Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Time for Some Cycling Advocacy

From today's Twitter feed from Bicycling magazine- a post on the Bicycling Mag forum:

"Victim in LA driver v. cyclists road rage case asks you to write to the DA today, prior to sentencing: http://tinyurl.com/ye77hl9"

There's an excellent post from Bob Mionske's Road Rights blog on the Bicycling website describing the case.

In a nutshell:

A Los Angeles-area driver (and physician, God help us) harrasses two cyclists, and then slams on his brakes in front of them.  One has a separated shoulder; the other has his face launched through the rear window. And- oh yeah- he's done this kind of thing before, to other cyclists.

He was convicted on seven felony counts stemming from this and another road rage incident. Another cyclist unfortunate enough to have encountered Dr. Christopher Thompson, Patrick Watson, is encouraging cyclists to write to the LA district attorney, Mary Stone, sharing their views on sentencing for Dr. Thompson, which is set to take place in early December.  You can get the information in the tweet above, or here.

FYI, here's the letter that I posted a little while ago: 

Dear Ms.Stone:



I am a 41 year old mother, wife, daughter, physician, and Ironman triathlete. I am a cyclist by choice, and a motorist by necessity.


I am writing to encourage the maximum sentencing for Dr. Christopher Thompson after his felony convictions stemming from a road rage incident which resulted in significant injuries to two cyclists.


This is one of the nightmare scenarios that I often envision before I head out on the road on my bike. My enthusiasm for a ride is tempered by the fear that “today might be the day”. What if that driver doesn’t see me when she’s reaching for her cell phone? What if that driver doesn’t see me before he pulls out of his driveway? What if, worst of all, that driver decides that I don’t belong on the road, that I should be on the sidewalk, and decides to “teach me a lesson”?


It is fact that we are allowed to share the road with motorists- it is the safest way for a cyclist to travel, as it allows clear visibility for both cyclists and motorists. Cycling on the roadway actually makes us less of a hazard, to ourselves and to others, than on a sidewalk or a bike path. It also makes us subject to traffic rules and regulations, which the vast majority of us attempt to comply with.


A large percentage of general motorists are ignorant of a cyclist’s rights and responsibilities, and are uneducated in proper bike-motorist behavior. We in the cycling community are aware of our role in educating motorists, and we know that much more can be done in government to improve and reinforce this education.


Unfortunately, there must also be consequences when motorists ignore existing laws protecting cyclists- as well as laws that not only protect cyclists, but all citizens, from intentional harm caused by another person. Laws which prohibit assault and battery- by any means- on another human being.


What Dr. Thompson did on that road was no different than leveling a loaded shotgun at those cyclists.

I am appalled to think that a fellow physician could fail to appreciate the damage that a moving car can do to a human being riding a bicycle. As both a cyclist and a Medical Examiner, I have seen the very grim consequences of these interactions.

Even more disturbing is the thought that the doctor indeed did recognize the possible consequences of his actions, and chose to act anyways.

I realize, of course, that Dr. Thompson is a criminal. His behavior is an exception to the behavior of most motorists on the road today. Despite their ignorance, most motorists will not attempt to maim or kill a cyclist because they believe that the cyclist is in violation of the law, however false that belief.


The Dr. Thompsons out there frighten me—because I know that one may be out there on the road with me when I ride my bike.


I have to remind myself that there are motorists out there like the trucker who followed my husband home, letting his headlights illuminate the road in front of my husband, who was caught on the road after dark one night, with no way to see well enough to ride home safely. He drove off when my husband pulled into the driveway, before we could thank him.


For the rest of the driving population, for those in between the two extremes above, I hope that the case of Dr. Thompson will draw attention to the challenges that both motorists and cyclists face by “sharing the road,” and highlight the need for increased motorist education. I hope that increased awareness and tolerance will prevent the Dr. Thompsons of the world from attempting to justify injuring or murdering cyclists like me, my husband, or my children-- because our bikes were simply in their way.


I believe that, by giving Dr. Thompson the maximum sentence, other criminals such as him will be given the message that intentionally striking a cyclist on the road can never be justified. “Because they pissed me off” does not justify assault or battery under any circumstance, including having to share the road with a cyclist.

Thank you for your time, and for the service that you have done for the cycling community in prosecuting this case.


Sincerely,

Janna Summerall-Smith, M.D.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

For the Guys in the Boomers:

I spent July 4, 1976, with my family on the lawn at Quinnipiac College in Connecticut, watching fireworks. We went home and watched the Tall Ships in Boston Harbor on the television. I was in first grade, and we commemorated the Bicentennial in my class by staging a musical production about the Declaration of Independence, me costumed in the mop cap that my mom sewed for the presentation.


My husband-to-be-in-the-very-distant-future spent that July 4th somewhere in excess of 200 feet in depth, somewhere in the North Atlantic, on the U.S.S. Nathan Hale, a Lafayette Class Fleet Ballistic Missile submarine. That was the day Allen received his dolphins: the pin with the paired fish that marks a submariner as Qualified in Submarine Warfare-- on the 200th birthday of the United States of America.

(My first true love, by the way, was also a submariner. I was five. He served aboard the Nautilus, whose home port was down the road in New London, and he was my uncle’s godson. He babysat me and my siblings, and spoiled us all rotten. I adored him. I wanted to marry him.)

For me, as a kid, being a submariner seemed glamorous and exciting. And you got to eat all the soft-serve ice cream that you could eat—how great was that?

My submariner-turned-husband Allen confirms the presence of the soft-serve ice cream machine, as well as an all-you-can-drink soda fountain— with no diet drinks. Eating ice cream and drinking sodas as one of your few forms of entertainment doesn’t seem quite as glamorous as I thought when I was a kid.

I guess when I think of those who served on this Veteran’s Day, the image that instantly comes to mind is a soldier dodging enemy fire in some foreign land. The danger, the threat of death, seems obvious and tangible in that mental picture—you can see the bullets and the bombs. The scene is a visual reminder that real men and real women endured much, risked much, and sacrificed much in the course of their duty.

But enduring much, risking much, and sacrificing much was not necessarily limited to those servicemen in real, honest-to-goodness combat situations.

Today, I am thinking of my husband and his comrades aboard those submarines, patrolling the oceans with a full arsenal of nuclear warheads at the ready—whose job it was to stand ready to deploy those bastards if the orders came.

Looking back at the complete f**king insanity of the Cold War, it seems obvious that the policy of Mutual Assured Destruction was, as the acronym aptly describes, completely MAD. First strike capability, second strike capability—reading up on the concepts in Wikipedia made my brain hurt, as well as pissed me off. Make sure you have enough firepower to blow the earth up, so that no one will blow the earth up. Excuse me?

As awful as it seems now, I suppose that it made sense, in some weird way, back then. And the men and women of the Armed Forces did what they had to do to enforce the policy that was believed to be for the greater good.

For the submariners aboard the U.S.S. Nathan Hale and aboard the other Boomers, staying submerged and out of sight with enough firepower to destroy several large cities-their mere existence a deterrent to aggression by the Soviets- was the right thing to do.

They may never (to my knowledge) have been shot at, but they endured hardships, and they sacrificed.

Utter isolation. No sunlight; no fresh air; no windows. Once the last bit of mold off was scraped off the last piece of fresh food, even lousier food awaited. Day and night ceased to exist, except as designated by Greenwich Mean Time. It was boring, and it was uncomfortable. And there was no way off the boat until the captain decided to surface- if you were sick and needed to be taken off, you had damned well better be on your deathbed.

Most importantly, they lived without knowing whether the call to battle stations was a drill or was the real thing, World War III, until after the exercise was over. They were forced to make routine the sequence of events that would bring on the destruction of civilization.

I really think that this was one of the worst sacrifices that they had to make—sacrificing their innocence, I suppose it was. Attaining the grim knowledge of what they had to do when they were instructed to do it….

When the Nathan Hale was scrapped, Allen said that he was happy to know it was gone. He is proud of his service, knows why it was necessary, and is glad that it is not deemed to be necessary any more. The Berlin Wall has been disassembled for twenty years now, and we all breathe easier. I don’t think that my kids will now the terror that many of us kids felt during the Cold War era, when the Doomsday Clock crept closer and closer to midnight.

So, to my husband: thank you for keeping this first-grader in her mop cap, and all her classmates, safe. Thank you for letting me grow up to take my own first-graders to the park to watch fireworks on the 4th of July.



(Note to my five-year old self: you did get to marry a submariner after all.)

Saturday, November 7, 2009

2006 Ironman Florida Race Report, or How I Raced Ironman Florida with Fuzzy Slippers, Hubig’s Pies and the Love of My Life



The day after:  note the pink fuzzy slippers, the Ironman finishers' medal, and (if you can see it) the engagement ring.


