the secret life of a dirt diva

online dating part 82: why people lie about their age

2012-02-20T15:56:00.001-05:00

see more of Stephan Pastis' genius at gocomics.com

So in light of my pretty poor record of online dating I have opted out for the past, well...3 or 4 years. I had been pondering the idea of putting myself back there of late, after all, its not like I'm suffering from a bruised heart. I'm about as self-aware and emotionally available as I've ever been. I'm ready to take my chances, and with all of the medical issues I've oversome in the past 3 years, the risk of a broken heart does not seem like something worth limiting my behavior to prevent. So what am I waiting for? I don't know....something always stopped me from pulling the trigger.

Match.com is one of the largest online dating services in the world with millions of registered users on six continents. I had stopped using Match 7 years ago because I was embarking on my bike racing "career" and I was tired of meeting Average Guys of slightly different stripes who were not particularly active or concerned about their health. I wanted to date a cyclist, since I had been fully indoctrinated into the cult at that point and could not imagine dating someone who was constantly whining about all the time I spend on my bicycle and away from him. So I switched over to fitness-singles and instead met a lot of fit men who measured their success in terms of body fat, personal bests, and how hot their girlfriend is. Most of the guys that contacted me could not write a single sentence without typos and misspellings. It was pretty depressing. PBF is a perfect example. I did however meet Dr. Mark on FS who certainly was heads and shoulders above the rest but alas I also met X, who turned out to be nightmare in more ways than one. We'll get back to that I promise.

As I said I had not been on Match since about 2004 or so. A few months ago thinking I might try the online dating thing again, at least for the purposes of *research,* I went back on Match, logged in and Lo and Behold there was my old profile from the tender age of 35 in all of it's youthful ebullience. Word for word. Now while I could still agree with sentences I had penned back then such as:

"As you can guess I am liberal but I have no patience for those who are lazy, stupid, or indifferent about their effect on others and the ecosystem we all live in."

"Fine jewelry is nice, but most of the time I would prefer a power tool." Which might still be true but these words would be used against me should I actually meet someone who I end up entering a LTR with. I would be getting Sawzalls and Dremels on every Valentine's Day for the rest of my life. You get the picture.

....at this point the rest needed to be reworked a bit. I felt the need to more succinctly elucidate the dozen or so dealbreakers I have picked up through the indoctrination of age...and serial dating.... while also injecting some humor as a counterpoint to the verbal barbed wire fence I needed to weave around my little essay. That is to say I might as well state right off the bat that I no longer date slackers, liars, addicts or narcissists. Yes, I realize I've just gashed a huge hole in the side of the potential suitor gene pool. Look at that water streaming out......

Now here's a lesson for you: if Match.com kept my profile on their servers through 7 years of inactivity, then you can bet they keep anyone's profile. (and I don't mean my profile was still visible on the site even though I was a non-paying member, I call that leaving a "fishing line in the water" and a ton of folks do it even when they are married or in a relationship, which is über lame.) If you notice a friend or old flame has changed their username on the site, they are probably doing it for one reason only: to change something about their online dating persona that they cannot change just by editing, and that would be--you guessed it--their birth date.

"Older and Wiser baby", my birthday card
from kid sister

Well a month ago I had not decided yet that I was going to re-enroll as the Older and Wiser Andrea on Match.com, but I did consent to having them send me an email of my "daily matches." It comes to my inbox each afternoon while I am at work, and I do browse through the profiles just to remind myself why it's OK I have not dated in two years.

So about a month ago, I was in my kitchen folding the goat cheese, sprouts and avocado into a shiitake spinach onion omelette I had made on the one morning of the week when I sleep past 4:30. I sat down with the full plate, a steaming hot cup of tea, and my Ipad to read the New York Times. It was a cold morning, and the pups were at my feet, Madison with her stuffed animal in her mouth and Chloe watching my every move for that moment when I would put down my fork and she would spring to her paws to have a chance to lick up the scraps from my plate. I decided to check my email first, and there was my daily dispatch from match.com, "Andrea, here are your new matches!"

So I clicked on it, and saw a very familiar face. It was not a big shock to see X online dating, but...wait a minute....are you kidding me?

Under his handle it said "40 years old, Philadelphia, PA" He had suddenly shed 8 years from his age, as in a few weeks he will be 49. Not only that, but he had the gall to choose a username, like many do, with the year of his birth as part of the handle, only he used someone else's year, not his, someone almost a decade younger. Pathetic.

I clicked on it, and read through the profile, and there were so many lies in it it made me a little sick to my stomach, mainly that I had once trusted someone who was even more of a liar than even I had figured out he was. As my therapist remarked when I told her the story, "It kind of makes you wonder about everything he ever told you."

As the weeks have passed, however, the situation actually has had the opposite effect on me, as at one point I had actually considered reuniting with this person, but the older and wiser version of andrea has learned, finally, to trust her instincts and these told me that even though he had stopped the most obvious outward manifestations of his penchant for self-destruction, inside he was still a tortured soul and his abuse of himself and those closest to him would continue, albeit more subtly. In my world, even if a person is fine 95% of the time and a jerk the other 5%, well that's just too much for me. You still have to live with the fear of when the beast will come out. And I don't like walking on eggshells. So seeing this validation of my instincts definitely made me feel good.

So simply because I know my audience eats this stuff up, not of course due to any desire on my part to expose his duplicity, I will reveal a few of those lies as a cautionary tale to those of you who are currently fishing in the online dating pool. I think the one who gets me the most is he states:

'Fido'* is pure sugar. All he knows is LUV LUV LUV!! And he teaches me every day the Buddhist way... That the key to happiness is to be in the present moment - to never morn the past or worry about the future - but just to be here - now.. (* not the dog's actual name....yes I protect the identities of those I am maligning as well as that of their [former] animals)

The dog who really does show me every day how
awesome she is. Unconditional love.

Ok, first off, this drives me crazy as a woman who has tenderly cared for three raw-fed dogs in the past decade. This meant often not attending mid week social events, races, weekends away, whatever, because of not having adequate coverage for my animals. I take the responsibility of acquiring and caring for a dog as a lifelong (the dog's life that is) commitment. X no longer has a dog. He gave Fido away because he could not take care of him, although in his mind he convinced himself that the dog would be better off as a member of a pack owned by a dog trainer friend of his with substance abuse problems who has too many animals to provide them with nutritious food and medical care. Fido has terrible digestive issues and clearly could not handle his food but X angrily told me to stay out of it when I suggested that he needed to do some experimenting to get his dog on a diet on which the American Staffordshire Terrier could thrive. This dog produced massive volumes of room-clearing gas late in the day, was lethargic and always looked miserable, it was really tough to witness for me. X has custody of Fido one weekend a month, so how the dog could possibly teach him "every day the Buddhist way" is beyond me. For the way that my dogs, [who I take care of every single day whether they are killing groundhogs in the dog park, throwing up on the carpet, or scheduled for $1200 surgery because a fatty tumor is growing too fast] show me the Buddhist way, click here and scroll down to Part II.

The other killer sentence in this work of fiction that struck me was, "Mutual trust and deep respect, I believe, are the keys to a beautiful and powerful relationship", this from a guy who not only was a expert liar by his own omission, but who also had a mean streak a mile wide that was especially fierce with the application of any alcohol. It was advisable never to criticize him for fear he would unleash his wrath upon you and inflict words you would have a hard time shaking off even years down the road. Which made it tough to have honest discussions with him about any difficult emotional issue, because he was the classic case of narcissistic personality disorder, and combined with the aforementioned mean streak; well it just was not worth it. Often he would ask me how I felt about something and I would just stare at him in dumb silence, knowing I could never have a balanced constructive conversation about it like I could with a partner who valued me as an equal. Can you imagine me staring in dumb silence? It's a terribly powerless way to feel in a relationship, I will tell you.

He also mentions he is "divorced, " because he and I used to joke that when you get into your 40s it is better to be divorced with no kids than "never married", because women think that men who are 48 and never married must have some serious issues with commitment. But that does not mean you make up a story about being married, for God's sake! It's one of the icebreakers on a first date, "so, how long have you been divorced?" I wonder who the lucky ex-girlfriend will be who will become his wife in the double-life he will be concocting from day one of meeting someone new?

Oh, and he's a smoker. He only smokes one cigarette a day supposedly, but he states clearly in his profile he will not consider dating one. In fact, the phrase is, "No Way." Nice. Let me give you a hint people. Even if you only smoke one a day, no matter how many times you brush your teeth, no matter how many mints you pop into your mouth, the non-smokers of the world can still smell it. I certainly could.

Then there is the Age Question. Many men, especially fit men, limit their age parameters for the partner to a few years beneath their own age, which always amuses me, as if their buddies will think less of them if they are not dating a younger woman. Well, it's amusing me less year after year, I'll tell you. So a cute 40 year old blond will inevitably say she is seeking men from 35-50, lets say, but a typical 40-year old man will say he desires a range of 28-35. It's pretty gross actually, but men I talk to about it say that the women in their mid-40s and beyond don't keep themselves in shape. OK, so don't email the women who don't fit your lifestyle. It does not mean you don't consider that there might be one out there who bucks the trend. I know plenty of female cyclists in their 40s and 50s who are in incredible shape, as they kick my ass out on the road.

The other option I guess, is just to lie about your age, and hope that the person you snared who would never have considered you if she knew you were 5 years older will forgive you when she finds out, should your meeting blossom until a full-fledged relationship. I'm not even talking about the people who are just looking to get laid. I'm talking about people like X who claim they are bored with meaningless sex and want a committed relationship. I can't imagine a better way to start one off, can you?

Women looking at X's profile might be relieved to see that this open-minded 40-year old is seeking women from 28-45, but sorry girls, he is actually 49, like I said. Oh well. My recommendation? Ask to see a drivers license on the first encounter. You can warn them that this is coming as I did in my latest rewrite with a sentence such as, "If you are lying about your age or anything else in your profile, please pass me by. I have found that it is ALWAYS just the tip of the iceberg, and I’m not interested in dating a man who has not come to terms with what is under his own skin."

Yes, I may be single longer than many of you because of my insistence on weeding out those who lack integrity, but at least I can sleep knowing there is not a snake in the bed next to me. Just maybe a dog or two.

Be careful out there.

attention ladies! help me take back valentine's day

2012-02-05T20:39:00.000-05:00

downstairs at Jose Garces' Distrito

Valentine's Day has a storied history with mysterious origins in both Christianity and Paganism, and has actually been celebrated since the Middle Ages, but as far as I am concerned, today's holiday has been mass-marketed via cheap chocolates, red roses and cliches concerning cupids and arrows ad nauseum. It has become an obligatory test of one's Romantic Quotient: a holiday that forces us to trumpet the significance of our oh-so significant others. Ridiculous. I don't need a holiday to remind my man to show me some love, anymore than I need a man who needs a holiday to remind him to show me the love.

This is mainly because:

Valentine's day is my birthday, so if I had a man, he has a pretty big reminder to get off his ass and take me out to dinner and get me a nice gift anyway.
Alas, of all of the valentine's day birthdays I have endured since the age of 18, I have only had a boyfriend or husband on, well, let's say 33% of them. And this year I'm not exactly bucking the trend, since I have not had a significant other (SO) now in, well, 2 years. And that's probably not going to change anytime soon. You can't win the lottery if you refuse to buy a ticket.

But what the heck! It's 2012, a leap year, the beginning of the rest of our lives, and right now, my life is in perfect homeostasis without a SO mucking up the works! So lets get out there and celebrate my forty-something birthday and inject a little excitement into an otherwise banal tuesday night.

Ladies, you are officially invited to my Anti-V-day B-day Party, part 2.

No present, no drama, no busted expectations: Just come on out to one of my favorite restaurants, Distrito in West Philly, have a margarita and let's toast to the wide-open possibilities. Just think, you could be going through a painful messy breakup, suffering through another dinner with a complete bore, or meeting with lawyers to work out the details of your custody arrangement; but no, in fact, you are blissfully single and looking forward to a night out with the girls.

mocha cake from SwissHaus Bakery

If that weren't enough, I ordered us a decadent chocolate mocha cake from Swiss Haus Bakery on Rittenhouse Square so leave your gluten-free guidelines at home because you need to know what a $40 chocolate cake tastes like. Will it be better than sex?

going out on tuesday night = bad

THE RULES:

1. Dress cute.
2. No gifts.
3. Ladies only.
4. Reservations are at 7pm. Dessert will be served around 8:30.
5. RSVP to yours truly before Feb 10th.

If you would like to stop by and skip dinner (although why you would want to miss dinner at one of Jose Garce's delicious establishments I don't know) just text me and let me know to expect you. Looking foward to a night out with the girls!

andrea

demolition and renewal

2011-11-30T14:51:00.072-05:00

recognizing and accepting when a friendship has run its course

So I finally it the bullet and hired a contractor to demolish the porch on 3434 and add in a bunch of smaller projects that have been nagging at me. Two weeks ago when they started they pulled up all of the old decking and ripped out the rotted beams in the hopes that they could save as much of the original woodwork as possible before the peeling paint allows the elements to gain an entryway and rot to set in. So it's been pretty hectic around here. The contractor needed money and wanted to start the job right away; and I acquiesced, which meant scrambling around making hasty decisions about paint color and fixtures. Big mistake I won't make again.

When I got myself into this mess I had not intended to act as the Project Manager on the jobsite known as Home when I thought I had hired a professional to perform this service. All this on top of my already overbooked schedule and with the holidays looming it's no wonder there are a dozen half-written blogposts languishing in the hopper.

So last week at "work" I ordered a new light fixture, a handsome copper rain chain to replace my beat up downspout aka ladder to the "starling turned squirrel nest". I was snapping pictures of other East Falls homes on dog walks in an effort to pick my porch floor color (french clay); figuring out the correct grout with which to apply broken pottery mosaics to my outdoor dog shower he was fixing; inspecting the jobsite daily and texting and emailing him to fix all of his mistakes. I also called the Schuylkill Center for Wildlife Rehabilitation to inquire as to the most humane method of squirrel "rehoming," and this was all just in the first day.

So they had been on the job for four of days when around 8 pm Sunday night I was cooking my food for the week in my fleece PJs when the dogs sound the alarm that there is a large man on the front porch. I make it to the door and sure enough there is a very tall policeman and behind him are 2 squad cars and a fire truck with lights flashing. At least the siren was not going. What the....?

"Ma'am is this your truck?"

He pointed to the ancient red pick-up owned by my contractor, listing to its side in front of my house. It looked quite pathetic piled twenty feet high with the remains of my front porch along with some other trash and a couple of wood pallets; its rusty and dented bumpers barely fastened on. Yikes, I did not even notice that he had left it there, but I suppose it could have been worse. He could have parked a dumpster in front of my house for a week.

"No, but it belongs to my contractor." That was the kind of vehicle you never wanted to admit you owned even if you did. It made the Cherokee I drove for 10 years look like a Mercedes.

"Well it's leaking gasoline." I looked, and sure enough, there was a puddle of gasoline under the truck snaking silently down the street, just waiting for some smoker to carelessly flick a cigarette butt and initiate an unwitting act of self-immolation. One less smoker. 3434 is in the middle of the block on a pretty steep hill. I mean not San Francisco grade steep but I was once told by PBF that is was the perfect hill for running hill repeats. (And God knows he was the expert since he did nothing all day but workout.) I swallowed and stepped out to get a better look. Oh boy.

I told them I would call Caleb, the contractor, and of course he did not pick up the phone. At any rate he eventually called me back, but by that time Philly's Finest had made use of my next door neighbor's dirty kitty litter left out for trash day and had soaked up the spill and split. Caleb sheepishly told me he would have AAA tow the thing the next morning, and sure enough, as Madison, Chloe and I went out for our morning walk after I got back from the Kroc Center Monday am, there goes the truck propped up on a flatbed: piled so very high with the remains of 3434 and then of course being up on the tow truck, it became the proverbial ship out of water, silently glilding down the empty post-rush hour asphalt river called Henry Avenue towards God-knows-where. It was quite a spectacle, and I watched these old pieces of my home slowly fade into the distance and felt a sigh of relief lighten up my wry smile.

As I watched I realized that that construction debris floating away was the perfect metaphor for the dead wood that I had been clearing out of my life in the past 6 weeks. There have been many changes I've initiated as I mobilize for The Big Move, but more specifically since Thanksgiving I have said goodbye to a couple of friends who had been close to me but who I finally came to realize were causing me more harm than good, and it was time to cut them out of my life before they caused anymore damage, just as I removed those rotted beams on my front porch before the weather could touch the intact boards behind them. Both of these ex-friends were narcissists, which in my experience seem universally to be men whose fathers left gaping holes in their souls by abandoning them, literally or emotionally, when they were youngsters.

And you know what? I don't care anymore. I'm finished being a pro bono therapist for people who won't take responsibility for bettering their damn selves, who, as Susan Gregory Thomas describes in her memoir, In Spite of Everything, can't treat women as equals because they grew up without a regular, involved Dad and thus need to divorce themselves from all of the female authority in their lives by engaging in "overcompensatory masculine behaviors" and "a relatively exploitative attitude towards females." Many were assholes growing up and grew out of it, but the narcissist, with his lack of a sense of purpose and weak self-esteem, often never completely can escape this immaturity. I've long since rejected this pattern in my romantic relationships and now I'm at the point where that ban has to extend to my friendships a well.

I'm sick of being taken for granted for one thing. Not that I mind helping out a friend, God knows my good friends turn to me when they want to get an honest opinion about something, but that's just the thing, if honest and directness is a gift I have to offer, but I can't actually speak the truth to them even though that is exactly what they need to hear, I start to feel stressed and disingenuous. If I can't help a friend initiate change in his life because I have to coddle the male ego less he erupts in anger or completely disengages, well then, what's the point? What can my role become to this friend if I can't help him with my wisdom? Unfortunately I become an enabler too; not quite as blatantly as the sycophants he chooses to date who will allow this behavior to go unchallenged, but close enough that it makes me uncomfortable.

More importantly the time I was spending with them, I realized, I should be spending with someone, whether friend, family, or lover, who appreciates my compassion and concern. It's not my job to teach them how to treat others: they are old enough to figure that out on their own. Enough said.

As for me, I feel as if I great weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. Even Janel noticed that I was more relaxed and at ease when we met for dinner and the Queen of the Sun screening last week. There has been even more solitude than usual, but I can't seem to get enough of it these days. I will spend time with family and friends here and there but I want to keep the momentum I have in the personal growth arena going, and getting pulled in a million different directions this time of year can leave you with plenty of updates to your Facebook photos but not a lot of substance with which to feed your soul when the dearth of engagements in January and February take their toll on those who need others to validate their existence. Fortunately that has never been my lot. Happy Holidays.

The following video from two Decembers ago reveals what my steps looked like before they were refinished in slate, what my porch looked like before it was ripped out and redone (and Rocky's old home demolished), and what my old Cherokee looked like before it was retired for the rocket. Out with the old! Onward!

cyclists overtake the Kroc Center

2011-11-21T18:37:00.030-05:00

So I lay unconscious and tangled in my flannel sheets a bit later than usual Monday morning and did not get to the gym until 6 am. In the past month I've been showing up with the other Type-As I find waiting in the dark, their car engines running, impatient for the doors to be unlocked at 5:30. I love my gym. The Salvation Army Kroc Center, now that I've settled into my winter training program, is my home away from home that I visit three mornings a week.

In an effort to improve my dismal metabolic efficiency, I now go to the gym on an empty stomach and sit on the stationary bike for half and hour to 40 minutes spinning over 90rpm in my endurance zone. Then I eat a homemade snack like these raw pumpkin cookies made with *fresh pumpkin* Colin threw together the last time he showed up on my doorstep because Jessica was having a girls night in and she suggested he did not possess the requisite estrogen stores. I highly doubt that, but I acquiesced and allowed him to derail my exciting Friday night plans anyway. I thought asking my guest to make these cookies, which required he wrestle the skin off an honest to goodness sugar pumpkin when most folks would have reached for a can of puree, was a fair exchange for the nice *cooked dinner* he devoured. I'm doing the raw food thing now, so I have to walk the walk. And I have discovered raw squash is fabulous.

Anyway back to the gym. The grainless cookies were yummy, especially after riding for 40 minutes on an empty stomach. So I had just polished off two of these babies and was sitting in front of the smith machine on a physio ball about to do another set of pull-ups when who should walk in but none other than ex-coach Colin himself with Dana Hanchin, founder of Sturdy Girl Cycling and neighbor on Bowman street. How fun! I was shocked to see the likes of him at 6:40 in the morning, that was for damn sure. They both flashed big grins at my open-mouthed look of astonishment. My peeps at my gym!

"I dragged him in here to show me the ropes," Dana explained. She had a cute striped wool hat on as she strolled over to the dumbbells like she owned the place.

"Colin? Show you how to use a gym?" Now I was bewildered and Colin laughed as he stood over me, eyeing up the pumpkin coconut cookies peeking out at him from their little tupperware jewelcase in my gym bag. When he left 3434 the other night they were still in the dehydrator.

Dana and Colin both did a set of unilateral dumbbell rows on adjoining benches and I resisted the urge to walk up to both of them and pull their backs into extension a bit more. Everyone does that exercise wrong, and I had already showed Colin how to do it perfectly at our old gym. By the time I had finished my superset of pull-ups/triceps overhead extensions and decline sit-ups they were over on the other side of the place anyway.

By the time I was done training my back, triceps and core and was ready to spend 10 minutes doing upperbody plyometrics drills in the aerobics room, I had lost them and figured they had split, but no, there they were, on the mats doing their core work, which is when I snapped the picture above. I noticed Colin had the ubiquitous iphone on the mat with him, so a few minutes later instead of walking back over and bothering them again I sent Colin a text inviting them down to the pool with me so we could play on the waterslide after doing some laps. Yes, I said waterslide. My gym has an indoor water park ostensibly for kids but sometimes we adults have to fling ourselves over the edge just to remind us that we are still a bit reckless. It's a pretty low-risk way of feeling like you are not quite as old and boring as the folks working next to you in the office, anyway. I, for one, know that neither Boss #1 nor Boss #2 would have gotten dizzy on a corkscrew-shaped waterslide before work even began. Actually they would probably be over the weight limit anyway and not allowed to climb the ladder.

So there I was in the aerobics room. I had executed a few overhead medicine ball tosses toward the opposite wall when in walks Colin.

"Who is Louis?" he asked.
"huh?"

It turns out that the auto-complete feature on my Droid did not understand the word, "plyos" so it created a little confusion:

I'm doing louis in aerobics room then swimming. Come ride the slide! I did it twice Friday! So fun!

