"Try-Athletes": Blueberry Jam!

'Happiness: My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?'

***

Celebrate accomplishments:

Today, Jenny and I went to our first Saturday workout. We have Parent Teacher interviews this week so we decided we should make up on lost time.

We did some Spin and the running instructor also encouraged us to run a lap and walk a lap. It was hard! I did 4 running laps and 4 walking laps and Jenny did one extra running & walking lap. I was in the stratosphere by that time. I figured my knees would give out and I would get a nosebleed any minute.

Brent told us afterward that although the running is the hardest, it is also the one you will get the most out of.

Also, Brent made it very clear to me on Friday that I have been misinforming everyone on our progress.

What I have been calling a 'lap' in the pool is actually a 'length'. So for all the laps we have done, they are really lengths. Now, to me, it is all the same thing, but to real triathletes, it is not.

To us Try-Athletes, this difference matters not one bit. If your arse is in the pool and you are moving, well even if you are hanging onto the ropes and trying to move, then you are awesome in our books.

In the end, I think working out in the morning is the best thing in the world. Working out in the evening is way harder. I'm exhausted by the time I get to Spin / Swim at 7pm, so it's no wonder I'm useless at that time. Put me on the bike before lunch, though, and I am fantastic.

Kirsten aka Scales and Kash came with us today and they enjoyed it. They may come again. We had such a great laugh.

We nearly died with Jenny driving us in the Blueberry. She drives in the centre of two lanes, and does whatever she wants. We were making fun of her at one point, and she told the Blueberry not to listen and she then shut the vents, telling Blueberry to 'close her ears'. Jenny is whacked out of her head but we are just as bad because we cracked up at this.

Afterward, Jenny and I had to go shopping because I needed shorts and interview clothes. On the way down, a huge truck pulled out in front of us when it had a red light and it nearly squished the Blueberry, and made us into Blueberry Jam. Well, Jenny froze, in a panicked state, and since I was in the passenger seat, I didn't have access to the horn so my automatic instinct (honking the horn) was useless... so I started hitting the side window and yelling "BUDDY!" in a desperate attempt for him to hear us and stop before he squished us.

This is funny on so many levels.

I'm claustrophobic.

Jenny often calls me a goldfish because I have no memory. At that moment in time, when I was banging on the window in that small little car, and he couldn't hear me, I felt like I was in a goldfish tank.

Jenny was frozen but had the sense not to pull out into the other lane of traffic, where we would have been squished from the other side. Blueberry Jam!

She said she was waiting for me to tell her what to do. Meanwhile, I was plastered against the glass window, screaming at the truck driver in a desperate attempt for him to hear me and change his mind about running us over.

We laughed like loons afterward. I am happy that we can still see the funny side of things.

***

We went out to celebrate Jenny's roommate's birthday tonite. He has a massive hemorraging cystic squishy bump on his shin. He really needs to have someone other than us look at that. It looks like a waterbed on his leg... you know how waterbeds move when you sit on one end and the waves send ripples across the bed? Yeah, well that's his bumpy leg. "It's fine," he said. "Sure thing, so is gangrene until your leg falls off," we said, "good luck with that."

***

The saying at the beginning of this blog is on a sticker I bought the last time I flew home to NL to visit my family. I have since been home again but the time I bought the sticker is memorable because it was the last time I saw my Uncle Clayton alive. I count myself as very lucky to have been able to get to see him before he died.

My Uncle Clayton helped to raise me. He died of pancreatic cancer in April of last year. My family still misses him; he was a integral part of us, part of the very fabric that makes us who we are.

Today is his birthday.

Had he lived, Clayton would have been 56 years old and would have had the biggest party in our community since New Years Eve. I would have called him today and been able to speak to him for just a few short moments because he would have been partying, therefore singing loudly and drinking far too much to concentrate on talking on the telephone.

So, Clayton, "he said" (as you would say), happy birthday, my love. You are in my heart & prayers forever.

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there... I do not sleep.

I am the thousand winds that blow...

I am the diamond glints on snow...

I am the sunlight on ripened grain...

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you waken in the morning's hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of gentle birds in circling flight...

I am the soft star that shines at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry—

I am not there... I did not die...

Celebrate life. There are enough negative things in the world, huh? Vent, because Lord knows we need to. But find the good things, even if it is just the sun shining or a friend laughing with you. Because sometimes that might be all you have. Count your blessings when you have more than that.

<3

"Try-Athletes": Lights, Camera, Action!

Despite a week of ups & downs, we are successful. We are getting done what needs to be done, and this includes our jobs, the show we are producing and making our own lives better, little bits at a time. Jenny says this is the year we take care of us, and she says it with this creepy voice and face which makes me afraid to disagree. So, here we go, playing the lead roles in our own lives, playing those roles well, and having the time of our lives doing it.

On the way to Try tonite, my hands were freezing. I figured the pool would be too, but it was warm and I liked it. Lisa said it was freezing and Jenny said it was too warm. We were like Goldilocks and the three bears, with Alanna being Goldilocks.

In the pool, I swam my arse off. Surprisingly enough, there were strange things happening just beneath the surface, if you chose to look closely, which of course, I always do, for the sake of being a Nosey Nelly if nothing else.

