Friday, July 29, 2011

News of the weird

In the truth is stranger than fiction category, I gave myself a black eye today.
No, seriously.
My ice maker in my freezer was jammed and I started shaking it. A 1 liter bottle of water, stored on top of the fridge, then fell off and hit me in the face. Not only did it give me a nice shiner, it broke the skin! Blood!
Lisa's shiner
OK, I know this looks like a mug shot. Was I supposed to smile for my shiner photo? LOL
Considering I was fixing myself an adult beverage, I can't help but wonder if this isn't some sort of instant karma -- a bottle of water hits me in the face as I fix a rum & coke after work. :)
But I was so ready for that beverage. It was a very long week at work. I worked 12 to 13 hour days some days, so I didn't get to go out for walks after work. I had to do short 15 minute walks where I could.
And my poor little piggy bank suffered. The last time I found any "found money" was last Sunday when I ran up to Little Creek Horse Farm.
I've lived in my area of Atlanta for nine years and until about four years ago I had no idea there was a 30-acre horse farm near my house! What a beautiful area it is. I love to run down there on Sunday mornings for my long run. I run past the stalls and say hello to the beautiful horses there.
Last Sunday, most of the horses were out in the field, but Sugarfoot had not yet been let out.
Sugarfoot
And believe it or not, I found a penny on my way up the forgotten driveway to the horse farm! So I knew my piggy would be fed last Sunday.
But then came the lean times. No opportunity to run this week meant no opportunity to find coins. My piggy was getting very hungry.
Fortunately, yesterday I found two pennies in a parking garage, and today I found a dime on my way to a lunch appointment. Tonight on my evening walk I found another penny. I am always amazed that I STILL find cash on my well-frequented route.
Isn't that a little weird?

Saturday, July 23, 2011

One new thing

More surprises are coming from the garden. I posted earlier about my "volunteer" squash that came up as a result of my lazy composting.
Well, squash needs a LOT of room in a garden and mine is running out toward the back yard. Since I had to mow today, I pulled up the squash runners so I would not mow them and much to my surprise I saw some juvenile butternut squash coming along.
Butternut squash

\
More squash on the way
 I am glad that I have this squash coming along, because my eggplant is not producing at all. That is a disappointment.
Every year, I try one new thing in the garden. Sometimes that works out well, and sometimes, not so much. Arugula has been a success and I grow that now every spring. The spinach I tried this year was OK, but I won't grow it again.
I had tried Japanese (or Chinese) eggplant for the past couple of years, but it hasn't produced that well. This year I could not find that variety at my local nursery so I tried traditional "Black Beauty" eggplant, but so far lots of blooms and no fruit. Boo!
If I get some butternut squash this fall I will feel like I came out even.
I will have tried one new thing in the garden, even if it was by accident.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Sizzling summer

Wow, it's hot. The oppressive heat combined with a crazy work schedule this week meant no running after work. Had to switch over to walking.
A run last week brought some surprises on my route.
The nice thing about a neighborhood running route is I feel like I get to "know" some of my neighbors, even though I have never met them. Along my route, one neighbor plants a great garden. I love running by this house because I get to see where my garden is compared to another one. And I delight in how well that garden is doing.
This neighbor planted sunflowers and it made me envious. I might have to try those next year. Not sure where I will put them, but here is the end result.


Not only are these beautiful flowers that remind me so much of summer (my grandmother used to grow them in her garden every summer) but you get some yummy sunflower seeds to eat once they are spent.
Another neighbor has left a permanent gift -- sidewalk art.
The sidewalks around my neighborhood are in terrible disrepair or don't exist. It's an area where I think the county that I live in really fails. So I generally run in the street, where it is safe to do, because the sidewalks are so uneven I deem them more dangerous than the road.
So imagine my surprise my first time out on this route when I found this.

