KENNEBUNPORT 5K

Today I participate in a 5k run/walk in Kennebunkport, Maine.  I learn many things.  Here are twelve of them.

1.  It is okay to run if it’s 18 degrees Fahrenheit, so long as it’s not windy.

2.  The fewer people participating means the walkers look silly after the joggers leave us in the dust.

3.  If I let too much distance get between me and the other participants, I might (WILL) walk off the course by about a tenth of a mile.

4.  My Achilles tendonitis hasn’t healed yet.

5.  Cars drive too fast in Kennebunkport.

6.  Cars drive on the race course in Kennebunkport.  (It’s hard not to – the roads are all interconnected, and alternate routes are blocked by the ocean.  It is fine – just weird.)

7.  Vegetarian lasagna is good.

8.  I walk faster than some people jog but slower than I expect to and finish about ten minutes later than I hope to.

9.  My sister and brother-in-law’s minestrone soup is outrageously delicious.

10.  If my right tendon seizes up while walking, I will fall over.

11.  It is absolutely possible to sweat my freaking ass off in 18 degree weather, so long as it’s not windy.

12.  This race course has spectacular views.

I actually don’t do too badly.  I jog a little, maybe ¾ of a mile, but my calves simply will not allow me to do anything more than walk with attitude (for about two miles – three is pushing it).  Do I wish I could jog/run more?  Sure, but truly, my split time isn’t horrible.  Checking the phone app I use when I hit the streets in my sneakers, I can see that despite elevation changes, I keep my pace steady for the whole course.  Not bad for someone who crosses the road into a parking lot to throw out a water cup rather than just drop it, someone who lost the course for a short while because of walking alone, and someone whose right Achilles tendon cramps so rapidly at mile #2 that she almost falls over in front of a sign advertising lobster rolls.

I don’t think my running mates, who finish long before I do, truly mind waiting around for me.  At least, they cordially pretend it’s okay that I’m a straggler.  I’m not sure if I’ll do it again next year.  I am more of an off-roader than a paved course kind of gal.  This is only my fourth 5k.  The first one involved trekking on both street and through the woods.  The second two included off-roading trails, multiple obstacles, and tons and tons of mud pits. 

Today’s views are spectacular, but the only obstacle I encounter is my wrong turn.  I am surprised when I get to the finish line and I’m simply sweaty rather than picking caked mud out of orifices I didn’t even know I had.  I meet some truly nice people along the course route, chat with other runners/joggers/walkers, wave to people, and slow down long enough to take some great snapshots.

I may not be jumping over tree stumps and errant roots today, nor slogging through goop while trying not to lose my sneakers (which is how I gave myself Achilles tendonitis in the first place), but I attempt my first real, entirely-on-tar road race.  I fail miserably at pacing, but I finish.  Like several immobile race volunteers remind us late-comers, it’s further than they are racing today.

The scenery today, though?  Unmatched. 

And I get a free long-sleeved t-shirt and a goody bag of stuff.  I am a winner, after all.

POWER FAILURE - PART II

I have to assume that the technology and production materials exceed those of the 1960's.  Maybe that's an asinine assumption on my part, but I believe that we've made progress in the last fifty years.

I also have to assume that we aren't experiencing storms any worse than we've had in years past.  I can remember as a kid that we had ice so thick on the walkways that it took us hours with an ice chopper to break it up.  The snow storms were no better nor worse than what we face now.

So ... why is it that every time it snows, even slightly, power goes out?

No, truly.  Think about it.

We had some whopper storms when we were kids.  We had ice storms and blizzards and thunder storms and deluges of rain.  Through it all, I only remember losing power during and after lightning strikes and during one ice storm in 1986 (five days -- they forgot our street).

People keep trying to tell me this last snow was heavy.  Bullshit.  It was no heavier than other snow/rain combos we've gotten.  And, even if it were, how is it three-days' of powerlessness worth of "worse"?  It's not possible.

It's not possible, either, to still have people in New England without power, and yet we do.  I appreciate all the work the linemen and linewomen are doing, but it still doesn't explain how we've defied progress and continue to not only lose power but lose power for extended time.

Here's hoping progress and technology catch up to us soon.  Happy power, people, if you have it.

EPIC (POWER) FAIL

What do you get when you mix the following ...?

