2011 Recap...

Well, here we are. December 31st, 2011.
I went back and read my last year's recap blog and found not too much difference. I was just starting the road to change, which I have faithfully stuck to the entire 2011. Much slower than I had hoped, but changing none the less. I won’t recap too much, as I usually blog about the highlights throughout the year.
This year started out lovely. I had a small PJ party at my house to bring in the New Year. 2 of my favorite ladies stayed over and we got bagels in our PJ's on New Year's Day. The next day, T and I headed up on a rainy day to Pasadena to look at all the floats from the parade. I was in rehearsals and opening up a show I hated - No Exit - making me question theater yet again. A group of us caught Tower of Power at Coach House which is always a phenomenal concert.
February brought the dreaded V-day, which must not have been too painful because I honestly can’t remember what I did. I was in a one night sketch show called "Love and Lack Thereof" which was a blast. Feb also brings my birthday. I hit 35, which I took a little harder than I expected. This has creeped up on me throughout the year. I had a great night tho, full of sushi fun and friends.
March brought a very important slap to the face. I came into 2011 wanting to work on changing my lifestyle and really trying to take a hard look at myself and what I could work on to finally find happiness. I've tried to quit smoking multiple times, but never actually succeeded. I found I was drinking much more throughout January and February, probably due to the fact that these are hard months for me. I don’t know why - maybe because it's usually cold, there's nothing exciting happening, V-day, my Bday, etc. Turning 35 as I mentioned was rough. Well...it all came to a head at the beginning of March. So the end of Feb/start of March I came down with what I like to refer to as the Death Flu. We've all had it. It's the cold/flu that knocks you flat on your ass for days, sometimes weeks. I had already been sick on and off as the year started with a mixture of stomach ailments and flus. We had planned a fun night out March 5th to see T in her one woman show, have dinner before and drinks after with the girls. I was crushed to be sick. I stayed home days before that and nursed myself trying to get well. The night came; I wasn’t even close to 100% but was feeling well enough to at least get out. The night brought too much drinking, and me smoking while I was still sick. At promptly 1am ish my voice left. And I mean left. I was in mid convo with people and it just stopped working. I have NEVER lost my voice like this. I laughed it off and went home realizing I'm probably just getting sicker and should get home, and oh did I. I vomited the whole next day, was hung-over and the sickness was worse than ever. I also couldnt talk. It took me weeks to recover from this, and over a week to get my voice back which was the weirdest thing ever. The slap in the face came when a photo was posted of me from that night. I saw how drunk I looked. I looked like one of those people in pictures I pity. I was mortified. But it's what I needed.
I quit smoking.
I'm not going to lie - I have a few more drinking binges after that, but they have since stopped. I have stopped that lifestyle. I can’t do it anymore. I'll still have drinks; I'll still stay out late once in a while, but no more smoking, no more over eating, no more getting drunk. And I did it! A cigarette has not touched my lips since that night. I'm still working on the eating thing, still have to be careful with the drinking thing, but it's already so much better.
April brought something else. April brought me Warrior Dash. I won’t go into detail, as I already have previously but this basically kick started my "Race Year". This also helped kick start me into staying active the rest of the year. I had so much fun, and this turned into a new drug for me. Perfectly timed as well since I'm killing my party lifestyle (Well hard core party lifestyle) and replacing it with this. April also brought Coachella - which again - no need for details but as always is an experience never to be forgotten.
May and June and July run together as this is when I got hooked on Groupon's and Living Social deals. I started signing up for all kinds of things - dance classes, workout classes, races, etc. It's what I need to stay fit, to stay active - VARIETY. This is also when I found Boxing Burn. It's a 2 night class through the city that I love. May always brings Doheny Blues Festival which is one of my favorites and my 1st ever performance in a burlesque show. Yup - I DANCED!!!! I also ditched my trainer since he wasn’t helping me out anymore and I'd rather spend my money elsewhere. He was a good kick start and help into getting me active again. This is also summer time which of course is my favorite. Anything outdoors and in the sun and I'm a happy girl. Bike riding, concerts in the parks, beach visits, etc. Such a great time of year.
August brought a plethora of races; I've blogged about every one, so I won’t go into details. I made it to the Fair this month with my dad and had our usual great time. (Although I think eating the food did me in). This is also when I attempted going back to school and tackling math and we all know where that led me.
September/October and November brought the holidays, sickness again, a mellow Halloween, my favorite race to date - the ROC Race and struggles.
Here we are on the last day of December. One bittersweet thing in this month was Theatre Uncut. It was a great political show full of some of the most talented actors. The reviews were amazing, the feedback was amazing and it was a show I was very proud of that needed to happen. With this show came some realizations about myself, people in my life and that certain politics affect me more than I thought. This show has also sparked more changes coming in my life. Christmas has come and gone. I'm not going to lie - it sucked. Christmas Eve was spent crying my eyes out over a bottle of wine alone. Christmas day brought family drama and more tears and the day after Xmas sent me crying my eyes out in a parking lot after leaving my dad’s. Yup - that nasty beast depression is looming, but don’t worry - it’s a fierce battle that I know I will conquer. I did try therapy a few months ago and didn’t care for the woman. I have an appointment with a new one next week. I will not take medication; I just need some guidance on how to kick this feeling out. I'm lonely. I know that. It's a good thing that I know that. I’m not in denial anymore. I'm also learning what hurts me most and doing my best to fight it. And not all the holidays were bad - I've had some time off and loved every second of it. Bike riding, working out, having dinner/drinks with friends. With the exception of the actual holiday it's been a decent month.
So I'm going into 2012 a little scared. Change is really hard. It's really scary. It's extremely painful. But I hope, oh do I hope, that this time next year I'll be writing about how far I've come. How happy I am. I'm working on patience. So here are the steps I'm taking. I'm writing them here so I have reference.
I'm not giving up on therapy. I'm going to continue working on the eating/drinking thing. I will continue my life as a “recovering smoker”. I have to stay active. I'm trying SO HARD to be more open to dating (But can I tell you how impossible it is to meet someone!). I’m going to be looking into a self-paced math class. I'd like to attempt that 365 days of writing book. If I do, I may start a separate blog for that. I’d like to hone my photography skills. I look forward to developing even stronger friendships with those friends who I love. The group has grown substantially smaller, but this is good. I want to keep changing for the better.
2012 - be good to me please. Come February we move into the Year of the Dragon. This is my year. I'm planning on great things.
Bring it.

Who am I...