sidewalk art

sidewalk art, tree
What I wonder as I pass this art on my route is did the artist have any idea how much joy he/she was giving to a solitary runner like myself? This art is on a part of my route that I can easily skip. I have to turn to make a little loop on my route to include it, and many hot, humid days it is too easy to cut the run short and not make this loop. But then I miss the art.
If you have been following this blog (thank you) you also know this is my "summer of Leo."
I am really bogged down in Anna Karenina. I'm now about half way through, but it is now a really tough go.
First, there are A LOT of characters in the book. I am having a hard time keeping track of everyone. Tolstoy refers to them my different names -- a formal name and a more familiar name -- throughout the book, including nicknames, and I have lost track of who was whom. That is frustrating.
Second, it is a very descriptive narrative, which I think slows the pace of the book. It's not that I dislike descriptive narrative, it's just that Tolstoy's use of it seems excessive to me.
I can certainly see why high school and college students would go to the Cliff Notes version of this book. I'd like to right about now.
I almost feel like ditching the book for several of the books I have in my reading queue. I usually read at least a book a month and I'm still on Anna Karenina!! I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet, but I've thought about it.
Maybe Leo and I should go for a walk, visit the sunflowers and sidewalk art and he can tell me how his book ends. ;)

Monday, July 18, 2011

Mystery revealed

Earlier this spring, after I had planted my summer garden of tomatoes, cucumber, eggplant and other store bought seedlings, I had a "surprise" vegetable come up. It certainly looked like squash leaves, but since I had not planted any squash, I could only guess what seeds I had thrown onto the garden over the winter in my lazy way of composting some vegetable scraps.
Well, mystery revealed. I guessed right. Butternut squash.
Butternut squash
I am hoping I will get some this fall, but my squash leaves look like they have some fungus and are starting to die. It's more pronounced on my cucumber plants. In fact, other than this one cuke, I may not get any others at all, even though the plant is loaded with little ones.
First cucumber
I know it doesn't look all that pretty, but it sure was good in my salad over the weekend. I'm starting to get a lot of cherry tomatoes, too, which made the salad that much better. ;)

Saturday, July 16, 2011

One fat pig

I have been a little negligent in updating how my piggy bank is being fed. That is one fat pig this week.
It's kind of funny how my "found money" project started out as a lark, but now I find myself scanning the ground as I am running, and I think because I am consciously looking, I am finding more stray coins.
On my Thursday run I found three pennies. Now, mind you, this is the same running route I run at least twice a week. Either I am getting better at finding coins, or people are throwing them out of car windows just to make me happy.
On Friday I found a dime in the grocery store parking lot.
Today's Decatur DeKalb YMCA 4 miler was quite profitable. Three pennies found. Since it was a $10 registration fee, I like to think mine only cost $9.97. :)
The morning was cool for a July day in Atlanta, but humid, and my time was slower than the Magnolia Run 4 miler, but I did invoke the Power of Motown for this race, too.
After the race, I went up to Lake Lanier for YSC Atlanta's Survivor Day. I spent a wonderful afternoon with six other cancer survivors floating around a lake, eating lunch at Sunset Cove on the lake, drinking Caribbean punch at the restaurant and just having a lovely time.

Caribbean Punch at Sunset Cove, Lake Lanier, GA

The recipe

Kicking back on the boat
 And I found four pennies in various parking lots!
When I returned home today, I still had sand in my shoes, lake water in my ears and one fat pig.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Reconnecting with the past

What a fun past four days I've had.
My college roommate Karen has been in Atlanta for a conference and we've had dinner together every night since she's been in town. We were trying to remember when was the last time we'd seen each other in person, and she was thinking it was the time we attended a journalism conference in San Antonio, Texas, but think it was actually her wedding in 1987. Or was it 1988? Time flies!
Here we are the first night she was in town at Tin Lizzy's in Midtown Atlanta. The margaritas were stellar.
Lisa and Karen
Monday night we had dinner at Marlow's Tavern in Midtown. Her shrimp and grits were better than my Cuban sandwich. Try the watermelon margaritas!
Tuesday night was dinner at Noodle in Midtown (see a theme here? Her hotel was in Midtown!)
We had the Asian pear sangria at Noodle. Wow, those were good. Be sure to eat the fruit for that extra kick! And ask for the waiter Sean. OK, that's an inside joke. ;)
Tonight, we had dinner at Ri Ra Irish Pub in Midtown, where a wardrobe malfunction occurred.
Just as we were being seated in the restaurant, Karen's sun dress (the one seen in the above photo) broke a strap. Good thing I'm a runner and ALWAYS keep four safety pins attached to my car key chain -- to attach those racing bibs, don't you know.
The very funny part of that story is we moved tables because of a very brisk air vent and our waiter Liam walked over with the other part of her dress strap and asked "Is this part of your dress?" We both burst out laughing.
The past four days have been all about laughter, and reconnecting, remembering our college days and talking about where life has led us, the good and bad.
Driving home tonight, I realized the gift of the past four days was that I had reconnected with my "old" self. My pre-cancer self.
Cancer survivors live day in and day out, and maybe like me struggle some days, with the "new normal" of post-cancer diagnosis.
As a cancer survivor, I NEEDED these past four days.
Sometimes all I can see is the crap that has come post-treatment. Karen's visit let me revisit the old me, my old self, my pre-cancer self -- and move some of my "old self" into my post-cancer life.
How effortless some reconnections are. Even though it had been more than 20 years since we had seen one another, it was as if we had never left one another's company.
Those are one's true friends.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

