This morning I had to go to the Kaiser lab to get tests run – it’s a long story. Anyway – I got there right at 7:30 (because H had a conference call at 7:00 so we were up) and I was surprised to only have like 5 people in line in front of me. Usually at that “pre-work” time there are around 30.

They took – NO LIE – 9 VIALS of blood. OMG. I don’t think even when I was doing intake for the Marines I have had so much blood taken!

I”m back home now, and it just turned 9:00 a.m. I have to admit it really is nice to be up “early” – so much more “day” that way 😉

I have some law work to do, plus it’s That Day I get all the bills into Quicken/etc. I don’t particularly like doing it but I actually ~do~ really like it when it’s done (very satisfying). That reminds me of one Episode 2 thing that happened near the end – the Afghanimals didn’t pay their taxi driver enough money. They were super cavalier about it, and it cost them. They hit the mat and Phil made them go back.

Time and again, folks mess up the $ bit. I know that you’re given a certain amount of $ (in this case, the bills were actually in the first trip envelope), and that you have to “husband” (wife!) it – but you also have to be SUPER DUPER cognizant of actually PAYING your drivers. I am not sure if it was because they didn’t speak the language, didn’t understand, were being arrogant, or … ? The interesting thing is that the more “annoying” of the two (the one with the big hair) wound up blaming his cousin, who was “responsible for keeping track of the $” – immediately threw him under the bus, and told Phil that they were “enemies.” It seemed like that cousin actually could speak Spanish, and just got a little flustered and was being pushed to “hurry up hurry up” by the other guy.

I’m not quite sure how to forestall something like that. Perhaps ask the driver at the outset “about” how much the trip will cost – so that you have at least that amount of $ ready? I know that in for example Cambodia, you have to negotiate for the cost BEFORE you get in the cab (Vietnam and Thailand, too) – and that’s what it’s going to cost. Not sure how many countries do it that way, but my supposition would be that if you negotiated on the way “in” in ANY country, you would get there FASTER because the driver would want to get you out of the cab faster (since you had “fixed” the amount he would be getting, at the start). A thought.

So today’s Crossfit workout is:
CONDITIONING
For Time
Run 400M/40 Box Jump/ 20 Toes 2 Bar
Run 400M/ 30 Box Jump/ 15 Toes 2 Bar
Run 400M/ 20 Box Jump/ 10 Toes 2 Bar
Run 400M/ 10 Box Jump/ 5 Toes 2 Bar
Run 400m

Box jumping is not that bad – I’m doing it now on I want to say 2 of the big plates? (I remember it was 8″). Toes to bar I SUCK AT. It is just what you think it is – you hang from the bar with your feet off the ground, and “however you can,” you try to touch your toes to the bar that your hands are hanging from.

I guess I could try doing it with my hands in chin-up position and see if that makes any difference – in all honesty, I can just barely get my knees up bent at all, much less to even a “hanging sitting” position – WAY-HAY-HAY less toes forward! Bo is doing this training, and I know that he doesn’t have a “scale” for toes-to-bar. In looking at various videos, it looks like the ‘scale’ is to go for “knees to elbows” – which is what I’m going to try today.

I did go to yoga yesterday – YAY! I was very proud of myself. There were very few folks in the class and I just concentrated on not “going hard” (which sounds odd when applied to yoga…) but rather on really “stretching.” I was able to get my hand lower in triangle than I’ve ever been able to – not sure if that was just “that day” or if Crossfit is helping. My arms were really sore – it was hard to keep them up in the poses in the beginning set before Savasanna. I know that’s the Crossfit for sure. My arms are pretty much always sore!

I posted on Pinterest a photo of my knee from yesterday’s workout – Anthony kept emphasizing how important it was in the deadlifts to get the bar close to my legs – and so one time when I was putting the bar down I whacked my knee hard enough to bruise. So beautiful 😉 I did the orange bar with 2 5 kilo plates – did the parallel bar dips on the green band. I probably said that already.

R and I have been “Facebook Messenger-ing” today about various things for our “laundry list” – one of hers is to get her eye that got botched in the cataract surgery to get fixed. That was awful (a couple years ago, in my memory). Once I get the LASIK done (that’s on my list for today actually – I have to schedule it), I want to get a pair of “Clic-readers” like Steve C has. He is pretty “hard on” stuff so I know that these would be “rough and ready” – but I can’t get any now, because my prescription will change (sadly, for the worse – that’s the trade-off for seeing better far distance) after the surgery.

