charlotte harris

Life is simple and good, isn’t it.  When you work hard all week just to have a few bucks to spend having fun when it’s all over?  I love a good Saturday night. 

It started with dinner.  July 5th was overcast and cool enough to actually crave warm cheesy carb-y comfort food.  I did all the cooking, of course, then kicked back on the balcony with a cold Magic Hat No. 9 (or three) and my Real Simple Magazine, and waited for my date to come up and for the oven timer to ding.  

Later we went to see a movie where we propped our feet up on the balcony wall at the theater.  I get cold indoors in the summertime, so MF teased me for the umpteenth time “don’t forget to bring your parka [it's just a sweatshirt that I carry everywhere with me all summer] to the theater!”   

Then we came back to my place and used every letter except Q.  That’s not a euphemism for anything saucy.  We just laid on the living room floor and played this game.  Is “damn” a legitimate Scrabble word?

we rock at scrabble

Channel 9 news last night interviewed regular ole’ folks on the street in DC about the words recently added to the Webster’s dictionary.  Random, professional-looking people on the streets of DC did not know what edamame meant.  I am stunned that educated people could not define this, among several other common everyday words.  I do not want viewers to think that DC area residents are all so ignorant.  Oh wait, I am getting my news from Derek McGinty - maybe I shouldn’t be so smug.

Anyway, in this wonderully multiculti metro area, how is it that a person could not have encountered edamame at some point?  I mean, even if you’re not into sushi, I am pretty sure average Joe has at least been into a Benihana or watched some Food Network.  Harris Teeter even sells edamame, frozen right next to the Tater Tots, for cripies sake.

Give ya a hint… you could serve edamame or coconut shrimp, but not steak, to a pescatarian. 

Oh that’s right, they were also unable to define pescatarian. 

BTW, why do pescatarians get their own word?  Why must we so narrowly define how we eat… is there ever an occiasion where one would find herself at a loss were it not for this new word: pescatarian?   I get it… vegan, vegetarian, carnivore.  But pescatarian?  You eat some foods but not others.  Don’t we all make food choices? Yes.  But do we each insist on our own special label?  No.  I personally choose to eat like 5-6 servings of fruit per day but I never eat steak.  That’s pretty specific… Do I inisist on being labeled a fruit-itarian?

What about prosecco?  Nope, they’d never heard of it.    Or an infinity pool. 

It’s not about being a smartypants.  It’s about having experiences, living life, getting out and learning new things.  I had prosecco with brunch just the other day with my gym ladies.  I make edamame salad at home quite often and eat them with salt at the sushi buffet.  I stayed at an inn with a very serene infinity pool several years ago.  I don’t remember why or how, but I know what a freakin’ pescatarian is - if only because I am so hung up on the ridonkulousness (add THAT, Webster!) that they get their own word.  I kinda wish I didn’t know what a pescatarian is. 

People of DC, get out of the house and expand your horizon (and your vocabulary), and in return I will get off my high horse.   In the meantime, next post: “Nobody Cares about McGinty’s Mailbag.”

I was thinking about my blog-friend Geekhiker and his recent post about writers block.  He was referring specifically to a case of the blues causing him to repeatedly get halfway through writing a post and decide it’s too boring to publish.

I can relate, not about having the blues, but about having writers block sometimes.  I don’t write sometimes because my days are just humming right along, uneventful.  Most days I go to work, work out, grocery shop, go on a date, talk to my peeps on email or the phone and sleep.  Most days nothing out of the ordinary happens.  Sad to say, many days nothing really gets my wheels spinning. 

I have a theory about blogging.  Telling a story shouldn’t be a chronological recap of an event.  A good storyteller will take an unusual highlight from an event and wrap a story around it.  Perhaps weave two stories together, related only by a single unusual detail.  If I can’t do that, with the exception of my race recaps, I generally don’t want to write.

I remember coming back from Bonnaroo with so many stories.  Stories about waking up to find my tent surrounded by water, bragging about not showering for 5 days,  describing how I snuck over to the porta-potties at 6am every day just to use them while they were still “clean,”  about how the car got towed on the last day and we hitchhiked to the highway, how my back hurt from standing up for so many great bands all day, and how we ate cold dough-y bagels while everyone around us was frying up bacon and eggs for breakfast every morning. 

