My Tree is Lit; My Tofurkey is Thawing. Now Bring Me a Soy Nog and Don’t Hold the Brandy!

Posted on December 19, 2009 by Kate

It may be my winter break, but I have still managed to be busy, busy, busy. I am getting ready for my dad and brother’s visit down here for the holiday, which entails a lot of cleaning, organizing, and planning. I realized that it was all fine and good that I had a Christmas tree, but it would be even better if I had presents to go under it. Likewise, the vegan Christmas dinner I am planning would be best presented on the surface of, say, a dining table instead of a coffee table. Just for example.

IKEA to the rescue, as usual! I found a very cute, simple, glass-topped table and four chairs for a very reasonable price, and got it all assembled just now. I have even managed to find a few presents that are, I hope, not entirely lame and/or thoughtless. (I am bad at shopping for my male family members. What do boys even like? Worse yet, they always already have everything they would want. Sigh.) But at any rate, I think it’s shaping up to be a top-notch Christmas chez moi.

I’m just a little nervous about it because I have never hosted for a holiday before and my family are all omnivores and I am making them a Tofurkey and on and on. It’ll be good though. I just can’t forget the brandy for the egg soy nog. I think anyone can forgive me for serving soy nog if there’s enough brandy in, right?

In other holiday news, I mailed out my cards and mix CDs to all you lovely people earlier today, so be on the lookout for an envelope from me. I hope you all enjoy it! I do have to warn you that there is one oh-sweet-fancy-moses unbelievably cheesy song on there — you’ll know the one when you hear it — but I just couldn’t HELP MYSELF. I had to do it. HAD TO.

And, to bring this holiday post to a close, I offer you a photograph of my dog in front of the tree, 1980s Polaroid style.

“Happy Holidays,” says Cap’n Snuggles, “now why is there no giant rawhide bone under this tree?”

A Champagne Warning and Holiday Plans

Posted on December 16, 2009 by Kate

I have a very important warning about champagne. No, I am not going to warn you about the possibility of its giving you a headache, nor about the dangerous trajectory a popped cork might take, nor about your likelihood of engaging in silly chat while drinking the bubbly. Oh, no. This is far more serious. See, champagne effing EXPLODES.

Should you chance to drop a bottle of champagne carelessly from your kitchen counter, and should that bottle chance to land on the hard tile floor, it is probably going to explode all over the effing place and the glass shrapnel is probably going to fly at extremely high speeds in all directions, probably cutting the shit out of you if it chances to fly in your direction.

The best way to prevent this from happening is to arrange, somehow, for the dropped champagne bottle to land on your toe. This will turn your toe black and blue and possibly even break it, but the bottle will survive. How do I know this? Because I dropped a grocery bag containing two bottles of champagne. The one that fell on my toe was saved, while the other one exploded, causing little bits of shrapnel to whiz across the top of my other foot, cutting up the tops of my toes.

So, a quick tally: One intact bottle of champage, one exploded bottle, one black-and-blue toe, three sliced-and-diced toes.

Luckily, I had the intact bottle of champagne to bring to my birthday party. That and the magic party punch made by my friend who hosted the party (her birthday was 12/12, too), helped ease my pain. After a few drinks and a few cupcakes, I was feeling nothing but love. It was a champagne adventure! And The Continental wasn’t even involved.

But seriously, though, I had a great birthday party. It’s amazing how many people I know born on or around my birthday (I guess parents in the 1970s were really, um, busy in March) (Oh, god, why did I think about that? Ewwww). It was so fun to share the night and have all our friends there to ring in a new year. The thirties just keep getting better and better. Two years ago I declared that this was going to be The Decade of Awesome, and I still think I was right.

In other news, I am officially done with work for fall semester, so I am getting ready to enjoy the relaxing holiday break. I plan to be sitting under the tree in my snowflake pajamas, drinking soy nog, reading for fun, and maybe (just maybe) putting in a little bit of time on some small scholarly endeavors. The only thing that could improve on this scenario would be for it to snow. C’mon, Alabama, do me a solid!

Should you chance to drop a bottle of champagne carelessly from your kitchen counter, and should that bottle chance to land on the hard tile floor, it is probably going to explode all over the place and the glass shrapnel is probably going to fly at extremely high speeds in all directions, probably cutting the shit out of you if it chances to fly in your direction.

So, a quick tally: One intact bottle of champage, one exploded bottle, one black-and-blue toe, three sliced-and-diced toes.

Luckily, I had the intact bottle of champagne to bring to my birthday party. That and the magic party punch made by my friend who hosted (her birthday was 12/12, too), helped ease my pain. After a few drinks and a few cupcakes, I was feeling nothing but love. It was a champagne adventure! And The Continental wasn’t even involved.

