The 3 in 1 Post

Update 1: Kindergarten

Garion has now completed a full week of kindergarten and Moses and I are ready for vacation. That would be grown-up vacation, not family vacation. I think that Garion has been doing well in school, but he's been a total pill when he gets home. The highlight was a 2 hour screaming fit a week ago Saturday morning. I am not exaggerating, it lasted from 7:30 in the morning until 9:30. The highpoint was Garion lying on floor in upstairs hallway repeatedly screaming at the top of his lungs "I'M DYING!!!! IF YOU DON'T BRING ME WATER RIGHT NOW, I WILL DIE!!!!!!" My windows were open at the time and I was fully expecting the police to come knocking on our door. If fact, I was almost wishing that they would because then maybe the little fiend would quit screaming.
In response, Moses and I have decided to adopt a new parenting tactic inspired by the Warden of the United States Penitentiary in Tucson. While touring the penitentiary a couple of years ago, before it opened, the Warden explained to our group that the prison includes a lot of things like an indoor basketball court, weight room, and game room, because the more privileges inmates have, the more corrections officers can take away when they need to. So our little inmate now has the daily privilege of watching a half hour of something like Mr. Rodgers' Neighborhood or Arthur (we stole that idea from a co-worker of mine whose wife teaches kindergarten-thanks Richters!) if he can get through the day without tantrums or other unruly behavior. He gets one warning before he loses his privilege for the day. So far, this has been working well and I'm looking forward to a little more sanity around here. I still love Monday though.

Update 2: Imogene Training, also known as Preparing for My Doom

I've been training all summer for the Imogene Pass Run by gradually increasing my running mileage during the week and going for a longer hike on the weekends. This weekend, my brother offered to let me tag along on a long hike he and his wife were doing. By long, I mean like 20 miles. He said they'd take slow and not push it. I am an optimistic idiot and so I said okay.

Turns out that when he said "take it slow" there were actually two possible interpretations, neither of which occurred to me at the time I asked to go along on this hike: (1) the 8 year age difference between us is enormous and his definition of "slow" equals my definition of "blistering"; or (2) I was welcome to take it slow and if I took too long he'd call the mountain rescue to go look for my body, or the leftover pieces of it, and send it back to our mom and Moses for a proper burial.

We set out Saturday morning about 8:00 and after about 15 or 20 minutes of hiking we were on a nice rolling trail in gorgeous woods. I have fallen on just about every hike I've taken this summer, so as I was going along I was thinking to myself, "okay, got to watch out for these tree roots." Then, I thought "wow it's really pretty here." Then, SMACK! Oh, tree root. I was flat on my face and had scraped up both knees (remember that injury from last summer? yeah, all scraped up again) and my elbow. It was my most spectacular fall of the season. There was blood. So that was about a mile into the hike, with only 19 or so more to go. (I was covered in dirt after my fall--Lisa said I looked more "seasoned" and Robert said "good to get it out of the way early.")

I let my brother go ahead of me and watched the distance the between us grow. The monologue in my head went something like this: "huff, puff, huff, puff. must keep family in sight. have bad trail finding abilities. do want to get stuck on mountain by self. do not want to look too wussy. dang, can't even see Lisa. she is totally fit. wish I could run on trails without falling. can't even think in complete sentences. trail going to get really hard soon. huff, puff, huff, puff."

I persevere. I keep going despite the fact that my legs are ON FIRE and that I'm clipping along at a pace that I rarely achieve on my own. I finally get to the high spot in the trail (Doyle Saddle) where we're stopping for lunch, and I come up to my brother and his wife, who are waiting for me.
My brother says to me: "you're in pretty good shape, I couldn't shake you at all."
Me: "where you trying to?"
Robert: "yeah" (as in duh.)
Me in my head: well SHIT!, if I'd known that I wouldn't have just killed myself the last 10 freaking miles. I contemplate hitting my brother but instead say nothing in favor of pretending that yeah, of course I can keep up, whatever.

We slug along from this high point to the next high point--another three or four miles and I decide the only way I'm going to make it is to just ignore the pain, I just will pretend like this is how my legs always feel, and just keep going. Probably we're high enough at this point that oxygen deprivation is contributing my ability to delude myself into ignoring pain. We got to Humphrey's saddle just as some clouds and thunder started to roll so it it was now imperative to get down off of the mountain and at least into the tree line. My legs are totally shot by this point and I fess up to Robert and Lisa and tell them that I'll be descending very slowly. They take the car keys and that's the last I see of them until I get back to the trail head. I no longer think that the hardest part about Imogene will be the uphill. I think it's the downhill that's going to kill me--good to find that out now I guess. I managed to get down without falling again (although I did have a couple of nasty slides, but not nasty enough to go all the way down). The rain started in my last half mile. Then the hail started--that was extra special. Robert and Lisa said that the bad weather means I got the full Imogene training experience. I guess that means I'm ready. Imogene in two weeks--woohoo! Bring it on! (That's me trying to muster excitement rather than dread).

Update 3: Life in Flagstaff

I love Flagstaff. I actually love it more than I thought I would when we were still in Tucson and contemplating moving back. Probably this is because it is summer and the weather is fantastic and probably I'll be moaning about snow and cold in a couple of months. But right now, I am completely smitten. I love the small town, the mountains, hiking (even when it hurts), living closer to family (even my brother who tried to ditch me), I love the way people up here dress and are all outdoorsy in their different ways, and I love the laid back attitude. I am as happy as a clam. A high-altitude clam with really sore legs.