I’m planning on launching my own salsa company next month because, you know, a marriage, two kids, mortuary school, training for a triathlon in August and another one in September, a half marathon in October, a convention and writing a book? Totally not enough chaos for my over-caffeinated ass.

No, I need more stimulation. Also, I need money to fund all the stuff I’ve already signed up for and all the stuff I have yet to do: like cage-diving with great whites. Because I’m not leaving this world until I’ve found my way into a shark cage even if it means saving for a couple of years because yikes people, have you seen the price tag on that little adventure?

Anyway, I figure what better way to generate some cash than to start up a little side-gig doing something I love to do and would do and already do regardless of whether I’m being paid to do it or not?

To this end I’ve checked out tomato suppliers, gathered jars, learned how to can, experimented with growing a bunch of my own stuff and armed myself with some fancy accountin’ book-learnin’. I’m even opening an online store.

The only thing missing is label art, but I haven’t been too concerned because for once my dedication to ambivalence has given way to certainty and I know EXACTLY what I want. I have a mental picture of the perfect label to complement my new company’s name and I have no doubt that once I put it all together I’ll be able to take over the world one tortilla chip at a time.

Plan? Meet monkey wrench.

Enter my boundless lack of creativity. I’ve never been able to draw. I can’t even weild a crayon without my kids looking sideways at me. Forget software, I can’t even name a single program for illustrators much less use any. In short, I’m having a hell of a time getting what’s in my head onto a flash drive so it can be printed on a sticker that can be slapped on a jar.

Until someone sent me this:

Which contains almost exactly what I was looking for in this:

Don’t get me wrong. I still have no clue how I’m going to make the changes I want before getting this onto something as useful as a label. Still, I now have my skeleton dog safely stowed in a file on my desktop and every so often I’ll whip him out so that I can stare at him admiringly in between yelling at my paint program for not being Adobe Illustrator. And yes, I had to google “illustrations software” to come up with the name of that program.

If you are a runner, how often have you done this?

It’s Saturday morning. You throw back the sheets, grab a yogurt and juice before pulling on a pair of shorts, applying BodyGlide and filling up your water pack. Tie on your running shoes and hightail it out the door. Today’s a long run. You could gone anywhere between ninety minutes and four hours.

No keys. No ID. No cash. No cell phone.

That’s what this woman did last Saturday.

This is Nancy Cooper of Cary, North Carolina. She is a 34 year old mother of two in training for a half marathon. She went out for a long run last Saturday and hasn’t been seen since.

Like the majority of us who run are prone to do, she left her home wearing less than two pounds of clothing and carrying nothing that would help her in the event of an emergency. Her husband was familiar with her favorite trails but confesses he wasn’t informed of her exact route that morning. Now the only thing he can do is cooperate with police, the national guard and post developments on nancycooper.blogspot.com in an effort to find his missing wife.

As always, it takes an unfortunate event like this for us - and I include myself in that statement - to begin discussing safety on the run. If my running readers are anything like me or the people I run with around here then there are a bunch of us whose photo may end up on the front page of our local papers next to the sentence, “Last seen wearing a white T-shirt, black running shorts and grey running shoes.”

So let’s discuss this. I’ll go first with my suggestions since it’s my blog and I hope that my readers who are runners will then chime in with their own suggestions:

#1 - Let people know where you are. Telling someone where you are is a good thing. Showing them where you are is even better. Programs such as Gmap pedometer make it easy to plot a run and leave the window open on the home computer until you return, just in case your whereabouts become an issue.

Also, don’t think that being single and childless means that you have to forego being accounted for. Before I was a married mom my dad would insist that I call him before every run and let him know which route I was taking. Though he was unfamiliar with the city I was living in it always made him feel better knowing that if something happened he had solid locations in the event I didn’t call him back when I returned from my run.

The best part about Gmap? You can e-mail it to the person you’ve entrusted to keep track of you.

#2 - Road ID. Yeah, most of our clothes don’t have pockets and carrying a housekey - much less a license - is a pain in the ass.

Still, it’s hard to argue the importance of identification in the event that something happens to you. I discovered this the hard way when I bonked during a distance event and found myself on all fours vomiting into the grass. (See #3: Self Rescue)

I was disoriented and shaky and only made it to the finish line when a girlfriend of mine - noting my face-downedness - marched my heaving butt to the finish line under her watchful gaze. But what would have happened if someone I knew hadn’t come along?

While most distance events will have roving medics on bikes patrolling the course, the same is not true of our training runs. Also, while we runners often pride ourselves on taking care of each other and being helpful to runners in distress, that offer of assistance isn’t going to be worth a whole lot if you’re a diabetic experiencing insulin shock and your Asics-wearing good Samaritan is trying to force nothing but water down your gullet.

