Little surfer girl

This weekend, I was a spectator at an amazing event. Matt and Holly will be writing all about it soon, but I thought I would offer my outsider experience.

Annabelle had her first surfing lesson! For those of you who don't know Annabelle, she is the three year old little miracle child I live with, the daughter of great friends. She she is the niece to my 'Unca Day'. She was born with Spina Bifida, and on land she zips along in a wheelchair with flashing wheels and a glow in the dark frame. She loves the water and with the help of a great organization, she got to take out a surfboard for the first time.

A group called Life Rolls On puts on these surfing events nine times a year, with three in California. They take people who are normally restricted to wheelchairs and take them out to tackle the surf. From their website:

Life Rolls On, a subsidiary of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, is dedicated to improving the quality of life for young people affected by spinal cord injury and utilizes action sports as a platform to inspire infinite possibilities despite paralysis.

Life Rolls On was founded by Jesse Billauer. Also from their website:

On March 25, 1996, Jesse Billauer was surfing at his local break at Zuma Beach in California as he was pushed headfirst into the shallow sandbar, fracturing his neck and severing his spinal cord, leaving him a quadriplegic. Jesse left the hospital, and immediately knew two things: he had to surf again and he had to help others be inspired to follow their passions. 

After my morning run, I scooted up to La Jolla to see Annabelle surf. I was running a little late, and arrived on the beach at her 11:30 scheduled start time. Annie was enjoying a nap at that point, so they bumped her to 1:30. It allowed me a couple of hours to learn more about Life Rolls On and see them in action.

There were four teams of volunteers taking out surfers for a half hour of fun. I first watched from a distance, the ocean filled with color-coded teams watching and supporting their surfer. Then I watched one team and one individual. This lady right here.

The volunteers wheeled her out into the surf, lifted her on the surfboard, and ferried her out into the breakers. Her team spread into a rough chute between the surf and the shore, while one volunteer lay behind her on the board. They would bob along until they saw a good wave coming, and then they would push and kick the board forward and ride it on in. The team ran and swam alongside, ready to catch her if she fell. There were laughs, smiles and cheers, but every volunteer was on task and ready to jump in.

I can't begin to imagine what it was like for her surfing that day. I can only attempt to equate it to what I know from my own life. Standing knee deep in the surf, watching all these amazing athletes, it felt like I was standing at the finish line of a marathon.

Just like at every start line, there are amazing individual stories to tell. What people have struggled through just to get there. Lives, deaths, sicknesses, sacrifices and everyday speed bumps. As special as it is to look in everyone's eyes as they contemplate what is ahead, and what they put behind, it only informs the triumph you see at the finish line. It is palpable.

And the surfer's course was lined with volunteers just like a race course. These special people dancing in the waves were even more powerful, not only providing mental energy and encouragement, but literal life support. I got choked up watching this woman conquer the waves and everything else, just like I do at the finish lines of marathons. And I can't describe it much better than my favorite race course sign - "I am totally proud of you, random stranger!"

And then I saw Annabelle take her turn. She is probably still a little young to understand all that was going on, but her parents are not. Matt took the rudder of the surfboard for her last run into the beach and Holly captured some great photos. They saw old friends and met new amazing people. People who understand.

I will let them describe what it was like for Annie on her first day of surfing, but as an 'Unca' standing on the beach, it was pretty incredible watching the three of them break through another barrier.

Matt's post is now up, with lots of great photos.

Lyrics of the day

I wish I was a neutron bomb, for once I could go off
I wish I was a sacrifice but somehow still lived on
I wish I was a sentimental ornament you hung on
The Christmas tree, I wish I was the star that went on top
I wish I was the evidence, I wish I was the grounds
For 50 million hands upraised and open toward the sky

I wish I was a sailor with someone who waited for me
I wish I was as fortunate, as fortunate as me
I wish I was a messenger and all the news was good
I wish I was the full moon shining off a Camaro's hood

I wish I was an alien at home behind the sun
I wish I was the souvenir you kept your house key on
I wish I was the pedal brake that you depended on
I wish I was the verb 'to trust' and never let you down

I wish I was a radio song, the one that you turned up
I wish...
I wish... 