Okie dokie – time for bills…

POSTSCRIPT: I did the WOD in 18:58 – okay, sure, I was lifting my knees up as hard as I could (though the last 5 I did get them to the “I am sitting in a chair” position, AND I was able to swing back a little a la a kip) – and my box jump was up on 2 25 kg plates (Bo said next time to add a 5 in between the two – moving up…moving up…) – but I felt SUPER DUPER proud of myself – and I was the first one in! (The next guy was at like 19:50, then Jay – the big NFL guy – and his wife, and then another super fit blonde cutie grown-up-Barbie nurse who was really nice – were all after that. The nurse gal was about my age, I think her name was Susan. She’s done some form of Crossfit before I think – or something close – though none of them knew how to use the rower or do the toes-to-bar). Warmup was 1000m row, then 3x (10 lunges across the floor, 10 V-ups (I still can’t understand why I can’t do these?), walking the parallel bar across with your hands) then 50 double unders (I did 100 singles). As for the parallel bar – all I could do was boost myself up onto my hands, then basically rock back and forth like R2D2, without forward momentum. Another challenge….

OK so I’m going to start with Crossfit. Today Anthony told me how much better I was doing than when I started. Yeah so fine, I live for that stuff 😉 I also brought some of the coupons I’d gotten from a client and gave them out to the “gang” (Jimmy, Karen & Rich, Ashley – that’s the buff blonde’s name, I finally asked, Traci (the one I loaned Supple Leopard to, the runner), Anthony, and Margo. It was a little weird because there were other folks there when I handed them out, but basically I gave them to everyone who did the WOD with me except the 2 new girls, but they’d left already anyway).

I think Traci and I are pretty evenly paced. She smoked me in the run, but she and I did the deadlifts the same (the “orange” bar plus 2 5 kg plates – she added 2.5s on each end so she was at 15 to my 10, but that’s pretty close), plus she did the dips with the red band and I did it with the green. By the end she said she was super toasted on the red (it goes black – 75 lbs help, green 65, blue 55, red 45, then there might be another after that), so she was doing better than I was with the help on the dip, but she wondered if she should have done blue.

The WOD was 25 min AMRAP of 400m run, 10 deadlifts, 12 dips. We did 7 – she did the whole 400m of the next round, I finished my 7th FAST to get it in and then had just like 2 minutes left, so I did sprints up and down the meter markers so that I wouldn’t be around the back of the building when they called time (I got 125m in).

I learned during the warmup that an “L-sit” is literally sitting your body straight up with your legs out, like an “L”, so you are pushing with your hands to make your back as straight as possible. Part of the warmup was 30 seconds in that position – then there was a 30 second handstand, which I can’t do, so I did a 30 second plank. Anthony said to be sure that the “insides of my elbows” point “front” which puts my shoulder in the most stable position.

It was good music today too which helped – the whole Katy Perry “Roar,” “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger”-type music.

Sheri, Rich, and to some extent Ashley and I talked about high school reunions at the beginning -Sheri had just gotten back from hers, which was in Indiana this weekend. I was not feeling great when I went – stomach a little upset. I personally feel it’s because I drank Saturday during Mom and Dad’s anniversary, then 2 Vespers plus champagne yesterday after car shopping with H. I mentioned that, and Sheri said she felt like she was still a little drunk from the high school reunion “weekend” which made me laugh!

I also spoke with the gal in the office – her boyfriend J.B. does the Parkour classes – I really plan at about Day 200 (smile) to do a couple private lessons in Parkour. It’s SO COOL and I think it would be a helpful “skill set.” That’s why I like Crossfit though, too – the idea that it’s going to help you “push up and over a wall” versus your standard “Globo Gym” workout at a Nautilus machine or treadmill makes a LOT of sense to me. That’s also why I REALLY like The Cave – that it has not just Crossfit, but gymnastics and Parkour – is super duper I think. Interestingly, that’s why Kat tried to steer me away from The Cave (“Oh, it’s mainly really a Parkour gym and it isn’t really serious Crossfit”) – but the fact that our box took 3rd this past weekend in a competition (of course it was Amazing Karen and – can’t remember who did it with her – Andrew? Someone I haven’t met) and that everyone there in MY opinion is SUPER serious (in a fun way) seems to bely that. I also like the fact that, while I’m up there in the top of the ages, not many are really young. It makes me feel like I’m not an “old lady.” 🙂 I mean, except for the fact that I can’t lift anything that weighs more than a pencil…(joke! joke!)