I think it was my Sis who said “sorry you had a bad time.”

Whaaa?  In fact it was an AWESOME time.  I loved Bonnaroo.   While I have some stories that sound to other people like a bad time, I don’t actually have a single complaint about my Bonnaroo experience.  We were simply amateurs then, and we made mistakes and learned so many lessons.  Lessons intermingled with some great music and naked-people-watching.  The other people were naked, not me.  I mean, we hid the jelly jar in the tail light because we didn’t want to get kicked out for having a glass container.  Amateurs I tell you.

If you asked me “how was Bonnaroo?”  I could have answered, “it was cool, the music was great, I saw so many bands.”  Which was absolutely true… but that’s not a story.  OR I could have said “it was so much fun, but you won’t believe the crazy shit that happened on Saturday night.  Jess and I were chilling in our tents listening to the Grateful Dead and I fell asleep whenever it started raining.  I woke up in the middle of the night to take some Tums and stepped out of my tent and sank into shin-deep water.   I looked around and saw that we were camped in a depression where the rainwater was pooling.  The guys were still down at the stage so we just moved all the tents to higher ground and hoped the guys wouldn’t crawl into the wrong tent when they came back.  It turns out the spot where I moved my tent was right next to where the dude adjacent to us liked to pee in the middle of the night, so I had an embarrassing encounter with him on one of my smoke breaks.”

In my opinion, there was nothing bad about any of that experience, but boy did it shake things up.  So that’s what I remember.  I don’t remember what the North Mississippi All Stars sang that weekend, but I remember I loved their sound, and that watching that act was the only time I got in the shade for 5 days.  I don’t remember Galactic’s set, but I remember standing there in the pouring rain, dancing like a goof in my big baggy rubber raincoat while some hippy chick passed out over in the spiral potatoes line.  I think I was so sore and exhausted and flat-backin’ in tent town by the time the Dead went on stage but I will never forget how the breeze carried the sound all the way over to Camp Snagglepuss and how they sang me to sleep.  I don’t care how broken my back felt, how cool is that?  Totally worth it.

Those of us who were raised on Aesop’s Fables and the Grimm Brothers’ Fairy Tales know that in any good story there’s a heroine who makes a mistake and learns a lesson.  There can’t be a moral of the story if there was no error in judgment to begin with.  I guess that’s my take on storytelling.  I’m not going to sit down and write about my day that went perfectly.  Or the concert that went perfectly.  Booooring.  I like it when things get shaken up.  Instead I am going to write about what turned my average day into an adventure.  If something wacky happened along the way, then I might remember to tell people about it or even blog about it.   

Moral of the story:  Never go to Bonnaroo without bacon, eggs, glass-bottled beer, a lawn chair and a tarp, regardless of what the posted rules state.  Oh and, not that I ever would, but apparently you’re also allowed to bring Molly, eeeeverybody was calling her name.

OK, the “fuel crisis” finally hit me. 

Wednesday night, nearing empty, I handed the clerk the last $20 from my wallet and pumped as much gas as that bill would buy me.  At $4.059, I got about a quarter of a tank.  It didn’t even last me until payday.  The money in my savings account is not earmarked for gasoline, but I had to go there this time. 

And so I started to wonder… how do I get through the rest of the summer without seeing red at the bottom of my balance sheet each month?  I can’t continue to “borrow” from my savings account for the duration of this economic slump. 

The sucky answer is… I am doing less fun stuff because I have less money to do it with.  I skipped a race Saturday so that I wouldn’t have to pay the registration fee.  I am skipping a swim event in July for the same reason –  I am skipping the two-mile cable swim that has been on my event wish list for a whole year, because I don’t want to spend the $40 entry fee PLUS all the gas money to get there and back, just to swim for 80 minutes and go home. 

And that’s just exercise!  What about food and dates and concerts and stuff?  I actually suggested we go “out to dinner” to CalTort the other night ‘cuz I knew it would be cheap!  Ba ha ha ha…

I’m normally about spending more on nutrition and exercise so that I won’t have to spend money on clothes for an expanding waistline.  But now, even exercise is becoming a luxury expense.   Sure, I can run a 10K myself on the W&OD for free anytime I want, so no need to pay 30 bucks to do it, right?  But what about the pool?  I must belong to an indoor pool with lap swimming lanes.  That costs me.