~ "Wishlist" by Pearl Jam

Lights out

As you may have heard, San Diego county went dark yesterday. 1.4 million households and business went dark at 3:40 in the afternoon, affecting some 5 million people.

Sean and I were at work in the Rancho Bernardo area. We were installing a much needed shade structure in 100 degree heat. We had just finished making a cut with the miter saw when the homeowner came out and asked if we had lost power. The whole house was out, so it wasn't a tripped breaker. When the homeowner went to ask if his neighbor had power, we realized the radio was out (which is odd since it is battery powered). Then we realized it wasn't the radio, but the radio station that was down. Uh oh.

There had been a small fire on a nearby hillside earlier in the day, but it looked out so it was probably unrelated. Sean had just been talking about recent solar flares a minute before the power went out, so maybe that was what knocked transformers out. Then three military jets flew overhead. I didn't imagine terrorist attack, but with the 10th anniversary of 9/11 just around the corner, it was lurking in the back of my mind.

We eventually found an operating radio station and realized how widespread the outage was. It went north to Orange County, south into Mexico, and east into Arizona, and it sounds like everyone went dark at once.  The airport shut down, trolleys stopped working, offices and schools emptied. Traffic signals went dark and gridlock ensued.

We had made our final cut with the miter saw seconds before the power went out, and the rest of the tools we needed operated on battery power, so we kept working. Stories on the radio about people trapped in elevators kept any concerns about dark homes and melting food in perspective. Phone lines were jammed, but a couple of texts were able to get through. We knew that Kristy and Marci were OK, so stayed to finish the job, and hoped that traffic would die down by the time we hit the road.

We left around 6:00, and my phone stopped working. My car had started to overheat on the way in to work, so I had stopped off for antifreeze. I topped it off again, and hoped that I wouldn't get stuck in gridlock. The gas stations I passed were jammed with cars, but with no electricity, no gas was flowing. People were parked there waiting for the power to come back on. The best guess was that it would not be on until the morning or later, so they were in for a long wait. I was really, really glad that my tank was half full.

Once on the freeway, traffic was not much worse than normal. Several cars were stopped on the shoulder, most likely out of gas. I saw one person parked under an overpass, sitting in a lawn chair, reading the paper waiting for some sort of help to arrive.

I made it home without incident. The sun hadn't set, so there was light to find candles, headlamps and flashlights for later. Matt had stopped at Albertsons to pick up food for the evening so we could leave the fridge closed to keep in the cold. Then he barricaded the door to make sure we didn't open it out of habit. We were set to hunker down for the night, but my phone still wasn't working, so I did feel a little cut off. Holly's phone was able to get a brief signal, so I was able to check in with Kristy. I was sure she was fine, but it was still nice to hear her voice.

The stove and water heater are gas powered, so we could cook and take showers. It was over 90 degrees in the house, so we ate and chatted on the deck until it was time to turn in. No tv, no distractions, flickering candlelight - not much to complain about. The only bummer was not having a fan going in the bedroom. It was another hot and sticky night, and Sierra had tough time of it.

Power and cell service came back on during the night, so most everything is back to normal this morning. There are logjams at the airport that will take a long time to work out, and I am wondering whether food at the store was properly chilled or thrown out. But schools are closed and kids have the day off. A San Diego "snow day" after 100 degree heat.

After of course September is "National Preparedness Month". Kristy had mentioned this earlier, but of course I didn't do anything to get 'ready'. Time to go over the checklist.

Quote of the day

The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.

~ Muhammad Ali

A long hot weekend

I started off the long weekend with a long run.

The marathon is just over a month away, and my run on Saturday was 20 miles long. In some ways, a 20 miler on a random weekend takes more motivation than 26.2 on marathon morning. No cheering crowds, no helpful volunteers handing out water and fuel, no two week taper to build up your strength. That said, those last six miles of the marathon are like no other miles.

