you say creek, i say crick

as you may or may not know, we love to walk back the crick (that would be "creek" in non-philly terms but i have never pronounced it that way). L refers to this as our "therapy sessions" while i refer to it as a "ward-off". either way we are saving lots of money by not needing to visit a psychologist (sorry, catherine) with the added benefit of exercise. it's a WIN, WIN, no?
since we are often back the crick at a specific time we pretty much run into the same people every morning or afternoon, depending on when we are able to go. for instance there are the 6 very friendly african-american, older gentlemen we meet at our halfway point, their starting point. there is the sweet man, eric, with his beautiful dog (i forget what it is: very large and very white) who shall remain nameless because i have no retention skills...it's like tag, toggle, target or something like that. laura will remember. there is the woman who walks a bajillion miles to take her children to school then runs who-knows-what on the trail. the woman and man with their dogs who kick-ass running; they put us to shame.  one of our favorites is the man who cheers on his dog at the top of his lungs when he runs. he.is.sheer. awesome. and, of course, our pacer. we "fight" him to the end. Laura loves loves loves him.
there are also the one-timers...like the man taking his python for a walk (around his neck!), the man who had his son next to him on another bike with a rope around his chest to keep him going. i'm pretty sure he received the toughest workout ever that day and the car full of young, reefer-reeking males...in which case we turned around.

and then...there is the "bbr" otherwise known as the big boob runner.
she is a very friendly, very much older woman who has the most enormous chest you've ever seen. and they are quite obviously fake.  and, AND this is why she stands out more than anything: she never wears a bra. ever. every morning she runs by and greets us with a little nod and smile and we, of course, smile back, then cringe when she passes by.
honestly? i'm a DD cup or E depending on the make. and my girls need to be supported. they can't be swinging to and fro freely, not even during a fast-paced walk let alone a leisurely jog.
they hurt my back.
they make sleeping at night on my tummy not very comfy.
my bras look more like therapeutic wear than those cute, itty bitty, victoria's secret beauties.
they are "dense". i love that they have this reputation.
they are estimated to weigh 10lbs. awesome.
i've had 5 mammograms now; it's amazing how those suckers (yep, intended) can be manipulated.
most of all? i haven't been able to go bra-less since i was about 18 and even then i was a runner and it was not a great idea. so i just don't get it. not at all.

2 weeks ago i took my kids to our dentist (who is the cutest thing ever and has completely ridden my fear of going to the dentist!) for their cleaning. i was sitting in the waiting room reading a book when this woman came out of one of the rooms. it was the "bbr"! i immediately texted laura to let her know. i almost didn't recognize her with her winter coat on, her hair down.
unfortunately there is more to this story but HIPA exists.
i did think of "bbr" the other day while at old navy looking for a shirt to walk in. i found one. it's super cute with a little zipper for my keys on the side. it's pink, matches the strip on my yoga pants and fits like a dream! oh, and it has nice little cups fashioned, even for dora and dorothy, my girls. i like to support them wherever i go.

Just a few observations here:

The white dog? No idea what kind it was, it was a rare breed that i cannot remember, but the guy's name was Andy. Andy and Tag. 
Also, you totally forgot the awesome older gentleman who tips his hat to us when we see him. What ever happened to manners like that? I love him. Sigh.
The pacer? I wish he'd never come back. I dislike our pacers immensely. Why do we need to have pacers anyway? I say we don't.
The car full of pot-smoking men? That stared you down? Alarming and enough to make us turn around and head for home. No messing around with that.
The woman who walks her kids to school every morning, nowhere near Valley Green then passes us on the trail 30 minutes later?  She's hard core. We call her the Matrix Lady (actually another friend's nickname for her) because she's always decked out in all black from head to toe. Seriously. Hat, gloves, jacket, tights, shorts and sneakers. I have since realized that she is a parent at my son's school and that my kids have another nickname for her as they do for most of the other parents that they see each morning. (I love their sense of humor.) But we won't discuss that here.  Things have a way of coming back to me and that's a tad too close to home.
And, yes, BBR. No, amazingly, she does not wear a bra. She wears a teeny-tiny tank top. That's it. For real. Not to mention that they are about three sizes too big for her frame. Unbelievable.  Doesn't that hurt?? Was she at the dentist because she knocked her teeth out whilst running?
And your shirt? Adorable. Too cute. Even in pink. And that's saying something.


But I will conveniently ignore the middle paragraph complaining of your dense girls. I have no sympathy for you, none whatsoever. I am the teenage girl who's grandmother would tell her every time she saw her not to worry, that eventually I would "blossom", but in the meantime there were exercises that I could do to help them along. Or the twenty year old who was told that when I had babies they would "come in" (I mean, what are they? Udders? Testicles that haven't dropped yet? Geez).  The twenty-eight year old informed that after my babies were born, when I put on a little weight they'd "show up"(it's magical how and when they appear apparently) but for now they have these "cutlet things that you can put in your bra to fill it out a bit".  As I am now 39 and could easily go bra shopping in the same department as my 13 year old daughter, as well as am virtually interchangeable with my brother when I cut my hair short, you can take your supportive minimizer and, well, you know...


