Here's your sign...

...that you spend too much time in your car (courtesy of husband-dear):

10.  You can hum the theme song to almost every single NPR show, and imitate the "you are listening to.." call perfectly, intonation and all.

9. You exceed the manufacturer's warranty in the first year.

8. You realize that on M-F, you spend more time in your care than you do with your husband (while awake anyway).

7. You jokingly call your car your mobile office, but when you're not sure where your laptop, latest batch of ungraded papers, or your thumb drive is, you know the best place to look is your car.

6. Scheduling car maintenance takes precedence over scheduling your dental cleanings.

5. You've noticed that you buy new tires at the same interval that you get your hair cut.

4. You schedule conference calls on your drive home.

3. You select your weekly meals based on what you can eat while driving (hint: black bean quesadillas are the bomb, anything on a bun with lettuce is a no-go).
And a related 3a. You ask your husband to make the quesadilla a little thinner so the cheese won't leak out

2. Your right calf is significantly larger than your left calf.

And your most obvious sign that you spend way too much commuting to and from work:

1. When your husband composes lists like these while waiting for you to come home!

Reduce pee

When you drive about 4,000 miles each month, 1,000 miles per week, and spend well over three hours in your car every day, you get bored. Really bored. You also quickly become really creative in alleviating that boredom. You not only know the frequency for every single NPR station between your house and your office, you have the programming memorized too ("Ooh, I'm in time to catch 'On the media!'"). You have an iPod full of songs, a list of friends and family on speed dial, and you have no qualms about practicing for Sunday's worship team by singing into you iPhone's voice memo app and then critically reviewing your performance. Out loud.

But at the end of the day, it is just you in your car. By yourself. Surrounded by lots of semis and drivers from Florida who obviously got their licenses from a box of Crackerjacks. And some days are good, and some are not so good.

If there is one thing that rains on my commuting parade, it's road construction. I have a thing with road construction ever since we lived in Germany, and the 61 (one of the major interstates in our neck of the woods) was under construction the entire time we were there. We'retalking years people, years. It wasn't a few miles of construction either, oh no, it went on and on and on, past Konlenz, Cologne, and God only knows where it ended. If it ever did. As someone who used on the 61 on a regular basis, it was close to traumatizing. Seriously. Imagine a three-lane interstate reduced to two tiny lanes, walls on either side, semis and vehicles with seriously poorly balanced RVs trailing behind them rumbling by, the speed limit set to 60km/h (a whopping 35 mph), and German speed cameras lurking everywhere. As my southern friends would say: It was a mess.

So moving to Georgia was a relief. No road construction, no ridiculous speed limits, and speed cameras are, at least in all the counties I drive through, illegal. Life was good.

And then last year, GDoT decided that things had been quiet long enough, and it was high time to repave a large section of the interstate. Having, at that point, become a veritable expert at hydroplaning and driving without any sort of visibility thanks to all the spray engulfing my apparently ridiculously small vehicle, I couldn't agree more. Bring on the Dutch 'super open asphalt'! But for a reason I have yet to understand, the Georgia Department of Transportation decided to start with 27 miles. Not three, not five, no, 27. Oh wait, they haven't actually repaved more than six miles since they started last summer. Oh no. But they did reduce 27 miles of interstate (and yes, it is 27 miles, I counted. Several times) to two teeny tiny lanes with a wall on one side and a vey soft shoulder on the other. Add the sixteen wheelers and the inattentive Florida drivers in the mix, and you can imagine I have witnessed some pretty devastating accidents in the past year. Thanks to the ensuing roadblocks, I have also finally been able to tour all the small towns whose names I used to only know from the signposts I would fly by. And although there are no speed cameras, I swear that the main reason Georgia's revenue has gone up this year is thanks to the State Patrol troopers who are on that road like crows on roadkill. I suppose I should be grateful that at least the speed limit is a fairly decent 60mph.

Anyway, to say I'm done with the construction is an understatement. It's hard to focus on Steve Innskeep, that high C I need to hit, or finding the right playlist when you're trying to not get squashed into the wall by a semi flying by, or hit that uneven ledge where the pavement meets the old shoulder (which is now roadway) which will most definitely send your car (or at least my travel-size one) flying, probably into the muddy shoulder. There's a speed limit to maintain, lane shifts to pay attention to, and more importantly, other drivers, who might not have noticed that lane shift, to look out for.

