Lawyerish

Second City

Before I get to the Chicago stuff, I have two things: 

(1) We have not yet discussed this season of So You Think You Can Dance, and my two-second review is that the choreography has been very hit-or-miss this season (um, Brian Friedman? What is he ON?), but the dancers on the whole are stronger (unlike past seasons, where some of the clunkers have stayed in well into the top ten).  I do believe Brandon is one of the best male dancers I've EVER seen, but I feel like he hasn't been given just the right piece yet in which to truly shine, although he's been consistently great in everything.  And Ade is excellent, as is Jason.  As a couple, though, Kuponu and Kayla are really special; they are phenomenal.  Also kind of hot, right?  That is one good-looking pair.  Damn.

(2) I keep seeing promos for the movie "The Ugly Truth", and I can't help but think it looks like the worst film ever made.  Are we really supposed to believe that Katherine Heigl has trouble getting guys?  That she needs lessons on how to FLIRT, for crissake?  As Wes would say (good RIDDANCE, dude), Ah was born at night, but Ah wasn't born last night. 

Onward!  As I mentioned yesterday, our second day in Chicago, which was the Fourth of July, we headed out in a drizzle to the Shedd Aquarium.  That place is incredible, y'all!  Best aquarium I've ever seen, by a long shot.  It was also unbelievably crowded.  When we arrived, we stood on a seemingly endless line, and of course we selected the one branch of the line that DID NOT MOVE.  I think every single person who was ahead of us was trying to buy the freaking aquarium or take out a second mortgage or something, because there is no way that purchasing tickets to a museum could take that long.  In New York, there would have been a riot if a line moved that slowly; but strangely enough, no one seemed to bat an eye.  They just stood patiently and gazed about in a calm and collected manner until finally we were able to make our way forward.  Strange.

After seeing some belugas and otters and loads of colorful fish, we made our way to Hyde Park to visit the U of C.  It was pretty deserted, of course, but still pretty and leafy in its neo-Gothic splendor.  One of the purposes of our visit was to eat at Harold's Chicken, an old college standby of Joe's that I've been hearing about for years, so we strolled over there in the ever-increasing rain only to find it closed.  Closed!  How dare they observe a national holiday when we wanted chicken and fries?

And that was when we hit Edwardo's for pizza, as indicated previously.  Then we hit the Museum of Science and Industry, which I hadn't been to since I was about five.  To be honest, it was lacking a little something.  I think it's more geared toward kids, although the exhibits are pretty information-heavy so it would take just the right sort of kid to be super-entertained there.  Eh, I don't know.

That night, we had dinner at NoMI, the restaurant in our hotel.  It was faaaabulous.  The space is gorgeous but not overdone and we had a table right by the bay window overlooking the old Water Tower.  We got a terrific bottle of Riesling that the sommelier recommended, then a cool and summery watermelon soup followed by a beef dish for me and sushi for Joe.  Everything was exquisite. 

By the way, you're getting lots more photos of me than usual because Joe was in charge of the camera for the most part.  I got him a wee cute little Canon PowerShot Elph for our anniversary and this trip was the first real test-drive of it. 

Sunday, we checked out the Hancock Observatory, which was practically empty so we got this spectacular view all to ourselves:

Man, that's a good-looking city!  Note the beach at the bottom right of the second photo -- it has palm trees on it!  Palm trees!  In Chicago!  God bless America.

Then we dropped in on some friends before heading up to Wrigleyville, where we hung out on another friend's roof deck, did some grilling and headed to the Cubs game.  I also had my first Chicago-style hot dog:

Cubs win!  That night we sat out on the roof deck with a bunch of delightful people and drank beer and talked and laughed for hours.  It was pretty unbeatable. 

Monday morning, we went over to still another friend's house to visit and catch up, then walked around for a while until it was time to head to the airport.  And cry. 