Medic alert bracelets are an excellent start but they don’t do much for those of us without pre-diagnosed medical issues. The bonking incident is what spurred me to purchase a RoadID. Road IDs are simple metal tags that can be worn on your shoes, ankles, or wrists with your name, emergency contact and other pertinent info engraved right into the metal.

* Remember to have someone else’s cell phone engraved into the metal because having your own number isn’t going to do you a hell of a lot of good if you’re the one who is snake-bit, passed out, or otherwise incapacitated.

#3 - Self-Rescue. Self-rescue was a term I heard a lot when I was obtaining my dive certification and means, basically, that when you undertake a certain activity you should be prepared to cope with unforeseen circumstances on your own because help may never come.

I believe that this is an idea applicable to running as well.

How do we participate in self-rescue? By letting people know exactly where we are and when. By wearing identification. But also by taking care of ourselves before an accident even occurs:

- Hydrate. The bonking incident I described above could have been prevented if I had simply worn my CamelBak (which was, incidentally, sitting in the trunk of my car at the finish line.) My decision to leave it behind (to save weight) was a stupid and irresponsible rookie move that cost my friend the new PR she was seeking.

Runners tackling distances greater than a few miles should always take water/Gatorade and Gu with them every single time. For me, anything over ten miles puts me into an effort level that requires readily available hydration. Plus, as mileage increases so does your distance from home-base and the potential for serious trouble. Prepare accordingly.

- Know your limits. Don’t head out for a ten mile run in the midday heat if your previous running experience consists of half hour stints on the treadmill at the gym. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen someone hauled off a course by medics because they had not properly trained and had no business being there in the first place.

- Buddy up. When possible, run with someone else. If you can’t find a reliable training partner then at least run in well-populated areas where help will be immediately available should something happen.

- Sunscreen, hat, sunglasses. You’ll be surprised at how easy it is to stave off heat exhaustion with a few simple precautions.

#4 - You’ll never, no matter how fast you are, be able to outrun a mountain lion. There were a couple years back in the nineties when it seemed like you couldn’t turn the television on without hearing about some yuppie asshole who got himself eaten while running. Here’s a tip: if your favorite running spot is shaping up to be an all-you-can-eat buffet for the local fauna then it’s time to pick a new running spot.

In other words, maintain a reasonable awareness of the inherent risks of your fave runs. Mountain lions can pick you off in El Dorado Hills, sleeper waves can get you at Ocean Beach, and the heat will follow you just about everywhere else. Consider the conditions in which you are running and plan accordingly.

Now I’ve had my say, what say you?

…and I will abandon my previous commitment to commit hari kiri before allowing another child to pass through my pelvis. Yes, I would get pregnant again. Just so I could name the baby after the founder.

Or at least I’d offer to wash his or her car.

Normal people stop here. Runners, read on. What I’m about to tell you will make you think Body Glide was a yawn of an invention:

Ladies and gentlemen? I give you the world’s finest running shoe. One that normally retails for $135… and I snagged a pair on E-Bay for $41.

Yes, you really are looking at a pair of brand new Asics Gel Kayanos. In the box. Never worn. 14s even, so you know they’re not a part of somebody’s failed New Year’s resolution from back in 1998.

Fleet Feet had better prepare for layoffs because I’m diverting my rather substantial running shoe fund to E-Bay.

** Addendum for my dearest commenter Alice:

14 is the shoe’s “edition” designation and not my size. Last year the latest Kayano was a 13, this year it’s 14, next year will be 15…. you dig?

In other words: I do NOT have big feet!

For someone who is six feet tall.

Thank You,
Management

A couple of weeks ago, just before I seemingly abandoned my blog, my husband and I decided to take the kids on a family vacation. Since he and are alike in that we find the prospect of taking a two year old on a plane about as inviting as performing home dental surgery on one another, we decided to vacation close to home.

Also, the in-laws had taken their RV and skipped town, thus leaving their Santa Cruz County digs, fully-stocked liquor cabinet, porn collection and cache of guns lonely for company.

Kids? Meet Mr. Tequila and Mr. Glock. They’ll be your babysitters for the next two weeks.

Before our vacation I decided to try my hand at triathlons which means enduring the Pacific Ocean’s sub-Arctic conditions which means purchasing a wetsuit which means that somewhere between the words “Honey” and “I’m thinking about doing triathlons” my husband shelled out a few hundred bucks to cover his wife from neck to ankles in neoprene with nary a blowjob to show for it.

But he got even. And how.

So while we’re in SC we decide to take the kids out to the beach. He picked Sunset Beach; a lovely stretch of sandy coastline that shelves gently into Monterey Bay. It is quite a relaxing spot if you are, in fact, intelligent enough to remain on dry land.

At any rate, we arrived at the beach. I had my wetsuit. My husband and kids had parkas. We were ready for an authentic Northern California beach excursion minus the hypothermia that seems to plague bikini-clad tourists who’ve watched too much television.

