This morning I got up at 5:30 – I couldn’t sleep any more. Moddie will be coming over today to do the video for the TAR entry. So I had to charge my little hand-held video camera, and am working on getting my “story” down to a minute.

We have both uploaded WAY WAY WAY too many photos into Dropbox, so we’re going to have to go over those as well (once we get the video knocked out), to very specifically detail what goes where.

The idea would be to have Prashant do the video somewhat like a “scrapbook” or a “storybook” where the photos are 2-4 per page, and have something “written under” them (like they would be in a scrapbook) – in a script that would be easy for the producers to read. It can tell the story “under” what we are saying in the voiceover.

Now I’m timing out my voiceover – I’ve changed the wording a number of times, and I know what I have right now is about 300% too long! So time for paring….

I’ll go to Crossfit today at 9:00 a.m. (NOTE: I did not say 9:30 LOL!) As I pointed out to Moddie via text last night, THIS will get us to tone up and do our strength and flexibility training!

Crossfit today:

CONDITIONING
6 RFT
15 Squat Cleans 43/30KG
15 Pull Up
400M Run

I can’t remember what a “squat clean” is – I think that’s bringing the barbell from the floor up under your chin – on the pullups, I think I will still do them from the box, but I will work on them after using the band. There’s no way that I can use that much “real estate” (a band plus a box) to do the “step off the box, using the band” method.

Then I will come home and straighten my hair for our video LOL.

=============================THIS IS HARD!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3 MINUTES IS NOTHING!==================

THIS IS ONE MINUTE LONG, I TIMED IT:

Hey! I’m Sandy. I grew up a cautious, rule-abiding kid in standard American suburbia. Though my folks were adventurous, I found my adventures  in books. As I grew older, what’s a bookworm to do? So I got degree

after degree

after degree

after degree!

After a bad romantic breakup, I decided to “heal myself” as the saying goes, keeping a blog as I went. I used the Bond Girl as my muse… a publisher found me… and the rest is history. Okay, I did go back and get another degree, this time in Sexology! It being Bond Girls and all!

But let me back up. On New Year’s in 1987, I entered a training program that promised to turn Couch Potatoes into Triathletes by Thanksgiving. It did.

I vowed then to do the Ironman before I was 50. That seemed a long way off – until my 48th birthday a couple years ago! So I got up off the couch again, and joined the Leukemia Society’s Team In Training. Even when training sucked, I remembered that chemo sucks more. I finished the Ironman – last woman over the line, but happy.

I’ve continued to raise tens of thousands to fight blood cancer. And that’s where I met Moddie.

=========================================================

OURS TOGETHER – ONE MINUTE if MODDIE CAN TALK CLEARLY AND AS FAST AS I DID ON THE TEST:

Sandy: I loved Moddie from the moment I met her. She has these little hiccups that sound like a tree frog. You’ll hear them when we’re Racing.

Moddie: <laughing> Okay, now that my big secret is out…Sandy keeps me in good spirits – even on 100 mile bike rides or two mile icy swims in the San Francisco Bay. When my temper flares, she always has a way to make me laugh.

Sandy: Yeah, I finally embraced my ungainly 6’2″ white-girl-can’t-jump-ness when I turned 50, and I must admit, it’s a lot more fun to live life in 3D than between the pages. I have a quirky sense of humor.

Moddie: Uh, very! So, we both want to start non-profits. Mine would benefit kids like me, who have it in them to succeed, but come from a hard-knocks background.

Sandy: Mine would benefit kids like my adopted grandboy Caleb, who’s been stoically fighting intense pain that doctors can’t figure out.

Moddie: On November 4th, we were talking about how to do this, and how much we loved The Amazing Race. Then we had an epiphany….

[FADE INTO VIDEO ON COUCH]

Sandy:…you know, we could always apply to The Race.

Moddie: There’s no way. We’d have like a day to do a video.

Sandy: Oh come on (kick). Would you at least think about it?

Moddie: Um, think it over? That would be so unlike me (both laugh) – no, let’s do it.

Sandy: Now?

Moddie: Now.

Sandy: Did you see it last night? Do you sing? Oh my God, you’re going to realize all the things I’m afraid to do.

Moddie: (laugh) Well, I’ll climb the cliffs if you’ll eat the bugs.

Sandy: Wait a sec-ond…

New photo fades in of us in the water after Lavaman:

Moddie Stone, 40, moddies@hotmail.com, 415. xxx.xxxx
Sandy Shepard, 51, goodsolutions1@yahoo.com, 415.xxx.xxxx

She’ll climb the cliffs . . . I’ll eat the bugs.

===========================

Now Moddie has to get hers to a minute or less. I know, I’m a piggie, I am taking up a TON of the 3 minutes. I’m HOPING that my first minute “tees up” Moddies’ story as the “antithesis” of how I grew up, so she can tell hers in a minute or less in “counterpoint.” When I was scripting for Robbie and me, I had our stories down to 30 seconds, but that was because I didn’t talk about as much (the training stuff takes a lot of seconds in Moddie and my story).

