Susie makes it to the blog

And congrats to the photographer for having the patience to finally catch her smiling and not hiding from the camera.


one eye at 1:36pm

the full cover up, why doesn't she just wear a burqua?


Gotcha ! although I should have included the clock in each picture to see just how patient I was. And those sox are sure festive.


oh, and look, here's Scott escaping with 3 pairs of Levi's... 4 if you count the pair he's wearing. No, that's not a halo over him.

No chains for us

The cookies !

Sun to the snow

Our Saturday group run that Coaches Lesley and Tony led us on was a snow run. But there wasn't a lot of running.. We went from worried that there would be no snow (just rain and cold) to Holy Cow, it's 2 feet deep. and getting deeper! We ran on Snoqualmie Mtn. for 2+ hours. And we only ran 6 miles. It was slow going, running/trudging from footprint to footprint. Of course the first guy out was Tim (who is 6'8") and his steps are really far apart.

We had a blast !


i think the white spots are the flash catching snowflakes.

It looks like nightime but really just dark forest with no sunshine. I love Gina's hand on hip pose. Really she's saying "snap it, I'm freezing just standing still."

that's Tall Tim. now that I look, those gals look pretty tall, too. The snowman was there waiting for us. I think Tony made it the day before.



Gina is looking colorful, next to Tony's Always Running van.

Some of the Always Running gang just before starting uphill.



Check out this waterfall.
The whole run was just beautiful. Of course, I only noticed it when I stopped. Otherwise I had to concentrate on putting my feet into the previous runners' footprints.

No, I wasn't moving the candles around..... they change colors ...
at least I think they do, the mai tai's were very good.

Aloha

mai tai's, please
gina points out the turtle
you can see it, can't you?
a beautiful view, of my feet and toes
I have a picture of this dude, from just about every year. He's getting balder, but he still does the cliff dive.

We had a good time but "suffered" thru 4 days of rain. Yes, yes, at least it was a warm rain. But jeez. We did get to watch numerous sporting events on tv at the pool bar. And that is my kind of vacation.

More drumming

OK, I'm just delaying on writing anything.

But this is COOL ! of course, I'm a proud auntie.

Updated Drummer girl

so, the last video of Annalise drumming caused a bit of embarrassment, as it was from YEARS ago.... here is a more recent file clip of her and the Thousand Oaks H.S. drumline.

The Annual Green Jello Photo

Ahh, the green jello salad that Marilyn loves. Usually there is only one scoop taken, but I guess Betty had some, too this year. Or maybe Brett Favre stopped by for some post game jello.

aloha.

Swim swam swum

OK, so I have a few technical issues with my swim stroke. But nothing that can't be fixed according to swim teacher Cherilyn . By doing a million yards (laps) of drills. zz zzz I knew it going in, just wanted some tips on how to fix those bugs. I am just not moving enough water to get going fast. And I go backwards when I use the kickboard. Gotta find the 'forward' button on the board. Or learn how to kick correctly. So, now I'm gonna drill myself to death. in Maui.

I guess those swim lessons at Escanaba Public Beach when I was 8 just didn't do me any good. Funny about that, 250 screamin, giggling, freezing, nose picking, crying kids and 2 instructors. hmm

Really, right about now (8:30pm) I am awaiting the arrival of the totally clogged nose. So far, so good.

Packers win again !

Win some, lose some

I did an 8 mile run this morning with the group. A new route but not too exciting. The good news is my butt bone is feeling WAY better. And it 's not massively ache-y afterwards.

B U T ... the U M could not pull off a win against those other guys. :(

B U T the Huskies won a game ! wow.

