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November 25, 2007
taunting
After taking almost 3 weeks off running (minus a 4k run) I expected to lace up my shoes and run like I have never run before. You see in my head, a 3 week hiatus = miracle. Three weeks of pampering my sore foot and tender IT band should be rewarded by them performing, well, better than normal. Like someone elses foot and IT, someone faster than me. They would inspire all the other muscles and body parts with their speed and enthusiasm and I would be fast. Then we would all live happily ever after.
I ran. There has been no miracle. It hurt.
There was a moment around mile 5 where things started to feel good. My knee stopped twinging and my foot stopped throbbing. I looked to the heavens for the bright white light that I feel should accompany all miracles. It was very sunny so I couldn't tell if it was my miracle or I was looking directly into the sun. I could be in shock. You read story of people who are in accidents and don't feel their injuries. Not that I am comparing my aching foot to having a leg severed, obviously, my foot is way more painful.
Then as quickly as feeling good came, feeling good left.
arghhhhhhhh
Posted by Ali at 6:39 PM | Comments (5)
November 23, 2007
on being single ...
There are days when I really don't want to be single. Days where I would like nothing better than to share life with a special someone. There is nothing better than falling in love. Butterflies in your stomach, bounce in your step and joy in your smile. I do truly, madly, deeply want that. It doesn't just fall into your lap. You don't just wake up one morning and they are there ... no matter how much you drink the night before, the one lying next to you is probably not the 'one'.
So you must go out there and find them. This involves dating. I have always thought myself quite a good judge of character. I have thought I was successful at dating, well besides for the fact that I am still single, other than that, successful.
A friend of mine wrote a play. A play about dating. All the stories in it were true. She used some of my experiences. I went to see the play on Wednesday night.
I have come to the following conclusion ....
In a room full of 200 seemingly eligible, successful, normal, caring, wanting to commit, employed, independent and healthy males. I will find and be attracted to, within 10 minutes the only man in the room with some kind of addiction, committment problem, baggage issues, who is 'between jobs' and describes their current relationship state as complicated.
That's who I will want to date.
Posted by Ali at 2:44 PM | Comments (13)
November 17, 2007
I'd be ...
I am sitting at gate 33 waiting to board my plane.
I wish I had 'magical' powers.
If I was a magical character or superhero, I think I would be Samantha Stephens from Bewitched. She could do anything. Twitch her nose and make anything happen. Disappear. Reappear somewhere else. Blink and have whatever you want.
I would blink right now and be home.
I had thought about being wonder women, she has a cute outfit and an invisible plane. But you are always fighting crime and saving the world. As soon as you start doing that, people hunt your ass down.
Yes, I would definitely be Samantha ... who would you be?
Posted by Ali at 11:35 AM | Comments (9)
November 14, 2007
magical
I arrived late last night at the magical kingdom, after two planes, some turbulance and the token drunk guy who got on board in Detroit. I prayed he would not sit next to me, guess what, he sat next to me! We were 3 rows from the entrance and behind first class. He didn't wait for me to get up to let him in, he just climbed over ... fun ... then started shouting and elbowing me about how excited he was to be in first class. I laughed. Then he passed out. I smiled.
I boarded the magical coach that whisked me away to the kingdom. The kingdom where everyone over uses the word magical. Have a magical day! Your magical pass!
If I smoked a little something something I think I would be well into the magical. I'm pretty sure some of the cast members must have some. I think I'll accidently go into the cast only areas and see if they can hook a sister up!
Right, I've registered for the conference, got my bag. That was exhausting, must go lie by the pool for a magical amount of time!
Posted by Ali at 11:11 AM | Comments (6)
November 11, 2007
tagged
I've been Tagged!
rules:
• link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
• share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
• tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
• let them know they are TAGGED by leaving a comment on their blog.
My tagger:
Because I am as efficient and creative as Dunder Mifflin employee, I am combining five random facts and an update on my week! I know, exciting right!