• No kids home for Thanksgiving
• A chance to eat out at a nice restaurant with good friends
• Multiple impromptu invitations, just in case
• Wednesday afternoon spent baking for drop-in guests prior to dinner reservations
• an unexpected snow/sleet Nor'Easter
• my terrible karma

As noted in yesterday's blog, I decide not to cook this year for Thanksgiving.  My kids will all be elsewhere, and I also decide not to go to Maine to my sister's house, partly because she'll have her hands full with her in-laws and their families and partly because I'm driving up there Saturday, anyway, for a 5k (which I will walk because my Achilles tendonitis still hasn't recovered yet).

I have some friends (I know, right?  Shocking -- I have friends who aren't afraid to be seen in public with me) who invite me to a restaurant, a really nice place up in New Hampshire near where I used to live.  It's all very exciting, and I'm looking forward to the strange experience that so many people have mastered: Dining out for Thanksgiving dinner.

I'll have Child #3 here in the morning, Child #1 plans to stop by at some point, and Child #2 may stop by on her way home from work.  I figure I'll do the semi-Thanksgiving thing and make some pumpkin, banana, and cinnamon bread along with apple and pumpkin pies and some brownies, just in case.  You know, a little before and after Thanksgiving fare.  I mean, might as well have some holiday cheer going on.  I also invest in some cranberry beer and some table wines.  I spend all of Wednesday afternoon and early evening baking and running the dishwasher. 

Meanwhile, Mother Nature has decided to shit all over the Northeast and dump snow, sleet, rain, and black ice all over us.  By the time the snow starts where I live, just after the noon news, it has already been snowing steadily in Maine and New Hampshire.  By suppertime, thousands upon thousands of homes are without electricity.  People are planning on cooking their turkeys on their grills and trying to make other arrangements. 

Thanksgiving morning, I check the posted power-grid map -- Child #2 lives in southern New Hampshire.  By this time of the morning, she has been without power for about nineteen hours.

Child #3 and I dig out the cars, which isn't too bad except the snow-sleet-rain-snow crap is heavy.  Very heavy.  I check the power-grid map again because the restaurant is very near to Child #2's house.  There is still a 60% power outage near the restaurant.  I inform my friends.  They counter back that the restaurant is closed due to the weather and have cancelled Thanksgiving reservations.  Then comes the brief but mad attempt to find another restaurant within equal distance to all of us that has electricity and is still able to take reservations. 

This is when I opt out.  Once Thanksgiving without the fuss becomes Thanksgiving with even more fuss, it's time to cut the losses.  My friends have other places to go, too, so it's all good.  But it's so typical.  It's the kind of shit that happens to me.  IT'S THE AWFUL THINGS I ENDURE ON ACCOUNT OF BEING ME.  It's karma, biting me squarely in the ass.

In the end, I dive into my car and haul-ass up to Maine, where I enjoy yet another fun extended-family event.  The kids behave; the grown-ups behave; I behave.  We put a little wine in our non-alcoholic sangria when no one is looking.  It may not be the recipe for a successful Thanksgiving that I had originally planned, but it's still a recipe that works.

Happy Day After Turkey Day to all.  Don't get crushed in the Black Friday rush, and remember that changes in plans can be wonderful and fun.  Be spontaneous and go with it.

HAPPY TURKEY DAY

I am not cooking today.  Well, not officially, but if you stop by, you'll be fed cinnamon swirl bread, pumpkin bread, banana bread, apple pie, pumpkin pie, brownies... I baked the before and after part, but I'm not making a meal this year.  I'm going out.  I'll be here most of the day, probably shoveling snow or cracking ice off the cars, but then ... come sundown ... I'm out of here, going to a restaurant.

This is a new thing for me.  The only other time I went to a restaurant on Thanksgiving was when we had to bring my incapacitated uncle Thanksgiving dinner, and the stove malfunctioned.  I think someone hit timed cook or clean or something.  Either way, we ended up at the take-out line of The Green Ridge Turkey Farm restaurant, bringing my uncle dinner, and eating as a family at home somewhere around nine or ten o'clock at night.

Good times, good times.

This year I hope it's a successful adventure.  If not, I guess I'm back to cooking next year.  It sure is tempting, though, to have someone else do the work and the clean-up.  I'll let you know how it goes, but I suspect it's going to be a major success.  Just baking sent me into a tailspin this year because work is remarkably stressful right now.  I can't even follow simple directions I'm so spent.

Oh, well.  Bring on the waitstaff!

Keeping my fingers crossed and bringing my appetite with me.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

SAY IT WITH PICTURES

This afternoon there appears an amazing sky.  We are experiencing warm temperatures, mid-fifties to mid-sixties, and we are poised on the edge of a temperature drop accompanied by a predicted half-foot of pre-Thanksgiving snow. 