Oh, and I find myself second-guessing the price of fresh veggies from the farmers market.  While stuff like boxed mac ‘n cheese is still so cheap. 

I remember learning in health class in college about the paradox that poor people are obese.  You’d think poor people would be skinny because they’re starving… but the opposite is true.  They’re obese because it’s the crappy fattening non-nutritional food that costs the least.  Just one dollar will buy you a box of mac ‘n cheese, a fast food burger or burrito, or 6 packs of ramen noodles.  But a single red bell pepper costs $2.39.

I’m rambling here… but now I am thinking… my body won’t run on ramen noodles… but maybe my Jeep would?   

So one recent Sunday morning (during the 7 o’clock hour) I was cycling out on the W&OD.  I was on the stretch of trail that cuts through Sterling when I noticed an unusual trend. 

Three different times in an approximate two mile stretch I encountered what I can best describe as “elderly Asians armed and ready to defend.”

Couple #1, strolling westbound, carrying a badminton racquet (no birdie, no net, no nothing, just a racquet)

Couple #2, strolling eastbound, female carrying a long skinny, pointy metal rod*

Man #1, strolling eastbound alone, brandishing a Kubotan

Then out again early two Saturdays ago, on the same stretch of trail, I saw two guys out, similarly armed.  The morning’s theme was “Latino men armed and ready to defend.”

Man #1, jogging westbound solo, wielding a long metal rod*.  Young-ish guy, wearing athletic gear, out for a legitimate run.  He smiled at me. 

Man #2, strolling westbound alone, also brandishing a Kubotan

Is there a voilent Asian-vs-Latino war happening out there?  Or am I naieve to the dangers of early morning exercise?  Are these folks particularly afraid of the deer crossing the path to get their breakfast?   Or is Sterling the ‘hood?!

* No they were not fishing poles or walking sticks or the like.  I am talking about makeshift weapons here.

Race: Moomaw Madness aka Bath County Sprint Distance Triathlon
Date: Saturday, June 21, 2008, 8:00 am
Location: Warm Springs, VA
Race Type: Triathlon - Sprint Distance
Age Group: Female - my USAT age is 35
Time:  I was my slowest triathlon yet!  How did I manage to get slower!?!?  It was the hills, I tell you.  Oh yeah, that and that fact that I have been slacking off on the bike. 

Virginia is for (hill) lovers… and I am officially a flatlander.  The majority of the top finishers were actually from hilly parts of the region.  This was a small (<350) event in beautiful setting, with a fabulous swim.  Alas my overall time was 25 minutes slower than a race of similar distance that I did back in October.  These hills absolutely wrecked me.  I knew ahead of time that I wouldn’t do too great so I didn’t even stress about pushing it.  I just relaxed and had fun and enjoyed a gorgeous morning!

Pre-pre-race: Friday I left work around noon, stopped home to throw my gear in the car, and drove down to Millboro VA to meet up with several other triathletes with whom I was sharing a rental house.   Going into the weekend, I only knew one of them, and even so, only very superficially.   So I opted to just stay Friday night, while the rest of them would be staying all weekend to do some sightseeing and barbecuing post-race Satuday night.

4 hours to Millboro VA but kept driving and went directly to packet pickup over in Warm Springs.  Once I finally made it to the house, I learned quickly that I liked everyone else in the group, so Friday night was fun and relaxing.  We cooked a group dinner, compared maps, relaxed on the back porch, and laughed about the jackass that brought us all together.

Pre-race: Saturday morning, breakfast of natural peanut butter on a slice of whole grain bread and one tiny cup of coffee.  Drove an hour to the race site and set up in transition.  Uneventful routine of chip pickup, body marking, and socializing.  I had already opted not to wear a wetsuit, so the chilly air temps (55 maybe?) had my teeth chattering and me doubting my choice of no wetsuit and kinda wishing I didn’t have to get in the water.  Thank goodness I overheard some girls say they dipped their feet in the water and that it was warmer than the air, and I relaxed once again.

