The Legacy

On Christmas Eve, after the children had opened their gifts, it was time for the adults to throw dice and choose one of the fine, tasteful gifts piled in the center of the room--good stuff such as a capsule of emergency underwear, fake vomit, a pink plastic tiara, the ever-popular fake dog poop, and the worst Mexican movie ever made.  One of my elegant contributions to the pile was technology's most amazing creation: a self-inflating whoopee cushion.

When the gift was opened, and oddly enough I managed to get it, and tried out, every kid in the house suddenly appeared as if convoked by magic.  There is nothing like flatulence to cause grandkids to gather round.

They took the cushion off, and throughout the house the same event was lived over and over again: a total silence, then a magnificent emision by the whoopee cushion, and a huge explosion of delighted childhood laughter.  Apparently they tried out the cushion in every room and on every surface, vying for the best effects.

Karina and I, who were more or less incapacitated by laughter as well, became quite philosophical.

"Your legacy," said Karina, wiping tears of laughter from her face.

"Yeah," I said, "a couple of whoopee cushions and some fake shit!"

The thing is, it is quite true.  If a parents' job is to transmit to their children the ruling values of the culture, then ours as grandparents is to make sure the civilization process doesn't go too far.  Our main concern should be the preservation of silliness in all its life-saving glory.  My office has been populated by patients who may have had all kinds of fairly unique problems, but a lack of silliness has been a common trait shared by most.

Silliness can sometimes get you through very tough times, so here's to my legacy: children exploding with laughter, a pool of fake vomit on the kitchen floor, and the song of the whoopee cushion.

I couldn't have asked for more.  Life is complete.

Still launching..

As you can see by how little I've posted since last week, there has not been a spare moment around here, what with family in residence, parties, and cooking.  The big tamal supper has been eliminated and we are eating Italian, but that is not happening until tomorrow when I may have more time. 

My trainer and I are considering starting a group for fibromyalgia patients.  I really like the idea, although I am not overly confident that we will get any takers--people with fibro tend to have much more pain that I do, and in spite of that, they need to exercise.  But when it is that uphill, well, it is easier to go in for yoga.  That doesn't do much for your cardiopulmonary conditioning.

I am pleased to announce that Gitano's trot has improved and is no longer the unmitigated torture it was when he first came to me.  He has figured out we are not going to ask him to do that idiotic dancing he was taught to do by some nincompoop who thought he was doing something akin to the Spanish Riding School of Vienna, so now Gitano has lightened up and is beginning to get some verticle, springy movement.  He seems to be doing well adjusting to being with us, and as with most friendly horses, he is a goodie glutton.  That means carrots or apples. 

Out to run tomorrow; I suspect I have a foot injury, but with fibro you can never tell.  Tomorrow may clear up my doubt.  Man, aint old age a bitch??

Mission control

My kitchen this morning was like the launch of a space vehicle.  Since our U.S. family arrives on Wednesday, I decided to bake up a batch of cookies for neighbors, vets, consuegras, and other people I like to remember at Christmas with something homemade.

I had decided on chocolate chip cookes, loaded with--of course!--butter.  By the time I had mixed up my multiple batches, I could smell the motor of my industrial-strength mixer as it began to struggle.  I fired up my gas oven and my electric counter-top convection oven, got out every baking sheet and wire rack I own, and spent an hour leaping from counter to ovens to racks at a pace that left me no time even to go to the bathroom.  As the cookies began to come out of the ovens, I thought there wouldn't be enough and that I was going to have to bake biscotti to complete the gifts, but once I started filling the containers, there were just enough cookies to give everyone a really fine dose of butter.

This afternoon, it's Yucatan tamales with mole poblano filling, but those I'll freeze until time to serve them on Christmas Eve.  My mouth is watering as I write this!

Not to get behind, I am also trying to get out the last cooking class assignment for my course--thin-crust pizza with tomato sauce, baked on a baking stone so damned hot it may heat the whole house until tomorrow night and beyond.  This I will have to take a picture of, so I'll post it later.  I am going to serve it with a salad.  Right now I'm also making a carrot soup with one of Julia Child's tricks--cooked rice in the soup that makes it so creamy you only need to add a mere dribble of the real thing at the last minute.  (This is from her book, "The Way to Cook", her last.)

On the running front, I am going to slow to a swift march to see if that helps my fibromyalgic back pain--it's right between the shoulder blades and can even wake me up if I have to turn over! If the jolting of running isn't affecting it, it will be back to the faster pace after a week's pain trial.

Racing against the butter...

Maybe it's all the rest I get between runs, or the acupunture, but I have been feeling much better lately.  It could also be the melatonin capsules that I take at night, who knows?  But that means my exercise is still alive and I have a fighting chance of offsetting the amount of butter my recipes call for.

After yesterday's excess (it wasn't just good mac and cheese, it was epoch-making), today we are having something sensible (chicken tostadas), but since my daughter and her girls are coming to lunch, I broke down and made apricot pecan bars--redolent from the oven of--natch--loads of butter.  I even got vanilla ice cream for the girls to eat with the bars.  The only way for us to survive here when I make desserts is to have guests for lunch and send them home with any leftover goodies.  I'm with ya, Julia, on the food police!

Butter

As I stood at the stove grating nutmeg into the roux for my gourmet mac and cheese, it occurred to me that I had some leftover butternut squash ravioli filling thawed out in the fridge, and wouldn't that be good mixed in with the roux and the pasta?

After I mixed the pasta and the milk sauce with butternut squash, and after piling on three kinds of cheese, it thought maybe I'd better omit the breadcrumb topping this time.  But no, those buttery bread crumbs bake up to a toasty, savory crunch, so I put my French bread in the food processor and processed away.

Then as I was about to melt the butter to add to the crumbs, I remembered that I also had some brown butter hazelnut sage sauce left over from the ravioli, so why not use that to butter the crumbs?  After all, everything I had in the pasta melded with the nutmeg-parmesan-pasta-cheese theme.  So that's what I did.

I'll let you  know later how this turns out, but in the meantime, the calorie count is obscene.  Julia Child would be proud of me though--there is enough butter in this dish to satisfy even someone who said you just couldn't have too much butter.  I think maybe you can.  I think maybe I have.

Cold and RAINY!

It doesn't matter if it's cold--I can climb on the treadmill--but what really matters is the rain.  Our part of the country was declared a disaster area because of the drought, and though this may not last long, at least my back yard won't be a disaster area too. 

Time to break out the Sopranos and hop onto the machine.

Red Bull

This has been "Let's Destroy Our Knees" week on the running path.  Suddenly--perhaps because I go out later now--there has been an abundance of older, overweight people with knee braces on both knees, or those bands worn under the knee to keep the knee cap from moving down too much.  If there is anything a running book will tell you, it's never, never ignore the slightest amount of knee pain.  Today on the running trail, ailing knees could be seen all over the place, and the only overweight gentleman who was being cautious was a younger man who was doing that kind of not-really-a-trot movement.  Good for him, and more power to him.

Some products should not be sold to people over 30 years of age.  One of them is Red Bull, the so-called energy drink.  I've been told that young people at nightclubs drink it between rounds of booze in order to keep going all night.  My son Rodrigo suggested it might help my morning fatigue so that I could get back out in the park, so I tried it today.

First of all, you should not have it on an empty stomach, but if you are going out to run, the most you've got in your system is coffee and a banana.  I began sipping the stuff as I cleaned up the kitchen and made the beds, and I noticed I was really going at it with a vengeance, hopping from task to task like a frisky teenager.  Not that a teenager would clean anything up in a frisky manner, but you know what I mean.

By the time I got to the park it was almost ten o'clock, and my stomach had been empty since six-thirty except for my coffee, the aforementioned banana, and a big can of Red Bull.  The company may deny it, but I think the drink contains amphetamines.  After a one-K warm-up, I began trotting; I had the odd impression that my head had gently separated from my body and was floating a few inches above my  neck.  The kilometer I trotted seemed to last about two or three minutes, as if it were foreshortened.  The kilometer I then walked didn't seem to last more than 30 seconds.  At that point, however, I was hit by hunger pangs that made me feel faint.  Visions appeared of a large bowl of hot oatmeal with a big pat of butter melting in the center, sprinkled with brown sugar and studded with raspberries.  Or an egg with my homemade hot sauce and refried beans.  The last kilometer was torture.  By then my head seemed to be floating several yards ahead of my body, which tried desperately to catch up with it.  God knows how I made it home and managed to cook myself the oatmeal. 
 
Be warned: energy drinks are for the young.  If you are around my age, stick to water or Gatorade.

Autumn

As it turned out, L. was hospitalized yesterday after arriving home, and she was released at eight that night.  A stomach infection, of course, but no one told her if it was rotavirus or not.  She is at home resting and taking care of herself, thank gosh, and I am alone in a quiet house!  Only my wind chimes and the birds are singing.

Here is a picture of the flowers produced by the plants I nursed like babies during the god-awful summer.  Behind them you can just make out the rosemary bush.  Also, many years ago, I dug up a weed I found growing in my neighbors' sidewalk, and its small purple flower has been going strong ever since, a real draw for hummingbirds.

