Achieving Mediocrity on Very Little Sleep

Saturday was the Desert Rage Finale Adventure Race.

Important Numbers:
3... 17.... 7 1/2... 0

That is a team of 3 (Irene and I let her husband, Brian, join Storming the Castle) going 17 miles, for 7 1/2 straight hours of racing all on 0 hours of sleep. Damn, I'm tired. Perhaps I shouldn't have gone out dancing the night before? Though I went home early from the club, I could not sleep at all. Finally I got out of bed around 2:00 am and just waited for it to be 4:30 so I could go meet Brian and Irene.

The race started at 7:00 am. We were a little late arriving, so our race started with going through the start line and then parking the truck and boat trailer, going potty and then finally actually racing. It was still dark when the race started so we had to plot the course by means of a flashlight. It was also freezing cold!!
The first phase of the race included three checkpoints - one trekking, one biking and one paddling. We started with the trekking, mostly because the idea of getting on the lake when it was so cold out was completely appalling. We did great on the first checkpoint, though jumping down this little cliff might not have been the best route to take, but so far, so good.
Then we paddled this canoe for the second checkpoint. Most of the other, experienced teams had kayaks, but we couldn't find a 3-man kayak to rent, so we went with the very slow, very heavy, very tippy canoe option. It was a fiasco. We were literally going in circles for a time. At one point we almost dumped ourselves into the lake. We rolled so far to the side that we almost had water over the gunwale (I took rowing once so I know fancy terms like this. I quit because I sucked at it...should have thought of that before this race). Of course, we overcorrected and almost tipped the other direction. However, the fates smiled on us and kept us dry and alive. Finally, we figured out the best way to maintain course, but wow, was it slow-going! We rowed that frickin' canoe for 2 miles. It was horrible.

I was so relieved to be out of the boat that I was almost looking forward to the biking portion. Some people have a fear of heights or a fear of spiders and snakes...my greatest fear is this:Which is why much of the time I "ride" like this:
The biking portion was a 3 mile ride up a mountain. Two parts of the trail were so steep that even real mountain bikers had to walk their bikes up. If you click on the below picture to enlarge it, you can see the trail we rode up and the elevation gain. We started at the lake. It was brutal. During most of the ride I was re-thinking my decision to not ride a bike at all since the last race in September.
This was the final segment of the bike leg. Everyone (not just wussies like me!) left their bikes at the bottom of this and hiked up to the summit.
I was very happy to reach the biking checkpoint!
Then it was 3 miles back to the transition area. I rode the majority of those 3 miles, but had to walk the bike down the really steep parts. The whole thing was terrifying. Brian rocked the bike portion - too bad he had to waste so much time waiting for me and Irene to catch up.

The next task of the race was remote orienteering. One person (Irene) received a map with checkpoints. The other people (Brian and I) got a map with no checkpoints. Irene was sequestered at the beach and had to direct us to the three checkpoints via radio only. She is a great communicator so we had no problem with mapping the checkpoints. We did have some difficulty finding one of them, but Irene talked us to the right spot. Yay for Irene!

Then we had to paddle again. AGAIN!? Good god. On the plus side, by this time it was warm out and I was no longer quite as scared to dump the canoe. But, again, we sucked on the way to the checkpoint. Going in circles was really embarrassing while all the cool-kid kayakers zoomed right past us! Ergh.

The last portion of the race was a zinger of a hike. The checkpoint was at the top of a mountain. A mountain covered in these, that is:All three of us at one point during the race were attacked by a cactus. Both Brian and Irene were done in by these jumping chollas. I don't know the names of the cacti (that's right...plural) that got me. I got one on my shin that wasn't too bad, though there are still bits of it embedded under my skin. Later I was squatting down so that Irene could use me as a step to get over a barbed wire fence and when she stepped off I lost my balance and smacked my hand down into a pile of cacti. Yeah, that hurt! A LOT.