Swim:  I got in the water a couple waves ahead of my own in order to get my body used to the cold.  That did the trick, so by the time my swim wave got the horn, I was calm and ready.  It was my most enjoyable, relaxed, and confident OWS ever.  I’ve decided that as long as my swims are in the warm months (and not in the Potomac - eiw), I will never wear a wetsuit again.  I don’t need it for safety, especially at such a short distance, and I felt so FREE without it.  I don’t care if I lost a little bit of the streamline/buoyancy advantage… it was worth it having a fabulous time out there.  I was doing bi-lateral breathing, and sighting was easy because there were plenty of large bright buoys.  The only negative was this one chick who was trying to swim over me early on.  I mean c’mon, this is just the ‘lil ole’ Bath County Sprint, no need to try and drown your competition.  Swim around me if you must.  People take this stuff way to seriously. 

Speaking of taking things too seriously… other athletes who try to talk to me about ”racing” drive me crazy.  I do this just for my fitness and enjoyment.  It’s personal to me and I have no interest in comparing notes.  I don’t care how you ranked, but I care if you enjoyed your race.  I love swimming and I love running and I kinda like riding my bike… but I am never going to be a competitor.  That is not my personal goal, so stop trying to lump me in there.  Whenever I call my mom after any sort of race I tell her “I won!”  That’s about as serious as I take this stuff. 

FAQ:

What’s your strongest event?”  None of them!  But I love to swim and run.
“How did you do?”  I had fun!   or Man that was hard!
“What was your time?” Are you asking because you genuinely care about me?  Or are you asking because you’re curious how we stack up?

T1:  Boy did I take my sweet time here.  I took some sips of water and fiddled with my helmet.  I had a lot of gravel to wipe off my feet.  Oh, and I almost mounted my bike too soon!  Luckily some girl who had come out of the water with me yelled over and teased me about our slow transition and I saw she was not on her bike, so I realized my almost-error, and swung my leg back to the ground. 

Bike:  Every time I get out of Northern Virginia I fall in love with this beautiful state all over again.  As I was driving into Bath, these were my sentiments:  I love the rolling hills, the views, the lush scenery, the countryside.  But then I got on my bike at the race.  And suddenly the rolling hills of Virginia were my enemy.  I had to get off my bike and walk it up a hill.  TWICE.  I have not in recent memory gotten off a bike to get it up a hill.  But then again my idea of a hill these days is an overpass on the W&OD.  It was an out-and-back, and so this single hill got me coming and going. 

On the way out, I did the whole standing-up-and-jerking-my-bike-from-side-to-side thing until I lost all momentum and gave up.  I simply hadn’t been expecting it.  So I gave in, got off, and resumed riding at the top of the hill.  On the way back, I knew what to expect, so I shifted gears at appropriate intervals, tried standing up, and finally shifted into the next chain ring, at which point, I went “uh-oh” and the bike just stopped.  I was trying to do what I saw the mountain bikers do, but I didn’t do it soon enough.  It wasn’t until I started rolling BACKWARDS that some other guy creeping up the hill too with every ounce of strength he had left was like “are you OK?”  I just had to laugh.  There is soooo much more to say about this ride, but I just don’t want to talk about the bike anymore right now.  ;-)  Let’s just say I averaged slower than 12 MPH - ba ha ha ha ha ha.

T2:  I just put on my race belt and blew my nose real quick.  I think this might have been my fastest transition to date.  

Run: I love running these days, and I have been running my ass of in training.  But no matter how much I ramp up my running endurance, I never seem to get over the peg-leg feeling that invades my left leg every time I run straight off the bike.  My shin muscles in that leg stiffen up to the point where I run funny.  I put my left foot down like I am running on a wood plank sneaker.   It’s no joke - 2 days later the muscles in that part of my leg still hurt.  I think I need to talk to a professional about working through this issue.  The run was also hilly, so I just did the “Ironman shuffle” up those hills — barely a notch above walking at some stretches.  If this had been a run-only though, the hills probably wouldn’t have seemed so bad. 

Post Race:   No typical post race food.   Where were the bananas?!  Thank goodess I had a Clif bar in my bento box, because there were no bananas, no bagels, no Gatorade.  Setup Events always has great food, so this was a surprise.  The locals provided a barbecue for all athletes with pork barbecue sandwiches with slaw, macaroni salad, beans, fruit salad, and iced tea.  But that didn’t start until about 10:30 or so, so there were a lot of cranky athletes out there.  Anyone who works out knows you need to eat almost immediately after such an event.  Not 30-60 minutes later! 