The run went reasonably well. I ended up running at a pace that was only a second slower than my last marathon PR. This is too fast for a long training run. This has been my mistake in the past, running too hard in the weeks leading up to the race, and showing up at the start line tired. Training has been less rigid and more by feel this time around, but I need to pay better attention and take it easy when I run another 20 two weeks from now.

Sunday started in a much more relaxing way. Kristy and I took the pooches out for a walk around Mission Bay Park, coffee in hand chasing away the cobwebs from the night before. The beaches would eventually fill with Labor Day families, but early in the morning the park was a more subdued mix of dog-wallkers and runners.

Where Sunday was relatively lazy, Monday was busy. Well, busy relaxing. Two parties, lots of friends, but with the uninvited guest of rain. The first day of rain in months, and it lands on a holiday where everyone is trying to soak up the last day of summer vacation. Shouldn't have washed the car Monday morning.

Though there were no tans to be had, we still had a great time. Bike rides, bocce ball on the beach, great food, kitchen conversations, beautiful sunsets, wonderful friends.

It was raining again this morning, and then the swampy heat rolled in. Temperatures cracked 100 degrees and the humidity made it feel even more oppressive. The pooch had a cold bath, pillow cases are in the freezer, but there may not be much sleep tonight.

Time's up

The year is two-thirds over. Incredible. I can't believe it is already September. The time has flown by, but this year I can mark it off in 30 day increments. There are eight resolutions in the can, and I am three days into resolution number nine. I am planning to live less online for the month of September. It seems a little silly to make this decloration on an online blog, but there you go.

I am not raging against technology, and have no desire to go back to 'the good old days'. And although my memory is deteriorating, I am not shunning the Internet because of how the Google effect is rewiring my brain.  I am just wasting time that should be better spent.

I find myself surfing the web far too much these days.  After reading email and blogs, I follow link after link to articles, stories and videos, or spend time dithering on Facebook. Some of the stuff I read is valuable, but it is such a time suck! One link leads to another, and then another, and then hours disappear with little to show for it.

I even have the computer on as I watch tv, attempting to remain 'productive' as I relax. Our brains do not multi-task well, so I shouldn't be dividing my time between two screens. I am giving a fraction of my attention to the things I try to juggle, so nothing is done well.

Giving it up entirely is not terribly realistic. Too much of the world has moved online. And again the Internet is not the problem, just how I am using it. September's resolution will be to be online for only 30 minutes a day, probably split into two 15 minute chunks. I will prioritize emails from people I know, and the newsletters filled with links will likely be ignored. Blogs will also be a priority, as they are a connection to people and some fine writing, but Facebook will be ignored unless there are a few minutes left before the timer goes off. Unless it is for legitimate research, no getting online outside of the 30 minutes.

I have already unsubscribed to many of the emails and newsletters that fill up my inbox, and I will clean up the Facebook feed to get rid of the clutter that isn't keeping me in contact with my actual friends. As with all of these 30 day resolutions, I want to keep the benefits I discover as a part of my life after the month is over. October 1st, I want to have eliminated distractions and time wasters.

When I gave up tv for a month, I found a bunch of time already at my disposal. By limiting my time online, I hope to find even more time to spend doing the important things. I want to be able to say at the end of each day that I made time for the people I love, the writing I enjoy, and the reading that expands my horizons. To stop staring at so many screens, and pay attention to all the wonder of the world around me.

Few animals were harmed in the production of this post

Last month I gave up meat six days out of seven. I did not think it would be overly difficult, but I've never tried before so you never know.

But it turned out to be pretty easy. Breakfasts were no big deal, lunch was PB & J, and dinners were veggies in a rotating variety of sauces. Lots of pasta and rice, and beans and peanut butter for protein.