OK, so on to TAR Episode 2. This time (spoiler alert) The Bingo Boys got eliminated. I’m trying to remember the sequence of things, but the first “task” was riding bikes out to the largest salt mining operation in the world (presumably this was still in Chile, I just can’t remember). The female ER doctor had BIG TIME issues with riding the bike – it seemed like she couldn’t shift gears, etc. R and I have had a little Facebook “convo” about this – the husband actually swapped bikes with her, and then she did okay – which basically means that he set up the gears for her on that bike. Then when they stopped, the weight of her backpack basically threw her off the bike – which was brutal. It was interesting that neither the baseball wives nor the “ice queens” (a/k/a the “race wives” of the Afghanimals) had much trouble with biking – I think honestly that it was just not a “skill” that the female ER doc had thought she’d have to “master” before coming on the program. (We’re making a list!)

The choice was to either mine the salt (picks and hammers) to find a clue “inside” a salt rock, or take 50 lb. bags of salt to big tanks of water, putting in enough salt so that you could float and read the newspaper. Interestingly, there has to be some sort of a math equation for this. That’s the first thing I thought of – especially when the “mean girl” and her ex were putting it in then not floating, and they hadn’t really “stirred it up” (the salt sank to the bottom). HERE is a little discussion about it…The thing that I personally know, however, from triathlon training is that I FLOAT LIKE A CHAMP. There are some people that are “sinkers” and some are “floaters.” To see which you are, you literally just lie in a pool with your face down and your arms/fingers/legs spread out “starfished” (because this displaces the most water).

I don’t have one bit of my body that sinks under the water. (For three different teams, I’ve been the “example” of a “SuperFloater” – usually, it’s a black guy who is a “SuperSinker” meaning that not one bit of his body stays UP above the water.) So the good part about that, is that I would actually personally know that if we had to “read the paper” in a “salted pond” as it were, that I would float WITHOUT much salt. (So that’s a good little bit of trivia to know. It also means that if, let’s say, a task is to get things off the floor of a pool or pond, it takes me a big effort to do it, because my body is to buoyant. I have a lot harder time than the “average neutrally buoyant person” in doing that.)

ANYWAY – the take-aways from that were:
1 Be able to ride a bike with a fully-loaded backpack on. I know I can “ride a bike” – the key is to understand the gearing of the bike that you’re going to be on. These were mountain bikes, looked like 3 rings in front – and they had click-shifting on the bar, very like the bikes we’ve rented in Sedona. My thought would be NOT to just “jump on the bike” immediately, but for like THREE minutes put the pack down and RIDE THE BIKE to get it into a comfortable gear, especially as it was VERY sandy/salty, and so that’s going to definitely affect shifting, especially the front gears. (I’m actually surprised no one’s chain dropped off.)
2. Know whether you’re buoyant or not. If R and I are both “SuperFloaters,” then it doesn’t make that much difference if there was a task that is for one person, and involves floating (or diving down). But if it turns out R is less of a floater than I am – once she’s lost weight of course – then that makes a difference. I’m probably even MORE of a floater now that I’m fatter than I was when doing tri team and Ironteam, but I know that when I’m “fit and trim” I’m still a “SuperFloater.” This is also why I can tread water for pretty much hours (literally) without even using my hands – because I am such a floater already, that it doesn’t take too much “kick” to keep me up. Good to know.
3. Have jogbras that can double as bathing suit tops – and PERHAPS undie/bottom combos. A couple of the girl “pairs” had to “change into” their bathing suits, whereas one pair (I think the baseball wives) were ready to just hop into action. They didn’t have “cute bikinis” like the Icequeens did, but they just stripped down and got to it. I think that wearing jogbras and then finding some sort of “bottom” that could double as a undie/bathing bottom would be the best bet. My supposition, frankly, was that the gals who didn’t have the ability to just “jump to it” never EVER thought that in the middle basically of a freakin’ salt desert that they’d need to be in their bathing suits. So – lesson learned. I personally love my Handfuls jogbras, they are SUPER comfortable ALL day long, don’t chafe, etc. They also have (and I have) tanks made similarly (just with a “tank” bottom) which I really like as well. I have a grey and a black of that – I have a number of the jogbras because I wear them EVERY day (pink, white, tan, black, purple, brown).
4. Have your “flip flops” ready. The “Ice Queens” were walking back and forth with the 50 lb. bags of salt in their bikini-ini-inis and – bare feet! This was insane. I still believe that Keen’s are the way to go – and they’d be floaty, too (extra bonus LOL).