Taste of Chicago

Chicago has pretty much everything I love about a good city:  walkability, great architecture, water access, museums, culture, colleges, interesting neighborhoods, lots of parks and plenty of food and beverage offerings.  There's something about the expanse of Lake Michigan that gives Chicago an airy quality that New York lacks; it's also one of the cleanest large cities I've ever visited -- how do they do that?  How is it not awash in the grit and grime that seems to lay over my city like a blanket?  And where's all the trash?  I was constantly amazed at how sparkling and pristine the public spaces were, even ones that were crowded with Fourth of July revelers. 

Chicago also has a nice energy to it -- it's got a good pace, not as breakneck and neurotic as NYC but still upbeat and forward-looking.  But it's also down to earth and homey and the people are genuinely friendly in an unhurried way.  I'm a huge, huge fan, in short.

So basically, amid some cultural activities, some visits with friends and some athletic events, we did a lot of eating.  Also drinking. 

There was Taste of Chicago, where we braved body-to-body crowds and tremendous lines -- it was somewhat of a miscalculation to go on Friday evening, just before the fireworks crowds converged on Grant Park -- for some deep dish pizza, some rib sandwiches, and a waffle sundae.

After making our way out of the crowds at a glacial pace, we spent some quality time at the Art Institute -- in addition to seeing the Seurat that featured prominently in "Ferris Bueller", we checked out the new modern wing, which is beautiful and has some pieces well worth seeing. 

On the walk back to our hotel (the Park Hyatt, which I would highly recommend -- from the delicious breakfasts to the lap pool to the cloud-like bed, it's tough to go wrong), we realized we were still hungry, so we stopped at a wine bar called Enology and had some flights of wine and a cheese plate.

On Saturday, we hit the Shedd Aquarium and U of C, and then, much to our chagrin, walked all the way to Harold's Chicken Shack only to find it closed for the holiday.  Evidently Harold was unconcerned about depriving patriotic Americans of hot sauce-smothered fried chicken on Independence Day.  Not cool. 

We consoled ourselves with Chicago-style pizza at Edwardo's, and if you have to have a consolation prize, you could certainly do a lot worse than pepperoni and cheese sandwiched between layers of dough and covered in spicy tomato sauce. 

 

Yikes, I look awful.  Get this woman some makeup!  And better sleep!  In my defense, we'd been walking through the rain without an umbrella for hours.  The pizza perked me up:

 

I couldn't quite make it through all the crusts, but I put away half a pizza plus a big salad plus we were going to be eating a fancy dinner a few hours later, so I had to draw the line somewhere.

I'm going to have to finish this later in the week because Flickr is being a pain in my butt, and I'm having trouble concentrating my mental energy on getting Jillian to kick Wes to the curb on The Bachelorette.  Dude, this season has seemed COMPLETELY staged, am I right?  It's ridiculous.  From the Jake/Wes showdown at the Marriott Corral to the totally unsurprising return of Ed, it all appears to be a lot of smoke and mirrors to distract us from the fact that there isn't a whole heck of a lot of chemistry between any of these people.  Why do I do this to myself, season after season?  Oh, ABC.  Damn you and your wily ways.

Sunshine Day

We got the documentary Dear Zachary from Netflix a couple of weeks ago and finally got around to watching it last night, and while I don't want to ruin it for any of you, I feel like I must warn the public at large that this is not a film for the faint of heart.  Or even the stalwart of heart.  In fact, perhaps you should only watch it if you are, in fact, made of stone.

I expected it to be poignant and sad given the premise, which is that a filmmaker wanted to make a movie about his childhood best friend, who had been murdered, in order to teach the son he left behind about his father (that was a very tortured sentence, but I think you know what I mean).  Well, it went far, far beyond poignant and sad; just when I thought it was going to resolve in a melancholy but ultimately palatable way, it ran over me like a steamroller, then backed up and ran over me a few more times. 

