a castle in the sky

haha! i'm sitting at the mill and just overheard a conversation between two young stoners. this is how it went -

long-haired stoner: uh, i want to live in like a castle dude.

short-haired stoner: huh?

long-haired stoner: i've wanted to live in a castle since i was like a little kid. like a castle in, in london. with moss all over it and s@@t.

short-haired stoner: dude. that would be dope.

lincolnites, don't forget to support the runners!

and come to the party too!


(this invite is a fine example of why myspace can be so bad and also such a fantastic resource. i found the photo on my little sister's pseudo boyfriend's myspace page. i have never met him. i simply spied on his page one day and stole his photo thinking it may sometime come in useful. and i have a feeling the guy would be mortified if he knew what i did to it.)

so girly!

i went to a craft party yesterday with some of the girls from the mill. this affair included crocheting, knitting, sewing and a lot of decoupaging. my project to decoupage some old wooden candlesticks failed miserably. i spent a good 45 minutes cutting pictures from magazines and then immediately got frustrated with the process of sticking them on to a strangely shaped object.

i am not a crafty girl but sometimes i can pull it off. for example, i made this quilt piece recently for a friend's wedding - her mom is making a friendship quilt and all of her friends were called on to submit a square. i did an iron on transfer of an illustration from an old childrens book, then i embroidered and sewed on some little buttons. i've never embroidered anything before, so i'm a little of proud of this.

a going away present for swishy pants

yesterday, after subbing a pilates class for cara, a man i call swishy pants (not out of endearment, but because he always wears plastic pants that make swishy noises) engaged me in conversation about how weak he was during core exercises because he'd just upped his mile from a 6:45 to a 6:15 and he is running about 75 miles a week. now this is admirable, and for most people i would say so. swishy pants, however, infuriates me and i could not give him what he was looking for. no admiration for swishy pants. he's been a regular at our classes for months, and every time i talk to the man i get the feeling that he wants me to know how great he is. not just that, but how much better he is than anyone else i might encounter. yesterday's conversation confirmed that, yes, he really does think too much of himself. this is what he told me:

he is moving, leaving lincoln after just a few short months, because living here is like 'living in a snow globe filled with mannequins.' too homogenous he said.

well, swishy pants. this is your farewell present. you riled me up so much you've made it on my blog. i hope you like your snow globe.

bushmills

this photo used to be on myspace before i swore off myspace and decided to write a super secret blog instead. i love this shot of my sister and i and our favorite whiskey. it makes me want to have a drink right now.

streaking

i had my first marathon dream in the early morning just before my alarm went off. started with me running the route before the race just to make sure i was comfortable with it, then almost missing the race because i spent too much time pre-racing. i couldn't find my running partner, forgot to eat and wasn't wearing the right clothes. it was very stressful.

i hope this isn't a recurring theme for the next week and a half!

unrelated to my marathon dream, a conversation at the bar last night in which we were discussing drunken mishaps of days long gone (mainly pass-outs and make-outs) reminded me of this story which deserves to be recorded. one drunken evening in cambridge, ma i was walking home past the harvard football stadium with an equally if not more intoxicated friend. noticing a loosely padlocked gate, we decided it would be a lot of fun to run around on the football field, so we did. then we decided it would be a lot more fun to run around the football field naked, so we did that too.

.

possibly the theme of my next marathon dream will include running naked down capital ave.

starlite ballroom

the barry boyce polka band played last sunday at the starlite ballroom in wahoo. how do i know this? i was there to see the butler county czech queen coronation! i have been waiting for an opportunity to visit the starlite, and when my running partner's little sister was nominated this year's queen, i finally got my reason to go (congratulations mari!). There were many things i loved about the afternoon:

1) red bud light

2) johnny (in the blue cardigan) who is in his late 90's and has attended these dances all over the region, all his life. he also has never married but makes it a point to dance with all the ladies!

3) the dancer with the red sweatband (see blurry photo)

4) the imposter designer perfume tray in the women's restroom

5) the polka band whose members could not have been older than me

6) the very good dancing couple in their 70's who were in incredible shape and are my inspiration to take up ballroom dancing. (my other dancing inspiration is ballroom dancer who's been attending my pilates and yoga classes for years. i finally saw him perform last week at the UNL ballroom dance club show. more on that later)

7) the solo in czech performed by the 2007 butler county czech queen

my lake food web

i made an interactive lake food web station for the outdoors expo. there were tons of live organisms from every level of the food chain. i linked them all with duct tape arrows. (walmart carries duct tape in about 10 different colors!!! i hate walmart, but i love brightly colored duct tape) the kids loved it.