B U T the Zags win again. The games are painful to listen tobecause one of the announcers is Craig Ehlo. Who was a decent/good player. He is pretty lousy at announcing. He had the gig with the Sonics and I think every game was like death for Kevin Calabro. Kevin is hands down THE BEST BBALL ANNOUNCER. but old Craig is, well, he's a hick from Texas. And he played his college time at WSU. 'nuf said. Basically, he's an idiot. with a hokey Texan accent. So, today's best line (and I do think I'm going to have keep a log of them) was when the crowd was getting quite loud. He says to his partner "we need one of those decimal thingys". pause "you know, the noise" ... then his partner says "OH, a deciBal Meter". sheesh.

And for the first 2 games whenever Larry Gurganious would come into the game, Craig insisted on calling him "LG" . Pretending that he's close with the guys and knows their nicknames, when really I think he couldn't pronounce it. The other guy would go to great lengths to say the full name. Well, tonight when LG got into the game Craig said his full name 3 times in one sentence. Like someone (either Mrs. Ehlo or LG's mom) told CE to learn to use Larry's real name because you can't call him LG through the season, and they must have practiced over breakfast Cheerios every day. It's not like it's a hard name. Sounds just like it looks.

Speaking of Kevin Calabro, the Sonic game we watched last week, he was paired up with Marques Johnson. NOW they were the best announcing team in the world. FUNNY ! Great stories without losing sight of the game. Ahh, it brought back memories. And the good news is Marques will do 8 more games this season. Those games I will watch/listen to.

Tomorrow is my swim lesson. Wish me luck.

Jump on the Sonics' bandwagon

Holy cow ! The Sonics are on a roll ! Their win streak is now at ............ 2 . Tonight's win came against Hot-Lanta. Our guy, Damian Wilkins got to show off for his uncle, 'Nique. and poured in 39 points. Still the game went into double OT... and almost triple OT but with 2.1 seconds, our new kid, Kevin Durant hit an improbable 3 pointer to win at the buzzer! Gina and I were off the couch high fiving, just like the good ol days.

OK, my swim lesson was cancelled and rescheduled for Sunday morning. Tomorrow morning is a group run, but only 8 miles. Tapering down for half marathon next Sunday. The good thing about the group runs is that they start very early. which is not necessarily good thing, but it will get me home in time to watch the BIG GAME. UMich hosts the #*!&#'s from ohio.

M ! GO BLUE !!!

oh, and Foxy Knoxy's dna was found on the knife that also has the victim's dna. stay tuned.

A Snail's Pace

S (L)O (W) , a snail appears on the window this morning, and before I can realize how F A S T it will move, it has moved at least 15 inches ! So, now I must photograph the process. Even I AM wise enough to not try and get video. (you're welcome) So here is a half hours worth of progress by our new pet Snail Bait.

First he crosses the window, then in reaction to the camera flash (even snails have papperazzi), he went down to the porch.. then across, in a zig zag pattern (like he was dodging bullets, yet slower) across the porch and then down the side.

Even as I type this I do not realize the looniness of this morning's fun.

But it could be cuz I'm listening my new tunes :

No One's Gonna Love You by Band of Horses

Hang Me Up to Dry by Cold War Kids

Lake Michigan by Rogue Wave

Shake It by Metro Station Shake It

Another Zag win

OK, that's only 2 wins but still, Austin Day !! he might be the real deal. Although I did have some misgivings as they were playing (ok, creaming) U of Idaho. Oh, did you all forget that I am a proud alumnus of that fine school ?? Helloo....My Master's degree ???

Oh, please.....do you all think bloggers are , let's see, how did Aunt Louise put it "just B.S. writers" ? (Gina reminds me daily of that line ) No, we are educated, degreed B.S. writers. Chime in anytime with a little support please, Joan.

Anyway, the Vandals' coach needs to get off the Krispy Kreme diet. Kind of embarrassing.

Today was a spin class. It was a great workout.

And if I can't think of anything to blahhhhhhhg about tomorrow, you'll all get an update on "Foxy Knoxy" .

Oh, I hear Alton Brown's voice. The one cooking show I find interesting.

Speaking of wins........ Unless the Sonics gave up a 21 point lead with 7:00 to go, I think they are finally off the schneide. But don't quote me on this because the Sonics are truly awful and capable of blowing that lead.