I'm having a hard time figuring this out lately.
Since I moved back home in November of 2008, I've gone through some roller coaster phases. I fell into a pretty deep depression after the economy crashing, being unemployed and moving back home. Every time I tried to jump out of it I found myself drinking way too much, smoking way too much, and crying way too much.
A couple of pictures I saw of myself snapped me out of that.
I seem to move slowly when I try to make changes, and stumble a lot during the way. I tried to quit smoking and take better care of myself and failed. I had a better job now, I was starting to make a dent in the debt to move back out and fell down again. Car repairs. Illness. More drinking. More bad pictures. Smoking again. The start of this year seemed hopeful. I went into the New Year with a good attitude, but January and February are rough months for me. I fell down again. March was the last time I fell that hard.
I quit smoking March 5th.
I started exercising more to counter the not smoking.
When I started exercising I realized I was eating better and less.
I started really trying to figure myself out. This part has taken an odd turn.
I seem to have hit a wall. Theater is no longer a priority in my life. I still love it; I'll still act but not as much. I now pick and choose my projects.
I want to live an active lifestyle, but I don’t seem "active" enough to do so. Throw in my multiple injuries and screwy illnesses and I'm even less "active".
I have found I'm pretty decent at most things, but I'm not REALLY good at anything. This is where I feel I'm really missing something. I don’t have that "thing". So many people I know have found their "thing". Not me. I write, but I ramble mostly. I used to be a fantastic photographer, but I was old skool and shot black and white and developed it myself. This new world of digital and photo shopping and tricks, well I just don’t seem to fit in. I'm a decent actress, stronger at comedy then drama but none the less good? Not great. I can’t cook for shit, nor do I want to. Hate crafts. I've enjoyed being active again, and am super proud of the power I have back again. I'm super strong, but cardio challenged.
I think "What's my purpose?"
I have found out a few things I need to change about myself, but I don’t know how. I've realized I don’t have a tolerance for "weak" people. I never act on it, but they piss me off by no fault of their own except they are weak. I need to learn to let that go, but how? I have come to realize my constant seeking of approval from my father has affected me much worse than I thought. How do I deal with that? I see and read things about how horrible people are in our world and I lose it. I want to help the helpless (animals, children, and the elderly). They are not weak - they are helpless, and when someone hurts them I flip shit. I need to learn to fight this the right way, not get so angry and upset and let the "Irish" out.
How do I fix these things?
I've found some good things too. I'm actually not a negative person; I just have a hard time letting things go. If I can just learn to do that, I really think people will stop looking at me as negative. I have found I am good at entertaining. I make people feel better and laugh when they are down. I swear when someone laughs or smiles at something I caused, it’s a great feeling! I have also finally accepted and embraced that I'm a tomboy and feisty and have a mouth and will never be a delicate flower. I also take the time to enjoy the silly things, such as LOL Cats or DYAC. I love cute animal videos and cute animals in general. I'm embracing my dork for sure.
I did try therapy. I still may, but the gal I tried going to didn’t work out. I knew I made the right decision stopping when even she said she couldn’t help me.
Why am I writing all this here? I don’t know, maybe someone can give me some insight? I get inspired quickly and easily. I try to turn my envy into inspiration. I'm getting better at that.
I also have accepted that I am lonely. I want a companion. I don’t need to get married again, but I really want someone in my life. Don’t worry; this is a good thing because I was so closed off to the idea before. It's been so long, and I'm afraid of how long it's been. I signed up on an online dating site. Just a free one, due some nudging from friends to just see what it's like. I already don’t like it. It's weird an unnatural to me. I want to organically meet someone. Maybe I'm old fashioned that way.
I'm really trying. I'm really trying to improve myself. I try to talk less and listen more. (This is hard). I drink much less. I still have not touched a cigarette. I still exercise and keep the variety high. I don’t overeat any more. I try to think before I speak and walk away from things to cool off before regretting an action or word. I spend more time with family. I spend more time with fewer friends. I love more. I feel more. But it's just the tip. I know I have a long long way to go, and still have no idea who I am. I do feel confident I will find out, and I’m so excited to find out but I’m also impatient. :)

For Kim...

Thanksgiving has come and gone. This is always a bitter sweet time for me.
20 years ago on Thanksgiving Day a dear friend of mine, and the child she was pregnant with died in a horrific car accident. Her husband was almost paralyzed, others, including her other children, were seriously injured. The day burns in my memory like a white hot rod. I'll never forget the look on my mom's face when she got the phone call, turned and looked at me and started to cry. When I got the news I was destroyed. I was 15 years old. Already an over emotional out of control teenager. Kim was my neighbor I had developed a close friendship with and looked to her like an older sister. I babysat her children Jason and Rhea and when she was pregnant again, I was so excited to meet Karly Ann. She and her baby were taken from our world much too soon.
I also remember, soon after that we had an assignment in my drama class to write and perform a monologue. I poured my emotions into a very violent, dark monologue which consisted of my killing the man who killed my dear friend. Who crashed into their SUV with his semi-truck on a road he should have never been driving on. Who took my friends life so tragically. This was the only way I knew how to deal with it. The class was silent when I finished. I stumbled offstage in a rage of emotion. My teacher followed me out of the classroom and sat me down. He told me what I did was phenomenal. It was raw. It was real. That is my first memory of realizing I wanted to be an actor.
I can’t believe it’s been 20 years. Life is so strange that way. Time becomes an enemy. Love your friends. Love your family. Cherish your time, especially with those you love.
It took me a very very long time to get over the death of my friend. But now I look back and I'm thankful she was in my life. I'm thankful she touched me more than she will ever know. I'm thankful she pushed me towards my dream. I'm thankful I'm still in touch with her children. I'm thankful, and cried my eyes out from happiness, when I found out her daughter just gave birth to a baby girl she named Karly Hope. 20 years later. She's beautiful just like her mom, and just like Kim whose memory will live on in my heart forever.
I love you Kim and miss you every day.

Bowling...

The only reason I am blogging this late on a weeknite is because I'm on such a friggin high there is no way I can sleep!!!! Let me tell you why:

So. I'm part of NLAA sports. This is a party league that hosts such things as kickball, bowling, ultimate Frisbee, softball, dodge ball, volleyball and maybe some others. I joined the Drunken Degenerates kickball team a few years back, had a great time, met some great new friends but sadly the league grew and people start behaving like douchebags so the fun died out for me. So - our old captain emailed me asking if I wanted to try the bowling out. Sure! I promptly signed up and was ready to go. She ended up having to drop out and told me to stay in and be captain. I was a little hesitant at first since I've only bowled randomly here and there and I really don’t know much about the sport except you roll a ball and hit some pins. My wonderful friends Anna and Sergio I met through the Bistro crew years and years ago were on board to play. Sergio brought on his sister, and they brought their cousin and his sister. There was our 6 person team. The normal league nights work like this – you play 3 games. 4 people play at a time. You get a point for each game you win. Everyone gets to bowl twice. They use handicaps (Thank GAWD) and they list weekly stats, etc.
First of all, I want to say my team is fucking awesome. None of us are bowlers, but we were all willing to give it a go. The gal who was going to be captain had already registered us as The Talkin Turkeys (Which I found out later - Turkey is actually a bowling term) so I kept the name and emailed the head of the league telling him I had no clue what the hell I was doing but I was willing to stay captain and do this. He was great. Explained everything, and of course it's all about the fun!
So - it began.
8 weeks flew by. We learned more and more and improved a great deal. We of course were not as good as a lot of the other players, but we had a blast every night and loved the fact that we were all getting better. Later in the season, the head of the league deemed us the most fun team. We had matching turkey shirts and hats made up for our bumper bowling Halloween evening. And for the playoffs silly hats were brought and worn. We always out drink most of our competitors. Our bar tab smoked our bowling score (Which was actually a joke in one of the league emails). Our team was teased but liked. We always had fun.
A little side note - I used to be extremely competitive. I'm not anymore. Now I'm in it for the fun. I'm older, my body is more broken, I just want to have fun and meet new people. My teammates are the same. Agave Tequila is the sponsor of the league, so I'm always supporting our sponsor and Mango Margaritas became my bowling night drink. My 5 other teammates are Hispanic and I'm Irish - yup we were also the drinking team and constantly joked about that. We really had so much fun!!!!
Tonight was the play offs. It was set up bracket style - once you lost you were out. You could stay and bowl, but you were out of the playoffs. We all planned on not making it past our 1st round and were totally ok with it. We arrived with silly hats, ordered our usual large order of food and drink and started our game. I had jammed my wrist earlier in the week in boxing class, but was determined to still play our last game of the season. We won. Holy shit!!! We were thrilled!!!
I told my team I was so proud we made it to round 2!!! Look at us rookies! We altered our line up and played the 2nd game. I got the exact same score both games, and guess what - we won again. NO WAY!!! We were ecstatic. We started the final game. I was starting to really hurt and swell up at this point. I was doing pretty well so my team had wanted me to stay in for game 3 since I was doing good, and we altered our line up again. Now - funny thing is - I didn’t realize we were in the FINALS. Yes - the captain was clueless as usual. It was about 3/4 of the way through the game that someone clued me in that we were the last 2 teams standing. WHAT!!!???? So we were going to be 2nd place!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woohoooo!!! We were playing an awesome team - very fun group - very nice - and a blast to play. I loved it!!! What a great way to end the season.
We won.
WHAT!!!!
We won.
I think all of us were in shock at this point.
WE FUCKING WON!!!!
The head of the league cheered and pulled us all aside to take the winning team photo.
Are you kidding me!?
Our rookie team, all about the fun, WE WON THE WHOLE THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My 1st time as a captain!!!!
Yes, the other teams were not playing their best. They should have wiped the floor with us. But we won. The underdogs won.
The entire way home I couldn’t stop smiling. I even laughed a few times.
I just can’t believe we won!!!!!
I really want to say, the fact that we were relaxed, cool, fun people, a great team spirit and just all around an awesome team. We played really well. Violet bowled her best game yet. We fucking rocked. I'm so proud of my team and so proud that we won because we had fun. No drama! No bullshit! Just a great group of friends having a fantastic time. Oh and we WON!!! We are the champions. That’s right!
What a great night.
Talkin Turkeys - WE ROCK!!!!!