I'm not going to be able to stop thinking about it for a LONG, long time.  It's really one of those things that makes you wonder why in the hell certain things happen, how humans can be subjected to such senseless horrors and suffering and why we as a society haven't figured out ways to prevent things of this magnitude of awfulness from happening. 

Man.  For real.  MAN. 

On a brighter note, we checked out the High Line this weekend, which is this new park built on an abandoned elevated train track.  It's really cool; there are spiffy wooden lounge chairs that roll along the old tracks so you can pull them together or move them apart as you like, and there's a lot of lush greenery and wildflowers plus cool views of the river and the streetscapes below, including this whole wooden amphitheater area with windows overlooking the avenue below as if it were on a giant television screen. 

This is one of the things that New York has done exceptionally well over the past few years; since I moved here, the amount of green space and public park land has grown by leaps and bounds, and there are so many more seasonal outdoorsy things than there were when I first arrived, like movies in various parks and bars on water taxi beaches and bike paths going every which way (with free bikes available, too!) for summer and about 50 ice skating rinks in the winter.  Of course, I only use or attend a handful of these things each year, but just knowing they're THERE is pleasant and somehow comforting.

Other weekend highlights included a karaoke birthday party with some of the best party food evar (mini-bacon cheeseburgers, pigs in a blanket, spring rolls with some kind of creamy, spicy sauce, and Ring Dings and Mallomars for dessert -- afterward, I wished we had had that kind of food at our wedding, because who needs the same old wedding filet mignon when you could have sliders and Ring Dings?  Dang it!); a trip to the local branch library where I saw Julie Kent, who is one of my favorite dancers and who many of you will know from "Center Stage" (she's the one who quips to Cooper Nielson, "She's a heartbeat away from having your name tattooed on her ass" -- awesome); and an evening viewing of "The Hangover", which had some funny moments but could have been a bit quicker paced for me.

Perhaps most notably, it only rained a couple of times, and mostly during the evening hours, which makes these the first two consecutive nice days in what feels like at least a month.  I tried to soak up as much sun as I could without getting burnt, since I feel certain that rickets was beginning to set in.  Now I can go back to work reinvigorated and with the promise of at least two exciting things this week:  the arrival of my new laptop from Dell (ours is a good five years old and is so slow you could make a five course meal while waiting for it to boot up) and on Friday, our long weekend jaunt to Chicago.  Good deal. 

You May Already Be a Winner!

(OhmyGOD you guys, I typed up this whole witty entry replete with photos about choosing a contest winner, and then something DIED on me and it's gone, GONE!  So I shall try to recreate it as best I can, but mostly I am resisting the urge to throw this craptastic laptop out the window into the pouring rain.)

SO!  Thank you all for your great comments/contest entries.  I loved reading every one of them.  And I'm already starting to think that we should compile additional "Meant to Be" volumes about everything from love to loss to pets to finding one's place in the world.  Hmm...

I selected a winner using a highly technical process:  writing the entrants' names on little pieces of notebook paper, placing them in a bowl (a Nambe bowl that we got as a wedding present, and that contained about a pound of dust before I cleaned it out to use for the drawing -- it's pretty and looks lovely on our shelf, but receives very little actual use), stirring the names around and pulling one out with my eyes closed. 

Here's the bowl, for those wanting to evaluate the standards and practices of this highly technical procedure:

(I got a little nervous as I prepared to draw a name -- would the non-winners be upset with me?  Would someone attack my methodology?  Would I end up REVILED AND ALONE? -- this is what it's like to be me.)

And the name I pulled out is: LawMommy!  You're a winner!  And here is your fabulous prize:

As I stood in my kitchen taking pictures, I realized that the wall behind our table was filthy.  It looked as though someone had sprayed molasses all over it.  I can't imagine how it got so dirty since we hardly ever eat in the kitchen other than for breakfast (for dinner, we hunch over the coffee table, like all people of great couth), and we have no molasses in the house.  So I took a moment to wipe it down and ponder this turn of events.

