Vally

Our door buzzer rang awhile ago, and I ran out to the porch to find a big box from my mom on top of our mailbox. Every autumn, Mom mails me and Mike a care package filled with silk leaves and mini pumpkins and gourds, things we can use for supper (this time, a vegetable soup starter and a cornbread mix), tuna (my favorite lunch), hot chocolate packets, bags of microwave popcorn, and peanut butter-filled candy for Mike. Today's had all the usual treats, plus a little cooking magazine and a pretty card and basket, but the highlight to me was what is in the picture above: On one of the magazine clipping pumpkin pictures she had taped around our mailing addresses on the top of the box, Mom had written "Vally." It is what she's always called me, and it makes me miss her today even more than I already do. It seems impossible, but I've only seen my family once so far this year--in May for my birthday--and that's just not enough. When I get this next month's work schedule, I'll have to figure out time to make a trip home. 

The Heart of Compromise

Mike and I have a tradition of going out to breakfast over the weekend, and I had promised yesterday that we would eat out today and that I'd accompany him on a few of his errands--comic book shop, library, coffee shop--as well. But I woke up this morning and felt so. . .just not quite ready for it to be morning, I told him I didn't want to go today, after all, and we could go tomorrow. I work tonight and wanted to stay in bed and "bank" some extra sleep to carry me through the wee hours of the morning at work. "Oh, we can go tomorrow, but will we?!" he grumbled. "Or will you be too tired then too?" No, I assured him, sliding back under the covers, adding "I promise." He pointed out that I had promised about today too, and ooh! We were off to the races! A short but spirited exchange followed, and as he walked out the door to go to breakfast by himself, he reached back into bed to touch my hand and said "I love you." I said I loved him too, but by the time I heard the final click of his keys as they locked our door, my eyes were full of tears. Because he was right. I had promised. And I wouldn't like it if he did the same to me.

We have so little time together with my new work schedule, every meal together has become so much more important to us. Except today, clearly, when I chose to stay in bed, right? And while thinking about that in the first few seconds after he walked out this morning, I knew I was too worked-up to be able to fall back to sleep anyway and that I'd soon be joining him in our booth at Eat'n Park. I raced around the apartment getting ready and had to run a little to make it to the corner where he stood still waiting for the bus. We enjoyed breakfast together as always, and while he went on to run his errands, I walked home to take a pre-work nap. A small compromise, but big enough, and our day together is ending more nicely than it started.

Be Still, My Heart!

While looking for something online this morning, I came across a picture of a set of old playing cards with this unbelievably accurate drawing of me and Mike's dream home on one side.  It's a tiny maybe-one-story house! With a fishing pond! And ducks for Mike! And cats and dogs! Rounded window/frame above the door! Cobblestone path! An apple tree like the one in Great-Grandma's yard! A big old mailbox up on a pole! Shutters AND a window box! There are even Cattail plants edging the pond! A few years ago, Mike and I were emailing back and forth, and I sent him another one of my dream home pictures along with the following email:

Now, picture yourself on the (bigger-than-this) front porch in a comfy chair with a pillow behind you and your feet up, reading the newspaper to Stuffed--you underestimate him: he's probably quite interested --and looking up every now and then to watch Rowlf/Buster/Buckingham patrol the grounds. The scent of apple pie is wafting out to you from the kitchen, and the honeybees are (at a safe distance! and) buzzing around the flowers and their boxes. A better-than-water-beverage is at your feet. Our pet groundhog  is chasing squirrels. Your girl lounges beside you, happy happy happy....Can you dig it?

He wrote back "Let's make it happen." And bit by bit, one Craigslist-acquired-wing-chair and Daffodil-bulb-from-a-friend at a time, we are. I'll save the new picture-find for inspiration and take it as a sign that we're on track here. ♥

Mr. Dylan Starts Kindergarten

My nephew, who I still picture as the chubby baby who used to get a kick out of being repeatedly "attacked" by one of my stuffed sheepdog toys while he sat on my bed, giggling and surrounded by piles of my blankets and bed pillows, began kindergarten today. Kindergarten! My heart! My little "Mr. Dylan!" My older brother emailed me a photo of his boarding the bus, and as I looked at it, I joined countless other parents and family members who this week find themselves exclaiming "Kindergarten!? How is that possible!?"
 
Dylan's arrival was especially exciting for me since I'd been afraid I'd miss it: I was scheduled to move out of state soon for my graduate school internship and practicum and thought maybe he'd be late. Instead, he arrived two weeks early, and I, then his only aunt, quickly filled the blog I kept then with nephew-related photos and updates. It was such a happy time.