But seriously, though, I had a great birthday party. It’s amazing how many people I know born on or around my birthday (I guess parents in the 1970s were really, um, busy in March) (Oh, god, why did I think about that? Ewwww). It was so fun to share the night with my friend S. and to have all our friends there to ring in a new year. The thirties just keep getting better and better. Two years ago I declared that this was going to be The Decade of Awesome, and I still think I was right.

12K Race Recap and a Rude Old Man

Posted on December 13, 2009 by Kate

The 12K race went amazingly well. It was cold and grey and rainy out, which felt a bit miserable while we were all anxiously waiting for the starting whistle to blow, but wasn’t even noticeable once we started running.

The route went through downtown Wetumpka Alabama, through cute neighborhoods, around a school track, and over a huge bridge back into downtown for the finish. The scenery was entertaining the whole time, and the route took so many twists and turns through the neighborhood streets that it didn’t feel too unbearably long.

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I found my self running with a loose pack of other slow-ish people the whole time, far, far behind the fast majority. Yesterday’s event had both a 12K and a 5K option, and I think most of the slow, novice types chose to do the shorter run, leaving me one of a very small number of slower runners doing the 12K. The rest of the 12K group seemed to be made up of fast, wiry, serious types. I had to keep reminding myself of something I heard once: Even if you are the last to finish, you still come in ahead of all the thousands of people in your town who stayed home and did nothing on race morning. Nonetheless, I didn’t like feeling like I was at the very back of the group, so I found myself racing to keep up a lot of the time.

As I crossed the finish line, I ripped out my ear buds, expecting to hear the official calling out times as people came in, but no one said my time. I had to ask the guy who tore off my number stub to tell me what my time was. Luckily he was wearing a stopwatch and was able to tell me it was 1:19:25, about 11 minutes faster than my goal time. I guess racing to keep the rest of the pack in sight really made a difference.

So I was feeling pretty great about this as I stepped aside to help myself to some Gatorade when this obnoxious older man decided to get rude with me. I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about when he asked, “So, the doc cleared you to run?”

“Excuse me?” Did he have me mixed up with someone else? What doc?

“Did the doc clear you to run?” he repeated.

My mind was racing, trying to figure out what he was talking about. My thoughts went immediately to my weight. Of course, I thought, he thinks fat people shouldn’t be running. But then I remembered that I am not exactly fat anymore, not since I started this whole running caper, so that couldn’t be it. Could it? I mean, I am certainly not one of those sinewy runner types made up of bones and angles, but surely this would not cause a stranger to comment. Would it? What obvious physical ailment did this person see in me that should a) cause me to seek medical attention, b) possibly prevent me from running, and c) be completely unknown and invisible to me? What did that mean?

“What does that mean?” I finally asked.

“Well, I saw you run in and you looked tired.”

Tired? TIRED? Is it unusual for a person to be tired after running seven and a half miles? While I wondered these things to myself, all I mustered in response to the guy was a noncommittal “Ah.”

Gesturing at my legs, he added, “Don’t you have an ankle problem?”

Well, THAT one was easy. Of course I don’t have an ankle problem. Ready for the conversation to be over I finally summoned up my iciest and most sarcastic tone and told him, “No, but thanks so much for the support. That’s super nice of you.”

Unhappily, I wound up obsessing over this man’s remarks most of the way home. When I should have been proudly celebrating an accomplishment I had worked really hard for and in which I had surpassed my goals, I was cursing myself for apparently running like such an exhausted and uncoordinated wreck that complete strangers were concerned for my medical health and safety.

Of course, the thing I should have remembered (and that I eventually did remember about half way home) is that we can choose what to think about. I could simply put this rude douchebag out of my thoughts and focus on the fact that I was proud of myself, that it was my birthday, and that I was headed home for a long, luxurious nap, then I would be baking cupcakes and heading out for my birthday party.

This post had gotten long enough, though, so I will have to tell you about those things next time.

Doing Life

Posted on December 7, 2009 by Kate

The other day, my friend Dangermoose asked me on Twitter, “Do you have staff? How are you doing all these things?” It’s true; I have been a busy, busy bee lately. This year has been full of new things, and in the last couple of weeks I’ve been especially busy: getting ready for my 12K, applying for jobs, sending out articles, starting a new blog, and (oh, yeah!) teaching my regular Fall schedule of four courses at the University.

I am ready for Christmas break; I ain’t gonna lie. At times this semester has been exhausting. I have barely even had time for television. TELEVISION! That time-honored tradition in the KO household, that thing I could spend hour after hour after hour doing. Well, I feel as if I’ve barely seen any television this fall, and what I have seen has been mainly background noise.

Another favorite activity to get cut from this Fall’s schedule: happy hours and nights out at the bar. I seem to remember doing those things (and drinking those whiskeys) far more often last school year, but this Fall I think that, outside from seeing several movies at the theater, I’ve gone out socially less than a dozen times.