So every morning and evening when I see the orange cones, the large signs indicating an upcoming construction zone, and the overhead jumbotron signs warning you to ahift right and reduce your speed, I sigh. Except this morning. I'm not sure if the sign was broken, or if a joker had gotten a hold of the remote control, but instead of its usual "Reduced speed ahead!", the sign read: "Reduce pee ahead!"

And I giggled. And life was good.

Welcome to the desert

So I totally did not mean to leave you all hanging after my last wordless post.

Well, in all reality, I'm sure that none of you actually felt left hanging. I mean, between a very traumatizing attack on the world's most famous marathon, and a crazy, seemingly never-ending manhunt, I'm sure we all had other things on our mind than DC's challenge to figure out the meaning behind her three pictures. And, well, even if this had been the most normal of normal weeks, I highly doubt whether anyone was sitting around thinking to themselves that O Em Gee, DC better get her act together.

Let's just say that I don't like to leave people hanging.

So, to respond to all the comments: Yes! We are getting a pool. And not just any old above-ground pool, no, a bona fide in-ground, concrete vinyl-lined Grecian shaped pool. Yes, it's crazy, and we are possibly completely insane, but there you have it. A pool.

Now when we sat down with the pool designers, we considered every option possible: how much deck, what kind of deck, what kind of lights, how many, a diving board or a jumping rock, what kind of coping, what color, and a whole host of other things I never even thought about when I first thought a pool would be a good idea. I mean, did you know there are three kinds of cleaning robots? And at least four types of pumps? And twenty types of liners? And you have to make decisions about every. Single. One. Of. Them.
Remind me to never build my own home.

Anyway, one thing we definitely did not consider was the incredible mess our yard would turn in to. Obviously, we realized building a pool would involve digging, but somehow, we imagined the dirt would magically disappear. And the dumptrucks and backhoes would just fall from the heavens into our backyard every morning and disappear at the end of each workday. Instead, this past Monday a dumptruck and a backhoe appeared in our backyard and proceeded to not only dig a ridiculously large hole, but also leave mountains of red clay piled several feet high, and create yards and yards of deep, muddy trenches throughout what remains of our backyard, down the yard beside our house, and all the way to the street.

Personally, I don't mind. Every extra mound of clay signifies one step closer to a beautifully finished pool, and thinking about that makes it all OK. Husband-dear, on the other hand, takes a less light view of matters. With each pile of dirt hauled away, he sighs about sprinkler systems, sod, the fence, and a host of other matters that I, in my pool-induced euhoria have completely brushed aside. I mean, who needs sod when you have a pool deck? Or a sprinkler system when you have a pool full of crystal clear water? Clearly, husband-dear is a kill joy. Or, considering the fact that I have never seen a piece of sod or sprinkler pipe up close, while husband-dear turned that into a career prior to joining the military, he is possibly just a realist. I'll let you be the judge and share our current view from our back porch: Is it like the New Mexican desert I keep talking about? Or maybe not?

The day that changed it all

Today I sit at my desk feeling not a whole lot different than I did on September 12, 2001. Uncertain, apprehensive, and defeated. The images from yesterday's bombing seem burned into my mind: the runner blown to the ground by the force of the blast; the girl in the pink running top who crosses the finish line as the explosion blows through the sky, and who first checks her watch and then looks behind her; the woman on the stretcher covered in blood. My ears hear the cheers quickly turn into cries and screams, and I can't seem to stop wondering if finishing a race will ever be the same.

Although many of us runners (and triathletes, cyclists, mountainbikers, swimmers...) who watched the tragedy unfold yesterday have never run Boston, and probably never will, we all know the feeling of euphoria that accompanies the final mile, the sight of the "Finish" sign, the loud cheers from the crowd. We know what it's like to train and train for months, even years, and to see all of that perfectly encapsulated in that final stretch. Yesterday's bombing changed that final stretch, maybe forever. Not only will the concept of the "drop bag" that runners leave at the finish probably be a thing of the past, none of us will be able to easily forget what happened yesterday the next time we cross a finish line.

I know April 15, 2013 will not go down in history the same way 9/11 did. It will never have a two-syllable acronym to capture its horrors. We will not have worldwide commemorations ten years later. And for that I am grateful. "Only" a handful of people perished, "only" a hundred or so were injured. As my mother would say, that is a handful too many, but still, it could have been far, far worse. The fact that it is not, is worth a prayer or two. So, unlike 9/11, it probably won't be long until other, "bigger" stories crowd the Boston Marathon bombing to a second or third place on the evening news. Yet somehow, that doesn't seem right.