So much for stopping in to say goodbye.

I sprained my ankle badly two weeks ago: first by rolling it while running in the Wiss with Madison and Chloe, and then the next weekend I left the dogs at home and took the Yeti out to Belmont and was awkwardly attempting a new off-camber log over, got my wheel over the top and got stuck from lack of momentum. What other reason is there to get stuck on a mountain bike? I unclipped my left leg and put my foot down towards the ground but the weakened left ankle crumpled under me and I was pinned under the bike; I heard my ligaments tear a bit around the ankle and the pain was excruciating. I figure I have a grade two partial tear of my extensor digitorum brevis. So my new self-designed winter training program was supposed to start last Monday with great fanfare, and it did, but I had to make some adjustments due to this injury. Namely, no lower body plyometrics at all, no kicking in the water, and I stayed off the mountain bike for 10 days.

it's turned into a cankle

The new program seems to be going well so far, although I have had a bit less energy than usual. I'm not sure if that's from skipping some meals, running out of my swanky $3 a day vitamins from Andrew Lessman, the fact that my ankle is badly sprained and my body is healing, or the fact that so many things have happened in the past 6 weeks that I have not even had time to write about that, and I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and fatigued.

Anyway, I did get back on the mountain bike to ride with 46 men (!) on Thanksgiving day in French Creek, which was fun because I was demoing a Yeti ASR5 carbon that Brian Wester the Yeti rep then allowed me to take home so I could dial it in a bit more and give it a whirl in the Wiss and Belmont. Tomorrow morning I will take it out to Belmont where at 11 am I can also demo whatever bikes they have there from Scott as Breakway is doing a demo of Scott road and mountain bikes there.

Perhaps a Contessa Spark RC? I'm so over pink though.

thank you to the guests of 2011's "harvest potluck and bonfire"

2011-10-27T15:45:00.001-04:00

So this has been an extremely busy month, with my taxes due (yes those of us who suffer from the chronic illness "tax-filing-extensionitis" freak out on October 15th because it's the drop-dead-line), my arbitration hearing for my bike accident on Monday, a packed month at work accounting -wise as well as IT-wise as we are migrating to a new server; as well as the fact that my beloved refrigerator finally decided to resign the week before my party. In the midst of all this, October being my favorite month, I decided to have a gathering on top of the other social engagements I insist on attending as it is October after all, a rich season of change; crisp mornings, waning daylight, falling leaves, pumpkins, and exuberant pups who are ecstatic that the humidity is dog-gone for the year.

So there you have it; I STILL have a half a dozen unfinished posts ranging in topic from the books I'm reading, my forays into eating and cooking raw, gardening, foraging, quitting coaching.... the list goes on and on. It's only Thursday so I STILL don't have time to finish any of them, but the party took place this past Saturday and we all had a lovely time so I wanted to thank my guests and post some pictures or I will lose my audience altogether in this era of instant gratification via smartphones and Facebook.

Thank you to everyone who attended, helped me with our multiple fires, or brought everything from roasted turnips to baked wings with special orange marmalade sauce to foraged mushrooms to homemade fudge to wine. Special thanks to my sis Sabrina who traveled from Brooklyn with a two-years supply of s'more fixins so my wonderful nieces could roast marshmallows with Max's niece and nephew. I had to laugh when I looked back on my calendar and realized I had this same party on the exact same weekend in October of 2010. Yes, I really do love October. More pics are here and I will send a few to FB too, I promise. Thank you for a lovely evening! Enjoy.

the cats around the fire outside

Colin chillin on the couch w Alessandra & Florie

me & Kelley

Alessandra & Auntie Andrea

Dana Hanchin & Ron Ruggiero

chloe had just gotten done humping madison, we snapped too late

Jessica & Colin

the aftermath: the results of my 9-day water fast

2011-09-30T18:03:00.000-04:00

the one food I was craving the most

So I did not have any trouble transitioning from the fasting state to the normal one, but perhaps it was too easy. For breakfast Monday all I wanted was avocado, and I thought I would start with a half....but that was so delicious I slowly and appreciatively ate the other half, bite by bite, relishing the creamy texture and perfectly balanced flavor of that sweet flesh flecked with just a bit of Himalayan crystal salt. I thought to myself, this is it feels like to nourish oneself, as opposed to just eat, blindly, like most of us do. I'm guilty as charged; half of the time I gulp down my carefully prepared meals standing up for goodness sakes.

So I headed off to work with the cut up watermelon, another avocado, and a banana. Soon it became apparent to me that my taste buds had been reset and everything tasted too sweet to me: the watermelon, the kiwifruit I had left in my work fridge, even the banana. I did not want anything sweet. I needed greens; vegetables, not fruit. So I stopped and picked up some stuff at Whole Foods on my way home, and I have been eating mostly vegetables ever since. I introduced new foods gradually and today; Thursday, I am eating 95% raw, salads, sprouted nuts, seeds, and beans, avocados, a bit of goat feta here and there, and raw vegetables like marinated portabello mushrooms or shredded raw beet, carrot and cabbage salad. I have eaten some roasted cauliflower and sauteed beet greens, but to be honest I have really not wanted to eat cooked food much at all anymore so I haven't, and it has been much easier than I thought to make that transition. I have not added in any eggs or fish or even whey protein, preferring instead to make my recovery shakes with hemp protein. I am not a vegan normally, I do eat eggs, fish, and goat and sheep cheese, but for now I am resisting adding in more animal products.

I am eating much less than I was before the fast, which is to be expected if I want to keep the weight off, but fasting has made it so much easier because my body is now burning fat as fuel consistently, whereas before the fast I was really having trouble getting my metabolic efficiency to the point where I was not a glucose junkie, and I don't mean sugar, as my diet has always been devoid of added sugars. More on this in another post.

So due to the fast, my energy levels and moods are completely stable throughout the day, even when I have not eaten in 4 hours. That was unheard of before the fast; I had to eat every 2-3 hours to keep my energy levels stable and keep from getting that sick hunger feeling in my gut. Another consequence of fasting: I have completely lost my cravings for all sweets. It's wonderful! I am not eating any grains at all now, I did not eat many before but it would have been impossible for me to get up to go to the gym or a bike class without eating a bowl of my homemade granola in the am, after all, I had to power through a multi-hour workout like I did this morning: 20 min stationary bike warmup, 70 minutes of hard anaerobic lifting without breaks (body circuit with heavy weights and explosive movement) 15 minutes of myofascial release and stretching, and then a half an hour in the pool. Now I can get through a gym workout on two raw flax crackers and some homemade hummus. I took along an apple and ate half of it towards the end of my workout and that helped when I felt a bit depleted.

Why all this talk of my diet? Well here's the rub. The truth of the matter is a lot of folks, it seems, fast to lose weight. Well I'm here to tell you that's not such a great idea.

What better way to lose weight than to stop eating? you ask.

I would never have thought raw mushrooms were so tasty

I've heard from a a number of people on my fasting lists who were overweight and decided to fast to lose some pounds. The problem with this method is that after you stop eating for an extended period of time your metabolism slows WAY DOWN. This process is the enemy of the dieter. Your metablolism can be slow for 6-8 weeks after the fast, during which time your body will do everything in its power to have you regain that weight, quickly.

The day after I was done my 9-day fast during which I lost 13 lbs I got this email from Max Calder of YoMax Fitness, who is an expert on all things fitness and diet.

I want to make super clear a point we already discussed but you might not still fully understand.
Whenever anyone loses weight rapidly - their body, inexplicably, will do everything and anything to gain that weight back PLUS about 30 to 40%. It's like a rubber band thats been stretched and snaps back.
So, if you've lost 15lbs, you could EASILY regain 20 in 3 to 5 weeks. It will literally just 'appear' even if you think you've been reasonably careful.
I know you're aware of the 'Set Point Theory' and I'm in no way intending to condescend to you but I say this because I know how bummed you'd be to see all your efforts wiped away in no time at all…
I would recommend you limit your daily Kcals to 1200 for at least 2 weeks. This MIGHT give your body enough time to re-set it's SP to a new low.
As always, I'm sure you'll do what you want to do…Max

It was a wake-up call, but I reproduce it here because Max knows how hard I workout, and 1200 calories, well, that's not a lot for someone who burns twice that much on a typical weekend morning ride. The bottom line is that I now have to be really careful....for me, it would be a (big) challenge, but for a formerly overweight person who has never learned healthy eating habits, it would be downright impossible. I say this because I have heard plenty of stories of people who fasted off weight and then gained it all back and then some. They would have been better off adopting a healthy lifestyle and relearning a balanced relationship with food and exercise. Then the weight will come off naturally, gradually, and stay off. I encourage you to view the movie Forks Over Knives, pick up a copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma or In Defense of Food, or browse over to Joel Fuhrman's website if you want some help about how to cultivate this healthy relationship with food, your body, and the planet.

raw beans and seeds ready for sprouting

As for me the fast was a wonderful transition to a even healthier way of eating: a method that emphases living, raw foods with their enzymes intact. Ever since the fast I have needed much less sleep, in fact I was having trouble sleeping at night until I really got back into a heavy training schedule as I have now. I actually had to stop taking my antidepressant, which is big news in and of itself; as I have been on anti-depressants for 20 years. My moods are totally stable and I feel energetic, positive, and self-empowered. Dare I say happy? Yikes. Time for a new blog.

Honestly, a true fast is a complete system reboot. My allergies improved so much that for the duration of the fast I stopped taking Allegra, although I have restarted taking it because of my lovely hounds. I'm off my asthma meds completely though; no inhaled corticosteroid. As for my IBS, the verdict is still out on whether or not the fast will help me clear that up. I am MUCH better than I was before the fast but I'm not sure how long that is going to last, and since so many items on my "fast wishlist" I actually accomplished, I don't want to attribute unwarranted success to this most difficult experiment just to make it sound like some sort of miracle.

Before my nine-day hiatus from life, people would ask that generic question that actually means nothing; "Andrea, how are you?" and because I don't like to lie even when I know the asker really is not listening to the answer, I would mumble back, "I'm OK, the question is how are you?"

Now I say, "I'm great," with a big grin on my face.

And I mean it.

Please review my last 11 posts, starting here, if you would like more information on my 9-day water fast. There are some fasting resources listed in the posts. -aew

the refeeding

2011-09-25T22:19:00.000-04:00

dinnertime!

So it was time. 7pm. Max sliced up some seedless watermelon and a banana for me and put it in a little bowl, and I grabbed some chopsticks which would help slow me down. I will tell you that each bite of those fruits was divine. I would chew slowly and savor every sweet drop. The fruit slid down my throat easily. It was like turning on a light switch; my digestive system swung into gear and in a few moments my intestines were grumbling and churning a bit. I stopped eating after 3 bites to make sure my stomach was not going to revolt, but it was fine, so half an hour later I had finsihed the whole bowl. Halfway through we called my mom and let her know the fast was over.

"Oh...I'm so happy! I did not sleep last night; I tossed and turned all night I have been so worried about you." I laughed and assured her I was OK and as she hung up she said, "eat an extra banana for me!"

Earlier this afternoon as I was languishing in bed I got a surprise visit from big sister Jackie, Mitchell, and my nephews. Of course I apologized profusely for missing the Mitchell's son's Bar Mitzvah last night but they understood. Jackie folded some laundry for me and we all went out into the garden and the boys and I picked some fresh lettuce, the last of the zucchini blossoms, malabar spinach, serrano peppers, rosemary, chives, parsley, and basil for Jackie to prepare for dinner later. We had a really nice conversation and Jackie studied me up and down, all thirteen pounds lighter, and said, "Onge, you look good. Starvation suits you."

my first bite of food in 9 days

Talk about a Jackie-ism. Despite having said that, I found out later from Sabrina, my other sister, that the plan had been to stop over at my place and if I looked really bad they were going to "call 9-1-1." Overall I am grateful that my family, though a bit bewildered by my method, were supportive and concerned.

Max brought over his bioelectrical impendance machine to test my bodyfat percentage, as he said he never had tested someone who had not eaten for nine days and this was going to further his research. I ended up losing 13 pounds, obviously some of that is water and muscle, but I did lose quite a bit of fat as well since my BF registered at 14.9%.

The goal is to get back in the gym and on the bike and pack back on some muscle and continue to lose a bit more fat, now that clearly my body has remembered how to burn it. I would not mind getting that number down to 13% over the next month or two. I definitely lost muscle in my legs; I wonder how that is going to play out next time I climb some hills, but as I said it will be offset by the fat loss.

Actually the first thing I'm going to do is head to the gym Tuesday and do some core work and a light swim, nothing too strenuous, as I want to ease my body back into this the right way. Tomorrow I plan to add avocado in with the fruit and Wednesday if all goes well, salad. I will be sticking to raw foods at least until Thursday I think. I have to keep in mind that my metabolism has slowed way down and it will be some time before I can eat like I used to. Otherwise I will end up like many fasters do and pack back on the fat and then some.

Two hours after I had the fruit I did juice some carrot, celery and spinach but I could not drink more than a sip. I'm still having some diarrhea (despite the fact that the BE machine said I was not, in fact, dehydrated) and carrot juice does not work for me when I'm in that state. So I had more watermelon and a third of a banana and a glass of water. So far I seem to be digesting fine. Thank goodness. I can't wait for my half of an avocado for breakfast tomorrow. I will probably stop at Whole Foods on my way to work to get some vegetables and fruit.

The food did give me more energy within an hour. The body is an amazing machine. I'm really hoping that tomorrow morning I will not be a zombie like I have been and I can take the dogs on the most enjoyable walk we've had in over a week. Chloe notices the change in me immediately and started playing with Madison and she jumped on my lap. The dogs have been so depressed this week, convinced I was dying. Madison, for her part, is not convinced. Wait until she sees me tomorrow, she will perk right up. These two should realize how damn hard it was this week to feed and walk them every day. I still can't believe I did it.

Now, I'm going to pray that this exercise worked. I guess I will find out in the coming month.

stats: weight in am = 115.2 saliva PH = 7.0 (after watermelon) urine PH = 6.5

water fast day nine: enough already

2011-09-25T15:56:00.000-04:00

So I woke up exhausted again, and still have diarrhea and cramps, especially when I drink water. The annoying dry cough persists, and my limbs feel like noodles; my arms dangling at my sides listlessly. However I did feel slightly better than yesterday morning, so somehow, I have no idea how, I dragged myself and the dogs out for a walk. Our normal 50 minute weekend route took an hour and a half. I stopped and sat down a couple of times, but mostly it was just how slowly I was walking. When I got home I fed them and had to take a two hour nap.

I'm irritable and bored today. After really thinking it through, I decided to stop the fast this evening, exactly 9 days after my last meal on Friday the 16th. I really don't think I can take another day of this and my physical symptoms seem to be indicative that my body is ready for nourishment. I know my mind has had enough. I agonized over this decision this morning because Fuhrman said that the *real* healing starts at 7 days, and he fasts his patients minimum 10-14 days, but then again this has been a really hard road for me and I think I have just had enough. I am hoping enough healing has occurred by me resting my digestive system for 9 days. And the bottom line is that after losing 13 pounds my body is getting low on reserves. So I'm having some watermelon tonight!

My thinking about having it tonight instead of tomorrow morning is that if I have the same reaction as Celes did and the food makes me want to fall asleep for several hours, since I need to work tomorrow if I eat tonight it may even help me sleep. And maybe I will wake up tomorrow without these horrible gut cramps. I have slept so much the past few days but it is not always restful. In fact the past few nights I woke up restless and agitated and had a really hard time finding a comfortable position in that my back and legs are so sore from being so sedentary. My body is built for movement, and all this laying around is starting to have a negative effect on my moods.

So it's almost 4pm now. I'm going to wait until 7 before I eat. A friend is coming over shortly to slice it open for me. I will keep you posted on my first post-fast meal.

water fast day eight: exhaustion

2011-09-24T20:19:00.001-04:00

Salvador Dali's "Mirage". He had a great cameo in the movie last night

Today was probably my worst day yet. I did got to see Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" last night which was entertaining but nothing fantastic, in the pouring rain. Today I just could not get out of bed. I finally forced myself to rise at 9 to open the dog door and feed Mad and Chloe. Madison was eyeing me warily as I wobbled around. I got some more water and went back to bed, until about 2:30 when Colin stopped by with my seedless watermelon from Whole Foods so I have something to break the fast with. He took one look at me and told me I should not even attempt to go to the lavish Bar Mitzvah tonight for Jackie's boyfriends' son, but I really wanted to go so I told him I was going to rally.

I am open to the idea of breaking the fast before Tuesday morning if I felt there were health risks to continuing, but really the symptoms I am experiencing are nothing that I was not forewarned against by reading Fuhrman's book. His patients spend their entire fast in his clinic resting. And if my gut is undergoing the maximum healing that Fuhrman claims occurs from days 7-10 then my attitude is I made is this far, how can I quit now? I'm not planning on repeating this experiment anytime soon!

I could call a doctor and see if he will write me a prescription for a blood test to check my electrolyte levels, but they are so anti-fasting that most would not want to write me a script for fear of liability. Which is kind of silly since I'm already at the end and I just want a blood test to see if I should safely continue. I did pull out a package of Hammer Nutrition Enduro-Lytes, the pills I add to my water on really hot days when I am racing or training, but they contain maltodextrin which is essentially glucose, so that was not happening. I am sick of drinking water at this point; it has a metallic taste and when it enters my stomach it feels like I am pouring water into an empty vessel and it is sloshing around and making me more hungry. However if I don't keep sipping it I get this annoying dry cough, which sometimes produces a drop of phlegm.

I did manage to force myself out to the park with the dogs. I was walking really slowly and stumbling over rocks and leaning against trees whenever I could, but the girls got the hour of sprinting they needed. We got back and my every intention was to feed the pups and head into the shower to get ready for the party but after cleaning their feet and feeding them it was all I could do to collapse on the couch and stare off into space. This is difficult. I guess that's why more people don't do it. Of course I've been borderline hypoglycemic since I was a kid so I knew this was going to be especially tough for me.

I actually stopped her for a minute trying to figure out which route
would be easier going. I chose poorly.

So I called Sabrina and my mom and told them I would not be going. After resting some more I showered and now I am in bed at 7pm with a big stack of books and my laptop. I've had very slight detox symptoms: faint headache sometimes, slight clogging of one ear at one point, my tongue is slightly coated white but not much, but that's about it. I still have the almost omnipresent gnawing, empty feeling in my gut that makes me want to eat a couple of almonds. Just to make it stop. And of course my back is a mess from spending so much time in bed or with a poor posture.

So that's about it, more tomorrow if I'm coherent.

stats: weight in am = 116.2 saliva PH = 6.75 urine PH = 6.5

water fast day seven: homeostasis?

2011-09-23T18:19:00.001-04:00

medieval depiction of Hell--as you can see they
are served food there. yeah, even in Hell.

Today I woke up feeling much better, thankfully. I could not get to sleep last night for several hours; I actually was very restless but my physical body was tired so I resisted the urge to read. Finally I fell asleep. I can't say my intestines are completely over their ordeal but this morning was a dramatic improvement. I had enough energy to take Madison and Chloe on a long walk with lots of off-leash time as it is going to rain the better part of the weekend. As we walked there was a thick gray cloud cover that finally opened up right as I was leaving for work. After the walk I felt depleted though, so I plopped down on the couch for a few minutes until I could gather up the energy to feed the girls and then go upstairs and dress for work.

Having lost 11 pounds certainly opens up my wardrobe options, which is certainly a welcome side effect. I'm still not as thin as I was while eating and working out a few years ago before my hormones got out of whack. I would not mind losing a few more pounds of fat and then building back the muscle I lost back in the gym in the coming months. I wonder how long it's going to take me to be able to rejoin the group rides I've been going on the weeks before the fast. Eventually when my legs get strong again it will be a welcome relief to climb those hills without those extra ten pounds. Anyway......we shall see what kind of workouts I am able to do while I am building my strength back up and making the progression of fruits and vegetable juice to raw vegetables to beans to tofu and so on. I'm not sure where chocolate fits in there but I'm pretty sure it's at the end of my transition back to food.

Dr. Fuhrman likes his patients to break their fasts with watermelon, which is what I was planning to do. There are many who give instructions to break the water fast on diluted fruit and or vegetable juice. I have a good supply of carrots and vegetables between my fridge and my garden to supplement those first days. The bottom line is my digestive system has been in hibernation mode for ten days when this is all said and done, and popping that avocado in my mouth could make me really sick. There are stories on the web of fasters who broke the fast with pizza and burritos and made themselves really sick, like bedridden for a week kind of sick.

Back to today, because I am supposed to be taking this one day at a time, by mid-afternoon I was pretty tired and still suffering from bouts of hunger and emptiness. I tried to keep sipping as much water as possible, but my intestines were still cramping a bit from my ordeal of the last few days and that made drinking difficult because I started to feel sick.

A couple of notes: yesterday was a pretty humid day, and at 80 degrees walking the dogs normally I would be pretty slick with sweat by the time I returned home and got in the shower. Granted I am walking slower than normally, but I did not perspire at all walking them yesterday or today, and the dogs were panting like crazy. I also noticed the hair on my legs has barely grown at all, which is handy because I sure don't feel like shaving. It's amazing how the body quickly adapts to conservation mode.

After work today I am planning on going to a movie if I can find one playing right now that I want to see. Then I've hit the weekend and the home stretch. I can't believe I've made it this far. Kudos to those of you who have encouraged me and shared their fasting stories; especially for you hard-core fasters who fasted for 21 to 40 days. I don't think I could do it. Certainly not if I had to work like this.

stats: weight in am = 117.4 saliva PH = 6,5 urine PH = 6.5

my Godchild picking my tomatoes for us

water fast day six: depletion

2011-09-22T21:16:00.001-04:00

So I got on the scale this morning and I had lost three pounds since yesterday, two of which I gathered were the water I gained from the nasty Miralax. I went to bed last night still feeling prettly lousy as fas as my abdomen was concerned, and it was not until I woke up an hour later at 10pm to pee that I realized the diarrhea was finally gone. Or the worst of it that is. I felt weak and depleted this am, my legs as wobbly as a newborn calf.

my worried dog watching over me when
I got back from the hospital yesterday

I don't know how I managed to get dressed for work and feed the dogs. I don't know how I got through the workday, or how I scooted at one pm to meet the truck and pick up the raw milk, cheese and honey. Lifting the cooler into the car was really tough. I am so weak and frail right now, and I know it's mostly from how sick the bowel prep medicine made me with no food in my system. I got home and after unloading I had to explain to the dogs that I could not walk them just yet; we had to take a nap first. Madison whined a bit but she knows something is wrong with me and she has been very concerned about this. Last night she slept with her nose practically pressed against mine, so she could sound the alarm if I was struggling for breath. Of course because my body is burning ketones for fuel right now I smell different to her, and my lack of energy is really stressing them both out.

