Herete! Kali Mara! That’s “Hello!” and “Good Day!” in Greek! Crete happened. Was incredible. Incredible! Ate an octopus and felt its suction cups clinging to the inside of my tummy. Communed with Zeus in his birth cave, where a goat nursed him to boyhood. Splashed a two cent piece into a cave pool and asked for Zeus to bless our our upcoming transitions. Went to museums. Hiked to ruins. Hiked to more ruins. Oh look: RUINS!!!! Ruins, ruins everywhere. You can’t do a thing without RUINS! Minoan ruins, Mycinean ruins, Dorian ruins, Ruins ruins. It is AMAZING and the ones high, high up have crazy mad GOATS crawling all over them. Baa! Baa! Greek goats “baa” higher, like a fretting little girl. Scottish goats “baa” like they are dry heaving. Baa! Baaa!!!! So many museums: Historical museums, MILLIONS of archeological museums, and an absolutly lovely one dedicated to traditional Cretian life.

The ferry to the isle of Milos was smoky. Smoking, smoking everywhere. Hack hack. Came out smelling like soot and filthy lungs. Gross. But the food was great! When’s the last time you had good food en route to a place? NEVER! Except for on the Milos ferry. Mmmmm…Mousaka! Lamby lambs are delicious minced up and smothered in eggplants. EAT THEM NOW!

Milos is hot hot hot. Venus de Milos was stolen by some greedy French people here and given to Louis the 18 as a pressie, which is why I met the purty lassie at the Louvre in Paris. But this is where she came from, found in a cave by a farmer looking for his well. Insane!!! We hiked to the spot it was found in. We hiked to an ancient Roman theatre and the FEELING there, the insane FEELING of ovation, of dignity, of art as something more than a frivolous endevor – a feeling of art, words and performance as intrinsic, a part of us, inside us, as necissary as breath, as old as stone. We crawled through ancient catacombs; the second oldest known in this world.

We swam, we swam, we swam. Swimming with entangelments of the sea. Swimming without touching the bottom. Swimming without scraping a sea urchin, without a slippery something twisting round your leg, making you squeal, giddily panicked, “what was that?!?” We swam in caves, we swam in gorges. We swim so much – at the end of hikes, in the middle of hikes, in the morning, in the night, in dreams – that when I am still, I still feel white capped waves battering me over and over and over. I sway. Swish swish. I’m a fish.

Today we walked across a space where a volcano’s lava congealed and stopped in blurbs and bubbles to form the surface of the moon. It was peaked and hollowed, crazed and impossible. The wind whipped our bodies, making the impossible whiteness of the sun bearable. Grains of sand, of sulfer, of sea stung our faces. Waves howled below. Ravages of a ship wreck lay broken, a left warning twisted round bursting rocks.

Tomorrow we board the ferry for Athens. Museums. Acropolis. Mainland. Home is soon. And when I think of it, of home, I don’t think of Glasgow. I think of home home. Of moms and brothers and Cooks Dairy Farm. Of best friend Brian. Of real home.

People like to ask, “where are you from?” It’s a weird question to answer. We live in Glasgow. Moved from Chicago. Grew up in Michigan. What do you say? “The states, America.” They nod. They smile. “What are you doing here?!?” This place sees Italians, Spanish tourists, families on their holidays. The resorts are full of pink, badly behaved English. Vroom vroom they dart around on motorbikes and 4-wheelers. They are drunk, singing football songs, ready to get warm, get wasted, and get laid. Yikes! Stay away from them! Head for the lost places, the hiking places, the places to eat local cheese and buy wine on the side of the road from the old woman who made it in her garden. Away, away.

The sun has eaten at my brain. All I feel is waves. And this is how I write with the ocean in my ears. This is how I think and spell and am.

Love to you all. And love to Greece.

XO,
Truly

Flight leaves at 7 am. Trying to get to sleep is impossible. Its like trying to sleep on Christmas eve. Only this time, Santa is wearing a toga and bestowing suntans, olives, and myths. Not to mention spicy lamb. Tomorrow, I’ll be lunching in Greece.

Apartment swept/perishable items tossed for a clean homecoming. Trash is taken out. Bags are packed. Toenails are painted and sandle-ready. Camera battery is charging. Now is the hard part: sleep. Lets see if I can manage before we have to wake up at 4.30 am. I try to count sheep, but every now and again one leaps by with a wreath of grape leaves wound around his head. There goes another one with a sheep’s head and the body of a man. And there’s another pulling a chariot. One is named Zorba, I think….