Today is  Ironman Florida, in Panama City Beach.  I wondered if I still had my race report from the last time I raced it, back in 2006.  Amazingly, it's still in the Documents folder on my computer.  For fun, I thought I'd post it.  Much of it is "you really had to be there"- lots of references to things that you'd only know if you were there.  Basically, it was cold, it was fun, it was 140.6 miles, I finished, there was lots of barbeque involved-- and Allen asked me to marry him that evening.

Hubig's pies, for those not in the now, are a New Orleans delicacy-- deep-fried turnovers filled with fruit, chocolate or coconut filling.  Check them out here.

The couple of days leading up to IMF were a blast. We had a great condo at the Summit, decorated in bright yellow with fishies everywhere, which proved a great home base for the race. We did our two practice swims in the beautiful Gulf (later, the really choppy not-so-beautiful Gulf), ate pancakes, hung out with our friends, and spent time packing the ol’ bags for the race. At the Summit Beer Blast, following the Beer Run, on Thursday night, we were given a handful of Hubig’s pies from our dear friends, straight from New Orleans, LA. Biggest decision was what flavor to put in which special needs bag ( I went with Pineapple for the bike, Apple for the run).



Weather forecast started looking a little dicey for race day--- breezy and cold ( at least for us Floridians). So I took some excellent advice and got myself a cheap pair of shoes to wear on the beach in the a.m.—fuzzy pink slippers with hearts. Best $4.88 I ever spent.


Race morning was COLD!!!!! Holy crap!!!!! Body marking was an ordeal- didn’t want to take my warm clothes off. Allen and I finally got into our wetsuits and shlepped down to the beach—him braving the cold, me with wetsuit, pink hat, gloves and fuzzy slippers! Sadly left the fuzzy pink slippers with our buds right before I entered the water (and the hat and gloves, of course).


Having never raced in the Gulf, I was not aware that the conditions actually sucked. I saw a stingray in the sand- that was cool. I made it through the swim fairly uneventfully- got knocked in the chest once by someone breaststroking—then into the changing tent—


I am sure I overdressed for the bike, but I am a big wuss when it comes to the cold. The Zipps were a little hard for me to handle in the crosswinds coming off the beach. The headwind, combined with the hills, was torture, but I knew there was a tail wind somewhere waiting. The tailwind was great, albeit brief.


I caught my bike special needs bag like I was a pro in the peleton, but then almost lost it and the bike- wheel went out from under me. Caught my balance again, then pulled over for the PIE!! Woo-hoo!!


I knew I had left the water before Allen, but didn’t see him catch me. Most likely he got me around mile 70- I had to stop and stretch our my foot and relieve the pain caused by a neuroma—I saw his bike in transition and was HAPPY!


Left T2 looking for Allen- cheered on by all the peeps on Thomas Drive. Finally caught up to him around mile 6-7—he was around 10 minutes ahead of me at the turnaround. I told him to go on and I would try to catch him….. which I spent the rest of my run trying to do.


Slow and steady run for me—nothing world class, but I was running when a lot of people around me were walking, so that made me happy. Didn’t recognize many people out there, but I see lousy in the dark.



Finally, rounding the corner at around mile 25.5, there was Allen, walking and waiting for me!! We rounded the corner and went in together, though a few seconds apart from each other so we could have our own finish--- I jumped up into his arms at the finish, alarming the volunteers who thought I was going to knock him over!


Apparently the whole thing was on the ironmanlive.com video feed, because we’ve been getting calls and emails that say that people have seen us smooching at the finish line!


The plan was for a big finish-line BBQ party with all our friends at midnight, but the cold weather, wind, and exhaustion had dispersed most of them. So we picked up our bikes, balanced our bags on top of them, wrapped our blankets around us and went back to the condo.


Later, after getting cleaned up and with me dozing on the couch and looking out at the Gulf, Allen told me he had something to give me- an engagement ring! The answer was YES!!


Next day, our friends came over for BBQ pork sandwiches, beer and champagne for our engagement party…..


An incredible weekend…..thanks to all our friends, family, volunteers and complete strangers who have encouraged us on all these months. I’d nearly given up, and dropped out of the race, a couple of times this season, with family and health issues. But I persevered because of the support that I received; the fact that I was now raising money for a great cause by racing; and that I knew that Allen would be waiting at the finish line for me…

Thursday, November 5, 2009

I'd rather go through childbirth again than.....

This is a big weekend in the triathlon community. Ok, maybe not for those triathletes returning from the Ironman World Championship in Kona, but for a lot of my buddies. There are at least two big iron-distance races this weekend, including Ironman Florida, in Panama City Beach. The Big Dance, we call it—a party with 2000 of your closest friends. A 2.4 mile ocean swim, 112 mile bike, and a 26.2 mile run. It is an extreme test of physical and psychological strength and endurance.



Discussing the upcoming event with Allen last night, I was contemplating my future in iron-distance racing. I commented to Allen that “Ironman is like childbirth—once you forget how bad it hurts, you’re ready to do it again.”


Later, as a seasoned veteran of both experiences, I began to consider their other similarities and differences. But, most importantly, I tried to come up with an answer to the question: “which is easier—Ironman or childbirth?”


My initial assertion: “Pshaw! Finishing Ironman? Try pushing a 9 pound baby out through a very small (and very sensitive) place. Now that’s hard!”


But, being a Libra, I am open to looking at both sides of an argument. So I have compiled a short list of the positive features of each event. I will let the facts (according to me) speak for themselves. I will leave it to others to draw their own conclusions.


Why Having a Baby is Easier than Racing Ironman:


1. You can eat as many Twinkies as you want in the weeks before the big event.

2. You get to lie in bed to do it.

3. You only need to push: you don’t have to paddle, peddle, or shuffle.

4. You don’t have to pay to do it (you just pay for the rest of your life).

5. You are allowed outside assistance.

6. No PowerGel.

7. You actually want  medical treatment.

8. The finisher’s award is way cooler.



Why Racing Ironman is Easier than Having a Baby:


1. You look way shittier after having a baby.

2. PowerGel tastes better than hospital food.


3. Much more crowd support.

4. You can actually sleep through the night in the days after the big event.

5. You are encouraged to keep moving, even while
wearing monitoring devices.

6. (Hopefully) not as messy.


7. You get to buy cool toys for yourself, in addition to buying them for someone else.


8. Being chafed down below really beats the alternate scenario, if you know what I mean.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Terrible Beauty





We call these "signet ring" cells, because they look like rings viewed from the side.  Pretty description, pretty cells-  bad, bad cancer.


And it’s back to the Chinese Buffet for more Fortune Cookie fodder. Fortune cookies, I am learning, are a great source of inspiration for blog posts, when life seems too mundane to discuss, and when the brain seems to be lacking in wisdom to dispense.

Today's fortune:

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”

_________________________________________________________________________________


During the course of my workday, I frequently pop into my colleague’s office with a glass microscope slide in my hand.

“Look at this. It’s beautiful,” I’ll say.

It is invariably a cancer of some sort.

Cancer cells are basically cells that are growing on their own, who refuse to listen to the body’s signals and that invade into the normal tissue that surrounds them, get into the bloodstream like seeds carried by the wind, to land somewhere far away and grow more cancer. Mean, nasty cells.

Cancer shouldn’t be beautiful under the microscope. It should be ugly, and hurt your eyes to look at. It should be a great big blob of gray mush. But it’s not.

Under the microscope, cancer is pink and purple, because those are the colors that we use by convention to stain the cells so we can see them. Pink for the outside of the cell, the cytoplasm, and purple for the core, the nucleus. Pretty pastel colors, like Easter eggs.

Normal cells, cells that aren’t cancer cells, look like each other. They are orderly, and respect their neighbors’ space. Cancer cells, however, can be arranged in a marvelous array of patterns: swirls, whorls, bundles. They can march all over the microscope slide in straight little lines, and encircle nerves and blood vessels. They can make stars, bursting out into the tissue (cancer, of course, means “crab”- these crablike projections, these starbursts, are very characteristic of many cancers). The cells themselves can assume all kinds of fantastical shapes and sizes.


Pathologists, the ones that I know, acknowledge the fact that the things we find most attractive under the microscope are often the most deadly. The mass of long, spindly cells that have arranged themselves almost like the sky in Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” is a sarcoma, a tumor of muscle, nerve or fat, a tumor that has grown deep inside the patient’s tissue, sometimes reaching massive sizes before they’re found— discovered too late to stop the tumor cells from traveling into the lungs, or the brain.

I think that we pathologists also ask “why?” Why does “Starry Night” have to be such a horrible disease?

“Why” made me a pathologist. I wanted to know, needed to know why a person was damaged…why their lungs couldn’t take in air….why their heart ultimately stopped. I wanted to be able to trace it down to those cells down there, to the ones with the messed-up DNA. There. That’s why.

But some of the “Whys” still evade me. Why pretty cells make ugly diseases. Why wonderful people get ugly diseases.

Why don’t I know? Why can’t I know?