The only times I really bumped up against anything were the few times I was grabbing lunch on the run. Burgers and sandwiches were basically out, but I found that the veggie burrito at Chipotle was very tasty, and the veggie patty at Subway was also quite good.

I reserved Saturdays as my day with meat to make sure I had enough protein to rebuild the muscles I was tearing down on my long runs. On other days of the week, I didn't notice any real difference in energy or strength levels. As an added bonus, I lost a couple more pounds and shaved off another fat percentage point.

I am not going vegetarian, but going forward there will be less meat on the menu. It is cheaper and better for all the reasons I mentioned at the start of the month. Meatless Mondays (or Tuesdays) will be a snap.

On to September's challenge.

Writer's license

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Four years down the road

A small milestone went quietly by a few weeks ago. The other Sean commented at work the other day that it had been over four years since we started blogging. Three of us started writing at about the same time, and I think it has been a great exercise and outlet for all of us.

I looked up my first post and found it was written on August 4th of 2007. In that first post I mentioned a couple of missions for the blog. More than anything, I wanted to get back into the habit of writing again. I had kept journals sporadically since I was in my 20's, and I had found clarity and comfort in writing.

When I started the blog, I had just returned from a week-long bike ride around Montana, Canada, and Glacier National Park. As I wrote back in 2007,

I find that my head is clearer when I am away from home and on my bike. At times it seems even my vision is clearer. I’ve had no significant epiphanies while riding, but they often seem like they are just over the next hill.

And this is where the name of the blog came from. I wanted to bring the peace that I found while riding back home with me. To find clarity, inspiration and beauty in my daily life, not just when I am away and unburdened.

Much has changed in the past four years. The end of my marriage made me question myself more than ever. There were more navel-gazing posts as I sought to find the answers I would never be given. I have tried to become a better version of myself, and the pursuit of clarity continues.

With the move to San Diego, the blog has also become a place where my friends and family in Washington can check in and see what is going on in my life. I have never been good at calling or sending the random email to stay in touch, so this is where I tell my story. But I haven't been very good at that lately either, and I would like to get back to mixing in pieces of my daily life. I would like to get back to paying attention to the extraordinary in the mundane.

Motivation and creativity peaks and troughs. Sometimes the writing is forced, and the quality ebbs and flows as well (sorry 'bout that). But the habit of this blog, and the thought that there are a few people out there expecting a post, has kept me writing.

And there are moments when I feel like I am reaching that goal I set at the beginning - brief moments of clarity in my fog of thoughts. Among the rambling and brain emptying, there are some posts I am proud of. And the blog gave me the strength to quiet my inner critic long enough to get a novel down on paper.

So, thank you for continuing to stop by, for whatever reason. You have helped me to keep going. I still promise no answers, only the viewpoint from an infrequent rider.

Rush hour

driving home at half speed.
a power line stretched across
the highway.
birds perched lazily
in a dot, dot, dash formation.
are they trying to tell me something?

Quote of the day

Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably.
The lesson is, never try.

~ Homer Simpson

Opinions and judgment in a grudge match

I saw this decal in a car window the other day. I have joked, semi-seriously, that I am Switzerland. A neutral party that doesn't get caught up in conflict. Someone who doesn't offer opinions, remaining uninvolved. It still aspire to see every side of an issue, but of course I have my opinions and judgments. I am not a neutral country.

When I wrote the post If you don't observe them, do irritating people disappear? back in 2009, I was meeting with a marriage and personal counselor as my marriage circled the drain. My thoughts were both jumbled and running deeper than normal back then. Two years down the road, I wonder if I have retained any of the lessons I learned back then.

Recently, a friend has taken it upon herself to point out my opinions whenever I offer them, large or small. Here is a small one - I don't like the current fashion of baseball caps with perfectly flat brims. If they are worn at a 45 degree angle to the face, I think it looks even sillier. Opinions on trivial subjects, I have them.

I am not sure what prompted this exercise, but it may have been that I said I was more easy-going than most. That I don't have rigid ideas of how things should be. That if things don't go the way I expect, that I am not as easily derailed by it. More to the point, I have fewer expectations that things will go the way I expect.

