Things I Hate Thursdays - Bereavement Edition.

Hold on to your hats ladies and gentlemen, shit's about to get real...

Not quite two years ago, I lost my dad very suddenly.  It sucked and my world came grinding to a halt for a long, long time.

Besides the obvious tragedy and the pain of missing someone so much it literally takes your breath away, a new world of irritation was revealed to me:  the stupid shit people say after someone dies.

Which brings us to....

*** probably you should stop reading now if you're easily offended***

There are three main types of bereavement offenses.  Allow me...

Offender #1 -   Excessive exclamation points/ capital letters.

Look, I know you're really, realllllllly, sorry for my loss, but writing, "I AM SO SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS!!!!!!!!" on a sympathy card makes it look more like you're screaming for an encore at a fucking Miley Cyrus concert (or whatever crap music you and your offensive personality listen to).



Offender #2 - Improperly used good manners.

I'm all for good manners, I am.  And part of that is saying "You're welcome." when someone says "Thank you."  But this does not count as good manners: (taken from my Facebook wall)

"I'm so sorry for your loss"

         "Thank you for your kind words"

"Ur welcome!!"

Seriously.


Offender #3 - Weird religious crap.

Listen, I generally have a lot of love (and occasionally a little envy) for those people who have strong faith, and it can be comforting in a difficult time, even for the non-religious of us out there.  So when you say, "I'm praying for you", I think that's great.  "My prayers are with your family".. that shit is sincere and thoughtful.

However, "Your dad is looking down on you from Heaven!"  Uhhh, awesome, glad I can think about that every time I have sex/take a crap/pay too much for car insurance.  Seriously, if there's an afterlife, I hope it's a whole lot cooler than watching the people on Earth like some kind of incredibly drawn out reality show you can never turn off.

Same thing with "He's in the loving arms of Jesus".  Oh, wow.  If that's the case, then there's a lot of people in those lovin' arms, am I right?  I'm pretty sure there's nothing my dad would have hated more than a billion-person-strong group hug with everyone who has ever lived and died.  And Jesus.

 _________________________________________________________________________________

Whew.  I feel a lot better now.  :)

Just What I Needed

Turns out, recovering from running an ultra wasn't quite as easy as I thought.

A month later, I haven't been having too many aches or pains, my blisters are almost healed, but my runs have been lackluster and draining.

I've run a dozen or so times in the last month, including two interval sessions and a shittastic 13 miler that left me super demoralized.

Today I got an unexpected hour reprieve from stay-at-home motherhood, and I took advantage of it with a fully loaded iPod and ran a hilly four miler in my neighborhood.

A few minutes in I noticed I was grooving a bit to the music.  And smiling.  I was having fun.  On a run.  F*ck yeah.

Then, this came blasting through my earphones:

gotta get that boom boom pow

And you know that part where she goes "Will.i.am... drop the beat now.." and it gets all crazy awesome?   Well my dance moves got crazy awesome.  I busted out some sweet runner-dance moves and the ONE car I saw the entire run was some lady in a pick-up truck who passed right as I was dancing and yelled "Shake it baby!"  Seriously.

I've got a 16 coming up with Rachel and Mattie this weekend.  Rachel's been just freaking rocking her long runs recently, so I'm looking forward basking in some of her positive energy and finishing happy and strong.

How do you get out of the running doldrums?   


What's your fav running song?

Oh where, oh where have my blog posts gone...

Oh where, oh where could they be?

It's amazing how fast time is going right now.  Two little kids at home, a beautiful, hot summer, concerts, and weekends away... and blogging has gotten pushed to the back burner.

I don't mind - I never really feel the pressure to blog, and while I appreciate all of you who read and comment, I don't feel an obligation to keep you entertained daily with my self-important drivel. And I figure it's less likely you'll tire of me if there are occasional lapses in our semi-weekly one-sided banter.

That said, I am ready to get back on the bandwagon!  I have about a million posts floating around in my head because you guys, so much funny stuff is happening!  That's how I know I need to blog more... when on a daily basis I see something and it's like "What the fuck?  Someone else needs to see this shit!"

On that note- funny random thing #1:

I was hanging out at my sister-in-law's house doing a little HIIT workout (which kicked ass, by the way), and sweet woman that she is, she brought me a beer after we were done.  And it was an IPA from O'so brewing company.  Hell yeah.

I noticed, but didn't pay much mind to the little warning label:

"WARNING:  bottle may contain hop cone"

 So I drank that bottle of hoppy deliciousness, and was almost to the end, when I felt something... tickle my lip.

I shit you not, for some reason I thought it was a June bug, and the 12 year old girl that lives inside screamed a little bit.

I alerted Kathy to my predicament, and we went to the kitchen to find something long and skinny we with which we could fish out the intruder.

It wasn't a June bug, but what plopped out was equally disturbing:

A freaking hop cone!  Who knew?

 Half pickled brussel sprout, half pine-cone, half something else that reminded me of college  liberal hippies... a hop cone!

                                              

O'so beer.  Oso tasty.  (see what I did there?  I'm going to get a slogan job* after that one, for sure)

*Upon further review, "slogan job" sounds inexplicably dirty.  Please replace with "motto-maker" in your head.