Another Day, another posting

But, I took no photos of anything today. so you are spared 1000 wordless words.

Here are some wordless numbers:
5:51, 5:59, 1:52, 1:51, 1:48, 1:47, :48, :47

Those are my 1200, 400 and 200 times at the track today. Right on the marks. Not too hard, not too easy. No major stress on the hamstrings.

It was a beautiful but chilly morning. The sun warmed things up, though. At the end of my workout I chatted with a guy that was doing some 400's. He had mentioned the Seattle half marathon coming up. When I asked was he running it, he said "I plan on winning my age group!" A bold statement. Esp. since he was not your typical distance runner body type. Quite fit but not in the emaciated way of most fast runners. More of a weight room looking kind of guy. Turns out he's military. He also wants to be fastest amongst military entries in the race. Bold. He said he had wanted to race the marathon in Tri Cities but couldn't due to "that business in Iraq". God, I just hate it when a war disrupts my race schedule. Ahhh, he seemed like a really likable guy. Very friendly, and all smiles while running his 400's. That is not usual. I wished him well. I have to make sure to check out his age group. Scott, 35-39.

Well, the Zags are on tv, again. Gotta go.

V. I. V.

That's shorthand for Very Important Visitors.

Unaware of my need for daily blog material, Jennie and young Marcus stopped by for a chat today. The photos show the 10 month growth spurt. He's a big kid. And cute as pie.


Not sure he wants to be a Sonic fan.
Who is these days?

Marcus' early days.

A Great Day !

It started out, as all days do, with coffee !

But then we had the Packer game to watch. And Brett was entertaining as usual. And some unknown running back, Ryan Grant, dominated the 1st half. A quick question? if your name is Ryan, do you HAVE to attend Notre Dame?

The only bummer was that the Packers were creaming the Vikings, so the network decided to skip out on the last quarter of the game and show some other game. zzz

But, the afternoon only got better.......... YES, my first college basketball game of the season. The Zags!! excellent. Cause for a celebratory beer. :) and remember this name, Austin Day. The kid is very exciting to watch. Not shy about shooting. Might fill the Adam Morrison void. Along with Pargo, Downs, and Bouldin I think the Zag season will be fun.

Yesterday was a 12 mile run. Starting near the 23/MLK/Rainier Ave area, UP to Jefferson Golf Course, around the resevoir, back down to MLK Way for 5 miles heading south, past RB High School, and back towards Seward Park. A different route. and I knew there would be some hills but one of the streets I'd never been on before, and by golly it was a massive hill. The name of it??? hmm seems it was named after a Notre Dame grad.

Be sure to check the list of other sites and blogs , Joan has joined the famous world of world famous bloggers. Hers probably won't have the same sort of drivel that this one does. You might actually learn something there. Like how many days are left in Bush's presidency. I hate to be a clock watcher but........ it was something I learned well in grade school.

Who Will Win, part 2

or



M Go Blue ! M Go Blue ! M Go Blue ! M Go Blue ! M Go Blue !

Who Will Win ?

2007 Dawg Dash 10K


The unknown, but bless her soul, Mary, on the left or Karen (KB, kickbutt) Buttram ??

A timing error had Mary as the winner, for a while. She does look like she was ready for any weather, so props for being prepared. I think that's an umbrella in her left pocket, or lunch, or a book, or a tent or, but.................come on, we all know KB runs 10K's in the 7:30/mile zone. And they had Mary beating her by 5 MINUTES !!!

And I know we should not judge books by their flopping rain jackets, or their much too large cotton t-shirt, or or the fact that she looks much bigger in these photos. OK, I'll stop there

The Dawg Dash folks have seen the light, and fixed that standings. I hadn't looked at them for a while, but would have been equally upset had I been shoved off the podium ( I was 3rd) by Mary, bless her soul.