ROC Race...

Ok here's the latest and greatest....Seriously, my favorite one yet!!!!
The whole reason I started doing these random 5K's, was because my obsession with climbing and jumping on things. Maybe it's the kid in me, maybe it's because I don’t want to grow up, maybe it's because I can’t run for shit but I have awesome upper body strength, who knows. This race was geared just for that. It was made by the peeps who do Wipeout and one of the Mud Runs (I forget which one. It took place at the Pomona Fairgrounds. As soon as I heard the name I was so in!!!!! It's even sillier then the others, most people dress up or at least wear matching team costumes like we did, there is a huge dance party/DJ set up and a fantastic high energy host who basically "kept the party going".
We got there a bit before 8am (Our wave was at 9am). It was freeeeezing!!!! Our outfits were tanks and I had shorts on, hoping my knee high pink socks would keep me warm enough. Figuring once we start going I'll be fine, since all my other races I've been so hot/sweaty at the end. We checked it out, goofed around, did and impromptu warm up dance thing with this bad ass chick who I think was a fire fighter. And then the dance party started. It was a great warm up!!!!

This guy in an afro called all who was there over to this stage and got everyone riled up. People were jumping and laughing and dancing and shouting. It was fantastic!!!

Our time was called. We headed over to the starting line and waited. The let the individual runners go 1st, then the teams of 4, then the unlimited teams which we were. We called ourselves The Shot Chasers. I found these great tanks online, and D got the socks. I thought we looked pretty freakin awesome!!

Off we went. Our team pretty much stayed together the whole time. Chay and his roomie Kristin (Met her race day - very cool chick) were runners, but kept pace, Court/D are the usual trot/walk gals, Megs was going between them and me, and my knee was especially acting up due to the cold so I was not running much at all. It's all good, my fast paced walk is always fine with me. We'd split and come back together all throughout the race. Part of the reason was one of the drawbacks of the race and that was - alot of the obstacles had a back up. They were somewhat difficult, so you'd get up to it and then have to wait. So if you were doing this race for time - forget it.
1st obstacle - Louche Libre Assault. Two dudes with Mexican Wrestler masks that attacked you with these big sticks with cushy things on the end. Hilarious. I made it thru unscathed.
2nd - The Barriers. They were about 4 feet high cement things. Maybe about 10 of em? I was quite proud here. All of the other people were climbing over them. I literally used my arms, gave myself a hoist and hopped over all of them. I got thru faster than anyone else.
3rd - Zombies. Yup. I was dying. We ran thru these stables and these zombies came tearing out of the stables. I was laughing so hard I almost fell. They would run at you then veer off. People were either screaming or laughing. I loved it.
4th - Mud Tubes. We had to wait a bit here. There were 3 metal tubes going up mud hills and covered in snow. Did I mention the race had extra mud due to the rains? And snow? WTF! We had to crawl up thru the tubes in the mud. There were 2 sets of these. We got quite muddy at this point.
5th - Jump Mud Walls. They had about 3 I think, they were mud hills with a wall on top you had to hop or climb over. You also had to get quite a running start to get up the fucker or you would slide back down. Fun, but coming down was a little ouch on my knee.
6th - Monkey Bars. I aced these!!!!! They were about 6 across I think (6 people could go at a time), if you fell you landed in muddy water and had to walk out. I'm the only one that made it across!!!!!! Also, only me and Kristin made it across on our team. I think Chay would have but purposely dropped off at the end. The monkey bars were thick, but I was so stoked I blasted through them.
7th - Stadium Stairs. Ok, this was a bit rough. We had to run up to the top of the stadium, then down again. They had Eye of the Tiger playing and a giant pic of Rocky at the top. Hilarious. Going up wasn’t too bad, but coming down I had to do this hop thing to avoid landing on my knee and can I tell you - that one calf was sore for 4 days!!!!!!!

8th - Hosedown Tower. Ok, this was not fun. We started running up this area with trees and paths and looked like it was a zoo or something. There were people in towers - HOSING US WITH FIRE HOSES. Did I mention it was freezing out?! There was no way to not get hit, so now I'm wet and cold. Eeeek! We then ran past these guys who were high fiving us as we ran by - I thought they were supportive volunteers. Nope bitches had water blasters. Sigh.
9th - Balls. They had these balls on rope that got hocked at you when you went through. They apparently had paint on them, but I got thru unscathed so I didn’t see that. There were some other balls you ran thru, but the guys didn’t have it together when we ran thru so I had to miss that one.
10th - Tire Mountain. These were tires that went up a hill and were covered in snow. What's with the snow!!!! I tried to be all bad ass here, but almost ate it so had to be a good cautions little girl going up and down these bad boys.

11th - Giant Inflatable Slip & Slide! Now I didn’t mind getting wet here. 2 people went at a time - you ran at it and slide thru just like a slip and slide! So much fun!!!
12th - More Tires. Now we're wetter. F You.
13th - Polar Plunge. When the guy shouted it as we ran the corner I wanted to cry. Damn with cold water!!!! Sure enough you had to jump into this cold cold water that was about waist high and pull yourself across on ropes. Sigh.
14th -This was my favorite I think. It was a giant inflatable thing. One side you climb up the wall with a rope. Which I sailed up faster than most (I love that I can do something good!!!!) then the other side was a giant inflatable slide!!!! So much fun!!


15th - Mud Hills. These were just basically just giant mud hills you run up and down. I was careful coming down. My knee was really acting up unfortunately and I forgot to mention I was coming off being sick so I still had a horrendous cough. I hadn’t worked out for 2 weeks, so I was struggling a bit.
16th - Rope Balancing thing. You had to go across balancing on a rope, and you held one above your head. I scooted across pretty good!
Last one - (There were 20, but I can’t remember the others. They were little ones though, usually tires or mud hills...) This was a rope swing. You grab the rope - swing across. If you fell you landed in muddy water. I felt like a monkey. Loved it.

As we finished they called out our names and team name so that was very cool to hear. This was Megs 1st race so she had a blast and loved hearing her name called.

Afterwards was the giant after party. They had food, beer, a wine tent, vendors and the dance dance party. They also had changing tents and were super organized with everything. Sadly I had to leave early. I wasn’t prepared to get that wet, so my change of clothes wasn’t sufficient and I got really chilled. I also was still coming off that damn flu, so I headed out. I heard from the others though that it was awesome and fun. I'll come better prepared next time and stay to party with the rest.
All in all this race was my favorite. I'm so excited and hoping they do it again next year!!!!

Chapman 5K...