I think that’s all my “learnings” from that exercise. 😉

Now, I might be mixing this up, but either then, or before (to get there), everyone had had to get a bus that was a 24 hour ride (!!!) – and the first/speediest bus could only take 1/2 of the group. The rest just asked to be put on “the next bus,” but the Bingo Boys were smarter – they were the last ones to get to the bus terminal, but after everyone had bought tickets to the next bus (which left in 1/2 hour), they asked which bus would get them to their destination the FASTEST. It turned out that a bus that left 4 hours later would get in 5 minutes after the one that the “2nd group” had taken – because that bus had a lot more stops. The first bus was a “direct” bus as was the third bus (that the Bingo Boys took) – but the 2nd was NOT. SO the question to ask is: When will this bus GET ME THERE – not When is the next bus?

Unfortunately, it LOOKED like the Bingo Boys were going to wind up 4 hours AHEAD of the 2nd bus of folks, but they (and we, as the audience) misunderstood what they were told (adrenaline…adrenaline…) – the heavier of the Bingo Boys had “misinterpreted” what was said, thinking that he had been told the 3rd bus would wind up 4 hours ahead – NOT that they had to WAIT 4 hours (there) and that it would get in just about the same time (5 minutes later) than the 2nd bus. It was a bummer because I was really congratulating them for their ingenuity – then it turned out that it wasn’t quite as good as “we” had thought. I suppose it depends on whether you’d rather spend the 4 hours on the bus, or in the bus terminal….probably on the bus, because you could sleep and not have to “worry” for those 4 hours whether or not you were going to sleep through and not make it ONTO your bus.

The last “task” that folks had to do was to meet up with a shoeshine person in a big plaza, shine the shoes for client, then take the shoeshine person’s “stand” and get it to the storage place that it was stowed overnight. The shoeshine “stands” fit together like a puzzle – everyone got their client’s shoes shined, then they just piled everything up on top of itself and went to the storage area, where they were basically told “uh, no.” SO they had to figure out then how to put it together the right way. One gal forgot the rug it was sitting on (stupid mistake), and I was curious whether the actual person who “owned” the shoeshine stand was standing there and whether one could have asked for help putting the thing together for storage. That was unclear. One thing though was that the clue was actually named something like “Putting a Puzzle Together” or something, and so if you were not amped up on adrenaline, and paid attention to the clue, you might be able to realize that there was a “trick” to “putting the shoe shine station together” (like a puzzle) to put it away.

So, this leads to where the Bingo Boys were disqualified. OMG. It was so so sad, funny, oh dear. The heavier of the Bingo Boys picked the task, and he just found a random shoeshine guy on the plaza, and conned him into teaching him how to shine the shoes for his client, and then he made the guy pack everything up and go with him to the storage area. O-M-G. It was SO SO SAD! The guy who he’d picked was saying things (in Spanish) like “Hello, this is my livelihood, what do you want me to do? You’re crazy…” – but you gotta figure that here he is, a SHOESHINE GUY, and a crazy gringo heavy American descends on him WITH A CAMERAMAN AND A SOUND GUY, and asks him to do this – Hell, that’s the story of the century for him to take home, right?

The take away though was that if you are given a task like this, LOOK FOR THE OBJECT THAT HAS TAR COLORS, that is where you have to go. I happen to remember in the back of my mind this happening a couple of times in past seasons. I seem to remember a couple who just went to a home somewhere in Asia, “surprising” the couple there, and had them “teach them” how to do an altar piece (something like that) – and another time something similar with just “showing up” at a place and learning how to cook something. The take-away here is LOOK FOR TAR COLORS or IT IS NOT THE RIGHT PLACE.

Because the baseball wife had forgotten the rug, she had to go back, and so in actuality, the Bingo Boys (once he actually got the correct “TAR-sponsored stand” and had shined the shoes and brought that to storage) were SO CLOSE. I also wondered (which is what makes me wonder whether there was a “person” that could have “helped” the other teams) whether – since he’d actually SEEN the “real” shoe shine guy put his whole station together – if he was able to put his together quicker because he’d seen that there was a “knack” to it. In writing this, I actually tend to think that the “customer” that was sitting at the TAR-sponsored shoe-shine stations WAS the owner of that station….so they probably would NOT have helped.

