YAY!

I just can't even believe it. I just can't believe it! Woohoo woohoo, woohoo!

I wouldn't let myself believe that Obama might win because I didn't want to be disappointed.

I can't believe it!

In other news, my mom is doing great. Might get out of the hospital as early as Thursday? I'm so glad. Our whole family built up and built up for this surgery date with lots of trepidation. We were all petrified. The surgery was about as major as it gets, I think, and though she had maybe two really bad days and I'm sure still has a long road ahead of her, it looks like this whole ordeal might soon be put behind us. That makes me happy.

My dad visited his brother the other day and he continued to show signs of improvement, though still can't talk and is partially paralyzed for the time being.

Things are definitely looking better.

YAYYYYYY!

Yay! Yay! Yay! Oh my God, yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay!

BETTER TODAY

Phew! Better day today. My mom looked a wreck last night, literally like someone on the verge of death if it weren't for all the machines stuffed into every orifice. I was so scared. Turns out she was trying to tell us that the breathing tube was choking her but huh, she couldn't talk! She couldn't move! So we understood nothing of her panic. Sheesh. She remembers our visit, though. She said the nighttime nurses came in after we left and were able to do some suctioning from the tube so that she could breathe better. I'm happy for that.

This morning she was already awake and talking again, seeming almost just like her old self. She was resting a lot, but overall today was much better than yesterday. No towed cars, no choking moms . . . and my dad's brother even showed small signs of improvement much to anyone's surprise. I didn't get to visit him today but I heard that he continued to move his arm and leg, and show minimal movement on the side that is thought to be paralyzed.

And . . . go Barack Obama! Right? I mean, he gets it. I am SO nervous for next week I could almost barf.

Thanks for reading my blog!

Hey Everybody Who Reads My Blog--

My mom had surgery today for the cancer I mentioned earlier this summer. She came through the surgery late tonight and I got to see her in ICU for a little bit. Ugh. Not fun. I know she'll be fine but anyone who's had to deal with something like this knows that when someone comes out of surgery, they generally look pretty bad. It was a long day. Surgery began before 9 a.m. this morning though I got to the hospital at 6:15 a.m. She was being operated on until about 5 p.m. She went into ICU after surgery and we got in to see her around 7 p.m. She didn't want us to leave and seemed really miserable. When dad asked if she was okay, she shook her head no, which just broke my heart. We stayed for about a half hour and finally said we should go so she could rest, and she finally nodded her head okay. She was so swollen, even her eyeballs were swollen. She is so brave.

Cancer sucks.

I put a link to the blog I made for my family in the sidebar on the top, so you can read more about it there if you want.

Also, my dad's only brother, 48 years old, had a stroke on Friday afternoon and it is not looking good for him, though who knows? Stranger things have happened. He is in a hospital less than one mile from where my mom is staying. So my dad and I saw him today too. He is moving his foot and hand but is otherwise unresponsive. I hope he can recover, but just another grim reminder that life can end in an instant. He was grocery shopping when he had stroke.

As if that all wasn't enough, my parents' car was towed from my residential parking lot today for HAVING AN EXPIRED STICKER! I was irate, close to pulling someone's endocrine system out through their nose, but we got the car back. I don't know if that's legal or not, if somebody, some private company, can just take a car because it has expired tags. It would have been cheaper for them to get a ticket instead of getting impounded. The weirdest thing is that my parents are very good about remembering the stickers and keeping them current, and if they truly never put it on, then they were driving around with it like that for over a year. Ridiculous. Today, of ALL days, when they've been down here to visit at least once every other week since August. Ridiculous.

Please, I know I don't usually appeal through my silly, grumpy blog, but keep my family in your thoughts. This is a day I won't soon forget.

GOOSES, OR GEESES

My my, but it's been crazy. I haven't been able to keep up with school; am just barely squeaking by. Got 2 (yes 2!) new jobs since August--the first new job led to the second new job which was in the same place but more permanent. I've been teaching cello and working at my old job in addition to my first new job, but the old job finally ended (hooray!) and I've got a little bit of a life back.

Got that?

Since the triathlon, I had hardly exercised at all, but I finally made it out to ride my bike today. I love the fall and I especially like riding my bike on the rail trail at dusk. It's pretty awesome.

I was out a little earlier than dusk today, because I still had so much to do, but the sun was still on its way down.

I saw:

• Rust-stained leaves, harbingers of more fall colors.
• Three flocks of noisy geese in succession, with one little goose who was zig-zagging from one side of the V to the other. Finally a goose in the formation broke out and brought him into form. I thought that was really cool.
• A middle-aged lady with her trousers dropped to her ankles pissing on the trail. She smiled at me while she did it, because I had no idea what she was doing at all. She had two little Cairn terriers that she was petting in front of her. Icky person. Pee somewhere else! She was dressed like she was rich but had totally lost her marbles.
• A cat. I said, "Hi, Kitty Cat," and he stopped and looked at me.