So I know I'm nowhere near what some people are doing in the world of active-ness right now. My GAWD. I read some of my friend’s updates and blogs and my mind is blown. Triathlons, Ironman Races, Hell one of my co-workers placed 1st in the Chapman 5K for the women. HELLOOOO!!!!!!
So, I need to tell myself, what I'm doing is good for me. Just me. Its ok Jami, you’re not going to be doing any 80 million mile bike rides anytime soon. I'm so very happy I'm not as competitive as I used to be. Now I'm just inspired. It's truly amazing what these friends are doing. And I have quite a handful of them too. (I know at least one of you is reading this Ms. Kickass). But seriously. Insane what these folks have accomplished and just keep friggin going. I look forward to more blogs and updates and news on them probably running/biking around the world at some point here soon. Keep it up my friends - you all are fucking amazing.
But let's come back to me.
As you all know from my past blogs, and those of you who just know me. Yes - I'm athletic. Yes I'm pretty fearless. Yes I like to sign up for the weirdest shit. But no, I'm not in the most amazing shape. And yes, I'm very broken/busted. The tumor on my foot is extremely painful and we all know my knee woes. (Although I'm starting to wonder, if when I do get surgery, maybe a robo knee will be like a superhero thing!!!) Plus my awesome back injury likes to throw its opinion into the mix quite often. But that doesn’t stop me. It does slow me down though. Alot.
I'm smarter now. I know when not to over-do it. (Ok most of the time, not all of the time). My accomplishments are baby ones and that is probably what work best for me right now. I mean hello - not too long ago I was quite the partier, smoked a pack or more a day and exercised when I felt like a fatty that usually lasted about a day or two. Then I'd overdo it and completely fuck myself up. I also loooooved to eat at about 2am. Now I'm a little better. Yes, just a little. I've quit smoking (a feat in of itself), I eat sort of better, I exercise regularly and I drink...well I still drink, but not like before. My party days are now what I like to call grown up party days. On a school night with few exceptions I'm in bed at a decent hour, and I curb my drinking to just a couple of glasses instead of a bottle.
But I've completely gone off the subject. I'm supposed to blogging about the Chapman 5K. I'm realizing I may write another "working on life changing" blog later.
Chapman 5K.
I signed up for this only because I work there, it was free and I'm trying to be more involved there. I also figured I'd just walk with some Chapman peeps and call it a day.
Well, as the day came closer the people I was going to walk with slowly started dropping off. I've made more acquaintances there, but alot were actually going to run it so they were out. The ones that were going to walk with me were either now working check in, or bitching out altogether. So the day came and I had no buddy.
When my alarm went off in the dark of morning - do you know when this is??? The time before the sun comes up when your body is saying "Why the fuck are you getting up at this ungodly hour on a SATURDAY??!!". I'm not gonna lie - I about bitched out myself. It was free, who cares, I had to work the beer garden from 1 to 5 anyway, grumble grumble. Well - I did it. I got up, showered and headed over in the dark.
It was bustling with people and excitement, so I found one of my running coworker friends and chatted with him while we stretched and got ready. I have learned to use Pandora on my scary phone, and had this little arm thingie that could hold it. So I told myself - "You did most of beach palooza alone, this will be a nice test to do it completely alone". So I did.
I stuck in my ear buds and zoned out the people around me. The race began and I heard faint cheers as the herd started to move. The start line was shooting off white confetti in the air as we ran through. It was awesome. I did jog this 1st part, mainly to get away from the crowds. We ran thru the Orange Circle and into the neighborhoods. We started to space out, and at this point my knee started to scream, so I fell into my very brisk power walk. I ended up in a great rhythm that I didn’t stop. I had on the Flogging Molly Pandora. Can I say how perfect this is for this little Irish Girl to power walk in my own little world to?! Especially when they sing the warrior crys!
We hit the 1st mile and I started noticing that I was passing alot of people. Including these little tiny bitchy college whores in their little bitty shorts who pranced passed me earlier. Now they were all tired and dragging. HA BITCHES!!
Sorry. Catty moment.
There were random people along the route that had wandered out of their houses to watch or cheer us on. Not many, but a few. My favorites were a group of about 8 women in their 50's-ish with mimosas cheering us on. Another was a little old couple standing on their porch, and as I neared, the little man whipped up a trombone and was playing little tunes. That was a little bit of awesomeness right there.
As I passed the 2 mile mark, I was floored at how many people I was passing. I know I walk faster than the average person. I can’t run for shit without my foot or knee acting up, but dammit I can walk the shit out of races!! I was quite impressed with myself that I didn’t let up. I was focused, in a nice little zone and trekking along.
When I hit campus we rounded the corner and there was a whole crap load of peeps cheering and what not. I got excited thinking I was at the finish line, so I started to run again. Bad idea. I sailed thru campus, but we turned back onto a street. My knee started to swell and pretty much gave at that point. I fell back into my walk, but as per usual when I did finally spot the finish line, I had to run across it. So I did. Yes I was limping, yes I probably shouldn’t have, but I did push myself a bit too much. I high fived our Panther Mascot as I stumbled over the finish line.
My knee was swollen and screaming and my foot was starting to throb. But I felt great. Busted or not I felt fantastic. I grabbed my oatmeal and juice, shot a pic with my co-worker and headed out to clean up before coming back.
It was interesting how I felt. I know I'm never going to 1st, or probably even in the top, but I'm doing great for me. I'm steady. Slow and steady wins the race right? I like these baby steps. I'm trying to find ways to handle more. My therapist wants to kill me, but she works out my scar tissue and has kept me out of surgery thus far. I have ortho things in my shoes now that are hopefully going to quiet down the fiery tumor. I'm also noticing I can last longer, and heal better. Grant it I had to opt out of my boxing class tonite due to alot of pain waist down, but I'm learning how to slow down and not kill myself. I also did the race in 38 minutes. Best I've ever done! I do walk pretty damn fast! :)

Smoking...

I miss it...
Oh do I miss it...
October 5th was 7th months.
My body is not reacting as violently as it was. But I'm still having some issues. I had my 1st chest X-ray yesterday. Dr. thinks it'll be fine, but they want to just check it out since I've been having odd feelings in my chest. Personally I think my lungs are confused, because they don’t get the daily intake of smoke. They miss it too.
I remember the 1st cigarette of the day. That burning sensation down your throat. That long exhale of swirly smoke. That smell. That taste. That feeling. Only a smoker will know that this paragraph is like heaven. I miss it.
The cravings have not gone away, really at all. My Dr. said "You'll never be a non-smoker. You'll always be a recovering smoker. It's like alcoholism. But nicotine is the most addictive one you can do." He smiled and followed up with "You were a loser before, now you’re making efforts to take care of yourself. You've given yourself life." Yup. He's my new primary Doctor. I like him.
I still miss it. And from the sounds of it I always will. I still don’t feel any "Better". I don’t notice any differences. I don’t feel any different or better or cleaner or breathe better or any of that. Doc says I won’t for a year. So, guess we'll see. Oh how I miss it.
I have to say - I am proud of myself. I really didn’t think I could ever do it. I still can’t believe I actually did. I'm not exaggerating when I say a cigarette has not touched my lips. I honestly think I'm afraid if I have one puff I'll go back. It's actually getting a bit harder to be around smokers because I miss it so much. Being around the smoke is like dangling candy in front of a diabetic. I really don’t want to become one of those friends to my smoking friends that can’t be around them now that I don’t smoke, but it's getting harder it seems.
Oh how I miss it.
I guess it was time though. This is why I was able to do it. I feel like I lost a part of myself. It's really the strangest feeling. It's like something is missing from my life.
Goodbye my sweet dear friend American Spirits. Your yellow box was my favorite. I can taste you as I type this. Your sweet smell that you left on my fingers and on my clothes. You were always with me. Like an extension of my arm. Just there. You were there for me during stressful times, sad times, happy times. But I had to let you go. It's time.
Oh how I miss it.
Almost a year now.
I miss you.