But like all good friends, she has challenged my self-perception. I never thought I was, but I will say it here to be clear - I am no Zen Master rising above it all. I am not coated in Teflon. I get frustrated and irritated, and things and people piss me off just like everyone else. But back to the point of the previous post. Do these irritations grow into grudges, and do I lug them around wherever I go.

My friend reminded me the other day about something that had pissed me off a couple weeks earlier. I had forgotten all about it, but when she brought it up, the irritation came back and my voice took a quick edge. I didn't think I was carrying it around, but it clearly still bothered me.

To use the example of the cigarettes in the street from the previous post, I wasn't consciously thinking about the irritation after I left it behind, or letting stewing frustration alter my day. I wasn't using this one behavior to paint a picture of callous disregard by my neighbor and society. But it is something that I am not happy about, and if I was sharing a beer with another neighbor and he brought up the cigarette problem, I would be able to speak passionately about it.

But I do my best not to harbor grudges. I have seen friendships torn apart over what (as an outsider) seems like trivial slights or disagreements. No one believes the exact same things you do, and everyone has different beliefs in what is important in this world. There will always be conflict as long as you are alive and interacting with others. It is just something that is a part of everyone's waking life.

Another friend brings up slights that happened in high school twenty years earlier. I can't imagine carrying that sort of thing top of mind for that long. Whether it is conscious choice or a poor memory, I just don't have the mental space for it. And like I said in the previous post, you are suffering by carrying it around when the person who offended you has long forgotten it.

This is not to say that you shouldn't stand up for what you believe in, but if you let a friendship fall over a single incident, well, soon you won't have friendships to lose.

I try to follow this rule (yes I have rules): If something bothers me enough that I can't let it go and it dominates my mind more than it should, I do something about it. If it doesn't bother me enough, I do my best to chalk it up to the world not being exactly the way I want it. Of course the risk is that I am burying resentments rather than dealing with them, and that is something I will continue to watch for.

I am not Switzerland. There are issues that I am not neutral on. But I like to think I keep things in perspective, and I try not to pretend my opinions are truth. I try not to read any malice when there is none, or let a single incident bloom into permanent judgment. But of course I have memories and the baggage to go with them, and maybe ironically, I am struggling with forgiveness right now. But that is a subject for another post.

How they get to you

There are widgets and programs that will tell you all sorts of information about your blog or website. How many people visit each day, how much time they spend reading, where they're from, and how on earth they got to my little cul-de-sac of the internet.

I don't obsess or even pay that much attention to the reports, but I will check them out every couple of months out of curiosity. Most of my readership are returning visitors, and not surprisingly they are concentrated in Washington and California. And no I don't know who you are, just vaguely where you are from.

But there are the random folks that pop in because they have typed in some sort of search term into Google and I show up in the results. It might be my comments on the Pearl Izumi ad campaign, my ride reports on the STP or RSVP, or simply following a link to a picture of the University of Washington logo I grabbed from someone else.

But there is a post that consistently ranks above all others in bringing new people to the blog. It is something I wrote more than two years ago, and it doesn't have any buzzwords or pictures that would pop up regularly in a web search. It turns out that all the traffic is coming from a a link on a therapy site.

I figured I would re-post it here, and in the next installment let you know how things have changed in the past two years.

---


If you don't observe them, do irritating people disappear?

One of the podcasts I have been listening to intermittently is Zen and the Art of Triathlon. I am several episodes behind, but I caught a good one this week called "Quantum Spinach". One of the pieces was using quantum theory to talk about difficult people. It went something like this...

He started with two ideas from science. First - scientists have observed that matter is actually 99.9999....% empty space. There isn't much of anything in between all the atoms, neutrons, electrons etc. Second - according to quantum physics, observation affects reality.

