run on sentences

Two mornings ago I woke up at 5 am to run. I let Jack out to pee and when he came in, he was covered with snow. After I dried him a bit, he looked at me and went back to the bedroom. He's never done that before. I decided to be a wimp too. So I sat down with my coffee and turned on the tree lights. I decided to sip and ponder the remains of this Christmas. The camera was sitting beside me so I took this picture of the tree too. Not much left under the tree - well except my Bosu ball given to me by the boys and Scarlett. How cool is it that at 56 I get a balance ball to develop my core and improve my running? They haven't given up on me yet so I guess I won't either and it will become one of my New Year's resolutions to work out on it at least twice a week...along with weights. The tree will come down on January 2nd. It is losing some needles but not too badly. I will savor it until the very end when it is awaiting pickup to be turned into mulch and give back to the lan...

Yup, I have neglected my writings. I am surprised at the people, few that they may be, that noticed. I am sitting here thinking a bunch of things in no particular order. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. I didn't have to buy any gifts for my departed mom (or my dad) who comes to me silently in dreams - like last night when I heard her cry out and I ran in to see what was wrong and she was lying on the floor with her shirt open, waiting for me to start CPR. I woke up before I even checked for a pulse. I guess she came down a few days ago to get one of her good friends and escort her to the place she is...hopefully it is a good place but none of us know even though many people think they know. The tree is up. The kids are home - or at least two of them. Billy is at a family reunion with Scarlett which is where he should be. How lucky I am to have had my kids home with me every Christmas. Kseniya missed one and this is Bill's first missed one. Some Christmas cards have been sent - and s...

Not only was this World run day but it was also the day before my birthday. The picture is of Tom, Me (looking good one day before I turn 56 I must say before I go on to say anything else - and the hair color is real, dammit - my friend Enid says "you don't get that color out of a bottle" and she should know, being 83 and a stylist in her younger days") and Suzanne - who might make me look short and stubby when you see the rest of me standing next to the rest of her. I am inspired by my friends on this day. I got up to run at 6:30 with my 84 year old friend Sid. We walk most of the three miles, me with Jack the dog and he with his dog, Curly. He needs a new knee and at 84, instead of hanging it up, he has made an appointment in January with an orthopedic surgeon so he can run again. Instead of saying "I'm 84 - I better quit", he is making plans to fix it and also wants to lose ten pounds. That's inspiration for you. He has some great stories...

" When you're turning on the sun.... Turn it on with Johnson's" This was a lyric from a commercial about the benefits of using Johnson's baby oil as a tanning adjunct. My sister and I, while watching the NY Yankees tromp on the LA Angels, and drinking crabby with Siggie, in their cozy home in the UP, were discussing how we both got burned (literally) by believing this. She, while on the shores of Gitche Gumme, by the shining big sea waters ( From the land of sky blue waters...Hamms the beer refreshing - another jingle from a commercial of the 60's) or Lake Superior, as it is more commonly known, slathered her already freckled legs with baby oil and lay on the sand, sometime in the 60's, probably listening to Janis Joplin on her transistor. While she was listening and drinking beers, her legs fried to a frightening crimson, and then got swollen enough that she had to go to the doctor and was hospitalized for a few days. "Keep your pants on" t...

The night before the St. George marathon, after eating a big glob of angel hair pasta and shrimp in buttery garlic sauce, we were riding back to my friends house. I had a missed phone call in the restaurant and checked my voice mail. Of course, with caller ID and all, I knew who the call was from and expected a message from that person. Instead, the message I got said (in a still recognizable slur made possible by progressing Lou Gehrig's disease): "Hi Donna. This is Bob. I won't get to visit with you tomorrow because we are going to Park City. Have a good run and I will catch up with you later". It was my friend and running buddy, Bob, who had died a year ago from Lou Gehrig's disease, which is supposed to be rare, but if it is, why do I know so many people who know someone who has it? Bob qualified for Boston in St. George about 3 years ago, just before he found out he would lose his voice and just about everything else, to LG, which in this case does not mean ...

Two days before my 15th St. George marathon (and 32nd marathon), and I have the usual and some unusual, aches and pains. Like the weird butt pain that I believe is from the water bottle I usually carry - the bottle sits on a diagnonal on my back and bounces into my left butt cheek, leaving a weird sort of pain. It doesn't hurt when I run though. I think it is all in my head. Also what is in my head is how lucky I am to be able to do this. I don't get anxiety because I want to finish before anyone else in my dwindling age group, or even because I worry about not finishing. It's more because part of me can't believe that I can keep doing this. The premarathon days put me in a sort of reflective mood as I ponder who I should do my miles for and feel a little closer to the "other side" - meaning I feel my mortality and the fleeting time we all have and that I am taxing my body and how amazing it is that our bodies withstand such abuse (Yeah that was a long sentenc...

Today at work I saw two young medical students, eagerly waiting outside a patients room. As part of a class, they were required to do focused examinations on a number of patients in our ED. I was not happy when I heard about this ...one more thing to delay our patients length of stay. Something about their blond, scrubbed faced eagerness, and their new stiff white lab coats, maybe being worn for the first time, made me stop and inquire "Are you the med students who are here to do some patient assessments?" I tried not to sound like a bitchy old nurse. They nodded and seemed happy to have someone friendly and non-threatening to talk to. They hadn't gotten to the class yet that seems to teach arrogance. "We're first years" one said apologetically. They told me their names and that they were from Idaho. I told them who I was and about my son Dan, who is in medical school in Illinois - freshly scrubbed but yet to get that lab coat. We talked a bit about anatomy ...