So that’s my Day 40 writeup! OH, I also discovered why I never, ever seem to be able to get to yoga, though I am still working work-study to get it for free. It’s because Crossfit Monday goes from 9:00-10:00 “or so” (depends on how long you stretch after), then I go from there to grocery shop, because I’m already out and it’s convenient. So when I get home, put the groceries away, etc. I wind up having like 2 hours before yoga. In writing this blog post and seeing if there was any work for me in email, it’s now 1:00pm (class is at 1:30pm). So I could make it today (and might!), but now I realize “what happens to my Mondays.” It’s the grocery shopping/picking up dry cleaning/etc. that I do “in between.” Also, if I were to take a shower now, then I wouldn’t “feel so much” like heading to hot yoga, where I have to take a shower AGAIN. I know, T.M.I., right? Stinky me, writing this blog. LOL!

I think that maybe every 10th day (gee that’d be today) I should do a “conglomeration of things learned” or something – like, tasks that we need to consider being able to do. Maybe I’ll let R come up with that 😉

Yesterday we took my Mom and Dad out for their 55th wedding anniversary (I think Mom said she calculated and when I’ve been married 55 years I’ll be 99 – !!!), and when we got home at 7:45 I was so wasted I just went to sleep!

The Friday workout at Crossfit didn’t really do H in, but it whacked me but good. It’s interesting what whacks him, what whacks me. This one, because it was mostly upper body strength (remember, it was burpees and pull-ups, plus the sprints) not only made me sore the next day, but just “exhausted.” I think that’s gotta be from my muscles ferociously tearing themselves down and building themselves up for the next onslaught 😉

Today we’re going to (I think) go and test-drive cars again again again (some day we really will get one), and go to my friend Dot’s 60th birthday. No gifts, please, but bring something “gluten-free, dairy-free, and soy-free” to share 😉 I got some hummus dips, plus some sweet-potato chips and some blue corn tortilla chips. I know corn isn’t “Paleo” but it IS gluten/soy/dairy free. At least, I think it is – ?!? (Corn is a grass…hm. I think gluten is only in wheat, etc. but – yeah, lettin’ my ignorance hang right on out here…) We’re also supposed to bring our “favorite green smoothie recipe” so I got her a big bunch of purslane and will wrap it up with a bow and give it to her. (They sell it at the Thursday Farmer’s Market – and it’s a miracle food.)

So I said I’d go and get the questions that are posted on The Amazing Race/Cast list. All the “Cast” answered them. I figured I would answer them here. Then R can do it too. 😉 Right R?