The day of his birth was only the second time I'd ever seen my older brother cry, was the first time I'd seen a woman so close to labor, was the day I got to see my own "baby" brother (in the ball cap below) become an uncle, and was the happiest I remember my brothers and I ever being for each other. The shot below captures us all in one of our sweetest moments together. It is one of my favorite family photos.

I took tons of pictures after Dylan was born, left the hospital to go back to my parents' house--my parents were now grandparents?!!--with my mom to make cupcakes for my family and for the maternity ward staff while she called family and friends to let them know Dylan had safely arrived, worked in my pink and white garden for a little while--and Dylan, the afternoon of your birth was a gorgeous one--and then went back to the hospital to drop off the cupcakes and visit my nephew and his parents some more. I remember saying to my mom how strange it was that we had all just "met" Dylan and just instantly loved him so much, and she said, "Well, of course," but it was surprising to me, the depth of this new love.

That first night, I gave Dylan his first present from me: A bib I'd ordered ahead of time that read "Aunt Val Loves Me." My older brother and my sister-in-law kept telling everyone, "Let Val hold him. She's moving soon and won't get to see him for awhile." The last time I held little Dylan before I moved for my internship, my mom watched and said, "You're trying to memorize his face," and it made me cry. She was right. And when I saw Dylan again months later, he looked completely different to me: Chubby and bundled up in a snowsuit, and he was shy around me and didn't want me to hold him. That was hard. I loved the little guy and was so tickled to see him again, and he didn't know me at all. In time, we bonded again, though, and he became my "Mr. Dylan!" and since he couldn't pronounce "Aunt Val," I became his "Annie Owl." Everyone would laugh and melt when he'd say that, and I wish no one had ever corrected him.

Today my "Mr. Dylan" started Kindergarten, then, and while I couldn't be there, he was on my mind all day. I hope that when his little "First Day of School" package from me reaches him, it finds him happy and having fun and making new friends. (My mom called while I was typing that line, actually, to report that he did indeed have a fun first day.)   I love you, Mr. Dylan, and even if I live far away and have to be your pen pal, I will remain, forever and always, your "Annie Owl." ♥

Croup Til Ya Droop

I didn't know that adults could get Croup until I came down with it last Tuesday. Stuffed here has the right idea.

Blue Flowers

So many yards around here have beautiful blue Hydrangeas in bloom right now. The flowers enchant me. The blue is just so striking, and anytime I see blue flowers I'm reminded of the final scene in 1994's version of Little Women, one of my favorite movies. Upon hearing that Professor Bhaer has stopped by the family home, Jo tears out of the house to run after him. Those final few minutes of the film are some of the sweetest in it, but the blue flowers all around the house and gate are equally beautiful.

Maybe because it has been so hot and humid here lately, that lush green and blue landscape looks especially inviting today. While trying to create some order in our impossibly cluttered little studio apartment this afternoon, I'll escape there in my mind's eye. 

One Fine Day

Today was my last day at my now-"old" job. At the end of my now-former workplace's daily staff meeting, the manager asked everyone, "Okay, anything else?" And a few people mentioned that it was my last day. The manager replied, "It is Val's last day. Great job, Val. Thank you for everything." And suddenly, everyone was clapping! Applauding me! It was such a sweet moment and so unexpected. I worked there two and a half years and saw so many people come and go but don't remember anyone else getting that simple recognition their last day on the job. As I told my managers when I stopped by their office suite to say goodbye a little while later, the applause was just the sweetest note to end on, and it meant so much to me. I choked up while saying as much, and then choked up again a few minutes later when I punched out for the very last time.

 And as I walked home, I sent Mr. Mike a text message letting him know I was done ("Done-done!"), and he, who had taken today as a vacation day so that we could go out and celebrate this milestone, wrote back "Yay!" and then surprised me by meeting me along my walk home. We took a picture together and went to lunch, and it was a wonderful meal and a great time.

Just knowing that this stage of my life is over and that I'm moving on finally. . . !   Thank You, thank You, thank You. ♥

Overnight Success

When I was about twelve years old, I was a faithful reader of Tiger Beat, Teen Beat, and Bop magazines, and I remember a number of articles and interviews in them in which the heartthrob-of-the-day, actor or singer or group, would proclaim something along the lines of "Everyone thinks of me/us as an overnight success, but I/we worked hard for this for a really long time, so it doesn't feel that way to me/us!" The "new" sensation would go on to outline the years of fruitless auditions or off-Broadway plays or free concerts performed in their parents' backyards for the neighbors, and I would read these details with such incredible interest. The hours of rehearsals the New Kids on the Block put in, just like the Jackson Five before them! The faith a pre-teen Debbie Gibson had in herself to create a home "recording studio" consisting of a row of tape recorders set up on an ironing board! The perseverance a fifteen-year-old Tiffany showed in doing her first "tour" in shopping malls! The chutzpah of a still-unknown-and-too-broke-to-afford-a-home-phone Michael J. Fox as he negotiated his contract for "Family Ties" from a phone booth outside a fast food chicken place! I devoured these stories. I love them even more this week when finally, a full ten years after graduating from college and four years after finishing grad school, I have been hired to do a job I'm truly proud of, excited about, and eager to begin. I'm not exactly where I want to be yet, but I'm on my way, and closer than I was before. 