Old Slave-Driver Me

You just don't know what to think.  There is a fine lady who cleans my house for me, and another fine lady who comes a couple of times a week to ride herd on the outdoors part of the house--patio, yard, and vehicle park (a place where all the grandkids' bikes are stored).  Yesterday these women showed up, and a few minutes afterwards, M. came in to say that L., my full-time help, felt very bad and needed to lie down, that she was vomiting. 

Horrified, I went to find her and she was dragging herself around my bathroom, trying to clean up after me and my husband--her usual Monday task.  She was pale and shaking, and I immediately had an employee of my husband (who happened to be here doing something) drive her home.  As she left, she told me she had had diarrhea all night and had been vomiting.  By the time she left my house, she had fever.

How does one interpret her coming to work when any right-minded individual would have stayed at home?  My daughter Karina told me she thinks it is some kind of cultural message drilled into Mexican women (not men, mind you...), that you show up to work even if you are embalmed.  No logical reason made L. come to work:  I do NOT dock pay for sick days since my ladies are almost never sick.  I give them days off whenever they need or want them, knowing that they never abuse the privilege.  They have time off for family emergencies, family events of importance, official holidays, one day a week just to give myself a rest from having the house full of people, appointments with doctors, you name it.

Was it a misguided sense of loyalty that made her want to fulfill her work obligations even though she might be giving all of us--us, then our kids, then the grandkids--something like rotavirus or a raging stomach infection?  Karina said she has told everyone who ever worked in her home that coming to work even with a cold was verboten, but she says they just don't listen--so of course, she sends them home and docks their pay not for being sick but for not paying attention to her. 

As she left, L. threatened to come to work today.  I told her not to, but I may have to send her home again if she darkens my doorway.

Meanwhile, I sit here wondering if I have the energy to go walk/trot...

Overload

Mexico is a terribly noisy country. You are overloaded day in and day out. Dogs bark night and day, hysterically, and all you get by calling the police is disgruntled neighbors, but no solution to the dog problem.  People seem unable to undertake any activity without a radio going, CDs playing, singing, non-stop conversation.  Restaurants usually have some idiot box blaring, toward which your eyes seem to gravitate whether you want them to or not.  It always struck me that when my family travelled, especially in Europe, the only place we could go where we weren't the loudest and most raucous people around was Italy.

Acupuncture involves a soothing cloth placed over the eyes and an even more soothing Chinese music piped into your torture chamber.  Except, of course, for the fact that I can hear every obese patient being weighed and the subsequent congratulations--or not--provided by the doctor.  Every remark made in the waiting room seems to be made at the top of someone's lungs.  The receptionist of course has a t.v. on, playing some ghastly Mexican soap opera.  The combination of these things is worse than no effort made at all to create a gentle atmosphere: At least if there was no Chinese music, you could easily eavesdrop on other people's conversation without impediment, which can be pretty entertaining and under these circumstances, guilt-free. 

There is no peace to be had anywhere except at home, and that only once in a while.

The night after my first acupuncture treatment, I felt like I'd been electrocuted but, due to faulty execution equipment, had managed to survive.  On Saturday it dawned on me that only a mild weight workout was going to help, so I did that after a 5K walk.  Worked like a charm.  Next day, Sunday, instead of being horribly sore from fibromyalgia muscle pain, I was agonizing from the muscle overload.  As someone who wrote a book on fibro so succinctly put it, you're going to ache like hell no matter what you do, so you might as well be strong and sore instead of weak and sore.

On Sunday morning I went out planning to do another walk; the traffic was closed off around the park and every individual in the municipality was there--games for kids, chalk painting, those inflatable jumping areas, a kind of harness-and-frame bungee setup for children, people on skates, bikes, skateboards, and one woman who had us mesmerized as she bounded down the street with a pair of objects strapped to her feet that look miniature shock absorbers.  She wasn't bounding too high, mind you, because she seemed a bit unsure of herself, but without doubt she was going to run injury-free unless she lost control of her feet and propelled herself into a concrete abutment.

By the time I had marched 3.5K, the noise was getting to me.  There was music of some kind the whole length of the park, and a local rock band was warming up and getting ready to take off.  Finally I decided it was too much and I broke into a trot that I managed to keep up over hill and dale until I finished the distance right at the turnoff to my street. 

Then I made the mistake of going with my husband to the mall.  We hadn't started out going there; I talked him into going to Mass at a Jesuit chapel, since the Jesuits are thinkers, and he has enjoyed the sermons every since.  But lo and behold, the traffic was blocked off because of some blasted road work that is itself like God--eternal.  So naturally, we decided to stock up on Christmas wine instead of going to Mass. 

The wine store was closed.  It was high noon.  On the door was a sign that said "Open on Sunday from 11 to 2".  That was when we went to the mall.  I detest Christmas shopping.  I went to wait for Roberto at the restaurant where we were going to have lunch.  While I sat there, I realized that even without a t.v. set, the decibel level in the place superseded anything I had been subjected to so far.  It's a good thing our table was so small our knees met beneath it or we wouldn't have heard each other talk.

Then, when Rodrigo and gang came over in the early evening, I offered to go with my daughter-in-law to the store because she needed to stock up on groceries.  Sunday evening is a favorite grocery shopping time in our town because so many women work and because mornings are so hectic.  But when we got to the nearest supermarket, there was a line of cars waiting just to get into the parking area, so we went to Walmart. 

I don't ever again want to hear Christmas music, especially songs in Spanish sung by nasal pre-pubescent individuals.  This kind of spurious holiday cheer makes me want to puke.  The noise was made worse by the sensation that I couldn't escape because of the numbers of people stopped mid-aisle, apparently suffering an attack of petite mal (and I don't blame them) or catatonia.  When we got home, I blessed all those around me, and went to bed with my Kindle.  I can do that, they are used to it.

Back to the needle...

It's back to acupuncture for me, but not because I want to or because I believe it actually will work.  It's the only way to get Roberto to see that it does not work for what ails me--fibromyalgia!  The Mayo Clinic did a study that showed symptom relief after six sessions, so one would assume that if you don't get results by then, you may as well give up.

People react differently to the frustration of seeing someone they care about undergoing some kind of problem that can't be solved--my husband, for example, is convinced that trying everything is a real option.  It's true he found my current excellent rheumatologist by undergoing a determined search, and it's true his allergy has been almost eliminated by acupuncture, but back when I went with him to the sessions, I didn't seem to get much relief, frankly.  Oh, the experience is nice--gentle Chinese music, a friendly and very competent general physician who learned acupuncture as an adjunct to medical practice--but I'd rather hire someone to give me a foot massage every day! Ha! 

Well, let the needling begin, at least Roberto will see for himself what does, or doesn't, result from this.

No pictures...

Not even the cooking school is going to get pictures this time, because Rodrigo came over to lunch and dishes were served as they appeared.  I didn't have the batteries in my camera, and with the ravioli on the plate and with me riding herd on the chicken saltimbocca, there was just no time to stop to fiddle with the camera.  Roberto wants to taste the food today since he was not her for lunch yesterday, so maybe today I can get shots of the stuff.  Let's just say it got rave reviews.  Suggestions of opening a restaurant were heard, and my marinara has been voted something I should can and sell.  No, that would ruin the flavor.

If I had the energy, I'd think about said suggestions, but I am completely under the weather now with fibro and wondering when I'll be able to get back to running even minimally.  I miss it, and it misses me.  Time to grin and bear it and stock up on the ingredients for tiramisú. 

Comfort Food

Running is temporarily out of the question, just in time for me to lose all conditioning for Austin, but fibromyalgia has me at home consoling myself with comfort food--not a great choice of handling downtime, but what fun!

Today's Italian homework is, as first course, butternut squash ravioli with a sage-hazelnut-brown butter sauce, and then chicken saltimbocca, which is a thin chicken cutlet panfried with prosciutto and served with a white wine sauce and crispy sage leaves.  If my ravioli don't explode in the boiling, I'll post the picture of the goodies that I have to send to the cooking school anyway.

The rest of you, keep training, for God's sake.

Risotto, effortlessly..

Risotto is famous for having you standing by the stove carefully stirring and adding hot liquid by the half cupfill until it is ready, but yesterday the cooking school had us make effortless risotto that came out creamy and perfect.  While risotto is usually served before the main dish, in this case it had chicken.  My husband asked if I thought he was gaining weight.  I said no, you weren't here the day I had to make fettucine Alfredo and you avoided the massive calories.

On the other hand, my husband usually serves himself more than he can eat, but he may be on to something because he has been having seconds since I've been using him as my Italian food guinea pig.  It's a good thing, maybe, that the course doesn't include desserts. 

No run today, I got off to a late start and have been behind ever since.  The dog seems fine, by the way...

Upping the calories in my run...

Today I managed to consume ever so many more calories on a short 4K run/walk because I took my dog with me.  His tendency to pull me along--and the savings in effort--was offset by his tendency to go bonkers every time some other runner went by with his/her dog.  I had to make him sit and stay while the others went by, and I had him on a leash so short I could have superglued him to my running pants.  By the time we were through, he was tired enough to be more or less obedient, and I hope that this routine will finally tame his "I'm so much smarter than this woman" attitude that makes him the height of gentlemanliness at home and a terror outdoors where he knows I can't force him to obey because I can't catch him.

My whole right side is aching from hanging on the the leash and correcting him.  It's Advil time, as usual...

Cream in the arteries...