The running community is a family. We all share the same pains and joys in training. We complain about rain, sun, winds, high temperatures, low temperatures, and everything else in between. We share stories about crazy dogs chasing us, running at oh-dark-thirty to get that ten miles in before work. We commiserate when someone is injured, we encourage when it is needed, we cheer when it's earned. In our triumphs and our failures, we are brothers and sisters. Put two strange runners in a room, and within minutes, they will be chatting as though they have known each other all their lives. They will exchange tips, race ideas, horror stories, and accomplishments. A runner plus a runner doesn't equal two runners, it equals a team. So yesterday's attack wasn't just an attack on the city of Boston, or the Boston marathon, or even the American people. It feels like an attack on people with whom I share an entire world, an attack on my family.

So today is an off day. While the world slowly picks itself up, searches for those who committed this heinous crime, the running family sits around and wonders about how to move forward. Why they, of all the people out there, were the target of this crime. How this will affect future races. How to move forward from here. We won't sit around for long though. Pretty soon, we'll realize that the best way to recover is to go out and run. Maybe slowly. Maybe not so far, but run we shall.

Another wordless Wednesday

Since no one came even close to guessing the story behind the picture of the flags that I posted two weeks ago, I figured it was time for another wordless Wednesday.
So.
Three more pictures without a story. Knock yourselves out.

DC v. Woodpecker

I should probably preface this post with a brief explanation of my status as a hippy-dippy tree-hugger.

First, I am, if you are like everyone I used to know (you know, pre-USAF, and especially pre-bible-belt, life), not a hippy-dippy tree-hugger at all. In fact, if you are anything like all those people from that past life, you might have even accused me of being too Liberal ( as in John Stuart Mill Liberal). I would shock my truly liberal (as in non-conservative) friends by talking about religion, or taxes, or even things like the environment in a way that did not entirely match their worldview. But you know, we were tolerant hippy-dippy friends so we moved on.

Then I met husband-dear and his band of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, and I somehow became the perfect embodiment of the liberal, sandal-wearing, tree-hugging hippie. And I know why. It's because I said all the hippy-esque things people expect a tree-hugging liberal to say about topics such as the environment (I love it!), war (can't say I care for it a whole lot), WIC (it helps poor people eat well), gun control (common sense, people, common sense), religion (my God is my God,but hey, if He's not yours, that's cool too. I love you anyway. Would you like a hug?), and marriage (you do what you need to do. With a consenting adult. Thanks).

So even though I am far too right-leaning to be considered "for real" by the genuine liberals, the locals, as well as most military folk, find me an oddity. It's fine, although I must admit I have learned to zip my lip a little more in the past five or so years.

Anyway, all this to tell you about my first encounter with a live woodpecker. Last night, as husband-dear and the boys were off on a spring break camping trip, a persistent knocking at our door sent me jumping up in the air. I opened the door to an empty front porch, and after a brief break, the knocking persisted. I looked up, and there it was, a small brown bird, hammering against the ledge over our front door. It appear unperturbed by my arrival, and it was only when I waved my arms and hollored at it that it flew off, clearly chirping an insult at me.

Assuming that was that, I shut the door. A minute later, the knocking resumed. I opened the door again, and yes, the bird was back, chipping away at our freshly painted front porch. A loud "Hey" sent it flying off, but three minutes later, it was back at it. This went on for some time, at which point this exasperated tree-hugging hippie sent the following text to her husband:

I know. It's terrible. I should probably turn in my sandals right now.

Fortunately for the bird, and my status as a tree-loving birkenstock-wearing liberal, I quickly found out that woodpeckers are actually protected animals, and therefore one is not allowed to shoot them. Although that made my little liberal eyebrows go up an inch or two ('cause, I mean, we're debating allowing teachers to carry guns into schools, but we can't shoot a woodpecker?), I am a law-abiding tree-hugging hippy (who couldn't hit a bird the size of a child's fist anyway), so the bird lived.

It was quiet the rest of the evening, and when I got up the next morning, I was convinced I had won the battle.
"Knock-knock-knock!"
And Woody was back.

This time I took to the internet with a vengeance, and came up with foil as a good scare tactic. So, while in my pajamas, I drug a chair out on the front porch, brought a roll of aluminum foil, and went to town. It was quiet for ten minutes, and then "Knock-knock-knock!". A brief look outside told me that Woody had just knocked the foil to the ground. What a piece of work. Back to google, and this time, I have a plan. A plan that I triumphantly texted to husband-dear later that morning.

So, Woody, watch your beak, because I. Am. Ready.