So if Moddie can talk about her “not so much standard suburbia” background, being active, “trying on different personalities for real more than in books,” etc., she doesn’t have to talk about TNT because I’ve done that part (e.g. she can just say “Team In Training” not “The Leukemia Society’s Team In Training” – that’s a couple seconds less right there) – she doesn’t have to talk about coming from a “couch potato” background, instead could be more like: “I’ve been on Iron, triathlon, and marathon teams with TNT and with Sandy..” – fingers crossed we can make this work!

OK time to go wake up the hubby….

Went to Crossfit last night – it was only Jay and me (and Bo of course). We did the WOD, no fuss no muss. I did the back squats with the orange bar – but no rack because Jay had the one rack, and I’m not sure where the others were (it was weird – maybe they were being used for some Halloween thing over in the gymnastics or the parcour gyms?) Anyway – so I could have squatted more, but I couldn’t get the bar OFF my shoulders at a higher weight. I did a fancy little number where I grabbed the bar with my right hand on my left shoulder (right shoulder is the  bad one) and then “spun around” under the bar, so now I was facing backwards but holding the bar in my hands to put it down on a stack of boxes (slick!)

I beat Jay but only because he’s pretty slow on the run. He’s the big football player guy. His wife is having some sciatica problems, and H didn’t feel well enough to go.

Today I was on the computer piddling around when I realized that the WOD started at 9:00 not 9:30 (duh!) – it was about 8:50 when I realized this. I SPRANG out of bed (yes, shades of “The Night Before Christmas”) and into my clothes and out the door – luckily I’d already had my Bulletproof Coffee so I was “fed” – I’d even put Collagen Protein in it because of planning to go to Crossfit, just – duh – blew the time.

Everyone was warmed up by the time I got there so I did a very VERY quick warmup and then we had at it. The 9:00 WOD is the gang who all can do everything – except Marfur (the new girl, but she’s like 20 and super fit) and moi.

The WOD was:

CONDITIONING
20 Min AMRAP
10 Wall Ball
7 Toes 2 Bar
5 Burpee

I did the wall balls with the 10 pound ball. It’s very VERY weird, I have this odd sense I might have done 20 on some of my reps. (I’m not sure about that, maybe I”m mixing it up with yesterday). No – probably not – because I did 8 full reps then 17 (meaning I did the wall balls (1o) and the scaled Toes 2 Bar (7) which means, for me, bringing my knees up as if I’m sitting in a chair, hanging from the pullup bar). Marfur did 9 and change, most everyone else was in the 12-14 range (Rx).

The BIG thing though was that I actually DID the Burpees – as I mentioned about 3 blogs ago. I basically did a “flop down, upward-dog up” version, but that’s OK, it counts. It sucked. Around rep. 6 or 7, I was on like #3 and I realized I was down and couldn’t get up. My head was POURING with sweat (I was leaving a puddle on the ground, and I was sweating so hard that there was a “Team In Training” logo actually in the mat under my shirt – I’m not sure how THAT happened, maybe somehow heat imprinted in the black mats???). Bo said “Come on Sandy!” and I was able to get the next 2 done. As the saying goes from something I posted a week or so ago: “Yeah, burpees hate you, too.” LOL!

Turns out Bo and Amanda (“Team BoManda”) are going to be down doing Rebel Rising in Huntington Beach tomorrow. I FB’d Joy from Girls Gone WOD to see if she could go cheer them on – she’s in So Cal on business, from Denver – but she has to work all Saturday. BUMMER!

My shoulder feels totally fine. I have a “stitch” under my right glute from I think (believe it or not) the situps last night. I used to be the situp QUEEN and I really suck. I have 3 rolls to “sit up and over.”

My November goals: (1) do burpees full when in the WOD (yay! done!) (2) do something stomach/core-related EVERY day – whatever it is, from a candlestick situp to rockers to situps to knee ups hanging from the bar (we did that yesterday and today) (3) work on pullups 2x/week minimum.

OH AND – so when I got home, I discovered that the WonderUnders I was wearing both today and yesterday (which I had gotten from Jane – she had BETTER not have given these to me because she KNEW this!) had a big hole in the seam right along the butt crack!) OMG! I started thinking about what we did yesterday and today – and whether I might have done any Squats Of Shame (laugh)…I know that the back squats I did yesterday I did facing the wall, then we had running, pushups and situps. Can’t remember the warmup so maybe I shouldn’t LOL. Today we had squats in the warmup but no one was watching, wall balls, the hanging knees up (Rx: toes to bar) and burpees. I THINK I might have been okay. It’s a real shame because those doggone things are expensive and there’s no way to fix this hole. I did wonder why Jane was giving them up frankly – especially as they were just the right size for me. I have worn them a few times before but I would have seen that sort of a hole – so I think actually the squats last night and today just “did” it (or “expanded” it). I would believe that at LEAST Michael or Margo (maybe Karen) would TELL me if I was having a Squat of Shame (Laugh) – so I have to believe that no one noticed, if it DID “crack open” Aaaaaaaaugh!!!!!!!!!! Yes it would be better if I had been wearing oh say black undies but you know how tight those things are so I was in a thong, so no joy there.