The hike to the last checkpoint was about 2 miles out. We started this last task at 1:00 pm and since about half of it could be done via a road, we hoped to finish by 2:00. Yeah... not so much. We overshot our target by a good 15 minutes and had to backtrack, which led to some bickering among my other teammates and a lagging of spirits. Then we had to climb a really steep incline while dealing with the aforementioned chollas. The race was advertised to take 3-6 hours. We were already almost at hour 7. Did I think about quitting? Oh, yeah... But we stuck it out, finally found the final checkpoint and booked it back to the finish line. At 2:30 pm we checked in as the 5th place finishers. 5th place - woo hoo!, right? Well, there were only 7 teams who did the short-course. But 5th out of 7 means that we were not last! So, WOO HOO for mediocrity! And did I mention that I had no sleep the night before?

Slut Night

Many years ago when I was a hard-core swing dancer, we started using the term "Slut Night" to differentiate going out club dancing from the usual swing dance nights. Whenever we had a "Slut Night", we'd ditch our swing clothes and don trendy, sexy clothes instead.

Angela, a friend of mine from co-ed book club, wanted to go dancing for her birthday and since she's not part of my swing crowd, I knew she meant club dancing. And while the term "Slut Night" meant nothing to any of the people going (other than Pat) I figured I should do my swing friends proud by maintaining the tradition and dressing appropriately. I haven't been club dancing for years so I had to go buy new clothes to look appropriate. The goal was to look like the average 22-year-old club ho. How did I do?
The book club:
The boys with the ubiquitous crotch-point. This was David's first time...how cute.

Laura slutted it up with me - knee boots and fishnets.

Robyn and her husband Joe joined us since we were in their 'hood.
We even got Pat on the floor for one or two songs. Well, Laura did, anyway.Alas, I'm not a 22-year-old club ho. I'm an old lady who had to be up at 4:00 am for a race, so I left the club at 10:30. Craig and Pat are old men who didn't have any racing to do, but weren't enjoying the club scene so much, so they went home early, too.

Dear Blog,

Alternate Post Title: Q: Why is Jamie Not Wearing Underwear? A: Because Pat's Are Dirty.

Dear Blog,

I am pleased to say that I was able to use this blog title before Craig did. That's what he gets for beating me in Scrabble on the drive home from Vegas.

So, Blog, would you like an explanation on the underwear thing? I'll give you one, but it will prove that the adage, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" is (mostly) a lie.

I went on a road trip to Las Vegas with my boys - Patrick, Jamie and Craig. It was a very, um, interesting trip. I have never discussed underwear so often in a three day time span. It started with Patrick forgetting to pack underwear. His proposed solution was to go to Target and buy some. Jamie's proposed solution was a show of solidarity amongst the boys where they would all boycott underwear for the whole trip. Jamie's show of solidarity ended up being an act of individualism, as 1) Craig wore his underwear the entire trip (I know this both because he said so and because of visual proof on more than one occasion) and 2) Pat did take us all to Target to buy his new underwear. I would like to note, for the record, that I did not get any visual proof of Jamie's claim to be underwearless. Thankfully, Jamie displayed more modesty than Craig and Pat.

Don't worry, Blog, there was more to the trip than underwear, or lack thereof. There was also the Smashing Pumpkins concert, which was the impetus for the whole trip. Jamie is a fan and since he did the Cure with me, I agreed to do the Pumpkins with him. Pat and Craig went to see a comedian while Jamie and I were at the concert. The concert was awesome! I had a great time - I was completely mesmerized for the entire show.

There also was the meeting of Gordie Howe - Mr. Hockey. Jamie has an autograph collection that was missing Gordie, so we went and visited him at Field of Dreams, where old pros get paid to meet their fans and talk about being old. Pete Rose was there, too, but he didn't play hockey so who cares?

