Signs

I pass these signs on the way to Jose’s and they always make me laugh so I thought in the interests of brightening your day I’d share them with you.


Batman has got a little cocky hasn’t he?! Telling the Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler et al where the Bat Cave is just asking for trouble! It’s supposed to be a secret!


Am I in the Bible Belt per chance?! All my life, I promise you, I have never seen a sign for church pew padding. I never even wondered about where church pew padding came from. Well apparently if you call 800-531-2220 you can get your church pews all padded up! Who knew?!

Monday again!

How did it get to be Monday already?! I had another good weekend thanks for asking. Here’s what I did:

On Friday night despite extreme tiredness from late nights and working with Sei Young when Maggie asked did I want to go to the Mall with her my planned activity of falling asleep watching TV went out the window. I bought two t-shirts from Gap incase you are interested which I guess you’re not, but sure I’ve told you anyway!

On Saturday morning I was up early (8.30am – no double figures!). I had stuff to do and felt that as I had eaten like a Queen for the past week I should do some form of exercise. I didn’t have time to go round the whole lake so just took a shorter route. Despite Tuesday’s glory it still wiped me out!

At the pre-arranged time I went to the office to get a call from Julie. I talked to her for ages and it was just like being at home. Aww, I miss her.

I took my laptop to the office and updated my virus protection stuff (the summer’s hard drive loss has scarred me). I also downloaded a few songs off iTunes. I got Meck – ‘Thunder In My Heart’, Chris Tomlin – ‘Enough’, Jose Gonzalez – ‘Heatbeats’, Fall Out Boy – ‘Sugar We're Going Down’ and Richard Ashcroft – ‘Break the Night with Colour’. I made all of these into a CD of my current favourite songs. Also included was Johnny Cash (bought a CD last week, oh dear) a few songs from WOW 2006 and Arcade Fire.

The CD provided great entertainment for the drive down to Jose’s that afternoon. Sarah (skiing buddy) just graduated so I was invited down for the celebration and then Sunday’s Superbowl. We went out for dinner and then to a club. Dancing would not my first choice to spend a night, but having said that I always have a good time when I go. This club was a little bit too much R&B and not enough Dance and Cheesy Pop for my liking but hey ho.

On Sunday morning, despite Saturday night’s partying we went to church like good Christians. I like churches in America, you get a choice of times. Obviously we went for the latest one available. After church we (Me + boys) went for lunch. I like to think am a well rounded individual and can pretty much hold my own in any conversation. I have good general knowledge and am interested in learning about new things and hearing others’ points of view. Yesterday the conversation all lunchtime was football (American) and it was more than I could handle. Boys!

After lunch the boys were going to play Football. I am not a boy and do not play Football, so I watched. The sides were a little uneven and Jose’s team scored countless touchdowns whilst the other team scored none!


The clear blue sky is slightly deceiving, there was a cold wind a-blowing!

After football we got ready for the Superbowl Party. While Jose and Will showered I made Brownies for the party. How American have I become?! They turned out well, I think. I have nothing really to compare them to! It really wasn’t hard to make them, throw the mix in the bowl, add the water, oil and eggs, mix it up and put it in the oven. It wasn’t baking in the true sense of the word. And just incase before you slag me for being the woman in the kitchen I made them to save time. Not out of some female-baking-for-the-boys-and-their-football-game way.

As I’ve said before, I could watch any sport at all. And I like my national events, no matter what country I am. It was good to watch it with people who actually understood the finer points of the game. There were girls at the party but for the most part it was me and a room full of boys! Score! There was lots of ‘swwweeeeet’ and ‘dooode’ shouts. Ah Americans! You’ve got to love them!

I enjoyed my first Superbowl. American Football is very stop-start and filled with adverts, although because it was the Superbowl they were new and funny. The half time show was the Rolling Stones, I have much more of a problem with Mick Jagger’s t-shirt riding up his body as he moves than Janet Jackson and her ‘wardrobe malfunction’. Nobody wants to Mick Jagger’s belly.

I was glad the Steelers won. Only because once upon a time I was in Pittsburgh. A tenuous link I know, but I have no connection with Seattle whatsoever. Looking at it from my novice position, they were the better team, although the calls did kind of go their way too. But that’s sport, sometimes you just get the rub of the green.


And I thought I had superior calves!

This is Jerome Bettis, the Steelers' Running Back, Jose was telling me about him. He was going to retire after the end of last season but I beat he’s glad he didn’t because yesterday he won his first Superbowl. He’s 33 which apparently is a fair age to be still playing football, especially as a Running Back. Superbowl XL was in Detroit, his hometown. He announced his retirement after they won and I’m glad. It will never get better than winning the Superbowl in your hometown!

So after the Superbowl I stayed again with Jose and drove up to the Lake this morning. I got up way too early, but all in all it was worth it.