Beachapalooza...

The night before, I was a good little girl and went to bed early to be ready for the big day. Unfortunately the day started off a bit crappy. Another friend had to back out. One backed out earlier in the week due to being deathly ill, and now I lost another. So after a few disappointed tears, D said to just ride with her and Court so I figured I'd risk motion sickness for company. So off to Long Beach we went. We hit a bit of traffic, but I did alright. My main thing was doing the race with someone. It's fun to chat with someone and have someone there at your side that can pace you. I was thinking I'd be slowing D and Court down if they stayed with me. Well everything turned out totally differently so all ended well.
There were a total of 8 of us. Most being actual runners, so I knew I would meet up with all of them later. We hung out, chatted, my good friend Mic showed up to cheer us on and take photos. It was a gorgeous clear day and our 11am wave was about to start. And GO!!!

We're off, I'm starting out in my usual slow trot that won’t last long, when I realize - "Why is this so much harder?". Sand. Wow. F Sand. I knew it was a bit difficult to run/walk in sand but DUDE!!!! My normal routine is I slowly trot, then start to power walk when my knee starts barkin. Well...you can’t really "power walk" in sand. D was immediately miserable due to her weak ankles and not a happy camper.
We hit our 1st obstacle. The hanging water noodles. I had seen the picture online, but didn’t realize there was rope as well. That damn rope. I remember that during Warrior Dash. It's not easy to climb over/under that. But we did and there was Mic snapping away!

After a bit, Court took off ahead and D and I struggled thru the sand. I found I fell into a pretty good rhythm and my knee wasn’t hurting. D was having a helluva time and generally pissed off so when I asked if she minded if I tested my knee out and went ahead she was more than encouraging. So off I went, I decided to try trotting a bit more. I was doing pretty well until we hit the part where we were right along the water line, and at this beach is quite the slant. So we were running pretty much sideways. This was not fun whatsoever. Water hit our feet, and now we had sand shoes. After I got through that, I hit our 2nd obstacle. You crawled under this net, then into a hole of water - trekked thru then did it again. The sand smelled like ass. Seriously. Off I went again. I was surprised at how well I was doing. I was still able to trot, when usually at this point I can only power walk.
D caught up with me, and we were just coming up on the water station where Court waited for us. Mic was there again for some photos. I have to say - it was awesome having a friend along the race smiling and taking photos! I really loved having that kind of support! So off we went again.
Court and D were struggling pretty badly at this point so I went off ahead. This was the 1st time I did a race pretty much by myself. I still like having someone pace me, but it was kinda nice. I was concentrating on trying to keep a steady pace, I had got a nice rhythm again. More of an oddly big stepping robot walk, than a normal power walk (I'm sure I looked the fool) but it kept me going. Next obstacle came up - we had to walk up a balance beam, and then hop onto circular wooden platforms. The last hop was quite a hop. I almost missed it. But landed just on the edge and didn’t topple over. As I came down Mic was running to catch me, but he didn’t realize I'd gotten ahead. Look at me!!!
Off I went again. It was hot, and the sand was brutal but I kept my pace. Next obstacle. 3 walls with holes in them. You had to climb thru the holes in the walls. Well, on the 3rd wall, the hole was so high up! I stood there looking at it for a moment wondering how the hell I'm to get thru that. I was standing in between 2 tall guys when one hopped - grabbed the top of the wall and swung his body thru it. Ok. I attempted this. Well shorty here couldn’t reach the top. So - I grabbed the hole and hoisted myself in it. I was proud of my upper body strength, but was now perched in this hole not sure how to get out. If someone could have videoed this - we would have made thousands. I did this sort of tumble out and landed on all fours. I of course squealed the whole way down. I'm sure I was a sight.
Off I was again. I looked around and realized I was quite alone. Some stragglers in front and in back of me but the good runners were well gone, and the rest of the folks were way behind me. It was a nice moment. The ocean, the beautiful day and except for the fact that I was panting and walking like a robot it was pretty serene. I was coming up on the next obstacle when I saw the 11:30 wave heading out. I had 2 goals - don’t let the 11:30 wave lap you, and beat Court and D (No offense girls, but you've always beat me in the past!). So I began to trot again.
This obstacle was a balance beam up, across, and then down. There was Mic! As I hopped off the downward beam - my knee went. I flinched and almost went down. But that was it. No more trotting.


I fell back into my odd robot walk, with a slight limp now added to it. Man I must have looked amazing! Ha ha!
Another obstacle. This was the giant beach balls. Seriously - these were about 10 feet tall. It was those damn ropes you have to climb thru again, I was extra careful now that the knee was starting to shoot stabbing pains, then you pretty much walk thru the balls. I enjoyed watching a few dudes try to jump on them, and then made my way out. Smile for Mic!

I'm now on the final stretch. I robot walk up to the curve, but really want to at least trot thru the fire and last obstacle to the finish. I begin to trot. It's my broken trot due to angry knee but I trotted! I come up to the fire - I see the photographers - I want so badly to do an awesome badass pose as I leap over the 2 sets of fire. I bitch out. I probably have the same photo as Warrior Dash! Me jumping, looking down, looking freaked out! Ah well.
The last obstacle is an ice shallow pool. You slide into it, swim under the net and crawl out. My breath is taken away it's so cold, but it feels so friggin good at the same time since I'm pouring sweat and bright red. I pull myself out, and try to look proud going across the finish line in my gimpy trot.
I'm handed a pineapple medal and run right into Art whose congratulating me. I join our group and realize D and Court have yet to appear. I limp over to where Mic is by the fire and see them coming. I scream and cheer them on and realize I made my goal! (I think...I don’t recall seeing any 11:30 peeps pass me).
We are all red, sweaty and happy. We snap some photos, head into the event, pop a squat and enjoy our free Mike's Harder Lemonade. (FYI - the cranberry one is awesome). I buy myself an amazing veggie pita from Global Soul Food Truck (Check them out!) and we all chat and laugh and recap and agree sand is our new enemy for races.
I'm not sure if I would do this one again or not. I don’t think anyone would want to do it with me though. It didn’t have nearly enough obstacles for me, but I still had fun. I'm sooooooo looking forward to the ROC race (Ridiculous Obstacle Course), so we'll see how that goes.
Today my knee is a bit sore, but not swollen! I'm not as sore as I can get, and I wore my new Orthos to see how they did, and I think it was ok. (Sidebar - I got Orthos to see if they will help with my neuroma. My Dr. wants to avoid surgery if possible, so I'm to wear these when I'm active now.) It flared this morning, but I'm not worried yet.
So I survived another one! It was nice to see I can do it alone, and not be bored or distracted. I still had a pretty damn good time!

Just kidding...

