With Very Little Ceremony

I've been thinking a lot lately about how we picked Sawyer's name. I only recently got comfortable with it. I mean, I've always liked the name, but I'd been wondering if it was going to fit him. What if, when he's 5, he really is an Adam or Gage (yeah, that was Stephan's)? I mean, you have 24-48 hours to pick a name that's going to stick forever... that's a lot of pressure and I'd been wondering if we choose wisely.

Then there are all the naming ceremonies that are celebrated around the world. I think every culture has one. My friend who is Greek told me about a naming ceremony they had for their son more than a year after he was born. And then, as if that isn't enough, there's a whole 'nother naming ceremony when the kid gets older (I'm thinking the whole rite of passage/confirmation/adolescent thing).

We don't remember our parents' picking our names. We just grew up with them and learned to deal. If we're lucky we attach meaning to our adult naming... but most of us don't.

So with all of this in mind, I started to cry on Christmas when Sawyer looked right at me and- for the first time in his life- said "Mama." It was like our own little naming ceremony for me. It wasn't just a random attachment of syllables like it was when he said Dadadadadada.... this was him looking at me, pointing to me, and giving me my new name. We might have more kids, but this one is the one who named me.

I'm blogging this so everyone can point to it in a few years when I wish he'd never learned how to say Mama. I'm not sure that day will come, but until it does, I'm going to savor this one.

In the Spirit

Orkut Scraps


[soundtrack: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas]

Me: You've been awake for 20 hours.

Him: Yep.

Him: Shut up!

Me: Did you just tell Bing Crosby to shut up?

Him: Not him, his background singers.

Me: What do you want at Caribou?

Him: A small mocha.

Barista: Is that all?

Him: How many shots fit in that?

Barista: It comes with 2.

Him: I need at least 4.

.......

Me: Look at this flier! It's for a metaphysical school.

Him: Uh huh.

Me: They have a 'Manifesto for Peace."

Him: You can take peace and shove it up your ass.

Barista: Small Moosed mocha?

Me: That's for this guy, right here.

Ok, so it IS a running blog...

...At least for the next 4.2 months. There just isn't much else going on.

Pre-training Week 2.5
(we screwed up our schedule, so we added this week)
today's temp = 19F
today's run = 5 miles
last week's miles = 15
this week's miles = 15
next week's miles = 17

Thought for the week: Marathon training is NOT sexy.
I had this vision in my head of those super-toned women running down the street in their tight black running-pants, sports bra tops, ponytails bouncing with every step. They breathe in time with their evenly paced steps. They wave. They have perfect arms, perfect form, and they run for miles just bouncing along.

That's not what this is like. This is putting on thick sweat pants over thermal underware, two bras, a t-shirt, a long sleeved shirt, a huge hooded sweatshirt, black facemask, crocheted yellow hat and black gloves. My legs usually go numb within the first 1/2 mile. My hands sweat in the gloves, my hair gets caked with sweat that freezes immediately, there's snot. Lots of snot. The snot also freezes. My eyes turn red with the cold air and water. The sweat on my cheeks freezes, burning my skin. My lips get chapped from the frozen air passing in front of them, and they've already begun to peel and bleed.

And this is still pre-training. It's been a relatively warm December. We have about 30 more miles left in pre-training. I haven't counted the total miles involved in training. It's a lot. None of them are sexy.

Past it up

I pretended to ignore the aniversary of us driving out of Plevna. Although I did go back and read the blog entries for the move (which you can find here if you really want to take that trip again). We're putting up decorations slowly, lights, tree, nativity set...

So there's this thing that I want to write about- it's the thing of where, someone asks us where we moved from, and we tell them we lived in Montana. And they think we're from Montana, which we take time explaining away. So to people we are meeting for the first time now, we're not really from Montana. Montana isn't really part of what they learn about our lives. That makes me sad. Yeah, I know, still (sorry Melanie).

There's this other thing- it's the thing of where, when you meet someone new and you're not 'from around here' you have lots of questions and things to learn from each other. It's fun being from somewhere else. It's fun comparing stories about how different things are in different places. Meeting someone here you can say, "have you been to the Trader Joe's on Rand Rd?" and they will say, "no, but I've been to the Whole Foods on Dundee" and that's just not very interesting.

Then there's this other, other thing- it's the thing of where, when people ask me about my Ariat boots, or about my old job (owning Anjali Bodywork), or about where Sawyer was born, I start telling the Story. You know, the entire three-years-of-blog-posts Story. But guess what? People don't really want to hear about it. Yeah, yeah, you're the chick who lived in Montana and can't get over it. Yeah, it was cold, you lived in a small town, there were lots of cows, and you made really good friends. I've already directed two people to this website, just to try to explain what happened to us... but it really feels more like an elaborate story we made up. Or a dream. Or a really, really vivid, multiple-year, dual hallucination. But we did come back with a baby, so I guess there's the proof that it happened. And the boots.

Breathe in, Breathe out

We paid the money.

Him: And you're so cheap, that means it's going to get done, even if it kills you.

Me: Uh huh. I feel sick.

Him: Let's celebrate the only way we know how.... Chocolate Pie!!!

Me: Of course, it's too early for whisky.

Not a runner's blog

But still, here goes....

Pre-training Week 2
today's temp = 15F
today's run = 5 miles
last week's miles = 12
this week's miles = 15
next week's miles = 17


What am I training for? Insanity. Pure insanity. Internet, this is my declaration (you've been reading this blog for a while, you know I don't do anything without a declaration). There are 143 days until I find out if mind truly does conquer matter. Can I be more dramatic about this? Sure I can! Just wait for the post declaring that I'm going to do this to raise money for the American Cancer Society in honor of my bum foot. Have Kleenex ready (or a non-specific generic brand of facial tissue, you're pick).

Weird stuff happens here too

An old woman in her pajamas on a cell phone just ran past the house. She was being followed by an old man in an SUV. I saw her through the window and she gestured at me to go to my back yard. I met here there. She was still on the phone. She said a little dog ran into our back yard. I asked if it was her dog, but she said it wasn't. They lost their dog a month ago. She was on the phone telling the police about the dog. Her husband yelled that the dog was down the street. I went to see, and there was a tiny white dog booking it down the street. The husband told me they just lost their dog a month ago and offered a $1,000 reward. I asked if they got their dog back. They did. The man said the little dog was going to get run over. And yelled at his wife to get back in the car. She told me she was getting ready for work. Then they left.

Overheard: $!@% My Dad Read

Dad: "Good Morning, rainforest."

Dad: "Good morning, monkeys, playing in the trees. Are we ready to share a wonderful day?"

Dad: "Good morning, wetlands, overflowing with all sorts of living creatures."

Dad: "G'day divers, exploring the Great Barrier Reef."

Dad: "Hello, friends, joining together to keep the shore clean."

Dad: "Hello, friends, visiting the Great Wall of...." What the crap is this?

Me: It's Good Night World, by Gamble and Kelly.

Dad: They're not saying Good Night.

Me: You get there eventually, but you're following the sun around the globe. It's educational.

Dad: It's crap.