The summer's first BLT

At long last, my little vegetable garden has given me the first tomato large enough for a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich.
Big Boy variety of tomato

Lunch
I use turkey bacon when I make my BLTs. I love regular bacon, but I can't square the fat and calories from regular bacon.
And then there was this "Bakon" that I got in the office last week.

Bakon
It's a new product out, and a PR woman sent me a sample, hoping I would write about it. Well, I guess I am!
Bacon-flavored vodka. Yes, that's right. Bacon-flavored vodka.
On Friday at 5 pm, three of my co-workers and I tried it in Bloody Mary mix. None of us liked it, and there was a guy among us who openly admitted he'd once eaten an entire package of bacon at one go. We all agreed if we wanted bacon-flavored anything, we would simply put bacon in it. :)
I've been on a bit of an exercise streak lately, and I do think it is because of the Nexercise app I downloaded a while back. It still has some bugs, but it has been working better with my Runkeeper app lately.
With Nexercise, you get "bonus" points if you do different exercises, rather than just one type all the time. And I plead guilty. I tend to just run and walk. I do yoga intermittently, but not regularly.
Nexercise rewards you for diversifying your exercise portfolio, as it were.
So today I used it while I pulled weeds for an hour (yard work counts!). I got bonus points.
Then I wanted to see if Nexercise listed jumping rope. It does.
Now, let me say, Nexercise only credits your exercise if you do it for 15 minutes. Ever tried to jump rope for 15 minutes? I mean, as an adult?
I set the kitchen timer and started jumping rope in an area of my living room where I would not hit anything.
Wow. I had forgotten how HARD it is to jump rope. As a kid, I remember doing this, certainly not for hours, but longer than for 15 minutes -- and not feeling like I might keel over at any moment!
I did get bonus points, but trust me, they weren't enough for THAT experiment.
I've also been really neglectful of weight training. When I was running my best, and watching my times get faster and faster, I was working out with a personal trainer who had me doing all kinds of weights.
So I set the kitchen timer again and spent the next 20 minutes doing push ups, bench presses, chest flies, upright rows, bicep curls, triceps kickbacks, hammer curls, etc.
I am quite certain someone is going to have to help feed me tomorrow morning. If they could, my arm muscles would openly weep. I did get bonus points from the Nexercise app, but I am telling you now, they are not commiserate with the discomfort I know I'm going to feel tomorrow. LOL
So this may be the last blog post for a while. At least until I can move my arms again. Or regain my strength by eating a few more BLTs.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

A fork in the road

What a stressful couple of days. I needed tonight's run to sweat out some of that stress.
My father, who continues to recover in the hospital from his swan dive off the ladder last month, has picked up MRSA and has been having an irregular heart beat. I have not slept well the past couple of days while that gets sorted out.
So I was ready to head out tonight after work. I wanted to see, too, how my legs would feel after the Peachtree Road Race 10K. That was my second 10K race this year. I've been sticking mostly to 5Ks this year, after so many injuries that seemed to come as I trained for half marathons. Never say never, but my days of being a half marathon runner may be over.
Tonight's run was profitable. I found a bright shiny penny along the route.
And then I came to a fork in the road.
The things you find while running
I'm not sure what possessed me to pick this up -- and run home with it! I did manage to get a little scratch from it while running. Glad I got my tetanus shot renewed this year.
But after I picked it up, it made me think about the figurative forks in the road. We've all had them. The decisions we've had to make that we knew would alter our path.
I thought of my cancer diagnosis as a fork in the road of my life. There was no other choice for me but to accept surgery, chemo and radiation, and yet that radically altered my life's path.
Maybe I'd still be running half marathons if I hadn't been subjected to all that harsh treatment. I feel very sure  the treatment has harmed my body and my running, causing more injuries.
But I also know that won't be the only fork in the road that I will face. There will be many more decisions to be made in life, some painful.
What THAT fork in the road taught me is I can rise to the challenge of any fork in the road.