1 .... I have not run at all this week, so my grand total on mileage for the last 14 days is still 4k! No I am not being lazy (see point 3) but my foot is still killing me. I swear it's broken. It's not, but that's how painful it is. ... random fact I tend to be over dramatic
2 ... Even though I have decided not to run, knowing it will help me, I feel guilty. Guilty about not running. It's like I can't even enjoy my recovery time. random fact I am never satisfied
3 ... I've become a gym person. I've been there 6 times in the last 7 days. I've swam, lifted weights, pedalled a bike that didn't go anywhere and done a class. Random fact people aren't as friendly at the gym, they seem slightly uncomfortable with my hellos and general chattyness
4 ... My washing machine is leaking, I've had to buy a new one. It doesn't get delivered til Tuesday, but I leave for a conference tomorrow, so need clean clothes. I could buy new stuff, but my life savings has been spend on something made by magtag. So I put all my clothes in the basket, with the laundry detergent and fabric softener and hauled myself down to the laundry room in the building. Turns out they got rid of the machines last year cause no one used them. Random fact I don't read the newsletter from the building management company.
5 ... My conference is in ... Florida ... oh yeah ... Disneylandworld! I could care less about Mickey and his posse, unless they are serving me drinks poolside. Random fact I plan to get a tan while attending this conference.
You've been tagged:
Tea, Deene, Jes, Nancy, Amanda
Posted by Ali at 7:01 PM | Comments (5)
November 8, 2007
a drunk story
Since I haven't run again after my epic 4km run on Saturday morning, I thought I would humour Amanda and post a story about being drunk.
A few years back when I lived in England, my very best friend got a part in a West End (British equivalent to Broadway) musical. We went out to celebrate and got very very drunk. Word slurring, telling everyone you met you love'm, dancing with your hands in the air drunk. Me and D (D was my husband) got home around 3am in the morning and staggered to bed, where we both passed out.
This would have been just another drank too much, woke up with a hangover, promised to never drink again nights, except for what happened at 4am.
At 4:00 am
A noise woke me up. I wasn't particularly alert. I had only been in my drunken coma less than an hour. I couldn't place the noise. I passed out again.
Sometime later, not long, it woke me again. It was a loud sharp bell sound. What was that? I began to drift off again. There it was again. I was more alert now, I recognized the sound it was the phone.
It was definitely the phone, but it wasn't ringing, it was giving half a ring then stopping. Like someone had changed their minds just as the call connected.
The room was quiet again; I closed my burning eyes and began to drift off, when it happened again.
D: "Is that the f'ing phone?"
Me: "Yes, someone keeps calling and hanging up! Why are they doing that?"
The half ring came again.
Me: "Do something! Make it stop!"
D got out of bed, stumbled down the stairs. There was some banging and swearing then footsteps returning upstairs.
Me: "Did you make it stop?"
D: "I unplugged it!"
He was so smart, that's why I married him.
Then the noise came again.
Me: "It's still doing it!" as I pulled the pillow over my throbbing head I felt him get out of bed. He thumped down the stairs. There was more banging and doors slamming and swearing.
I heard him come back; I peaked out from under the sanctuary of my pillow. He looked happy, proud of himself, like a cat bringing home a mouse.
Me: "What did you do?"
D: "I've wrapped the phone in a blanket and hid it in a cupboard in the kitchen"
My hero!
Me: "I love you! My head hurts so much, I hate that phone."
He crawled into bed, and just as we positioned ourselves in the perfect spoon ... the noise came again.
Me: "It's back! You didn't fix it" I turned and screamed at him. "Make it stop!" I demanded. He rolled over, grabbed my pillow and buried himself from me and the world's most annoying noise.
Asshole! Seriously-useless-piece-of-shit! I would have to fix this.
So I stormed down stairs, I put my ear next to the phone outlet. Sure enough the noise came again. It was coming from the outlet, where the phone line connects into the wall.
Me: "IT"S COMING FROM THE F'ING OUTLET!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "YOU NEED TO TAKE THIS OFF THE WALL" but there was no answer, no sound from upstairs.
The sound came again, I fell to the ground on the verge of tears in complete and utter despair.
Then, the light in my head went on. I'll call British Telecom, they can fix this. I found the phone in the cupboard in the kitchen. I unwrapped it carefully. It could still possess unexplained magical powers. Tentatively, I plugged it back into the outlet. I picked up the receiver, a dial tone, good.
I called British Telecom.
A lovely young man answered. I could barely speak. I was so happy to hear another human's voice, the voice that would make this madness stop, save me so I could sleep.