Name: Sandra “Sandy” Shepard
Age: 51
Hometown: San Rafael, CA
Connection to your teammate: We met over 20 years ago when we were interns at LucasFilm. We have kept in touch since, but have only really “seen each other in person” about 6 times. So I think that we’d style ourselves “cyber-BFFs.”
Current occupation:  Wife, lawyer, entrepreneur
Describe what you do: I support my husband in as many ways as I can think of (including coffee & breakfast in bed every morning – though he brings me “tea and truffles” (our name for my evening vitamins!) in the evening!); I am a lawyer for software/internet companies; I have a few other businesses that throw off passive income.
3 words to describe you: (1) What’s a word for the fact I can see the “funny side” of bad things and laugh at it and make others laugh? There’s gotta be a word for that. So that’s 1 word. (2) The next word would be a word for having “shiny penny” syndrome – meaning, I’m totally interested in things and dive for them, but I might get sidetracked by something else. I talk this way too. So you gotta keep up. Talking to me is sometimes like looking at a flow chart. I get tracked off in one direction but I can always leap back to the “Y” and go the other way. It’s probably exhausting to follow if, oh, you’re my husband ;-). (3) Um, the next word would be . . . I have a good attitude – I generally don’t let things get me down. But if they do – oh dear. I can get overwhelmed BIG TIME, so whoever I’m with has to know to basically tell me “it will be okay” and throw themselves into saving the situation. It happens so seldom that people don’t know that about me…though my husband does because we’re together so much, he knows that this can happen. How’s about them apples? About 900 words for the 3 words that describe me. Gotta hone that down LOL
Favorite hobbies: Being with my husband; cooking while watching old 80s shows (Magnum PI, Murder She Wrote); laughing (Pinterest; Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me; my husband’s jokes)
What is the accomplishment you are most proud of? Probably my going from couch potato to Ironman in a year. I have a lot of things in my life that I should be super proud of, but that one is really one of the most amazing, still, to me.
What famous person reminds you of yourself? Lisa Kudrow. A LOT of people have told me I look like her – and her character “Phoebe” on Friends reminds me of me (I promise not to break out into a rendition of “Smelly Cat”). You’d never guess that “Phoebe” has a degree in Biology from Vassar, is Jewish, speaks French fluently, is an amazing director….”Smelly Cat….Smelly Cat….What are they feeding you?….Smelly Cat…Smelly Cat…It’s not your fault…” (Whoops, it just slipped out…)
What famous person reminds you of your teammate? Wow that’s a very good question. Right now – maybe because of the Star Wars connection – it would be C-3P0. He’d get others into a situation and then worry or “Eeyore.” Not meant in a bad way – just what comes to mind right now. He was smart, capable, but often would have things “happen to” him and then let them overwhelm him. Whereas R2D2 was sort of the “mighty might.”
What scares you most about traveling? Getting sick. R finding out I snore like a tractor-trailer 😉
What excites you most about traveling? I love seeing new things – whether man-made or nature-made. I also look forward to finding out what makes people in other cultures laugh (and know that a lot of it will be something that ~I~ do that they find hilarious because I don’t know how to do something “so simple” to them)
Biggest challenge you and your teammate will face on The Race together: We have NO idea how we will work together. We have never done that. I think that’s why we will be an intriguing choice – because our friendship is basically based on liking one another “from afar.” Even when we were at Lucasfilm, R worked down at Kerner and I worked at The Ranch. I think we “bonded” because we were at least 10 years older than any of the other interns – then we just kept up the friendship.
Pet peeve about your teammate: Right this second, just that she got me excited about doing this about 5 years ago or so (I’d never seen TAR before she emailed me and said “We should TOTALLY do this!”) – and I am really really hoping that this 365-day thing will get her on the track of us really being able to feel confident enough to put in a video/application if not for the next season, then for the one after. (I think they do 2 a year, so the next one is going to be fairly soon – probably TOO soon – but the next after that should work.) We REALLY aren’t getting any younger – we’re already far and away older than the “average” racers. So NOW IS THE TIME – I feel that very, very strongly. And I don’t want to do this with another teammate, because we have a compelling “relationship story” that I really think could get us picked.
What country and place would you most like to visit and why? Country? Hm. I’d like to visit Egypt because H has been there already and doesn’t really want to go back. Or Tibet because we both got SO altitude sick up in Colca Canyon in Peru that H won’t do anything “high” again. But I would also like to visit Sumatra – because it sounds exotic and that’s where my coffee comes from 😉 The one thing I would REALLY REALLY REALLY like to do REALLY (that TAR hasn’t done yet) is to dogsled to the Ice Hotel in Sweden and stay there overnight. I’m not sure WHY they haven’t done that, but I REALLY want to do that. HERE is a link to a trip doing this, sponsored by National Geographic. It has The Amazing Race written ALL OVER it…HERE is a link about “how to sleep in the Ice Hotel in minus 5 degrees [Celsius]” – my favorite part? “…Be sure to store your luggage in the locker when you go to bed. It and everythinng in it will freeze solid overnight.” LOL! This has TAR written ALL OVER it! (Some team doesn’t follow directions…goes to get up and…SURPRISE!)
What do you hope to accomplish by running The Race (other than winning one million bucks)? To have some ridiculous stories we can laugh about for years. To embody the motto “We don’t want to be first to the mat, we just don’t ever want to be last. 2nd-to-last is fine.” (That can get us all the way to the finish, of course…) And if, in reality, I suddenly had $ 1/2 million after taxes (so what would that be, about $250,000?), I’d go right back out and take my husband on some super-duper awesome trip to Greece/Turkey/Italy. We’ve always wanted to do that.

So having done that exercise, I know:

1.  I have to figure out what those three words are.

2.  I have to hear who R thinks she is like. And hope she doesn’t kill me at the reference that came to me – I’m perfectly willing to revise. 😉

Yesterday night I didn’t manage to make it to the Team In Training practice – I was just too damned tired. I did, however, make a nice dinner for H and me 😉 What can I say?

Today I met with a business colleague at the Farmer’s Market, and started noodling on my next RVMC article. I am excited about it, and will post it here. It has to do with the fact that doing things that enervate you not only take the time that you are doing them, but the time you are “thinking about” them and that they are “bringing you down,” whereas things that energize you have all sorts of benefits outside of just doing them.