Today was fettucine Afredo, and it can be consumed only in very small doses--it is loaded with cream.  I could feel my arteries blocking even as I added the cream to the butter (yes, butter, that is the base fat for this sauce). 

On a more positive note, the home-made pasta came out perfectly.  The recipe and the video have fool-proofed the whole undertaking (the fool usually being me, in this case), and my pasta machine fairly hummed along as I produced a mass of fettucine pasta.  When they say to separate the strands as best you can, they are not kidding.  Because once you dump this stuff in your boiling water, you can't do it.  Unless you want a glutinated mass of fresh pasta that comes out as a single piece, you'd better do just as they say and get those little devils separate from the outset.

What with my Kindle and the Parmigiano-Regiano cheese for this course, I make my way toward bankruptcy apace.  Probably just as well. 

Tomorrow I will see if I can manage to run; my fibro is at an all-time high.  One never knows whether to go at it and damn the torpedoes, or whether after a run you'll wind up on Advil for days and days.  Oh well.

Before...

Unable to leave well enough alone, we have this, bought today, which will be prepared after a nice dose of home-made fresh pasta and Alfredo sauce, my next cooking assignment.

The Barefoot Guy

The day before yesterday, I was passed on the running path by a tall, Nordic-looking young man--maybe American, maybe German--who was running barefoot.  I would have paid good money to have been able to catch up to him and ask about his barefoot running.  He was long gone by the time I managed to propel myself up the pedestrian bridges spanning a big intersection, but next time I hope to be able to talk to him even if I have to hang out at the end of the running park (known as Narcisistics' Corner).  Because of the frequent winds at this time of year, the running path is often liberally sprinkled with acorns or even pecans, and one section is covered with bird poop that stinks to high heaven.  The poop washes off, but stepping on those acorns must be really painful.  He surely cannot manage to avoid them all.  I'll report back once I've managed to interview the guy.

On the same day, leaving Narcissitics' Corner at a healthy trot, was a guy no taller than I but absolutely bursting with muscle.  Obviously heavily into pumping iron, he was short enough that weight work could build him up in no time flat, but lordy!  A tad more and he would be wider than he was tall, and if you've ever seen the charge of a mountain gorilla on the Discovery Channel, you've seen this guy. 

Yesterday and today are rest days, thanks to fibromyalgia, and this afternoon we celebrate the birthday of our little Ian, a cutie of the first order.  He is seven today.  He's the same honest little fellow who looked deep into my eyes while giving me a big hug and told me I looked like an iguana.  He's into reptiles, so it isn't as terrible as it sounds.  Well, okay, it is, but he meant well. 

Artie Choked to Death

The reason my blog was nonfunctional was due to an IE upgrade necessary for me to take an online course in Italian cooking.  So far the course has been fabulous--delicious salads, great manicotti, fresh and filled pastas, you name it.  The only recipe that was a dismal failure so far was stuffed artichokes alla Romana.

The video was clear as a bell on the cleaning and stuffing of the artichokes.  Now, they have always seemed to me too much work for very little payback.  That little bit of meat at the end of the leaf and the heart seem fairly tasteless, frankly, only being redeemed by dipping the leaf in butter or mayonnaise.  But, hey, if the Italians like them, then there must be something to it.

Cut off the top fourth of the artichoke, our chef advises.  Good luck on that one.  My knives are literally sharp enough to cut paper, and my bandaged fingers are proof.  After a while I felt like I needed a chain saw to get that top fourth off.  The results were less than aesthetic, but even at that point I knew something was not right here.  My artichokes were a different color, a very lovely purple inside; the instructions said to strip the leaves until the artichoke was a pale green.  Then carefully pushing the leaves aside, you dig out the choke with a spoon and rinse to make sure you've gotten it all.  It is ever so inedible.

I kept pulling off leaves until I realized there was never going to be any pale green.  Then, I found that the choke was protected by a tightly closed, minute set of purple leaves that would have to be dug out first.  I thought I would never get rid of the blasted choke, but as it was, it really didn't matter.  I prepared the stuffing (delicious indeed) and tried to get it into my artichokes.  Artichokes, by the way, are members of the thistle family, and as far as I'm concerned, that says it all.

The instructions said to cut thick rings of onion, lay them in a pot, add some parsley and a little salt, place the artichoke stems in the onion rings so the artichokes would be held upright, add water, and steam.  Halfway through, you are supposed to turn the artichokes over, "being careful not to spill the filling". 

My onions had wilted in the process, releasing their liquid, and there was no way I could turn the beasts over without soaking the filling.  I turned them on their sides.

Just to give the chefs a laugh, I dutifully took a picture of these god-awful things and sent it on to the school.  The instructor came to the conclusion that I had some other breed of artichoke, and I used the filling for stuffed baked mushrooms that came out spectacularly.  For your delight and amazement, I include the culprits here.

Am I here yet?

Folks, I may be able to post now with Internet Explorer 9, in which case let me update you: my running has gone to pot, and I have now given up my hope of winning the Austin 5K in all age groups in a record time of 20 minutes.  Okay, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration and I shouldn't have hoped for that anyway.  But so far I have been unable to recover from the summer low, and any trip sets me back by weeks, so now my trainer has put me on a run-6-minutes, walk-2-minutes schedule for 5K.  Even that is uphill.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Gitano is turning out to be a difficult ride, not because he is badly behaved, but because his trot is like driving a Beetle with no shock absorbers.  Every bone in your body gets loosened.  He's a handsome devil, however, and that often makes up for a lot, and he is sweet--perhaps too sweet since he follows me around trying to find out if I have carrots, making a pest of himself when I am outdoors at the quinta.

Well, in spite of every instinct I have, out I go to run.  If only you knew how loosely I am using the term "run"....

Back at last...

Our trip to Seattle was marvelous, just to see such huge trees and run in the misty mornings. In Los Angeles, the weather was all right but the smog was awful, and I didn't run there except for one day at the gym. It was very unpleasant, however: the treadmill arm supports were sticky and the treads themselves had some kind of spilled liquid on them which had dried, leaving streaks. I felt like going over the whole thing with a Lysol cleaning cloth, and it was so disgusting I didn't go back.

Here I have managed a run since our return on Saturday night, but I'm having the ever-famous fibromyalgia post-trip fall-out in which every spot on your body aches. The Austin 5K looms, and I see myself walking it now!

Rain, and more rain...

It's either feast or famine. The rain began yesterday, and from the news we see it was so bad in some parts of town that at least three people were drowned when they were swept away by flash floods--in the streets and underpasses! Apparently the amount of rain that fell in a short time qualified as a cloud burst. I've lived in Mexico for 43 years, and this town has never failed to have natural disasters associated with water each year. The incredible part is how dangerous the streets get.

However, when I went out to run in the rain this morning--just a misty rain, no big deal--the park was almost empty. Thank God for small favors. I expected to see the hard-core runners, but no, it was just us old folks trying to lighten old age by keeping moving somehow. It is supposed to rain on and off until Thursday when we leave for Seattle, so maybe there won't be the usual park traffic jams.

And of course, it will rain in Seattle too! Well, I'm off to pack and to get my closet in some kind of order. That is an easy task--most of my clothes need to be thrown away. This tendency of mine to cling fiercely to a pair of silver hotpants left over from the 70s has just got to stop. Even if I could get into them, and even if summertime here is ideal for them, and even if my legs still look good, the rest of me has gone to pot with a vengeance.

So I'm going to Seattle with two pairs of jeans and tops, a sweatshirt, running gear, pajamas, and that's it. I have GOT to buy new clothes--this is what happens when you keep thinking, "I'll wait until I get back to my real weight...", as if I were EVER going to get back into the clothes I've saved. Merciless, that's what I'll be while I toss clothes...

How Holmes Really Ended Up

"Quick, Watson, the game's afoot!" cried Holmes, bursting into Watson's sitting room one morning.

Watson, seated in an easy chair by the window, slowly lowered his newspaper. He took a swig of tea from a cup resting on the side table. He replaced the cup on its saucer; the chink of crockery could be heard.

"No, Holmes, the game is not afoot. They are having a 5K and 10K event along the road by the park today. Everyone and his uncle are participating, including ladies with racing strollers, old men with dogs, and experienced runners. Everthing except the game is afoot."

"Oh...well...nevertheless, remember the old gal wearing those rocking chair shoes that are supposed to lift your buttocks, tighten your abs, and make you look ten years younger? She was out again today, and alone this time, no one to hold her up! She was wearing gloves, too, Watson. Do you get the deeper meaning of that? What hideous crime is she up to?"

"Oh, good Lord, Holmes, she's wearing gloves to protect her hands when she falls down in those ungodly shoes. For years now, Holmes, I've played straight man to your narcissistic arrogance, affectation of eccentricity, and cold personality. Oh, I admit it, I'm a sentimental, warm-hearted man, with just enough interest in crime to put up with your foolishness. Maybe I'm masochistic, but I've coddled your need to have someone pretending to be dumber than shredded paper so you could bounce your ideas off me and look like a genious. Holmes, let's face it, I have a cactus in a pot with more deductive reasoning than you've got. Can I serve you a cup of tea, by the way?"

Holmes stood stunned.

"If that's the way you feel, Watson, then there is nothing more to say. I take my leave of you, and let me wish you a good day."

Holmes moved toward the door, head held high, with an expression of cold disapproval.