Monday, July 4, 2011

A day of celebration

What a wonderful July 4th this has turned out to be.
I completed my 10th Peachtree Road Race 10K in Atlanta. That's 6.2 miles for you non runners. And in Atlanta, on July 4th, with 60,000 of your closest friends, that  is a hot run, my friends.
Here's me collecting my reward for the Peachtree Road Race, the coveted Peachtree Road Race T-shirt.
Me collecting the 2011 Peachtree Road Race T-shirt
Here I am this morning, looking a little more collected before the race.
Just before the start of Peachtree Road Race
And the fun surprise of the race, running into my friend Rachel on the MARTA train this morning. We did not plan this, but we ended up on the same train, same train car! I love serendipity.
Rachel and Lisa on MARTA train on way to race
Now, the found money portion of our story. Right after I started running the race, I noticed a quarter on the road, but I could not stop to pick it up for fear of being trampled by fellow Peachtree Road Race runners. I just hope some walker behind me found it. :)
I did find a penny on my way back to the MARTA train following the race, and I noticed a penny near the electrified rail in the station. I left that one for the MARTA maintenance crew.
My time today wasn't the greatest. Not my fastest, but, thankfully, not my slowest. I looked up all of my times for this race, and my best time was in 2005, when I ran 1:05:14.
Just a year later I ran half way through chemo, bald as a cue ball. My time for 2006 was better than today's time. !!!
Here's me with friend Ethan after that race.
Look, Ma! No eyebrows!
OK, I'm being a bit silly about a serious topic.
Running today's race let me realize how far I've come from that frightening time five years ago. That I'm still here, still running, might be seen as something close to a miracle. Maybe it is.
I've heard people say that cancer is a gift. I'm here to tell you it is NOT. There is NO WAY cancer has been a gift to me. And I think when people say that, what they really mean is not that cancer itself is the gift, but what happens as a result of cancer can be.
Look at that photo of me and Ethan. I would not know Ethan any other way than through cancer, and running. I was walking back to the MARTA station after the race that year when Ethan and his mother, Raquel, began chatting with me. Raquel snapped this picture. It is the only one I have of my running during cancer. I cherish this photo.
There are friends I've made as a result of cancer and cancer treatment that I would know no other way than this awful disease. That is the gift.
It's the same with running. I have friends that I know no other way than through running. Running is a gift to me, as well.
Today's gift was completing the Peachtree Road Race in 1:21:01 and having loads of fun doing it.
So I have a lot to celebrate today. To my cancer, and running, friends out there, celebrate with me.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Feeding the pig

What a fun day I had today, and I even found a penny to feed my pig.
I had lunch today with my friend Liora, who has a really interesting blog Mindful Dough, and we got to talking about a new exercise app that she recommended Nexercise. Fair warning, I've had a LOT of trouble with it running with my favorite running app Runkeeper, but the customer service gal and I may be new best friends. She has really been trying to help resolve my issues.
So after lunch, Liora and I headed over to REI to see if we could "check in" and earn more points with Nexercise. We did not, but then we decided we could earn more Nexercise points if we walked for 15 minutes together.
So there we were walking in a very hot, asphalt parking lot for 15 minutes! Yes, we are crazy. We both agreed that we two would be the only friends who would actually do this. And while we were walking we were talking about found money. I was saying I needed to find something today, because my piggy bank had not been fed since Tuesday. That pig is getting hungry.
Wouldn't you know it, I found a penny! And a bright, shiny new one.
So, the pig has been fed today.
This is turning into a game, almost. If I was brilliant, I would create my own app where when you find "found money" your piggy stays alive. OK, I really need to get a life. But how is that any better or worse than Angry Birds??? LOL
And I have my first real harvest from my garden.
First Romas out of the garden

These little guys all fell off the vine half ripened, so I had to put them on the window sill to ripen, but they have. Need to pick up some turkey bacon tomorrow at the grocery store to enjoy my first BLT of the season. Or maybe I should try the first batch of gazpacho. OMG I love summertime gazpacho!! I have a great recipe. I need to find it and post it.
The other fun part of my day was picking up my race number for Monday's Peachtree Road Race 10K, an annual July 4th tradition in Atlanta.
I'll write more about it on Monday, but I am excited and proud to be running it again this year
But for now, my day is complete. I have exercised, gotten my race number, and fed the pig.