Many thanks to KB for bringing this to my attention and feeding the day's blog fodder. And congrat's on a well run race. Official time 46:19
Mine was 49:51 so I guess it is possible to be beaten by almost 4 minutes and not be totally off target. :)

I've been waiting for a time when I would be cool enuf to use the term 'props'.
Peace, out.

The Clear

Does anyone remember my tendinitus problem in my foot ?? a year or so ago? No ? Gawd, don't you folks pay attention? to my injury blog. Anyway, I'm sure you remember that the good foot doc prescribed ice (of course) ibuprofen (of course) and what we affectionately call 'the clear'. It's a compound medicine, a cream, that is basically a topical anti-inflammatory.

So, I just remembered that Gina had some, too, from her foot problem. And there's some leftover. So I have been applying to the hamstring, and I don't want to jinx things, butt, within the day things are butt-er. Of course I haven't run today so tomorrow morning will be the test.

Although, I did give the massage therapist, Kathryn, most of the credit today, while she was working on my legs. Cuz I remembered the charlie horse she inflicted on my calf last week. What is torture ? I dare Mr. Mukasey to endure that, and say "hmm, not sure if it's torture." :) I digress. And I shall also give much credit to Terri, the PT. Lest she decide on yet another stretching method (torture) to increase my flexibility.

Anyway, back to the Clear. If it's good enough for Marion Jones, it's good enough for me. Gotta love left over medicines.

Hurry

We just got a recorded message from Qwest saying they will be doing work in our area in next 24 hours, and that our DSL connection might be down for up to 4 hours. OMIGOD !! no internet, for 4 hours ?!!

So, I needed to get today's posting in before that disaster strikes.

At least it wasn't yet another campaign phone call.

I see our commander (decider, torturer, loser) in chief has told Musharaff to lose the uniform. Yeah, like that will help restore democracy. And Condi will be there soon to see that he complies. oh, but sure, we'll keep sending the billions of $$.

OK, OK so it's a running blog, not political. But I get all fired up each day, after listening to Rachel Maddow on AirAmerica radio.

And I did run 4 easy miles. Of course, while I whiled away the pleasant morning , as soon as I was out running, it rained. sure. Then I tried to do some of the new core and glute exercises that coach lesley gave me last night.

And now I'm trying the new wine that Kathy and Val gave us.. Pinot Evil. and I must say, I'm liking K & V's gift better than Lesley's.

Ooops

So much for posting every day in November. I already missed yesterday. Wow... that sounds like a killer song title. If only I had lyrical talent.

It's the time change, that's the problem. I've been up at 6:00am yesterday (which I miss) and today. And the only thing to do at that hour is surf the net. I mean, 'do some research'. So by 8:25am, now, I am on my umpteenth cup of coffee, waiting for Gina to get up and entertain me.

FYI, Keith Olberman had a great rant last night. I listen occassionally on hoffmania.com Mukasey appt. has moved out of committee. What is up with Feinstein? The Utter Wonder has an amusing post about his kid's soccer game. The urban word of the day is lame. No, it's not the word lame. Can anyone believe that the "super fit" Katie Holmes ran the NY Marathon, without a sports bra ? But she did flaunt the 'no iPods' rule. Many rants about her on the juvenile running forums. Fit? 5 and half hours? A Rep. congressman in Washington state is practically kicked out of office, no not the one who "IS NOT GAY", but wears women's clothes and has sex with men, BUT the one who very verbally sexually assaulted a female staffer. To quote the Seattle Times article "Dunn also said he could not exactly recall what he said to the woman, but said he was "sure it was very inappropriate, because I do that kind of thing."

Ok, now I'm boring myself with this useless but very 'today' post. But at least I'm entertained by listening to all my new songs on iTunes. Gina has been getting each day's free song card. We missed Sat. (that could be the chorus line in my new song) but yesterday at UVillage starbucks the gal gave us several recent days' cards. God love her. So far my fav is Tears from a Gun by the Black Ghosts. yeah, I know, they've always been my fav band, too. And Fav is fab word from back in the golden days of teen mags.