For now, I will continue to perpetuate my delusion that I have a supermodel's frame and can still fit into those size 2 jeans that I rocked before babies. That's healthy, right?


L

25 Tidbits of Information

ok, to help you gather a little more information, a few more details about who we are, we decided to make a list of things about us that might prove interesting.  i mean, aren't you all dying to know more about us?? we know. it's riveting. just thinking of you guys. and you're welcome.

1. i dislike rodents. but only certain kinds : mice and rats seem to be ok, it's the gerbils, hamsters and guinea pigs that i hate.


2. when i was 5 one of my hamsters ate the other during the night. i awoke to the carnage the next morning. shall we go back to number one?


3. i believe in ghosts, aliens, creationism and evolution and i see no conflict in this. bring it on.


4. i jumped off of a cliff and into the sea while in hawaii just to say i did it.


5. i'm afraid of heights.


6. i once had to be rescued by a lifeguard in the middle of july on ocean city's beach. as an adult. humiliating.


7. i'm so grateful that i've been able to stay home with my kids while they were little. but while i love being at home, if i don't get out of the house at least once during the day i get cabin fever. can't do it.


8. after spending the last _ yrs home with young kids, i have now become completely addicted to taking naps.


9. my brother likes to say that when we were young, i pushed him on the ice, making him fall and hit his forehead on the ground, resulting in 5 stitches. he slipped.


10. i want to learn how to play the piano, speak russian, do the tango, fly a helicopter, restore art, bind books and analyze handwriting. i'd better get moving.


11. i have several stories that i've begun writing which are just sitting and waiting for me to finish them.


12. i love books. i get attached to the books that i read and want to keep each and every one. i do not lend them out and will never give them away.


13. i have so many books that i have run out of shelving space.


14. i have recently realized that some of my most favorite things are those that remind me of my grandmother. bright red cardinals, sweet, hot tea, old board games, toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and her use of the word deary.


15. i am obsessed with possible apocalyptic events. i even had an emergency backpack in my car for a time that held extra clothes and shoes for my kids and a first aid kit as well as food and water. i know...


16. i once had a dream in which my sister was being attacked by a shark and i was so paralyzed by fear that all i could muster up the courage to do was throw my slipper at it. she's still upset with me about that.


17. i love smells. the smell of freshly cut grass, the smell of winter in the air, the thick, heavy smell of summer on humid nights, the smell of rain from a sudden, summer thunderstorm, campfire smells and the individual smell that each of my people has.


18. i see numbers in patterns and associate colors with names and different words. not sure what this means exactly, someone once told me the name of this phenomenon (syndrome, i believe they called it) but i've forgotten it now.


19. my memory sucks.


20. i've had the good fortune of having two jobs that i absolutely loved. one was years and years ago as a clerk in a bookstore and the other was giving educational tours at the historic houses in germantown. it has something to do with the perfect mix of people as well as your interest in the task at hand i suppose. whatever it was/is, it was a wonderful time in my life.


21. i am a terrible contradiction of responsibility and procrastination. if i could explain it, i would. maybe some other time....


22. my brother also likes to say that one day, while playing outside, i pulled his bigwheel out from under him and made him hit his front teeth on the sidewalk. he fell.


23. i love shoveling snow. it's true. it makes me happy and gives me great satisfaction.


24. i'm embarrassed to say that at 38, i have only been out of the country twice. however, that is being remedied as we speak.


25. ok, so maybe the bigwheel incident could be true, my memory sucks remember? but, i also single-handedly scared off two boys who were picking on my brother at the beach one summer (nobody messes with my little brother). i'd say that makes us even.


L

25 things about claudia

1. i love color. i hear music when i see color.

2. i love music. i see color when i hear music.

3. i have no retention skills. none. for instance, i know that wuthering heights is one of my favorite books but i can't remember why. i know i've read it like five times and i know that i love heathcliff.
and i only remember his name because kate bush wrote a song about him.

4. i'm scared of chipmunks.

5. my favorite shape is a circle or sphere. there is just something about them. soft edges, never ending, fragile and strong all at the same time.

6. organization used to be a huge thing for me. i don't necessarily thrive on it anymore. it takes a lot of time.

7. i'm a scatterbrain. i switch subjects without warning. my brain is always one-gazillion steps ahead of my mouth. which leads me to...

8. i don't sleep. ok, so that's not totally true. i sleep the best and most deeply between 8:30am-10:00am. that's doable, right?

9. this is very hard for me to write. i don't care to spend this much time thinking about me! maybe i should go nap.

10. owls are amazing. i love them. they've now become mainstream. i hate that.

11. stephin merritt is my most favorite musician and lyricist. no one will ever top him. i adore him.

12. i've been told many times that one could get lost in my eyes.

13. i asked my husband out on our first date. he didn't pick up that i was crushing on him. he also didn't pick up that 4 other girls were crushing on him as well. good thing i asked him out first.

14. i used to think the ocean was the most amazing thing ever. until i saw the tyrolean alps.

15.  my first flight was when i was 32. to london. xanax was my friend, so was champagne. it was quite eventful and involved 11 hours, assumed terrorists and a lady having a massive panic attack. we missed our connecting flight to zurich and spent 6 1/2 hours in heathrow. since then i don't need the xanax.