Finally I forced myself to take them out and we had a nice walk although I was walking very slowly. When I got back and climbed back in bed with my book my legs ached like I had just rode 80 miles. Weird. I did have a dry cough today but that could have been from the dehydration; once I even coughed up some phlegm. The diarrhea did not go away, it turns out, but since there was nothing in my colon anyway, there was not much to it but nausea along with more hunger pangs. Like I said, a rough day. I really have not had more detox symptoms than that: my tongue is slightly white but no thick coating, no headaches or runny nose. My lower back is sore but that is from spending so much time in bed and slouching at my desk all day since I don't have the energy to sit up straight. They say the real detoxing starts at 7 days. So I'm looking forward to feeling worse tomorrow.

the same tree at dog beach in the Wissahickon pictured
above; in May, before Irene and Lee

I did get some good reading and research done, and I'm just taking this beast day by day. It has been suggested to me that it would be a shame if I did not take this opportunity to practice meditation and I agree so that is a goal for the weekend. I'm in the home stretch now, four days left. It's hard to believe I have not had any food since Friday.

stats: weight in am = 118.2 lbs saliva PH = 6.75 urine PH = 6.5

water fast day five: what is the point of all this again?

2011-09-21T20:16:00.002-04:00

one of the lookouts in the Wissahickon today

Today after I got back from the colonoscopy I was so nauseous and dehydrated I had to take an hour nap so I could get up and take the dogs to the park for a hike. I felt weak from the diarrhea and dehydration, but since then I've been drinking and resting and I feel a bit better. I think the reason for my weakness today is probably my poor judgment in scheduling the test during a fast, so I'm hopeful that tomorrow when I return to work I will feel as good as I did late yesterday. One thing I noted about being hooked up to all of those machines in a hospital: my blood pressure, pulse, and oxygen saturation were all stable. And I refused sedation, because I did not want any IV solution or drugs in my body during my fast. Actually if you've know anything about me you would realize I would refused sedation anyway. The anesthesiologist, who afterwards was abruptly dismissed by my attending nurse, told me I "was missing out on a fantastic drug with absolutely no side effects." I laughed, and thanked him for his candor.

I generally try to wear as much metal as possible

One thing somewhat incredible, I have been off all allergy and asthma meds since last Friday. Since I am highly allergic to trees, plants, mold, dogs and cats, I take Allegra year-round to be able to be as active outside as well as to be able to own two dogs. If I forget Allegra for a day I generally get very itchy; as a matter of fact in the past two months my itching has gotten so bad that I have been up for hours at night itching my arms and neck to the point where I wake up in the morning with broken skin and severe bruising from all the scratching. I can't wear metal jewelry anymore around my neck for more than a few hours; sterling silver or gold even, which is really frustrating for me because I sure do love my accessories. In fact all of this allergic activity was one of the reasons I decided to fast in the first place; because autoimmune illnesses like asthma, allergies, and leaky gut syndrome all supposedly respond well to fasting. I've stopped taking my daily Pulmacort inhaler as well; although the manifestations of that won't be evident until I start strenuous exercise again, since my asthma only presented as exercise-induced.

today's catch

So I've been reading and relaxing and doing only a few chores like watering the garden and picking some odds and ends from my garden which I will give away since I won't be eating for another week. It broke my heart to hand my Dad, who drove me to the procedure today, a huge bag of freshly-picked lima beans from my garden because there is nothing quite like fresh limas, and I have an incredible recipe for them, but the vines are still producing so I should get to try them before the frost destroys all. My lettuce is looking quite tasty as well about now, but I will give some of that away to Colin tomorrow when he stops by to pick up his raw milk and cheddar from the farm. Nothing goes to waste. That cheese is going to look yummy. Ah cheese, the reason I'm not a vegan. I only eat goat and sheep milk cheese for the most part though.

I wonder how the re-feeding is going to go, because apparently breaking the fast can be just as challenging as the fast itself. Joel Fuhrman states that the faster's stomach stops the production of digestive enzymes, in addition to the fact that the mucosal lining of it thins out during a long period of dormancy, so you have to be extra careful of what, how much, and how often you consume post-fast. Celes had tremendous difficulty with breaking her fast, although hers was 21 days, which will be twice as long as mine. They say fasts longer than 10 days can be very difficult to break. Well, I guess I will cross that bridge when I come to it. I have to get through 2 more days of work, then a beautiful rideless fall weekend punctuated by a few social engagements I can't excuse myself from, then 1 more day of work before I can have that 2 ounce piece of watermelon next Tuesday September 27th. And Boss #1 will be back from Ireland on Monday and popping into my office every 15 minutes with one problem or another, so I'm hoping I will have achieved some non-characteristic Zen-like patience by then or I might have to lock my door.

I guess it would not hurt to state that my primary goals of this fast are:

to heal my intestines. By doing so I hope to heal my hypothyroid issues too, as thyroid issue go hand in hand with leaky gut syndrome. 20% of T4 is converted to T3 in the intestines, but only in the presence of healthy gut flora, according to Datis Kharrazian.
to greatly diminish my asthma and allergies and get off those medications, especially the inhaled corticosteroid.
to give my body some much needed rest. I've been pushing it to it's limits for years and never getting enough rest.
to lose the excess weight I've put on through these medical issues the past year which I can't seem to lose as long as my body refuses to burn fat because of my out-of-whack hormones and hypothyroid issues.
to have time to write and read while I rest my body. I'm really loving all this learning which I don't have time to do often as I would like.
to research and prepare my body and mind to incorporate even more raw food into my diet.
to enjoy relaxing, resting and healing; that is to say to calm my mind to the point where I'm not thinking about what I could be doing, but instead savoring the present moment.

its not unusual for me to have 3 helpings of raw vegs on
my plate at one meal: here is raw celeriac, raw sunchokes,
and raw thai papaya salad. Lots of slicing!

A note about #6: It's quite a challenge to move to a raw diet from a cooked one, although I have been incorporating about 25-50% raw foods in my diet already, which is not insignificant. Due to my inflamed IBS over the past year, I have not been able to eat more raw than that because my intestines have not been able to process it.

And as for #7, well that is a big challenge for me, but I'm pleased to report as I get through Day 5 of consuming only water that it is happening much more easily than I had imagined. There really is something to this fasting thing! My biggest fear now that I've clearly entered ketosis and clearly don't have a MCAD deficiency is how long it will take me to regain my strength after I've started eating again so I can resume cycling, weight training, running, and swimming. My other fear is of course that my IBS will still be an issue after this is all over but I suspect that will not be the case, in light of the changes I have already seen. But I won't know for sure until I resume eating. Even the juice fasts I have done suppress the IBS greatly for a month or so, but each time it has returned with a vengeance. It never completely goes away, but for the past 17 years it has been quite tolerable the way I have adapted my diet, and I would like to push it back into "remission" so I can resume a normal life. Normal for me that is.

That's about it for today; I'm looking forward to reading some more of Ted Kerasote's beautifully written epic, Merle's Door, as well as working on a half-written poem that has been languishing on my computer since the snowstorms of January. More tomorrow, I'm sure I will be feeling a bit less depleted then.

stats: weight in am = 121.2 saliva PH = 6.5 urine PH = 6.25

water fast day four: light at the end of the tunnel

2011-09-20T21:47:00.000-04:00

the last burning embers of my fire this evening

Today is day 4, when my body must be in ketosis, but this morning and into the afternoon I still felt hunger pangs, which frankly sucked. This was supposed to be easier! This morning it was difficult again getting myself around the house, and walking the dogs, which is always uplifting, was taxing at times, especially since I refused to cut short the walk. I just had no energy to do anything involving the use of my limbs. And I was irritated that in many of the blogs I read from other folks who had fasted, they seemed to have much more energy than me. This is a prime example:

I'm beginning to think that the difficulties people associate with fasting might be self-magnified. If the rest of the 18 days are going to be as easy as the past 3 days, this is probably one of the easiest fasts in the world. --Celes Chua, from The Personal Excellence Blog

WTF? I had been feeling pretty lousy from day two. I actually feared that I have that rare disorder that Fuhrman describes in his book, a MCAD (medium-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase) deficiency, where my body cannot product this enzyme critical to the oxidation of fatty acids. I thought I should stop by the pharmacy on my way home and buy some ketostix just to make sure there were ketones in my urine.

Add to all this that I thought it was a good idea to have a colonoscopy performed on Day Five of my fast, as well as the fact that my period started on Day Two; well, you can tell I'm an endurance athlete. We routinely drive our bodies harder and harder and thus we sometimes expect too much from them at times.

So today I walked the pups and went to work, and despite my irritation from the hunger pangs, I did manage to have a productive day. It was really difficult to rise out of the seated position, so I practiced economy of movement. I left at 4:30 and headed home to start drinking Miralax and taking laxatives for my colonoscopy. Then I lit a fire in the pit out back and read more fasting blogs until it was time to go inside and drink some more Miralax and water. Those who have undergone the indignities of this procedure can feel my pain.

By 6 pm something had shifted. I felt MUCH better. Not from the Miralax, no, in fact that was making me slightly nauseous. But there were no more pangs, and more importantly my energy levels were only off by like 20% as opposed to 90% like the past couple of days. Wow, if I could only stay like this for the remainder of this fast I will definitely make it to 10 days, maybe even 14. What this morning seemed like an insurmountable obstacle now seemed quite plausible. This is encouraging.

So tomorrow am, Dad picks me up bright and early to take me to Penn Presbyterian Hospital for my procedure. I took the day off from work so I could rest, since I only slept 8 hours last night and I did not nap today; I could not fall asleep in my chair at work. When I'm eating food I have no problem doing this!

Stats: weight in am = 122.4 lbs saliva PH=6.5 urine PH = 6.25

These morning glory beauties were in bloom in the garden this evening; they bloom at night!

water fast day three: hello ketosis?

2011-09-19T21:29:00.001-04:00

the first thing I'm allowed to eat 7 days from now

This morning was really tough. I had zero energy, it was a struggle to walk. I made my way downstairs to let the dogs out and ended up sitting on the couch for what seemed like an eternity trying to get my strength up to walk the dogs. Which I did, and we had a beautiful walk on this lovely brisk fall morning; I think being in the September sun invigorated me a bit. Just a bit.

When I got back I actually had to rush out the door to make an appointment in Rittenhouse Square, and I only ended up being 10 minutes late because it took me much longer than usual to walk the 7 blocks. I enjoyed the walk though, it really was a lovely morning. My perception has shifted a bit though; I feel like I am from another world, it's strange. Without food to ground me I feel weak and only half in the physical world. Walking back to the car and smelling the fried food was a little painful but I just let it pass and kept marching.

I made it to work and actually that was not so bad. I think having tasks to do that did not involve much physical exertion (sitting at my computer) was much better than being at home all day and struggling through chores. Boss #2 asked me if I was OK, I looked tired. I said, "yeah, I'm tired." I did not tell him about my fast.

the second thing I'm going to eat

The thing that was so rough about today besides the lack of energy was that I still had several bouts of hunger pain in my gut, which was not fun. I am craving avocados. It bothers my stomach to drink too much water, and I have very little thirst at all.

I went to my chiropractor after work, and he adjusted me and did the painful soft tissue work on my neck back and hip. Then finally home.

I was reading in bed by 8pm tonight. I'm going to try and get into work at 8 tomorrow because I have to leave at 4 to get home and start "bowel prep" for the colonoscopy I'm having Wednesday morning. There should not be much drama there considering I will not have eaten in 4 days. I probably should be putting my body through that stress on a fast but it was a good excuse for a day off from work.

stats: weight in am = 123.6 saliva PH = 6.75 urine PH = 6.5

water fast day two: lethargy

2011-09-18T18:41:00.000-04:00

sunset across the street from 3434

Today was more difficult, as I imagined it would be. I have had very little energy all day; even after sleeping 10 hours last night. I did go on a 1.5 hour hike in the Wissahickon with the dogs this am, and we hiked on trails that were more challenging; i.e I had to climb over some rocks or fallen trees here and there, and boy did my legs feel weak. I tripped and stumbled once, the hiking boots felt heavy on my noodly legs. Even typing right now I feel like I should be lying down.

Wissahickon Valley Park

So the meal I had Friday night sustained me yesterday, but today my system struggled to catabolize my muscle tissue in an attempt to feed my important energy needs, namely my brain and other organs. It did not want my legs and arms using any of that precious energy. I took two naps today, and although my plan is either to go outside and sit by a fire on this gorgeous September evening, or else take Colin up on his offer to join he and Jessica for a movie, somehow I think there is a good chance I will not make it back downstairs. Walking the five downhill blocks to Colin's seems like an insurmountable obstacle, especially since I will have to walk back up. Although the prospect of seeing a movie actually appeals to me, which is shocking.

snoozing in the sun with mom

Anyway, I did manage to do some more laundry and housework, bottle up some kombucha, put out the trash, water the plants, and do a teeny weeny bit of weeding, feed and hike with the dogs, read my book sitting in the sunshine in the garden, listen to this video, and spend a lot of time petting Mad and Chloe. They did not object.

As for symptoms, I've been as I said lethargic as a boa constrictor with a goat in its belly, and on and off all day I've been hungry and cold. I just got a bout of nausea that only lasted about 20 seconds, and I had a slight headache this am for a minute or two. I've gotten more stomach gnawing and grumbling too, but that pretty much is how my body manifests hunger; that, and the lack of energy. On the upside my eye circles, as well as my chronic itchy skin, are gone.

ketone body

The other weird side effect of this fast is that time, which usually rushes by me like the wind as I futilely try to grasp as much of it as I can before it slips though my fingers, has actually slowed down. It's strange. I would imagine that this is the speed at which time is supposed to flow. I looked up at the clock today several times and each time was shocked it was so early. The list of chores I have to choose from every weekend was not even consulted, as I knew that this weekend was going to be about reading, writing and sleeping; that's it. If I did more of this relaxing in my post-fast life would the incessant rush of those winds slow a bit? This is an interesting speculation.

But I knew the weekend would be tough and I think I was smart to wait until ketosis until I returned to work, since I would have NEVER gotten through the day like this. According to Fuhrman and others, by the third day of a total fast, (not the third day of a juice "fast" or any other "fast" where calories are consumed however)

...the liver starts generating a large quantity of ketones from the body's fat stores. As the level of ketones rises in the bloodstream, the brain and other organs begin to use these ketones as their major fuel, thus greatly diminishing the utilization of glucose by the body. This significantly limits muscle wasting. These keto acids are utilized primarily by the brain, muscle tissue, and the heart. --Joel Fuhrman, MD, Fasting and Eating for Health

So that's about it, it's time to start building my fire. It's mom's 70th birthday today so I need to give her a call and reassure her that I am not going to die of starvation this week. I've been doing stuff like this for twenty years though, so I would not be surprised if she forgot about it already.

Stats: weight in am = 125.6, saliva PH = 6.5

water fast day one: attack of the hornets

2011-09-17T18:36:00.002-04:00

Devils Pool , Wissahickon Valley Park, Philadelphia, PA today

So today was sort of what I expected. But then I've had enough surgery in the past few years which required I fast from midnight the night before until mid-afternoon the day of surgery so I was expecting the grumbling stomach, mental fogginess, and lack of energy. Around 9 am I drove the dogs to Wises Mill Road so we could take different trails than our usual jaunt from Hermit Lane, since I was not riding and had all the time in the world. Besides if I took that trail they would jump in the water and I thought it would be better if they did not swim in the Wissahickon Creek yet since the fecal coliform count would still be high from Irene and Lee., never mind that we all did last weekend not knowing any better. We hiked the Orange Trail to Devil's Pool, and of course there was trash everywhere from the scumbags who party there and don't give a damn about anyone else who might want to enjoy it's beauty. These are the same losers who feel the need to spray paint the boulders there. As we were leaving the FOW was removing spray paint with some sort of solution. Thank goodness for people who care.

Chloe walking over the trash I picked up afterwards

So I climbed on the rocks and picked up the trash, bottles, and articles of clothing left behind by people who should never had been born. Yes this took some energy, but don't forget I did eat last night so I still had a liver and muscles full of glycogen. A friend took me to a gallery opening and dinner at FARMiCia so we managed to top off those stores nicely. And hiking made me forget about my gnawing stomach. The dogs were ecstatic running all over the "new" trail, and we ended up hiking off- trail part of the time. Madison and Chloe got to chase chipmunks and squirrels and sniff, leap and dart to their hearts' delight. That is until Madison disturbed what I think was a bald-faced hornet's nest and suddenly the dog bound up to me with pleading eyes that said, "help me mommy." There were at least forty angry hornets all over her back and sides stinging her simultaneously. Madison was flinching and biting at them, and in a second both dogs were in agony, rolling over in the brush and biting at their flanks. Of course these insects attack aggressively when the nest is disturbed, and suddenly there were a bunch on me too. I know I'm not allergic to stings, I was worried about the dogs getting stung that many times.

So the whole hike I had been discouraging my hounds from swimming, and now we were pretty high up on the ridge off the trail in the middle of the woods.

Lets go down to the water NOW." I yelled. "C'mon, let's go swimming!"

They were not listening. They were scared to death at this most unfortunate turn of events, poor things.

bald-faced hornet

I bolted down through the underbrush, grabbing at their collars as they stopped in pain and tried to roll in the dirt which clearly was not working; hornets don't die when they sting so Mad and Chloe were getting attacked multiple times by each insect. Thirty seconds later I was sliding down an Irene- eroded retaining wall that was now a sheer 6-foot drop of mud with the dogs and I pushed them into the water. Then I had time to see if the hornet that had stung me was still on my shoulder. It wasn't.

Afterwards Madison, who had taken the brunt of the attack, did not leave my side. Her tail was between her legs, she kept stopping to bite at her flanks, and I could see she was hurting as we made our way back on a different trail that went along the creek to avoid another encounter. Both dogs soldiered back, not straying from the trail. They jumped into the car and I sped home and gave them each a Benedryl pill tucked inside a chicken heart. Of course Madison smelled the pill inside the chicken heart and turned up her nose at it---imagine! I pushed it to the back of her mouth and held her mouth shut until she swallowed it. Then she accepted the chicken heart to wash it down. Yum. Both dogs got scrubbed and towel-dried. For the next hour she was shaking, but that subsided and she seems fine now.

So after taking care of the beasts of course my first instinct was to eat, but I soon involved myself in other things and that passed. I definitely am moving a lot slower than usual. Sometimes I feel like I am swimming underwater. Madison and Chloe are witnessing my frequent stops to sit down or just stare into space with curiosity After I had vacuumed the downstairs and did some laundry I was really tired, so I went upstairs and read a bit and took a nap, and my Benadryl drugged hounds were happy to join me--for 2 hours! My naps are typically 6 minutes to half an hour long. I'm pleased to let you know, in case you were wondering, that the food you eat really does give you energy during the day. Yeah I know, duh.

I am doing some housework but nothing too strenuous. For the rest of the night I will read and relax. My body feels cold all the time, so I'm wearing a sweatshirt and leggings. My heart rate is low, but so far I have not been paced much. I'm thinking tomorrow might be more taxing, but I'm resigned at this point.

So that's about it, I weighed 128 this am, and my saliva PH last night was 7.0. More tomorrow.

countdown to my first 10-day water fast

2011-09-16T14:48:00.000-04:00

Aquarious by Håkon Søreide, available for purchase at hakon-art.com

So I have a big day coming up this saturday the 17th. That is the day I embark on my first water fast. For a duration of at least 10 days I will be consuming nothing but distilled water. You read that right.

I've done quite a bit of juice fasting in my life, although diehards would say that juice fasts should be called "juice diets" or "cleanses", since they are technically not fasting. Since you are still taking in calories, you are not resting your digestive system. After literally years of research I have come to the conclusion that if I am serious about healing my body, I have to undergo a true fast. And God knows in the past year I have tried just about everything else conventional and alternative medicine has to offer in an attempt to get my body back in balance. Nothing has worked.

I really don't want this post to be a primer on fasting, since if you are going to embark on this sort of healing journey you should really do more research than what is found on the internet. I will provide some informative links below, but I recommend that you really spend time researching water fasting before you embark on your first one based on something you read in a blog. Especially from someone who has not even completed one yet.....

So first off, *everyone* has pretty much expressed their concern and dismay about me not eating for 10 days; those people who I told that is, and they have been few. That is to be expected, most people, especially folks in the conventional medical community, do not understand how our bodies are wonderfully adapted to heal themselves if we just let them by stopping the energy-intensive process of processing calories. There is a chance I will have to abort the fast early should my body show signs of actual starvation, however this would be a rare complication. Even very thin people have enough fat reserves in their bodies to undergo fasts of 40 days duration, and I'm 10 pounds over race weight. My electrolytes will need to be monitored to make sure they do not get too low. Ironically having a pacemaker will prevent my heart rate from dropping precipitously. In fact the last time I did a 3-day juice fast a few months ago my heart rate dropped into the 30s while I was sitting at my desk often enough that my pacemaker was pretty much pacing me the entire three days. That was uncomfortable, because I still think they have the voltage up a bit too high, but you get used to it.

Which means on my next 6 month checkup my cardiologist will say, "what the heck went on from September 17 to the 27th? You went from being paced 11% of the time to being paced 80% of the time. Any ideas?" and I will blink at him doe-like for a few seconds and wonder if I should get into all that. Yes they hook me up to that machine and the little computer prints out a journal of what my heart has been up to in the past 6 months. Nifty huh? Admit you want one.

There is a lot of information on the internet regarding fasting, some good, some mediocre, and some just plain stupid, as is the case with just about every health topic out there. However, a book I highly recommend on the subject is Joel Fuhrman, MD's Fasting and Eating for Health. Dr. Fuhrman has fasted many hundreds of patents over the years with great sucess in alleviating heart disease, diabetes, obesity, rheumatoid arthritis, the list goes on and on. What attracted me to Dr. Fuhrman's work is that Fuhrman was a world class figure skater when he decided to embark on a 40-day fast to heal an injury. Most of the literature I had read spoke of the benefits of fasting for people very sick with chronic diseases like RA and diabetes, but I wanted to know if it would be helpful for a relatively young (getting more relative every year) very active athlete who fools most people into thinking she is in excellent health. After all, I never get sick, my energy levels are higher on my bad days than most of the people I ride with, even those 10 years younger than me, and I appear to be alert and vibrant. But the sad truth is that my body has been out of balance for just about a year now, and I have tried everything in my power to regain homeostasis. I need my body's innate power to heal to take over and allow me to regain a state of radiant health.