So that’s my checkin! LOL!

I meant to mention that when we were in Tahoe, I had all the language tapes with me. At one point, H walked in when I was puttering around (I thought he was still in the shower) and I was counting in Portuguese. As I have not shared this TAR thing with him, he was very confused.

I haven’t shared TAR with him because who knows if we will get on. I PLAN that we will get on, but one never knows. So telling him now would be ridiculous. Instead, I figure I’ll tell him after we’ve been chosen. Since you do the whole thing in 2 weeks (even if you’re eliminated right away, you have to stay “sequestered” so that no one can figure out who won by who “goes home”), I figure that about 2 weeks out I’ll tell him “oh by the way…”

Today’s Crossfit workout:
CONDITIONING
8 RFT
200M Run
10 Back Squat 70/45KG
15 Push Up
20 Sit up

That’s not so bad. I am fairly sure I can’t do it with 45 KG (that’s about what I do a deadlift at – you know, those things that everyone else does with like 200 lbs? LOL) but hopefully I can do it with the bar itself (like the photo). The key is to try to get your thighs as close to 90 degrees as possible, with keeping your shins fairly straight up and down. (The gal in this photo seems to have her knees over her toes instead of more over her ankles – but who am I to judge?? 🙂 )

H just said he’s “not sure” that he will go to Crossfit tonight. I’m not sure what’s up with him. Luckily, he is just leaving for an appointment with my acupuncturist – he’s felt unwell for SO long, I think he will at least START to get some relief by seeing her. In reality, I’m fairly sure what he needs to do is to get on my nutritionist’s “eating system,” but I can’t force that.

I do pretty well, but I’m back being “bad” because now I feel like TAR is farther off. As in, I had some pie at Tom and Jan’s going away party (though it was gluten-free) and let’s not talk about how much cheese and ice cream I ate!

The biggest habit I got out of was making the green shakes which I really do feel were a boon to me. You have to make them with NOT so much “green” stuff (it makes it just disgusting), and not too “taste-heavy” like for example kale. Best nutrition profile, believe it or not, winds up being romaine lettuce, which I can just eat a whole headful of while sitting on the computer. I had been very good with this until H and I went away in September, then got out of the habit. However, today at the Farmer’s Market I “bulked up” again on the stuff to make it – I need to go to Trader Joe’s to get some frozen wild organic blueberries and such,, but time to get that going again.

I’m reading Thinner Next Year again, which really is such a great book. It cracks me up. It’s like Younger Next Year but really talks about the nutrition aspect. I also have finally downloaded the Nutrition Certification info to my computer, and so I need to start working my way through that. I love this stuff, so I think once I get started it will be just interesting to really learn.

Went to BNI again this week – last week I was Dr. Cinda’s guest, because she has my testimonial on her website and this week I was the substitute for Willie, my nutritionist. You only get to “visit or sub” 2x every 6 months, so I “shot my wad” as it were. Everyone and I mean EVERYONE keeps coming up to me and saying I’m the life of the chapter, etc. and would I PLEASE come back? I’m not sugar-coating it any more – they didn’t ever give me any actual referrals, so it didn’t even pay the monthly dues to be a member. And I was a member for YEARS! So I’m glad that folks liked me being there – but they didn’t do anything to KEEP me there. It’s a bummer because I put a LOT of $$$ into that chapter in referrals. Ah well!

So that’s my check-in for now. I’m feeling sleepy and a bit under the weather, which I’m quite sure is mainly due to not really exercising in a week, and last week (except for the marathon) only really working out a few times. Time to get back on track. The bad part is that I wind up being able to do one (say exercise) and then I want to “treat myself” on the other (food) – or vice versa. Tough to get them both aligned!

OH – and I cut about 4-5″ off my hair so now it’s at my shoulders. It’s VERY cute. It makes the waves really “work” (because they’re not as heavy) and I think I look a lot younger. Of course, my face is super puffy because I’m retaining water/weigh too much – but my hair is very cute! Donna also “reversed” it back towards my natural color versus bleaching it – she said it was time. I was looking through a lot of old photos this past week (cleaned out boxes in the office closet) and realized that for my hair to look more full and healthy, I really can’t let it get much longer than shoulder-length. And at that length, I can still pull it back, but it’s not so long as to be “unruly.” Funny when I think I had my hair at “sit-on” length when I was in 8th grade – and how proud I was of that – but I think that sort of length hair really ages you. You look like an old hippie 😉 This way it’s still “long” (especially as my neck is so long!), but it’s more fun and looks “perkier.”