I said goodbye to my housemates after we ate and went back to take an AWESOME shower and pack up.  I hit the road back to NoVA and I was sad to leave Bath County and George Washington Nat’l Forest.  I can’t wait to go back for just a fun weekend of camping, hiking, and more swimming in Lake Moomaw.

Lessons learned:  I crossed the finish line with a great deal of energy left.  I had so much “left in my tank,” so to speak.  So I clearly don’t have problems with endurance at this point - I have problems with my lack of cycling and my tri-peg-leg.  And another biggie: I tend to hold back too much energy.  For example, I need to stop conserving and just let it all out on the swim because I really don’t need my upper body again during the race.  

So back to the whole “taking things too seriously” rant, right now I like my motto, ”slow and steady finishes the race,” because it really does make my regular workouts enjoyable, which is crucial if I am going to keep doing this.  If I had to do speed work in lieu of my morning 6 mile jog, or if I had to forego leisurely weekend rides with MF in order to speed ahead by myself, I don’t think I’d be as enthusiastic about any of it.  Kinda like how I love swimming so much more now than I am not with a team.  But I am also slower — it’s a tradeoff.   A tradeoff I certainly prefer! 

Next Tri: Patriots International in September - my first Olympic distance - on a FLAT course!

So I am skipping town today to head to Bath County Virginia.  I have a race Saturday morning.  I am going to spend the night in a rental house with a bunch of other triathletes, only two of whom I “kinda sorta” know from the gym.  Overall I am excited - but there are a few things about Bath County that have me feeling apprehensive.

There is a possiblity that there will be a couple and their dogs staying at this house as well- and NONE of us know them.  The couple renting us the house “accidentally double booked the place” (we booked it first) and instead of telling the other couple “no,” the homeowners actually asked us if we’d share the house “because after all, the folks are also from Northern Virginia!!” I don’t know whether we agreed or not, but I guess I will find out tonight!  Should be interesting.

We’re going to cook a group meal tonight using the home’s amenities.  One girl did all the grocery shopping and we’re just going to give her money.  You all know that I am skeerd to use the dishes in hotels or rentals unless I wash them myself first.  Whoever rented the place last knew they’d never have to use the dishes again so who knows how well they cleaned them when they were done?  My dilemma is, do I let my housemates know I am this crazy or should I just roll with it and eat off the dishes straight out of the cabinet?!  Ha ha ha.

Oh, did I mention that I have barely been riding my bike?  I did email one of my cohorts and admitted that it’s gonna be a slow ride for me, and he confirmed that while it’s hilly at first, the last 6 miles are all downhill, or something like that (he did this race last year).  So that’s cool, I’ll get the hard part over with early.  Then I can stretch my legs on the downhill in preparation for the run!  Wheeeee!

Afterwards, we get a free meal - barbecue or something like that.  Yum!  After I fill my belly I am gonna shower at the house and head back to NoVA.  I had the option to spend the entire weekend at the house whith these folks and have a cookout at the house on Saturday night, but I am heading home instead to get ready for some other fun weekend plans.  Nothing scary about that, BUT do you know what they’re all going to do after the race?!?!? 

They’re going to go dip themselves in the hot springs (hence the name Bath County) and if you don’t know why that’s gross to me I may never be able to explain.  Happy Friday and look forward to a race report in the next few days!

Does everyone know Meghan McCain?  She’s the 23 year old daughter of John McCain.  You know John, of course.

Meghan McCain is a fellow blogger, I have her in my favorites (yes, I am so old school that I still check all your blogs daily via my Internet Explorer favorites list!).  I first developed a blog crush on Meghan McCain (And by blog crush I mean, if I was 23 and on the campaign trail, I think I’d want her to be my BFF.)  when I saw her wearing this hat. 

Photo Credit: http://www.mccainblogette.com/arcs/feb_28_mar_01.shtml

Seriously I love that hat so much, I started actually checking her blog for more pictures of it.  I wanted to find a better pic of that hat so I could print it out and take it with me to stores.  It wasn’t like I was visiting her blog so I could read all about her dad.  And every day when I would check her blog, I would just read whatever she wrote.  And then I stopped looking for the hat and started having fun learning about a really impressive young role model and her behind-the-scenes expose of the campaign trail.