Well, you won’t be reading any humorous posts about math. I had to drop the class. And no it wasn’t me giving up, it was the teacher recommending me to and honestly also realizing something that makes me physically ill is just not worth it.
Here's how it went down:
So you had read that Labor Day Monday I yarfed from starting to do my homework and stressing so hard it got me sick. Unfortunatley, I've also come to realize that when stress hits me, it hits me harder than it used to and sadly more physically. So Thursday class rolled around (This would have been Day 4 if I continued). The teacher started her usual teachings with me sitting there completely lost and trying to ignore the annoying children around me. She then said we were doing an assignment in class. She passed out something from our workbooks and we were to do all the problems. I have never in my entire life had this happen to me - but I froze. I stared down at my worksheet and didn’t know shit. One of the problems could have been what's 2 + 2 and I don’t think I would have known the answer. I have heard about people freezing up when taking tests and always thought, well that's silly. Just relax and get through it. Well I had my first experience. The numbers blurred and my mouth started to water with that familiar feeling meaning I'm going to throw up. I started to break out into a cold sweat and my head start splitting. "SERIOUSLY!!!" I thought to myself. "This is ridiculous, calm down. Get a fucking hold of yourself". I took deep breaths and tried to focus. It wasn’t working. The teacher came over and tried to help me. She might as well have been talking in Russian. I had no idea. She came back and wrote down a tutors name for me. I stared at the problems and seriously could not do 1 fucking problem. I just stared down at my blank answers and fought off the tears and nausea and humiliation. I wanted to die. She came back and knelt by me. "I've been watching you, and I see you not getting it. You’re not going to pass this class. (She knew my situation). These kids just came out of pre-algebra, so they understand but it's been too long for you". I just silently nodded praying to anyone that I would not have an Exorcist moment with this woman and yarf in her face. "I think you should drop the class and take a pre-algebra somewhere. Then come back and I promise this will be a breeze!". She was very sweet, and very right. I nodded numbly and stumbled out of the class my face red with embarrassment as I felt the eyes of all the kids wondering what the hell just happened and the few within earshot who knew.
I got back to the office, tried to get it together, failed and promptly ran to the restroom and lost my breakfast. I came back to my desk trying to pull it together, but I couldn’t. After 2 more trips to the bathroom, my sweaty pale dumbass slinked into my boss’s office and thru tears of humiliation and embarrassment told her a very short version of what happened and could I go home.
I love this woman so much. She's extremely understanding, and sent me off, me promising to see an internist. (Which I have an appt. October 3rd, because I have had some tummy issues going beyond this stress situation, but more on that later).
I came home, slept for 4 hours, woke up and cried for 2.
The next day after getting myself together, I dropped the class, returned my books (which was a feat in itself, but we won’t get into that) and told my co-horts the news.
I've never felt like that. I've never reacted like that. I know the world is full of so many worse things and this is probably petty to most people, but I've learned over the years not to discount my drama because it's important to me. Yes I'm aware of all the worse things, but right now this for some reason completely fucked me up. I really don’t know why. I guess my angst for math was way deeper than I thought.
But - not all is totally lost.
I still haven’t made up my mind what I want to do yet, but I had lunch with the gal in admissions who helped me out and she told me about a self-paced math class at OCC. She also said, if I get through that (It would cover the 2 elementary classes I would have taken at Chapman), I could go straight to statistics and knock out my math completely. So we'll see. I plan on looking into it for sure, but will make a decision when this awful experience isn’t so fresh on my mind.
The positives are the admissions gal seems pretty cool, she's my age and single so I may have made a new single friend since all mine seem to be dwindling at a very rapid rate. Don’t get me wrong - I'm super happy for my friends who are moving in with significant others, having families, getting married. It's just starting to get a little lonely.
The other positive is I did actually survive, and realize how bad off I really am when it comes to math. So if I decide to tackle it again, I need to do it a different way.
I can focus more on the sketch comedy I have coming up next weekend which I'm super excited about and I still have 2 more races coming up that I'm ultra-excited about. My boxing burn classes have started up again, and it looks like I've joined a bowling league!
So thank you all for the support and I still may be calling on you math whizzes next semester!

Math Woes...

So, in my usual form - when I have something I despise in my life, or something that pisses me off, or makes me not the happy wack job Jami you all know and love, I'll try to humorously blog about it!
Here we go.
It starts like this. I work at Chapman. I can get an education for free. I never got a degree, so here's my chance. I was going to finish my BA in Theater - but I've come to realize you really need to be a full time student to do this. And - sorry Chapman Children - but I can act circles around you. Don’t get me wrong - I do plan on taking a few acting classes here and there if I can, but for a major it just won’t work now that I'm at this age with a full time job. So - I'm going with my other love - Creative Writing. It's going to take me a helluva long time to get this - but that's totally fine with me. I 'm really in no hurry; I just want to learn more and actually have something of substance in my life at the end of it.
So - in order for me to do this - I have to take math. Not only math - but 4 classes of math. I hate math. I have anxiety about math. In fact - fucking math made me actually puke yesterday. Yup. I was trying so hard to figure it out, it caused a migraine then causing me to barf and lose an entire day. Labor Day at that.
I'm not gonna lie - I'm still back and forth whether I'm going to drop it or not. But fear not - it wouldn’t be a drop and forget it kind of thing...more of a drop it - learn the basics and try it again. I haven’t taken math since I was 14 years old and I failed it then. So when I was told I have to take math, I told them to stick me in the lowest and not even bother with a placement test. Sadly the lowest class isn’t low enough I'm realizing. I should have a basic knowledge of algebra - which I don’t. So - I'm giving it one more week or two, to see if I drown before I decide if I can power thru or should stop - re learn how to add and start over. I'm hoping with the support and help friends have offered, the survival guide my boss bought me, and the website a friend showed me - I may be able to squeak through. We'll see.
So in the meantime - I'm of course going to try to humorously talk about it sometimes here on my rambly blog that I'm still flattered and floored that alot of you still read :).

Day 1.
Holy Shit. I'm sitting here in a remedial math class at Chapman U. I, of course, am older then all these kids. I'm listening to some of them (so far all girls) complain to each other that they don’t test well. One gal said she took this class once already. It seems pretty unanimous that everyone is embarrassed to be in this class. Most have lap tops. I'm starting to feel like Reese Wetherspoon in Legally Blonde with my Composition notebook. Damn where's my fuzzy pink pen. I can’t explain the feeling I'm having being a 35 year old sitting in the lowest math class with a bunch of (still all girls) kids who probably are not even of legal age yet. They all check each other out and introduce themselves. But not to me. I have my nose buried in my notebook writing this. I didn’t test into this class. I 'm here because I don’t remember shit about math. There are 2 girls very pissed off they tested into here. Oh please get me through this. There are alot of excuses I'm hearing about why they are here. How the hell do I explain my situation? "Hi there! I'm a 35 year old actor who never finished school. Now I have the opportunity to go here for free (I'm sure their rich parents would love that one), so I'm attempting to actually obtain one of these things you people call degrees!". And in walks in this little Polish Woman with a fantastic accent. I'll skip to the end of class here - I cried the entire way back to my office. I didn’t understand shit. She kept saying this was crap you should already know. As I looked around at the kids annoyed expressions that they were having to go over this again - I realized how little I really did know. I almost quit right then. But - there were lots of encouraging emails, phone calls and a happy hour with some co-workers that kept me from giving up right then.
The next day.
Since I decided to go through with this, my little posse and I headed to the registrar and I signed up. I also went to buy my books. $400!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I actually know what an anxiety attack feels like now. My chest tightened and I started swaying as I stared at the price. John/Bri searched the area for a cheaper version, and then tried very hard to keep me from flipping out. "Math are the most expensive books. Once you’re done with math, none will be this high" John said. "At least it covers 2 classes?" Bri said unsure. My chest tightened more as I grabbed the stack and got in line. Glad I brought my Visa (I just fucking paid off!!!!). Funny side bar - a kid asked me a question then replied with "Werd." He was completely serious. I made a comment about it in the daily report I sent out and sparked all kinds of fun discussions. Anyway...so the gal at the counter asks me "How'z your day?" "Well it was just fine until I saw the price of these books!". She wilted behind the counter and meekly said "You can sell them back later..." For maybe a third of the price I find out. I want to cry.
Day 2.
I take a deep breath and hope hope hope it makes more sense today. Now the kids are getting to know each other, and one girl is really annoyed she's in the class and doing everything in her power to get out. I again avoid eye contact and doodle waiting for the teacher. She pops in. I have to say - as much as I have no idea what the hell she's talking about - she's hilarious. She tells little stories makes the class laugh. I leave the class, and call my lil bro giving him an earful of how much this sucks.
In between.
So I'm trying to do the homework (Seriously so much!) and Bri is helping me at lunches, and I'm running things by Court (Rose you'll be getting emails soon), etc etc etc. It takes me probably 10 times longer to do a problem than it does one of the kids because I have NO IDEA. Proof - Monday I barfed from the anxiety.
Day 3 was today.
The angry girl cant get out of the class, so she's not happy. The kids must have just started doing the homework because they are all mortified how much there is and how long it takes. The pissy girl says "Oh it's easy, just time consuming". I wanted to punch her.
My boss ordered me a book called The Survival Guide to Algebra. I'm starting to read it and it's a kick. I'm hoping it'll help me out and I'm feeling good that it will somewhat. Bri is determined to see me through and probably already ready to kick my ass 3 different ways because I'm such a pain. But god love her - she's sticking to helping me. I still didn’t understand shit today in class, but I finished my homework - sort of tonite, with many question marks to ask Bri at lunch tomorrow. There's a few things I get, but most things I dont. I'm hoping with enough help and patience from myself and my friends I can get through this.
Wish me luck.
I'll try to keep humorous tid bits throughout. I think the 1st test will really be a test of me being able to grasp this crap.
I'm trying.
Lord am I trying.
To those of you helping me now and that will be helping me in the future - I fucking love you.