"By the way, take that assinine hat you wear, Holmes, with its silly ear flaps, and just toss it onto that cactus plant by the window there. Any criminal with two neurons still firing can spot you a mile off with that monstrosity on your head."

Holmes slammed the door, and Watson went back to his paper.


Three K today, as yesterday and the day before; my plan is that one of these days, it will suddenly be easy to pass the 3K mark and keep on going. It was even easier today, in fact, but it helps to have a lot to think about so you don't pay a lot of attention to distance. My shoes are beginning to need replacement, too, so in Seattle next week shopping is in order.

Running can be highly productive; I came up with a whole plan for our mayor in order to get the cops in our area in some kind of physical shape. I'm gonna write it up and take it to him. Keep your fingers crossed.

Instant Panic

No sooner did I sign up for the Austin 5K than I began to panic: I'm only doing a maple-syrup-in-wintertime 3K right now; I have barely begun to make up for everything I lost during the summer; what if I actually come in last behind the 100-year-olds who walk and the wheelchair competitors?

The actual possibility that anyone on the face of the earth will even see me are infinitesimal. Hundreds and hundreds of people enter the 5K, which is an event that supports the finances of the Paramount theater. People are still strolling through the finish line as the marathoners dash by, and all the excitement is with the marathon and half marathon. You are completely authorized to make as ass of yourself in the 5K, the crowd will roar its support of you no matter how slow you are or how foolishly dressed. People have been known to run in fancy dress costumes or running gear so old there are more holes than material. They run with dogs. They run in teams, they run in pairs. That's the thing about these events: you've got more support than you could ever imagine, and Austin being weird as it is, you too can be weird--you'll get applause.

The Food Revolution

And speaking of food, check out Jamie Oliver's website and sign the petition to make school lunches something edible instead of the horror usually inflicted upon students. There is something wrong happening when first-grade kids in Southern Italy (the poorest area of the country) in a public school get organic products in school lunches, and they can identify red peppers, eggplant, asparagus, and other good stuff--when in the U.S. you could be talking about nuclear physics if you mention an eggplant to kids that age. Join the campaign.

Three K today at a continuous trot; it is the weather--so much cooler. Hope springs eternal. Two of my kids are going to the Austin events in February, so I guess I'll sign up for the 5K. Heck, even if it's at a crawl...

A Hectic Two Weeks

Had a wonderful trip to Querétaro to meet with my two closest friends, and the results were marvelous. One lives in Querétaro, one in Mexico City, and of course moi, in Monterrey. One is Spanish, one is Mexican, one is, of course moi, gringa. We've been friends for over 30 years and in spite of our cultural differences, we've always been on the same page.

However, because of the altitude difference, I didn't go out to run. We have had rain, and our weather continues to be cooler, so slowly, slowly, I'm working my way back into shape after a summer that has convinced me and my husband that next year we are going to spend it somewhere else. Mexico City or Querétaro, for example.

While wandering around in the supermarket, still in my running gear, a woman (also in running gear) came up to say how much she admired me. I was taken aback since I didn't know her, but she is out in the park when I am and watches me struggle past her at my geriatric jog. This gal has just begun to go out and walk, having become terminally bored on her treadmill, so I told her to stick with it no matter what. Now she waves each time she sees me.

It also appears that our team is about to get team tees, which according to Adrián, will be phosphorescent green. Or, as I imagine he really means, radioactive green...Maybe he should put a disclaimer on the back of mine in order not to discourage potential trainees: "This old gal has a training tee only because she bought it, folks." Either that, or maybe he should mention my age: "Sixty-seven and still hot-footing it! Join us and wind up like this old lady--except for the wrinkles, we can prevent that too!" You never know what will be a selling point.

And speaking of selling points, here in the land of the overweight and obese, a regular meal supplement war has broken out. There is the York system, and now the Cambridge system, both of which cost a king's ransom and promise to make you look like...hmmm...well, take your pick, your fantasy is as good as mine. Two friends of mine are selling the competing brands. I got one can as a protein supplement, but it tastes like medicine. My other friend gave me some samples of the next brand, so I will try one tonight. I am not optimistic, but this friend and his mom and dad have lost a lot of weight and claim the stuff is delicious. I suspect the parents have invested in the project and this has affected their perception of the taste. I happen to be of the Julia Child persuasion, with a marked dislike of the food police: nothing is good for you, except things you wouldn't feed a hog; you are encouraged to avoid gluten even if you are not intolerant, and yesterday on television a couple of the food police were preparing a pizza made of some kind of bird seed (I kid you not) mixed with herbs and Parmesan cheese, covered with roasted garlic and onions and more cheese, baked in the oven till the crust is "crunchy"--I don't buy that, it looked pretty darned floppy to me. There they sat, the two food coppers, as the credits rolled by, choking down the birdseed pizza in very small bites. Why can't we just have good, unprocessed fruits and vegetables and proteins in moderate amounts and enjoy our meals, for gosh sakes?

If any of you have ever watched "You Are What You Eat", you know what I mean. This Gillian character locates real fatties and subjects them to the same process each week--she scolds, she horrifies, she browbeats them into eating almost purely vegetarian meals, some of which look ghastly. Don't get me wrong, I love vegetarian, but I've tried one or two of her recipes, and no thanks. And this gal may be saving the lives of the people whose diets she revamps, since she also gets them off their butts and moving--but how tiresome the show is!! I don't like seeing fat people being used for entertainment purposes, but I guess if you volunteer for it, who am I to complain?

From the Mouths of Little Boys

Yesterday evening, after my husband and I had returned from the quinta, our grandkids Sofía and Ian came over with their dad. Sofía was sound asleep and was deposited on a couch, but Ian was full of life and had much to say.

Ian is six. He is adorable. He has big brown eyes, lashes to die for, and a non-stop personality. He sat at the table with me and my husband while he polished off an orange, and he filled us in on the latest:

"There are bad guys on the road to the quinta," he calmly asserted.

My husband and I looked at one another.

"Who told you that? What bad guys?"

"Dad told me," he replied.

"I'm going to have to speak to your dad, then," I said. What in the world was going on? Why was Rodrigo scaring Ian about going to the quinta? Ian adores the quinta.

"You can't do that, he's Dad," stated Ian flatly.

"Oh yeah? Well, I'm your dad's mom, so I can set him straight any time I need to," I clarified.

"They stole Felipe," added Ian.

"What??? Who's Felipe?" chimed in my husband. Things seemed to be going from bad to worse.

"I don't know," said Ian with irritation, as if Felipe's identity was a minor matter, "but they stole him. Bad guys," he added, since it was evident his grandparents were not the sharpest crayons in the box.

At that point Rodrigo came in and we demanded to know why he was scaring Ian about going to the quinta. Rodrigo was totally perplexed and never could find out from Ian who Felipe was or who told him these things. My suspicions lie with Alejandra, who is frightened of everything going on in Mexico (justifiably so) and thinks driving to the quinta is taking your life in your hands.

Then my husband proposed taking the children to get an ice cream cone, and while he was getting an umbrella (it rained last night!), Ian was giving me a big hug and climbing into my lap. He looked deep into my eyes and said:

"Hey, you look like an iguana! You've got that thing under your chin that hangs down!"

As soon as I reach my desired weight, it's off to the plastic surgeon, by dang.

Running Path Oddities

Yesterday was rheumatologist day, a routine visit which takes place every couple of months (the man is a stickler for monitoring fibromyalgia), and I made the mistake of going to get blood drawn straight from the running path. Apparently exercise alters the results, and it did, but fortunately my doctor--being an exercise fan himself--took it into account. This guy, I may have mentioned before, used to run but had to change to bicycling when his orthopedist found he had a loose vertebra that tends to slip around.

Since the good doc lives in mortal fear of the notoriously bad drivers in our area, he took up the mountain bike, much to the horror of his wife. The gal has a point: what is the improvement over running when you risk crashing and breaking bones? In fact, this year the doc broke his collar bone falling off his mountain bike when he hit a patch of ice coming downhill.

"It's like I told my wife," he stated, "a broken bone heals, but an injured heart is another matter entirely."

I say all this because it might help explain his instructions to me. At the moment my fibromyalgia pain has decided to settle in my back right between my shoulder blades, so yesterday I got put through the wringer: had to touch my toes (with no warm-up!), twist this way and that, and then get pounded on hard enough to get toppled over if the man hadn't been holding me upright at the same time. Man, he hit every single fibro pain point.

Then, after prescribing a muscle relaxant, he told me--and I quote--"to increase your usual training by one kilometer". This after I told him it was all I could do to finish 5K trotting and walking since summer hit.

"Are you daft? Half the time I finish on my hands and knees as it is!" I protested.

"Oh, you'll get used to it, then you can increase up to ten K."

The man has taken leave of his senses, but after hearing about his adventures on his mountain bike, we find all the earmarks of a fanatic. I can understand and identify fully: as far as I'm concerned, a horse is better than travel, fine food, and sex. Of course, when I talk about me, I prefer to think I'm passionate in my interests, but when my rheumatologist ups my training by a kilometer, he is a some kind of nut.