She’s as hot and stylish as any of the celebri-tarts her own age.  But she’s an Ivy League grad.  In one photo you see her sitting on the plane reading People magazine and in the next photo you see her casually chatting it up with political icons.  She always dresses in spandex and wears these insane knee high leather boots in all seasons.  But she interacts primarily with blue suits 30 years her senior.

She’s the only McCain child on the campaign trail with her father.  You can tell she’s doing it for the experience and because she loves her family, not because she’s a cog in the political machine or prepping herself for a career in politics.  She’s being herself, and what’s cool is that her parents obviously trust her to be herself.  From what I can tell, it doesn’t look like the McCains have pressured Meghan into dressing or acting the part, nor have I heard her be very outspoken on behalf of her father as a candidate.  In fact, while being supportive of her dad, her blog is otherwise not political at all.  It’s a very cool nonpartisan look behind the scenes of a family and friends having fun on the campaign trail. 

Meghan and her fellow blogettes, her friends Shannon and Heather, capture all the offbeat moments on the trail with a sense of humor:  ”Sen McCain” written in a bowl of hummus, catching a campaign button salesperson sleeping on the job, finding a Pez dispenser that looks like her Dad, the day her hair turned purple, and commenting on Arnold Schwartzenegger’s cowboy boots.  She types makeup tips, iPod mixes, rates reporters’ wardrobes, and answers goofy reader questions.

I can’t figure out how to permalink to specific posts on McCain Blogette, but a couple of my favorite posts were:

3/10/08: “Inner Beauty” Meghan spoke out against people who have criticized her weight and body shape.  Whaaaaat?!  She’s hot!   She has the confidence to know that she is a role model for a healthy body and wants young girls to remember that happiness equals beauty, not being a size zero.

6/12/08: “Republican” The post in which Meghan changes her political party affiliation from Independent to Republican.  While not necessarily in line with my own preferences, I completely respect anyone who makes such an important choice with an open mind and without being pressured or influenced.  I respect that Meghan McCain remained an Independent in a very political family for so long.  It shows that whatever decisions she makes, even if they are ultimately to follow her family, they are her own carefully-considered choices.

I have really grown to respect Meghan McCain.  She is the type of young woman I wish I would have pulled my s#!t together to be at age 23.  And if I could meet her today I would totally ask her where she got THAT HAT! 

When a friend of mine didn’t know how to tell her teenage children that she was going into surgery for pure cosmetic reasons, she lied to them.  She told them that she had to have a breast lump removed and that she decided to have them enlarged since she was already going to be under the knife.

She’s apparently never had to be on the receiving end of that kind of news.

My own mother found out today that her cancer is in two different parts of her breast.  She will undergo surgery again.  Twelve years ago they removed a tumor.  This time they’ll take her whole breast.   I am not so much scared for her as I am just so sad.  I am a grown woman hearing this news and all day long I still can’t stop crying for my Mommy.  She says she doesn’t need me to go to her, but I can’t help but think she’s just saying so to protect me.

So I paused a minute and thought about how two emotional teenage kids would have felt hearing that kind of news.  How their mom did the opposite of protect them from it.  And I am angry with my friend for using that particular lie to get a sympathy vote from her own children.  It was just so insensitive. 

Then there’s my mom, who once delivered bad news to me by cheerily saying “I’m coming to visit and oh by the way I have some news about Dad!” and then drove all the way to Virginia to tell me he was in the hospital.  I thought she was going to tell me good news like he won a prize or something.  I think she even waited to tell me until after we’d eaten lunch.  OK well that was probably just because I was a starving college kid.  Point is, she’s a thoughtful mom, she wanted to tell me in person so I could see she was not bs’ing me, she’s not the type who wants her kids worrying.

It’s like the wrong mom’s breast got picked for cancer.

Comments are closed.  I don’t want to hear anyone tell me how evil I am for thinking that.

Ya know, I don’t come across much blog humor.  Doesn’t make much sense considering all of the funniest people I have never met are bloggers.   

But then I heard this.  Not only is it blog humor, but it’s pretty clever.  Well, at least I think it’s hilarious.  I couldn’t not share this gem I read on my favorite Vermont author’s blog.   He was eavesdropping and overheard a high school boy:

“I wouldn’t want a blog.  Too much work.  And it sounds like a wart, anyway.  ’I have a blog!’  Well, why don’t you go put something on it?”