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.