I must accept that all of my “why”s will not be answered.

I believe that it’s not meant for me to know.


Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone- while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? (Job 38: 4-7 (NIV))

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

That's Incredible!


I have hesitated to write the race report for the Everest Challenge on September 26th at Animal Kingdom, because the final scene has me a great big wet soggy dripping mess crossing the finish line of the race. This is not an attractive picture.

Oh, yeah, and we were dressed as The Incredibles.

We did battle with Mother Nature and the Walt Disney Corporation that night (I am not really going to knock the Walt Disney Corporation in this post, because I am an acknowledged Disneyphile, and Walt Disney World is the Happiest Frigging Place on Earth (HFPOE), which I will keep telling myself, even after this experience).

The Incredibles, as you may remember from the Pixar film released in 2004, were a family of superheroes forced to disguise their superpowers to appease a public hostile to superheroes. But, of course, bad guys force them back into action, and an entire family of superheroes- Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, Violet, Dash, and baby Jack-Jack -- prevail against the evil Syndrome.

I do not remember whose freaking idea it was to race the Everest Challenge dressed as The Incredibles. I reluctantly confess that it was probably my idea. I did, after all, race the Florida ½ Ironman, also at the HFPOE, in a rhinestone tiara.

Racing The Everest Challenge was most certainly my idea. An “Adventure Race Lite” at Animal Kingdom: a 5k run, followed by a little obstacle course (ha) followed by a scavenger hunt within the park.

I convinced Allen that this was going to be WAY more fun than all of the other triathlons--that we probably should have been doing that weekend—put together.

I was determined to spend my birthday weekend in the HFPOE, being feted by Mickey Mouse- and also getting in free to EPCOT, where I could eat escargot and drink too much at the Food and Wine Festival. I wanted to partake of a nice Spanish cava, rather than a gallon of green Gatorade (the only REAL Gatorade, if you ask me).

I was so determined to achieve this goal that I downplayed the fact that riding the Expedition Everest roller coaster and having to climb up a rope ladder- my two least favorite activities- may be involved in this race.

Violet and Dash decided to sit this one out. Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, however, prepared themselves for the challenge: we didn’t train, fine, but we worked really hard on our costumes. “No capes,” of course (as per Edna- see the movie), but some red shirts with a big “I” on the front, and black masks from the Halloween department at the WalMart. I produced some black opera gloves that I was saving for Prom this year- Allen wore his bike gloves. “Pink” and “Choco” Incredible- a nod to our secret triathlon identities.

The weather was a go: only a few clouds off to the west. We were a go: costumes in place. We headed off to the parking lot at Animal Kingdom.

We jumped out of the truck in our superhero costumes.

We were surrounded by teams of two in running shorts and singlets, lithe young competitors in matching Nike outfits with coordinating running shoes.

“I bet you there’s gonna be a ton of people dressed up for the race,” I had assured Allen when we registered for the race. “It’s Disney, for Heaven’s sake.”

There were age-groupers warming up, running up and down the parking lot (this is typical of age-groupers—every race, even a race at Disney, has the potential for age-group glory—and hardware).

What there weren’t were any fellow Superheroes, Mickey Mouses, or Tinkerbells. Not a single rhinestone tiara in sight.

What was going on? Crap, even up here in the backwoods of Georgia, we have a local runner who races in a Mexican wrestling mask and cape. I don’t think he has a real name—the race results only list him as “The Masked Avenger.”

(Libby/Violet, reporting from the start line a couple of hours later, saw some runners in kilts, and a pair in pink fuzzy wigs—she was trying to convince herself that there were other dorks racing, besides her parents.)

Now, I am not one for notoriety: a blog read by two members of my immediate family causes me some measure of self-consciousness. And, here I was, Elastigirl. (The kids attempted to draw and quarter me, by the way, to see if I would stretch. No dice.). And we were attracting more than a little attention. I began to rethink this whole thing.

But I considered the situation: I had on a mask. No one knew who I was. Even though everyone was looking and pointing and cheering and taking photographs, I was anonymous! I could be an Incredible! I was an Incredible, by gosh!

So I joined Mr. Incredible, the big ham, waving to the crowd and posing for photos. And, inevitably, we were interviewed by the local radio station:

“And I see we have The Incredibles racing today.”

(We acknowledge our fans.)

“So: what have you done Incredible? Have you swam The English Channel? Climbed Mount Everest?”

“We’ve done six Ironman triathlons between us.”

“You guys are nutz!”

Mr. Incredible announced that tomorrow was my birthday.

“And you’re making her wear that?” the announcer shot back.

The Incredibles smooched as the race began, after which the announcer remarked that she had suddenly developed seven cavities. And off we went.

It was Incredible that we even finished the race. About 6 minutes into the race, we were locked in an epic battle with Mother Nature, who, I am pretty sure, emptied the contents of a nearby water tower onto our heads. We slogged through calf-deep water and on to the obstacle course, where Mrs. Incredible confronted her arch-enemy, Acrophobia, on the top of the rope ladder. Mr. Incredible came to her rescue, and we forged on.

Amazingly, our brains were still functioning, and we headed off on our scavenger hunt. I was sucking the water out of my gloves in order to get a grip on the pen, but we prevailed, once again, against the menacing Brain Fog that was threatening to overtake us.

We raced to the finish line, expecting a superhero’s welcome: instead, we found a few soaked volunteers, some bananas, and the news that the race had basically been cancelled due to the weather.

(Of course, this also meant…..Everest was closed! No roller coaster! Woo Hoo!)

And so it went. The Incredibles returned back to obscurity, not revealing their true identities to the general public. Our epic struggle against evil retreated into memory.

But, when the world of Multisport is in peril, we will suit up again and once again prepare to do battle: against our old foe, Mother Nature, against The Obnoxious Age Grouper, or the Overzealous USAT Official.

Or maybe I’ll just slap on a pair of Mickey ears and take my chances.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Trek Women's Triathlon Race Report and Assorted Musings

My first triathlon, ever, was the Danskin Women’s Triathlon at Walt Disney World, in May of 2003. I was absolutely terrified.

When my feet stopped touching the bottom of Bay Lake, and I was suddenly swimming under my own power, I panicked. I couldn’t breathe. The fumes from the motor boats standing by were overwhelming me. I flailed around and turned back and started heading back to shore. But I turned around again, caught my breath and swam on.

The medal from that race reads “the woman who starts the race is not the same one who finishes the race.” I totally agree with that. When the announcer called out my name at that race, congratulating me, and saying the words “you are a triathlete!”—that memory is even more precious to me than Mike Reilly calling out “you are an Ironman!”

Wow. I wasn’t just a runner anymore. Do you see that word, ‘-athlete’-- in the word ‘triathlete’? I was an athlete. I never thought that I’d consider be one, but here I am today.

Not only athlete, but triathlete. And now, not only triathlete, but Ironman.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a women’s-only triathlon: a few years ago, before I became an Ironman for the second time.

The last women’s-only race I did, the Danskin Women’s Triathlon in 2005, was a super huge big deal for me. I was lucky to be racing at all at that point, in the midst of divorce drama. I had to jump through hoops just to get to the start line at that race. I tore it up that year, too—I was a serious bad-ass.

“How do you like me now?” I thought to myself back then. “Two years ago I thought that I was about to drown in Bay Lake— now, I’m flying out of the water and onto the aerobars, whizzing through the turns in the back lot of the Magic Kingdom, nearly puking as I hit the finish line after the run (that’s when you know you’ve had a real good run)”.



I wasn’t feeling like such a bad-ass at the Trek Women’s Triathlon a few weeks ago. I had plantar fasciitis. I had a sprained ankle from a motor scooter crash; my leg was still scabbed over, and now I’d developed a fear of two-wheeled things. I was fighting a pretty significant weight gain, secondary to the conditions described above.

And I was scared. Scared? Me, a two-time Ironman, afraid to race an all-women’s sprint triathlon? At Walt Disney World, of all places? How much more benign could it be?

My training has been nowhere near what it used to be, and my races have been few and far between. So I began to imagine all kinds of horrific race-day scenarios.

Would I get too tired on the swim, and have to backstroke to catch my breath (this would be almost too embarrassing for words to describe for me)? Would I bust my ankle running to transition? Would I clip in wrong on my bike-- and crash-- or touch wheels with someone--and crash--or take a corner too sharp--and crash? Would my left leg finally give out and refuse to support my excess body weight and cause me to collapse in a heap in the middle of the run course?

So there I was, with a very nervous stomach, standing on the shore of the lake shortly before the race start. I felt dumpy in my Ironman tri suit. I felt like I didn’t deserve that pink m-dot tattoo on my right shoulder.

