  The sedation order did not make it into the medical file.

The cats were wide awake.

There was no vet available.

And the drugs we needed were locked up, and our “lowly receptionist” was powerless to help us.

Dad stood scowling, Mom had a minor meltdown, and the receptionist looked like she wanted to hide under the desk.  She made about twenty phone calls to (so-called) on-call vets (who didn’t answer), nearby emergency animal hospitals, and God knows who else, trying to find somewhere we could get the prescription we’d expected without paying astronomical emergency-room-type fees, and without waiting forever for a new vet to re-do the examinations the cats had already had at this place.  Finally, we settled on an option in Springfield, loaded up a cat in each car, and headed out.

The cat who went with us, Marbles, has a history of peeing in her crate.  So does my cat.  I solve the problem by holding her on my lap…Machka has a clean lap-record.  I figured it’d be the same with Marbles, so I held her as we headed to Costco for one last fuel stop before leaving the area.

Just as we reached the highway, we realized we’d forgotten the carton of cat food back at the vet.  Thinking Dad was behind us, we called him and sent him back for it while we went on to Costco, thinking he’d join us just a few minutes behind.  We didn’t realize he’d somehow gotten ahead of us and was ON the highway, forcing him to turn around and cross town again and adding about 20 unexpected minutes to our post-fueling wait time.  As we waited, we tried to soothe Marbles as she practically vibrated with anxiety, both lashing her tail AND purring at the same time.  Dad finally arrived, and we made for the highway.

And that’s when I was confronted with a pungent, spreading warmth all over my lap.

The friggin’ cat PEED ALL ALL ALL OVER MY LAP.  On my mother’s leather seat.  And I had her carrier between my feet, and couldn’t move, and the towels were all in my dad’s truck.  And we were 8 miles north of my house and heading north another 12 miles to the next vet stop.  And there was not a damn thing I could do except squish the cat back into the carrier, drop the first F-bombs I’ve ever dropped in front of my mother in 33 years, and sit in a puddle of cat pee.  Oh, and did I mention bumper-to-bumper traffic for about 6 miles?

What seemed like hours later, we got to Springfield.  They took the cats to the back to do their thing.  I bolted for the lobby bathroom (which, thank GOD, had a whole pack of wet-wipes in it) and changed and tried to get the cat-pee smell out of my nostrils.  We borrowed some industrial-strength, Big-Red-smelling “odor-counteractant” from the stoner kid behind the desk, and later begged the whole can off of him.  I attacked the seat with wet wipes and Lysol wipes, sprayed Big Red all over the inside, and wadded up my jeans in the back of Dad’s truck, next to the cat crates (where the suckers would’ve been in the first place if they’d been sedated when we arrived).

More time passed while the three of us paced the lobby.  They finally brought the cats back, SANS SEDATIVE.  Vet finally appeared with a bottle of quartered pills.  No one offered to handle the first dosing for us.  The wife of our original vet called in the meantime to apologize profusely for the snafu and promised reimbursement for the boarding fees and some of the emergency fees (we’ve known her for 20 years…she did everything she could to make this right).  We wrestled a pill into Marbles, and finally got a tech to handle Belle, who was ready to kill any or all of us if we came near her.  They told us the sedative would turn the cats to zombies within half an hour.  Marbles went into the crate in the back of the truck, Belle went into her carrier in the cab of the truck, Mom and I got into the BigRedCatPeeMobile, and we were finally northbound at twenty to twelve.  About three HOURS behind schedule.

And that was the beginning of the trip.  I claimed the Good Sport Award for the day.

Nothing else eventful to report…we stopped in PA around 2pm for lunch and checked the cats (NOT SEDATED AT ALL).  Headed past two Somersets (Mom and Dad’s new development is called Somerset), a town called (I swear) Eighty Four, a Washington, a Baltimore, a California, and a Philadelphia, all entirely in the wrong states.  Stopped for gas for the truck, checked the cats (YOWLING).  Stopped for gas for the Acura, checked the cats (WIDE-EYED AND SQUALLING).  Tried to make the Indiana line and gave up at Dayton at about 8:30pm.  Checked into this Red Roof Inn (I have my own postage stamp, which is nice), and we’re planning to head out at 7:30am…with eight hours to go till we reach our friends’ house in Columbia, MO, which was supposed to be our lunch stop (when we thought we’d be way farther along than Dayton).  So far, I’ve been dead weight, thanks to some crazy, sprung-up-outta-nowhere allergies and lack of sleep last night; I only drove an hour.  So I’m gonna close this for now, skip the part about the sideways rain ALL DAY LONG, and try to get enough sleep to earn my spot in the car tomorrow.  Claritin GOOD…Naso-gel GOOD.

Plus, I gotta date with two cats and a coupla pills early in the morning.  I don’t even care, don’t even mind getting bitten…as long as I can stay on the INPUT side of the cat, and not the DEPOSIT side. I’ve taken my hit for this trip.

Here’s hoping tomorrow will be better.

I’m taking a basic cooking course at the Lorton Workhouse Arts Center, which is the new art building they’ve made out of the old Lorton Prison.  It starts at 7pm and ends at 10pm, and is a stone’s throw from my school, so it’s both convenient and NOT at the same time.  It’s an extra trip to Lorton on Mondays, and a late drive home after 3 hours on my feet…and I’m sure that tomorrow morning I’ll feel like I just turned right around and drove back again.  But that’s okay.

The chef is cool.  She already had a catering business when she entered culinary school in St. Augustine, FL, and was catering for four different hotels before she moved back up here to this area.  She seems to know her stuff pretty well.  There are two other women in the class, as well as a 10th-grade boy who has culinary school aspirations of his own.  We all meshed pretty well…good group.  Apparently, there is a fifth who couldn’t come tonight.  The space we meet in isn’t very big, and there’s only one little sink and not a lot of counter space, but we have enough room to work.  On the front table was a Cuisinart, two griddle-type things, a double-hot plate(?) thing that looked like it had gas burners (I didn’t get to play with it), and a bunch of bowls, as well as a giant tub of cooking implements and an enormous pile of vegetables.