Only one biker passed me. I was also wondering if it is proper etiquette to say, "Beep, beep!" in lieu of a horn.

***

Has anyone seen that stupid commercial about high-fructose corn syrup? Geez, talk about peer pressure. The guy is like, I don't want that popsicle, it has high-fructose corn syrup, and the girl says, so what, it's made from corn and has the same calories as sugar or honey! And it's fine in moderation! Just eat it you dork! Basically.

Yeah, because I can't wait 'til our whole diet is so artificial that we don't even have to eat anything in its true form any more. Everything will just be reduced to a simple, refined paste or syrup. And preserved. Sounds delicious to me!

***

Despite being incredibly busy, I've found time for reading! It keeps me sane.

A couple of months ago I read another Edward Abbey novel, Black Sun. Did I mention it already? Anyway. I can't say I liked it as much. His main characters in his fiction tend to become these lecherous, creepy old men. This guy was no different. I guess my favorite part of the book the main character's description of a hike into the Grand Canyon.

Now I'm reading a book by B. Traven, called The Death Ship. Edward Abbey spoke in his novels about reading some B. Traven, and then I saw another reference to him last week. Apparently, this Traven guy is a complete mystery. No one knows who he was, though there have been guesses. He wrote in German and English about the American West and Mexico. His stories are good, so far. The Death Ship is his first novel, so I think that it being good bodes really well for the rest of it. One of his movies, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, became a movie with Humphrey Bogart in it.

My brother lent me The World Without Us. It's a new book that's been on The New York Times best seller list, I think. It's about how humans are a plague on the planet and how plastic isn't degrading, it's just floating in the ocean and eventually being ground into sand-sized particles that small animals (like fish and birds and turtles) are eating. The author says that even if human existence ended today, the Earth would still be dealing with the problem of plastic for at least thousands of years. I know there's a lot of alarmist literature out right now, but I think it's something we all need to think about. I know it made me consider some things. I buy less plastic than I used to, but I haven't stopped buying things in plastic altogether. Don't know how I would. The book is actually about much more than plastic, I think, but that's the only chapter I've read so far.

Also, I have good news for fans of Cormac McCarthy. If you saw No Country for Old Men, like I did, and loved it, like I did, and then read it, like I did, and then read The Road, like I did--The Road is coming out in movie form on November 14. With Viggo Mortensen. Unfortunately, I don't have a good feeling about this, but I have to see it. It was a great book.

If Barack Obama somehow miraculously becomes the next president of the United States, I will cry for joy and then I will simply fall over on the floor and die.

FIRST AND LAST TIME YOU'LL SEE ME!

I've been meaning to post these for a while. The funniest thing is that I'm smiling in almost every one and I had no idea that pictures were being taken except for the one by the balloons. I was just so friggin' happy!

T-DAY!

I did it; I lived through the triathlon!

2:34. I thought that was pretty good for my first time. I was thinking it would take me 3 hours because the bike course was so hard, but I grossly miscalculated.

In the morning, everyone was pumping up their bike tires and so I thought, well I guess I better pump my bike tires too, even though they seemed fine. I tried to pump them with the new hand pump I bought and ended up losing a lot of pressure. I had to ask the girl next to me for help and she had a gauge and even then it didn't seem properly inflated. I think the girl was annoyed with me. Luckily I found out that volunteers were checking pressure and so I took my bike to them and got it back to where it should be.

The swimming was actually really hard, and I have always been so comfortable in the water. The lake was black; I couldn't see my hands or even my arms. My goggles fogged up and I couldn't see anything. I totally think I could have done better on the swim if I was mentally prepared for that abyss. At one point I found myself going in the opposite direction, but got turned around right quick. Need better goggles.

I spent too long in transition--at this point I wasn't interested in rushing too much because I wasn't even sure I would finish! Silly me. 7 minutes in transition. The bike ride was challenging but I was pretty prepared. After I got on my bike and got started, I realized my bike shorts were on backwards. Oh well. Lots of hills but mostly they were long and gradual. I averaged 13 mph on the ride although at some points I was up to 31 mph. So that felt pretty awesome.

The run was pretty tough. Hilly. But I didn't really stop running. I just slowed down some. I was definitely done at the end. If I had been 5 minutes faster, I would have been 100 places better, but c'est la vie. My goal today was to finish and do MY best, not someone else's best. Next year I'll try for a better time. $100 a year entry fee is a small price to pay to stay inspired to stay fit.

I also have some other races I would like to do, eventually:

• A bigger triathlon.
• A bike century, or maybe metric century first.
• Chesapeake Bay Swim, though this would take TIME! It's a 4.4 mile swim. Apparently you have to be able to swim 3 miles in a pool in under 2:15. So, this won't be happening for me anytime soon. Plus, open water is scary.

All in all, it was a really great starter triathlon. It was easy to register and everyone was really nice. There were all shapes and sizes there.