THEN I decided, very on the spur of the moment, to choose another winner.  (I know!  So spontaneous!).  Aaaaaaand...Tara, congrats!  Here's YOUR fabulous prize:

Hooray for both of you.  Please email me your mailing addresses (Lawyerish at Gmail) and I'll get those little packages right off to you.  Thanks everyone for entering! 

Win-Win

They're here!  The books are here! 

That is, they're in Tulsa, but they're in hard copy and available for order and subsequent delivery, right to your doorstep!  And we've posted several excerpts on the book site if you'd like to whet your appetite while awaiting the postman.  (If you've already pre-ordered, you should be getting your book in the next week or so!)

As it happens, I seem to have ordered an extra copy, which is now in my possession and can soon be in yours.  That's right, I'm giving it away, baby! 

And because I like you really a whole lot, I'll throw in some other little goodies as well.  I can't promise it'll be as great as one of Swistle's care packages, but I'll try to make it worth your while.

All you've got to do is leave a comment telling me a story of something in your life that seemed fated or destined or...meant to be, if you will.  It can be about absolutely anything, whether it's how you ended up with your dog or how you met your spouse/partner or how you chose just the right college or how destiny led you to a really great taco one night -- anything, really.  If you don't have any wild coincidences or moments of synchronicity to share, then feel free to leave a comment about something else and I'll count you in all the same. 

I'll select a winner on Sunday, shall we say?  Out of a hat or similar receptacle.  If you'd like to sweeten your chances, feel free to make mention of the book (and/or this contest) on your own site, then come on back and leave an additional comment linking to your post.  Otherwise, one entry per person.  (Now, doesn't that sound official and rule-y?)

Another Year, and a Confession

It's our anniversary today (six years!), and to be honest I sort of think I said all that needs to be said about the occasion last year.  Well, not ALL that needs to be said, but a lot of it, anyway. 

There are lots of people who have kept me from falling irrevocably to pieces over the past year, with its unbelievably sucky suckiness, but my husband gets the biggest gold star of all in that regard.  Even as he has borne his own grief and anger, he's been right there for me, to help me bear mine, too.  Sometimes we take turns being the one in the Bad Place, trading that burden of darkness back and forth, but more often than not, I have been the one lost and despairing, and he has been the one offering me respite and shouldering it all, without hesitation.

Many aspects of adult life are startlingly difficult and, frankly, I don't think I handle a lot of them well; but marriage is one part that suits me perfectly -- at least, marriage to Joe suits me perfectly.  I love being in an equal partnership with our unplanned but handy ways of dividing labor (he takes care of finances and dropping off laundry and vaccuuming and cleaning the cat litter; I handle the cooking and the grocery shopping and the social plans and...well, I'm sure I do SOMEthing else around here; and we each unload the dishwasher (horror!) and walk the dog and feed the animals as needed).  I love coming home from a run to find him eating his breakfast and reading the paper (and I always get a bit sad when I come home, at any time of the day, and he isn't here, even if it means I can watch something trashy on TV alone).  I love the hilarious comments he makes about, well, everything and how he doesn't really know how hilarious he is.  I love how, whether we're walking our fast city-people walk or sitting on a plane or lounging on the couch, we reach out at the same time and find each other's hands.

I could go on for days, but it would probably get a little nauseating.  Perhaps it already has.  Sorry about that.  Carry on.  I'll save it for a Hallmark card.

Also, I remembered another thing that I'm not that into that everyone else seems to be, and I want to share it with you before I forget: 

Krispy Kreme donuts.

I know.  I KNOW.  This makes me some kind of Commie weirdo, but I don't like them.  I like a good cake donut, but I'm not so wild about the glazed wheels of grease that KK puts out. 

So, ah, that was a total non sequitur, but I just thought you should know.  I hope we can still be friends.