Of course during a water fast your body needs to be at rest, so I won't be working out for the duration of the fast. I really can't imagine that I ever went three weeks without working out in my entire life, not even when I broke my collarbone or had heart surgery. Depending on how I feel once I enter ketosis, I might try and take a yoga class, but when fasting your blood pressure drops so much that you are vulnerable to fainting and lightheadedness, so I am not counting on being able to do much except dog walks. And if Madison and Chloe have to pull me like a pair of salt and pepper sled dogs, you can be sure they will to make sure they get to go out for their daily hour hike. It's important that I don't sweat or exert myself too much or my electrolytes can get out of whack pretty quickly when not taking in calories.

I guess what I fear the most is depression and boredom. I am a person who is never bored, except the last time when I fasted and I did not have enough energy to really become engaged in anything, even reading was too much for me. Of course my fast was only 3 days and because I was taking in carbohydrate in the form of vegetable juice my body never entered ketosis, so the breakdown of fatty acids to fuel my brain did not commence so I often felt hungry, weak and irritible. I have read that on a water fast this dissipates by the 3rd day. On the other hand, fasters differ in their accounts of their energy levels during the fast, and guess what folks, I do not have the liberty of taking two weeks off from Liberty. I'm starting the fast on a Saturday so hopefully I will already have entered the ketogenic state by the time Monday rolls around as Furhman states that this happens in 48 hours for women and 72 for men. This way I will not be bitchy enough to get into a fight with Boss #2, who will be pretending to run the show since Boss #1, generally recognized as my ally, will be in Ireland drinking and golfing himself into a stupor next week.

Since I won't be working out or doing many of the daily chores and activities that keep me from writing, I plan to journal about how I'm feeling often during the 10 days. Please feel free to comment and share your experiences with water fasting if you like.

Now if you ware wondering why so drastic a measure, I could point you to some further reading about the incredible benefits of fasting. Dr. Fuhrman's book should be your first resource. Here are a few other good links:

Natural Hygiene Society
All About Fasting
Dr. Shelton's 9 Basic Steps for Fasting

It's hard to believe I am going to miss out on this glorious fall riding that would normally happen this weekend; but that's OK, I'm committed to two weeks of reading, writing, mediation, introspection, and otherwise feeding my creative soul, which often starves as it takes a back seat to my athletic endeavors. Yes I'm a bit apprehensive, but my instincts are telling me I will do just fine.

funny signs in support of gay marriage

2011-08-28T23:29:00.001-04:00

the aftermath of Irene

2011-08-28T22:52:00.001-04:00

Lincoln Drive late this afternoon

Irene was downgraded to a tropical storm and so the winds did not get quite as bad as forecasted. This turned out to be a good thing, since at 3434 did not lose power at all. However, there are 29,000 Philadelphians who did lose power today so I guess I should not be too quick to dismiss this storm less I offend those who may be eating canned chili for dinner tonight via flashlight.

Manayunk and East Falls were flooded as usual. Madison, Chloe and I walked down to the river to see how bad it was. These pictures were taken shortly after noon today. Apparently the river crested at 8pm this evening but I did not go back down there to check it out.

I did go to the Wiss to do an hour run and check out the trails, and I was relieved to see that the damage was not too bad on the Henry Avenue side, certainly nothing like Floyd, when several bridges were washed away and there was extensive trail damage. I think that is partly because we have had so much rain that a lot of the dead branches were already off the trees. Saturday morning I came upon three trees down, and that was before Irene moved in. There was a lot of tree debris on the trails today, but they did not seem any more rutted and washed out than they did Saturday morning.

As I was turning up a trail I heard the sound of a chainsaw, and a minute later I came upon Tom Coyle and his friends from the PMBA. They had cabin fever, they told me, so they came to the park to cut out some downed trees. How cool is that that the winds from Irene had hardly died down and they were out there doing trail work? If you appreciate this, think about making a tax-deductible donation to help the park here.

Here are some more pics of our raging Schuylkill. The good news is this evening was beautiful as Irene scooted up the coast, and it's going to be sunny and in the 70s and low 80s all week. I have Annie's visit to look forward to and a 4-day weekend for Labor Day, hooray.

The Sunoco Station at Kelly and Midvale

chloe does not understand "do not cross"

hurricane Irene punishes the wicked and innocent alike

2011-08-27T23:53:00.000-04:00

Hurricane Irene bearing down on us

Well, I lied. Not intentionally of course, but Irene did get in the way of Annie's visit, so she is going to come down next weekend instead. Since we were going to have an entire weekend of rain and high winds I decided to take the day off Friday anyway because I have not had a chance to get any gardening done in the past 3 weeks with all of this rain. I had every intention of going mountain biking yesterday, because I knew that as it was after Hurricane Floyd in 1999, the Wissahickon would be in bad shape after the amount of water and wind we were getting this weekend. But there were just too many chores to get done before the storm including getting compost from the Fairmount Park Recycling center and spreading it in the gardens (humping heavy trashcans full of black gold in and out of the Infiniti and up my front steps) making kombucha, taking the pups to the park, and going to Home Depot to get supplies to fix my leaky shower The Depot was packed and it was 2:30 on a Friday; they told me they sold out of generators at noon. There was hours of gardening and clean-up and Colin came over and helped me move my trees and plants in the front to a safe location out of harm's way. Then I had long beans, Asian eggplants, cucumbers, peppers and herbs to pick, and I had to grill them up along portabello mushrooms and zucchini from the market. One can't grill in the rain, so of course this all had to be done on sunny Friday. The long and short of it is I never did get on my bike, or even out for a quick run.

So this morning I jumped out of bed and looked out the window and lo and behold, it had not started raining yet. I did a lap in the park before it the sky even broke. I was a little disappointed at how tired my legs were today, considering I took Thursday and Friday off, but I did do a lot of physical labor yesterday. There was already a good amount of damage in the park from all of the storms we've been having this August. I counted three large trees down, and the trails were really rutted and all the rocks were greasy; it made it tough in places to get your wheel over stuff if you couldn't dig deep. I was worried that maybe I was not really feeling better after all, and this chronic lethargy in my legs would continue into the fall. And because my body felt tired, I did not feel confident riding in those conditions, and this pissed me off a bit, but I reminded myself that it would all come back, it always does. Christ I was riding some of this stuff on a borrowed cyclocross bike with screwed up gears just last Saturday at the Cadence Cyclocross Boot Camp. Riding the Yeti was a definite improvement. Mainly because my wrists could not handle the lack of suspension. As I was leaving the park I ran into Jeff Schalk and a female pro whose name escapes me, I guess they drove up from Virginia to get a ride in before the Hurricane caught up with them.

I finally got home, showered, had my chocolate recovery shake and took the dogs back to the park for a swim in the creek, which was swollen and muddy from all of the prior rain. It started to rain before we got there, but I didn't care. We did get a swim in, and Madison and Chloe discovered how hard it is to paddle against the current in those conditions. At one point I was standing in the middle of the stream pushing each dog from the root of the tail through the strong currents until they got to the other side. Then when I commenced swimming for the other bank I almost could not make it; it was that angry in the water.

So we got home, I gave us each a bath, cleaned the entire house, did seven loads of laundry, and placed candles everywhere in case we lost power. By early this evening the wind was really whipping up and I had to go outside in my PJs at one point to take down the large umbrella on the back patio which I thought would be protected by the 7 foot fence. 65 mph gusts are pretty extreme and I did not like the way it was flapping as if it were a helicopter rotor about to spin wildly up and out of its base.

I assembled and pan-fried some bean and mushroom burgers and stir-fried my chinese long beans with peanuts with home-grown english cucumber and purple cherokee heirloom tomato salad and sat down to eat and enjoy a glass of pinot noir while the dogs munched on their raw chicken and beef liver approvingly. They were pretty content as after their jaunt in the park and mandatory bath they had been lounging around chewing beef marrow bones all day while mom toiled away with the vacuum cleaner. What I would give to be reincarnated as one of my dogs.

It's almost 11 now, and I know the worst of the Hurricane will arrive while we are sleeping. So far my bilco doors are not leaking, but the roof in my bathroom is weeping a little. Oh well, it could be worse. I'm just hoping if and when we do lose power it's not for long, because my fridge and two freezers are brimming with food.

Not sure if we will have power tomorrow, but if not I will have to venture out in the storm and plant my fall crops: mostly lettuce, some radishes, carrots, and beets. If they don't get washed away the tenacious little sprouts will taste even sweeter, I imagine, because they were sewn in the swirling winds and driving rain of the worst hurricane to hit the east coast since Floyd in 1999. I will keep you posted if anything crazy happens. Like the worst earthquake to hit the East Coast in seven decades? Yeah that was Tuesday. I'll get to that post too.

Hurricane Floyd caused massive damage back in 1999. Irene could do the same or worse.

I sure know how to pick'em

2011-08-25T10:57:00.000-04:00

click on me to see full image please

So this was supposed to be my first weekend at mom and dad's shore house in Sea Isle City, NJ of the whole summer. They've been asking me to come down, but I've been having too much fun in Philly avoiding dating anyone, gardening, riding but not racing my bike, and teaching dogs how to swim. But the Big News is Annie is visiting from Connecticut and Sab, Alessandra, Florie and the 'rents have been down the shore all week, so I am really excited to go. I even took the day off of work tomorrow so we could get down there early, since Annie has to work Sunday. And the advantage of going this weekend is of course, avoiding the Labor Day throngs of beachgoers who will be gumming up the works next weekend.

See that not-so-l'il blob over Pennsylvania today? It just started raining here at the airport, and oh my it is pouring. My LT intervals will have to be done inside on the trainer, with Chloe, the dog who is terrified of thunder, at my feet. But how angry are the Gods this week anyway, throwing the East Coast a 5.8 earthquake and Hurricane Irene in the space of 5 days? Not sure where that swirling mass of red on the satellite image is going to make landfall yet, but Saturday looks iffy for playtime at the beach. So I guess we will see where it's tracking tonight and either head down South or else stay in Philly. What matters most is I get a chance to catch up with a great friend. And no earthquake or hurricane could get in the way of something so long overdue.

seen at the Asian market yesterday

2011-08-10T17:35:00.002-04:00

this smacks of some sort of trick to me

fait accompli

2011-08-03T22:48:00.001-04:00

So it only took Madison one more try to perfect her doggie paddle and pretty soon her new game became chasing me in the water. I became the prey. And I try to swim away from her quickly, not only because I want her to get better at swimming but also because when she catches me it is painful as her claws rake down my arms in the water. I also had cut open my heel last time on a rock or piece of glass so I drove to REI and purchased these fabulous water shoes from Teva. Only I should have checked Amazon first, because they are cheaper there. I can run, hike, and swim in them, and they dry in a jiffy. They do slow me down a bit in the water and with Madi-Shark coming after me with that serious look on her face I find it hard to swim through my laughter sometimes. But that's not the shoe's fault.

So it was Chloe's turn. As littermates Chloe and Madison share half of their DNA, same mother different fathers, and although Chloe is in great shape as well, she did not not get the quite the same Super Dog genes that her sister did. No matter. That dog would follow Madison through the gates of Hell. So with Mad and I already in the water and Chloe in the shallow water desperate to follow us, we clambered up on the rocks on the opposite bank. I knew Chloe would get it. I did make myself hoarse with calling her name though. Witnessing her dog brain try and figure out how she could get to us without sinking into that deeper water was humorous too. First one approach, then another, but no, she would have to make the leap. And again, we had an audience of onlookers who were rooting her. At one point, Chloe was so frustrated that she could not follow us that she started barking at people on dog beach. I swam over to her and was able to do what Madison would not let me do, I gently pushed her into the deeper water, keeping her supported. It freaked her out, but she was more trusting of me than her sister had been, so I finally gave her the heave-ho straight at the opposite bank where Madison was waiting. She was paddling away, a bit smoother than Mad's first attempt, but then Chloe is part Retriever after all. Both of my dogs have webbed feet for pete's sake. Who knew?

And lo and behold, after Chloe finally was swimming back and forth across the creek and gleefully joining her sister in her exploration of The Other Side, who shows up but Kathy? She was up on Forbidden Drive with her trademark radiant smile and remarked how impressed she was at how much better Mad was swimming. Soon she made her way down the root steps and her dogs joined us in the water.

Anyway, I don't need to yammer on and on about my fur-kids, but I have to say teaching them to swim has made quite a change in all of our lives. Not only is swimming an excellent activity for us older gals who want to mitigate the wear and tear on our joints from a well-lived life full of activity, it also forces me to take an extra hour or more out of my jam-packed day to just do something stupid fun. I tend to get wrapped up in my training, gardening and chores, but the last few weekends we've been out on the bike by 7am due to the heat and I'm done by 10, which is very liberating. After my protein shake it's back out to the park for a hike and swim with Mad and Chloe. Even better, this past weekend we got a surprise visit from Sabrina, Alessandra and Florie, so we spent the better part of the afternoon hiking in the Wissahickon and swimming at an even bigger swimming hole frequented by LOTS of ecstatic canines. By the end of the day both Madison and Chloe were diving off rocks into the water, completely submerging themselves for a second until their heads bobbed up and they were gliding forward. Really funny. Afterward it was back to 3434 for a dinner on the patio with vegetables the kids picked from my garden. Talk about a day we will cherish forever.

one dog down, one to go

2011-08-02T13:40:00.002-04:00

rocks at dog beach

So I started writing this post several weeks back, July 4th weekend actually, and here we are at the beginning of August. The days have been getting surreptitiously shorter as the summer tumbles headlong towards the end of the year; so you hardly notice until someone asks you what you are doing for Labor Day weekend. The inevitable pull of gravity draws the water in my Wissahickon creek over the rocks and down the banks to the Schuylkill river, and then onto the Delaware River which, for thousands of years, has emptied into the Delaware Bay, and then into the great Atlantic Ocean where the Coriolis effect draws those molecules of water that flowed between my toes in the creek to far away lands and back up into the atmosphere and down again, and like the passage of time, there is nothing I can do to slow it down; I can only bear witness to its passing. I suppose that is one of the reasons I write these thoughts down. You can't stop time any more than you can stop that precious water as it slips through your toes and over the rocks and away.

My garden has been yielding its abundance, and I've started some new projects around the house, most chore-like, others with an artistic flair. This month marks the year anniversary of Gryphon's passing, and we all still miss him a lot. If something positive can come from losing a member of your family, it is that the surviving members get more exercise now since I am no longer the caregiver to an elderly dog. We take brisk hour walks around East Falls or Fairmount Park every morning and in this heat they often end with a dip in the fountain at Philadelphia University or else a stroll in the Wissahickon Creek.

the fountain at Philly U

So Madison and Chloe are littermates, now 9 years old, and they had never actually learned to swim. No, you don't need to give a dog swimming lessons like you do to a child; dogs have an innate ability to paddle, but many of them did not receive the memo about this and thus have a hard time taking that leap of faith when the water gets much past their chests. This was the case with my two kids, and as I mentioned before, I was determined to change that.

So the day before my fateful accident, I had Madison alone in the park since I was running and Chloe is injured and can't be off-leash for a few weeks. The three of us had already done an hour walk in the morning, but I took Madison out again so I could run with my Ipod on and not worry about some creep trying to attack me in broad daylight. Not to mention it's just more fun to run with a well-behaved dog, especially one in as great a shape as Madison. It was 95 degrees and humid, so after we stopped I took her down to our special spot in the creek. As soon as I unleashed her at the opening in the fence bordering Forbidden Drive that led down to dog beach, as I call it, she raced down to the water and immediately laid down and started taking gulps of water. I made my clumsy 2-legged pedestrian way down the roots and rocks to the water, took off my shoes and socks, lay my Ipod, headphones, and sunglasses down and waded into the creek, wincing a bit as the rocks tested my tender feet. Soon I was in above my waist, calling Madison towards me. The water felt so good after my run.

our spot

Madison came towards me until the water was up to her chest. We had been here before, but this time I was determined to teach her to paddle. I coaxed her towards me and tried gently to support her body and guide her into the deeper water but she was not having this and backed away from me as soon as I slipped my arms around her. So I swam out into deep water, laying on my back and feeling the cool water wash my sweat away and Madison never took her eyes off me. I was swimming away, calling her, and she was barking loudly in frustration that she could not reach me.

To my right a Causcasian Earth Mother of woman in a sundress that looked like it had been on many a dog hike was standing next to an African American man with a beard. They were chatting and throwing a ball into the water for two dogs who were avid swimmers. I asked them if they would mind if we came over there, because I wanted Madison to see their two dogs gliding effortlessly across the creek and scrambling up on the opposite bank in the spirit of freedom and exploration.

"Oh sure, dogs do learn from each other" she said, and that is how I struck up a conversation with Kathy and Karl. Madison stared in awe at the Lagotto Romagnolo, or Italian water dog, as well as at Rose, the lab mix, and in that moment I knew her competitive spirit would take over and she would get it. This is the dog who as a puppy could jump a 7-foot fence, who can catch and kill all manner of animals, even birds, and who is an incredibly powerful, cunning, and graceful athlete. She figures out how to open doors. She is smart as a whip and a little manipulative too. She sometimes frustrates me, but I realize that if I were a dog, I would be just like her.

where the peanut gallery stood to watch and heckle

By this time we had an audience. As you can see from the above picture, as we were down in the swimming hole, Forbidden Drive, with it's throngs of Philadelphians walking, jogging or riding by, was directly above us. It was almost as if we were on a stage and were people stopping to look down on us and check out what all the commotion was about. I found myself in the odd situation of calling out from the water, explaining to strangers that although my dog was nine years old I had rescued her from a garbage dump in North Philly and she had never learned how to swim. This amused dog owners and non-dog owners alike. There were probably anywhere from 4 to 10 people at any given time who paused from their stroll to rest on the fence in the heat, watching the spectacle.

So I went about my own swim, paddling on my back while I spoke with my two newfound friends about the dogs they had owned over the years. I discovered Karl was another client of my dog chiropractor, Dr. Fries, and I told them the story of Gryphon and of rescuing Madison and Chloe and the rest of the litter. Suddenly Kathy's eyes got wide and she had a big smile on her face. Madison, who had been barking pitiously to get my attention during that whole time that I was ignoring her, suddenly was doggie paddling over to me in the deep water.

"That's it Madison! Good girl Madison!" the three of us shrieked at the same time, causing the picnickers on the other end of dog beach to look over at us. People on the fence were clapping, shouting, laughing and offering their encouragement. Madison had the sloppiest dog paddle going; she made big splashes as she struck the water, rather than pushing it, and it was really funny to watch. This was a mutt from North Philly, she was no Italian water dog! She swam right up to me as I lavished priase on her, and I soon discovered that because she could not stop paddling, her nails left big welts which over the next 24 hours would develop into long thin bruises down my arms and back. I was afraid that she would get tired, and she was headed over into the current a bit, so I started to grab her to point her in the direction of the bank and Kathy interjected, "no just leave her alone, she'll be fine."

And Kathy was right. She also told me in a couple more tries Madison's "stroke" would become more efficient and graceful, which was what I was hoping for.

It was getting late, and Kathy and Karl said goodbye and I thanked them and told them I hoped to see them again. And with that, I slipped my sneaks back on, gathered up my things and Madison and I strode back onto the trail, both dripping wet, headed up to Hermit Lane where the car was waiting to drive us the 2 miles back to the house, where Chloe would be anxious to join us for dinner. What an incredible day! I can't believe how proud I am of my dog, I mean you would have thought my kid had just won the Nobel Prize for discovering the cure for cancer. But no, she had just proved, once again, that you CAN teach an old dog new tricks.

the swimming hole

Dr. Sandberg performs surgery on my skull

2011-07-08T21:08:00.010-04:00

This morning Colin, who was kind enough to acquiesce when I asked him, stopped by and took my staples out. At the Lankenau ER they told me I could either come back to them to have it done after five days, or else I could have my general practitioner do it. Of course the third option is I do it myself, but since said staples are at the back of my skull, I had to enlist the help of my good friend and coach.

These vids are kind of hard to watch, because....well let's just say this was not as easy as I imagined when I decided to forego a visit to my PCP this am. Yes, blew the chance to have these staples, that were now embedded in new pink scar tissue, properly removed by a medical professional, so that I could keep the appointment I had made a month ago with my therapist instead. A girl has to have her priorities.

So the first attempt above was a failure, the video below gets the job done, and that was only the first staple.

Here of course is the reason we had such a hard time getting it out. Those dastardly things are actually staples, just like the ones you use on paper, so when Colin yanked it straight up, with a good deal of effort, he unfortunately took a chunk of flesh with it.

Trust me he got the hang of it and massaged the second one out beautifully, even though by then the entire wound was swollen and bleeding again from the Massacre of the First Staple. All in all I was happy that Engineer, Coach, and now Doctor Sandberg was able to hone his medical skills on my hard cranium. I'm in the waiting room at Dr. Mathews' office right now waiting to get my ribs put back into their proper place so I can stop walking around like a bird with a broken wing. After that I should be good to go, hoping to get at least a road ride in this weekend.

I'm really looking forward to writing about all the other exciting things going on around here, such as Madison learning how to swim last Saturday, or picking my first home-grown zucchini today, but for now, I'm just overjoyed that it's Friday and I've got a whole lot of nothing planned for this weekend.

on second thought, I much prefer my injuries to be self-inflicted

2011-07-07T12:37:00.000-04:00

this independence day, I am reminded that sometimes it's OK to depend on others

those letters are supposed to be white

Sunday morning of July 4th weekend I had a great ride with Janel and the boys from Lancaster in the Wissahickon. We were descending the fast gravel downhill coming off the pipeline trail towards the Inn when, well, I don't know what happened, but my front wheel washed out on the rain-thirsty gravel descent and I took a hard spill. Landed on my head, smashed my helmet, and rolled for God knows how many times. You sort of lose track of the whole dance when you hit the ground at 30 miles an hour and your body tumbles like a set of dice. There was a lot of blood from the head gash, so Janel and Myron insisted that they drive me to the ER. I was covered with sweat, dirt and blood and all I wanted was a shower but there were 5 of them and only one of me in a considerably weakened and confused state so I was quite easily overruled.

So now it's a few days later and I've been hobbling around with a sprained ankle, 2 staples in my skull, 2 badly bruised ribs, multiple lacerations and a hip christened with trail rash. I am supposed to breathe into a spirometer 10 times an hour to coax my lungs to inflate so I don't get pneumonia. The ribs are the worst item right now, as I can't really carry anything and I have great difficulty getting myself up and out of bed. Sneezing is the cruelest joke ever, bar none. They did do a CATscan of my head and did not find a major concussion, although they did find some "neurological abnormalities" which I won't get into right here. I didn't even bat an eye when that showed up on the report, I mean tell me something I don't know.

