Sixty-six

FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK.  The big race is tomorrow and I'm beside myself with anxiety. I know it's silly to be so nervous but I can't help it. Not to mention we stayed out till two a.m. last night,  rockin' with Roger Clyne.  So I feel like an egg McMuffin Kathy Bates just shat out and can only hope I get a good night's sleep and can call on all my four months of hard work in the morning.  Why, why would I sabotage myself like that!?  I don't care, it was so fun I wouldn't trade it for the world. Plus, we got to meet Rog and take pix and stuff before the show because Jay went to high school with Tom Sullivan, who runs the bar. ( Does anyone not know a Sully who owns a bar?) Finbar loves this band and was completely pissed he couldn't go. Mike asked him if he wanted a souvenir from the show, and Finny said, “Get me Roger’s phone number.”

Buying and subsequently putting on the band t-shirt always seems like a good idea when you're full of gin. But you know what?  The minute you send your date out to put the shirt you had been wearing into the car, which is parked three miles away, you realize that you're a complete asshole.  And instead of the band thinking, "hey, she's wearing our shirt, we should befriend her," they're just scared. 

 I have to focus on my race. RACERACERACERACE. Please think of me tomorrow morning when you're eating cocoa puffs and watching cartoons. I'll be battling carp in Lake Nokomis.

Sixty-seven

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooo sore.  I'm so stinkin' sore it's a wonder I can type.  My fingertips are the only part of me that don't hurt, with the exception of the one I slammed in the window last night at one a.m. because it was so sticky I couldn't sleep and I had to turn on the ac. When I finally did fall asleep, I dreamed monsters were chasing me. 

The big race was super fun.  I'll definitely do it again.  Of the group I was with, the only one I beat was the 49 year-old who's had two knee replacements.  Next year, I'm definitely going with a different group. 

I had a good three hours to sit around stewing in my nerves after I checked in.  The race officials booted everyone out of the transition area at 8:30, and my wave didn't go till 11:13. 

When they finally pushed me into the lake, I immediately swam off course and the life guards had to fish me back over to where the race was.  That made me laugh and I swallowed a bunch of  lake water.  My rabies shots begin today. My transition was terrible, I spent too much time chatting and squeezing water out of my hair.  Then I forgot my gloves and actually went back for them. How stupid!  Plus,  I know this is a lame excuses, but if you have an old creaky bike, it doesn't matter if you're Greg LeMond.  Fatties who hadn't seen daylight in years were wizzing past me on super cool bikes.  I should've run way faster, but by that time, well I was just really hot.

So I had that whole, 'yay I did it we're all winners'  feeling, but truly the most gratifying part of the day was spotting this fella from high school (who had been too cool to talk to me back then,) and seeing how doughy and disgusting he'd become.  Now that's a REAL self esteem booster.

I have to go to church.

 Sixty-eight

We've all had a little bug of some kind,  I spent last weekend in bed.  We were supposed  to go to a pool party, so Mike took the bigger kids and Molly and I stayed home.

I could tell Molly was getting sick, too, because she started acting deliberately naughty so I'd put her in bed. She suddenly just yelled out, "Penis!!"

Now, I don't want her to think that's a bad word, but c'mon, there's a time and a place, so I said, "Molly, we don't need to hear that right now."

"Penis!"

"Molly, STOP."

"I want poop!  I want pee!"

I swear to you.  They never just say, "Please put me in bed, I feel sick."  Then I thought, what if she has Tourette's? I mean, if you had Tourette's but didn't know any bad words, would you just yell out the ones you thought were the naughtiest?  She hasn't done it again, though, so hopefully not.  And we're all better now.

We're having our big summer sale at the store this weekend, so Mike's been working his heinie off.  He was so tired when he came home last night he literally couldn't move or speak, so I made cookies and he watched Head of State while I read my new EW.  I'm mad they dropped Joel Stein, that was my favorite part. So  Russell Crowe's blaming his girth on his latest role. Nice try, fatty. It's funny how all the roles you choose just happen to be about people who are tubs. I know, I used to love him, but then Colin Ferrell was invented. 