the kearney outdoors expo

last night i drank a LOT of cheap beer at the holiday inn express manager's reception (fyi - all the coors light you can possibly consume in an hour and a half and they don't even ask for your room number. i am a legitimate guest, by the way.) then went out for some good beer and a polish sausage loaded with sauerkraut. choosing not to continue to drink all night (because i'm not very tolerant of hundreds of fourth and fifth graders if i'm nursing a hangover) i headed back to the hotel and watched a super depressing documentary about tanzania and the nile perch in lake victoria and weapons trade and poverty and aids. and then i had bad dreams all night.

today i was showing off dead fish to school groups, talking with them about the adaptations fish have that make it simple for them to live an aquatic life (or a life aquatic). i had a dissected carp on display to show off it's air bladder. the flesh i'd removed was lying next to the carp, and a kid asked me what it was. i explained that it was the part of a fish that you eat - the muscle, and the kid said 'no, no, no - we get fish from the store. it's not like that.' i recalled a scene from last night's movie, a scene in a processing plant where nile perch are being filleted and the carcasses are carted off in big rubbermaid tubs and dumped on a flatbed. these fillets are exported all over europe. (i'm not sure what they're sold as - surely not nile perch.) anyway, then the scene cuts to this flatbed truck delivering the carcasses to what i assumed was a dump. it wasn't. it was another sort of 'processing plant' where women sorted through these filthy dripping maggoty carcasses and hung them to dry in the sun. (i can't imagine the stench and i've been around a lot of dead fish before.) once the fish are dried, their heads and any remaining meat on their bones are fried and sold at local markets, eaten with rice. this is the main fare of a tanzanian farmer. and damn it, the kid didn't understand where a fillet of fish comes from. don't get me wrong, i'm not damning the kid, it just makes me sad.

new shoes! new shoes!

i made the switch from mizunos to brooks, and i LOVE them!
these are the infiniti model and they are so cushiony, can't wait to run tonight!

pants

i have a habit of calling my pets by names that relate to pants. for instance, my dog kingsley responds to fluffy pants or mister pants, and vashti the cat is often referred to as pretty pants. the turtle even gets a 'mister pants' occasionally. this is very confusing to the dog.

i was happy to find a link to this website on my gmail homepage this morning:

http://www.torsopants.com/main

not really my humor, most of them are a little obtuse for street wear and i think i would find myself annoyed with a person i saw wearing one of these tees. but torsopants? haha

i am drawn to the 'let's fight some ballerinas' shirt. maybe i'll send one to my sister (who, incidently, also likes to call things by names relating to pants. she recently addressed my father as daddy forklift pants. where does this come from? i don't know.)

a story of the first visit i've made to church in a very long time

i ran 16 miles this morning after taking two days off on account of my bum leg. the run was amazing despite a pretty healthy headwind for the last 7 miles. i was worried at the beginning of the run when stabbing pains shot into my knee every time my foot hit the ground, but that went away in the first mile.

we stopped at the cooper y for some water and a bathroom. i was sitting in the stall zoning out as i tend to do after running for an hour and then suddenly ceasing all movement. at that moment loud, obnoxious children came into the bathroom and, seriously, five kids piled into the stall next to me and started taking turns peeking underneath the divider to smile at me while i sat there helpless and naked from the waist down. grr. the girls were giggling and asking the boys - yes, two of them were boys and one of them was way too old (in my estimation) to be in the girls restroom - if they wanted to kiss the girl in the stall next to them. grr. so, coveted zone out moment in the bathroom being over, i left the stall to find mom primping in the mirror and totally neglecting to discipline her kids. she smiled sheepishly at me and offered up her halfhearted apology that went something like - well, kids will be kids. grr. i just glared.

normally we go to bread and cup for granola after our long runs, but since they're not open on sunday we went to the green gateau instead. yuch. i had whole grain pancakes. one of them was totally burnt and hidden underneath the other one (nice try kitchen guys - i worked in restaurants way too long to fall for that) so i asked the waiter for another and he tried telling me they were supposed to look like that because of the whole grains! ha. anyway, i got another, but they were really not very good. i've only eaten there twice and i thought the food sucked both times. so no more green gateau for me. an unexpected bonus at the end of the meal - both cara and i got a free dessert to take home with us, i guess because the manager walked by and happened to see the burnt pancake. i chose the napoleon torte from the lithuanian bakery in omaha. this has always been one of my favorite desserts. when i graduated from high school, i requested one for my cake instead of the traditional frosted 'congrats grad' cake. i can't wait to eat my slice later today.