I have heard from the famous drummer girl, who is righteously humiliated by the video. So, everyone, PLEASE do not click on said video. You will only contribute to her angst. Oh, and don't click on her blog site because she obviously is NOT in the daily posting contest. She misses most of November. (a calendar girl, miss nov.)

Giddy up ! I hear Rip van Winkle in the kitchen. (not Dinah) Gotta go.

Is anyone wondering exactly how many cups of java I did have this morning???

More Wiki drivel

We were 7th amongst female 2 person teams. And all were in one big age group. Which means the other 6 teams were probably 20 yrs. old. I'm sure of it. Gina analyzed the results and we would have been 5th in the men's 2 person teams. :)
We had to carry the pineapple the whole way. The obstacles were fairly easy; crawl thru a tube, climb over a wall, climb over a higher wall ( i stepped on gina's back) and then came back around to give her a boost, after the monitor said that was OK. Then the next wall, with tires, was really high... I thought no way I can climb that, but all we had to do was toss the pineapple thru one of the tires.. SWEET ! My middle name isn't Bart Starr/Brett Favre for nothing. Then crawl under some netting, then thru some punching bags and up and over a big container box like a climbing wall, then up a steep but short hill, then under a pole and to the finish line.
Then off to the luau ! It was a fun event, but an odd for us. We did not see one person we knew. None of the usual suspects like at regular races. No Wendy, Judy, George, Gwen, Uli, Karen, Val, or the countless others that we see all the time but don't have names for.
Today I ran 8 miles. A new loop that included going across and back on the Aurora bridge. Kind of interesting. Great view. Gina spun on the bike. Still feeling like a cold is dragging her down.

I said it was luau.
SpongeBob was in the house.
We gotta get some colorful grass skirts.
Gina is proud of her lei matching the pineapple design.

Wiki Pineapple Race

Here we are with the pineapple that we had to carry with us during the race. The obstacles were no problem for us. The 2 beers put me over the edge and into nap mode, though.

Don't know these guys but they are certainly more festively dressed for the Wiki party than we were.

Sad news from the Marathon Olympic Trials in NYC. Ryan Shay, a contender, died of apparent heart attack at mile 5. sheesh. Michigan born, Notre Dame man. very sad.

Test Post 3

this is a test posting of a video, and well, probably unfortunately for ABB, the only one I have on my computer right now. So, maybe she'll film another, more recent one of herself drumming and send it to me. To update the world famous blog with news about the world famous drummer.

Hey, i just remembered i have some old video of my nephews. If I thought they checked in on TWFB i'd post it.

Something tells me i should save future test posts for those days when i've really got nuttin to post, during Nov., nat'l post daily at your blog month.

Test Post2

darcy, karen and gina pre Danskin. pardon the un-timely-ness of this, but i'm test driving posting via my cell phone. i've forgotten how, and if i've got to post daily for a month i'l need options.

Noveber 2, and still posting daily

OK, so I've been informed that November is National Blog Posting Month. http://www.nablopomo.ning.com/
Some sort of deal where anyone with a blog (isn't that everyone?, as the dude says) posts daily. It's all about writing. whatever.
It's also national write a novel month. http://www.nanowrimo.org/ Kristoffer has done this in the past, and I'm sure he's onto novel #3 by now.
But because a photo is worth a 1000 words, prepare for about 5K .


Kathy belatedly celebrating '55 and alive"

OK, so we were early with our festive Halloween garb.

Michelle, the focaccia maker

It was good, and gone. And Terri chef'ed up some fine pasta y pork. I mean arista porchetta con fresca erba.

K & Val did not get the "wear orange" memo.

And the best news ?

I got promoted to Deputy Decorator !
Because I come up with the idea to put a mask on Charlie Brown. Gina actually made it but it was my idea and the Queen of Decorating loved it.