I’m not going to bother going into detail about the ambivalent signage everywhere that indicated that yes, while it was true that one could technically swim at this particular beach, it was not generally advisable. Not that there were signs that specifically said “Keep Out” or “perhaps you should reconsider” or even “update your life insurance.” Instead, there was a plethora of directions on how to survive should the ocean throw an undertow, sleeper wave or riptide your way.

I’m also not going to bore you with details of waves several feet taller than me, jellyfish and kelp infested swells, or even the fact that I would have had to swim halfway to Japan to get beyond the surfline.

Sufficed to say, things were not going well. I was taking a ton of foam in the face and within ten minutes I felt like I had eaten a salt lick. Have I mentioned that I’m terrified of water? These are but a few of the reasons why - when I saw the nice boy with the lifeguard gear waving at me from the beach - I was more than happy to pack it in.

“What’s up? Is there a problem?” I asked the kid, not that I didn’t know the answer. Of course there was a problem; some idiot at Fleet Feet had set me loose with a wetsuit.

“Um…” The kid started to hem. He didn’t need to talk. His expression said it all, Lady, there’s a whole list of reasons you have no business being out here but you’re a sasquatch and I’m afraid you’ll rip my arms off before I reach #50.

“There’s an awful riptide comin’ through here today.” The kid stammered. He pointed to a red warning flag that was most definitely not there before I’d gotten in the water. Not that it wouldn’t have been helpful to know. “Could you, uh, just swim closer to the lifeguard tower?”

“Do you mean swim closer to it or get out?”

“Um…” The kid looked at me and then looked at his feet.

“Look, what would you do?” I asked.

“Well, I wouldn’t be swimming. Not out here anyway.”

“Can you just tell me that I’m being kicked out of the ocean?”

“You’re being kicked out of the ocean.”

“King Neptune thanks you.”

My family and I have been on vacation. Or more like a “staycation” since our time away from home wasn’t exactly far from home.

Still, my online presence has been next to nill and I have been neither posting nor visiting other blogs which, I realize, makes me A Very Bad Person And Flaky Blogger and really? After such prolonged neglect who could blame my laptop if it decided to break up with me and move on to a more dedicated end user who would caress it with soft kisses and a tender upgrade to Windows Vista? Not I.

But I’m back now and boy, I have to say that after several days of choking on smoke and ash from wildfires in Monterey, Big Sur, Watsonville and Santa Cruz it sure was refreshing to return to the Sacramento area and find that it too was a charred and smoke-filled bowl of Hell.

…and I’ll bet a $20 Starbucks giftcard that every televangelist in America is gleefully proclaiming that these wildfires are proof that God is still in the smiting business and legalizing gay marriage is as good a reason as any for him to convert every Californian’s home to ash.

At any rate, I’m back. But not that back since I am going to have to further neglect my laptop while I complete a huge project for my summer accounting class and if the words “summer accounting class” didn’t cause whatever was in your hands to fall to the ground and shatter while you crossed yourself and said a Hail Mary for me then you are a black-hearted and soulless being beyond salvation.

Also, in case you’re wondering, that top photo is a rather large jellyfish that my husband and I found washed up on the beach in Marina last week. I’d love to say that I picked it up and relived my glory days by starting a jellyfish fight with my husband using that hamburger-sized monster but I’d be lying.

Nah, I was feeling rather kind that day so I picked up this little half-dollar-sized jobber and hucked it at him instead. 

Jellyfish fights… good times!

Around eight tonight I shimmied into my favorite jog skort and went for a run through Watsonville - an act which I realize now is an open invitation to every migrant worker on the central coast to catcall the bloody hell out of my blonde ass.

Thanks to my evening jaunt about town I now know sixteen ways to say sit on my face in Spanish. Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with being invited to sit on someone’s face, I suppose. I would just prefer the proposition be made over a candlelight dinner and not, say, by a bunch of short dudes swilling Budweiser and plugging quarters into jukeboxes that only play that annoying Mexican polka-sounding music.

Then again, I suppose I should just be grateful that I was wearing my iPod. Otherwise the relatively innocent propositions aren’t the only phrases that might have been introduced to my already colorful repertoire.

Our neighborhood is a fair amount diverse. This means two things; the first is that liberal white university types with overdeveloped guilt complexes are moving here in mother-fucking droves.

The second is that being slipped my neighbor’s mail by mistake yields results that are way more fun than some dogawful J. Crew or Pottery Barn catalog:

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to run this nextdoor and check to see if the neighbors have my issue of Honky.

Ok, so yeah the blogosphere will be rife with Father’s Day posts and still I feel the need to throw in my own two cents.