And then I was in the chute with the rest of the purple caps. And there was Sally Edwards, always my heroine, giving us our Magic Words: “I am a gorgeous swimmer”. We repeated it, with the accompanying swimming motions: “I (stroke) am (stroke) a (stroke) gorgeous (stroke) swimmer!” (Husband says that a girl came running out of transition with her bike, proclaiming “I am sexy!” I can guess what her magic phrase was….) Lib and her friend practiced this for the rest of the weekend in the Fort Wilderness swimming pool: “All together now: ‘I (stroke) am (stroke) a (stroke) gorgeous (stroke) swimmer!’”

The Magic Words did the trick. I relaxed, and high-fived Sally, as I had seven (wow, seven) seasons ago, and hit the lake.

Bay Lake was beautiful, as Disney lakes always are. The water was a translucent green, and warm. It even tasted good, when you end up with a mouthful full of it from the girl flailing around and trying to breaststroke next to you.

It started to get fun for me again. I decided that I wanted to simply finish the race today, the same as my goal seven seasons ago.



My favorite part of all-women’s triathlons is the swim. No one swims over you; you don’t get your goggles knocked off, or get a foot upside your head. What you do get is a woman who bumps into you, stops swimming, and says “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do that! Are you ok?” Your reply: “Yes, thank you very much. I’m fine. Are you all right? Go on ahead of me, ok?”

The swim is usually the scariest part of the race for newbies. For a ‘seasoned veteran’ (I use the term loosely) like me, it’s the damned bike leg. Especially in a race full of newbies, like this one, the bike leg is hairy (even if our legs are not).

You call out “on your left!”, and that’s immediately the direction that they aim their bike. They ride two abreast; three abreast. They ride on the left. They block. They swerve. You name it. Add to it the usual treacherous segments of every Disney triathlon—the back lots, heading out into the open road—and I always have visions of potential disaster.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t so bad this year. I found only one pair of women riding side-by-side—which I (not so) gently attempted to remedy.

I made it back in without incident, always grateful to have my feet on solid ground (if you know me at all, that is my triathlon philosophy: just get your feet moving back on solid ground, not kicking them or peddling them, and you’re home free).

My run was a combination hobble-hop-jog affair, but it sort of resembled a run. I surprised myself. I understood the fact that this would lead to some pretty severe pain within the next few hours—but I was running, by God.

My cheering throng of supporters (all three of them) was waiting for me at the corner of the finisher’s chute. The announcer got my name wrong, which happens approximately 93% of the time when I cross the finish line. The finisher’s medal, this year, was a silver-plated chain and tag, which also doubled as a really nice piece of jewelry (smart race directors), and which I wore with pretty much everything the rest of the weekend.

I didn’t pay much attention to my finishing time-- I finished around the middle of the pack. My swim time was… what my swim time always is, and always will be. My bike time was lousy, which I attribute to being a chicken-shit on my tri-bike, and taking the corners too slowly (I hadn’t ridden the Cannondale in a while, and forgot that tri-bikes are meant to go in a straight line). My run time really wasn’t too bad, considering everything.

(All right. I will admit it. You caught me. I told you that I didn’t care much about my finishing time and my splits, but I was really checking them on my BlackBerry a couple of hours later, on the ferry boat, on the way to lunch. Come on- I am a triathlete, after all.)


It’s good to be at races like these, these women’s triathlons full of novice triathletes. When you see the final finishers limp in, but still beaming from ear to ear, you remember why you do this in the first place: triathlon is fun. Triathlon demonstrates to those nervous and insecure women that they really are more capable than they believe themselves to be. Triathlons like these remind us ‘seasoned veterans’ how far we’ve come, and how much farther we can still go.

And women’s triathlons like these help me to remember that I still am “gorgeous” and “sexy”, even though I think that everyone is watching the cellulite jiggle on my thighs, and snickering that my butt looks really big in all of that Lycra.

Lycra does make your butt look big.

So what?

Lycra’s comfortable. It dries really fast, so you don’t get on your bike dripping wet after you come out of the water after not actually drowning, like you knew that you were going to do when you thought about it before the race.

And Lycra goes really well with that shiny new triathlon finisher’s medal that you’re wearing around your neck, and those race numbers on the back of your calf that you are going to “accidentally” forget to wash off until after you stride into work on Monday in your skirt and high heels.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

A Reverie of Sorts

Sandwiched between the usual Sunday “what are we going to eat for dinner” and “where did I leave my cell phone this time” and “what are you planning to wear for school tomorrow”, a small slice of serenity.

The afternoon was supposed to entail a 24 mile bike ride, a short kayak jaunt on the lake and a bucket or two of balls on the driving range. Peace and contemplation did not seem to fit anywhere into this plan, but it was going to be fun.

Unfortunately, although I had brought beautiful Ruby Opal to ride, I had forgotten the helmet, gloves and shoes necessary to ride her. I banged my palm on the side of the truck in frustration. This was the second time I managed to leave the house half-assed in about as many weeks. For all of my bitching and moaning about the pain in my calf and my fatigue, I was really looking forward to the ride. Another Sunday ride shot, and my butt getting bigger and bigger in my bike shorts.

“Change of plans,” Allen decided after we parked over by the lake. “We paddle around. We go hit golf balls. It’s stupid to drive all the way back to Waresboro for your stuff.” A somewhat surprising declaration, considering that Allen is most definitely In Training for the end-of-season races, and really needed to get some miles in.

When we put the kayaks in the water, there were still a few speedboats and Jet Skis flying back and forth across the “lake”, really just a dammed up creek which was transformed into a long, skinny pond with iced-tea water. It’s really just fine: room for boating and fishing and paddling and birding.

Lib and I took our turns first. We hadn’t been out on them for a few months, and it was evident. We spun in circles and whacked into each other a few times, and paddled a little ways down and back by the shore.

Libby had enough adventure for one afternoon, and retired to the picnic tables to sit and reflect, Libby-style, by texting her best friend for the next hour.

By now, the sun was moving down toward the end of the lake, and the power people had departed for the afternoon. Allen and I ventured to the other shore. I wondered what the end of the lake looked like, because I’d never seen it, so we paddled down the middle of the lake toward the far shore.

This is the kind of kayaking I like- the quiet kind. These particular kayaks are not well-suited for whitewater or anything aggressive like that, so usually we paddle out past the waves in the ocean, or down the quiet part of the Chattahoochee River, or in this lake.

There’s no noise coming from the shore; the only sound is the small splish of the paddles a they hit the water. It’s quiet enough that, even with Allen twenty feet ahead of me, we can still carry on a conversation.

We paddled past the giant land yachts and the CCC-built cabins at the campground, over to the grassy border of the bird sanctuary. Sure enough, there was a flock of egrets heading that way, with one stray bird following behind. We surmised that this must be the Whiny Nerdy Bird: “Come on, guys, wait up! Geez….”

We somewhat reluctantly headed back to shore, not wanting the reverie to end, but not wanting to miss Sunday Whack-A-Ball over at the golf range. If we didn’t get back there soon, we would be playing what we affectionately call Sonar Golf— we can’t see where the ball is going, but we know it’s a good one by the sound it makes leaving the head of the club, and how long it takes to hear it plop down range.

We had brought a watermelon to the lake, a home grown one that is a source of great pride for me. I’ve never been able to grow more than a handful of tomatoes and two cucumbers in my life, but I had six of these beauties this year. Allen chopped off big hunks for all of us for a quick fix before golf.

We sat by the edge of the lake, our feet almost in the water, and dripped watermelon juice down our arms. Allen and I spit the seeds into the lake; Libby carefully picked hers out of her piece because she claimed that she was unable to spit watermelon seeds with any accuracy, and was embarrassed.

As I am prone to reflection at times like these, I pondered the origin of the watermelon. Who thought of eating these things? Where did they come from? We contemplated the possibility of finding wild watermelons somewhere—somehow, this didn’t seem a likely scenario.

We were covered in sticky watermelon juice—Allen dunked his entire self into the lake to get rid of it. We packed up the rest of the watermelon, as well as the rind—I intend to make watermelon pickles for my next adventure in canning—and headed over to the golf course, We indeed ended up playing Sonar Golf, which is actually much more fun for lousy golfers like us.

I realize that my butt will be too big to fit on the saddle if I don’t get back on the bike soon, since running is out for the moment. Kayaking is not much of an aerobic workout, even though, of course, we tried to make it one. The afternoon was a spiritual workout, really—training to quiet the mind and put aside the busyness of life. Watching the dark water pass by, and getting yourself sticky with home-grown melons on a late summer afternoon.

Friday, September 4, 2009

The Wednesday Ride

I've recently joined an online writing site, Writers Village . I've taken some good courses, both peer-reviewed and facilitated. I did one recently based on the book by Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way. One of this month's classes is "Writing the Memoir", based on Your Life as Story by Tristine Rainer. Since I love personal essay (like, duh, because most of what I post here is just that), I hope to get some good stuff out of it.