The Eh List

Ok, I've seen these sorts of lists in many places, but today Holly's post nudged me to make my own.  So here it is, the (partial -- I could go on for DAYS) list of things that I don't like so much, but that the majority of people seem to love:

* Orange juice:  I can't stand the pulp -- the mere thought of those little things tickling the back of my throat makes me want to die.  Lemonade is also in this category, but if it's fakey lemonade it is acceptable. 

* Seafood:  No fish, no shrimp, no lobster, no seaweed, no-whatever-fish-you're-thinking-of-that-you-believe-is-delicious-and-non-fishy -- if it comes from water, I don't eat it.

* Shopping:  I think we've sufficiently covered this topic.  Exception:  shopping for baby things.  Which, you know, I don't get to do anymore so...oh, well.

* Vintage/thrift stores: It's other people's old clothes.  No thank you.

* Family-style restaurants:  I want my own plate of food that is meant for me and me alone.  Exception:  I don't mind sharing if I know the other people dining with me REALLY well; but sitting down with a large group of minor acquaintances and passing giant troughs of food around and being nervous about whether there will be enough food or enough things I like?  Not a fan.  (I was particularly scarred some years back when I'd go out to dinner with large groups fairly often and my then-boyfriend often commandeered the ordering and on MULTIPLE OCCASIONS ordered nothing but seafood.)

* Tom Hanks.

* "Citizen Kane":  I know it's supposed to be, like, the greatest movie ever made, but I nearly died of boredom after about ten minutes.  See also:  "The Godfather."

* John Legend, Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley.

* Musicals:  There are a few limited exceptions, but for the most part Broadway showtunes don't do it for me.  (And here is where my mom shakes her heads and weeps a little.  Sorry, Mom!)

* "Superbad" and those sorts of recent buddy/stoner/teen movies, although I'm pleased to say that I recently saw "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" and thought it was really cute.  Not nearly as crass or overly impressed with its own cleverness as many of the others in its genre, and with fun music to boot.

* Expensive handbags and shoes:  I like cute shoes (I have a weakness for 40s-style t-straps, spectators or Mary Janes) and I have what I think is a reasonably attractive, functional bag; but I have a constitutional aversion to spending much on these items, especially shoes.  They are SHOES.  They end up being beat-up and stinky and if I'd paid $500 (or even $200) on a pair of shoes to walk around the disgusting streets of New York, I don't think I could live with myself. 

* Tea:  I'd like to like tea, but the love is just not there.  I'll drink the green tea at a Chinese or Vietnamese place and I DO love (LOVE) chai lattes or chai frappuccinos, but I will never be Into Tea.

* Almost all current TV dramas (Grey's Anatomy, Lost, House, etc):  It's not that I strongly dislike them; I just didn't get into them at the right time and never caught up.  I'll stick to my trashy reality TV.

How about you all?  No judgment here -- feel free to unleash your dislike for anything even if you know others are passionate about it!

So Much Nerdiness in One Entry

One thing my neighborhood is lacking is a great library.  Or any library, really; the branch of the NYPL closest to us has been closed for years for renovations.  I'm not entirely convinced it will ever reopen.  Sure, there's the spectacular main library in midtown, and there are branches within a reasonable distance of our area, but it's not the same as having easy, immediate access (not to mention that the branches are often cramped and lacking in ambience). 

I couldn't begin to estimate how many hours I spent in the local library growing up.  Our little Georgia town actually had two great libraries -- one that was public and one that was part of this social/educational association founded by the town's patron family.  The latter was called the Coleman Library, and aside from the countless weekend and summer days spent there, Allison and I used to walk there after school every Friday in fifth and sixth grade.

There was a 1950s-style drugstore across the street, where we'd sit on stools at the counter and order steam-heated hot-dogs, hamburgers off the grill, Coke floats and lemonade so sour it could turn your face inside out.  We'd also load up on Lemonheads and Nerds and gummy Cokes at a convenience store nearby.  Then we'd stroll back into the air-conditioned hush of the library, to the smell of paper and bindings and the high-frequency whine of fluorescent lighting. 