There were girls carrying bricks, walking and trying to run underwater on the floor tonite. I am not kidding, I am not making it up and I definitely saw it with my own two eyeballs. So, exactly how am I supposed to seriously concentrate when there is a whole world of activity going on below me in the pool? Blue and yellow bricks, and those things were heavy. They did not wear SCUBA gear. If you looked on top of the water - no girls, just air bubbles. Look underwater - girls carrying bricks. Weird.

Just think about it for a second. WHO DOES THIS? This blows my mind a little bit. To me, this would be the same if I was able to look inside a wall and find people in there, drinking tea or playing badminton.

So I hop into the pool and I made up my mind that I was going to swim as much as I could tonite because I am lacking some workout time over the past couple of weeks, and then I stick my head in the water, trying to get a rhythm, and then I forget what I am doing because I am watching this scene unfold below me.

Also, I start giggling when I realize that I am no longer kicking, and my arms are moving really slowly and I am not breathing, just kind of suspended there, floating & giggling. Weirdo alert.

So I made a conscious effort to snap out of it and ignore the Underwater Brick Walkers and to get on with my swimming. But I have ADD so I couldn't concentrate on both things, and I have OCD so I couldn't stop looking at them. Then, I am Oppositional Defiant so when Alanna would tell me to ignore them, I felt like I had to keep looking at them even more. I was in a bad state of affairs. I was actually getting kind of mad that they were there, interrupting my concentration. So I turned my back to them, and did the backstroke past them until I saw their air bubbles, then I flipped over and front crawled past them. They bothered me that much.

Now, Jenny and Lisa do not notice anything. The whole place could crash down around their ears, and Jenny would still be doing the front crawl and Lisa would still be doing the backstroke or tearing apart the lane dividers. But not me - if someone pulls into the parking lot or checks out a book from the library, I know about it.

Our new buddy didn't show up, or at least, we didn't see him. We were looking forward to seeing him, too. Maybe next time.

At one point tonite, I was swimming in one direction and Lisa was swimming in the other and Lisa decided this would be a fine time to grab me and throw me underwater. I don't think she meant to do it, as she apologized, but it certainly took me by surprise. It was like being yanked by my head up 3 feet and then pushed down 5 feet at warp speed... because in the water, there is nothing to stop you from being pushed - there is nothing to brace yourself against, especially if taken by surprise. And Lisa has long arms, like an Avatar. So whoooooosh, I went. Surprise!!

That was a rush. Exciting! That gets the adrenalin pumping. Nothing like being thrown around in the water by an Avatar.

I thought she was going to drown me but I held my breath - my whole body was on lockdown - my real worry was that she was going to pull my swim cap off and then my hair would turn white from the chlorine. I almost barfed from worry.

Avatar Attack! Avatar on the loose!

And then Jenny comes along and slices me up with the paddles. First, one paddle across the boob, like a Ninja chop. Then, another paddle across the legs. Brutality!

Oh, wait, wait. That was me, to Jenny. I chopped Jenny... a couple of times. Sorry 'bout it.

It takes me a long time to get a rhythm going during swimming. By the time I can get my arms, legs and breath going properly so that I am not dying, it's usually about 8:15. We leave at 8:30. I gotta practice this business so I can get it going right at 7:30.

But I've come a long way in 8 weeks. We all have! We are superstars, baby!

Swimming 25m now is a normal occurence, not a crazy thing. Now, I am taking less time between laps. It's coming along, baby!! I don't know how much I swam but I did a lot of front crawl because I got my breathing going pretty rhythmically. I need to get one of those lap counter things because I can't remember how many laps I do. I'm excited about it.

There were lots of 'That's off the record!' statements tonite. I thought I was going to have to write a blog that stated:

There will be no blog tonite due to major censorship.

Good thing I remembered some funny stuff.

***

... and congratulations to my girl Jessica, who was accepted into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. I love you forever :)

Alicia Keys

Empire State Of Mind (Part II) Lyrics

Ooohh New York (x2)

Grew up in a town that is famous as the place of movie scenes

Noise was always loud, there are sirens all around and the streets are mean

If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere, that's what they say

Seeing my face in lights or my name on marquees found down on Broadway

Even if it ain’t all it seems, I got a pocketful of dreams

Baby, I'm from New York

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of

There's nothing you can't do

Now you're in New York

These streets will make you feel brand new

Big lights will inspire you

Hear it for New York, New York, New York!

On the avenue, there ain't never a curfew, ladies work so hard

Such a melting pot, on the corner selling rock, preachers pray to God

Hail a gypsy cab, takes me down from Harlem to the Brooklyn Bridge

Some will sleep tonight with a hunger far more than an empty fridge

I'm gonna make it by any means, I got a pocketful of dreams

Baby, I'm from New York

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of

There's nothing you can't do

Now you're in New York

These street will make you feel brand new

Big lights will inspire you

Hear it for New York, New York, New York!

One hand in the air for the big city,

Street lights, big dreams all looking pretty

No place in the world that can compare

Put your lighters in the air, everybody say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

In New York

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of

There's nothing you can't do

Now you're in New York

These streets will make you feel brand new

Big lights will inspire you

Now you're in New York!

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of

There's nothing you can't do

Now you're in New York

These street will make you feel brand new

Big lights will inspire you

Hear it for New York!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4IiccUjGps