They did use this little disposable staple-gun to fasten together the hole in my skull, and Janel tried to get a video of it, but the P.A. in the Lankanau ER on Sunday July 3rd, 2011 was not in a good mood and she told Janel it was messing with her concentration. Give me a break, you just aim and shoot, how can you screw that up?

All told, I will need a new helmet, having broken my beloved LAS Squalo in 3 places; a derailleur hanger and some cable and housing; I'm out the $100 ER co-pay, and I'm not exercising for the foreseeable future. Probably until Friday, when I will have a brave friend yank these staples out of my head in lieu of paying a physician to do it so I can go swimming at the Kroc Center. I'm hoping my ribs and I can reach some sort of understanding and the water bouyancy argument will bolster my case for being able to resume some activity. We shall see.

In the meantime, I am grateful to Janel for hanging out with me in the ER, for Tim for driving me and the Yeti home, for Chris for bringing me sushi in my hour of..well, hunger, and for Colin for helping me do a bunch of things around here that would otherwise be impossible in my impaired condition and reminding me that he can't read my mind and he would prefer if I could ask for help when I need it. That's a tough one for me. True friends reveal themselves when you really need them, which is a welcome phenomenon in times like these. Because it does seem that I have more than my share of times like these, doesn't it?

thank you for not killing me, and the perils of happiness

2011-07-02T23:39:00.001-04:00

Last Friday night I was tired on my way home from work. I had been up at 5am in the morning as usual, at the gym by 6:15, and home by 8. I walked and fed the pups and headed into work on my bike. I am in the middle of Liberty's billing cycle at work so most of the day consisted of sending out invoices to the GCs we had worked for in the past month. Accounts Receivable is the most important part of just about any business, but that does not make it any less boring. So I was already a bit tired when I borrowed the company truck at 5pm to head down I-95 to see Dr. Mathews, who has to straighten out my body each and every week since I got hit by the truck a few years ago or else my back and neck pain as well as a weakness in my leg twists me all up. He uses A.R.T. and the Graston Technique as well as traditional chiropractic, so it hurts like hell, but he really does straighten me out. I drove back to Liberty, dropped off the truck and headed home on my bike.

I was listening to a podcast of NPR's Voices in the Family on "The Dark Side of Happiness." Here is the blurb about the show on the Voices website, which I can't permanently link to so I'm reproducing it here:

Happiness is good for us, right? Thousands of self-help books tell us how to find it...phone apps allow us to track it. The psychology of being happy has been a hot topic in mental health for quite some time. But now, there are some dark clouds on the blissful horizon. New research in the field of positive psychology shows happiness in the wrong time or place can lead to social difficulties. Too much of it could be a sign of mental illness, and the relentless pursuit of it is self-centered and a futile journey anyway. On the next Voices in the Family with Dan Gottlieb: the so-called dark side of happiness with psychologists June Gruber and Dacher Keltner. Gruber has written, in part, A Dark Side of Happiness? How, When, and Why Happiness Is Not Always Good. She's an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Yale University and Director of the Yale Positive Emotion and Psychopathology (YPEP) Laboratory. Dacher Keltner is a Professor of Psychology at U-C Berkeley and is the director of the Greater Good Science Center. He's written Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life.

Listen to the MP3 of this show here

"Positive psychology", a multi-billion dollar behemoth of an industry powered by antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs, retreats, therapy, self-help books and seminars sprung up about 30 years ago and has convinced us that we are supposed to be happy just about all of the time, and if we are not there is something wrong with us. Actually, it turns out, those that appear happy all of the time could be the delusional ones. I have always maintained that if you are happy all of the time you are blind and numb to the hardships of the world, emotionally bereft perhaps, so I felt a bit vindicated when I heard the show.

I was just entering the Cobbs Creek Parkway bike path where the City is inlaying stamped non-slip concrete at the entrances to the path so the usual transition from the street was surrounded by a ditch that even I could not jump on my bike. I had to continue on the road for an extra twenty feet which meant riding in front of the cut-through that traffic coming along the actual Cobb's Creek Parkway used to turn onto the road on which I was riding. Since I was part of the green light traffic I had the right of way. As I glided in front of a stopped vehicle that was turning onto the street where I was riding; my bike halfway across the white sedan waiting there, I hear that telltale revving of the engine.

Holy shit! It did not see me, the car was pulling out! In a split second I would be toast, I mean I was two feet from its front bumper.

I realized that the driver must be looking back toward the intersection waiting for the traffic to stop, not in front of her car, where I was, and in a moment I was going to be seriously injured or killed. I did the only thing I could do, I turned my legs as fast as I could to propel the bike forward to clear as much as I could and braced for the impact, hoping I could get away with the car only smashing into the back of my wheel, although that was unlikely.

Suddenly she slammed on her brakes. I was saved. Crisis averted, just like that.

I stopped at the far edge of the car, adrenaline coursing through my veins as sharply as when they put Atropine in my IV during one of my infamous vagal episodes.

"Did you fucking look?" I yelled in a flash of anger. Then I saw her face, it was a young atractive black woman, neatly appointed in a white dress. She was shocked, and muttered something like she was sorry, but I could not hear her clearly because I was still catching my breath, or trying to anyway, and Dan Gottlieb's voice was yammering on in the background about how we should all be "living in the moment" and illustrating this by reciting a line of a Rilke poem.

Then I saw the two kids in the back carseats. They were young, and I had just thrown out the f-bomb, which I felt was coarse, and set a very poor example. I put out my hands towards them, breathing hard, my pacemaker pulsing my heart so forcefully that my diaphragm was pounding like a base drum until it made me cough, and said weakly, "I'm sorry for the language" to the lady, gesturing towards her children. I felt as if I could not speak for a moment, rare for me, trust me on this one. "I'm sorry to say that in front of them..." I could not really think of an excuse, except the blunt truth, so I added, "but you almost killed me." I could barely get the words out. It just did not seem to matter at this point, since I was clearly alive and unscathed. The boys stared at me blankly, as if they were watching a cartoon of a very white lady with red braids on a pink bike panting heavily and mumbling something unintelligible to their mother.

Mom had a totally shocked look on her face. It was as if she did not slam on the brakes herself, and thus she did not understand what had stopped her car from hitting me. She murmured, "that's ok," eyes wide and doe-like. This was a cartoon, I thought. Did one of those kids in the backseat yell at his mother to stop the car? It seemed unlikely, they seemed too young to be cognizant of much going on outside of the windows.

"Please be careful driving home," I said, "and you have a good evening." And with that I picked up my bike and carried it across the ditch and back onto the path, away from rush hour cars for a few miles anyway while I traveled up the Cobbs Creek bikeway towards Fairmount Park.

Later that evening I was lying in bed with dogs and wondering how that car had stopped. There was the telltale sound of a Toyota's accelerator being pressed upon, and a half second later the car braking so quickly there was a short squeal like sneakers on a basketball court and the car, which had lurched forward until it was practically brushing my thigh, rocked backwards and then forwards again in response to that unexpected application of rotor to steel. A schizophrenic command, first accelerate, then stop, almost too fast to be executed by the same foot. Perhaps I have a guardian angel after all, and he decided that I was needed here a bit longer.

As I lay in bed stroking Chloe's ears, I wondered what would have happened to my girls if I had never come home. I thought of how difficult it is for children to lose a parent to say, war or violence or even divorce. But at least children could be told what had happened, if not right away, then at the time when they can understand. Madison and Chloe would have been shipped off to God-Knows-Where, perhaps even separated, when they had been together since conception and cannot even stand to be in separate rooms. No one would be able to explain to them that I had been killed in a freak accident, that I had not abandoned them.

That always struck me as so tragic about animals, that their capacity for understanding complexities like this is so limited. It is why when I had to put Gryphon down last summer I brought home his body from The Penn Veterinary clinic and laid it on the floor for Madison and Chloe to see one last time. I wanted them to understand that their old friend had passed peacefully. When I did this Madison and Chloe put their heads down in their paws in an expression of grief I will never forget. But at least they understood that I did not just take Gryphon, who had collapsed suddenly that morning, away somewhere never to bring him back. How could they ever trust me again? Yes, they thought it was a little odd at Penn, but I did not care. I'm pretty used to it by now.

Happiness, as it turns out, is not necessarily a state for a privileged few who have learned how to tap into it, but rather a fleeting expression of joy that often needs some sort of prompting to appear regularly. Once you become well-versed in accepting these cues, it becomes a habit, the habit of seeing that glass as half-full, as the old saying goes, and in training oneself to live in the moment. Some are better than others at recognizing these cues. Growing up as a type-A gifted child of strict Catholic parents, I learned very poor skills in this department. With my perfectionist tendencies, my natural state was that the glass is never full, and self-criticism and discontent was the rule. It has been tough shedding this relentless drive to never be content with my performance and my station in life.

Raising dogs has really helped me with this. That, and my outdoor lifestyle that exposes me to our natural ecosystem as much as possible. For me, exposure to mother nature seems to be the most reliable harbinger of joy, and I include wild animals as well as our domesticated brethren among the label of Nature. Madison and Chloe may not be able to understand complex concepts, but really that is why their simple lives are full of joy, unfettered as they are by the complications that arise from our over-thinking and over-striving. It was a triumph of Evolutionary processes that enabled us to rise above the baser animal needs of eating, sleeping, eliminating, and procreating so that we can live our meaningful lives perhaps, but the weight of that meaning is an Albatross hanging around our necks unless we are able to cope with the stress that comes along with this all this significance, this quest toward enlightenment. Without children to stamp a legacy onto my paltry existence, it seems as if every day for me lately is a lesson in learning how better to adapt to the stress of searching for a raison d'etre. I never wanted children to be that reason for me, whether I decide to have them or not.

my garden is my sanctuary

If hiking with my dogs in the Wissahickon park or mountain biking in the Blue Mountains of Pennsylvania can bring me happiness, bike commuting in an urban landscape often is a great cause for disgust, sadness, anger and fear. I roll through garbage and glass-strewn streets (4 flat tires in the past 2 weeks) in poorer sections of the city on my way to Lester, and I am routinely ignored, cut off, and shouted at that I should be riding on the sidewalk and not in the road.

But then there are the times like last Friday when I get another chance and perhaps because of a modicum of self-restraint, I am able to shape another's behavior in the future by making them more aware that cyclists are out there on the road too. An aggressive reaction in these situations is generally futile and just heaps more adrenal stress on my already taxed glands. I don't know, wishful thinking perhaps that I could affect a stranger's future behavior by keeping my anger in check, but if happiness is a construct, then whatever illusions I use to spend more time under its short-lived spell are fair game I say.

you know you are secure in your geekhood when this appears on your Amazon Wish List

2011-06-22T16:03:00.001-04:00

He might even get it too, but not likely from me. I'm not a big advocate of video games. I'm more of a Buy-an-Actual-Guitar-and-Learn-to-Play-for-Real type. I have been known to Karaoke though, the kind you do in a bar in front of 100 people. But I used my real voice for that.

Speaking of the Amazon Wish List--they are amazing! I wish all of my friends and family would make one. You can put items on there that Amazon does not even sell (from any website) and keep a running tally of stuff you want; and of course that can run the gamut from packets of seeds to dishwashers; the sky is the limit on the web these days. You can even keep a Secret Wish List for your eyes or your lovers' eyes' only, you know with this kind of stuff on it....yes that was the proper placement of those apostrophes' for some of you. One can also search with just a name for anyone's Wish List so you can see just what your frenemies are coveting these days. Shop on!

on the hazards of not racing and the closing of doors

2011-06-11T19:26:00.028-04:00

So last week was crazy. And I only actually worked one day. It would have been nuts anyway but then Janel invited me to accompany her as she was headed out to State College to help Ray and Nancy Adams and Mike Kuhn and crew with the final 2 days of the Trans-Sylvania Epic. I had to switch the closing on the refinance of 3434 (which was scheduled for Friday) to an online closing from the traditional ones where you sit down with the agents and sign a stack of papers that hopefully you have actually read. I was initially suspicious of this "online" option which required that I sign a Power of Attorney over to a total stranger so they could sign the papers in my absence after I approved them online, but if doing this meant I could ride my mountain bike for 2 days in State College and still get my mortgage rate lowered to 3.5%; well, I had overcome my apprehension even before I hung up the phone with Janel, who had, after all, invited to drive me up there. Considering I am 2800 miles over my lease on the Infiniti in year 1; well let's just say it was an offer I could not refuse.

So my week went something like this: Monday of course was Memorial Day, and Meisha, Derek, Douglas and I drove down to White Clay for 3 hours of fantastic riding in the brutal heat. When I got home I was feeling almost like my normal energetic self (rare these days) and I did more gardening until 7pm, which meant I was outside in the humidity for 12 hours, so I was good and tired. The kind of good and tired you earn from a morning of mountainbiking and then hours shoveling, planting, pruning, hauling, and weeding. The kind of work that makes you feel like you are part of the earth and are deserving of the space you are taking up on it.

Tuesday morning I had my deposition for the accident in July 2009 when a driver blew a stop sign and ran over my leg. Twice. Forwards and backwards. I took the day off from work for that, but we finished earlier than expected, so I went to Whole Foods, then home to unload, then off to Holod's to buy more flowers for my garden, then home to drop off the flowers and back out to the Wissihickon Park to run with Madison for an hour. Poor Chloe had to stay home with a hurt paw. It was in the mid-nineties and humid as hell, as Philly was having its first heat wave which proved once again that Spring is too fleeting here in Southeastern Pennsylvania. It also means bolting arugula, flies and mosquitoes, and the race for that first zucchini. After the run, Mad and I went into the creek to cool off. I slipped off my running shoes while she took gulps of water and laid her belly down in the shallow water. It felt so familiar to gingerly step out onto those slippery rocks with my tender pale feet, just like I did as I kid growing up with Little Darby creek in my backyard.

I am on a mission to teach my dogs how to swim. Of course, they were born knowing how to swim as probably all dogs are, but they don't know it yet. I was about 10 feet away from the rocky bank, up to my waist in water, and I cheerily beckoned Madison to join me, as I was in no rush to leave the water with all that sweat streaming down my face. She was curious, but frustrated, pacing on the bank, barking at me impatiently. She finally did take the plunge to deeper water and came towards me doggie paddling a little, but that frightened her so she turned back to shallower water. I was happy with this first step. I figured the lesson was over for the day, and we headed home. I made a tray of granola, then attempted to clean the house but was too tired. The heat had gotten to me. I had let go of my housekeeper a few months ago to save some coin and having to clean the place myself on the weekends is getting to be a drag. Yeah I know, should have gotten married by now. Then we could squabble over who should be cleaning the house.

Wednesday I worked out at the Kroc Center, then into work to do payroll and a few other things that if attempted by anyone else they would be so hopelessly screwed up and I would have to spend half the next week fixing them. Once home, I grilled some vegetables and grain sausages, read and went to bed.

where my eggs come from, truly free range hens!

Thursday I got up early, fed and walked the dogs, and headed up to Lansdale to see a chiropractor who I had been anxious to consult regarding my thyroid gland issues. I left there at 11:30 and raced down the turnpike to meet the yellow Penske rental truck in the parking lot in Conshohocken to pick up my 8 week supply of raw dog meat. Yes, it was dog meat day. Fortunately I was the first one there, which had never happened before, and this meant once I was able to extricate myself as gracefully as possible from the conversation with the odd Persian Cat breeder I could get out of there by 12:40 to jump on 76 and head into town to pick up the raw milk by 1. There was traffic. I had to reroute, madly passing cars who were meandering lazily on Kelly Drive with the empty cooler sliding all over my back seat, but I made it on time and then back to 3434 to unload 3 heavy coolers full of raw cow meat, raw cow and goat milk, and 2 dozen free range eggs. Whew.

I quickly ate and then jumped in the car again to head down to the badlands of West Philadelphia to Mercy Hospital for the Independent Medical Evaluation for my lawsuit. Of course the doctor examining me who was working for the insurance company for the opposing counsel knew my ex, Mark; they went to medical school together. I'm not sure if this helped or hurt. The exam took 15 minutes so I was then free to head home and and pack, feed the dogs, water the garden and drive Northwest so I could meet Janel at her house for the drive out to State College. It was 3:30 when I got home. I did not get out of the house until 6. There was traffic getting to Glenside, but I finally made it so we loaded up the car and were off.

We got to the 7 Mountains Camp around 10. Ed Moran, my friend who had been racing TSE all week in the 50+ class, had rented a trailer for the week, and said he had plenty of room for us to crash there. We visited with him, checked in with the race directors at the Eagle Lodge, ate some food and went to bed, as we had to be ready to rock at the pre-race volunteer meeting at 8:30 am.

this is not the dog that bit me

Friday morning we were told that our first task was to marshall the racers across 322 as they rode en masse to the start of the race. At the corner of Decker Valley Road and 322 there was a white house with two one hundred-sixty-odd pound Rottweilers sitting out front. As I was getting my things out of the car Janel was walking across one lane to the median with 6 cones when one of the dogs ran at her, barking menacingly, right into the road. Janel yelled at the dog to get back. The dog was not on a leash, no fence, and 90 racers were about to be rolling through. I walked over towards the property to get the charging dog to come back towards me, which it did. He seemed to be calmer, but then without warning the dog charged at one of the moto marshalls who had to rev his bike to get out of the dog's path. I became concerned that the dog would attack one of the racers coming through, or else run out onto the highway and get hit by a truck right in front of us. So I got the bright idea to try and contact the owner to ask him to tie the dog up or else bring him inside until the racers went through. The other dog was barking and lunging on her chain the entire time, mind you. I slowly walked towards the house, the dog was eyeing me warily but his attention was on me now and not on Janel, so she completed setting up the cones.

I looked askance at the dog so as not to challenge him and offered my hand out to him. He sniffed it and looked at me. He seemed a bit calmer. As I walked up the gravel driveway I had one eye on the dog and called loudly towards the open windows of the house. I could see an old for Sale sign hanging sideways on the shabby front porch. Some tattered curtains were blowing in the breeze. No one answered. I thought I would knock on the door, and I spoke calmly to the dog as I slowly advanced towards the door. He seemed to be okay, and I took slow step towards the door, still calling out for the owner to get his dog, when I guess the dog decided he was having none of it. He swooped in and sunk his teeth into my leg, on the back of my knee. Fuck. That hurt. I calmly told the dog I understood that he was upset and I walked off his property. This was going to be a problem. We decided I should call the police, which I did, but the state police said it would be 45 minutes for a Trooper to get to me. This was not going to work, I needed to jump on my mountain bike and sweep the first 13 miles of the course to relieve the folks at the first station. While I was on the phone with the dispatcher, one eye on the dog who had both eyes on me, 90 racers came riding slowly towards us up the access road. This could be bad.

“Here come the racers," I said, "I will call you back later" and I hung up. Seconds later Jeremiah Bishop, Jason Sager, Amanda Carey, Selene Yeager, Vicki Barclay, Sue Haywood, and the rest of the crew were rolling slowly to a stop, right in front of the dog's property, right in his line of fire. I clumsily picked through the slowing riders so I could get between them and the two very agitated dogs. I managed to herd a few riders away from the property, and positioned myself between the loose dog and the pack as my right leg started to swell up and become pretty sore. I guess so many riders coming through at once intimidated him enough that he decided not to charge any one of them. Good thing.

teethmarks in my leg

I ended up sweeping half of the course, which meant lots of lifting that very sore leg up to dismount from my bike about 100 times to take down all of those yellow arrows stapled to the trees. There were some good long climbs, and I took them easy on account of my general fatigue lately as well as the fact that my leg was killing me. It was getting hard to bend the knee as the hours wore on. It took me 3 hours and 45 minutes to sweep 20 miles of the course, but there were plenty of arrows. The picture above is of one of the rock gardens I got to ride through, what a rush! I went back and practiced that a couple of times.

I got back to the trailer, showered and did my online closing which did not go as smoothly as I would have liked. But it got done, after I told the title company that they were completely inept. I did call the police regarding the dog bite, and a Trooper showed up at the camp and told me the Dog Warden would be contacting me on Monday, which she did. In the meantime the locals had informed me that the dogs' owner's name was Doug Klinger, a belligerent drunk who often showed up at Brownies, the only bar in town who had not barred him from entry, at 11 am and drank the day and night away. His dogs were often loose. When Ed, Janel and I drove into State College to Cozy Thai for dinner, Mr. Klingers teal Astro was in his driveway. When we drove home an hour and a half later, it was parked in Brownie's lot. All of this conveniently viewable from 322, which we had to drive on to get to the camp and to town. Good times.

of course I had to get a picture and that pissed him off more

Saturday Janel and I swept the entire stage together, all 26 miles. Mike and Ray really did a great job with setting up this course; as Janel put it, there was just enough road and singletrack to achieve the perfect balance for racers fatigued from 6 prior days of pain. There was a really diverse mix of scenery as well. It was even better to sweep with Janel than alone, and we both agreed that we would love to actually race TSE because it is one of the only stage races in the world where much of the race is single track as opposed to dirt roads. Janel raced (and placed in) La Ruta a few years back and her boyfriend Tim has done several major stage races as well, so she should know. This would require that we get our energy and performance levels back to normal. We are currently both seeking the help of the Lansdale chiropractor in an attempt to get some answers since going the conventional medicine route has been fruitless for both of us.

We had some adventures. I ran over the tip of a black snake's tail and that pissed him off, so he reared up and would not calm down and move off the trail. Janel had to wait a few minutes before she passed him. We saw all manner of wildlife, and of course the bucolic forest riding that prompted me to exclaim that this is how I meditate, that even not being well enough to race, I was still grateful for the opportunity to ride through these trails and appreciate nature in all her diversity and grandeur.

the Sweepers

We got back to camp and showered up, and dinner was early, then awards, then everyone was pretty much drinking beer and celebrating the culmination of an epic week of racing. I had my nose in this fantastic book the whole time, but I did get a chance to take some vids of the 3 lap beer race around the lake. During which I got pelted in the head with a beercan, but beyond that managed to remain unscathed. It's not that I did not want to partake in the fun, it's just that I've been staying away from alcohol since I've not experienced optimum vitality in awhile. Adding more toxins to my load would just make it worse. And I guess I was in an introspective mood and not really anxious to compromise my cognitive functioning, which has been sluggish lately through all of this.

