Monday, August 27, 2007

So you think you can run

So last week the fear of my own body's rapidly creeping girth and fluidity escalated and I decided the time had come for some wickedly serious dieting. It was time for some purposeful calorie reduction and getting this body moving.

As far back as I can remember I've been captivated by the strength, speed, and agility of runners, the power of the human body. All my life I've secretly wished for the legs of a giraffe or a horse- dreamed of four legs whisking me gracefully across the landscape. In my sleep I sometimes dream I'm running effortlessly and wake wanting to go.

I've gone through periods of running, the most successful being last spring and summer when I trained myself on the local (to Farmington, ME) half mile college gym track. I've never been a graceful runner and my lungs often give out before my legs. And I often give up when the knee pain or the inclement weather kick in.

I blame it mostly on the waxing moon but last week my legs felt surprisingly powerful and telling myself how the other guy doesn't matter, it's only about my body and my satisfaction, I let myself go as far as I could again and again.

No great accomplishment there. Not to anyone but me.

I don't know who the hell I am thinking I can run when the practiced runners are gliding by my plodding self, but I know we all have to start somewhere and I know I feel best when my body is lean and strong, and I know I am going to get my skinny back!

I also know there's little better than flying down the boardwalk or the road with the full moon over head and the breath in my lungs and the wind on my sweaty face.

Does anyone have any beginner's running tips or thoughts to share? Is anyone else trying to start a running program?

Sunday, August 19, 2007

A link for the animals

I found the home page to this link last night, on http://2carolinacats.blogspot.com/

It is a tear jerker.

Busy Weekend

Interior painting is one of my favorite learned skills. How easy it is to make a room or a home I don't enjoy very much into a place that makes me smile every time I see it; into a place I want to linger.

My back is letting me know it isn't completely happy with me right now; warning me I'd best watch my step- and there are still books to return to the book shelf (at least 100 of them) and knick-knacks to replace and arrange.

It is mostly done though, and I can't wait to wake up to it all in the morning :-)


P.S.
I'm pretty new at this uploading photos business and they are backwards, ending with the photo of the happy painter pre-work (sideways as I forgot to edit first) and beginning with the finished product ;)

P.P.S.
Actually, they are all screwed up. But you are smart! and I know you get the idea:)

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Little wonderment




My cousin's baby, now four months old.

How do they do it?

How do they go so quickly from being warm sleepy bundles of cuddly lump, to being interactiving, animated people?

More than anything else, the hope of this is why I wanted to move back from Maine.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

My link,

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

... and share I will. I can't remember any more whose blog linked me to PostSecret, but I've grown addicted and check almost first thing every Sunday. Reading it makes me poignantly feel how very close and how much alike we all are, and yet how very alone and different too; how there is a place inside of all of us known only by ourselves, and the conjoined beauty and danger of that place.

Saturday, August 04, 2007

sinking in

Have you ever eaten a mango? Sunk your face in deep til yours cheeks are wet and sticky and the threads of fruit are slicing between your teeth? Held it up to your face to tight you have to close your eyes and hang over the sink, syrup juice freckled with flesh dripping from the tips of your tightly flexed elbows?
Have you peeled off the skin to drag your teeth all the down sucking the meat off with your tongue and swallowing it in sweet gulps?

Who are the big cheeses around here?





Boyfriend gave me his previous digital camera with all the hardware for uploading to the computer and the television; with the battery recharger, the batteries, the bag- he really set me up! Of course, so far it's all nothin' but cats!!

The teeny silver tabby is Sylvia, one of my two kitties. She is 8 or 9. Honestly, I keep myself in denial that she is aging at all.

At 1 1/2 years old she became a rescue from behind a restaurant in Asbury Park, NJ. Two days after she was 'rescued', I impulsively walked into the pet store in Sea Girt, perused the cages, came to a little gray kitty who rubbed my hand and wanted to snuggle- brought my then-live in boyfriend (who is still a good friend) back to see her, and adopted her the very next day.

At first she did not know what to do with a full-time Human. If I got down to play with her, she took it as an attack and swatted my face. No holding, no snuggling, definitely no cuddling up to me in bed. We took it slow, and worked on the trust.

She became my best buddy and once you are accepted by her she'll cuddle on your lap, sleep up against you all night, stand on your shoulders. She barely weighs seven pounds. Never bites, never scratches, never hisses. Even if I am doing something she hates- like clipping her nails or cleaning a wound- she will lie in my lap and growl, but let me do what needs doing.

The little ball of black is Fuzz; or, as Boyfriend calls her, E.L. Fuzz, for everybody loves Fuzz- because they do :) She belongs to my sister, who does not know I'm pimping out her kitty as she sleeps. Fuzz is like a tube of fur covered cartilage. Fuzz is a nut. My sister tells her all the time- "Fuzz, you're crazy."

Friday, August 03, 2007

boring adult's Friday night

Two nights in a row, as the body unwilling to store rest and grow unweary dropped the window blinds on a shortening darkness, the moon struck my chest with its need to be noticed and I nearly hopped in my car and raced my barefooted self to the beach, Peanuts pajama set and all. (Yeah, this mama wants to be sexy, but cozy is my leader.)

The corn shall be mine, all mine!!!!
All five ears I have eaten- I have eaten all five. How can I not when the kernels glide off between my teeth to dissolve meaty and sweet on my tongue?