16. i really would love to have a harlequin great dane.

17. i have a lot of fabric. it makes me look like i know what to do with my sewing machine.

18. i despise seafood. actually i really don't care for meat in general.

19. i love the fact that i will be 45 when my "baby" graduates from high school.

20. i adore my car. his name is boomer. i spend a lot of time with him.

21. my actor crushes are robert downey jr., javier bardem and benicio del toro.
 laura says you can contract syphilis just by making eye contact with benicio. one of her actor crushes is gerard butler...

22. fall is the best season. i wish every season was fall-ish.

23. i love the addition of 'ish'. i use it frequently. i bet next year it will become mainstream.

24. i lip-read. my hearing is not the best. please refer to number 2.

25. my math skills are abysmal. numbers don't make sense to me. 25 is as far as i go.

the infamous el vez with our blood orange margaritas...no i didn't get sick this night

your guess is as good as mine whether it's spring or fall! 

way back when...this looks like the summer of 2010 judging on our hair and outfits...we started a food/exercise journal together.  it has now evolved into this blog. we may have moved away from the food/exercise aspect a bit but really it was our banter that we enjoyed the most.

shanachie's tipperary salad

mmmMMM! our favorite. field greens, shiitake mushrooms, apples, strawberries, walnuts, crumbled bleu cheese...you should try it sometime. 

Birds

I was driving my shortcut home the other day (some say it's not a shortcut, but it most assuredly is): a long stretch of road that is divided almost equally in half by a single stop sign. I love this road, by the way, because this is the road where I often find my treasures that I restore (or plan to anyway) on the night before trash pickup. People throw away the best stuff. Anyway, I'm slowly (ok, maybe not slowly) approaching the stop sign (likely put there for people like me) singing my song along with the radio when i see the tiniest, frailest little old woman i've ever seen, in a pink chenille robe, pushing a walker. There is also a woman in scrubs just a few inches in front of her walking backwards and gesturing her on with her hands, so naturally I assume that this woman is a caregiver and is taking the littlest woman alive out to get a bit of exercise. She's is so little. I mean SO LITTLE and so sweet and really pushing her walker along and as I come to a stop at the stop sign I look out of my window at her and smile encouragingly. I mean, everyone needs some encouragement from time to time, right? She pushes forward a little more as we make eye contact and there I am smiling at her and probably stupidly nodding my head like "good job, cutest woman ever! you're doing a great job! keep going, don't give up!" She stops, looks right into my eyes for a moment and.... gets a disgusted look on her face, flips me off,  then continues to push on towards her caregiver. Wait, what?! This little, sweet old woman just irritatedly gave me the finger. My jaw hit the steering wheel. I couldn't believe it. I drove away quickly, embarrassed by the scene and thought about it for the rest of the drive home. And i came up with this: this poor woman is out busting her ass in the street, in her bathrobe, where she likely doesn't want to be, doing something she doesn't want to be doing and here I come staring all the way down the street. Actually being presumptuous and condescending enough to be giving her some sort of encouragement as if she were this frail little bird. Who knows what this woman has lived through? Has accomplished? Maybe she was a well respected archaeologist who traveled the globe (I'm rooting for this one). Maybe she wrote volumes upon volumes of children's literature. Maybe she was a biologist who found the cure for something that we don't even know about, but should be thankful that she took care of before it took care of us (ok, i'll root for this one too). Or maybe she was just a spitfire of an old woman who was pissed that I was rudely staring at her in her bathrobe and just wanted to tell me to f - off. 


Either way, I kind of want to be her when I get to that age.


L




FACT: that is not a shortcut. i know what road you are speaking of......not a shortcut.
FACT: a picture is worth a thousand words.
OPINION: i go with spitfire.

driving home on 309 the other night L regaled me with this fantastic story and its companion imagery. as she's describing this seemingly sweet, tiniest old woman flipping her the bird, which already is a picture of perfection, i can't get out of my head laura's face mimicking the woman's gesture.

i now know what i will be looking at when we are in our 80's! the mere thought of that face sends me into a fit of giggles. at one point i will need to post a picture of this. i will also need to insure that this will indeed become one of her standby faces from here on out. it's like a secret handshake, to be used to no one's knowledge. the description  of her emotions was funny enough already, going from "aww", "sigh", "OH!", "meh", "yes!" but then she shows me this face and the finger and quietly exclaims afterwards, "i so want to be that woman when i am that age". *snort, chuckle, snort*

there is no doubt in my mind that this will indeed happen. none at all. and honestly? at that age you kind of have a right. i can see us sitting on one of our porches, drinking our blood orange margaritas at this age and doing the exact same thing...with laura making that exact same face while flipping the bird, while i use my most favorite expletive ever with aforementioned hand gesture. we may just end up like statler and waldorf adding our two bits but in an old italian "aunt" kind of way.

and while i would've paid money to see this whole interaction with L and this crotchety dear one i'm pretty satisfied with the image i do have.

click on the hmmm because i can't figure out how to just pop up!

hmmmm