Then he paired the above observations with dealing with difficult people. He makes the point that difficult people are only difficult to you a small percentage of your time. He gives examples of neighbors who flick cigarette butts out on their sidewalk. The amount of time in his life that he sees the cigarette butts is .0001% of his life. The rest of the time, he isn't experiencing those difficult people.

Of course many folks let these sorts things bother them for a much larger portion of their lives. Back to the observation of matter, you are observing the problem it as if it were 100% solid, when in reality, the real matter only occupies .0001% of the space. The goal of course is to not let such a small thing ruin your day.

To reinforce his point, he relays a story of two monks encountering a beautiful lady at the edge of a stream.  The lady is in a bit of distress and needs to get to the other side of the stream for some reason. So one of the monks picks her up in his arms and carries her to the other side, where he sets her down and receives a quick kiss on the cheek.

The two monks continue walking. It becomes apparent that the second monk is furious, smoke practically coming out of his ears. He can't contain himself and finally has to say something. "How can you have done that? We are supposed to stay away from women, yet you carried this woman across the stream." The first monk says, "you know, I put her down miles ago. You are still carrying her."

That is what you are doing if you let someone continue to irritate you, or you let one thought dominate your mind. You continue to carry something that should have been set down a long time ago. And of course the frustration you carry around, the difficult person probably isn't thinking twice about. Why should you be the person suffering?

Me and my shadow

The above cartoon was about cats, but my pooch has developed the same bad habit. She likes to stand in doorways, or really anyplace you might be headed where you can trip over her. This is not terribly new, but it is definitely getting worse.

She has always wanted to be where her people are, but was never this clingy. In the past, if I left the room, she wouldn't follow me right away. If I was gone for more than a few minutes though, she would come find me. But since we moved to California, she is at my heels at all times. If I leave the room to go get something, she gets up, even though her legs are bad and it pains her to get up. Often I am only gone for a few seconds, and I end up bumping into her on the way back in. If I am moving around the house too much, she will just stand a doorway, knowing that I, or someone else, will be coming by soon.

I was up in Washington for a week in July. While I was gone, she became ill. She couldn't keep food down and was losing interest in eating. The lack of interest in eating is pretty significant for her as she still does a happy dance when it is mealtime, even on two bad knees. With her diabetes, it is even more important for her to have a steady intake of food. When her blood sugar gets too low, she becomes disorientated and doesn't have the strength to stand. It can be pretty scary.

There was no cell service where I was staying, and my poor roommates were left to take care of my sick pooch without being able to contact me regularly. They were great caregivers. They cleaned up all the messes, consulted with Kristy for critter advice, and when the pooch didn't improve, they took her into the vet. The diagnosis was inconclusive, but they put her on meds to essentially shut off the brain trigger that makes you throw up. She was better for a day or two, but then was back to losing her meals. It was a helpless feeling being so far away and unable to do anything.

When I returned to San Diego, I continued feeding her the milder rice and chicken broth meals that my roommates had started. She improved relatively quickly, and was back on her regular food in a couple of days. My non-medical diagnosis - she missed me and made her self sick with worry.

This is nothing about what a great dog owner I am, it is just the way things are now. Things were already pretty different down here for her, but her sight and hearing have really deteriorated over the last six months. It is easy for her to feel lost and disconnected now. When I wasn't sitting next to her in the evenings, or in the bed next to her when she woke up in the morning, I think she kind of shut down.

I was recently over at Kristy's place to house sit for five days. I have left the pooch behind in the past because I thought it was more disruptive than having her at home. There are more stairs to navigate, and animals she is not used to there. But I brought her along this time, and the change of venue didn't seem to phase her much. She was just happy to be where I was.

So I will take the standing in doorways, getting underfoot and sticking to me like a shadow if it makes her feel safe. I am just happy to still have her by side.

Comments?

Nothing angers the internet like terrible spelling. 

Disclosure - I am a terrible speller. If it weren't for the red squiggly line that appears below my misspellings, my posts would be tough(er) to read. But maybe they would be more widely read...

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