Janel and I finally said our goodbyes and left for home around 6:30. We made good time back to Philly; it helped that Janel had her lead foot on the accelerator of her Suby WRX. Madison and Chloe were very happy to see mom return. I had a blast, but the trip engendered a tinge of sadness which was not completely surprising. I guess I felt a bit like an outsider, even though I saw many friends; not really a mountain bike racer anymore. Transitions can be hard. It's a lesson everyone learns and relearns many times in life.

My instincts are telling me I need to close the door on this phase of my life in order for the door to the next to appear. I can make out vague outlines of this new path, but I can't see it clearly or grasp it yet. It's a leap of faith, because you can't really see the new door until you have let go of the last, but I know it's there; beckoning me with possibilities, waiting patiently for me to let that old door squeak to a close behind me.

the beginner's mind

2011-06-07T16:48:00.005-04:00

our little meditation spot on dog beach in Valley Green

The richness of the present-moment experience is the richness of life itself. Too often we let our thinking and our beliefs about what we "know" prevent us from seeing things as they really are. We tend to take the ordinary for granted and fail to grasp the extraordinariness of the ordinary. To see the richness of the present moment, we need to cultivate what has been called "beginner's mind," a mind that is willing to see everything as if for the first time.

You might try to cultivate your own beginner's mind in your daily life as an experiment.

- Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.

online dating part eighty

2011-05-13T14:22:00.181-04:00

or "the problem with thanksgiving."

I realized, when in conversation with a friend the other day, that I never did tell the story of my parting ways with my most recent potential boyfriend (PBF), Mr. Ironman. And darn am I bored today and wishing I were outside doing anything but accounting on this beautiful 70 degree May day. So here goes:

The short version: As my therapist pointed out, I had him nailed from the first email he sent me from fitness-singles.com, as an arrogant narcissist who was not particularly cerebral, "but then", she continued, "as you always do, you managed to find something endearing about him," and she rolled her eyes with a smile. And that is the definition of a good therapist, one who gives you a dope slap when you deserve one, without fear of offending your ego and thus your pocketbook.
Anyway, we had some fun, but ultimately despite insisting that he was not as self-absorbed as his actions indicated that he was, finally one day those actions betrayed him and he became more trouble than he was worth. So I said 'bye. The end.

If you would like the details, read on.

PBF had a less-than-endearing way of telling me that I was going to do something with him. He pretty much assumed that if he wanted to go to an opera, or to a party on his street in Society Hill, or to his Sea Isle shore house for the weekend, then I would be going with him. He soon found out that that was not the case, and learned to correct himself and actually ask me if I was able to go with him. The one thing he did claim to respect is that my schedule had to be busier than his, because I was a poor fool who had to work for a living, and he of course had retired at the age of 40 so he could travel around the world competing in triathlons as an age-grouper. Of course this meant he had to watch his every penny, so the entire 12 weeks we dated he always had an excuse not to take me out to dinner. I remember our first meeting at a dive bar in SH called The Artful Dodger. As we were walking back to my car we came upon two acquaintances of his, a gay couple whose names I cannot recall. I do remember the taller of the two men smiling with delight to witness PBF actually out on a date with a woman no less, most likely because there had been discussions about when he would finally come out of the closet at the age of 53. At any rate, perhaps to facilitate this process, the Queen cast a look of pure pity upon me and said, right in front of PBF, "He's cheap." I laughed and we moved on.

"I can't believe he said that to you," my date said shaking his head with a wry smile. I find levity often is a poor shroud for those kernels of truth.

One day in the first week of November of last year, shortly after the grand Henri David Ball where I got to witness that PBF could duke it out with any college freshman in an all night pukefest, he announced that on Thanksgiving morning I would be running a 5K race with him and his friends in non other than my own backyard, Forbidden Drive in the Wissahickon Park. Since as you may remember I had my perineal nodular induration and was off the bike since early July, so had been doing a good bit of running, and continued to do it once a week even when I started riding again. A few weeks earlier after mountain biking for 3 hours in Delaware on a beautiful October morning I raced up I-95 to compete in the twilight 5K, and came in 2nd overall for women [or as PBF would say "I won" (my age group )]. Anyway, I guess he was reasonably confident I would not embarrass him in front of his racing buddies. I said that since I was happily riding again I would probably indeed be there that day but I would be mountain biking instead, but he insisted that I give up my ride; you know, forfeit the opportunity to burn 2500 calories before the Turkey day pigfest and opt instead to train for a mere 21 minutes with him. Whatever. He also invited himself to Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's, because his parents are deceased and he did not feel like driving out to East Bumblefuck to hang out with his brother who had married a, well, country bumpkin. No disrespect to her of course, he would just rather hang out with my educated, cultured family. I'm not making this up.

So Thanksgiving, true to form, was on a Thursday as you may remember. The Sunday prior to it I get a phone call from PBF around 1pm.

"Hey, what are you doing?" he asked. Something was up. I could hear a bit of tension in his usually carefree voice. By that point I had stopped calling him altogether, so when we talked, it was when he took the initiative.

"I'm just getting out of the shower. I had a great ride."

"road or mountain?"

"mountain."

"that's good....what are you wearing?"

"well, I'm going to be doing chores the rest of the day, so of course I'm wearing my latex catsuit with the nipple clamps." What a stupid question.

just hanging out waiting for you to call dear

"I thought you were allergic to latex." I was shocked he had remembered this. I laughed. But then I realized he probably remembered it less for an interest in my health and more likely because condoms and sex toys are often made of this versatile rubber. Whatever. He's a guy.

"What's going on with you?" I figured he should just get to the point. Talking on the phone with him was usually tedious if I did not feel like talking about working out. His workouts that is. There was a pause. He took a deep breath. Wow, now I really was curious. And amused.

"There's a problem with Thanksgiving." Well, yeah, I'm sure millions of turkeys feel the same way. Speaking from my vegetarian viewpoint of course.

"Ok....?" I prodded.

"Well, remember how I told you that when I go away, my ex's mother takes care of the dogs?" The "dogs", if you can call them that, were his two repulsive old lady dogs, a decrepid 12 year old Yorkshire Terrier with bad teeth, horrible breath, and a nasty disposition who terrorized Madison and Chloe in their own home. The other filthy little thing was a half-blind Shit-Tzu [sic] who always smelled and who seemed sweet but also growled at my girls when PBF brought them over to my house one time. He thought it was funny. Poor Madison, who can charm ANY dog with her grace, intuition and accepting disposition (towards members of her own species that is) was so stressed out that these animals would not calm down. The Yorkie was a nasty little yipper who never shut up. OK, I can't stand toy breeds in general, but these two were particularly offensive to me. I could not believe he took these poorly socialized brats wherever he went. As a purportedly straight man.

what real dogs look like

So of course I remembered that PBF dated a Diana (he never used her name but it did not take long for me to find her on FB, peruse her blog and realize that her lack of substance matched his quite nicely, it's a pity that didn't work out) and that Diana's mother lived in the North Philly somewhere and PBF would drop his dogs off before he went on his many travels and she would pamper them for free. PBF repeated the lament he had told me several times that he did not like the arrangement because it kept him in a way "beholden" to Diana's mother, who of course would love to see PBF and Diana reunited, but she had moved to San Diego. But he was too damn cheap to pay for someone else to watch them when he went away like I do. Well lo and behold, Diana's mother's mother up and dies on Friday, so Diana is flying in for her grandmother's funeral. And of course PBF is going to the funeral; as he should, I mean he dated this woman for five years.

"OK, so what the problem with Thanksgiving then?" I asked innocently, even though by now I had figured it out. I just wanted to hear him sweat as he laid it all out. This was going to solve my problem about not wanting him to come to Thanksgiving with me anyway, as well as the one about missing my team mountain bike ride in the Wisshickon, all in one fell swoop.

"Well....." Another deep breath. "My ex is going to be here--"

"Why don't you just call her Diana?" I said curtly, "I'm not going to stalk her for God's sake."

"yeah yeah, Diana" he seemed relieved that he could use her moniker, "....and we always did that race together, and she is expecting to do it with me." He hastily added, as if in anticipation of my question as to why Diana would even be with him that morning, "They don't even have a car, I'm driving them around while they are here." I did not even bother to ask who "them" was, but if Diana's mom lives in North Philly, it did not surprise me that she did not have a car.

"So what's the big deal, why can't we all do it?" I asked. Now I was starting to get annoyed.

"Oh....no no no no.,.....I can't have you there while she is there. That would be totally uncomfortable for me. I would not even put myself in that position....." he seemed shocked that I would even suggest this. "I mean Diana knows all of my friends, she will be talking to them the whole time....."

"PBF, I don't get it--you have been telling me I'm doing this race with you for over a month. Are you DISINVITING me to the race?" This was too just much.

"I know...I know....I am so sorry but how was I supposed to know her grandmother was going to die this week? I mean it's just a weird situation, what are the chances?"

"Are you still sleeping with her? Not that I really care, but-"

"no no no no!" he shouted into the phone, "it's not like that at all! It's just that...."

"so this is the girlfriend you told me about that is psychotically jealous and insecure?"

There was a pause. "You got it, " he said quietly, "she's just really tough to deal with in these kind of situations."

"Well I understand if you guys are dating, but...I mean is she dating anyone else?"

"I have no idea. I don't care. We don't talk about that kind of stuff."

"So she does not know you are dating anyone else?"

"I have no idea." Well give me a break Dufus, you either told her or you didn't. She sure didn't read it on my blog.

I tried to explain to him that if what he was interested in was a relationship with ANY woman, that he should be more concerned about HER feelings than of those of his ex, but it soon became obvious to me that Mr. Selfish saw it as a matter of not wanting to jeopardize the sweet free dog sitter deal he had. He had two women, one who he saw as easygoing and understanding (believe it or not that's me) and the other as a problem that he would only have to endure for a few days. He figured I would just be OK with it. I soon gave up even bothering explaining to him how outrageous it was to break a longstanding plan with me so as not to stress out his lame-ass ex girlfriend, although I have to admit I was pretty pissed off.

"What are you doing for Thanksgiving dinner?" I asked. I needed to make sure there were no loose ends before I hung up the phone.

"I thought I was spending it with you" he said sheepishly.

"The hell you are."

"oh c'mon baby, you don't have to be like that..." it sounded like a whine now, so unattractive from a 53 year old man.

"You made your choice...... Do you even know what they are doing? Don't you think the subject will come up at the race? What are you going to tell her, that you are going to your brothers?" the whole thing struck me as so childish. "Why don't you take your out of town guests out? I'm sure they will need a ride to the IHOP or something."

He decided not to fight this battle, not realizing as I did that there were not going to be any chances for redemption.

Ever the optimist, he retorted, "I will probably just go over to my neighbor's, she always has a great spread." Good for him.

And that was that. I ended up riding with my team on Thanksgiving morning, and when we got to that end of Forbidden Drive I tried to get the boys to ride that extra little stretch of trail with me across Bell's Mill so I could do a driveby of the running race to make PBF squirm a bit, but everyone was in a hurry to get home and eat. And I needed a posse around me for it really to have any effect.

I told the story at Thanksgiving dinner itself and had my whole family rolling on the floor.

Nine year old William looked at me and said, "Aunt Andrea are we ever going to see that guy again?" After all PBF had hung out with William at the house one night, even sitting on the bench with him as he played piano.

"I would say not." I said, and his mother rolled her eyes and smiled.

PBF did try and reconcile after this, and seemed totally confused when I refused to entertain the concept of dating again. He eventually stopped coming to my Tuesday morning classes at Cadence. I received a Snoopy birthday card on Valentine's day, and when I called to thank him I asked him then why he stopped coming to class. There really was not much else to talk about.

"I only went there that early so I could see you," he said, "Why should I get up that early if I don't have to go to work?"

Why indeed?

As for me, I have given up on online dating for now. I've been cultivating my own garden a la Candide, which means that I will have even more reasons to be disgusted with what I find next time 'round.

a different kind of season this spring

2011-05-07T23:49:00.003-04:00

last week's news and the big changes that are happening in my life

Last week was quite the week in the news. Osama Bin Laden has been executed by elite Navy SEAL Team Six, Obama released his long form Hawaii birth certificate to quell the inane utterances of the Donald, Prince William and Catherine Middleton tied the knot, [and actually appear to be in love--gasp!] in a Royal Media Feeding Frenzy the likes of which the free world has not endured in three decades, large swaths of the Southeast, mostly Alabama, Missouri and Georgia, were devastated by a Katrina-level outbreak of 216 tornadoes over 2 days, by some accounts the worst tally in US recorded history, and the flooding in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys prompted the Army Corps of Engineers officials to blast open a Missouri levee and flood 130,000 acres of prime farmland in order to protect small towns from being smothered by those rising rivers.

The week's events were maligned at the White House Correspondent's dinner last Saturday night, with President Obama roasting potential GOP Presidential candidates, including Donald Trump. If you missed that, take two minutes to watch it below. His comments about Trump were actually much funnier than Seth Meyer's.

An interesting historical footnote: Since the evening's events were readily viewable in real-time to those four of you who are regular C-SPAN watchers, Seth Meyers, the Head Writer for Saturday Night Live and Anchor of Weekend Update, could not resist making light of the fact that the evening was being broadcast live only on the lowly channel dedicated to the coverage of our very entertaining Congresspeeps. His monologue included a joke about the soon-to-be-the-late-Osama-Bin-Laden. He did not realize the irony, but of course the President had already issued the order for the Seals to make the move on the McMansion in Pakistan the following day. As the camera focuses on Obama laughing at the joke, one can only wonder what is going through his mind. Apparently the CIA/Special Ops folks were only "60 to 80 percent sure" that the intel was correct and OBL was actually still residing in the place. Yikes.

In case you don't feel like watching the whole 10 minute video (Seth's material is a good test to see if you're current with your popular culture) the roasting of C-SPAN followed by his remarks about MS-NBC, his employer, start at 1:50 on the above video. There, I've made it easy for you.

madison out cold next to me

So just as it seems the world has gone crazy, there has been a sea change at 3434 as well. Spring is here and as a cyclist of course it is the start of bike racing season. As a gardener it is the beginning of the growing season, when my front bed boasts a riot of tulips, daffodils, and literally dozens of perennials that are poised to enter the stage in a six month show choreographed by the sun, rain, wind and soil.

During the long cold winter this year I did more than a little introspection. A major change in my routine was thrust upon me, one could say, and this offered me a rare view of the way I spend my time. The upshot of this was I have made some decisions about the shape I would like the rest of my life to take. Starting in the past week, life is different, my perspective has changed. I am retired from bike racing, for one. Yes, this is big.

I have come to the conclusion that I am never going to achieve my goals if life keeps on rolling along like it has been the past several years. I'm just not satisfied with the status quo anymore. I've reached a plateau in my life and I need to move on. In all honestly, it's not really in my nature to be satisfied with anything, although I have finally realized that you can be satisfied with your life as it is without being doomed to becoming complacent and stagnant. I had always believed that contentment bred complacency, and so from a very young age I have been that restless soul who could never stand still, who was always searching for the path to excellence and enlightenment, but who sometimes paralyzed herself with too much introspection and the desire to do too many things really well. But I've learned, with the help of experience and therapy, (one could argue that therapy speeds up the organic aging process by which we weave our experiences into a usable perspective) that I can be thankful with my good fortune AND at the same time I can greedily plot, plan and shape my life into a journey better suited to facilitate the evolution of my desires.

chloe looking over my shoulder

The decision about whether or not to continue bike racing for the time being has also been complicated by the health issues I have been struggling with this winter. I guess you could say they are an extension of the health problems I've been struggling with for the past several years, although the endocrine issues, despite the fact that they were there all along, have not appeared much on the blog. Yes I thought they were behind me, but in fact my biggest stumbling block has been my sputtering thyroid gland. Broken collarbones, heart arrythmias, and perineal nodular indurations aside, the overarching nightmare preventing me from achieving radiant health has been the disruption of my endocrine balance brought on by my years of birth control pills. I will elaborate on this in another post, but since I know I will never make a dent in my over-stuffed to-do lists without my usual boundless energy, and I will accept nothing less than the optimum health that I know is obtainable with a plant-based diet, and balanced exercise and stress reduction techniques, achieving this state of health has to be my priority right now. How fast I whiz through the woods on the Yeti will have to take a backseat to these more pressing concerns. It's not like I'm going to stop training, but climbing is so hard in this perpetual fatigued state that I can't even imagine dealing with the rigors of an 8 hour race.

The other major area of discontent is my lack of satisfaction with 3434. I have outgrown not only my city dwelling, but also my patience with city dwelling. I yearn to be in a rural area, where my nearest neighbor is a mile away. At least. I love Philadelphia, but I don't want to live here anymore. I'm never going to be able to buy 100 acres somewhere if I keep up the same routine year in and year out. To tolerate the cars and trash and traffic and pollution and lack of respect for the planet and each other that the city and surrounding suburbs bring, you really have to want to live here. And I just don't anymore. I love the culture, the nightlife, the restaurants, and so many other perks of this great birthplace of our nation, I really do, but it's time to leave it all behind and go where my heart can really find a home. I know it's not here. I understand now why I've never allowed myself to settle down with anyone here. Deep in my heart, I've always known that I would leave, and my partner would not understand.

So I am refinancing my house this month, and then I start fixing it up so I can get it on the market when the market finally turns around, which does not look like its going to be any time soon. I'm giving myself 18 months to get my my affairs in order and head off toward greener pastures. I'm not sure where those pastures are going to be yet, but I'm hoping some of you out there might be able to help me find my next home. Here is what I know: 100 rural acres, within 2 hours of a decent sized city with a university. I visualize a converted barn when I close my eyes. Deciduous trees are a must. No desert, no coastline. As for what I'm going to do for a living, well, as long as I can get the internet I think I can make something work. Please comment if you think you know just the place. I know it's out there, now help me find it.

what we can learn from Leonardo da Vinci's resume

2011-04-14T21:53:00.004-04:00

Leonardo's resume compliments of www.leonardo3.net

So this weekend I finally took the bull by the horns and started updating my resume. I had not looked at it in while, and seeing some of the career twists and turns I had made over the years made me smile...and cringe. And those are just the ones that made the 2-page cut-off. I can probably list a few of the professions I have held in my life here but for the full monty you are going to have to hold out for my memoire. I would rather not have to completely mortify my mother until she sees I have made some sort of career.... as a novelist perhaps?.... out of all of those questionable choices.

So on this version of my resume you have my stint supporting two professors at the Harvard Business School, my not-quite-perfect 3.9 GPA, (that's the way I see it anyway) various academic honors such as Phi Beta Kappa, my job at a law firm where I discovered that despite that maxim that English majors must become lawyers or teachers, this one was definitely not going into law. All pretty reasonable for a twenty-something graduate of Boston College who did not know what she wanted to do with her life. I left off the endless years waiting tables and tending bar, including my gig as the scantily-clad bartender at the VIP bar upstairs at Avalon nightclub where I invented a new drink each Tuesday night for the Saudi Princes attending BU who would slap their American Express cards down on the bar and exuberently buy a round of shots for their friends. I skipped the job where I booked bands for some dive bars in Philly. My first online store selling CDs did not make the cut. Neither did the MLMs Nature's Sunshine or Herbalife. My website selling computers that I built myself is on there, but will probably disappear in the latest revision.

At any rate, I became stalled at the prospect of adding my *current job* on the resume because my job title, "Controller" reflects the duties of an Accountant, when in actuality my job here has involved so much more than numbers.And that lack of being able to sum up my career in a succinct, searchable job title has made it difficult for me to avail myself of online job search offerings in the past. Really in my last two positions, which have spanned more than a decade, I have spent my time scaling two small businesses from 2 + million dollar affairs to 10. Individual skills aside, my real expertise is in walking into a messy situation and cleaning it up, delegating what needs to be delegated, tackling some of the sticky stuff myself with my diverse skills in IT, accounts receiveable, accounts payable, coercive writing, communication and negotiation skills, payroll, office management, human resources....and then, in a perfect world, leaving. Lingering and getting caught in the minutae of the daily ins and outs of running a small business...well, I would not mind it if it were mine, but to do that day in and day out for someone else, without a creative outlet, does not really work for me.

page from one of Leonardo's journals

Which probably goes to show that I should have gotten my MBA and gotten a job as a management consultant. It was one of the temp jobs I held...and they loved me there. Perhaps. But that's not helping me right now. What I was struggling with Sunday night staring at the computer screen was whether or not I should start adding to and polishing this thing up or should I chuck it and start all over? How much of my resume should be a laundry list of the various tasks I perform(ed), and how much of it should be a litany of accomplishments? How can I SELL my diverse skillset to a potential employer who will have no idea of what I could do for him or her until he looks at my cover letter and 2-page dog and pony show.

So it struck me as ironic Monday morning when I got an email in my inbox from Marc Cenedella, the CEO and Founder of TheLadders.com, who posted a feature on his blog about the resume of none other than inventor, mathmetician, musician, engineer, scientist, writer, and artist extraordinaire Leonardo DaVinci. I urge you to click the link and read the post. Most of it is reprinted below in his email, which is what I found in my email box this past Monday am:

Good Monday morning, Andrea,

Before he was famous, before he painted the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, before he invented the helicopter, before he drew the most famous image of man, before he was all of these things, Leonardo da Vinci was an artificer, an armorer, a maker of things that go "boom".

And, like you, he had to put together a resume to get his next gig. So in 1482, at the age of 30, he wrote out a letter and a list of his capabilities and sent it off to Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan.

Well, we at TheLadders.com have tracked down that resume, and I'm presenting it to you in honor of da Vinci's birthday coming up this Friday, April the 15th. You can click on the image below to see the full-size version.

The translation of this letter is quite remarkable:

"Most Illustrious Lord, Having now sufficiently considered the specimens of all those who proclaim themselves skilled contrivers of instruments of war, and that the invention and operation of the said instruments are nothing different from those in common use: I shall endeavor, without prejudice to any one else, to explain myself to your Excellency, showing your Lordship my secret, and then offering them to your best pleasure and approbation to work with effect at opportune moments on all those things which, in part, shall be briefly noted below.