I thought I'd share my homework for this week-- nothing profound, just a few thoughts about The Wednesday Ride:


Allen and I ride bikes every Wednesday, after work. “After work” is a loosely applied term, which means “we hope to get out there and get some miles in before the road turns completely black in front of us because we never bring our headlights and the only light we get is the light that shines on our backs as the headlights run up behind us.”

The usual Wednesday ride take-off point has been at the intersection of US-1 and Swamp Park Road, parking in the grass beside the road in front of the train tracks. Sometimes, when we’re setting up our bikes, a freight train comes by, and we have to plug our ears with our fingers to muffle the deafening horn.

This parking area is where the Crazies hang out before and after the ride: a group of guys, cyclists, who spend an hour in a pace line at speeds in excess of 23 miles per hour, attempting to shake each other off the tail of the group. They stand around in the parking area in their flip-flops and spandex after the ride, swilling Gatorade and ribbing each other about their prowess, or lack thereof, in cycling—and elsewhere.

We don’t hang out much there lately. As much as I enjoy the trash-talk and machismo, I have never really been able to keep up with those guys, so I end up riding alone. It’s getting hard for Allen, too—and he’s finally reached the point where he doesn’t want to keep up with them—it just hurts too much.

So we park at the State Park down the road, which has actual bathrooms and a real parking lot. We get there in the evening, and the pavilions and playground that surround the lake are deserted. It’s quiet, and we have the whole park to ourselves.

We have our Wednesday Ride ritual: we pull the bikes off the rack on the tailgate of the truck, and complain about how much our bike rack sucks. We air the tires on our sleek carbon road bikes, the tires making a quick “pop” when you pull the pump from the tire valves. I pad around in my socks, trying to avoid the rocks in the parking lot, as I collect my (very smelly) bike shoes, glasses, and helmet with my (also very smelly)gloves tucked inside. I put my shoes on next-- I love the sound the hard cleats make when they strike the pavement. I check my water bottles, bike computer, and the tires one more time. I buckle my helmet and slide on my gloves, and then hop into the saddle.

If you’re not a roadie, you probably don’t know about clipless pedals, bike pedals which attach to the soles of your bike shoes, this rendering you one with the machine. I do not particularly like to be rendered one with the machine, because I hate to fall over like a bug when I can’t unclip my shoes fast enough, but they do allow you to ride strong and fast. So-‘click’- we’re clipped in and on our way.

The Wednesday Ride must follow this exact route: it’s the law. We must take a right out of the park and onto the road. We wind past the lake and over the dam, past the bass fishermen, up the hill and around the Camp for the Blind. We coast down the small hill to the golf course—if I’m very lucky, we stop in to the pro shop and pick up some tokens so we can hit a bucket of balls at the driving range later.

Then the ride begins in earnest. By now, the afternoon has started to cool off, and we speed up, past the pine trees on either side of the road. The Wednesday Ride always smells like pine trees.

Then we get to the hairy part of the ride: crossing the four lanes of US 1, with its fast-moving tractor trailers barreling towards the interstate a few miles away. I shift down to the little gear so I can stop if I have to. Allen rides circles at the side of the road while he waits for the trucks to pass—I think he’s nuts, and I worry about him falling into the road. I breathe a sign of relief when we’re across the highway, across the train tracks, and onto Swamp Park Road.

Swamp Park Road is named, appropriately enough, after Swamp Park, the little Okefenokee tourist attraction, with its boat tours of the swamp, and its abundance of alligators. We love Swamp Park Road because it’s devoid of cars, flat, and fast. If you are so inclined, you can haul butt, rocket to the entrance of the park, spin around, and rocket back- unless, of course, there’s a head wind.

But, sometimes, we don’t rocket through the place. The Big Fire, which burned in the Okefenokee Swamp a few years ago, and nearly took the town with it, burned the pine trees down. The smoking trees were horrible, but what grew in their place is strangely beautiful. You can see for miles—nothing to impede your view but grass and bushes and the occasional lone Georgia Pine. So we stop, and just look, and are thankful we’re in the Okefenokee Swamp on a Wednesday evening, and watch the blue herons and the red-tailed hawks.

By now, the sun is starting to get very low on the horizon, and I am beginning to get nervous, because I hate riding in the dark. So we pick up the pace, dodging the odd snake crossing the road.

We work together now, intent, and silent. I draft off Allen so I can ride faster, and therefore get back to the truck faster. We spin past the park entrance, down to US 82—the route that must be followed; it’s the law, remember—and then swing back.

Now it is most definitely getting dark, and I am cursing under my breath and swearing that this is the LAST time I will ride this late—EVER—and I can’t believe how stupid this is and try to see the road using the last of the light coming from between the trees.

Finally—we coast back into the parking lot, and do our ritual in reverse. Helmet off, gloves off… but this time, it’s in the dark, and I sometimes can’t see my hands in front of my eyes.

And then we’re finally in the truck, cruising down those same roads that we just biked on, headlights on, back into town, to the Wal-Mart, to the house, to dinner, onto the couch, and then into bed, very tired.

We’ll be back again the next Wednesday, and I will have still forgotten the headlights. So we’ll ride until it’s dark, through the summer and into the fall, until the darkness falls so early that we won’t even have time to get the bikes off the rack before we won’t be able to see. We’ll wait out the winter, and when it’s finally light enough after work, we’ll be back for our ritual Wednesday Night Ride. And my riding will be slower and more tentative after the winter, I am sure, but the road and the Swamp will still be there for us.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

More and Harder?

Awesome article in the Wall Street Journal today. The article focused mainly on over-50 athletes who struggle to balance their competitiveness and the effects of aging on the body. That need to stay competitive often times leads to overtraining, which leads to increased stress on the body and injury—and I would add that it becomes a vicious circle after a while. Your performance declines as you age; you train as hard as you can to try to fight the decline; you over train and get sick and injured; you train even harder, until you end up a burnt-out mess.

Lots of other good stuff in the article, and a plug for Mark Allen and Brant Secunda’s book, Fit Soul, Fit Body. I’d like to read that.

I have not reached the aforementioned milestone age quite yet, but the article did get me thinking about my own fitness life. This one comment caught my attention in particular:

“A study published last year in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine reinforced other recent research showing that intensity tends to diminish the view of physical activity as pleasant.”

I suppose that it’s a no-brainer: suffering sucks. It hurts. It’s no fun.

It really hit home for me the other day, out for a quick 24 mile ride in the late afternoon. I always seem to be in training for something or another; therefore, I need to push it, to work, to get that lactate threshold up. It was beautiful out in the park- the sun was beginning to set, the air was cooling- and I was in freaking high Zone 3.

I realized that it was getting old, fast—the sufferfest that triathlon training often is. I wanted to slow down, to enjoy the air, to enjoy the feeling of my body in motion. I just wanted the ride to not suck.

I’ve been a triathlete for a number of years now. I have wanted to train hard, to set high goals for myself, to PR, to finish another Ironman, to score an age-group award. But the overuse injuries have begun to creep in, namely, a really bad case of plantar fasciitis. I get really tired of hurting during workouts.

And I think that the hurting leads to burnout. The “view of physical activity as pleasant” is very much diminished.

Here’s my confession: the burnout is beginning in my own life. It’s my own vicious circle: I have a burning need to be competitive. I am not a natural athlete. I have to work my butt off to be competitive. I get injured because I work my butt off. Training starts to suck. I have to back off. It gets even harder to be competitive, because now I’ve gained weight and lost fitness. So I have to work even harder. I get frustrated, and fatigued, and the injuries linger—and the burnout begins.

And, of course, I am a triathlete: you know, “Swim. Bike. Run. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.” This is what I know; this is what I do. Without that structure in my life, and in my fitness, I lose my bearings. And I end up doing a whole lot of nothing.

So there it is. I’m burning out.

But, like every obsessive Type A overachiever triathlete out there—I have a plan. I am going to actually synthesize the points in that article and embark upon a new course of action. Here it is:

1. I am going to take to heart Allen’s credo: “It’s not my day job.”
2. I am going to stop racing and training in pain, and address the overuse injuries.
3. I am going to try to be a participant for a while—not a competitor.
4. I am going to try to branch out from “swim/bike/run”—even if it’s just “swim/mountain bike/trail run.” Hey- it’s a start.
5. When it’s fun again, I will set reasonable triathlon goals for myself, and be competitive to the best of my abilities.

And I’m going to learn to have fun just moving again—belly dancing, hooping, jumping rope with the kids, hiking….

My favorite Nike running shirt says “Walking is not an option.” After careful consideration, I am going to rethink that assertion. Maybe I’ll just put on my running shoes and take a walk, and see what’s going on in the world today.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Your Kid's First Tri: Do's and Don'ts

Ben did his first triathlon this weekend: 75 yards in the Y pool, four laps around the ¼ mile track on his bike, and then 2 more laps running. He rocked. He was proud of himself. He got a medal, as did all of the other kids who finished the race.