Between the two of us, we must have checked out every book in the junior and young adult sections.  I can remember exactly where my favorite books were -- the Little House series, of course (I had my own copy at home so didn't have to take those out, but I still liked to visit them); "Night of the Twisters" (kept me up nights in fear of tornadoes, but I read it about 50 times nonetheless); the Anastasia books; all of Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume's books, of course; the "A Very Young" set of photography books by Jill Krementz; the orange-bound biographies for young readers; "Freaky Friday" and some other weird book by that same author; "It Can't Hurt Forever", a novel about a young girl who has surgery on her heart; all of Paula Danziger's books; and so on. 

I remember, too, when the librarian suggested that I move to the YA section because she thought I'd read everything in the junior section.  It seemed to open a whole new world of possibility.  Then, later, there was my Danielle Steel phase in junior high (UGH) and, finally, the day as a teen when I became old enough to go to up to the mezzanine to poke around -- there wasn't any smut up there or anything; they just didn't want small kids running around unsupervised.  I'd sit on the cold linoleum floor and page through the big, colorful books about ballet, the afternoon light slanting in through the high windows. 

This weekend, we went out to Brooklyn to the Botanical Garden (I'd never been -- it's small but lovely, plus we had one of the best sandwiches I've ever eaten at the Terrace Cafe there: avocado, cucumber, watercress, goat cheese and pesto on whole-grain bread -- yuuuum), and meandered through the Brooklyn Library as well. 

It's an airy, modern space with lots of light.  I usually like my libraries a little dimmer and more academic feeling (the Grad Library in college -- oh, how I loved to wander through the stacks, especially the labyrinthine North Stacks, where they kept the super-old books and there were colored lines painted on the floor to keep you from getting hopelessly lost), but this was really nice and not un-reminiscent of the Coleman Library, in fact.  The feel of a crinkling cellophane cover on a book about made me swoon, as did the thought of having access to all those books FOR FREE. 

As much as I love Barnes & Noble and buying books -- and I certainly do -- I'd be willing to take more literary risks (good God, has there every been a dorkier phrase uttered?) if I didn't have to pony up $15 every time I wanted to try a new author.  I'm not saying it's enough to uproot and move to Brooklyn for, but it's A reason, anyway.  Or at least a reason to get off my butt and go to the branch nearest me (you can request books online and they'll just, like, show up at your branch when they're available -- so awesome, right?). 

Here is one of the two thrilling photos I shot at the Botanical Garden:

Hey, on an unrelated note, here's a tip:  to make a 10K seem really short and doable?  Run a half marathon the weekend before!  Your legs will be a little mad at you, but that 6.2 miles sure does fly by when you know you don't have to go another seven after that. 

Today's race was all women, and the fun part about that is that Joe brings the dog out to cheer me on.  Evidently, I find this extremely exciting:

I'm not sure which is the most frightening:  the maniacal look, the abrupt  disappearance of my neck, or the fact that my hand looks like it might detach from my arm and take flight at any moment.

Here I am post-race, looking slightly more calm, but also reflecting light and sweating like a farm animal, and sporting the omnipresent frizzies (there are women who look nicely coiffed and perfectly normal while running, but I am not one of them):

Quandary

I was on the subway a few weeks ago, coming home from work, and I noticed a woman sitting nearby wearing this very cute and flattering black dress.  She was one of these effortlessly stylish people, with cool glasses and a great haircut and very expensive shoes, and she had a pretty rockin' body, to boot.  As we got off the train, she was a few steps ahead of me.  From her lengthy strides and deliberate gaze, you could tell she knew how effortlessly stylish she was and how rockin' her body looked in that dress. 