I have a sort of extremely light and strong bridges, adapted to be most easily carried, and with them you may pursue, and at any time flee from the enemy; and others, secure and indestructible by fire and battle, easy and convenient to lift and place. Also methods of burning and destroying those of the enemy.
I know how, when a place is besieged, to take the water out of the trenches, and make endless variety of bridges, and covered ways and ladders, and other machines pertaining to such expeditions.
If, by reason of the height of the banks, or the strength of the place and its position, it is impossible, when besieging a place, to avail oneself of the plan of bombardment, I have methods for destroying every rock or other fortress, even if it were founded on a rock, etc.
Again, I have kinds of mortars; most convenient and easy to carry; and with these I can fling small stones almost resembling a storm; and with the smoke of these cause great terror to the enemy, to his great detriment and confusion.
And if the fight should be at sea I have kinds of many machines most efficient for offense and defense; and vessels which will resist the attack of the largest guns and powder and fumes.
I have means by secret and tortuous mines and ways, made without noise, to reach a designated spot, even if it were needed to pass under a trench or a river.
I will make covered chariots, safe and unattackable, which, entering among the enemy with their artillery, there is no body of men so great but they would break them. And behind these, infantry could follow quite unhurt and without any hindrance.
In case of need I will make big guns, mortars, and light ordnance of fine and useful forms, out of the common type.
Where the operation of bombardment might fail, I would contrive catapults, mangonels, trabocchi, and other machines of marvelous efficacy and not in common use. And in short, according to the variety of cases, I can contrive various and endless means of offense and defense.
In times of peace I believe I can give perfect satisfaction and to the equal of any other in architecture and the composition of buildings public and private; and in guiding water from one place to another.
I can carry out sculpture in marble, bronze, or clay, and also I can do in painting whatever may be done, as well as any other, be he who he may.

Again, the bronze horse may be taken in hand, which is to be to the immortal glory and eternal honor of the prince your father of happy memory, and of the illustrious house of Sforza.
And if any of the above-named things seem to anyone to be impossible or not feasible, I am most ready to make the experiment in your park, or in whatever place may please your Excellency - to whom I comment myself with the utmost humility, etc."

I'm a hopeless pedantic, so of course I'm going to take this opportunity to let you know what you can learn from Leonardo's resume ...

You'll notice he doesn't recite past achievements. He doesn't mention the painting of the altarpiece for the Chapel of St Bernard; he doesn't provide a laundry list of past bombs he's built; he doesn't cite his prior employment in artist Andrea di Cione's studio.

No, he does none of these things, because those would be about his achievements, not the Duke's needs.

Instead, he sells his prospective employer on what Leonardo can do for him.

self-portrait in red chalk c. 1519

Now imagine being the Duke of Milan and receiving this magnificent letter/resume from the young Wunderkind of Florence. The specific descriptives paint a wonderful picture (that is, if you're a Renaissance Duke) of siege engines and bombardments and mortars and trench-draining and bridges to defeat the enemy. You can almost imagine the scenes that ran through the Duke's head as he held this letter in his hands and read through Leonardo da Vinci's bold statements of capabilities.

I mean, who wouldn't want "kinds of mortars; most convenient and easy to carry; [that] can fling small stones almost resembling a storm"? Sounds pretty enticing.

And that's exactly what your resume needs to do, too. Not the laundry list/standard bio that talks about you, but the marketing piece that talks about the benefits to your future employer and how you fit into his or her needs and desires.

So it turns out that even on his 559th birthday, this remarkable fellow Leonardo da Vinci is still teaching us something about the future. What a genius...

Here's wishing you an illustrious week, Readers!

I'll be flinging small stones on your behalf,
Marc Cenedella, CEO & Founder The Ladders.com

Follow me on Twitter here: @cenedella

Or follow the conversation on da Vinci's resume on my blog.

So a debate ensues a bit on Marc's blog regarding the purpose of a cover letter versus a resume, a few folks pointed out that the cover letter is really more akin to Leonardo's above dissertation on why the Duke cannot crush his enemies without him, while the resume still should list accomplishments. But from my experience as someone on the hiring end, Marc makes a great point with this post. At least with many of the resumes that come across my desk, a laundry list of tasks that reads like a job description, however neatly presented on the page, really is nothing more than just that---a list, and even when punctuated by those bullet points of overwrought statistics, "increased collections by 150% in 9 months!"---it still forces me as the prospective employer to fill in the blanks myself as to how this person will fit into my company. Probably not a huge deal when we are talking about hiring my administrative assistant, but when it comes to hiring someone like myself looking for an executive position, the employer should read my resume and, like the Duke of Milan, have his head filled with ideas about what I could do for his bottom line.

Of course it did not take long for someone to spoof on da Vinci's resume, check this out, it's great. No one in my company would even get it though, sadly.

The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and
St. John the Baptist (c. 1499–1500)—
National Gallery, London

And my final take home message? How about that even a great artist and inventor like da Vinci, who is widely recognized as perhaps the most talented person who ever lived, who we are still enamored with almost 6 centuries later, had to go out and get a day job. So despite having to suffer through making portable bridges and mortars when he would rather be painting Saints and sexy women, having to kiss the ass of this or that Duke or Duchess, having to patiently work with people who possessed one-eighth of his IQ, and constantly having to deal with the intrigue and peril of Italian Renaissance era politics, da Vinci was able to create beautiful and enduring works of art and science that still fascinate us today. I'm obviously no da Vinci, but somehow this gives me hope that even I can still make a difference.

Guy's Racing Team: the passing of the torch

2011-04-05T16:29:00.000-04:00

Sunday night we headed over to Baby Blues BBQ, Guy's Racing Team's newest sponsor, to pick up our new team clothing as well as to go over some team business. It was also the official passing of the torch from President Bob Piacini, who has led this 100 + strong group of roadies, mountainbikers aad cyclocrossers for the past 4.5 years. Pat Kelly put together a really nifty framed collage and presented it to Bob as you can see in the above video. To paraphrase our new President Rolf Windh in an email sent out Monday:

Yesterday marked the last public bit of business conducted by now-officially-retired-Prez Bob Piacine. Bob has been president of this club for roughly 4.5 years, and it's difficult to overstate the success and quality of his tenure. He brought the already generous support of our members to new levels (eg, end of year race reimbursements), he helped shepherd the CX race to MAC status, and he led with good humor and an open mind. Continuous with Rico's tenure before him, we've been blessed with a long run of remarkably involved and capable leadership of the club.

Longtime club member Rolf Windh, back from his 2.5 year vacation in Paris, is taking over the reigns of this often thankless job and boy are we lucky to have him!

Baby Blues BBQ, by the way, is a sweet new spot on Sansom Street in West Philly where LeBus used to be. Great live Blues music on a Sunday night and good BBQ to boot, if you are into ribs and wings and such. I had a large salad which was tasty with just the right amount of spice on the shrimp. Which of course I inhaled before anyone even got their entrees because I am not eating any starch these days and I was starving..... but that whole nutrition story is for another post.

More photos of the party here. Enjoy.

the International Intergalactic Global Open Mountain Bike Team Relay Championship of the Universe Including the Anti-Matter One

2011-04-02T22:19:00.005-04:00

Zach Adams in his police costume letting me cop a feel of his décolletage

For the first time in 4 years I guess it's been, I was back for the relay at the farm. It was big fun: fantastic to see familiar faces again and actually be able to relax and talk to people since it's more of a training event than a race. Not that there was any less pain than during a race, but the lap lasts anywhere from sub 15 to 30ish minutes depending on how fast you are, so there was time in between to talk, eat, and hang out a little before it was back on the trainer. I spent a total of 2 hours and 25 minutes on my road bike in between laps, and did 4 laps on the mountain bike; 3 during the race and 1 as a warm-up. So I spent a total of an hour and twenty minutes on the Yeti trying to make my legs go fast and boy was that a challenge. My lactate threshold is still resting where it plummeted after my years off for a broken collarbone, heart and such, and this winter with the hormonal issues I have been having I gained 10 pounds, and I really felt it going up those first couple of hills. It certainly was fun to try and open it up, but between the mud and my legs that felt as if they could not turn over fast enough, I know I have my work cut out for me if I'm going to try to place respectably in any race this season. I've mastered the art of lowering my expectations though. It's all good to me at this point.

Anyway, below are a few that were taken with my camera today. And here are hundreds of awesome pics taken by Don Pagano at the event that are much better than mine. Enjoy.

teammates on Guys Racing

Janel whipped out the fastest laps on our team, "Four Girls on Guys"

getting ready for lap 2

Fatmarc spinning on his trainer

why mail order pharmacies can be dangerous and what you can do about it

2011-03-28T16:49:00.000-04:00

5 days of "being able to play nice with others" left...

I sure do hope that refill comes soon, and I'm sure so do my co-workers and others that have to interact with me on a daily basis. That's the problem with Aetna's mail order pharmacy, I'm never sure if my drugs will arrive in 3 days or not at all until I call up and complain. When an inhaler or birth control or something else important like the above pictured generic happy pills do NOT arrive and you call them and reach a call center in New Delhi, you often get some strange excuse, after being kept on hold for several minutes, like they switched suppliers and something is backordered. This would be inconvenient enough were you warned of it, but when you don't get an email or a call to let you know there will be a delay it really is maddening. It can be dangerous as well, depending on the medication.

While many Americans have employer-sponsored plans that mandate that they buy their drugs from mail order pharmacies, my problem is my health plan makes it too costly for me to buy my prescriptions at my local pharmacy, where I can call and get a live person who knows me and my profile. At Falls Pharmacy, which is a stone's throw down the hill and is owned and operated by two of my neighbors, I can pick up my drugs when I need them with virtually no waiting. If I order from Aetna, my medications can sit in my hot or cold mailbox, depending on the time of year, because I never know which day they are going to arrive and I do have to occasionally go to work. They can also get stolen off my porch, like my debit card and my IRS refund check did this year.

Despite these problems, Aetna waives one month's co-pay if I buy a three month supply, so I end up paying a third less if I use the mail order service. It's hard to pass that benefit savings up; especially if you have multiple medications.

Here is a very good article by Jeff Gelles printed in the Philadelphia Inquirer business section last October about the current debate about mail order houses versus bricks-and-mortar pharmacies, which paints a pretty good picture of both sides of the debate. There are currently 2 pieces of legislation under debate, House Bill 511 and PA Senate Bill 201, which aim to give Pennsylvania pharmacies the same right to offer multi-month discounts to consumers like me so I can choose which service to use based on other important factors besides price; like my desire to have a relationship with a health care professional when questions arise concerning my medications. Or my desire not to go through the hassle of tracking missing orders.

This website has more information regarding the current national debate about mandatory mail order medicine and other issues regarding mail order pharmacies. There are links so you can take action and contact your legislators regarding your feelings about this. More here.

As for me, I just switched our entire company over from Aetna to Keystone because I was sick of the service I was getting with Aetna. It's nice to be the Company Administrator I guess; but not everyone can vote with their feet as easily as I did. In the meantime, I'm crossing my fingers that my dopamine enhancer will be in my mailbox when I get home today. Wish me luck.

how do you feel about going to work today?

2011-03-27T21:19:00.000-04:00

So after my latest angst-stricken self-deprecating diatribe against my choice of careers (no you did not miss anything, this was executed offline) I decided to poke around on the internet and see what new job search/recruiting sites were out there. I mean, lets face it, whether your job is a good fit or not, the most talented people in any industry keep their resumes polished up and always have an ear to the ground. Partly to keep their careers on track, partly to prepare for the worst, and partly to make they are earning what they are worth. None of these things, I might add, I have done, as my spare time is spent riding my bike, writing in this blog, cooking, walking my dogs, and well, basically living my life. My priorities have been different I guess.

So I heard about The Ladders which is a recruiting site for 100k+ jobs. I thought I would check it out. I signed up and each Monday there is a new email in my inbox and I have to admit they are very well-written and informative. It's pretty nifty marketing.

So this past week I got this one:

Good Monday morning, Andrea,

We've got over 400 people working here at TheLadders to make your job search faster, easier, less stressful, and more effective. Fortunately for you and for me, my colleagues are geniuses, and inventing new stuff all the time.

This past week they launched "Profiler". It's a single multiple-choice question you'll see when you log in. You don't have to answer it, but when you do, we'll show you how many other people on TheLadders answered it the same way. The Q&A looks like this:

After each answer... we'll ask you another question!

It might be a question like any of these:

- How do you feel about going to work today?

- Would you relocate to another state for a 10% increase in pay?

- How's your boss doing?

- How soon are you looking to get a new job?

- If you were offered a better job in another industry, would you take it?

- When you go into work in the morning, what are you most grateful for?

... and more and more and more.

Each time you answer one, you'll be helping recruiters understand you, and the opportunity you're looking for, even better. Each bit of information adds to a fuller, more complete picture of you.

We'll be writing more questions over the coming weeks to get to know you even better. Keep answering for better results!

And if you think of a good question that we're not asking, hit Reply and let us know. We are all ears...

OK, Readers, have a great week in the job search. I'll be rooting for you...

OK, fair enough. The only issue is if I answer the questions the way I want to answer them I'm not sure if the recruiters will be pounding down my door. Let's try it. Here are the questions again and the first answers that came to my head, I swear.

- How do you feel about going to work today? I feel stressed and anxious. A lot better than yesterday.

- Would you relocate to another state for a 10% increase in pay? Are you kidding me? I'd relocate to another state for a 10% decrease in pay.

- How (are) your boss(es) doing? Let's start with #1: well on the upside I think he has been taking his medication, however he has been mighty distracted lately and that always worries me.

- How soon are you looking to get a new job? Sometime BEFORE I lose it and tell Boss #2 what a complete insult it has been to work for him for 5 years and AFTER I finally hire an assistant.

- If you were offered a better job in another industry, would you take it? I would take a better job in just about any industry....wait, this this a trick question? Are we talking the porn industry? Define "better?"

- When you go into work in the morning, what are you most grateful for? That I was able to get my indoor interval workout done and the dogs walked before I spend the next 7 hours having the life sucked out of me.

... and more and more and more.

Maybe we should stop here for now. Boss #1 and I went to high school together and we are FB friends, so sooner or later he IS going to read this stuff. Boss #2 I am not convinced can actually read, so I might be off the hook there. However, if I do get shitcanned, I will finally have the time to browse over to The Ladders for a resume critique and a bona fide stab at "The Profiler." If they recommend I go see a therapist I will let you know. Luckily I've got that covered already.

spring hath finally sprungeth

2011-03-25T10:25:00.028-04:00

Spring is officially here this week in Philadelphia, which might mean a frosty morning with an afternoon sun which beckons the mercury up into the fifties for a few measly hours, followed by a day like the past two where it hovers in the 30s and 40s and just keeps raining or even snowing. It’s hard to get in a groove. Planning trips to chiropractors and Whole Foods around bike commuting days that float around the week with the unpredictable atmospheric conditions can be challenging. Last Friday the 18^th however, was a gift to us weather-weary cyclists for sure. High of 78 degrees and sunny!

Friday morning I was so excited to ride in on the bike. But then I realized of course I would actually have to work once I got there, so I procrastinated by taking the dogs out for a "quick" morning walk. It was an afterthought; I was already in my kit and windvest; sunscreen applied, backpack stuffed, ipod ready….when I thought, I have to get these pups out this morning. Madison was following me around the house wagging her tail, trying to catch my eye to remind me that yesterday it had rained and they did not get out. She keeps track of these things the little rascal.

So I took them out; knowing it would make me even later. Walking in my bibs made me feel as if I was ready to jump on my bike at any moment, so there was no need to feel guilty that I kept walking farther and farther away from my house despite the time....until the three of us had meandered our way past countless crocus heads brandishing their purple crests on a two-mile stretch of east falls. That's what spring does to you. It's a good thing.

I finally got on my bike and headed south toward the airport where Liberty is situated in the 6.019 square-mile cultural, culinary, and intellectual wasteland known as Lester, Pennsylvania. Work was not too bad; the day went quickly and I could not wait to get back in my bike because as nice as it was on my way to work it was going to be 78 degrees on the way home. Yeah I mentioned that already.

I had a last minute guest that evening: my young teammate Charles Hanlon was arriving with his girlfriend Jen. He was racing the Philly Phyler race on Saturday; and Jen was a Marshal-in-Training, so I offered my couch and floor for them to stay so they would not have to get up as 4 am to get Jen to the race on time driving from Kutztown. By the time they got here I had already had a fire in my backyard pit for half an hour in the garden. The dogs were in their usual summer positions in the yard: Chloe nestled in a den of ivy, Madison sniffing the air sphynx-like on one of the carpet squares, surveying the perimeter. I was typing away but was having a hard time putting sentences together.

Charlie, between sips of the Golden Monkey I had offered my underage guest, might have thought it was strange to see me typing on my laptop on a Friday night. After all I was not in school anymore, that kind of stuff was optional. He asked me what I do for a living.

I hate that question. Especially lately. I replied that I worked as a Controller for Liberty Flooring, the commercial flooring company that has been sponsoring our team for the past 4 years. I added that since it's a small company I wear many hats so my job duties go beyond accounting. He nodded, taking it all in, this surreal balmy March evening whose largesse threw the three of us into the illusion of a mid-summer soire. Jen quietly unwrapped an apple blossom in the flickering light, licking her fingers gingerly.

"I'm writing in my blog right now. I'm really a words person more than a numbers person. I was actually an English major in college, I did a lot of creative writing back then..." my voice trailed off as I fondly remembered all those college writing workshops. "You know, it's funny, I love numbers too, because they don't lie, and I like their structure.” Jen smiled and agreed with me.

“….it's really the creative aspect of words that really turns me on; how they can be manipulated" I continued.

It's funny, one could say that it was the manipulation of numbers that caused the financial crisis of 2008 that still casts its shadow on our economy, but in my opinion the numbers don't lie; it’s the people interpreting them who lie, and they usually use letters to complete their subterfuge. Numbers can be fudged, yes, but it's a person committing that crime, not the data itself. The data is just a stream of information reflecting truths quantified by numerals. There is no guile there until a person comes along and manufactures the distortions.

"I would really like a career change, " I said, "but I don't want to take a huge pay cut. I have some expensive hobbies." Charlie smiled, because he knew one of them was bike racing. Not to mention luxury cars, raw-fed naturally reared dogs, my organic holistic vegetarian lifestyle with the $200 a week food budget, or maybe just being single when you are, well, long past the age where the last of your peers has succumbed to the two-earner household. All of them add up. I can't just quit my job and start freelance writing while leading bike tours in Europe, although it would be nice.

"I've developed a expertise in a industry that I don't want to work in anymore." The last few words I sort of swallowed, staring at those wavering orange embers and pondering the tragedy of it all.

Charlie caught this and said, "I'm sorry about that."

I was taken aback that I might have sounded bitter. I quickly pointed out that although it was not exactly what I wanted to be doing, the skills I have gleaned from scaling up several small businesses will serve me well when I start my own. He asked if I had done this yet, and I said I had, but I had to put it aside in the past 3 years when I started having all of my medical problems, which, I remarked, are now resolved. The words hung in the air for a bit between the pop and crackle of the fire. As if stating them aloud like that would make them come true.

And there it is, just like my therapist said, I am totally at a crossroads in my life. She said I have a “clean slate” now to construct the rest of my life, as much as I can, in the direction I want it to go. It was one of those trite phrases that therapists use such as “seeking closure” but nevertheless it was apt. Nothing tying me down. I can find a job somewhere else and start the next big adventure. I could keep on going with the mid-life crisis theme here but you get the point.

The opportunity to shape your own destiny, of course tempered by the vagaries of the lot thrown in your lap at birth, is one that many fortunate people have when they are Charlie and Jen's ages; but for me, it has come later in life. But that's just the way it goes sometimes. Not much I can do about it now but rearrange my relationship towards it a bit; that is to say choose to view it in a way that renders me appreciative, not regretful. That’s right, appreciation…. of the deepening of character forged from that hardship and experience. The other option is I can allow it to embitter me, which is what I started to do as I built the fire and waited for my young guests to arrive. Regret and self-recrimination are always a temptation for a perfectionist like myself who is prone to melancholy I suppose, but a fruitless one.

Now I was staring into those flames and thinking how simple an idea it is just to change my perception of my past so it enriches my present rather than diminishes it. A simple idea, but not always simple to adopt. For many years now I have feared the question, “what do you do for a living?” and chose not to think about the circumstances in my past that have led me down this path. It is like my twenties were a lost decade in my life that didn’t really happen, and their absence has left an odd gap in the tapestry of my personal history. I will have to dust off a lot of those experiences for the novel I’m planning on writing, so I will have to embrace transparency sooner or later. I might as well work on it now, and allow the light of this renewed perspective to illuminate the past that I have pushed away for so long.

Maybe this entire night was a gift. This invitingly warm evening, my young guests and their innocent question, and the crackling fire; a crucible reminding me not to be afraid of truth, illuminating the darkness that had settled gently upon us the way it falls in summer, despite the fact that just beyond my fence the last of winter was waiting to claim us again for a few last desperate weeks.

consolation

2011-03-07T18:26:00.001-05:00

walter inglis anderson

"Although I may not be able to prevent the worst from happening, I am responsible for my attitude toward the inevitable misfortunes that darken life. Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.”

Walter Inglis Anderson, 1903-1965

it's nice to be remembered on your birthday....

2011-02-11T12:37:00.001-05:00



Dear ANDREA, We hope you enjoy your special day. We truly appreciate your business, and we look forward to another year of charging you $4500 to insure your new little rocket. Be careful out there....you're one person who can't afford to be in another accident, ha ha. Wishing you a very happy birthday!

Cellucci / Foran Insurance 610-544-1908 E-mail Your Agent

the story of my life

2011-02-06T22:31:00.003-05:00

Dear Ms. Walheim,

Thank you for contacting Medtronic Patient Services with your question regarding heart rate monitors.

A heart rate monitor has a very low risk of interfering with your heart device since the monitor chest band transmits very low level magnetic pulses to the wristband. If your heart device is not delivering pacing pulses at the same time the heart rate monitor is collecting your heart rate, the heart rate monitor will function normally.

One alternative to the chest band heart monitor is a portable fingertip or earlobe monitor that uses a light source to monitor the heart rate. The infrared sensor detects tiny changes in infrared light due to the pulsing of the blood with each heart beat. The fingertip or earlobe monitor does not transmit any magnetic pulses.

I encourage you to visit our website to learn more about your heart device and electromagnetic interference (EMI) at:

www.medtronic.com

We appreciate the opportunity to help you. If we can be of further assistance, please contact us again. Our toll free telephone number is (800) 551-5544 x41835. We are available Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Central Time.