After the race, he ate lots of bananas and claimed to be too tired to do anything other than watch TV the rest of the day.

The New York Times website ran an article today on kids’ triathlons, examining their increasing popularity and their associated risks (discussing their benefits: not so much).

Judy Berman, a contributor to Salon.com’s “Broadsheet”, commented on the Times’ article in today’s blog. One of the gems in the commentary was the following:

“…There is something distinctly disturbing about inducting preschool-aged children into a sport that, according to the Times, saw 14 deaths in official USA Triathlon-sponsored events between January 2006 and September 2008.”

I will discuss this assertion, as well as others contained within the articles, in a subsequent post, after I have finished gluing my head back on, because it’s about to blow off the rest of my body.

As pissed off as I am about the misinformation and erroneous conclusions contained within these articles, I do have to agree with some of the observations about The Triathlon Parent . These are triathlon’s equivalent of The Stage Parent. These are the parents that ruin it for the rest of us, and give our sport its sometimes bad rep.

From the Times:

“Robert Jones, race director of the Silicon Valley event, got an e-mail message two years ago from the mother of an 18-month-old, asking if her child could take part in the triathlon. He refused..”

I have witnessed years of egregious behavior from parents at kids’ triathlon. Sadly, I have committed a sin or two myself before I saw the light.

So, Multisport Parents: for the benefit of your little newbie triathletes, and to preserve the reputation of the sport in general, I present to you a list of the Do’s and Don’ts for your kid’s triathlon. I shouldn’t have to be telling you this stuff, but I understand that we just can’t help ourselves sometimes, and that we have to be reminded that we are behaving like idiot poser loser parents who are living their unfulfilled lives through their children.


Don’t show up with the tri bike tricked out with aerobars, a disc wheel and a set of Speedplays.

Do bring the bike with the streamers and the playing cards in the wheels.

Don’t call out split times, how many minutes he’s behind the leader in the 8-10 year old division, or how far he’s behind his brother.

Do leave your watch in the car.

Don’t unrack his bike, re-rack his bike, or tie his shoes—stay the hell out of transition altogether.

Do let him do it himself, even if transition takes twenty minutes and he leaves with his helmet and shirt both on backwards.

Don’t run with him, because you don’t think that he can do it alone. Trust me. He can. He should.

Do jump up and down, cheer, holler, take pictures, hold signs and wave pom poms-- by the side of the road.

Don’t critique his performance. No tips on how to improve his swim technique, transition time or run split. Period.

Do make sure he wears his medal to school on Monday. And try not to wash off the body marking, when you wash off the dirt.

Don’t immediately start him on a training program for a sprint triathlon. Kids’ triathlons exist for a reason. It’s because they are too young to do adult triathlons, and kids shouldn’t be “in training” for shit.

Do make sure he chills out and has fun. Triathlon is a big accomplishment, sure, but it’s also supposed to be fun- yes? It’s why you do it- I hope? You’re encouraging your kids to tri to get them off the couch and moving and running around with their friends and fostering a life long love of the outdoors and health and fitness- right?

I hope that you are nodding your head in agreement-- you agree that triathlon should be fun. If you, however, feel that your kid should learn that triathlon is a metaphor for life and is an exercise in discipline and the pathway to a glorious athletic future—kiss my ass, you idiot poser loser parent.

And a message to your kids from me: get out there, have a blast, get sweaty, get dirty, get a medal, and stick all of the leftover bananas at the refreshment table in your pants for later.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Snakes Alive!



Six compelling reasons to mow the yard here in Waresboro:

1. Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake
2. Pygmy Rattlesnake
3. Canebrake Rattlesnake
4. Copperhead
5. Water Moccasin
6. Coral Snake

These, of course, are the six venomous snakes found in Georgia.

It is venomous, not poisonous, by the way—venomous critters inject venom; poisonous critters harm you when touched or ingested. I have a favorite rest stop in Interstate 95 in Florida, around St. Augustine (work with me, here). There’s a huge chain link fence around a little pond, and a big sign that says “Beware of Poisonous Snakes.” I guess Floridians don’t know the difference. And they obviously didn’t consult my favorite Park Naturalist, my stepdaughter Jenni Smith, who has educated me about venomous snakes.

I’ve gotten to the point where I can admire and appreciate the little bastards, but, still: NIMBY. Not in my back yard, baby. You can demonstrate your beautiful markings and show off your gargantuan dimensions, but do it when I am zipping by you on a bicycle, please.

I have been surfing the University of Georgia website tonight, hoping, please, please, please- don’t let that be a Water Moccasin that I almost stepped on when I went out to feed the chickens this evening. Please let it be something fat and brown and non-venomous. Like a Brown Water Snake. I think that I’ve convinced myself that it is a Brown Water Snake.

I would have taken a picture to share, however:

1. I am sane.
2. I was too busy being horrified, screaming and fleeing for my life, to get my camera out.

Allen, however, shares neither of these traits. This is why we have some spectacular pictures of the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake that came to visit when Libby was mowing the lawn last month.

When we returned from vacation, our lawn was way overgrown. The snake was happily slinking through the deep grass and minding its own business, more or less, when Libby happened upon it with the John Deere.

Libby did not scream in mortal terror, and only sounded mostly alarmed when she hollered for Allen to “Come here!”

“Are you bleeding?” I called, even though it really didn’t sound like the cries of a bleeding child. But I had to check, because she faints at the sight of blood.

“There’s a rattlesnake!”

This got my full attention. It was time to go help save Libby. This is what we moms do, even moms who are terrified of snakes, when their child is threatened by a rattlesnake. We would stomp on its head with our bare feet if we had to.

I was not sure what to expect when I got to the side yard. Libby had made herself as small as humanly possible on the seat of the lawn mower, feet curled under her. She pointed over to the unmowed lawn. “There! Can you see him?”

“No….”

Yes.

“Holy sh**!!” (I really need to stop swearing around my children).

I saw him, all right. At first, only his tail with the rattles was apparent, and then he slowly slithered into sight. I don’t think that a snake that size can move other than slowly. He was heading back towards the woods, and wanted no part of us. He tried to look as unobtrusive as a three-foot Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake could, as he slithered back over the lawn. “Just act natural,” I could hear him think to himself.

So we got Allen. And we got Libby off the seat of the lawn mower. And then we got Ben. And then we got the camera. And then Allen got the camera. And then Janna started screaming at Allen: “What are you, an idiot? Get away from that thing! What are you doing so f***king close to the thing? It’s going to bite you! I am going to be a widow! No! I do NOT want a close up picture with the macro lens!!”

Ok. I was over-reacting a bit. He meant us no harm. After watching him for a while, I think that we all realized how magnificent he was. Ophiophobe (that’s a person who is severely freaked out by snakes) that I am, I nevertheless didn’t want to see it killed. However, there was no denying that he could be big trouble for a lot of creatures on our farm. We were torn.

So we feigned trying to dispatch it: we went into the house to get the shotgun, but-wouldn’t you know it - the trigger lock was on, and we weren’t sure where the key was, or whether we had the right shells….

And-- wouldn’t you know it—when we got outside, he was long gone, back into the pine woods. I’m sure that he’ll stay there, as long as the lawn stays short.

The lawn is a little shaggy again, which explains the Better-Not-Be-A-Cottonmouth that I saw slithering into the grape arbor this evening. Thank goodness Libby will still mow the lawn; however, she demands that Allen perform a “snake check” of the perimeter before she heads out there. Venomous creatures have not dissuaded her from her most lucrative money-making operation—she is a teenager, after all.

Monday, August 10, 2009

I have my white lab coat on today. It's long- down past my knees- and has long sleeves that I roll up to keep them out of my way. Hospital logo on the right side, my name and my specialty over the left breast pocket.

These days, it's uncommon for me to be wearing my lab coat- it's pretty laid-back here in the department. I've never ever seen the other pathologists in one. I usually wear mine only when I'm cold.

But I love my white coat. It feels like home when I wear it.

I remember the first time I put on a white coat-- early into my 1st year of medical school. I walked across the breezeway at Jackson, and noticed that people acted differently to me when I wore it. I felt set-apart, somehow. It was a strange feeling.

I went through a second-year rebellion against my white coat. It seemed much more sexy to see patients in my street clothes, with a stethoscope draped around my neck. Besides feeling like a big shot, I could see the point in that attire-- less stressful for the patients. No "white coat hypertension."

However, the white coat became an essential tool in the latter years of medical school- the 3rd and 4th year clinical rotations. It was a long white briefcase/filing cabinet. A friend weighed himself one day on the wards and discovered that he was 10 pounds lighter without his coat on.