She was still in front of me as we emerged onto the sidewalk, and after a moment or two, I realized that you could see RIGHT through that cute and flattering black dress.  It was some kind of knit fabric; maybe it was a few years old or perhaps a size too small, but in any event it was pulled taut and you could see everything from stem to stern, including her black thong undies. 

There she was, strutting along the streets of New York, undoubtedly having gone through her entire day -- picking up a latte and croissant in the morning, riding an escalator in her office building, sauntering past countless cubicles and coworkers to and from the bathroom, heading out to lunch, attending an afternoon meeting, popping into a boutique before getting on the subway -- without realizing that her rear was on view for all the world. 

I thought about tapping her on the shoulder and letting her know, but I didn't.  She had one of those Do Not Disturb faces on, and I figured, maybe she does know, and maybe she likes having her body in a display case of a dress.  Or maybe someone had already pulled her aside and she'd be irritated and embarrassed by the additional heads-up.  But ever since, I've felt a little badly, like I should have said something. 

So my question is:  would you have approached her and told her that you could see straight through the back of her dress?  And/or have you ever seen something similar?  If so, did you say anything? 

 

A Very Fine Fall

I always think it's a brilliant idea to run a half marathon until I'm actually running it.  We trekked out to Brooklyn yesterday to run twice around Prospect Park -- which, it turns out, is basically one giant hill -- then out Ocean Parkway to Coney Island. 

It was warm and humid and very sunny, a perfect day for lazing in the park or on the beach, but less so for running, especially since they were short on volunteers and many of the fluid stations ended up being self-serve.  I guess I'm spoiled, but I'm not a fan of being elbowed by hundreds of sweaty runners and having to leap over the table to dunk my own cup into a trash can of water just to prevent death by dehydration.  Of course, I was grateful that it was about ten degrees cooler than the More Half Marathon last month, during which I nearly burst into flames before we even crossed the starting line.  In any event, it appears I perform better when it's 14 degrees out than when it's a balmy 75.  Good to know.

The crowning moment of the race was just after I turned onto the Coney Island boardwalk, a few hundred meters from the finish.  As I headed toward the blessed, blessed end of the hot, hilly ordeal, I thought to myself, "I should be careful; these boards don't seem entirely ev--  OOOOOHHHHHH, SHHIIIIIIIIIIIIT!" 

I must have stumbled for about 20 paces, trying mightily to prevent the inevitable and screaming the entire time, and then I skidded for a while on my knees until I came to a halt, stunned and sweating and unable to look at my legs in case there might be splinters and blood and skin hanging off in unusual configurations.  As I'd fallen -- it happened in slow motion, as it always does -- I had heard the spectators gasp collectively, unable to intervene, and saw in my peripheral vision a few runners trying to get out of my path of self-destruction.  When I came to a stop, a few women runners asked if I was ok and helped me up, and then I sort of staggered/jogged to the end, trying not to cry or hyperventilate. 

It turned out my scrapes weren't terribly bloody or splintery, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but OH, the humiliation.  At least I have a better excuse for having a slower time other than my lack of training. 

Meanwhile, it was the dog's birthday this week; he's six.  As it turns out, we are Those People who buy their dog a "Pup-Pie" and sing Happy Birthday to him.  To the dog.  And then we give him a special chew toy and take him to the park and reminisce about our years together. 

They really have been great years, and I'll spare you the mush-fest about how much contentment this small canine brings to our days, except to sum up thusly:  he loves his long walks in the park; he says goodbye to me every morning by coming over and putting his paw on my knee while I crouch down and scratch his back; he cuddles up with us on the couch for movie night; he sits on my lap when I'm working at the desk; he lays his head next to mine on my pillow at night.   

Here he is today in the park (his nose and face are going white, but that's typical for his breed even at an early age -- they're supposed to live to fifteen, which means I expect him to live to at least forty): 

His first day home, back in August 2003:

First outing to Central Park:

Happy times with our pup:

What a good boy.