Triathlon, Saturday

Gulp.

It's two days away. No, less than two days. In less than 32 hours, I'll be getting up and packing up the car to head to the race site.

I've been training, but not as hard as last year. Surprisingly, I'm not freaked out about the swim (400 yds), I'm looking forward to the bike (11 mi) but I'm slightly worried by the run (3 mi). Why is that? I've spent the most time running, I've been swimming just once a week and I've been biking maybe a total of 6 miles per week. I don't feel as strong running this year. Maybe it's because I'm not also getting ready for a half marathon so I haven't been doing any long runs. My max has been three miles at a time.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Ready or not, here I come.

School Talk

Last night, just before I turned out the lights in the boys' room, D asks me a question. He's in third grade this year.

"Mama, is today the 9-1-1 day?"

I think to myself, "9-1-1? Oh, 9/11."

"Yes, today is 9/11."

"Mama, a long time ago that's when the planes crashed into the building."

---pause---

"Yes, sweetie, that's what happened."

A long time ago.

Seven years ago. D was just over a year old and we were living in Philly. A lifetime ago for him but just a moment ago in my memory.

We remember.

Dropping a Ball

Blogging has fallen by the wayside a bit. Between work, kids and exercise, something had to give and blogging has been it. Combine that with a decided lack of inspiration of things to blog about and you've got a precipitous drop in posting.

Every so often, I'll have an idea and a half-formed post in my mind but it seems to evaporate in the night and lose out to the siren call of my bedtime.

I've got to get my blogging mojo back. When it returns, the posts shall too.

In the meantime, I'm working and running and swimming and biking and practicing aikido and cooking and chasing after my three guys. Life is good.

"grass smell pool"

If you add the word 'rotting' to the other three words in this post's title, you'll have the combination that I was googling late this afternoon.

"Why?," you might ask.

Let's just say that we (i.e. M) emptied out the pool in our backyard. As he slowly removed the vinyl from the spot it had occupied for most of the summer, a smell attacked our senses. Ah, it brought back memories of visits to the country. Yes, our backyard smells just like a cow pasture. Lovely.

We are hoping for a dry, hot week and that the neighbors don't sic the HOA on us.

When I Grow Up...

P: "I want to be a praying mantis. No, wait. I want to be a beetle-hunting wasp."

What do you want to be?

Aikido Fun

Though I haven't been blogging about aikido much lately, I have been in class twice a week, practicing, practicing, practicing. What's great about class is that it's familiar and yet new every time. We could be doing the same technique over and over again but there's always something different to focus on - where the feet go, how you move your arms, how you move your center, how you move your uke's center. Then there's the uke role itself- practicing rolls and falls. I'm trying to round out my corners. I still hear way too much thunk when I hit the mat and marvel at how others can almost float above it. More time is needed. I've got that.

Today's class ended with each person getting six consecutive katate tori (same side wrist grab) attacks. The response could be anything that came to mind (or body, as the case may be). I don't quite know what's going to come out when I'm up as nage so this type of training both thrills and scares me.

But it is always, always a heck of a lot of fun.

The Dreams of a Preschooler

Here's a snippet of P's conversation with me the other morning. He wandered into our bedroom, hopped into bed and without further preamble, told me this:

P: When you lose, you don't cry.

Me: Yes, sweetheart, that's right.

P: Somebody has to win and somebody has to lose.

Me: Right again.

...pause...

P: Do you want to sing the ABC song with me?

I wonder what he was dreaming about.