My youngest is home from college.  His shades are open, and his view is out over the long stretch of mill buildings, river, and trees beyond, so he is the one who alerts me to the colors outside.  I grab my camera and take a few shots of the sky before it disappears into the fading of dusk and the onset of night's darkness.

This is my blog today.  Enjoy.

Happy Fall.  Happy pre-Thanksgiving.  Happy snowstorm.

MISSING: SWEET POTATOES

After work I go to the grocery store.  I'm hoping it won't be so bad three days before Thanksgiving, but I am wrong.  The place is reasonably crowded, but that's not the worst of it.

The worst of it is that the shelves are not stocked very well.

The milk display is waning, I have to chase down a stock person for a can of cranberry sauce, there are only five Granny Smith apples left in the produce section, and there are zero sweet potatoes.  Zero.  When I get to the empty sweet potato display, I join two other confused shoppers.  Seriously, we just keep starting at the empty space, as if that will make sweet potatoes suddenly appear.  One woman walks around the display case three times, her mouth hanging partially open, her eyes wide and vacant as she wonders what the hell she will do now without sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving.

An older man wanders up, stares for about fifteen seconds, then asks blankly, "What's the difference between those red oriental sweet potatoes and regular ones?"

Um, they're red, for starters.

I am not cooking this Thanksgiving, but I am baking.  I'm making various non-yeast breads (coffee cake, banana bread, pumpkin bread) and two pies (apple and pumpkin).  I bought stuff to bake some other things, as well, but these are my main staples.

I really want a sweet potato with my dinner tonight, though.

When I get home and put my groceries away, I find a sweet potato in the vegetable crisper.  I cook it up and eat it with some pre-roasted chicken and cornbread, a pre-Thanksgiving Protest Meal of sorts.  It's a sad day when my near-empty refrigerator has more basic Thanksgiving food than the grocery store.  Well, it's actually a happy day for me because I found the sweet potato, but it's a sad day for all those other shoppers, or, at least for the open-mouthed woman and the oriental red sweet potato guy.

PS. I'll admit I didn't know oriental red sweet potatoes existed, so forgive me if they're really something else  and I've offended anyone with my un-PC potato rambling. Happy pre-Thanksgiving, folks.

IRONY

We are studying irony in class right now.  We have actually been witnessing irony happening right before our eyes.

For example, there is a substitute who is a former teacher at our school.  Last year his three-year contractual position ended.  We figured he’d move on to greener pastures, but he hangs around and hangs around and hangs around.  A few weeks ago he just appeared sitting at a student desk while I was teaching.  I announced to the class, “Dude, you’re like a cockroach.  Every time I turn on the lights, there you are.”  I was using this sub as an example of irony recently when all of a sudden he appeared, yet again, in my class. 

In this one exchange, the class got to see all three kinds of irony in action:  Verbal irony because we were talking about him and … BOOM … there he was; Situational irony because we didn’t really want him there nor need him there and … BOOM … there he was for no good reason (he was supposed to be teaching another class in another wing of the building) the exact minute we spoke his name; Dramatic irony because we were all in on the joke and he wasn’t, like the audience being aware of something of which the character himself is ignorant.

Somehow this same class got talking about the flu shot, and one of my students proudly announced, “I NEVER get the flu.  I’m never sick!”  The next day?  Absent.  Reason?  Sick. 

Irony.

The best one has to be the approaching Thanksgiving, though.  For once, I am not cooking.  I’m going to a restaurant, one that’s not close to my house but an hour’s drive away.  I decide that this is the year I will not be sitting in my house cooking my arse off only to forget to wrap up leftovers and desserts for people, ending up with way too much food and way too many pounds attaching themselves to my hips.  Yup, this is the year I’ll go out and let someone else cook and clean and pack up leftovers.

Get ready for it; here it comes --  It … is … supposed ... to … snow … on … Thanksgiving.

From the sounds of it, the atmosphere just might drop a Nor’Easter on us.  Now, I’ve made fun of the weather people a lot.  I am constantly tattling on them for their histrionics and their Doomsday forecasts, and then we get nothing, or next to nothing.

Watch us get nailed with snow Thanksgiving afternoon so I can’t get to my dinner reservations. 

You know it’s going to happen.  You know this kind of stuff only happens to me.  You know if Mother Nature and the meteorologists can all get together and kick me in the proverbial rear-end, they’re going to do it. 