____________________________________________________________________________________
When’s the last time you were to excited to sleep?

I know that one of my favorite exports from Scotland is going to be this nation’s jaunty, lighthearted references to drinking. No longer will I go out for a drink; but I’ll gladly join you for a slurp. If I have the misfortune of contracting a hang over, I can say that I’m “a bit jaded” the next morning, before admitting that I was “absolutely wankered last night.” Here you can get pished, pissed or steamin’, which seems a lot better than in America, where you can get wasted, trashed or shit faced. You’d think that with those options, Americans would be the heavyweight drinkers in this world; an hour in Scotland would prove you wrong.

Drinking here is more socially acceptable than it probably should be. 14-year old girls drink cheap bottles of rose by the bottle-neck in graveyards, under over passes at night. Old men stagger on sidewalks, muttering to themselves, sweating hopps. Midnight in city centre is a zoo of amazingly drunk women trying to make their way home, teetering dangerously on stilettos. Men move in packs, chanting football songs and reeking of hard cider. My morning run, taken before the street sweeper can clear the ravages of the night away, is an obstacle course of vomit and human shit, strewn about the sidewalk. Oh Glasgee. Why don’t ye know when to quit?

Something that took me a while to catch on to here is that all the real business at work is done after 5, in the pub. If your boss asks you to come along for a slurp, you should go. And don’t be afraid to get drunk. That’s what going for a drink means here: getting pished. Or at least a little pished. If you are like me, unable to cope with hangovers (I’d rather be dead) drink your drink slowly. Let yourself loosen up naturally. Take the liberty of ordering the group snacks when it’s your turn to buy a round. Switch to cranberry juice or tonic after you’ve reached your limit and let them all feel jaded in the morning. You’ve got your morning run to do; you don’t have time in the morning to spend with your face retching into the toilet bowl. But you also can’t afford to not go to the pub, where your boss becomes your friend and tells you all sorts of useful information, the two of you bond, you get all that praise (and more!) that you’ve always wanted, and suddenly you have a stellar recommendation that you need for when you move stateside again. That was my Friday.

Saturday, Shaun and I went to the Edinburgh International Festival — that’s the big theater thing you’ve probably heard of that has a hoppin’ Fringe Festival. We made our way through the throngs of theatre-happy tourists to a staging of Bacchus starring Alan Cumming in drag as Dionysus and a gospel choir of beautiful black women as the Greek chorus. The choreography and songs could have been tighter (yes, it was a musical), and the scripting could have been less expositional (yes, I know this is the style of Greek tragedies, but if you are going to go ahead and make it a musical, don’t be afraid to adapt it in other ways too). Overall though, it was a pleasure to watch. I laughed out loud more than a few times and was wildly impressed with Alan Cumming’s naked butt, which also featured in the play. The butt was extraordinarily muscular – with hearty side divots and everything. It was the kind of butt that takes millions of squats and ceaseless leg lifts. I just hope the rest of the crowd appreciated it as much as I did. I’ve worked out to Tammy Lee Baker’s Buns of Steel video; I know how hard that shit is. The rest of Alan Cumming performed delightfully as well — his comedic timing was perfect and his expressions are priceless. Frankly, I love him. He reminds me of my best-est of friends. I wish he was the man who Americans thought of when they thought of Scottish people; Sean Connery is freakish and I’ve never in all my time here heard anything remotely like that bizarre accent he slurs out of his bear-encrusted mouth.

Today, we threw a little brunch party for friends to come over, sip mimosas, and rifle through our worldly possessions to take stuff home with them. (We’re trying to unload all the books, cooking bits, and other random things unworthy of a trans Atlantic crossing before we move out of our flat). I made a cherry pie and apple/carrot muffins. We laughed non-stop, ate too much sugar, and now I’m farting all over the place from the champagne. Why is champagne served at social functions?!?! It has so many fart-inducing bubbles! Luckily, the giant bloat seems to have a timed chemical reaction that only over stimulates the gastro-intestinal tract about 5 hours after drinking it, and by that time the party is probably over. But just think of how many post-celebration romances have probably been thwarted over the course of history by bloating and gas pains.

I realize that this entire post is getting a bit too graphic, but really I had to write about the farting thing:

a.) Because it’s funny.
b.) Because I don’t want you to feel alone in you’re champagne-induced farting. It happens to the best of us.