At any given time, a medical student or resident's lab coat would contain the following:

- The requisite stethoscope, draped around the neck or coiled up in a deep pocket.
- A flashlight. Hopefully. This was often essential, but most of us either had lost it or it ran out of batteries.
-A wide variety of pens-mostly from drug reps- the Viagra pen was the most sought after...-Sharpies, highlighters, pencils, rulers
-Various and sundry plastic calculators- also from drug reps- to calculate everything from due dates to visual acuity.
-Test tubes, extra syringes, needles, IV lines, gauze, suture kits, band-aids
-Paper, paper and more paper--lab results, lists of patients and their vital signs, notes scribbled on napkins, spare order forms, lecture notes, to-do lists. Paper bulging out of every available orifice in the lab coat.
-Hand sanitizer
-Pocket versions of the most essential medical texts, for reference: The Washington Manual, Merck, Pocket Cecil's, Pocket Robbins (for us pathologists).
-Money (hopefully), IDs, cafeteria vouchers, pictures of the kids that we saw infrequently during those years.
-Pagers. We might have two or three at any given time. Numeric pagers, voice pagers, walkie-talkies.

Obviously, the more pockets your white coat had, the better off you were.

In some medical school traditions, the length of your lab coat corresponded to your status. A short white coat as a medical student and intern, and the full-length coat reserved for the upper level residents and attendings.

I am wearing the full-length version, and have been for 10 years now. Hard to believe it's been 10 years since someone called 'Doctor!'--- and I realized they were talking to me.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

How Things Work in My New Hometown

After work, we had to head over to a family event (a viewing, sorry to say) where we met five church members, two of Allen’s co-workers, and about fifty family members. I subsequently learned that Allen is related to basically the same families on both sides, via a family tree that looks somewhat like the wisteria that winds through the trees in the yard. This one had a sister who married the brother of the aunt on her paternal side, who was married to someone else on her maternal side, and his cousin is also his nephew…. My head spins considering this. I am going to draw myself a diagram for further reference.

After the viewing, we head over to a local restaurant, where we see our auto mechanic (who is now basically a family member since we see him more than we see our own family, thanks to the Corvette) and his wife eating dinner. We sit next to a large table of high school students, two of which are in Allen’s class. Our waitress graduated from another high school, but her boyfriend is the stepbrother- well, not exactly the brother, but a friend of the family who lives with them who basically is a family member- of a kid in Allen’s class, who, incidentally, told Allen that he “talked like a girl” (to which Allen replied: “You look like a girl.”). Now the boyfriend of our waitress also had Allen as a teacher (and said very nice things about him and his class). And our waitress is also the babysitter of one of the doctors who works with me in the hospital. And, no, he doesn’t own the late-model Corvette in the doctor’s parking lot, as I had speculated.

Anyways, the owner of the red Corvette is still a mystery, though I expect to meet the sister of the wife of the husband who works in the Emergency Room who heard from a nurse that the doctor who drives that car is….. my husband’s cousin.

Editorial Comment:
On a serious note, I’m sick of hearing about how stifling small-town life is. As humorous as I found the incident above, I see it in a different light after I read about the gunman in Pennsylvania who, according to reports, blew away half of a Latin Cardio class at his gym because he was bitter and angry that he was rejected by women his whole life. We can never say that “it can’t happen here.” But I suspect that he wouldn’t have been so anonymous and marginalized here in Wayx. Instead of a lone blogger, broadcasting his hatred of women and his detailed plan for revenge into the black hole of cyberspace, he’d be “so and so’s weirdo cousin that we had to call the law on back in July because he was talking crazy sh**”

Friday, July 24, 2009

Janna, Allen and The Green Fairy



La fée verte. The Green Fairy.

A mystique surrounds the drink that earned this moniker: absinthe.

Bohemians. Hemingway. Absinthe houses. Art. Literature. Hallucinations and madness.

I had to try it.

One of the ingredients in absinthe is wormwood (other ingredients include fennel, and the anise which helps to give it a very distinctive scent and taste) which contains compounds (thujones) once thought to produce mind-altering effects- described by some as a “clear-headed drunkenness”. This theory has subsequently been debunked- most of the mind-altering effects of absinthe were actually caused by consuming large quantities of the high-proof alcohol. However, many enthusiasts still ascribe a unique sensory experience to the drink, whether from the ingredients of the wormwood or due to the other herbs in the mixture.

Absinthe was banned in the early 1900s in the United States, due to its purported negative effects. It was finally allowed to be legally produced and imported in 2007, after a very long hiatus, with the restriction that the drink must be thujone-free (damn- I hope that the other stuff in absinthe will do its magic).

The additional history, social effects, and culture surrounding absinthe are fascinating, but too complex to discuss here. However, I will describe my personal experience with the stuff, which is not nearly as complex.

Allen gave me a bottle of Lucid (one of the first absinthes imported into the United States after 2007) for Christmas. It is contained in a beautiful dark bottle with two green cat eyes imprinted on it. Along with the absinthe, there were two traditional absinthe glasses, and a silver absinthe spoon.

We spent months trying to find the perfect time which to drink it. No occasion seemed special enough to celebrate with absinthe. Finally, one night last month, I just opened up the bottle. We celebrated the time-honored absinthe ritual in the kitchen of the house in Waresboro.

This was not exactly what I had envisioned: sipping the drink in some sophisticated setting, and enjoying deep and meaningful conversations as the effects of the absinthe descended upon us. But we don’t seem to have any absinthe houses in our neighborhood. And, anyways, we were feeling adventurous that night.

I managed to clear a spot on the kitchen counter, and placed our two new absinthe glasses down (A little additional trivia: absinthe glasses have a characteristic shape- the bulbous part at the bottom hold the requisite amount of absinthe, while the top part of the glass holds the ice cold water). I found the box of sugar cubes that I had saved for the occasion. A few were missing- the kids apparently like to snack on them. I searched for an appropriately elegant carafe from which to pour the ice water. All I could find was a Mason jar. The prospect of preparing absinthe with a big jelly jar cracked us up, and we had to take a picture (see above).

Having assembled all of the necessary implements, the ritual commenced. I placed the slotted spoon over the glass, set a sugar cube on top, and slowly dripped the ice water from the Mason jar over the sugar cube and into the glass containing the absinthe. It wasn’t perfect, but the liquid turned a cloudy opalescent greenish color- the classic louche , which brings out some of the flavors of the drink that have been overpowered by the anise, and looks really cool.

We approached the mixture with trepidation.

The aroma: definitely a lot of anise, and other aromatic herbs that I couldn’t readily identify.

We raised our glasses and drank. We looked at each other. We took another cautious sip.

I finally spoke up and stated the obvious: the stuff tastes like shit.

This must be the well-kept secret of absinthe drinkers. How were we supposed to get this down? No refined sipping for us. We just shot the stuff in one great big gulp.

We thought that perhaps that we had made an error in preparation on the first go-round, which may have accounted for the foulness of the mixture. So we made another attempt. This time we used more absinthe and less water. I dripped the water more slowly over the sugar cube. The result seemed a bit better this time. This may have been due to the additional sugar cubes that I finally dumped into the glass; it could also be that the effects of high-proof alcohol on two relative teetotalers were beginning to take effect.

Although we began to think that the drink might actually start tasting good after a glass or two (or three or four) more, we elected to retire to the couch to contemplate absinthe’s magical effect on the senses. Instead of “clear-headed drunkenness”, we fell dead asleep on the sofa, the cat dozing between us.

The epilogue to this story is similarly anticlimactic. In order to counteract the “potency” (my nice word for the fact that it tastes like crap) of the absinthe, we used one of the drink recipes supplied with the bottle: the Mint Muse (below). Allen liked this concoction; I was unimpressed.

I am still open to enjoying absinthe, and I am committed to enjoying it in the traditional way, as I am a purist. However, I am thinking about trying the famous “Death in the Afternoon” cocktail (below) - any drink concocted by Ernest Hemingway deserves attention.

So I do hope to receive a visit from The Green Fairy at a later date. I will keep you posted.


__________________________________________________________________



The Mint Muse (From the Lucid website)

1 1/2 oz. LUCID®
• 2 oz. Pineapple juice
• Muddled mint leaves and lime wedge
• Topped with Sprite or 7-Up
• Garnish = mint sprig

Muddle 6-8 mint leaves with the lime wedge along with the LUCID®. Add ice, the 2 oz. of pineapple juice and shake briefly. Top with Sprite or 7-up and add the mint sprig.
This name is a play on "The Green Muse"

Death in the Afternoon (From http://www.blogger.com/www.absintheonline.com)


“A recipe verified in the 1935 humoristic celebrities' cocktail book titled 'So Red the Nose, or Breath in the Afternoon' edited by the famous journalist and author Sterling North and Carl Kroch. Hemingway wrote: "This was arrived at by the author and three officers of the H.M.S. Danae after having spent seven hours overboard trying to get Capt. Bra Saunders' fishing boat off a bank where she had gone with us in a N.W. gale." It seems highly unlikely that Hemingway would have drunk this concoction if given a choice. In most cases the mixture ruins both ingredients, which would have annoyed him. In this case, they most likely took advantage of the mixture to ward off the effects of a bad day in rough water, as champagne was considered a sea-sickness 'cure'. A lighter absinthe is best, such as the Pernot distillery's White Fairy. - 1 jigger of absinthe added to a champagne flute- Add iced champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness.”