I was thinking about all this as I did today's 5K at a forced march--this was a light training day. There was no way I was going to add a kilometer, at least not yet. As I marched along (sweating as much as if I had been running), I noticed that the grass bordering the path seemed covered with some kind of pointy black objects, some of which stood straight upright, others lying down. When I put on my glasses, I saw that the objects were long feathers. It was amazing. We have tons of starlings that make a huge racket in the trees that line the park, and it looked like they had gotten into some kind of massive battle that involved pulling out each other's tail feathers. I say tail feathers because for several days now, I've seen starlings in my back yard minus precisely these feathers. I began to look at the starlings I could see on the ground, and several of them looked oddly stunted in the rear. It must be hell flying with no rudder, but the bigger mystery is, what the dickens is going on here?

Things are out of whack. Starlings losing tail feathers, my jacaranda tree is blooming (this only occurs in springtime), doves crashing into our windows. It feels like the ominous build-up in a Stephen King novel!

Blast-off

Last night, the president of a club my husband has joined invited the members and their wives to a wonderful supper replete with anything you wanted to drink and delicious food. There were some shrimp that were to die for.

To my consternation, an announcement was made that all the women would sit in the living room "to get to know one another", while the men gathered outdoors in the pleasant garden. I thought maybe this was a temporary arrangement, but as the evening wore on and we women had more or less shot our conversational bolt with topics such as how nice the house looked, people we know (not me, I don't know anyone in the rancid aristocracy of the neighborhood, at least not women), and other burning topics, I noticed with horror that there were two tables set up--one indoors and one outside. My head was beginning to ache and I was getting angry at the primitive social arrangement that might have been great in Yemen or Saudi Arabia, but not in my 21st century world.

Finally I decided that even at the risk of being thought forward and rude, I'd had it. Either I went out and joined the men, or I would not be responsible for what came out my mouth. I was not feeling particularly spry anyway, having ridden that morning in a sitting trot until I drew blood. I was also slightly dyspeptic.

So I excused myself, got up, went outside and announced to all concerned that I was going to sit with the men. There was a great, though quiet, rejoicing, since it seems the men were not thrilled with the arrangement either. I told the men they need have no qualms about cursing, either--I'm a clinical psychologist and I've heard it all. In fact, I could probably teach them a few choice phrases.

My compadre Armando then went in and brought his wife out, who was near a comatose state from terminal boredom. She had a kind of fixed smile on her face that she really had trouble removing--her mouth was going into rigor mortis thanks to the living room excitement. And a really good time began to be had by all, especially me. At supper we were not segregated by gender, and the other women seemed relieved to be out of the harem too--one, a financial investment expert, must have been near death by negative numbers of mental stimulation, poor thing, but she perked up and had us fascinated with her travels and ideas.

The evening was so entertaining that my tiredness dissipated, but not my dyspepsia. A few bites of the excellent food and my digestive system went into terminal flatulence. I may have sunk my chances of being invited to join the club, the first woman member, by the fact that the explosions were not under my control. My husband said the conversation was so lively that surely nothing could be heard over it, but I told him that if you were in the northern hemisphere, you knew what was going on.

On another front, however, things weren't quite as serious: in the garden, a number of those anti-mosquito smoke bombs were slowly simmering, so at least I didn't gas anyone. Well, at least not anyone at a certain distance. I'm tempted to ask my comadre if she noted my problem, since she was right by me, but I'm afraid she might say, "Jesus H., yes!!! What was wrong with you??"

Plodding along...

Something must be working in spite of the heat, in spite of fibromyalgia kicking in with barometric changes, and in spite of the move because I am managing to lose weight rather painlessly. None of this would have been possible without a training group and without an athletic rheumatologist. Almost everyone else has recommended doing, basically, nothing except perhaps some mild yoga, but my rheumatologist told me to fight fibro with running. I think he thinks I'm going to become flooded with endorphins and thus be able to leave off medications.

Well, the endorphins are there but they can't hack the work, and when I tried to leave off one of my medications, after about a month I noticed that my aches and pains began slowly to increase in intensity, so I went back on the medication. Now I'm back to my usual level, some days bad, some days good, but familiar.

There seem to be a considerable number of people running with injured knees, more than I have seen before for some reason. The vast majority of runners appear to have healthy knees, but there are a lot of people running with tight bands below the kneecaps to keep them from moving down, a few with complete knee support with only the kneecap exposed. I was sure that my knees were going to act up when I began trotting because they have been banged up over the years--falls, slipping in the bathroom, being hit by a running dog right on the kneecap, tripping over sleeping black dogs in a dark hallway, you name it. More than once I've had a hugely swollen knee bandaged in order to manage to walk. And yet, for some wild and incomprehensible reason, the old knees have held up just fine, thank you. Not a twinge, not a single groan, nothing whatsoever. If this keeps up, lordy, what tremendous luck.

Moving Day

Various moving days, in fact. Last Monday our furniture from Austin finally arrived and since then I have had no time to sit down. Now that the house is more or less in order (it's always less in order than more), time to go to the quinta and arrange all the stuff we sent there. Once again I have proven that if you have to stand up and move around long enough, your feet can hurt even if you are wearing high-tech tennis shoes.

The only good thing about the last couple of days is that the temperature has been cooler in the mornings, and today I was able to drag myself to the park and join the training team. Since I spent the weekend at the quinta and rode my new horse, every bone in my body ached in spite of Advil, but the walk/run seemed to relieve the situation. Now, if I can just find some of those doo-dads that hold your glasses on while you run, I may be able to recognize my fellow trainees. Right now I only know who they are because we congregate on the same street corner in the park, so I say "hello" to anyone who happens to be there. At least I can recognize Adrián...

It's off to the quinta again to see if I can finish up there. God.

The brother of the mayor of Monterrey was videotaped accepting money from casinos; apparently he was too stupid to know what "closed-circuit t.v." means. He claimed he was selling cheese from Oaxaca to the casinos, but you gotta sell one hell of a lot of cheese to get four hundred thousand pesos for it! It has been said that politics is the cheapest form of public entertainment, but that is wrong: it aint cheap, and sometimes it aint entertaining either.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the rumor has it that the reason our municipal district is so safe is because certain individuals in high places have made a deal with one of the cartels--they can sell their drugs as long as they keep other cartels out. This, of course, is just a rumor, and you may have heard how it goes: When someone says "they say that...", just remember that "they" is the world's biggest liar.

Incense

After today's walk/run, I got to the corner where my trainer and the team meet, but at some distance a terrible, strong scent filled the air. It was like a powerful, old-fashioned perfume. At first I thought someone who had doused himself in aftershave lotion had run by. I went up to the team, one of whom was on a mat and stretching with the help of one of Adrián's fellow trainers.

"What's that god-awful smell?" I asked. Ana roared with laughter and showed me: a small stick of incense burned at a small distance from the mat.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because it's better than smelling Rodolfo," she replied--Rodolfo being the sweat-soaked runner stretching on the mat. Rodolfo, being the good-natured young man he is, only smiled. Not only that, it seems the incense remedy is used with some frequency, though only with men.

It's the testosterone that makes 'em stink.

Walking, Trotting, Marching

This morning was again rather nice, so I was out before sunrise to do my required 5K at whatever speed I manage to work up. The only part where I insist on running is the uphill area; if anything hurts at that point, the uphill trot gets rid of the pain. Don't ask me why.

Today a march was planned to protest the state and local government incompetency in controlling the security situation. My husband was invited to participate with along with other members of his club (one of whom lost his daughter in the casino fire), but it was very hot and the sun much too strong for him. I don't know how many went to the march yet, but the state government must be feeling it--one of those social network uproars has begun demanding the governor's resignation. Fat chance. Rumor has it that if the PRI candidate wins the presidential election, our glorious governor will be given a lateral arabesque opportunity which he won't be able to refuse. From the rumor's lips to God's ear...

Rain!

It was almost inevitable: the gal who gives the weather report on a local channel (and why are all these girls dressed like inexpensive prostitutes??) told us that after yesterday morning there was "no chance of rain at all". So it rained like the end of the world after five o'clock, and today dawned clear, cool and just begging for a very early run.

All the lights were out on half the running path; it was slippery, and leaves and acorns covered wide swathes, and you couldn't see a danged thing. After what happened here in Monterrey on Thursday, everyone seemed to be waiting until light in order to run--nervousness, perhaps, or the possibility of falling like a bag of cement on that slippery path.

On Thursday at three-thirty in the afternoon, a comando of hitmen entered a casino in the municipality of Monterrey. The casino was filled with older people, women, employees and a few men. The hitmen splashed gasoline over the area and set it afire. The casino had only one entrance open--the main one. A side door was blocked, and a so-called emergency exit turned out to be a fake door. Fifty-two people died in the fire and by being trampled. At the moment, a three million dollar reward is being offered by the Mexican government for information leading to the capture of the perpetrators; these are the kinds of people who would sell their mothers into prostitution if there was money in it, so before long I expect results. Someone is going to rat them out.

At least for me, a totally unexpected outcome of this horrendous incident is that I began writing for our newspaper again on the editorial page after a hiatus of three years. Sometimes you've just got to get involved no matter what. This is the only way open to me to do so, so I'm going to take it.

Back in the Outback

A hot, tiresome wind blew yesterday all afternoon, which here is the precursor to a drop in the temperature. The humidity was still at a "low" 75%, but this morning dawned just cool enough to make the park an option again. Besides, you get to miss your training buddies and their moral support.