The ride-along

It's probably high time to resolve at least one of the other two pictures I posted last week, namely the one taken inside a car, and which featured a laptop built into the dashboard of the car. For those of you who were wondering whether I had finally truly embraced my status as a workaholic and had a computer installed in my car, don't worry, I'm not completely over the edge yet. The picture was, as some of you guessed, taken inside a police car.

So what was I doing inside a police car? One of the things you should know about me is that I'm really a little kid at heart. A little kid who loves tree houses, candy that makes your tongue change color, and who, when she grows up, wants to be a firefighter. Or a police officer. Fortunately for the eight-year old tomboy inside, our local police department allows local citizens to go on so-called ride alongs with their police officers. After hemming and hawing about this for weeks, because, seriously, isn't a ride-along for police wannabes? And was't I too old, too serious, too tree-huggy, hippy-dipy for something like this? I finally convinced myself that none of that really mattered, and I should just go already.

And so last Wednesday, I spent four hours with Officer Smith, patrolling the rougher neighborhoods in our town. Or what passes for "rougher" in our neck of the woods. After all, in a town where the vast, vast majority of the population is employed by the Department of Defense, and unemployment is so low I'm not even sure they keep track of it, the understandig of what is rough is possibly a little different from the rest of the world. Regardless, the ride-along, as my inner 8-year old would say, duh-mazing.

There was the odd bits of information about my town that I would have never suspected, such as the fact that the rooms in the two motels next to The Dairy Queen are mainly rented by the hour. Or that local teens hang out behind the Walmart to smoke pot. Then there were the locals themselves of course. Such as the unassuming driver of an SUV who decided that the best time to rifle through his repair paperwork and swerve from the curb to the centerlane and back would be on a busy thoroughfare with a police car right behind him. Or the small girl who stopped the police car to tell Officer Smith about the "crazy lady across the street" who had been harassing her older sister. There was a parolee who had violated their probation and needed to be arrested and taken to jail.

Then there were all the 911 calls that inspired most of the action. Some were what you'd expect, an alarm going off at a residence, someone reporting hearing gunshots fired, and a shoplifter caught at Walmart. Others were a little less common. like the woman who called from a daycare center to report that there was another woman there who "picks up her kids every day and lets them run across the street to her car." Call me off the wall nuts, but I might consider talking to the lady first myself. Fortunately, Officer Smith agreed with me, and after a futile search for a Toyota minivan driven by an Asian lady (Officer: "Well, that's a Toyota van in the right color, but I can't see the driver very well.". Me: "And I take it that pulling them over and saying, 'Oh, sorry, I thought you were Asian American is just not protocol'), we gave up, only to report to the call of the afternoon.

The way these calls work is that dispatch relays an emergency to a specific officer via a radio, and that the content of the call also appears on the laptop each officer has in their car. Because of the way the laptop is placed, I was able to read most of the calls as they came in, and this particular one made me sit up and take notice. The report on it read, "Caller says there is a convertible with the top closed sitting on side of the street. He can see two people inside, moving around, and the car is moving up and down as though they're having sex. Elementary school kids are about to get off the bus, so this should be checked out."
"I'm probably weird,", I piped up, "But I would knock on their car and ask them to stop first."
"Heck, " Officer Smith said, "I'd break out the popcorn, put out a lawn chair and pretend to watch them until they would be so embarrassed they would stop."
"Nice."

As we pulled into the street, we saw the bright yellow bus drop off a zoo of little kids.
"And there are the elementary school kids." The officer looked down the street and pointed at a big tree, "And there is the car."
(By the way, these cops have bionic eyes and ears. They see stuff before it's there, I swear)
So he pulled in front of the car, blocking it from view, got out, and knocked on the car door. A lone woman stepped out, looking thoroughly confused. Now, thanks to the fancy pants radio that all officers in our town carry, I was able to hear every conversation the officer carried out while I waited in the car. And this conversation quickly turned into something Ionesco himself could have written. Or any other modernist French playwright for that matter. But after ascertaining that there had been no untoward behavior exhibited by this lady, or her apparently invisible passenger, we went on our merry way. No second person, no sex. Young minds were kept pure and innocent, but I was just a tad disappointed. I mean, we're in the bible belt, and this would have presented me with enough material to keep me at the center of attention of all parties until the new year.

Two more calls, one last trip past a notorious "drug house" (who would have ever thought we had such a thing in our town), and one attempt to pick up a wanted parolee later, and the officer's shift was over. It was time to head back to the station.

And the eight year old inside of me was happy.