House

Last night I had the most productive night in my house ever. Here’s what I did:

• Dusted the entire house
• Went on a moosie hunt [moosie n. B. family word to describe the cobwebs that gather in the top corner of ceilings. Origin; Granny]
• Hoovered everywhere including the stairs which were awe-kward!
• Cleaned the bath, sink, toilet and bathroom ceiling (had some sort of yellow scum on which disturbed me everytime I used mouthwash)
• Moved my crap to the appropriate place
• Cleaned the fridge
• Did the dishes and cleaned all surfaces in the kitchen (which to be fair isn't that many)
• Swept the floors
• Mopped the floors
• Did two loads of washing and finally sorted out the last lot I did when I got back from skiing. (Me? Too many clothes? No!)
• Emptied the bins
• Polished my boots (had to actually buy the shoe polish. Nobody buys shoe polish. It’s just one of those things that you have in your house but you don't really know where it came from)
• Sewed a hem on my trousers and a button on my coat

I’m fairly sure the last time I did all this was about 1989. Only then I got my House Orderly badge in Brownies for my efforts. Last night all I got was the knowing satisfaction that my house was clean.

I kind of want the badge too.

‘We’re walking, we’re walking, we’re walking. And we’re stopping’

This is a bit later than usual but that’s because I was actually working today. We’ve got a Korean guy over to talk about the conference a bit means less time dossing for me, but more field trips. I love field trips out of the office! Like yesterday I had to go to airport to pick him up. That was a good two hour event!

We’ve been showing him about the Council and all that. Today I had to take him over to the Museum. I laughed at the idea of the Museum along with everyone else I told about it before I came here and I had successfully managed to avoid spending any time there until today. But I was a bit surprised. I liked it. I shouldn’t really have been. I like Museums and I like History. So shoot me! I think it's good to celebrate past events and to know the origins of something. In short, looking back helps you look forward.

I’m still hoping though that the day will never come that I have to take a group through the museum. They’ll feel cheated. And rightly so.

Victory is mine!

On 6th May 1954 Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile. On 14th April 2002 Paula Radcliffe won the London Marathon at her first attempt at the distance. On 28th August 2004 Kelly Holmes won her second gold medal at the Athens Olympics. (Wikipedia has all sorts of uses!)

Well you can add to these great athletic achievements 31st January 2006 because that is the date that I completed the lake run! Oh yes! Congratulatory emails and comments are now being received! Any requests to run part of the relay in the marathon are being flatly refused however.

I officially set the goal of running the lake on my first night here, I wanted to get it done by the time I finished here. When I came back from Christmas I realised that I really didn’t want to try and do it in the height of summer so I had the unofficial goal of doing it before I go to Korea in March but I didn’t really expect to get it done before the end of the month.

Despite basking in my glory I don’t think there will be any call up to represent NI in the Commonwealth Games. It was probably the slowest anyone has ever run the lake in its history. You need to understand how much I hate running. Like really really hate it. When I used to go to gym I would only ever go on the treadmill if everything, and I mean everything else was being used. This may be as a result of once falling off a treadmill. I was reaching for my water which was on a window sill beside me, although I think this excuse is now falling on deaf ears (or indeed blind eyes) as you are now laughing hysterically at the fact that I fell off and am now admitting it. I am nothing if not honest.

Anyway, unless there was nothing else free I would only run for three minutes. THREE MINUTES!! Last night I ran three miles. That might not sound a lot to you and it’s probably not as far as you thought given how much I have gone on about it but let me just reiterate, I hate running. I fell off a treadmill. I only ran for three minutes once in a blue moon. Running three miles is a fair achievement for me.

Having achieved my goal I’m not really sure if I’ll continue on with running. A large part of me thinks I should, but I think that’s probably still the endorphins talking. (Turns out Always were right, exercise does make you make happier! Who knew?!) Maybe I just won’t be so gung-ho about running the whole thing. Running the lake is free and I’m all for that.

The hardest bit of the whole thing comes at the very end with the short cut up to my house. It’s a hewge hill which if wasn’t much shorter to go up it I wouldn’t. As it comes at the end and isn’t technically part of the lake I don’t, and will never try to run up it. Even Paula herself wouldn’t.


It’s the sort of hill that makes you wish it snowed every day just so you could go sliding down it. This picture was taken going down it in the car and when you are at the top it’s like you’re at the top of the Freefall in Indianaland. There’s no way I was running up that.

Last night I discovered the trick. It’s not to stop. It was the first night I actually set out with the goal of running the whole thing, all the other times were just in preparation. As I set out I found it hard to believe that I would still be running as I looked to the other side of the lake. But so long as I didn’t think about the seemingly mammoth task in hand and just concentrated on the next step it was ok. There’s a deeper issue there which maybe if I wasn’t so tired I might try and extract a bit further but no doubt you can see it for yourself. But basically deal with the other side of the lake when you get to it. And remember the trick is not to stop.