It is slowly sinking in that a new stage has begun. Tonight I have flowers spread all around the apartment from a congratulatory arrangement from Mom and Dad. Tuesday will be my last day at my current restaurant job. That evening, Mr. Mike, who has been my friend since college and thus seen me through all my "pretty little rough patches" these past ten years, is going out to dinner with me to celebrate. Soon I start my new job. And I feel strong and optimistic. And I did not give up. There are fresh flowers in the toothbrush holder tonight to prove it. 

First Half-Marathon Yesterday

Today's half-marathon went about as well as I could have expected.  I haven't kept up with my walking and running very well so far this year, so today's half was, I am almost positive, only my third run since January.  Except for a feeling of burnout around miles 9-10 when I just walked (and rubbed my aching back), I ran some of every mile today, and that had been my only real goal.

Nitty-Gritty Race Report:

• Mike (ran it with me; this was his third half-marathon) and I ate especially well the past few nights, and I, at least, got enough sleep last night to feel okay this morning. I'm used to getting up for work between 4:30-5:00 a.m., so I was awake at 4:00 and got out of bed at 4:18.

• Peanut butter on a whole-wheat bagel, a banana, two glasses of water, and some iced tea for breakfast, plus my usual multi-vitamin and calcium pill.

• We walked down to the bus stop at 5:30 a.m., and the bus came around 6:00. It felt wonderful out: Warm, but not too hot yet, a slight breeze, and the air just smelled good. It wasn't raining yet, and the forecasts had all called for it to be raining at that time, so I was just glad we wouldn't be soaked before we even got to the race.

• Neither Mike nor I like crowds, and this one was a doozy. We were just getting crankier and more anxious as we stood there waiting for the start. But much admiring of runners' awesome calves and leg muscles, laughter over the guy in the shark-suit, and many repeated reminders to each other of "I don't want us to feel like we have to wait for each other--I want us to run it as fast as we can" (Val to Mike) and "You just be careful" (Mike to Val, as always).

• The race started with no fanfare or announcement that we heard, and we walked for 12 minutes before even reaching the starting line.

• It started raining the very second we crossed the starting line, and it was soon pouring. Rain-rolling-down-our-faces pouring.

• This was my first time running with music--I had added a bunch of songs to my iPod over the weekend for this--so I was happily distracted the first few miles by hearing some of my favorite songs.

• We both probably would have run this faster without each other, but we stayed together until around mile 10, despite having said we wouldn't. We were around the same pace until then, so there was no avoiding each other or losing each other even if we'd wanted to. I ran too hard/fast too many times along the way to try to keep up with him and then paid for it with a few side cramps, and then I'd need to slow down and walk just to recover before I could run again, so my paces were really off today.

• My iPod's earphone-things refused to stay in my ears starting around this point, and I kept stopping to mess with them and put them back in, repeat ad nauseum. Mike and I had our usual squabble at this point when he kept giving advice that I hadn't been asking for and kept telling me to give him the iPod so he could keep it in his pocket. "I'm KEEPING it! I want to FIX the stupid thing and WEAR it! I can't hear my MUSIC if it's in your POCKET!" To which he replied, "Well, then, I don't know what to tell you," which he always says at this point in an argument. And I responded with my usual "I didn't ask you to tell me anything, so don't worry about it!"

• Around this point, the photographers were up ahead. With the rain pouring down, no doubt we all looked half-drowned, but we were around the halfway point by then, so I didn't care.

• . . .. It was the halfway mark and I was tired, my right knee was hurting a bit, my lower back was killing me, I couldn't listen to music anymore because the earphone-things wouldn't stay in my ears, I was tired of the rain, the sides of my upper arms were getting chafed from rubbing back and forth against the sides of my soaked-through t-shirt, I had no one to talk with as Mike was pretty far ahead of me then, and it all just put me in a bad frame of mind for awhile.