Blog, I can tell you that there was some serious partying going on while we were in Sin City. Ok, maybe not serious partying, but there was some Scrabble playing. I won this game by a scant 4 points on the last play - MERL and ELL. Craig challenged, but merl is, in fact, a word. Blog, I know you are looking at the board below and saying that FISTY surely is not a word. Well, you're right - I was just too scared to challenge.As mentioned earlier, Craig beat me at the rematch on the drive home by about a zillion points. I tried to play TROUTING which was not a word and was an incredibly stupid play since I could have used TUTORING instead. Dumb.


There was also the wonderful strangeness of having a lot of special treatment aimed at this little Diamond. I had my own entrance to a buffet and my own check-in lobby. Vegas knows I'm a super-star!!
There was also some happy heel clicking - which may or may not have broken Jamie's foot. And, Blog, in case you are wondering, no, Craig cannot click twice in one jump despite some very valiant efforts.
And you may have noticed, Blog, there was definitely LOTS of crotch-pointing. This is a Jamie specialty which Pat and Craig tried to emulate to varying degrees of success.Yeah, Craig is definitely not succeeding there, huh?


Blog, did I just hear you say that perhaps Jamie has some maturing to do? This was a much debated topic on our trip and the unanimous decision was no, we like him the way he is.

Thanks!!

Of all the holidays, Thanksgiving is definitely the worst! I hate Thanksgiving. Always have. Turkey and football are two of my least favorite things - right down there with pickles and NASCAR. I don't have any solid memories of Thanksgiving as a kid just one big, swirling mass of being bored while the grown-ups talked incessantly, pushing food around on my plate because I hated all of it and doing a whole lot of cleaning up after dinner. If having fun or giving thanks actually happened at any time during the Thanksgivings of my youth, it has been completely wiped from my hard drive.

During my college years I stopped going home for Thanksgiving. I was always the one volunteering to work over the holiday. My NFBF and I had a tradition for a few years of going out for Chinese on Thanksgiving followed by multiple games of backgammon - these memories are solid and definitely pleasant. Then he got married and had kids and had to do the traditional Thanksgiving thing with the parents again, which left me wide open to befalling the same fate when I got married. Pat's parents are cool and all, but nothing changes how much I dislike a whole day dedicated to turkey and football.

This year, though, things were different. Pat's burning desire to smoke meat on his smoker saved my day!! Because of the smoker we got to have Thanksgiving at our house this year. Spending the day with 11 little paws underfoot can always keep the turkey and football depression at bay! The other perk was that we got to invite two of my pet boys to join us. I didn't even mind all the cooking, I felt rather June Cleaver-ish. Of course, June Cleaver wouldn't have forgotten to serve the salad, nor would she have let the guests leave before breaking out the pie...but still. This year Thanksgiving was actually fun!

Pat and his dad carving the meat:Pat and I with his mom and Uncle Mike:

We put a puzzle together in one night, though there were 2 missing pieces...there are ALWAYS missing pieces. We walked the dogs. Laura came over after dinner and played with us for a bit. Craig spent the night. It was almost like a party. And hopefully it'll start a new tradition of me not hating Thanksgiving.

How every Thanksgiving table should be set...half the table for food and guests, half the table for puzzle pieces.

Fetch on the Field

Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks, opened up the ballpark to the dogs last weekend. Frankie and Georgie had a great time playing on the huge field of soft grass. SOFT grass is a very novel concept in Phoenix. Mo stayed home because she's not quite ready for the world of the dog park.

Me and my dogs:
Jamie went with us - more for the baseball field than for the dogs. Me and my boys:
My doggies love Aunt Vickie:
Georgie LOVED the dog park! She ran and ran and ran and ran.
Frankie LOVED the fact that the stranger in line ahead of us had treats in his pockets. TREATS! In his POCKETS!!! I'm pretty sure he would have left with the guy if given the opportunity. Just look at the adoration on his face.
I came with two doggies, but I left with three. This is Nicole and her lovely lab, Violet, all grown up now. Nicole and Brian had tickets to a football game that coincided with the Fetch on the Field event. They left early for the game and I took Violet home to continue the playdate with Frankie and Georgie. Though by the time we got home all the dogs were so tuckered out, it was more of a nap date.