If anything had to fall on life’s cutting room floor, I think going out to bars and watching television were probably the two best things to go. It’s left me time for things that are much more positive in my life — all that healthy living and carreer advancement type stuff, yawn if you must — and stopped me from wasting hour after hour after hour. Not that having a social life and a cocktail and kicking back with a little TV are necessarily bad, but if those things account for the majority of a person’s time, they might be, you know?

I came across this tumblr blog recently, Ben Does Life. It’s written by this guy who has dedicated the past year to losing over 140 pounds and becoming a super-fit, marathon-running triathlete dude. Inspiring stuff, to say the least. At any rate, he has written about how before this year started, he used to spend most of his time playing video games alone in his room, allowing his relationships and health to pay the price. Now, though, his fitness quest has him out there, in the world, doing life. I love that idea.

I like to think that I’m doing the same thing; doing life. That the hours I don’t spend downing whiskey sodas at the bar or watching ANTM marathons are opening the door for more meaningful things to happen in my world. That, in fact, my world has gotten a little bit bigger since last year; that there is more room, more opportunities, more happiness.

While I’m more than ready for my schedule to ease up a bit over the break, I’m equally ready to take stock of where I have been this year and figure out where I’m going next. It can be exciting, sometimes, life.

Another favorite activity to get cut from this fall’s schedule: happy hours and nights out at the bar. I seem to remember doing those things (and drinking those whiskeys) far more often last school year, but this fall I think that, outside from seeing several movies at the theater, I’ve gone out socially less than a dozen times.

If anything had to fall on life’s cutting room floor, I think going out to bars and watching television were probably the two best things to go. It’s left me time for things that are much more positive in my life — all that healthy living and career advancement type stuff, yawn if you must — and stopped me from wasting hour after hour after hour. Not that having a social life and a cocktail and kicking back with a little TV are necessarily bad, but if those things account for the majority of a person’s time, they might be, you know? And that did account for most of my life outside of work for quite a while. Whenever I ran into someone who innocently asked what I’d been up to that day, I never used to have an answer.

I like to think that I’m doing the same thing; doing life. That the hours I don’t spend downing whiskey sodas at the bar or watching marathons of America’s Next Top Model reruns are opening the door for more meaningful things to happen in my world. That, in fact, my world has gotten a little bit bigger since last year; that there is more room, more opportunity, more happiness.

A Weekend of Good News

Posted on December 5, 2009 by Kate

Yesterday was full of good news. First, the boring running stuff: In the morning I hit the streets for my 6.5 mile training run. My 12K race (7.45 miles) is coming up next week, so I am building up my mileage every week by adding more to my long run. Every time I embark for one of these long training runs I feel a mild thrill of apprehension, wondering if I am indeed going to make it back home without either exploding a hamstring or — worse yet — stopping to walk. Every time I complete a long run I’m full of a sense of power and excitement.

Assuming I survive the race next Saturday, I think my next step will be to attempt a half marathon. Surely if I can run seven and a half miles now I can work up to thirtteen. The task will be to choose the right race: Birmingham on February 14th, New Orleans on February 28th, or Rome, GA on March 6th? Decisions, decisions.

And now, the professional news: I received word yesterday from the editors of a scholarly journal I had sent an article that they want to publish it! If you follow me on twitter you have no doubt already heard this news as I was excitedly bleating about it all day yesterday. Pardon my ridiculous enthusiam and unseemly boasting on the subject, but it is my first scholarly article that’s been accepted and I finally feel like a real professional academic. I guess I have to stop making self-deprecating remarks on this topic now.

This coming week I’ll be racing around, busy with end-of-semester grading, exams, and paperwork. Before it all starts, though, I have decided to take the entire weekend off for some quality relaxation and solitude. Must fuel the mind (and revel in my recent good feelings) before the busy week takes me over. At the moment I am still in my pajamas, half writing this post and half watching 84 Charing Cross Road on TV. The dog is snoozing next to me. We know how to live large!

So what are your weekend plans?

First, the boring running stuff: Yesterday morning I hit the streets for my 6.5 mile training run. My 12K race (7.45 miles) is coming up next week, so I am building up my mileage every week by adding more to my long run. Every time I embark for one of these long training runs I feel a mild thrill of apprehension, wondering if I am indeed going to make it back home without either exploding a hamstring or — worse yet — stopping to walk. Every time I complete a long run I’m full of a sense of power and excitement.

This coming week I’ll be racing around, busy with end-of-semester grading, exams, and paperwork. Before it all starts, though, I have decided to take the entire weekend off for some quality relaxation and solitude. Must fuel the mind (and revel in my positive feelings) before the busy week takes me over. At the moment I am still in my pajamas, half writing this post and half watching 84 Charing Cross Road on TV. The dog is snoozing next to me. We know how to live large!

So what are your weekend plans?