• 'Don't remember much about miles 7, 8, or 9.   It's probably better that way. :)

• Somewhere around mile 8, 9, or 10, we passed a girl standing off to the side with her shoe off rubbing her foot. I went back to her and asked her if she was okay, and she said no. She'd twisted her ankle and couldn't walk on it. I stayed with her for a few minutes talking with her, offered her a couple Aleve I had with me, and told her I'd stay with her til the next paramedic drove by, but she said to go on ahead.  She was walking a little after that, so I assume it wasn't too bad of an injury.

• I started noticing around then how many people were limping. I slipped twice today because of all the rain, but that was it. By mile 10, I was very aware of how lucky I'd been and what a toll this was taking on people. So much limping. Mike noticed a woman with a big cut and bandage on her leg.

• Mike found his afterburners, as he told me later, sometime around mile 10, and he took off ahead of me. He turned back once, and I just waved him away, glad to see that he was finishing well.

• By then, it had either stopped raining or was just drizzling, so I tried my iPod again, and lo and behold, got the earphone-things to stay in my ears the rest of the way. ♫ "Some days are diamonds, some days are rocks, some doors are open, some roads are blocked. . . You got a HEART! SO! BIG! it could CRUSH! THIS! TOWN!" ♫  Ah!  Tom Petty again! :) To hear my music again helped so much those last few miles.

• Somewhere toward the end, a man nodded at me as I ran/limped past and quietly said, "This is a real accomplishment." That one line turned around my perspective of the entire day's experience and all the beating-up-of-myself that I'm prone to doing. My first thought when he said it was "You have NO idea."  What he said and how he said it, even if he said it to 11,000 other people as they ran past him today, made me feel so grateful for my health and just so happy about the run. Thank you, Sir, again, whoever you are. Your words were exactly what I needed to hear. ♥

• Thanks to those words and my music, I ran a lot of the last couple miles.

• The last mile of the half-marathon was in complete chaos by the time I ran it because, unbeknownst to us, there had been a bomb threat earlier in the morning and the finish line and last mile had had to be re-routed because of it. When I came off the last bridge, not even sure where I was in the downtown, the line of runners that had been ahead of me all day was no longer there, there were people walking and running in all different directions, I saw no barricades, and I had no idea where I was supposed to go. I asked four different people for direction/help between that moment and the actual finish line, and two of them gave me the wrong advice and had to come running after me telling me so afterward. I ended up having to circle back at one point and go another way, wasting more time, slipped on the sidewalk and almost fell, and even the finish line itself was chaotic--a complete mob of runners, walkers, finished participants, spectators, people with baby strollers, kids walking dogs--and between the chaos and the just-wanting-to-be-done-with-it-already, I was crying even before I got to the finish line.

• And then as I crossed it, I asked a volunteer, through my tears, "Am I done?" And he looked shocked at my ignorance and said, "Yes, you're done!"

• I was given a Gatorade--and a foil blanket that Mike and the volunteer insisted I take.

• We walked until we found a good place to sit down. The foil blanket actually felt wonderful--They were right! It was so comforting and warm!--and I was glad I had it around me. We sat outside awhile then went over to Mike's office. He bought me some peanut M&Ms, and I finished those and my Gatorade while we talked. I still felt weepy but pretty good physically.

• From there, we walked two miles for breakfast/lunch. I felt great once I got some real food in me, but when we finished and I stood up from the restaurant booth, I almost fell:   It felt like--and fourteen hours later, still feels like--someone was screwing a screwdriver into the sides of both my knees. Once we started walking again, I felt better, but even now, every time I stand up after having sat awhile, the pain returns.

All in all, a good day. We finished, and we're just a little sore--Mike's hip and the sides of my knees--and I've completed, with no real training for it, my first half-marathon. Unprepared wasn't the way I'd intended to do my first one, but it was what it was, and regardless of what the chip time or pace indicate, the experience was, as the kind man pointed out, "quite an accomplishment."  I'm happy with it.

And what do we do when a book is read?

"That's right, dear children, we go to bed." I discovered this vintage book illustration a few months ago and fell in love with it and finally matted and framed it today for above our bed. For two bookworms, especially bookworms with a big cat who takes over the (patchwork-quilted!) bed on a nightly basis, this page is just perfect. Our apartment's walls all seem to be filled with either lead or cotton--the one above the bed is lead, apparently--so the first nail broke and the second nail bent as I hammered them in. Here's hoping a happily-reading Mr. Mike and I aren't knocked out by a falling frame one of these nights. 

Life lately has been a monotonous blur of napping and reading with the cat beside me after work in the afternoon and job-searching in the evenings. The following song came on the radio as I was finishing up at work this afternoon, and what can I say: You know you need a break when a Miley Cyrus song almost makes you cry. :)