Wet & Wild 5K...

Yup. Had two in a row two weekends here. That was something.
So - Wet & Wild 5K.
After we had signed up for this one, I looked at the course and realized it's similar to the Fair Fun Run meaning there is only 1 really "Fun" thing. You got to run through the Lazy River at Wild Rivers. So, my expectations were already on the low side for this one. This is another one I won’t do again, but I got to experience something totally different this time around.
So, mom decided to sign up for this race. My mom is not an athletic person, and has been frustrated with her weight and the fact that she's out of shape for quite some time now. She's starting to make an effort lately, and I'm hoping I have some influence. I gave her a pedometer, and she's working on the 10K steps challenge I mentioned earlier that my work is doing. She of course can’t sign up since it's through Chapman, but I've made her a little spreadsheet and she's tracking her steps etc. She also attended the Warrior Dash we did back in April to cheer us on, and I believe she noticed the mix of people. The types of races I sign up for, as you know, are not the hard core marathon races. They're fun ones. So they have all sorts of people. Runners, families, people with injuries, larger, smaller, etc. I've told mom she could do some of these and take her time. Do her own pace sort of thing. Hell I'm never in it to win it - I'm in it for a fun different way to exercise. (Although I'm noticing I'm getting a little more competitive, but I'll save that for another blog).
So today's race started out like this:
Robin and her dad met us there (They are runners). D and Court were meeting us there. Lib was supposed to come with mom and me. She didn’t make it. The plan was, D or I were going to walk with my mom so she wouldn’t be alone. It was most likely going to be me & Lib, well now it was just me. And I'm so glad.
I knew this was causing my mom some concern. When we started getting close, she started worrying and lamenting over the fact that she was going to slow us down, and run ahead without her, etc. etc. She was worried she was going to have to stop and rest throughout the race. Worry worry worry. The closer we got, I could tell she was getting a little excited, but still not sure. She got some good walking shoes, she got herself some running shorts and shirts. She was prepared.
As we headed over this morning, I was actually looking forward to taking it easy today. As we ladies all deal with once a month..well yes...and I was extra crampy this morning and my neuroma has been flaring up all week. It wasn’t too bad today, but the thought of not pushing myself too hard today was defiantly pleasing.
After we checked in, got our crap, stretched, battled the nasty porter potties, there we all were in the giant cluster to start the race. Horn blows - we're off. We say goodbye to Robin, her dad, D and Court and mom and I start walking at a decent pace.
I see her start to react as most of us do...noticing we're getting lapped by strollers, children and old people and I see mom start to push it a bit. She tries to jog a couple of times, but is not able. I tell her not to worry, she's keeping up an amazing pace! She truly is. I was honestly surprised at how brisk she was walking. We're chatting, I'm jogging around her encouraging her. She refuses to be lapped by certain folk and speeds up at times. As we near the 1 mile mark she starts to tell me how important this is to her and breaks down. I of course immediately start acting like a jack ass trying to get her to laugh again, but at that moment I realized how hard this is for her. I knew that, but I didn’t realize how much. She can’t get the words out, but she doesn’t have too. We pass the 1 mile mark and I now am even more excited to be trotting around her. She tells me she never thought she could do something like this. She's so proud of herself and excited how well she's doing. I couldn’t be more proud.
We near the 2 mile mark and a couple of women walk past us shouting encouragement to mom - they chat a bit and the woman tells her "You don’t have to be a runner!! You're doing it! Good for you! You go girl!" At this point, I've decided to actually kick my own ass a bit and run backwards in front of mom for a long period of time (which I'm feeling the burn on that one as I'm typing right now...). We're chatting face to face as she's walking and I'm trotting backwards. I can see the determination on her face. I still can’t believe we've gone this far and she hasn’t had to stop and rest.
We finally reach the river portion. We have to wait a moment to get in, and the heat hits mom. She's a bit light headed, but I know once we're in the water she'll be fine. I was right. She's lovin it. She is a fish actually so now she's in her element splashing around as we walk thru the lazy river. Sadly this was only a very short distance. I seriously wanted to run the entire lazy river. Ah well. I help an old man out who’s having a hard time in front of me, and we round the corner to the last leg of the race. I see the finish line. "Mom wanna run it?" We do. D and Court are cheering us on as we pass them and mom crosses the finish line beaming. We did it in under an hour. (I'm guesstimating about 50 minutes).
We get our medals and our bananas and I shove a few waters in her hand making her drink. She did it. I was so proud of her and she was so proud of herself.
This was a race that wasn’t about me at all and I loved watching mom make her goal.
Way to go mom!!

Urban Dare...

Urban Dare.
Fail.
When we signed up for this Urban Dare, and watched people's U-Tube videos, and saw pics, etc. It looked like the Amazing Race. You get a clue, you arrive at a destination, you perform a dare then get another clue. The dares had rock climbing, eating fun things, riding a paddle boat, things like that!
Ours did not.
So here's the breakdown of the Urban Dare Race along with me and Lib's photo re-cap. There were fun moments; I mean how can there not be with my best friend in the whole world and me as a team.
We were the Darling Devils.

Joining us were my bro and his wife, our friends Court and Nat, and later on Julie and her man. We started out well enough. We arrived early to grab some breakfast and as some were waiting for me to come from the parking lot, some woman walked out of a what we didn’t realize was a restaurant and said - "You guys looking for something to eat? We have Bloody Mary's and Mimosas!". Sold. So we started our morning off with a couple of drinks and a very greasy breakfast. Probably not the smartest thing, but most of us were smart and just ate a portion as not to offend the "cook".


Julie & Gabe phone us that they have arrived and checked in, so we head over to Auld Dubliner where we check in, and end up hanging out for a while since we were so early. We got out T-shirts (You didn’t have to wear it if you were in a costume), our bibs and a passport. We of course all treated ourselves to a few more drinks...I mean we were in a bar and started getting excited. Court and Julie were a team, Gabe and Shane then D and Nat (Beer Brains 09 - consisting of tutu’s and personalized trucker hats. That's D. I love her).