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it 😉

Yeah, okay, fine.

I didn’t go to Crossfit AGAIN today. This is really stupid.

It’s the “I’m curled up in bed, H is curled up in bed, I don’t wanna get up” thing. Also likely one should sprinkle in a healthy dose of “I just want to be fit again and do whatever I want like I could when I was 20, maybe if I go back to sleep this will all be a bad dream…” (laugh – kinda!)

SO, I said a while back what I would “do with the money” should R and I wind up winning The Amazing Race, against all odds. I said that it would come out to like $250k each – and that I would take H to a great trip to Greece/Turkey (which we’ve both always wanted to do) on that money. It could also put us far closer to H being able to retire.

But let’s just pretend (hey, this is my Daydream, right?) that a Travelocity “benefit” of having won was – ta da! – a first class trip anywhere that you want to go, for each participant, for 2. (That’s always been one of my questions – as in, if it’s two friends doing TAR and they win a travel trip, do they only get to go together? Or do they get a “trip for 2” each? Inquiring minds…)

Anyway –

So my grandboy Caleb has had some terrible TERRIBLE luck recently. For at least ten weeks now (maybe more), he’s been subject to something going VERY wrong with him. We’re talking incredible, awful pain that the doctors can’t get to the bottom of. It could be (as his grandmother had a gall bladder issue that didn’t present with any specific body chemicals showing that it was going in) a gall bladder thing. But whatever it is, he hasn’t been able to go to school, and has basically been eating nothing for 10 weeks – and hasn’t lost any weight, and is still screaming with pain for hours and hours. This is NOT a guy who would have this “all in his head” – he’s your usual “nearly 13 year old” boy, who could talk your ears off, and who is sensitive, but who wouldn’t just “make up” this sort of pain. He’s pretty Stoic, as evidenced by when he had a thing stuck in his foot that we were trying to get out back before he went to Boy Scouts Jamboree. He’s helpful, kind, a great all-around guy.

He’s also in a new school – which REALLY sucks – he leaves to go to this new school, is there for like maybe a day or two, and then this set in. So he’s getting more and more behind – and the “home school” stuff is IDIOTIC and I’m afraid he’s going to get held back once we get to the bottom of all this.

How do I have a grandson? It’s sort of a convoluted story, but the crux of it is that a friend’s Mom passed away and she was afraid that her kids would never really “have a grandma” – just as I found out that I couldn’t have kids. I hadn’t planned to be “that woman that never had kids” – but so it goes. That’s the short version, but I’m basically the only grandma these boys “know” – and it’s been this way for…wow, about 5 years? From about when Caleb was somewhere around….8? And when Cody was somewhere around…5?

They live in Utah which SUCKS because not only I, but my Mom, would be there constantly to try to soothe all this and give the parents a break. The other thing that worries me is something I’ve seen time and again when a sibling has a disease of some kind – the “other” child winds up acting out, because they’re not getting the “attention” that they were used to. Something has to give when time is being spent on one child – and try as you might, it usually comes from the time otherwise spent with the “well” child.

ANYWAY – so I realized today in the car when hearing that yet another test came up negative, that H and I have been talking for forever that “when we’re not here any more,” that we want to have a Trust with the bulk of our assets going into it. We’ve written up our wills and trusts this way. The Sandy and Herbert Trust 😉

We’ve talked about various things that  the trust could benefit – but I know now. I want it to benefit kids with pain. And their siblings. And their parents. I was talking once with a couple of gals in Denver – one had had a daughter with cancer. She said that if someone had just shown up during those long, long hours she was in the hospital with a glass of wine and some chocolate, she would have probably paid $100 for it. Imagine a website where you can do that for a Mom or Dad with a sick kid? Where you could get a meditation or hypnosis CD made specifically for the child who is sick, to help them in a “biofeedback” sort of way? Or a space where siblings could go to discuss their feelings, or even just receive one-on-one attention – whether being taken to the zoo, given some credits to an online game, etc.? There might be something like this already – I do know that the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society does things for families (and that is why I support them through marathons, triathlons, etc.) – not just “finding the cure.” The non-profit would pay to have the website designed, and for beta tests with families going through things like Caleb is. There was a New York Times article on a young girl in a similar situation who was ultimately treated at the Mayo Clinic – I’d fly out and take that doctor out for a weekend “brain retreat” and find out what he thinks would be the first order of business in this area. Then I’d get to it. In fact, Caleb’s Mom could run the whole thing. Hey, I can dream, right?

