Drag Queens in Gold Lame Dresses Singing in the Rain

(sight seen this morning on my street when walking to work. I hoped it might be Sonja Morgan, but alas, it was a random guy singing and swirling and narrowly avoiding being hit by cars. And in need of some help. When I called the non-emergency cop line, they replied, “oh, we know…we’re on the way.” Just another day!)

Didja miss me? I’m BAAAACK.

I haven’t written since I moved, mostly ’cause I didn’t have anything to write about. And I was traveling a bunch to places near and far, work was super busy, blah blah blah. Also, like exercise, it’s apparently much harder to start writing again than it is to just keep it up in the first place.

It feels like I moved two years ago, not two months. However, by waiting two months, I can no longer remember any of the details with enough color to actually write about them in any sort of entertaining fashion. (for example: the movers were three hours late. Three. And yet I couldn’t get too mad because 1) It’s not like I had anywhere to go and 2) I was moving across the street. The poor dudes moved all day in 95-degree heat and then drove from Baltimore to move me a 1:15 walk down the hill. I let it go.)

Turkey sat around and tried to help.

Helping. Also, there’s a sandwich right next to me.

Shannon rolls the all-important steamer across the street.

I do have recommendations, should anyone ever move in such a close radius: just pretend you’re moving to California. Seriously, box it all up. The “I’ll just hand carry the bathroom/kitchen/closet” was the worst idea ever. I was already paying movers, and any “efficiency” I saved by not packing was completely lost by the 8 hrs I spent carrying stuff across the street. Also, I may have dropped an entire bottle of molasses on my stone tile floor. That was super fun to clean up. Big thanks to my friend Shannon who gamely responded to my not-so-subtle game-day texts, and helped without complaint for 7+ hours. (My parents also noted I got a lot less b%tchy once she showed up.)

The past two weekends I’ve actually been HOME and have finally almost finished unpacking. There are curtains hung up! Pictures on the wall! It’s amazing.

One of the things I love most about my new place is also its Achilles heel: I look out on the woods. I watch a bit too much Dexter and Law and Order: SVU for this not to creep me out just a little bit. The windows are old and anyone with half a brain could figure out how to break in. While this has led to the desirable habit of decreasing how much Law and Order I watch, it still creeps me out. Apparently you can have a “safety audit,” so last week the lovely Lt. H of the police department came to check out my place. First she told me how the homeless men sleep in the woods (gee, thanks) and that I should add curtains to the blinds. She recommended new windows – I hoped she would – and so today I wrote my landlord a very sweet email asking if pretty please would he maybe consider replacing them.

(I have learned a lot about windows in the past few weeks. Most critical: seven windows will apparently cost…$3,000 smackers. Who knew?! So this is not an insignificant ask, and I have every expectation he will say no.)

The jury’s out, so we’ll see what he says. I am not holding my breath. I am DVR’ing Law and Order so I can watch it in the daytime.

(Now it’s Tuesday and I asked 24 hours ago and still no reply. Worse than dating, really.)

By the way? DVR? Wow. I realize I am 10 years late (at least) but dang, it is amazing, and I love it. I can record all sorts of crazy stuff (Gallery Girls, anyone? Holy wow that is such a terrible show) and then fast-forward through it. Most important, I can fast-forward through all of the stupid campaign ads both sides are slamming down the throats of the voters in this poor swing state. (I’ve realized that the reason I’ll keep my 415 number forever has nothing to do with nostalgia, or my inability to remember my own phone number. It has everything to do with not getting political phone calls during presidential election years.) I went two weeks without cable – watched the Olympics with an amazing set of rabbit ears – but I like the trashy tv too much.

What is this blog about? Oh, running, right. Sometimes I still do that. August was so hot and humid, I didn’t do too much. In August I did two of four of the Lost Dog Friday 5ks.

Turkey “runs” so slowly I probably could’ve kept up with her on my crutches. But it was a nice re-introduction to the running world, and when I needed to slow down, I could blame it on the dog.

All done! 2 out of 4 5ks complete (out of town for the other 2)

Crazy work and travel even got me off the Body Pump schedule in August, which made me none-too-happy.

Friendly face from August.

Another friendly face from August. This one gives kisses.

Now that it is legit fall I am thinking about running again. Also, I may have sort of signed up to run the Myrtle Beach Marathon in February with my friend Nikki, and that will require training. Actual training. I’m not sure I remember how to run more than an hour.

Next weekend I’m running the Acumen 8k (4.97 miles for the metric-impaired), also with Nikki, early the morning after seeing my favorite band play. This will be the “official” kickoff to MB training. I might not wear a watch….because I don’t think it’s going to be pretty.

At the end of October I’m running the Poland Spring 5-miler marathon kickoff in Central Park (just called this the “Polar Spring” run til I googled it…which is a pretty good comment on where my running is). The race is the morning after what I am fully expecting will be an epic wedding, and I presume I will have an epic hangover and/or very little sleep. But it’ll still be fun and I get to run with my good friend Ilse for the first time in over a year (and by “run with” I mean “both run at the same time in the same place” – cause she’ll be miles ahead of me!).

Ankle feels good. Our health plan at work just renewed, so I have magic extra visits to Jill the PT. I know there’s a ton of scar tissue that’s developed since I last saw her in June, so I’m expecting it will be a super-painful return.

There ya* go…my update. Bear with me…I’m sure this will get funny again as soon as I actually start training!

*Cordelia, get back to work…shouldn’t you be studying?

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