Saturday, July 18, 2009

National Ice Cream Day!

July is National Ice Cream Month, designated by President Reagan in 1984. Sunday (how fitting), July 19th is National Ice Cream Day! A celebration is in order: make mine a hot fudge sundae with lots of hot fudge and whipped cream, a maraschino cherry, and no nuts, thank you.

So, in celebration of this wonderful holiday, a few brief comments on ice cream and some really good recipes for home made ice cream:

According to Wikipedia, frozen treats have been around for centuries. Ice cream, however, seems to have first appeared in the 18th century in England and in the Colonies. Making early ice creams seemed to be a pretty laborious process, due to the complexities of obtaining sufficient ice. Therefore, it was served only on very special occasions. It is believed that Dolly Madison served ice cream at her husband’s inauguration.

Ice cream didn’t take off until the nineteenth century, when improved ice cream making techniques, such as the hand-cranked ice cream freezer, were introduced. Ice cream reached its world-wide popularity with the advent of refrigeration.

Ice cream has played a vital role in the dietary history of my family for decades. My mother has been most central to this history, as a serious ice cream addict. Hot fudge sundaes were allowable meal substitutions in my family. My mother possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of the location of every ice cream shop in South Florida, and will frequently substitute a hot fudge sundae for a more traditional meal. I frequented many ice cream parlors in my youth. Each of the stores, of course, had their own unique flavors and presentations, from Jaxson’s Kitchen Sink (dozens of scoops of ice cream with a bunch of toppings and a heap of whipped cream, served in an actual kitchen sink) to Carvel’s flagship dessert, Fudgie the Whale (check him out- he’s a South Florida icon).

My early attempts at home-churned ice cream have been less-than-stellar. The finished product has been a disappointment: slightly watery, grainy, not-so-flavorful. It seemed like a whole lot of work for not much.

In my older age, though, as a brand new retro farm wife, I have decided to give it another go. It seems like the right thing to do at the farmhouse in the summer: churn ice cream. Making ice cream seems to go along with growing a garden, putting up preserves, and raising chickens.

I started all over with a brand-new Rival ice cream maker, purchased at WalMart for about 20 bucks. The first attempt was a test run, using a prepared cherry vanilla mix and whole milk. Much better than I have ever made before, but nothing like I wanted. So I headed back to the cookbooks and the Internet.

Ice cream generally comes in two varieties: Philadelphia-style, which is made from milk and cream and sugar and no eggs, and French or custard style, which contains eggs. I opted to try the latter, as it is supposed to produce a smoother, richer dessert, as the eggs emulsify the mixture and make it very smooth.

I learned a few tips about ice cream making:

- ­ Be careful about the rock salt and ice mixture, as too cold produces a bad result, and too warm won’t freeze right
- Any milk or cream should be heated to just below boiling point, because it produces a smoother product
- Always add salt, to counter the sweetness of the sugar
- Cook the ice cream mixture down for a few hours in the refrigerator before freezing to produce a better ice cream

Success! I churned the ice cream for around forty minutes, and pulled out the dasher (the part of the churn that does the mixing) to reveal a beautiful, smooth, pale yellow concoction. We all fought over licking the beater! I let the ice cream ripen in the freezer for a couple of hours, and we enjoyed the result with waffle cones.

Here’s the recipe that I pulled off www.allrecipes.com for Old Fashioned Vanilla Frozen Custard and used for my masterpiece. I highly recommend it. The booklet that comes with the ice cream freezer has some great recipes, too. I gleaned the ice cream making tips from Cookwise, by Shirley Corriher, which has some great recipes and really good food science information. I love the book.

Note: instead of whipping the cream and adding it to the partially frozen mixture, I just went ahead and added it to the cooked mixture. I froze the mixture in the ice cream churn, of course, not the freezer.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup half-and-half cream
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS
In a heavy saucepan, combine first three ingredients. Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened. Cool. Pour into chilled ice cube trays without dividers or a shallow pan. Freeze to a mush (do not freeze hard). Whip cream; add vanilla and salt. Fold into partially frozen mixture. Return to trays or pan and freeze.

Have a good holiday, and let me know how your ice cream comes out!

Monday, July 13, 2009

The Meaning of Tri

As far as triathlon goes, I am in what I like to call a “rebuilding year.” I have plantar fasciitis, and my foot needs some serious rebuilding before I can continue comfortably in the sport. My training and racing this year has been minimal.

My love of the sport, and the triathlon lifestyle, remains, even as I sit on the sidelines. Triathlon, for me and for many others, has its own mystique.

Why the mystique? It’s a question that I’ve often considered. What is it about the sport that attracts us? Why do we do it?

The easy answer, of course, is that most of us in triathlon are uncommonly driven, and the extreme endurance needed for the sport provides the challenge that we crave. But there’s more to it. Tennis is challenging; swimming is challenging. But what is it about triathlon, specifically the race itself that catches our attention and imagination so much?

In short, for me, triathlon has been about celebration and commemoration. The extremeness of the sport, besides attracting us Type A’s, leads athletes to ascribe special meaning to the endeavor. We use it to celebrate life and important milestones in our life; we use it to punctuate and commemorate special moments.

This very subject was also of interest to the people at Mindset Triathlon. They sponsored an essay contest on The Meaning of Tri, exploring the topic. The winning essays were posted in an e-book by the same name. Somehow, my take on the topic was selected as the winning entry. It’s also been published on the USA Triathlon website, if you want to take a look.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Fortune Cookie

I have to confess: I am not a big fan of Chinese restaurants. Especially the kind of Chinese restaurants that proliferate here in the South. Buffets laden with fried-whatever layered in sweet or salty-whatever sauce and served up with a big bowl of starch. Although very satisfying after the hard Ironman workout, the Chinese buffet, for a not-currently-in-training triathlete like me, is poison.

However, I do like fortune cookies. I reason that fortune cookies are the healthiest choice on the Chinese food menu. And unlike many people, I do actually eat the fortune cookie. And I usually eat everyone else’s fortune cookies after they get their fortunes, too. They are probably flavored pieces of cardboard shaped into a “C”, but they taste just fine to me.

I am usually more concerned with eating my fortune cookie than actually looking at the fortune inside. They rarely seem insightful to me. I do, however, enjoy the adult party game of adding “… in bed.” to the end of a fortune cookie fortune.

But I have been thinking about the fortune that I saved recently. It ended up in the pocket of my shorts and, amazingly, didn’t get incinerated in the dryer.

“You could prosper in the field of entertainment.”

If you add “…in bed” to the back of that one, I suppose it suggests that I should make a career move to adult entertainment.

The fortune is tacked up on my desk at work. I don’t even remember when I tacked it up. I noticed it when I was attempting, with little luck, to think of a name for this blog. I wasn’t getting anywhere. But I looked at my bulletin board and, there it was, pinned on top of all of the doctors’ phone numbers and other notes that I keep handy.

“You could prosper in the field of entertainment.” For some reason, the stupid little piece of paper with the winning lottery numbers on the back has caught my attention.

So, as all good scientists do, we will place this fortune under a microscope to ascertain its hidden meaning.

One of the definitions of “entertainment” in The Random House Dictionary is “an agreeable occupation for the mind.” Well, for me, the most “agreeable occupation for the mind” is writing.

I have been writing ever since I could hold a pencil. I wrote my first “Dear Diary” entry at the age of seven. January 1st detailed that I was happy to receive the little white leather diary, with “Diary” written on the cover in gold letters, for Christmas. (I was really more excited about my new white figure skates, though, because I believed that I was destined to be an Olympic figure skater like my heroine Dorothy Hamill.)
I’ve filled notebook after notebook with journal entries, poems, short stories, essays.
That stuff was mostly for my amusement. Few eyes other than mine ever saw it. It’s been an avocation for thirty-odd years now.

So, obviously, this “entertainment” business must be about writing. Ok. We have it half figured out now. Back to the dictionary.

We now analyze the word “prosper:” “to be successful or fortunate, esp. in financial respects; thrive; flourish.”

Another confession: it is my not-so-secret wish to quit my day job and make a gazillion dollars writing for a living.

So, obviously, this fortune is good news for me and I should send in my resignation and get comfortable in my pajamas at my desk at home.

However, being a scientist, I am a skeptic. I’ll keep the day job for now.

My belief is that fortune cookies, like Tarot cards and horoscopes and palm reading, are little windows into the psyche. Through them, we view our wishes and our worries.

“You could prosper in the field of entertainment.” I really don’t want to be a gazillionaire novelist. I just want to put the words out there. Thrive and flourish in my “agreeable occupation of the mind.”

Here is my fortune cookie.