Today also, I found out that Brian and Niamh – my “adopted nephew and nice” – have cross country running meets, and I really would like to go. If I do that, I’m not sure that going to Crossfit this evening is going to work. We’ll see.

Why? What else could I be doing? Funny you should ask . . .

Last night I got the Bright Idea of checking out our public library catalog online, to see if they had any language CDs. My theory is that I could copy the CDs to iTunes, then have them available for car rides, cleaning the house, etc. Not only did I find out that the library had such a thing, but that Tiburon’s library had a whole SECTION of them. I had to go to Mill Valley to pick up some Glutathione and Glutathione Recycler from my nutritionist, and Tiburon is just the next town over, so . . . I packed up my computer, and . . .

Here I am! Right now, I’m sitting in the Tiburon library, downloading language CDs. I left my phone in the car, but I think I am going to go out and get it, to just take a picture. It’s pretty funny. This is what I’m downloading:

In-Flight (Learn Before You Land) CDs – these are single CDs that are designed to be listened to while you are “flying to” whatever the country is that features that language. They do have a small “cheat sheet” of phrases in them, but supposedly each one of the CDs is self-contained (e.g., you don’t have to refer to a book), and they all have the same “chapters”: How to ask directions; How to get places; How to count; etc. The languages I have here are:
*Swedish
*Spanish
*Russian
*Polish
*Turkish
*Korean
*Hungarian
*Thai
*Japanese
*German
*Portuguese
There are others – obviously, just about every language – they just don’t happen to be on the shelves.

I also have 2 Pimsleur “Quick & Simple” ones (4 CDs each) in
*Japanese
*German
*Czech

Then I have “Living Language” in Chinese, Farsi, and both Spanish and French For Travelers (3 CDs for each language – advertised as “No Books Necessary!”); “Learn in your Car” in German; and Berlitz “Rush Hour” CDs in Italian (which looks like 3 CDs).

There was Hebrew, Greek, a few others on the shelves, but they were on audio cassette. The Swedish one just finished copying – time to “pop” the next one in . . .

When R reads this she’s going to think I’m a maniac. LAUGH! Not really – I just realized that I’m in my car, cleaning, cooking, etc. for hours every day. I figure what the heck, if I pick up ONE thing in ONE language that might help us, so much the better!

P.S.: Just went out while the Portuguese CD was copying, got my phone, and took a photo of the “pile,” which I will post at the head of this very silly post 😉

 

So I was able to watch the first episode of The Amazing Race last night.

As I have said to R, my “wish upon a star” goal right now is: (1) to get on TAR and (2) not to finish last. I figure that #2 could actually get us right on to the winning position (laugh!) – but rather than being one of those annoying “WE are SO going to WIN!” people, deciding “never to be last” is a very very good mantra.

So what was the take-away from this particular episode?

READ THE CLUES!

That’s one of those “yeah, duh” things, but right in the first episode we had three teams really blow it because they didn’t read the clues. Starting from the end, a team I think I am going to like (husband/wife ER doctors) wound up taking a cab to the final check-in, though the clue very specifically said to walk. They missed out on first place (and an Express Pass plus an Express Pass to give to another team) because they had to sit it out for 30 minutes.

In my head, I actually thought that if I’d come in “second” and seen them sitting there – and had been told by Phil that they were cooling their jets because they’d actually made it in first, but had mis-read a clue, I would have walked over and given them the other Express Pass right there. It’s supposed to be a “strategic” thing, to give it to someone and make a big political play of it, but frankly, I would have done it right then and there. Not only would it make great theatre (which is of course good), but it would have REALLY surprised them, and they actually seem determined but not too young and not full of themselves – so in some respects, a team that I probably would have liked to have helped out anyway. Obviously R would have to sign on to this decision – but I think it would have been the “right” thing to do, and would have been so dramatically great, that hopefully she would agree. Anyway – that’s what I would have done.

The “oldest couple” are a theatrical duo who play women in a play called something “Bingo.” The one guy is definitely quite heavy-set, which is interesting since all the waiver, etc. that you have to sign specifically states you have to be in like “Top 1%” shape. They came in comfortably in the middle, which was heartening.

So that was one of the “mis-reading” issues. The other one not one but two teams did. The first task (besides getting out of the U.S. and to the country) was paragliding in Chile, with the 2nd team member having to get a taxi and meet them down on the beach (note to self: Start listening to Spanish tapes in the car!) The clue said “Who Wants To Follow The Leader” – and I believe just about everyone who said “I’ll do it” thought that it would be them doing the paragliding. In fact, as the “follower” (per the title of the clue) they were actually “following” their team mate, who was the paraglider.