And now summer's almost over..........we were thinking about some sort of end of summer trip, but we couldn't really work it out.  Instead, we're going to book us all tickets to Phoenix for Thanksgiving. I may or may not do another triathalon this weekend.  I was e mailed pictures from the last one, and they're so beastly my only real motivation to do another one is to get a better picture. 

Sixty-nine

Last Monday morning, we all trooped over to Victory Memorial parkway for a 10k run and fun run for the kids.  Meg got nervous at the last minute and decided as long as she got the t-shirt, she didn't really feel a need to actually run, but Finny was all over it.  Gun sounds, he takes off like a bat out of heck, but is so busy watching his shadow he ran completely off the course and got lost for a second.  By the time he looked up, he was basically in last place.  We could see him in the distance, slowing to a walk for a while, but I'm very proud to say he pulled up his boot straps and ran in hard, passing the little snot nose in the diaper at the shoot.  He was so happy!

School started Tuesday, and it was a good week. When asked how he like the first day, Finny said, "It was AWESOME!!" Who'd you eat lunch with? "EVERYBODY!"

His teacher told me yesterday he told the whole class about Elvis, and for show and tell next week, he's been practicing 'Down Together' on his guitar.

Meg loves her teacher, too, and she had a friend over after school last night.  This new schedule is great, they get home early enough to actually get to play and do stuff before dinner. It's been weird having only Molly at home, and the first day when I put her down for her nap, I looked around, dishes were done, laundry was put away, couch was callin'........that's right, I fell asleep.  For an hour. You know when you wake up and you’re all panicky like "Uuuuhh! What? What am I supposed to be doing! What's happening.."

Totally weird. I felt so guilty and decadent. It's like eating ice cream before dinner.

People are screaming. I have to go upstairs. 

I'm going to Las Vegas in three weeks, Yay!

This has been a weird week.  Really bad in the human relations department, to the point where last night I was ready to just crawl under the covers and cry.  First, I got in a huge phone fight with a witchy receptionist at my children's doctor's office.  Then I got yelled at by some woman whose dog was dumping in my yard while I watched.  Then, I bounced a check, setting off a chain reaction of  all my money flushing down the john.  I called the bank to try and stop the hemorrhaging, and the lady on the other end of the phone said, "We don't open until nine o'clock."  It was 8:58.

Funny how they can't help you when it's not during business hours, but checks can fly on through your anemic account any damn time of the day and night. So I was feeling discouraged and hypersensitve anyway, and Molly and I went to the grocery store. 

A deli worker was standing outside smoking a cig, and juuuuust as we are a fraction of a foot past him, he said all sarcastically, "Hello." So I had to turn and do the flustered, "Oh, hi, hey I didn't see you there, ha ha," but he'd already made up his mind that I was a huge bitch.  And of course, when it's time to go order some lunch meat, who do you think is back on the clock? 

I was also at a party and a girl there said she saw me running past Turtle bakery and yelled out 'hi', and I gave her a dirty look.  I've never run past Turtle bakery in my life.  I told her that and she clearly thought I was lying.  I've been informed by others that there is an evil Katie running around town, (For the record: I am not  the evil Katie.  I’m the good one. Oh, quit laughing, I AM.  If you were sick, I would so consider making you soup.)  Evil Katie’s been spotted several times at the Y and other places.  Wrecking my good name.  

I got a haircut, and it's terrible.  I said Jennifer Anniston, and I got Joey Ramone. I can either pull it into a top-knot for the next six months or cut it all into a short bob, the haircut of car-pool moms everywhere. And to top it all off, Meg tells me she hears sounds in her head that scare her.  Now, on the scale of Things You Don't Ever Want to Hear Your Kids Say, this is right  above "I'm boning my gym teacher."

On further prying, what she really meant is she gets these bad headaches.  They started the first day of school.  We took her to the doctor last night, and he said what Mike had already figured, stress.  Plus she might need glasses.  I, of course, was convinced she either had a brain tumor or was John Nashing out but without the freakish math talent.  Poor kid. But she actually likes the idea of glasses.  I think she saw a picture of Hillary Duff wearing them.