Today at our local corner market, I saw a little boy that was like a Sherman tank, fearless, happy, giggling, and SO CUTE! How old is a kid right when they are learning to walk? 9 months? He came up to me as I was getting a cup of coffee. His Mom actually works at the store (so she knows me) – though I’d never met her son before. He walked right up to me brazenly with a huge smile, and pointed “up” (that’s the benefit of being over 6′ tall – I get that pretty often from little kids!) So I scooped him up, laughing, and held him up over my head, then sucked on his fingers (they tasted like apples), buzzy-kissed his stomach, and then held him upside down as he squealed in glee. It was like a little fizzy ball of happiness incarnate. That’s what made me think of Caleb – how he’s just in pain ALL the TIME. How awful this is – how he feels like “people don’t believe him,” and how this is changing who HE is. The pain is changing “Him.

So that’s what I want the Trust to do. I want it to benefit children who are in pain – particularly, if no one can figure out what that pain “is.” I’m not sure how one would describe the “mission” of that Trust, but that’s what I want it to be. The “difference” between this little boy in the market and my sweet grandboy and what he’s going through made me realize that This Was It.

So – that’s what my $ will go to – it will go towards some fun stuff for H and me, sure, but it’s going to go towards starting this Trust. I feel REALLY strongly about that – and I think that the memory of this super duper happy little ball of boy juxtaposed against my poor sweet grandboy will keep me going, and that’s a fact.

Oy.

Last week was long on running around and short on running (or Crossfit, for that matter). Although the “plan” was to hit Crossfit on Wednesday, it didn’t happen – then Thursday was Book Club so I knew that I couldn’t go, but the “plan” was to do something – hike, run? – that afternoon. Unfortunately I went to visit a friend who was home from the hospital from having a heart attack, and what should have been an hour visit turned into an all-day visit. What are you going to do when someone wants you to stay, and you CAN stay?

We left for Tahoe on Friday, and on Saturday we did another “Gilligan’s Island” hike, this time in Olympic and Squaw Valley. The funniest thing is that I had to explain to what the whole ‘Gilligan’s Island’ reference was – because he’d never seen the TV show. I had of course used the “three hour tour” reference to him when we did the “hour long hike that turned into four hours” up Mt. Tam in September, but really hadn’t realized he didn’t have ANY idea what I was talking about.

It was a TOUGH hike. Up and over boulders most of the way from the bottom of Olympic Village to Shirley Lake – then instead of going back DOWN, we traversed, went up the Shirley Lake “run” (if the lift had been running, that would have been faboo, but, alas, no), all the way up to the “top” of the mountain (which was also closed), then we walked back down from there.

I was great in my hiking shoes until we started the long trek down – then my big toes were slamming against the front. H finally re-laced them to try to get my feet to stop sliding forward – but unfortunately I think that they may not be TAR-worthy. I really have to figure something out. I have my ENORMOUSLY heavy boots from when we hiked the Alps – they were fantastic, above the ankle, waterproof, etc. – but man, each boot is like 5 lbs! The lacing seemed to help, and I need to “hike them” around here to see if this will make them “work” for me.

Our hike was so exhausting, the next day (Sunday) we just went to Tahoe City, and then walked around a bit on the bike path. We drove down to the South to look at the scenery, and then went to a wonderful restaurant (a real “foodie” restaurant in Tahoe City? No! Yes!) and actually walked some again, there.

The snow reports were getting ominous, and so we ditched the room at 11 p.m. (wasting $200 – the room was 1/2 price because it was shoulder season, but that still hurts) and “bolted” for home. We only hit one small flurry, but we were back by 2:00 a.m. and I’m glad we did it. H was ambivalent, but I realized that if it was snowing from about midnight Sunday night all the way through Monday, all we’d be doing is sitting inside anyway. (We looked at the Weather Camera Monday morning and it looked completely passable – but it’s not like we would have gone out hiking – it was about 3″ on the ground up to about 8″ on Donner Summit.)

So Monday H said to “do things that I wanted to do, and pretend like it was still a vacation.” That meant (for him) pulling out and sorting the stones where he’s re-laying the slabs on our “martini porch” – for me, it meant going through 4 storage boxes that were in the closet in my office. I sorted them out into old pictures (some of which I need to scan for our TAR submission), and then another box for “miscellaneous” – leaving me with 2 free boxes. OMG the DUST! The real reason for doing this was that H wanted to get up into the attic to turn off the whole house fan – and the only way is in that closet, which is perpetually full of boxes, etc. I also sorted out everything IN the closet on the shelves, which felt good.

Next I “attacked” the fridge, freezer, and the lower pantry. H said that I spend too much time cooking and thought that I should try to do a “prep day” for food. So I did just that – chopped up veggies I had and putting them into ziplocks, re-organizing the freezer, etc. That was pretty satisfying.