So happy Father’s Day to my husband, who has spent the last eight years being a dad to this one:

Before I go on I’d like to have a word about step-parents. I met my now-husband when I was a rather baffled single mom with a four month old baby and an ex with little interest in parenting (he had taken off with another woman when I was pregnant and only returned a week prior to my son’s birth to interrupt an adoption I had set up).

My now-husband did not shy away from me. He did  not shy away from my baby boy. He did not shy away from a tiny screaming, diaper-wearing human that he had no biological or moral obligation to support.

Rather, he jumped right in with both feet and has been a fierce parent and provider to our son ever since. He’s earned the right to refer to the boy as “his son” a million times over. His first act while we were dating was to baby-proof his apartment. His second was to start an education IRA for the boy. We were married when my son was eighteen months old and he has been a loving parent to him ever since.

My husband is the reason why - if you happen to know me - I get a little irritated when people refer to biological parents as their “real” parents. I think it’s backward to give credit to people based only on their biological contribution to your existence. Your “real” parent is the man or woman who changed your diapers, fed you at midnight, kissed owies, taught you to ride a bike and spanked your sorry ass when you used a rusty nail to carve a family portrait into the side of the station wagon. Many of us are fortunate to have biological parents who double as our “real” parents. Still, there are numerous children out there who, through a fabulous stroke of luck, are being raised by wonderfully caring parents who had no biological obligation to take on the burdens presented by parenthood.

In my mind, my son hit the parenthood lottery with my husband. Happy Father’s Day to my husband and all you dads out  there who are raising step and adopted children. You are the “real” dad.

My daughter, on the other hand, is the perpetrator of a grand experiment in which she is trying to see just how far she can push my husband and I without actually being sold to gypsies:

Also! Happy Father’s Day to my own father, who is spending this one at Club Afghanistan at Uncle Sam’s bequest:

This is my dad’s favorite photo. Ever.

It was taken by a vatican photographer in 1988 after my dad’s unit flew the pope and his mitre-wearing entourage from Colorado to Carmel, California during a papal visit to the states. Upon arrival in California the pope asked to meet with every person involved in his travel so that he could thank them individually. To this day my dad still brags that Pope John Paul II requested an audience with him.

Happy Father’s Day dad. Try not to eat too many MREs will ya? We’re having a budget crisis over here.

(And yeah. I hit the parent lottery by having you as a dad too.)

Today is the last day of school and while I was driving my eight year old through ye olde carpool line it occurred to me that - in the fall, when we return and the parking lot situation has been remedied - the carpool scene might be a tad more tolerable. Then I woke up to the reality that the carpool scene would only be made tolerable through forced euthanasia. Of them. Not me. Or maybe me depending on how close other people’s rudeness drives me to the brink of “let’s just call it a day and end the human race already”.

So there I was; bloodying my head against my steering wheel trying to find a parking spot amidst the moving vehicles from which little yuppie children were being cast by hurried parents because daddy’s Very Important Meeting and mommy’s Appointment With Sven The Personal Trainer trumps The Safety Of One’s Offspring. 

Again with the run-ons.

I finally found a parking spot in a dirt lot roughly thirty miles from the school and was making my way in when I noticed my son’s teacher struggling to get our of her car and into the dirt lot.

My son’s paraplegic teacher. Struggling to assemble her wheelchair. In the unforgiving dirt of a rutted lot twelve parsecs away from civilization. She couldn’t have been further from her classroom if she had parked in Lodi.

So what was she doing here and not, say, parked in her regular spot located closer to the school on easily navigable asphalt? The one equipped with a wheelchair ramp? That is clearly marked with a large blue and white handicapped sign?

It would seem that one of the parents - in their hurry to be as big an asshole as the laws of physics allow - had aced the teacher out of the handicapped spot because she was “in a hurry”. What’s more, the able-bodied parent who parked in the handicapped spot was more than aware of the teacher’s need for that spot because her own child was in said teacher’s classroom.

All of this was made all the more rankling when - in the course of helping my son’s teacher make her way out of the not-at-all-wheelechair-friendly part of the parking lot - said parent returned to her vehicle, smiled cluelessly, and said:

“Hey Mrs. [teacher’s name]! Why didn’t you park here? Isn’t it easier for you to get in from this spot?”

…and that’s when the almighty hand of God himself burst forth from the heavens and bitch slapped the parent and tore her minivan asunder.

Let me tell you, when you’re sick and have an ache-level that is measured by the degrees at which your spine is trying to rip free of your body it helps to have a spouse who is willing to run to the store to retrieve things for you. 

A reliable source has informed me that this soup contains both pixie dust and antibiotics which explains its ability to cure everything from a summer cold to an advanced case of Ebola. Last night I was prepared to give my left arm for this particular soup and my husband was prepared to sacrifice the rest of my body to shut me up. So he ran out and grabbed it for me and I pretended not to notice that he’d spiked it with NyQuil.

Such is the stuff our marriage is made of.