in the end, a great run on a sunny morning despite the neglectful mother who ruined my moment of silence in the bathroom at the ymca and the less than satisfactory meal at the gateau.

oh, just remembered the best part about today's run. we were heading through the near south neighborhood and both suddenly got very, very thirsty (a word of advice: don't drink beer the night before a long run). the sunken gardens were luckily (we thought) very close by. but the water fountain wasn't turned on yet for the season, and as soon as i hit the button and no water came out, i became desperate for water. there's a church across the street from the gardens. we thought we could sneak into the foyer and get a quick drink from their fountain. but as soon as we opened the front door, people poured out of the sanctuary and looked a bit appalled at the two sweaty spandex clad girls standing in the doorway. cara, looking distressed, explained that we had a water emergency and asked if we could use their fountain. the woman closest to us, also looking distressed, took a moment and then explained that we simply had to cross the sanctuary (not so simple) and would find the fountain in the hallway at the other side. i could almost see her thought process as she struggled internally with 'who do these girls think they are, showing up and interrupting our service like this' and 'but a church is supposed to offer aid to the needy'. so we waited until the church half emptied before we got an opportunity to simply cross the sanctuary. by this time, i was very uncomfortable, mostly because everyone stared openly as they filed past. i felt like i was in the receiving line at a wedding but not dressed for the occasion. we made it to the fountain and drank lustily, then bolted for the door. on the way out, i noticed an old man still seated in one of the back pews, grinning widely at me. he was obviously getting a huge kick out of it. i smiled back and we were on our way.

bread and cup

mom, kate, cara and i had another great post-run meal at bread & cup.

we shared 'the conversation' - a bottle of zinfandel, a delicious porter cheese, wheat baguette, hummus and a tomato garlic spread that can kill your breath for days. we finished with chocolate bread pudding, which i unexpectedly loved. being a traditional bread pudding fanatic, i was wary of the chocolate factor. but the boys and girls at bread and cup, they make a good meal! i'm happy to have them in lincoln.

(p.s. thank you beerorkid. i lifted this image off your site. i really should get a phone with a better camera.)

channel catfish

i am the only blogger who lists channel catfish as an interest! that kind of surprises me. i'm going to develop a very close relationship with these fish over the next two summers as my graduate research is focused on a statewide population assessment of the species. I'm certain my hands will never look the same after so many encounters with their dorsal and pectoral spines!

bum knee blues

the knee is still bothering me and i don't know what to do about it. this is the first injury i've had since i started running 2 years ago. (aside from the horrific knee pain i experienced after running in ill fitted shoes when i was a clueless novice. new shoes were an easy fix for that one) i called off yesterday's recovery run and am tempted to skip my tempo run today. particularly since it's raining heavily and very windy. but i'm so in tune with running every day now that skipping one day makes me feel rotten and skipping two days sounds unbearable.

my nose was running

saturday marked my longest run, pre-marathon! 22 miles, and from here out we taper. i'm glad to have that one under my belt. i've had some knee pain that started mid-week last week, i think stemming from using the rickety treadmill at the days inn in mccook. i should have known better, but after spending 12 hours on the lake the night before, my nose was raw and sore and with the prospect of another 12 hour night on the windy ice-cold water, i couldn't bring myself to spend even one more hour outside than i had to. so, six miles on the treadmill and now a week later i still have knee pain. this photo was taken in late february during an 18 mile run. it happened to be 5 degrees that morning and windy, so it felt like negative 50. it was the only run of this training season that i haven't enjoyed. for the 22 mile run, we were wearing short shorts! and that was very nice.

southwest nebraska

i helped some fellow grad students in the field this week. right now they are stationed in mccook, ne and are studying recruitment of walleye and white bass and walleye spawning habitat in several southwest nebraska irrigation reservoirs. i helped electrofish the shorelines of red willow and enders reservoirs.

during the 4 hour drive from lincoln, i passed through many small towns. in arapahoe, i saw two things of note...

first one, the faded billboard advertising beef. in addition to the lovely image of a yellowed steak it said: 'enjoy beef for dinner. real food for real people.' i wonder who the target audience is on that one. i doubt many people in arapahoe are considering a vegetarian diet, and the town is far enough off the beaten path, it's unlikely any city folk will wander through it.

second one, an unexpected roadside attraction: the our lady of fatima shrine.

aunt lindsey

i have a photo of my aunt leslie holding baby me at the hospital in 1977. here i am holding baby ahriana at the hospital in 2008!