I did the bulk of this while watching the new episode of TAR. So I wasn’t paying complete attention . . . and though the Baseball Bunnies went from being last to 4th (yay!) the Chico Boys were eliminated (boo!) I really liked them. They had such a great attitude – and they really only got eliminated because the Afghanimals U-Turned them (though they were themselves U-Turned by the E.R. Doctors – who did get the Express Pass for telling Pinkie and her ex how to get to the next clue when they were stuck).

They wound up in Poland, and 3 of the teams REALLY got messed up because the taxi drivers had NO IDEA where they were going. One funny thing, however, was that one of the “lost” teams’ drivers called up one of the other drivers – who knew where he was going – and the driver did NOT tell, because his “fares” (the affianced team) asked him not to. That was VERY funny.

I was interested that they are very much downplaying the Afghanimals/Ice Princesses this time around. I wonder if they got “flak” of some kind because of it, and if they’re trying to make it so that the Afghanimals aren’t so hated? I don’t know, just found that interesting.

Today I’ve been cleaning out email ALL DAY yes ALL DAY. Holy cow. And no, no paying work, either.

Tonight would be Crossfit, but Tom and Jan are leaving (sob!) and so there is a going away party for them at 6:30 – right when we would be going. This is bad. We signed up for the Membership and suddenly aren’t going!

I had to write my RVMC Magazine article which I just turned in – the subject was “Traditions.” It was pretty fun to write.

H is still feeling very unwell. He wonders if his ulcers are back. I want him to see my acupuncturist – she’s a genius at this stuff. I hope that he does it. And speaking of eating – since I (and one of the other gals) are gluten-free and I have to bring dessert, I guess I’d better jet to Flour Chylde to get something before they close! I REALLY hope that he’s willing to go to Crossfit tomorrow morning because we have to get back in the swing.

POSSIBLE LEARNING: I wonder if, the SECOND you jumped the cab and he seemed to be taking you to the wrong place, you could get him to take you to a hotel to get help? I’m trying to figure out a way to get help FAST. These cab drivers didn’t have SmartPhones (it was Poland), so there wasn’t a way go “Google” where they wanted to go. My supposition would be that going to a “big name” hotel would be your best bet, rather than just driving around. That, or a Tourist Agency…not sure about Poland, but in many countries there are “Tourist-related” businesses with “tours” etc. on just about every corner, especially in busy towns.

THIRTY-EIGHT DAYS TO DAY 100: I’d like to have something to celebrate on that day! It’s a month. Not sure what it would be – but it should be something! 1/3 of the way there!

So today, since I MUST listen to the doggone book club book (Book Club is tomorrow), I’m going to “Hike” to the store as I think I mentioned I would do yesterday. I didn’t make it to Crossfit today – I had somewhat of a “plan” to do it, but I didn’t set an alarm, and woke up at 9:00 a.m. The “warm sick Panda curled up in bed” thing . . . (H has gone from calling himself the Panther – which has always been his self-moniker – to the Panda . . . unfortunately I am not the only one who has “succumbed” to my gourmet dinners and wine LOL!)

When I mentioned to him that I hadn’t made it to Crossfit, his reaction was: “Why don’t they call it CruciFit or GrumpyFit? I think that fits it better.” Said with Viennese accent of course. Made me laugh out loud.

I plan to do some Crossfit-esque things today though. I want to see if there is ANY way I can figure out how to do a Burpee without engaging my right shoulder in a painful way. I certainly can’t do pushups, but Bo showed us “the flop” of a Burpee that is “perfectly allowable” yesterday – and I want to see if there is some way to do that. He said that the deal with a Burpee (wonder how that silly thing got that name…) is that you need to have the following components:
1. Start standing.
2. Squat down, putting your hands on the ground.
3. Get the front of your hips onto the ground, “however you can.”
4. Get back up to standing.
5. Put hands up, jump up.
6. Repeat.

Now, how “everyone” does Burpees is to start standing, put their hands down on the ground near their feet, “jump” their legs out (a la a Plank), go down to the ground (sorta a “belly flop” though if you’re really good, more controlled LOL), push up, jump feet back up to hands, stand up/jump/hands up together. HOWEVER, Bo was showing the one gal that’s heavy in our 6:30 WOD that it’s “perfectly acceptable” to do “what it takes” to get the hips down and then back up – e.g., crawl down on knees, step back up forward, whatever. The “parts” of the Burpee are as above – as in, if you do all those things, “however you do them,” you’ve done one. (Similar to “toes to bar” – you’re “supposed” to raise your toes up and touch the bar where your hands are hanging in an impressive move of ab strength, but if instead you bring your knees up, wiggle, turn sideways, grunt, stretch, and kick out and manage to get some part of both feet to the bar, that counts.)

We’ll see what I can do.