Regards,

Julie, Medtronic Patient Services

[THREAD ID:1-4UPT29]

-----Original Message-----

From: rs.patientadvocacy@medtronic.com [mailto:rs.patientadvocacy@medtronic.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2011 8:51 PM
To: RS Patient Advocacy

Subject: Share Your Story

site: http://www.medtronic.com/your-health/bradycardia/personal-stories/index.htm

patient prefix: Ms.
patient first name: andrea
patient last name: walheim
patient middle initial: e

condition: Bradycardia

sex: Female
age: 40
device category: pacemaker

story: I have written and continue to write about my story (see links to my blog below). I am an elite mountain bike racer and had a pacemaker implanted in April 2009 for second degree heart block that only presented during extreme exertion (racing or training). It was very tough to diagnose and even after implantation of the ADAPTA DR we had to make many adjustments to make it so I could race and train again. I am back to racing. I am desperate to find a heart rate monitor that works with the Adapta, as most HRMs cut out when the pacer kicks in (I am only paced 8% of the time, and only during exercise). Can someone there recommend one?

here are some of my posts concerning the Adapta:

http://pinkyeti.blogspot.com/2009/04/62808-ground-zero.html

http://pinkyeti.blogspot.com/2009/05/beginning-7608.html
http://pinkyeti.blogspot.com/2009/04/42109-implantation.html
http://pinkyeti.blogspot.com/2009/05/pacemaker-adjustment-3.html
http://pinkyeti.blogspot.com/2009/05/pacer-adjustment-4-field-test.html

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_________________________________________________

from: andrea

to: patientadvocacy@medtronic.com

Julie, I think you need to review my question again. I am not concerned about my HRM interfering with the pacer. I am an elite cyclist and it is not practical for me to use an earlobe or fingertip sensor. I was wondering if there are any HRMs that will work once I am paced. The pacer interferes with the HRMs (I have tried several) to the point where they are useless while I am exercising. Are there any HRMs that are able to record my heart rate once I am being paced?

yes this is why I am the bionic woman..cute no?

Thank you

andrea walheim

- Show quoted text -

Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.

Friedrich Nietzsche

___________________________________________________

Dear Ms. Walheim,

Thank you for your reply. Medtronic is not aware of any heart rate monitors that will work when your pacemaker is pacing your heart and the heart rate monitor is taking a reading. Unfortunately, the information I provided you is all that is available on heart rate monitors.

We appreciate the opportunity to assist you. If you have any questions, please contact us again. To reach us by telephone, our toll free number is (800) 551-5544 x41835. We are available Monday - Friday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Central Time.

Regards,

Julie, Medtronic Patient Services
www.medtronic.com

the Kroc Center comes to Philadelphia

2011-02-05T21:48:00.001-05:00

A week ago Monday I got back from a long walk with Madison and Chloe, and although I live in Philadelphia and it was only 9:15pm when we left, my 'hood was a ghost town. They were calling for a storm over the next couple of days, a mix of sleet, snow, and rain, which I guess some call a "weather event" and more specifically a "wintery mix." I had thought about stopping at Whole Foods to pick up some milk for the kefir, since my raw milk delivery got postponed due to the weather, but as I got within a block of it there was a line of cars down the whole block just trying to get into the parking lot. No thanks. I don't care how many express lanes there are in that place, that is a hour-sucking quagmire. So I went home, made supper and took the dogs out. As I said, East Falls was quiet. Everyone was bracing for the storm.

cars stuck on route 1 N during that "weather event"

This winter is shaping up to be like last year, very cold and very wet. Actually we are fortunate in Philadelphia to be able to ride outside year-round with some motivation and the right gear. But this winter is similar to last in that it is so cold and wet, (read = snow) many have been climbing up the walls and bitching non-stop on FB about being sick of indoor interval workouts, etc.

As for me, I'm outside pretty much as about as often as ever. I need to be outside in order to remain sane when the days get shorter. There is a name for that, Seasonal Affective Disorder, but I need another "syndrome" like I need another implanted medical device. I used to have a lightbox, but once I became a serious cyclist and rode outside all year I did not need it anymore. Even if I can't ride outside, I still hike with the dogs in the woods or walk them through my neighborhood upwards of five hours a week.

I feel very fortunate that I am a mountain biker and can still ride outdoors in all kinds of crazy weather, in fact snow riding is my absolute favorite. I am surprised how many of my teammates and friends will NOT ride when there is snow and ice out. I completely understand that caution out on the road, with pissed off drivers stuck behind you on shoulderless roads marred with cinders, broken glass and black ice, not to mention nasty wind chills in the single digits, but in the woods the snow turns our bikes into skis (with brakes, a huge technological advance), the wind chill is much less biting and my perception of the snow as "fluffy" renders me fearless. And as far as I am concerned safe enough if you are one who does not let less than optimal conditions phase you. I learned a long time ago a small change of attitude can make turn a mediocre ride into an epic one, and as Andy used to say when I complained about my performance or shitty weather, "andrea, even a crappy ride is better than no ride at all."

So before I bask in my newfound pollyanna-ism, I have to remind myself that Colin canceled the Cadence Class for 2 days this week due to the weather, and with all of the rain and ice that pounded the trails my Thursday night ride was canceled like last week. So what's a girl to do?

Cross train of course. There is weight training, plyometrics, running, swimming, hiking with hounds and of course how about how every year we learn what a strenous workout shoveling a foot of snow can become? And even though we are supposed to be putting in those base miles right now (in years past I would be riding 8-10 hours a weekend, mostly on the road this timeof year) sometimes you just have to be creative. I do ride indoors, for as long as 3 hours at a time, and I do ride outdoors as much as just about anyone, but yesterday I gave myself an early birthday present....I joined a new "fitness center."

The Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center is named for McDonalds founder Ray Kroc, whose widow Joan left half a billion of her estate to fund centers all over the United States in underserved neighborhoods. The one in Philadelphia has been in the works for a couple of years; I found out about it when Liberty Flooring won the bid to install the floors in the 130 million dollar facility for T.N. Ward Company, the General Contractor hired by the Salvation Army. The place is about a mile from my house as the crow flies. I looked at the plans and knew the place was going to be incredible, and as it was the same price as East Falls Fitness but offered so much more, I decided I needed to join. I had won a free 3-month membership to EFF when I did their running race and won, so I waited the 3 months from the opening in October.

Here is some info from the Kroc Center page on the Salvation Army website worth reading:

The Salvation Army Kroc Center of Philadelphia is the newest, largest, most comprehensive community center on the east coast and represents The Salvation Army’s ongoing commitment to building communities of faith, hope, compassion, and grace.
The project is the single largest investment in human services in the region, with an investment exceeding $130 million dollars. Designed by MGA Partners Architects, in association with PZS Architects and landscape architects Andropogon Associates, and built by T.N. Ward Company, the 130,000-square foot super community center is situated on 12.4 acres located at the junction of several of North Philadelphia’s most troubled neighborhoods. The center will double the amount of services that The Salvation Army currently provides in Greater Philadelphia and will house an array of programs designed to address the economic, educational, health, recreational and spiritual needs of the communities it will serve.

The programs, as well as the building itself, have been designed to stimulate the mind, body and spirit, to provide hope, and to transform the life of each and every member of the community.

Joan Kroc, wife of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc, had a clear vision in mind: build state-of-the-art recreational and arts facilities in underserved communities throughout the nation to ensure that all individuals have equal opportunities to grow their natural gifts and talents. In 2003, Mrs. Kroc bequeathed to The Salvation Army the largest gift ever given to a private charity with the express purpose of building and endowing Salvation Army Kroc Centers. The Salvation Army Kroc Center of Philadelphia is a fulfillment of her vision and provides an unprecedented opportunity for you to do the most good for yourself, your family and your community.

If you want to learn more there is a lot of information in this arcticle from Newsworks, so I don't need to repeat it here, but take my word for it the center is absolutely stunning. The community center includes a chapel with religious worship in keeping with the mission of the Salvation Army, an indoor waterpark for the kids separated from the lap pool by a wall (nice! no screaming kids while I'm swimming) , a 2-floor fitness facility equipped with free weights, plate-loaded and weight stack machines and more cardio pieces than I have ever seen in any gym, classrooms with fully wired computers, a dance studio, tons of group classes including ballet, yoga, nutrition, and more, a double basketball court, a cafe open to the public, a professional grade turf soccer field, and a fireplace in the main lobby.

The building was designed to allow the sun to do most of the illumination through the fitness center which really lifts the spirit. Sadly, I'm only in the gym 2 days a week now doing a full-body circuit, but I really would love to sneak a weekly swim in there somehow. I have completed two workouts there so far and I am pleased to report that there are plenty of medicine balls, BOSUs, high quality yoga mats and Physio balls. It was not crowded either time I was in there in the am. I hope it stays that way.

I have discovered some drawbacks, but they are pretty minor:

they could use another set of dumbbells as with only one you could be waiting for the heavily used 25s to 40s during high traffic times.
The free weight area does not have a gym floor so it is scuffed up a bit already (not our fault, blame the architect)
The physio balls and BOSUs could be inflated more often, and guess who is going to tell them?
The lighter "chick" dumbbells are on a different floor from the manly ones, and some of us hardcore chicks use both.
The hours on the weekends are somewhat limited, the gym closes at 3 on Saturdays, and is closed until 1 pm Sundays for worship, but I'm out riding then anyway.
The cafe menu is awful, burgers, fries, chips, chicken strips....yeah I know this is McDonalds money but they also teach nutrition classes here! At least offer a few more healthy choices.

I am sure I (I know, shocker) will find some other minor little details that could be improved but everyone is so darn friendly and helpful there that I am sure some of them can be addressed. Anyway, enjoy the photos and if you are interested in joining or need directions the SA page can be found here. They are waiving the enrollment fee until February 13th.

this is just one of the areas with machines

the cafe, which needs a menu revamping (see photo)

at least there is a veg burger....with fries. C'mon people!

one of 2 free weight areas, with straight and cambered bars

indoor waterpark

upstairs atrium

basketball courts

Chapel

the park

a stranger in the house?

2011-01-26T11:44:00.006-05:00

yes that'snow out there

Last night I got a chance to catch up with an old friend, Joe Kavanagh, who went to Boston College with me back in the day. We talked about the new start-ups he is currently absorbed with, my disgust with my lack of a career, traveling, relationships, and his desire to have children before he gets much older.
His voice was half serious, half bemused as he said quietly, "It is, after all, the reason we are here andrea, no?"

In years past, I might have protested this foolish utterance as the mark of a person who had exhausted his usefulness on the planet and was now looking for a raison d'etre, as it were, but this time, I stopped folding my socks for a minute and pondered his statement.

"well...maybe.....I've been thinking lately that I want kids myself."

"whoa....what did I just hear...not andrea walheim? Did you just say...hold the phone!"
I laughed and told him to shut up and yes, I was actually thinking that I might want to have a kid. Another discussion about parenting later in life ensued, and finally that topic ended with me saying something along the lines of "The question is not whether or not I would be a good mother, it's more about whether or not I meet someone I want to make a baby with. Anyone who sees the attention I lavish on my dogs would guess I would be a good mama."

So this morning I came down the stairs in my pajamas to make my tea and breakfast and the house was freezing. I mean, yeah it was 12 degrees out, but by 7 am the temperature should have been 68 down there. It was warm and toasty upstairs, mind you, so I knew my heater was working. I walked a few more steps towards the kitchen and this is what I saw. The door to the backyard was wide open, and it was about 45 degrees in the kitchen.

I was horrified. I knew I had not left the door open, in fact I had locked it and closed the dog door before I went upstairs as I always do. Someone or something must have opened the door. I felt that sinking feeling in my stomach that I felt when back in college I came home to find that someone had broken into my apartment. But this was worse, since I had been sleeping upstairs. The first thing I did was walk over to the breakfront where I had left $60 in cash for the housekeeper who was coming tomorrow. I figured the first thing an intruder would grab was that. It was untouched.

It had snowed last night, and there were no footprints in the snow. By this time the dogs had come down the stairs, and you can bet that if some stranger had been in the house their noses would be on the floor. Nothing. This did not make sense. I went to slide up the metal plate that closes the dog door and it would not budge. The locking pin was stuck in the up position, as though someone tried to force it upwards with the pin in place. From the outside. Now I was really creeped out.

I opened the door and examined the vinyl flaps from the outside. They were all chewed up on either side, so obviously this was done by an animal trying to get in. That I could deal with. My next door neighbor with the cats told me that she has had issues over the years with opossum climbing through her cat door to get at her stash of cat food. They come in my yard as well to eat from my compost pile, but the only ones that actually make it into my house are the ones Madison brings in herself. Thank goodness that phase is over. Now she just kills them in the yard. No self-repecting prey animal would enter 3434 voluntarily, would it?

On closer inspection, the chew marks on the door were not tiny, sharp bite marks of an opossum, a squirrel, or a raccoon. They were the teeth of a larger mammal, one strong enough to have partially shoved up that piece of metal....

.....wait a minute.

I stepped back from the door and let Madison out for her morning pee and survey of the perimeter of the kingdom. Her paws made fresh tracks in the snow and she did not once sniff the ground. If an animal had been in my house she would be running around madly tracking the scent. No, there had not been a strange animal or a person here last night. This damage had been done by one of my own.

I recalled how last night as I was reading under the covers, Madison was already sleeping in her perch on the edge of the bed. I called to Chloe, and oddly she did not come, but I figured she was sleeping downstairs, which she often does for part of the night. So I fell asleep. But no, I had locked her out. Nice. She must have been out there raiding the compost pile and lost track of time. But why did Madison not wake me up? She knows how to get me out of a dead sleep just by prancing a certain way on the wooden boards. Worst case scenario she jumps up on the bed and paws my head.

Chloe wondering what all the fuss was about

I finally pieced together the rest of the puzzle. Madison had fallen asleep as I did, but Chloe was outside chewing the hell out of that 1/2 inch piece of vinyl and clawing at the metal door with her poor little paws in an attempt to get in. When her sister sensed that something was wrong she went downstairs and saw that her twin was out there. Instead of going back upstairs and waking me up, Madison deftly pushed the lock to the left to unlock the door, and then pulled at the lever so the door swung open and both of them bounded up stairs, triumphant, leaving the door wide open for me to find in the am. I would not be surprised if there were not much trial and error involved either. That dog is scary smart.

I checked Chloe's gums and paws for signs of cuts or lacerations, nothing, but we are talking about a dog who steals an empty can of tuna or pumpkin from the recyling bin and then chews it until there a large puncture holes all over it, all without one cut on her gums.

Chloe hanging with her cousins at Christmas

I lavished kisses all over her afterwards and she was quite pleased by the attention, but really had no memory of the ordeal that had precipitated this shower of praise.

Yeah, I know. Perhaps I should stick with dogs.

looking back at the season and forward to the rest of my life

2011-01-10T20:51:00.002-05:00

The "Huffy Toss" at Marysville, 2010, that thing weighed 60+ pounds

image courtesy of Dennis Smith and yours truly

So I have not posted in awhile. Mainly because the holidays have leeched every free moment from my month to the point where by the time Christmas came I was turning down invites right and left just to preserve my sanity. I did get a chance to jot a few things down but nothing was polished up and posted. Yes, believe it or not some editing does actually go on before I blurt this stuff out.

Last Monday night I dreamed that I kept oversleeping and missing my bike race, that is I would wake up suddenly (in the dream) thankful when I checked the alarm that I had not missed my race, go back to sleep, only to have the pattern repeat itself until finally I really did oversleep and miss the race. It was totally stressful and was mirrored in * real life* as I woke up several times during the night because I thought I had missed my 6:30 am class at Cadence. I never oversleep and miss that class. It turns out in *reality* that I actually did get up on time. I went to pick up Colin (we had gotten a foot of snow and his car is front wheel drive) at the designated spot and he was not there. I called him, and oddly for him lately, he picked up the phone.

“where are you?”

“um…I just woke up. My alarm didn’t go off.” I hate when those alarm clocks have their own agenda.

“OK, I’m coming around to pick you up.”

“That would be good.” Yeah, especially because by 6:10 on Tuesday mornings there are 10 of us standing in front of the door to Cadence waiting for him. Good thing my dreams are not only prescient for myself but for my friends as well. Anyway, you know how it is when you wake up after a nightmare. As I brushed my teeth I told myself I was done with this racing bullshit.

Back in December we had our team party hosted by Todd and Susan Schwartz at their home in Jenkintown. Todd is not only my teammate at Guy's Racing, but my orthopedist as well and as such he has had a cameo on this blog a few times in the past three years. More than a few. At the party John Miller, the man behind MidAtlantic Timing and the former Guy’s Mountain Bike Team Coordinator, asked me what my goals were for next year; that is what races I was planning on doing now that the preliminary MASS schedule is posted. It has been posted for 6 weeks and I have not looked at it once.

“Next Year” as in the 2011 racing season? I just looked at him and laughed and said I had not given it a thought. A month ago Coach Colin sent out an email to all of his athletes talking about the need for increased communication and asking us to be prepared to discuss our goals for 2011 so he could write our training plans. This threw me into a panic. I still have not even read the rest of that email; I had merely skimmed it before rushing out the door to a Holiday party. That same week our Women's Coordinator (for the 5 women on the team) asked me earlier in the week to summarize my season in a few blurbs. So here it goes:

A former XC junkie, Andrea returned to racing in the Endurance/Marathon format after 2 years off to contend with (in no particular order) a broken collarbone, the surprise discovery of rare heart arrhythmia, getting run over by a truck while riding her roadbike, shoulder surgery, and a few other issues making a total of 5 surgeries in 2009. She was first place in the MASS endurance standings for most of the 2010 season until a poorly fitted saddle caused a perineal nodular induration that ended her season in the middle of July.

All in all, if my father had not been in a horrible bike accident which landed him in the hospital for 8 weeks and Gryphon had not died, 2010 might not have been that bad, at least compared to 2008 and 2009. Here’s to better luck in 2011.

And I have been spending more time thinking about dating, writing, the holidays, my 6 pound weight gain, tomorrow's workout--anything but next years’ race schedule. I am wondering if I will even be in Philadelphia next year, as the voice that has been calling me for years to head west is getting more insistent lately. Yes, I’m not sleeping great right now, and as you can read those smoke signals are rising from my subconscious once again.

I know that I have gotten to the point in my life where I look at bike racing as a pleasant past time and a great way to provide structure and give me training goals. This is why at the end of every season, like many of my bike racing friends, I feel a little lost. I am feeling that restlessness that I always feel when rigid cycles of training and racing loosen with the ebb and flow of falling leaves and dipping temperatures. I have written about it many times. I’ve always loved the fall. As a kid it meant going back to school, and since I’ve been racing the fall is the time to relax and enjoy a hiatus from all of the focus on going faster. I love that I can get up late on a Saturday here and there and make pancakes with Madison and Chloe, and occasionally even a guest without fur, go to the gym 3 days a week so I have time to do plyometrics and agility training, spend more time reading and writing, run in the Wissahickon with the dogs….. but I have to say that even when I have the option to most weekend mornings will find me on my bike by 9.

If there is one thing I know, it is that I have a strong passion for cycling, whether on the road or on the trails, and I will be riding a bike one way or another until they put me in a box. It is against my nature not to train hard, no matter what the sport or activity. I will never be the one who just does it because I have to, because I love to move my body, in fact, it's tough for me to sit still. As Stu Mittleman says in Slow Burn, a book so good I am reading it again:

Movement unlocks our senses, makes us feel alive, and allows us to rejoice in the here and now. We are physical beings, and we need to move. Humans and our bipedal ancestors have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. Yet it has only been in the last eighty or so years, since arming for the hunt or toiling in the fields was replaced by sitting at a desk in the industrialized countries, that motion has not been the norm of the day.

I am compelled to move because that it what I was born to do and if I don’t do it I don’t feel well. So it’s not a question of ceasing to train, because I will always want and need to do it. My point I suppose is I don’t need to race my bike to give me the motivation to train. I train every day because it keeps me healthy and happy.

But….and there is always a but, right? I’m feeling more and more that at this stage of my life that the demands of the race season, in terms of time, energy, and rigid training schedule, are becoming a distraction that is keeping me from moving forward and out of this state of limbo I’m in. I need to figure out just how to get the farm that I have always wanted. Yes, a farm I said. I thought by now I would have a co-pilot to help me with this lifelong dream, but alas, I have not found him, and it’s not for lack of trying.

Nature has its patterns, its cycles, and it is folly to think we are not part of this web. We are interconnected with these cycles, and most of us are more comfortable when we accept this and allow our lives to adopt somewhat predictable patterns. The Circadian rhythms that make up the day and of course the four seasons are examples of this. I try and work with these natural patterns, and as such I almost always train and race in the morning, when my energy levels are the highest and it is easier for me to focus. That is why on the weekends when I have the option of training any time before sundown I just don’t feel comfortable if I delay my ride until after lunch.

All of this post-season introspection which materializes in October every year could be just another cycle that I need to go through to process the demands I have placed on my body and mind over the past 7 months. Furthermore it’s no secret to anyone that I am at a crossroads in my life and certainly spend a good bit of time ruminating on my next step. As of somehow I am utterly in control of the whole process, which is silly.

So my goals for next season as of January 9, 2011? At this point check out the race calendar and put a few on the board to keep Colin happy. He will be able to write a training plan that actually has a plan and when February is waning and everyone is talking about Battenkill or the MASS relay and the rides are getting faster, my natural competitive spirit will kick in and I will be off and racing.

Actually, my major goal over this winter and into the season will be working on the nutrition issue. Too much to discuss here but I am currently doing a lot of reading and experimenting in an attempt to get my body more efficient at burning fat to fuel my workouts instead of me constantly having to feed the glycogen machine. That and of course getting my technical skills better because riding over obstacles is what makes mountain biking so much fun for me, and keeps me coming back for more.

And the wider lens? I feel like as if I’m ready to take off to the next phase, and the success of this lies in the extent of my willingness to make some pretty steep changes in my lifestyle. But you know what? I’m ready, I really don’t need to hold on to any of this. It’s good healthy fun, but in the end none of it really matters. As long as I can keep strengthening my body, mind and spirit; constantly pushing myself to be more evolved yet less self-absorbed; then I think the angst I feel as the season of fall ends will be replaced by acceptance of the inevitability of cycles, of change. Right now I look in the mirror and fear the ravages of time, but I look forward to getting to that place where instead I feel the peace of acceptance. I feel it most when I’m walking in the woods with the dogs and letting them show me what it’s like to live in the moment and feel joy so tangibly that it animates their every step, without reservation, without the confines of an agenda, and without the fear that it will end.

looking forward to the next one

2010-12-01T16:19:00.000-05:00

wow, last night was fun! I feel very lucky to have a group of friends who will throw propriety out the window to stay up late on a Tuesday night to eat, drink, laugh, and pose in women's lingerie. Watching the Victoria's Secret Supervixens strut around in not much more than 6-inch heels was a mere footnote to a fantastic evening.

I'm thinking that themed parties might be the new thing at 3434. If anyone has any good ideas for some parties to spice up the dead of winter (January/February) please feel free to comment. I'm pretty sure we've got December covered.

more pics here. enjoy.

A

Theo uses my apples (!) to enhance his decolletage