The head guy tells us all to head out and meet in front of Laugh Factory. We all gather, they have a costume contest, then we are handed clue sheets. Lib and I dart to the side, plop in the shade and start to go through it. I realize right then - this is not what I was expecting. There is a list of 12 clues - all ending with an answer of some place you're supposed to go and take your photo. There were only 3 "Dares" and a "Photo Hunt challenge". WTF! Oh well, we start in. D had loaned us her phone, but unfortunately we are technologically retarded and it was difficult. We can also call people, so I was on the phone calling friends to help with answers. We get to a point where we have the answer to almost everything and figure we should get going.
Here's where we went wrong.
We decided, well let's just to the 1st thing on the list. The clue was "This was #2 in the Travel Channel's top 101 places to eat. Go there and take your picture in front of it.". Thank you to Vanessa - the answer was Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles. We attempt to use D's navigation thing - I speak the name into the phone and after some cursing and having no idea what its doing, Lib squeals - "It’s working! This way". We're off.
We running, and running and running - "How Long!!!" Oh Right (I think to myself) you're usually in a car, it's a bit farther than we thought. It's cool, we start to laugh and as we're running I'm calling people and making notes. Seriously - How we didn’t die is beyond me. Running while writing/texting/calling isnt the smartest idea. We just happen to come upon one of the dares! The luck! So we jet over and the gal tells us that the name of our passport (Which was SteamPower) has # value's. There are little sticks in the ground all over the grass each with a letter and a # value. We are to find ours, add them up and give her the correct total. We start. We have fab teamwork here as I shout the value's to Lib who writes them down while still juggling D's phone. We right out the #'s - she shouts them at me as I add em up on my phone calculator (See my phone was good for something). Stamp. We're off.
We are now running up a f-ing hill.
We happen upon another one!! Sweet! We jet over to see what it is. This is the "Urban Lab Chantilly Clad" or something. It's an odd looking installation. As we run up to the girl, she says "3-Legged Race! Run 3 times around this thing". We're off, after a few stumbles we f-ing rocked. This was the one we probably did best at. We got in a perfect rhythm with each other and lapped all the fools stumbling next to us and then STAMP. We're off!
Now we're almost to Roscoe's. I decide we need to figure out where we're going to go so we don’t end up back tracking. We sit down, I'm on the phone with my lovely mom getting the addresses of all our locations since Lib is afraid to turn off D's phone and lose Roscoe's. We pull our our map. FAIL. It's not a detailed enough map. WTF!!!!!!! We're screwed. We now have no way of figuring out where the hell we're going, because D's phone is not working for us either. Fuck. Well, what can you do. We head off to Roscoe's. On the way we bump into Julie/Court. They tell us where one of the local's is and we head off. We have totally lost our devil horns at this point and we are sweating and dying already. We finally find Roscoe's.
The nice thing was, the other peeps in the race were, for the most part, really cool. Alot of times you'd hit something at the same time and we'd pull the you take my photo I'll take yours sort of thing. So - photo local #1 -

We're off to "Anita Ekberg started in this Fellini film. Take your pic in front of the Spa with the same name". We find La Dolce Vita Spa and shoot the pic with the help of other Urban Dare folk.

We head off, knowing the addy of places and hoping they're this way. We are going for a very long time. We are also now in a very questionable area of Long Beach. I'm not going to lie, there were a few times I was a little worried. We did see 2 drug deals, and had quite of few homeless asking what the hell all these people running around were doing, but other than that nothing too bad. We run into Shane/Gabe. They point us in the opposite direction we're going saying the one is closer. Sigh - we turn around and finally find the "Mel Brooks starred in this TV Series with Don Adams. Take your pic in front of this tutoring academy".

Now, at this point I have an enormous blister forming on the side of my heel. I state to Lib we have to stop somewhere for me to get a band aid. We wander into a very scary liquor store and battle the counter fellow with a language barrier explaining I need a band aid. His buddy - a very ancient Asian man shrieks at him what I want in his language and he finally understands. I also notice the double pain glass shield we have to exchange our money through. Yup. Not a great area. I get my band aids and we take a 1st aid break.


We're off again. We drag up to the "Robin Williams movie where he played a gay biz owner or something...yup. You guessed it. Take a photo. As you can see by this photo - we're kind of over it.

I had spotted our other local while on our way to the Birdcage Cafe. "You need 98% to pass this test, or something - take your photo in front of the nightclub. Thank you Vanessa - I had no idea what the hell that one was!

We're off again. One of the photo hunt challenges was we had to take a photo of someone not in the race re-inacting the famous WWII photo of the soldier kissing the gal all romantic like. I was thinking this was going to be tough, especially since most of the people we have encountered are mean or on drugs. A lovely couple is walking towards us and Lib stops them to explain our task. The dude looks suspicious but his adorable GF says "Come on honey!!! It'll be fun!!!" so they get ready and he looks at me and says "Now what's the pose? Oh..this?" and promptly nails it. They were so awesome!!!!! Look at her pointed toe!

At this point we're a little flustered and we're wandering around trying to find Civic Center. This is when we get a call from Julie. They finished. I wanted to cry. I knew we weren’t close. She says since we got screwed with the wrong map, she'll help us out. We find the Civic Center while on the phone with her and follow some other racers to find the Bram's something Marlin we're supposed to photo ourselves in front of.

I call Julie back and tell her what we have left. "Oh no." She says. Yup - all 3 of our last places were totally scattered. She tells me where they are and this is the moment I almost quit. I just want to sit down and start to cry. I hang up and tell Libby. She has the same face as me. We're so f-ed. I'm now not even sure if we'll finish before the cutoff time of 3:45. We start off to the 1st one, bitching to each other about how lame this f-ing race has turned out to be and why didn’t I look and see we had a bunk map and FUCK!!! We call Julie again, because - yup we passed our 1st damn one due to our anger. So we turned around and took a photo in front of the stupid toy car pileup.

We luckily happened upon the other "Dare" when we saw a bunch of blue T-shirts running one direction - Wheelbarrow Race. Lib drops on all fours and we wheelbarrow around the little cones. STAMP.
We head off to our last and farthest spot. Because guess where it f-ing was. BACK NEAR ROSCOE'S!!!!! Yup, we are so screwed up and should have nailed it when we were on the other side of town. It's the Museum of Latin American Art. Fuck me. As we start dragging back, Libby is wanting to call a taxi. I'm so defeated by this point I almost agree. So, we do what we do best on our way back and just laugh. Try to look at the good side. We got our exercise! We got to catch up! Ya. Fuck.
We finally arrive and take our photo in front of the (which we now hate) Angel of the America's.

We see a really neat mirror thing (I make a mental note to come back when I'm in a better mood and do some camera play) and take our FUCK YOU URBAN DARE! Photo.

We start our trek back. We also realize we haven’t done our last photo thing we need to do to finish the damn thing. We need 3 people not in the race to do the Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil, See no Evil. We're also walking through and area where there IS NO CIVILIZATION! We've now heard that everyone in our group has finished of course. Whatever.
So we pass (again) this lovely park and figure fuck it, let's go take a nice happy picture on the bridge!

We then see these women walking towards us. Libby stops them to explain our last photo dare. One women leaves - now there's only 2 of em but another women is walking towards us so I stop her. They look a little wary at first, but since we're pretty much begging the lovely lady who is doing the Hear no Evil says "Come on ladies!!" and promptly assigns who’s doing what. I wanted to kiss them all.

We finally drag ourselves into the bar. Stamp our card. Show the gal all our pictures. They say congrats and we're done. Where's my f-ing medal!? Whatever. We collapse with our group, finding out Shane/Gabe didn’t get there too far ahead of us, and we notice we did it in about 2 1/2 hours I think - which isn’t horrible. But - the fact that we would have probably have been amazing had we had a f-ing map.
I got myself a glass of white - wanting booze but something cold.

Julie and Gabe had to peace out, but I got the final photos of us, exhausted but actually looking happy! :) So in conclusion - won’t be doing Urban Dare again. We all agree we were really disappointed that there were not more activities to do. I think that would have made it better, because even if we screwed up our route like we did - we would have had fun activities to look forward too. Oh well. We finished, and of course there were really fun moments! Thank you to my partner in crime and my best friend in the world - Miss Lib. We do make a pretty damn good team!