I did manage to get 13 minutes’ worth of billable time today (rah-bloody-rah) – though that’s $65.00. And it will also lead to about the same amount of work tomorrow (this was an intake call, tomorrow will be an email I have to write, but the client is going to draft it to “save himself money” – then I will tweak and send to the other side). I said something in the call that had us both in a fit of giggles (and this guy is an uber-serious head of a company so not a big giggler) – once I figured out what he wanted, and we’d talked out the strategy of how to do it, I meant to say “Okay, I think that’s set, I agree with you on our strategy.” Instead, I said “Okay, I think that’s set, I agree with me on our strategy.” He was silent for a second, as we both processed what I’d said, then to break the silence I said “Obviously I’m schizophrenic – and so am I.” And he started to giggle. Lord almighty, what a boob I am sometimes LOL!

Last night, R put the brakes on the video for November. She had gone through and scanned in old photos, etc. – and said that “I just don’t realize” how far off the rails she’s gone since I last saw her (which has to be a couple years) – so N-O to the video being done by November 7th intake. That’s fine – it seemed a little soon to me as well (considering I still am a big whimp doing anything close to Strength-related, and I think that’s going to have to be my forte in our pairing), and I THINK that in fact TAR has 2 “intakes” because it seems to ME that the “last” Episode (the one where the father broke his ankle) was less than a year ago…this would mean (a la So You Think You Can Dance) that they actually have a “semi-annual” intake. Fine by me – I called this 365 days to TAR for a reason LOL.

I did find some old photos to put into Dropbox, which Prashant saw and said he loved. I don’t have any “in between” photos – I know that I actually DO have some from when R and I first met, I just don’t know exactly where they are. That gives me a little more time for “filler” photos (though I put like 30 into Dropbox)! I made Mom scan some from when I was a little kid – always with book in hand – I told her that it was for a speaking engagement coming up, because the LAST thing I need to do is to tell her I’m thinking of applying to TAR. In fact – SOMEWHERE (okay I gotta find that…) I have a photo of me hang gliding – it’s not a great photo, and we were just running down sand dunes in Mexico – but the important part of it was that AFTER I did it, I let my Mom know and she had a fit (this was freshman year in college LOL). She told people for the next ten years that I “never ask for permission, I ask for forgiveness.” (Which, come to think of it, is not a bad thing to put into the video)

COMMERCIAL BREAK…

Well, just got off a 45 minute “potential new client” call, answering questions. I feel fairly certain that this will NOT turn into paying work – the gal is just starting out, and is in the unenviable situation where she’s “moved forward” with 3 other people but they didn’t have anything in writing – and she’s feeling uneasy about how things are developing. She’s been a serial entrepreneur, and she has the “knowledge” in the area of this business . . . 2 of the folks “don’t really think they need a contract” (ACK) and the other one – who doesn’t actually have ANY knowledge in the area of business, etc. – is the one who suggested that she call me. I think that she’s going to have to figure out a graceful way to pull out – which is ALWAYS an ENORMOUS pain when there isn’t any “paper” from the outset. Yes, that’s my lawyer hat you see firmly on my head – DO NOT MOVE FORWARD WITH SOMEONE UNLESS YOU HAVE YOUR AGREEMENT ON PAPER – BECAUSE YOU WILL GET STUCK WITH A GENERAL PARTNERSHIP UNDER THE LAW AND BELIEVE ME I KNOW YOU DON’T WANT ONE.

Two Google Calendar reminders have gone off as I’ve been writing this – one to make something for a business associate who had a heart attack a week ago “out of the blue” (though she smokes, drinks, etc.) – and another to do some letters of reference. I really gotta do that, then I’ll get going. Some day, I will do something that pays LOL.

Did I say I will hike to the grocery store today? I will.

I forgot to mention – at the Nike, a guy cut in front of me, and I went down HARD – though I did roll. So I have two beee-you-tee-ful bruises, one of my left hip (accentuates the cellulite thank you very much) and one spanning my left elbow. I didn’t actually go “down” on the elbow – more on the outside of my upper arm – but the bruise travels down below the elbow.

Today (this evening) is crossfit – I’ll go. H is leaving for a couple days’ worth of director training in San Jose, then we are to Tahoe for some R&R. Whenever he wants to travel, I agree – he likes to “get away” especially when work is a pressure-cooker. The problem is that as it comes closer, he never wants to go! It’s funny. He also has had a brutal cold for a week or so, plus a hip muscle issue. Yes, we are falling apart!

Today, as I said, massage. Back in my “wealthier days” I bought a 10 massage card, and it’s time to use it! I’m not as sore as I was yesterday, thankfully.

I need to catch up on a lot of email (none of it business email – I’d be starving and homeless if I wasn’t married), and I’d like to start the “Hike” thing today if possible. We’ll see. There are a few things I actually need at the store which is up and over quite an impressive hill – that’s another thought is just to strap on the hiking shoes and hike there and hike back. Not quite as nice as the “hills” but it will do the same for my bod.