It’s okay, though.  I’ll just use it as another one of my teachable moments.  How ironic would that be?

TALES OF THE SIXTH DIMENSION

My friend’s house has become the sixth dimension, a place of multi-universes with no ordinary explanation but one of consistent extraordinary explanation.  You see, my friend’s house is to the universe what the dryer is to socks: It eats things. 

A few months ago, my friend had company from out of the country.  That’s not the extraordinary part.  The company consisted of multiple people who are allergic to my friend’s cats.  That’s not the extraordinary part, either.  In my friend’s house there is a bag full of hats and mittens, an L.L. Bean tote stuffed to its gills with knitted outerwear, and her two cats take turns sleeping in the tote.  Nope, that’s not the extraordinary part, at least not yet.

In anticipation of the allergic company’s visit, my friend moved the tote full of hats and mittens and cat dander.  This is the ordinary part of the extraordinary part.

The tote bag has disappeared.

My friend cannot remember where she moved the tote.  She only remembers that it is a large L. L. Bean canvas bag with red handles and packed so full that it can’t possibly fit in any small nook in her house.  She has searched somewhat, and she and I have searched somewhat together.  No luck.

Late this afternoon, just after the sun sets, we decide to find that bag no matter what it takes. 

We work systematically.  The cats stayed in the basement while my friend’s company visited for over a week.  My friend is a smart and logical woman.  The obvious placement of the tote would be in the basement with the kitties since it already has cat hair in it.  It just wouldn’t make sense to put it anywhere else.  We search the basement, opening cabinets and checking shelves, even going into the catacombs of the stone cellar where I almost step on a dead field mouse.  Poor baby probably came in from the cold weeks ago, and I almost squish what’s left of him.  No tote full of hats and mittens, though.

We walk each inch of each room on the first floor, opening and shutting cabinets and closets.  We look under furniture, behind furniture, around furniture.  Nothing; no tote anywhere full of anything.  We even pull apart her sewing pile, as if the fully-stuffed tote could be unnoticed in with the leftover scraps of fleece and fabric.

Once we clear the first floor of any culpability in the caper of the missing tote, we head upstairs and start opening closets, moving items all around.  We look under beds, behind dressers, and in hope chests.  The small attic under the eaves, ice cold from the weather and lack of insulation (it’s a very old house), is our next search area.  We can’t find the tote there, either, and end up having to rescue one of the cats after he bolts into a corner of the storage room.

The last possible place is an alcove running along the top floor under the roof line.  We pull the few luggage items out and crawl in.  Nope.  No tote bag and no mittens and no hats.  It’s obvious that the bag is not inside this house anywhere at all.

We wonder if perhaps the tote ended up in her car or the garage or the attached shed.  It’s cold and dark out, but we trudge on, anyway.  We are determined, and nothing is going to stand in the way of locating the winter accessories.  We look high and low, in front of things and behind things, on shelves and below shelves.  My friend insists she would not have brought the bag into the garage, and I believe her.  Honestly, the only place that bag should be is in the basement, where we started looking in the first place.

The canvas tote bag has simply vaporized.  It has gone to the sixth dimension ala socks being sucked into vacuous Dryer Sock Land.

I wish this story had a happily ever after ending, but it doesn’t.  The canvas tote no longer exists on this plane, the plane of four dimensions.  It has moved past the fifth dimension and gone to the sixth, a place where it exists and doesn’t exist all at the same moment in time.

If you should see a random L. L. Bean canvas tote bag full of knitted mittens and hats, grab it and don’t let it go.  I suspect it’s in a TARDIS somewhere, space-trucking with Dr. Who.  This thought alone wouldn’t surprise me.  After all, Tom Baker’s Dr. Who wore a very long hand-knitted scarf – it would be just the type of booty the good doctor might like. 

LIGHTS OUT

This morning I have a Twilight Zone experience.

Just a few weeks ago, my class read the teleplay of The Twilight Zone episode titled “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street.”  The premise of the teleplay is that an unexplained power outage on a quiet street causes mayhem and murder.  You see, the residents think the inexplicable outage might be caused by aliens, so they turn on each other.  (Spoiler alert: They are correct.)

With all the talk about the Buffalo snowstorm, I have been thinking a lot about the electricity going out and how that rarely, if ever, happens here in my quiet neighborhood during storms.  I’ve been trapped by blizzards, iced in, lightning-stormed to near-oblivion, and had two microbursts come right over the house and take out two trees on two separate occasions.  All this time, I’ve never lost electricity.