The next task was basically rowing a huge old boat and getting fish. The clue said that “the person who had done the paragliding” had to do that task. So that meant that….the person who had done the paragliding….had to do….the task.

Two groups got it wrong. Unfortunately, one of the two teams was already slow – they’d had to catch the 2nd plane to Chile, then there was some mix-up with the taxi getting the team mate to pick up her partner at the beach – so they wound up being eliminated way after dark. It was sad, because they’d obviously tried really hard, and just gotten a couple of “wrong turns” that knocked them out of contention. Interestingly, it was a daughter and a father (Indian – he kept telling her that Father Knows Best and that his one wish was that she’d let him arrange her marriage) – and I actually have to wonder whether they stayed within the speed limit, didn’t act crazy, etc. – because of their team “dynamic” with one another. They did wind up too late to the airport to get on the first plane (I think 5 of the 11 teams wound up in that predicament), and then for whatever reason, her taxi took way longer than any other one to get to the beach.

AND ANOTHER THING – DO WHAT YOUR INSTRUCTOR TELLS YOU TO DO.

That was a funny one – the instructors told ALL of the people who were doing the paragliding to run off the edge of the cliff and basically “keep running” until they were well into the air. The one of the “live in the woods, bearded best friends” who did the paragliding got to the edge and just sort of “sat down” imagining that the paraglider would fill with air or … whatever. So he wound up getting himself and the strapped-on instructor dragged down the cliffside, the paraglider collapsing, etc. – DO WHAT YOU’RE TOLD.

OH, AND, DON’T DISMISS YOUR TAXI UNTIL YOU COMPLETELY KNOW YOU WON’T NEED HIM ANY MORE.

There is a team that are calling themselves the “Afghanimals” – young buck Afghani background guys – and they dismissed their taxi, as did the gals that they are calling their “wives” (pretty gross actually – I don’t like it) – who are ice “cleaners” (“Ice girls”) for some hockey team. There is another pair of gals, but they are baseball wives. All 3 of these pairs dismissed their taxis, then the guys called for TWO taxis – for them and “their wives” (but specifically NOT for the baseball wives). BOTH pairs of the women started walking down from the paragliding place, whereas the guys just “waited for the taxis” and were trying to get “their wives” to “wait for the taxis” with them. What happened? Of course! The taxis came up, and both groups of women snagged them – so the guys got all bent out of shape because “the baseball wives” stole “their” taxi. Oh Puh-leeze. Karma’s a b*tch, and if you call for a taxi for only TWO teams, who do you think karma is going to bite in the *ss? (I think actually the guy that they’d asked to call for “two taxis” called for three, because there WAS another taxi coming up the mountain to the paraglider port so the guys DID get a taxi, but it was pretty funny how them trying to “game” the baseball wives bit them IMMEDIATELY in the *ss.)

So who are the teams? Let me see if I can remember. The Indian father/daughter are now gone (he was around 60, I actually think he was an ER doctor as well as the couple who are BOTH ER doctors – she was probably late 20s/30). There are the baseball wives (late 20s) (2), the Afghanimals who are I think cousins (late 20s) (3), the hockey ice girls  from L.A. (is the hockey team the Kings?) (early 20s) (4), two guys who are oil riggers from like Oklahoma, and one of them’s wife is very sick so that’s why he wants the $ (late 20s) (5), the theatre guys (I’d say the heavier one is 60, the skinnier one is 50 – think like Lou Costello and Don Knotts) (6), the ER doctors (early 40s) (7), a couple who used to date but “hate each other” but “can’t get enough of one another” (he thinks she’s a nag, she thinks he’s stupid – she’s beyond annoying) (30s) (8), a either dating or affianced couple from the Boston area (30s) (9), the bearded backwoods guys from Chico (early 30s) (10), a football player duo (the one guy was a football player, he went to a grocery store and told the bagger to “get his big self” into football and they wound up both on the same team – Houston I think – that was a pretty funny story!) (early 30s) (11) oh, oops that would be the father/daughter (I forgot to number them).

In an hour is Crossfit, but the WOD isn’t up on the site. Hmmmm. I’m sore from yesterday, but still REALLY excited I was able to do those “candlesticks.”

On a separate note, I was able, after doing some other errands, to accompany H to the East Bay and order the 4 tons (!!) of stone that we need for the patio area. So that’s done and done 😉