Of course I forgot that school was in session again, and that meant that at seven a.m. the traffic was horrendous both on and off the running path. Nevertheless, I started out mildly by walking four K with an occasional trot just to get back in the swing of things, after trading greetings and remarks with the team and reporting that there are two kilos less of me.

It was a very routine and mild workout, except for one marvelous event which fulfilled a long-held desire. I've mentioned before those people who dash by you so close that you are in danger of being shoved off the path; they are inevitably going a lot faster than you are, too. As I finished my workout today and marched to the end of the block, I put my hands on my hips and stuck out my elbows. To my surprise and secret delight, one of those near-miss runners didn't miss my elbow today and clipped himself right sharp somewhere in the waist region. He may have apologized but it came out as an incoherent mumble. Ah, these are the little moments that make life fun!

Right outside my computer room window there sits a squirrel in a crook of the magnolia tree, peering in at me, finishing off an acorn; a hummingbird is resting on a tiny branch of the same tree, zipping at the feeder from time to time; and two brilliant yellow and black birds are dive-bombing my chile plants that sit on the patio splashed by the dappled, tolerable morning sun. Are they eating the chile seeds? That is the hottest part of the chile! Random events in a calm life, at least for now.

The Little Halter Top as a Weapon of My Mass Destruction

So far, so good. About three to four pounds less of me, something that will be nice to declare to my training team. And there is a fool-proof way, now, to keep my sensible eating on track:

It's the little halter top, or in my case, the No-Boob Sports Bra. This piece of armor shoves the excess me all over the place, so to contemplate myself all geared up to run is to perceive the full horror of those rolls and curves--they have no place to hide. Since my goal is to be able actually to go out and run in this item of clothing, without having to add the excess layers on top of it as a disguise (only to myself, everyone else knows where the fat is), my most effective weapon is the halter top seen in its full glory in my mirror.

It's either lose weight or die of the heat.

Summer Reading

Once in a while, something comes along that threatens to undo the family finances. For many, many years now I've been buying books at Amazon.com because when I went back to school to study clinical psychology, there were almost no professional publications in Spanish except those dealing with psychoanalysis. And those were, to put it mildly, quite traditional. I built up a psychology library of such proportions that professors began to recommend to their students that they contact me if they needed some unusual reference material. But no, that didn't break the bank...it was a slow and immensely pleasurable process. I also learned that when you loan a book, you'd better ask for a deposit equivalent to the value of the book plus tax, because you may never see it again in its original condition.

It costs more to have a book shipped to my house than the book itself costs, so for a long time I would make periodic trips to Laredo with friends or family, and there I would visit my post office box to gather up the bookish loot waiting for me. No, this did not put me in the poor house either. Indeed it can be such a pain in the butt to make the ever-so-boring trip that I would often let things pile up in order to make the whole procedure less painful.

But, alas, or hot damn, all that has changed, and my finances teeter on the brink. There on the Amazon page was the irresistable picture of the Kindle, along with a map showing the areas in Mexico covered by Amazon's free Whispernet service for downloading books. You guessed it: I live in the big fat middle of this blessed area. With horror--or elation, depending on my funds--the service even reaches me at the quinta. So I bought the thing, and life has not been the same.

At the click of a blasted key, and the groan of a credit card, books flow to my Kindle apace. If it were possible to keep one's head steady while running on a treadmill--good luck trying that one--I might never see the street again, because I'd be reading for five kilometers.

Here are my recommendations so far, some little things that will distract us from the monstrous weather:

"The Post-American World" by the brilliant Fareed Zakaria.

"Appetite for Life" by Noel Fitch, the fascinating biography of Julia Child.

"Ultimate Punishment" by Scott Turow, his erudite considerations on the death penalty (he can't decide, it seems. Scott Turow is a lawyer, by the way..)

Anything by Ruth Rendell and P.D. James

"Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela.

And last but highly enteraining, "Absolute Monarchs" by John J. Norwich, a history of the popes--and a bigger group of scoundrels has rarely been gathered under one roof, but their lives are rollicking indeed!

Still indoors...

It's official. Our summer has been declared the hottest on record. But there are now other exciting issues to add to the delight: our state government has decided to undergo a major revamping of one of the most-used streets and intersections in the whole metropolitan area, and while drivers roast under the sun with the car a/c going full blast, they must wait sometimes more than an hour to get past the tie-up or try to find an alternative route. The surprise is, there aint one. This means that traffic backs up for blocks and blocks during "rush" hour, and next week the faeces really hits the fan because school starts. Mark my words, there are going to be acts of violence.

As it is, under the indifferent noses of traffic cops, yesterday people drove over medians, made illegal turns, went the wrong way down one-way streets, all in an effort to get out of the traffic jam. Our glorious governor is the instigator of said public works, and I predict he will be hung in effigy (mainly because no one can actually get his hands on the real thing) multiple times.

Anyway, it's back to the treadmill for me until next week. My only triumph is that I am still losing weight, slowly but surely. As I told my mother, my bathing suit no longer fits me--it's too big! Although I attribute this mainly to the fact that it has probably stretched, this represents the second change-of-style bathing suit that is now obsolete. My first bathing suit a few years ago after we got a swimming pool was that ghastly kind that looked more like a burka than a bathing suit--nothing was left uncovered, but it made me look even fatter than I was. Then I graduated to a one-piece, high-leg suit which is now defunct. Also as I told my mom, it's just big enough that I'm always worried something will either fall off or ride up. My next suit is going to be one of those Spandex things so tight that your body is distributed everywhere except where the suit is.

It's off to run, this time with an old favorite, "The Day of the Jackal".

Wilted and Wasted

In the 21 years I've lived here, this is the worst summer weather. The humidity is now somewhere around six million percent, and everyone feels tired and worn to a frazzle. It has made the treadmill feel like a pleasure because if you run outside, the effort is beyond human endurance--yes, yes, all right, there are tons of people out there slogging through the muggy air, but they aren't old like I am! Indoors the only challenge is what movie to watch while running. The exercise choices seem reduced to dying of the heat and humidity outdoors, or dying of boredom if you can't find a movie you want to watch. (Music won't get me through three miles of running, no matter where I am.

Hell.

"It's not the heat, it's the humility": Yogi Berra.

After three blocks of walking this morning, it was obvious that my masochism doesn't reach the depth required to submit myself to running is this weather. Back home for me, and on to the treadmill while watching "The King's Speech". Air conditioning on full blast, overhead fan going.

Nevertheless, I've kept the faith with the training group: There are almost two pounds less of me. After the weight I lost two years ago, I may be within striking range of getting myself back into some decent clothes.

The Move from Hell

When it came time for us to try to move our furniture from our rented condo in Lakeway, TX, to Monterrey, I had rushed to Lubbock to be with my hospitalized mother, and my husband stayed put here because his sister had been hospitalized at the same time. In the meantime I had made four appointments for estimates for an international move, so a friend who also happens to work with my husband went to take charge. It's a good thing he is a triathlon competitor, too, because he needed every physical and mental resource to survive. If my husband or I had gone, some kind of crime might have been committed.

A local firm showed up and stated they would only place the furniture on the border; a woman who was driving in from Houston, representing a second firm, apparently was unable to read a map, estimate time and speed, or ask for directions because although she made it to the Austin airport, that was as far as she got before calling our friend to say that "it just couldn't be done". "It" in this case meant arriving in Lakeway because she had to be back in Houston that same evening. The skin crawls just to imagine where our furniture might wind up under the tender care of someone who couldn't get from Houston to Lakeway under her own steam.

Someone did show up, gave us an estimate (it was horribly expensive) to get our belongings to Monterrey, Nuevo León, México, and this was stated in writing. There is no mystery about what is happening in the United States these days in the area of customer service. Companies seem to think it is okay to send out representatives into the unsuspecting world when said employees are not sure exactly where they are themselves; our hero did understand we were moving to another country, and yes, his company has partners here in Mexico. He thought we could save import duties on our stuff if we just went to a Mexican consulate here in Monterrey to validate our time spent in the U.S.

As far as I know, although at this point I'm not sure of anything, Mexico does not have diplomatic missions to itself. I would have paid good money (although after the move estimate, I couldn't afford it) to have been present in order to suggest that our hero make sure he has all the necessary documents he needs from the United States embassy in Austin. It would have been even more exciting to see him attempt to get the embassy's address. Our hero surely lacked the almost divine inspiration of the Houston lady, and it is doubtful he would have leaped into his car and headed toward Austin, hoping to find the embassy by mental telepathy alone.

Today's excitement came about because my husband and our friend (it's Ironman Hernán) got into a knock-down-drag-out with our moving hero, who wanted to let us know that it was going to cost an additional king's ransom to move the furniture from the border to our home in Monterrey. It was like Saturday night in Belfast, although via telephone. Having signed the contract to move our furniture here for a stated amount, there was no turning back for our international mover, so aside from the import duties, his proverbial goose is done to a nice turn. He accepted the inevitable and signed another statement that obligates him to reimburse us after we have paid the Mexican movers.

None of these people is perverse or ill-willed, but they do seem to be almost mythically uninformed. The moving representative said that the trouble and expense involved in storing our stuff till now has been "unimaginable"--his word. It is of course unimaginable only to someone totally unaware of what his job involves or how to go about whatever it is he has to do. And this, folks, is an associate company of Mayflower movers!