At 3:40 this morning, though, I am awakened by silence.

I like white noise when I sleep, so I usually run a fan in my room.  It has been unusually chilly here in the Northeast, but I run the fan, just the same.  Thursday night I am still in recovery-mode from our school open house the evening before, and I am fighting off a nasty cold.  I decide to turn on the fan, turn down the bed, and turn in early.  After hours of correcting mediocre papers, I have hit the wall with a resounding smack.

I set three alarm clocks: an electric one with music, a battery-operated back-up alarm clock, and my cell phone.  As I settle into bed, I wonder if I should charge up the phone battery, but it’s still ¾ full, so I let it be.  The three-alarm system is not new to me.  I set the radio alarm, knowing that sometimes the reception is questionable and it doesn’t always wake me up fully.  The battery-operated back-up is in case the power stops during the night, but it is set about forty-five minutes later.  Waking to alarm #2 would mean rush-rush-rush!  Alarm #3 is set for right after my first alarm goes off, forcing me to get up, walk across the room a little bit, and shut off the phone.

Then, 3:40 a.m. hits.  I know it is 3:40 when the electricity stops because the white noise also stops, and I awaken almost immediately.  I realize the house is too silent, so I open my eyes … I … open … my … It takes me about fifteen seconds to realize that my eyes are open, but I cannot see a damn thing.  I instinctively reach for the light switch.  “Idiot,” I say out loud.  I fumble for the staircase flashlight.  Unable to find it, my cell phone and I make our way down the stairs and to the kitchen.  I locate the small flashlight and use that one to trudge back up the stairs to locate the larger flashlight, which I somehow missed in my blind fumbling.

This is where I have my “Monsters” moment.  There isn’t any storm outside, no wind, no snow, no loud crash of a vehicle into a telephone pole.  It’s eerily black in both sound and light.  I think for a second that maybe someone has cut the power.  Maybe the house is going to burst into flames.  Maybe aliens have landed and are causing me to go insane.

Get a hold of yourself, Kid.

I decide that a power outage isn’t so bad … unless, of course, I forgot to pay the electric bill (unlikely).  I gaze out the front windows and see some emergency lights on at the old mill buildings across the street.  I gaze out the side windows and see some emergency lights on the buildings nearby.  I finally look out the back window and see nothing but blackness.  It certainly is dark out, and I wonder if the moon exists anywhere at all.

I find the old Yellow Pages book I keep on hand in case of emergencies, and I look up the report line for National Grid.  After speaking to a woman for a few minutes (No, don’t send anyone directly to my house.  The whole street is out.  Yes, I have a phone but please don’t call me back.  It’s the middle of the night.), I discover that a small pocket of town, namely my street and one other, are experiencing power failure, but it should be back on in an hour.  I settle into bed knowing I have a battery-operated back-up alarm, along with my still relatively-full cell phone alarm.  I should be able to sleep, right?

Wrong.

I start running through the disaster of my morning should the electricity still be out at show time, 5:05 a.m.  I won’t have heat.  I won’t have hot water.  I won’t be able to wash nor blow-dry my hair (not to mention just plain old shower).  I won’t even be able to flat-iron the sleep out of my hair-do.

These thoughts keep my brain ticking along with the non-electric clock.  Tick – I’ll have to pull my hair back – tick – and wear a headband – tick – so much for getting to bed early – tick – I wonder if the neighbors realize there’s no power – tick ----  I start feeling like Ted Striker from Airplane:  “Echo... echo... echo... Pinch hitting for Pedro Borbon... Manny Mota... Mota... Mota…”

After almost an hour of this tossing and turning and turbulent thought process, the electricity whirs back to life, the fan comes back on, and all is right with the world.  I reset the alarm clock and fall into a light but brief sleep.  As soon as I get up, I turn on the heat and plug in the flat iron.  I’m not willing to attempt the shower.  My hot water heater is in the unheated basement, and keeping water hot is already a struggle on a normal day.

In the end, Rod Serling does not make an appearance in my front room to announce the alternate universe, and the only alien-like being this morning is me and what my hair looks like no matter what I do to it.  (Later, the art teacher tells me my hair has never looked better and she really likes it like this.  She doesn’t know today’s hairstyle is one of electricity-deprived desperation.)  When I arrive home hours later, the electricity is still on, and all is right with the world again… except the clocks.  I still have clocks to reset.