He asked me lots of questions, name, address, phone number, etc
Then I explained my predicament in great detail, with dramatic tone changes and sound effects. He listened patiently, till I was done.
BT guy: "The phone rang even when you disconnected it?"
Me: "Yes, but, I've figured out, it's not the phone .. it's the outlet. My outlet is ringing. Please please send someone, fast to make it stop. I may kill my husband. He is sleeping. He doesn't care" I start to cry.
BT guy: "Okay, just hang on a second."
I relax. My savior, the BT helpline guy is performing some technical test to stop this evil ringing. I slide down the wall and sighed with both relief and exhaustion.
He was back
BT guy: "Miss ... we can have someone out there between 12 - 6pm"
Me: "WHAT?" that's more than six more hours of this torture. Just as I am about to lose my freaking Irish mind. The phone gives half a ring.
BT guy: "Was that the noise?"
Me: "YES, YES! That's it! Isn't it unbearable?"
BT guy: "But you are on the phone"
Me: "Duh, obviously! Look my phone is obviously possessed, send someone now, I am begging you!"
Then there is silence.
Finally the BT guy speaks, and I will never forget this moment.
BT guy: "Is there a smoke detector on the ceiling above you?"
Me: "A what?" as my eyes look directly above me, and land on the flashing smoke detector.
That's when I sobered up
Me: “Yes” I said very quietly and sheepishly
BT guy: “I think it needs new batteries.”
Posted by Ali at 11:18 AM | Comments (77)
November 6, 2007
the kilometer ...
I knew the day would come. Sooner or later someone would ask “What is a kilometer?”
I could have answered this question directly or in the comments, thus bumping up my numbers and my ego at the same time. However, now faced with a running blog and no running to report on, I thought what better way to fill some empty space on my blog and provide an educational service.
The Metric System
... is a decimalized system of measurement.
The kilometer is unit of distance, equal to 0.6214* miles, sorry that was futuristic use of a zero and a dot, about 3/5* or 3107/5000 of a mile.
Kilometers are made up of smaller units, like meters. There are 10 1000** meters in a kilometer. Then smaller units like centimeters and millimeters you would find these on a ruler.
All the units in the metric system are based on the number 10. Like the number of digits on your two hands combined, or both feet if you are so inclined. See, so when it gets tricky, you can bring in this little piggy to help.
As a runner, you may recognize the term kilometer or KM to its friends. You have probably seen it in races. In big, long races, it’s usually where they put the chip mats down. In fact, in some civilized societies, they put the term km right there in the race title, like the Turkey Trot 5K. This probably has less to do with progress and more to do with marketing. KMs are sexy. A 5K race sounds way sexier than a 3.1 mile race.
You are probably wondering why I know so much about this metric system?
A connoisseur if you will on units and measures.
Well I live in Canada. We pump our gas by the litre and buy our weed by the gram. In 1970, we and most of the world adapted this system. I don’t know why the Americans didn’t, the president at the time was Nixon, and maybe he was busy with other things?
I don’t want our friendly neighbours beneath us to feel bad. If you ever choose to travel to say either Liberia or Burma, you will feel completely at home.
This posting is meant for educational purposes only. Any smug and superiour tones you feel have been used in the writing of this post have been done so for humour and my own personal entertainment. I am in no way insulting or belittling any person or nation. I don't have time for that, I am too busy counting all my valuable CDN $.
Tomorrow, the outcast letter 'U', why 'O' and 'R' chased it's ass out of town.
* approximately, I rounded up so as not to blow anyone’s mind with a lot of numbers
** data in this entry has been checked and verified by Smartass Vanilla of Half-Fast
Posted by Ali at 12:07 PM | Comments (23)
November 5, 2007
taking tylenol for my head ...
My weekly mileage is impressive. Last week I ran a grand total of ... four .... no not miles ... kilometers. Like I said, impressive. I would of convertered it to miles for you american readers, but then it would of been less than four, which would be verging on embrassing.
So that I don't feel guilty, I am converting alcoholic units to miles. Each unit is equal to one mile. So this weekend I have consumed, 4521 miles. See that seems much better than saying I drank, red wine, 4 bud lites, 2 caesars and a blurry amount of something resembling a martini.
Posted by Ali at 6:48 PM | Comments (8)