The news two days ago said that the approval rating of the U.S. Congress was at an all-time low; when commentators would ask strategists and Congressmen from both parties why they couldn't hunker down and do something for the country, you couldn't hear the answers because they began shouting at each other--in other words, reinacting the behavior the news commentators were criticizing. Take the moving company representatives and multiply them by a factor of X, and you have Congress!

For those of you who still read, try "The Post-American World" by the brilliant Fareed Zakaria. You won't know whether to laugh and say "I told you so!", or cry, but out of the ashes comes inspiration: Why shouldn't the U.S. State Department open diplomatic missions to all major U.S. cities and consulates in the smaller towns? All those educated unemployed could join the diplomatic corps and serve without leaving the United States.

Dreams

Last night I dreamed I was in the presence of a number of gigantic cupcakes, and I ate two. It was terrible because I woke up feeling guilty at having fallen off the excess-food-wagon almost from the outset. But, man, were they ever good! Thank gosh it was only a dream. I think my superego needs readjusting...

Withdrawal symptoms

No, not from the blog, although that too. No sooner did I spout off about having my training routine set when the usual wrench was tossed into the works.

At the beginning of the year, my rheumatologist said one of the benefits of getting into shape and exercising consistently would be the elimination of one of my fibro medications. So, I decided to eliminate it. It was given to me in the lowest possible dose, hundreds of mgs fewer than most people have to take, so I was not worried about withdrawal symptoms. Getting rid of medication was one of my main goals for running, by the way.

This is day four without this particular medication, and it has been hard going. It is supposed to take care of pain, which is not my worst complaint anyway with fibromyalgia, and in that sense I don't miss it. Unfortunately, no one knows why it helps fibro, so no one knows for sure what else it does to you; in my book, that's enough of a reason to wean oneself away. So far I have been nauseated, woozy, with stomach upset and intestinal cramps--it's like a hangover without ever having had the fun of going on the drunk!

I am also having withdrawal symptoms from food. Last Thursday I announced to the whole training team that I have to lose from eight to ten kilos. The only way to do something like this is to say it out loud to supportive people; that way, shame alone can keep you on track. I don't change the way I cook, either, I just stop bingeing on crap like ice cream, cake, and other goodies. The only reason I'm not easier to jump over than to go around is because I'm a very good cook and make killer desserts, so I don't like the bought stuff, but laziness keeps me from baking very often. Once the sweet tooth is tamed or outfoxed, the rest is easier--decent serving sizes, for example. It hurts, but it aint impossible.

It may not have been the best idea in the world to withdraw from two addictions at once, but I figure the digestive upset from medication abstinence will help with the food withdrawal. You just can't get excited about a French chocolate tart made with rich Belgian chocolate if you are thrashing around the floor with stomach cramps.

By tomorrow or the next day, though, I'll be over the abstinence symptoms, and that will leave me alone to face my nemesis in the calorie department.

Adios for now...

My training schedule has now been set for quite a while, and nothing much will happen until the fall; therefore I am signing off for now, folks, except in Spanish on topics unrelated to running. Once in a while I may check in again in English to report on Gitano. Meanwhile, virtual running pals, forge ahead! You are admirable and true models for us beginners, all my best vibes are headed your way.

May the Force be with you all.

Another day at the park

One of my patients took a good, long look at my eye and told me that purple is definitely my color for eye shadow. I haven't used makeup in years because everything I do involves sun block or insect repellent, so makeup is pointless. It would only run into my eyes and streak down my face, but maybe I'll get some for my very few evenings out.

When Freud wrote about psychosexual development and used the word "perversions" to describe certain phenomena, the word simply indicated a deviation from the statistical norm and had no negative implications as such. But the negative feelings people had about the phenomena themselves transferred itself to the word, and now a pervert is someone odious indeed.

The same thing has happened with the word "retarded", which simply means an arrest in one's intellectual development and a limitation of abilities. It's as if people could remove their own prejudices and negative feelings by loading the word with the negativity and then eliminating the word itself--thus we come to the increasingly absurd phrases such as "different abilities" when referring to an individual with a mental handicap. We all have different abilities. It isn't the word per se that is the insult, it is the feelings we try to deny by eliminating the word.

The reason I say all this is because two new types of exercisers showed up at the park today, and I'm going to use a word that everyone avoids like the plague: fat. You just don't say someone is fat, at least not out loud. There are atrocious reality shows that feature fat people competing to lose weight, dancing to lose weight, getting surgery to lose weight, etc. To use fat people as entertainment is infinitely worse than calling them fat, which is no more than a term to indicate the truth. They are referred to as "heavy"; "And how long have you been heavy?" some idiot will ask the victim of a reality show.

Four people, ranging from simply fat to obese, arrayed themselves across the running path so that no one could pass. They wouldn't move aside, either. You went off the path or pushed through them if you wanted to get by. I managed to squeeze around one of them on the edge of the path, almost twisting an ankle as one foot slipped off the path. The running culture doesn't include yelling insulting names at people, but the temptation was as fat as the individuals themselves.

I usually admire hugely anyone fat who is marching down the running path because I know that person is taking on a challenge. I've been fat myself and still feel my washboard fat jiggle while I run. But these four people were being passively aggressive and they made me want to give them a swift, sharp kick to their ample butts.

The other kind of runner I noticed today is the Scraper: it is a terrible thing to scrape expensive running shoes along the pavement. The sound itself gives one chills. It's like watching money burn. This older man ran by me, and as each foot came down, he scraped it across the cement with a noise you could hear from several yards away. Ouch! Not to mention the potential for tripping and falling.

But enough of this. I haven't had breakfast yet. Ciao, arrivederci, a domani.

Retraction

Gonna hafta eat my words there, because there was just no way to get back on a treadmill; it has been back to the park no matter how god-awful the weather. Still on my holding-the-line training program. 5k even if it's crawling--sometimes it is. But I've ditched my glasses in case I crash again. I can't affort to crush my glasses or put my eye out with the damned things. My black eye is unbelievably fashionable: A delicate purple tending to red from eyebrow to eyelid, and the eyelid itself is a slate gray with purple undertones. It actually looks like a rock-star makeup job, and a darned good one.

And speaking of crashing, not another single bird has gone into the windows. In my freezer sits the quite puny little dove breast ready for cooking, all alone.

Meanwhile, if anyone out there has ever hungered after a peanut butter pie, there is one in this month's edition of Bon Appetit that will satisfy your deepest craving while blocking every artery and vein in your body. I made it yesterday for our family lunch--the kids and grandkids. The crust is a graham cracker one, the filling is a peanut butter custard (eight, count 'em, eight egg yolks), then a tower of homemade honeycomb candy, peanuts, and bittersweet chocolate on that. It just seemed like a bit much, so I modified it considerably except for that stupendous peanut butter custard, and there were rave reviews. Next time I plan to alter the recipe even more and come up with something that tastes as good a Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

On a sadder note, if anyone is interested in reading something that makes the horror of the Norway massacre at least understandable, try "Hatred: The Pychological Descent into Violence", by Willard Gaylin, M.D. An excellent book. Another good read along that line is "The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil" by Philip Zimbrado, the famous Stanford researcher who did the Stanford Prison Experiment with such unfortunate and fascinating results. This is the first book to detail that experiment and what came of it. And, to top off a list of disturbing but enlightening reading, try "Terror in the Mind of God" by Mark Juergensmeyer. When I first read this book, I was on a plane going from Seattle to Monterrey. It was September 10, 2001. The first botched attempt at blowing up the WTC was described in the book. At that time I was still an editorialist for our newspaper, and next day after the terrorist attacks, the editorial director frantically contacted everyone to ask for a pertinent article on the attacks. I guess I was the only one armed with real information on the causes. It was one of those coincidences one wishes had never happened.

Cary, that book we talked about is "The Arab Mind" by Raphael Patai. You'll enjoy it and it might clear up some misconceptions. It surely did for me.

Equine cross training

Yesterday when I tried to go to the quinta, the army had blocked the access road at the highway; I discovered later than a body or two had been dumped there, no doubt victims of intercartel conflict. Today the humidity has reached 90% and the temperature edging up toward 100, so my work with Gitano was a torture for both of us. At the moment he needs to work on correct flexion during turns and head placement, but I did everything at an easy trot, and not for long either. We wound up soaked in sweat, but only the horse got a bath and a mane shampoo, provided by the guy who honchoes up the quinta. I was too embarrassed to ask to be hosed down but I managed to stand close enough to the horse, giving him a treat, so that I got a splash or two.

How people manage to run outdoors at noon during this weather is a mystery to me. It is something I am not ever going to be able to do. The treadmill is boring beyond measure, but for the moment it is my only option.

Back to the treadmill, occasionally

The heat is in the 90s and the humidity is around 85%. This is bordering on the impossible, at least for an old gal like me. Until the mornings get a little cooler (we are expecting rain this week), it's back to the treadmill, dull though the prospect looms.

Bad make-up day

A quick glance in the mirror has revealed that my right eye looks like someone with really, really bad taste in make-up decided to use deep purple eye shadow, rather poorly applied, over one eyelid only. If applying eye shadow over the eyelid itself makes your eyes look deeper, I've got it made, at least on half my face.

Any excuse is good enough for me, so today will be a rest day.