Night One was all about cutting.  We had thin little plastic-sheet cutting boards that worked great…they were flexible and actually way easier to use than a wooden cutting board that wobbles and stuff falls off of.  Turns out my knives were just right, and plenty sharp enough (though she said it looks like one had been in a battle…hey, they’re probably older than I am and they’re the knives I grew up with, so I’m determined to use ‘em).  We learned several different cuts -

**DISCLAIMER – I NEVER LEARNED TO COOK PROPERLY.  I’M GOING TO BE GUSHING ABOUT THINGS THE REST OF YOU PROBABLY KNEW IN THE THIRD GRADE.  FORGIVE ME.**

- slice, dice, chop, mince, julienne, chiffonade, and brunoise.  I did pretty well with all of them…the way she showed us to dice an onion was friggin’ awesome and makes me feel like I’m on Top Chef.  We practiced on red and white onions, red and white potatoes, leeks, cucumbers, and melons.  Oh, and GARLIC.  We learned how to attack a whole HEAD of garlic and turn it into a pile of minced garlic in like two minutes.  It was pretty cool…especially the part where you whack it flat with your knife blade. =)  I dug that part.  I think my garlic press will have to go…Tony was right, it just ruins it.

Sooo…we basically made four different kinds of mush and a really cool potato dish.  I wasn’t big on the mush, though the others liked it.  The first was a Chilled Melon Soup, which is meant to be frozen into a sort of sorbet.  She referred to it as a summer salad, and it was definitely the kind of thing you could start out a summer outdoor grilled dinner with as an appetizer, or finish with as a dessert.  It used cantaloupe, honeydew melon, real lemon juice, coconut milk, fresh chopped mint, fresh grated ginger, and – get this – CHAMPAGNE.  (We used amaretto tonight.)  It wasn’t bad…I think the reason I didn’t love it is that Bath & Body Works has brainwashed me to the point where, in my head, melon = body lotion.  It was actually pretty good.  The chef said the more frozen it is, the more she likes it, and I think she’s probably right.  We didn’t have enough time tonight for it to really freeze properly.  If you can get it sweet enough, it’s probably a great substitute for ice cream.  We made one kind with honeydew and one kind with cantaloupe.  She made a bowl of it, half-and-half, with a sprig of mint on the top, and it looked all pretty – even in styrofoam.

The next kind of mush was a chilled cucumber soup that had a lot of ingredients, but mainly turned out to be cucumber mush with lots of DILL.  I can’t comment a lot on it on this dish because I didn’t make it myself…the other two gals did.  It was okay – nothing I’d make on my own, though.

The Potato and Leek Soup was actually pretty good.  It can be hot or cold, but I think I liked it hot, and I don’t think I would like it if I tried it cold.  The main point of this dish, I think, was to get “chicken stock” into our vocabulary.  Everybody seemed to know about this already but me.  All I had was a dim memory of a college roommate staring at me, aghast, soon after I move in, and exclaiming, “I almost forgot how to make chicken stock from scratch!”  Not long after, she dropped out of college to be a Civil War reenactor and owned a lot of doilies, so I associated chicken stock with her and promptly banished it from my mind.  But apparently there’s something to this stuff, and I will have to master it.  She recommended a substance called Better Than Boullion that she swears by and says she is never without.

But the star dish of the night was our Grilled Red Potato Salad with Bacon-Bleu Cheese Vinaigrette.  Now THIS was good.  The kid and I made it.  And it involved BACON FAT.  And LOTS of it!!  I made the comment, “So, this is NOT ‘Cooking Light,’ eh?” and the chef said NOPE, not tonight…tonight was about flavor and getting us interested.  It worked.  This was a hot potato-salad-type side dish that involved almost a pound of double-cut hickory-smoked bacon sauteed with onions and mixed with grilled red potatoes.  Over top of it, we poured this made-from-scratch vinaigrette we’d put together with white-wine vinegar, extra-extra-virgin olive oil, sea salt, raw sugar, and salt-and-pepper.  It smelled SO GOOD I wanted to jump in the bowl with it. =)  It was pungent, too…cleared your sinuses right out!  Anyway, that went over the potato-and-bacon mixture with a handful of freshly chopped parsley and then got topped with bleu-cheese crumbles.  It was REALLY GOOD!!!  I loved it.  Even scored a bit of leftover to bring to lunch tomorrow. =)

Before tonight, I’d never chopped fresh parsley before…had no idea it smelled so good.  I’d never mixed olive oil and vinegar.  I’d never have thought salt and sugar could mix together in a savory dish.  I’d never even touched fresh ginger, much less peeled it and grated it myself.  I’d never pinched fresh mint leaves in my fingers.  And I’d never stood in one place and smelled, all at once, parsley, pepper, lemon juice, ginger, olive oil, garlic, white-wine vinegar, honey, and amaretto…all mixing together in the kind of heady swirl that suddenly reminded me of the hallucinations the little rat guy used to have in Ratatouille (which I now have to go back and watch, haha).  It was really, REALLY cool.

I’ve just never been a foodie.  Cooking has never been something I felt the least bit competent at.  And now I feel like someone has cracked open the door.  I’ve got the beginnings of a vocabulary now.  I’m envisioning the kinds of knives I want to get eventually.  And I hope we learn a LOT more.

She said by the time she’s done with us (in six weeks), we’ll be doing 7-course meals.  WOW.  I can’t imagine…but I can’t wait, either. =)