I have some more photos I need to find to put in the Dropbox for our video. Mom sent some of me as a kid reading books – which goes with my 30 second “story” – and I have in the back of my mind I actually have a photo from Surrey at my wedding of R behind the big camera, which would be a good one to include.

That’s my check-in for today! Oh – have to get “listening to” The Paris Wife (our book club book) so no more random language lessons. It was interesting listening to the Japanese one – there were some things that I did recognize, but sadly considering I passed a fluency in 1983, not THAT much. And I recognized more of the Spanish than I thought I would. I also listened to the Portuguese one – the only thing I retained was that they say “Ciao” to say “Good bye” a la Italian.

Ciao!

POSTSCRIPT: Have NOT started listening to the book yet (bad bad me), catching up on cleaning out my email, and uploading photos, etc. to Dropbox. Also “snuck in” a watch of the TAR Episode – learnings:

1. CHECK YOUR EQUIPMENT – the Afghanimals wound up with a wheelbarrow with a flat wheel. O-M-G…that is literally HELL. I do wonder if they had found it out in the BEGINNING (versus 1/2 way up the hill) if they could have gotten it mended. That’s an interesting question. I IMAGINE that either (a) there were more than enough wheelbarrows, and one had a flat tire to see if someone would pick it (nefarious!) or (b) there were just enough wheelbarrows, but IF it had been noticed at the beginning that the tire was low on air, it could have been fixed. It would have been supremely unfair if (let’s say) the LAST group to hit the Road Block got that wheelbarrow, just because it was “the one that was left” – and it had a flat tire. So I imagine that either it was there “to see if one team would be stupid enough to take it” (and there was another perfectly fine one next to it) or that they would have been able to get it fixed. I might actually go put that as a question on the TAR site – not that I think they will answer, but I’m dead curious.

2. KNOW HOW TO DO THINGS – the Ice Princesses didn’t know how to drive a stick. I think that’s sort of a “given” that you just HAVE to know how to do. I would add to that to go to a Ford dealership before the race, and try out EVERY vehicle, know how to like plug in an electric vehicle, get walked through EVERY permutation of the on-board computer, etc. As Ford is the sponsor, that’s gotta be IMPORTANT!

3. BE READY TO RUN AT LEAST A MILE WITH A BACKPACK – I know that this is not R’s “sweet spot” but when the teams were looking for taxis in a tiny Norwegian town at 3 a.m. (there was ONE), it was only 2 km to the destination. That’s about a mile. It turned out that most of the teams HAD to jog that mile – but two of the teams just got to it, one being the Chico Boys who wound up coming in first in the end. I think that’s immensely important – if you do NOT have to depend upon transportation for a short distance, not to “have” to. Huge huge huge. Also important to be able to carry BOTH backpacks for some distance – in each “track” of the event choices, one team mate had to carry both backpacks where the other teammate had to do the “task” (whether it was pushing a wheelbarrow uphill or carrying 15 pair of sun-dried codfish). And at that, time to talk about…..CROSSFIT! 🙂

4. LOOK FOR THE TAR COLORS ON THE “THING” – In this episode, Pinkie and the Ex were far, far ahead but had hung their fish onto a pole without TAR colors on it – and then 3 couples passed them by before they figured out what they’d done wrong. Interestingly, no one helped them – they weren’t particularly “nasty” about it, but I think that Pinkie holding the “Express Pass” over everyone’s head has really engendered some bad blood. (The first folks who finished – and turned her down – were the Chico Boys, who were all “We don’t need your stinkin’ Express Pass” – which was funny.) But beside the BE NICE learning (laugh), this is the SECOND time that a team has gotten screwed by missing the TAR colors on something. Our favs the Bingo Boys wound up commandeering a “random shoe shine guy” (STILL laughing at that one – that poor guy!) because they didn’t see that some of the shoe shine stations had TAR-colored “ribbons” on them – similarly, Pinkie and the Ex just slung the fish up onto the first pole, not looking at the end to see that some had TAR-colored tags, some did not.

(I’m sure there were other learnings, but those were the big two!)

Here’s the WOD for today at Crossfit:
For Time
Run 1 mile
Then 4 Rounds of:
10 Dumbbell Push Press each arm 45/30lb
10 Burpee
Then 1 mile run

Oh for goodness’ sake, I think Bo just put in a couple miles of running because I didn’t show up yesterday! And yes, it’s ALL about me LOL. Not sure what a dumbbell push press is – I think that it’s when you start at your shoulder and push it up straight and back down – I know I can’t do 30 but I’ll scale. Burpees we know what they are. My shoulder still “disallows” that. When I was getting my massage, she said my shoulder was “mad messed up.” She spent 1-1/2 hours on me (like I said, I have 10 hours in “backlog”). When she was working on my legs it hurt like a S-O-B, but I feel 200% – maybe 400% – better now. Wonder if they have masseuses when you’re waiting on the next leg in TAR? (Yeah I WISH)