And, by the way...

....there is no sympathy for the wicked. My husband is a night person, and before around ten in the morning, as I've claimed many a time, you can tell him the same joke day after day. It will be funny each time because his mind doesn't kick in until later.

However, I thought it might be a good idea this morning to let him know I was developing a black eye. Otherwise he would alarmed and horrified at lunch time when he sees me.

"Hey, I hit myself this morning and I'm getting a black eye," I stated, trying to hide the exact circumstances.

He put on his reading glasses and peered into my face.

"What happened? My God, what did you hit yourself with?"

"The ground," I replied. There was no getting around it, but maybe the story could be avoided.

It took him a while to register my reply; as I say, it was much earlier than ten o'clock.

"The ground??? How did you hit your eye with the ground?"

So, I told him I fell down. He wanted to know if it had happened in the back yard, where most of my misadventures take place--cuts, spider bites, blisters from using a spade, etc.

"No, I fell while running, out on the Calzada..."

It just disgusts the hell out of me that he chortled, even though I couldn't help laughing myself while I told the sorry tale. Dang it, I wanted more sympathy than that. Maybe at lunchtime.

Back to the daily grind...

This is Gitano. We got him underworked and overfed, so right now he is with Weight Watchers. When he gets in shape, he'll be quite handome. He is very sweet, even with small children.

And now, back to the daily grind.

There is a place on the running path, right where the path and a crosswalk meet, that causes people to trip. It is not evident what the problem is, since the paving is not more uneven than other places, but day after day I see runners trip, stagger, and fight to remain upright.

Today was no exception; as I trotted up to the fatal trap, yet another runner coming in the opposite direction caught his foot on some invisible obstacle and projected himself into the crosswalk at a ragged, wobbly jiggle before recovering. As I wondered what the devil was happening at this particular crosswalk, I proceeded to trip and fall flat. No one was close enough to offer to help me up, but I rose like a rocketing pheasant from sheer embarrassment and dashed away. My main concern was my knees, but they seemed fine. Nothing else hurt, so it wasn't until I got home that I discovered I had managed to clobber myself on the eyebrow, of all places, and now I have a large, colorful lump right under the right eyebrow; the hemorrhage is leaking down, so in a couple of hours I should have a black eye. I'm going to have to think up something more entertaining that falling flat while running to account for it.

On another front, my muscles are sore as all get-out from riding a horse which still needs training. Pure non-stop isometric effort, but at least my abs are getting a good workout. The whole running project seems terribly uphill to me right now, both literally and figuratively, but if it is going to include falling down, well, this is the pits!

What, no more free food??

Wouldn't you know it? No sooner had I worked up the courage to dress a dove than the danged birds are avoiding my windows in droves.

Poor Adrián, not knowing what to do with me, sent questions to my rheumatologist as to how to program my training sessions. The rheumatologist had some good suggestions (he said my heart rate and cholesterol levels are fantastic) that have to do with just staying at a certain training rate with peaks and valleys depending on hills, etc. He told me, however, that no matter how ghastly I feel, I have to do something even if it is walking a block. He always asks if I've been riding, because that is his parameter for terminal depression--if I don't ride, he gets worried and begins glancing at his prescription pad, wondering if antidepressants are in order. I assured him that I now have another horse, Gitano (Gypsy), and find myself in both mourning and excitement at the same time. The combination is not recommended, believe me. But coming across exactly the kind of horse I was looking for so soon (I expected the search to last weeks and weeks) meant that I either took the chance or let it go, so I took it, and Gitano is installed at the quinta lookin' good. Pictures will come next week.

Yesterday three older ladies were marching along the path covered with pants, long-sleeved shirts, and short-sleeved shirts over those, plus extra pants over the main pair. Someone may have told these ladies that you can loose weight sweating, but the fount of information forgot to mention that it is all water weight and you could end up with heat stroke to boot. Also, another lady, again older, had on a modest top, a pair of sweat pants, and over the pants she wore a gauzy little short skirt that covered her rear end and fluttered flirtatiously in the breeze. What is with these people??

Also, I have located someone in my training group that is anorexic for sure. If she has 10% body fat, I'll eat my running shoes. And speaking of eating, guess who is going to have to pay up with a pastel de tres leches, come August!!!

Random Musings

After two weeks of total absence of motivation and terminal depression, I managed to force myself to the park today to walk/run 5K. It isn't back to square one for me, but it's darned close to square two.

Motivation is an odd thing. What floats someone's boat, sinks someone else's. I can force myself to the park because I know my children worry less about my fibro if Mom can trot 5K and has a resting heart rate of 40. Ten years ago, my husband survived a terrible illness and six weeks in the hospital because he had excellent cardiopulmonary condition when he went in. I also keep hoping that eventually I will lose some weight. We won't discuss what I've gained during these two weeks of inactivity, either. It may seem like insufficient motivation to do something so that someone else's peace of mind is assured, but that's fine by me. And, last and least reasonably, I keep hoping that I can literally run away from fibromyalgia. But like someone writing about fibro said, you can either hurt and be in rotten shape, or hurt and be in good shape. What's to wonder about on that point? Clear as a bell.

It has struck me more than once that there is only one person I've seen exercising that I would consider anorexic; this is odd since according to an HBO Latin American special, Mexico and Argentina have more anorexics in proportion to population than other Latino countries. That may be, but they aren't running in the park unless they go much later in the day.

And, lo and behold, I saw a woman my age running this morning! I was beginning to despair of my gender. She was tall, slim, and very fit. She is a lone runner. May the Force be with her.

It is possible, slightly possible, that a new horse comes to live at the quinta. I still haven't made up my mind because nothing really appeals to me right now; I compare all horses to Bandolero and they come up short. The one I'm seeing today again is well-behaved, half Spanish, black, bigger than I really wanted, and the vet examination is pending--that happens today. I'll keep you posted.

Adrián wants me to enter a 3K (didn't know there were any) sponsered by the American Consulate here, in August. Well, we'll see. First I have to recover from the past two weeks, and then I can decide.

Bandolero

Adios, mi Bandolero

Bandolero died this morning, put down by the vet, after a terrible colic that filled him with toxins. Nothing more to say.

Aunt Joyce

My aunt Joyce died last week, and because of the crashing birds, she has been on my mind. When I was a little kid, her daughter and I were very close, so I spent a lot of time at her house. Several experiences there were unique: she knew how to prepare beef tongue, but it still looked too much like a tongue for me to choke down.

She kept chickens for a while, and I will never forget the day she grabbed one by the neck and swung it around vigorously by that neck until the chicken died. Maybe I should say, until the head came off and we had a DOA. I was not exactly appalled, but it must have been something traumatic enough to have burned itself into my memory because the event it as vivid as a mental movie.

The reason I thought of her was because I dressed my first dove breast this morning, immediately after the bird killed itself on my glass doors. The plucking was okay, but the fact that the creature was still warm was unpleasant--I kept feeling for a heartbeat before I cut the bird up. It was indeed very dead, but it was scant moments away from life, so dressing it was somewhat unsettling. I can see why people become vegetarians.

Rain, and more rain, but today is a rest day in my training schedule and tomorrow is a long walk. We have two new movies, though, so the treadmill will not be the ghastly bore it could be.

Book reviews: For those of you who like military history, don't miss the wonderful "The Last Battle of the Tin Can Sailors". And for history buffs in general, I can highly recommend Matthew Cobb's "The Resistance", about the French resistance during WWII. For human interest and life lessons, there is "Tuesdays with Morrie", but have a box of Kleenex handy.

Rain, lots of it!

The relief is profound. I thought maybe there would be fewer runners, especially since I got a late start and had to go to the park at rush hour, but it was crowded as usual in spite of the downpour. But it doesn't matter, the drought has broken, the streets are flooded, and I plan to kick back with my new Kindle and read until I drop. Have a fine day, folks.

Overheard in an email...

Adrián, who is a genuine dear, is frustrated that he can't do something about my fibro, that he can't come up with a training routine that will eliminate it. I told him that made two of us and not to worry about it. He really must be the sweetest man around. We have settled on a form of interval training until this attack fades away. That 30-minute evaluation looms again, "as soon as you feel well enough", but if he needs it in order to see how I'm doing, so be it. Adrián rules!

Meanwhile, I overheard in an email that someone who reads this blog doesn't like it. Well, it isn't homework, and the fate of the world doesn't hang in the balance if said individual doesn't read it. In fact, not reading it would appear to be the ideal solution for anyone who still has three neurons firing. My suggestion is just that: if you don't like it, don't read it. It won't matter to me because I don't know who reads it and who doesn't, except for the people who make comments. So, considering that life is chock full of irritations, problems, obstacles, and disappointments, why add yet another? It would seem to be a masochistic undertaking to subject oneself time and again to something you don't like when you don't have to do it, but to each his own peculiar psychological quirks, I say.

Rest assured that even if no one at all reads the blog, on it will go. I have my own reasons. If I discovered, however, that a friend was writing a blog that I didn't like, and I made it a point to mention this to my friend, I would be writing unspoken volumes of information about my own disappointments and expectations, and my own unresolved issues with aggression and self-esteem. It's best to keep quiet.

Unless, of course, I was the kind of person who would settle for any reaction at all as long as it was a reaction to me, confirming my importance in my own eyes.

Satisfied?