Anyhow, my excitement about our Greece trip this Tuesday is now bordering on rabid. I am foaming at the mouth and fearing water. Dispite the hydrophobia, I got a new swimming suit for the trip that I can only describe as Cave Woman meets Bond Girl. It came in the mail yesterday and when I tried it on I lamented that I ever have to wear real clothes at all. Bathing suit only! OOGA!
_______________________________________________________________________________________

How’s your weekend?

OH! I forogt! I ran into a bird today. A hidous pidgeon. You know how sometimes, if you are really unlucky, a bird flutters into you? Well this time, I ran smack into a bird’s meaty belly. A cluster of the mangey things were pecking on the sidewalk that I was running on this morning and when I approached, they all took to wing. But one was particuarly slow and due to a timing miscalculation on both of our parts, I ran my forehead into it’s horrible, germ-infested breast. It’s wing got tangled in my bangs and it’s feathers stuck to my sweaty forehead. I screeched and flapped my arms and about a block later, dry heaved, thinking about how I’m too young to die of Avian flu. Yuck!

MONDAY MORNING EDIT: Ha! This post was obviously a little tipsy (probably don’t need to tell you that). I laughed out loud, scrolling through this morning to see that I’d written that Sean Connery had a “bear encrusted mouth.” HA! Yes. He eats a lot of bears. Raw ones. I mean, how many times have you seen Sean Connery with bear meat and fur just smeared all over his face? Millions. It’s basically every picture taken of him, ever. Including the baby pics, before he even had teeth. Seriously – there’s a whole E! True Hollywood Story about it. Somebody get that man a napkin. HA! Um, no. I meant to put a “d” on the end of that “bear.” Sean Connery has a “beard-encrusted face.” Scratch Smokey; I meant facial hair. Note to self about tipsy blog posts taken.

On the radio today, I heard that Wal-Mart is selling talking dolls that spout Christian scripture. There’s nothing like cultivating an even richer Madonna/Whore complex than selling chaste, holy dolls along side the sex-kittenish Bratz dolls and boob-licious Barbies. Plus, have the manufactures of these dolls ever actually watched a little girl play with dolls? Because when playing with dolls who are modeled after adults, little girls do one of two things:

Option 1:
This kind of little girl gets the doll pretty enough to go on a date with the boy doll. Or, in the absence of a boy doll, the main doll can go on a date with another girl doll – probably the one with brown hair. They go out on a brief date that ends with the two characters smashed together mid-air, making kissy sounds and humping. The little girl strips the dolls and inspects their plastic anatomies before tossing the mangled, raped things aside to move on to another game.

Option 2:
This kind of little girl gives the doll a hair cut. It doesn’t turn out quite right, so the girl thinks it will be funny to just go ahead and shave the doll’s head entirely. The little girl decides that the doll would look better with tattoos – she draws all over the dolls body. The little girl wonders if she can shave the dolls legs like mommy. She uses the pink razor in the shower to cut hunks out of the dolls plastic legs before leaving the mutilated skinhead in the bathtub to go play outside.

Have you ever seen anything different? Just imagine how much trouble you’d get in if you were doing either of those things to the Virgin Mary!

Also, they played a few clips of what the talking dolls said. My favorite was from the Ester doll:

“Go gather together all the Jews who are in Susa and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish. Esther 4:16.”

What kind of freak are you trying to raise if you incorporate fasting into playtime? Plus, kids don’t understand this language! And even if they did, this little snippet is completely lacking in context – you’d never know from that little clip that Esther was really trying to save the Jews. It just sounds like the lady is going on a deadly crash diet.

Also weird, the Mary doll reportedly has a much smaller bust than all the other Bible ladies in the line up. And what’s the lesson here, kids? Boobies are sinful. The smaller your tata’s, the more moral you are. Hate your body! Hate it before it even grows into anything!

If I were a parent, I would be worried that my child has a chemical imbalance if they enjoyed playing with these toys as they are meant to be played with. Can you imagine a child who sedately pulls the string of the Moses doll, just to hear him methodically say, “Thou shalt not kill” over and over? Yikes!

Are the Barbies and Bratz dolls better? No. ‘Course not. It’s all fucked up. I’m just thankful that I was never interested in playing with Barbies (unless I was at a friend’s house, giving them haircuts) and had parents who filled my toy box with stuffed animals, art supplies, and books instead.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
How do you think a real-live kid will react to the Bible dolls?

::Random Tangent::
Yay for the Sunday long run. I ran 7 miles today! I think that is the longest I’ve ever run in the history of my body. Woo Hoo! This graduated running plan is fun. Me like. My friend showed me a fab website to help me keep increasing my milage. It’s called www.mapmywalk.com. It lets you draw your route on a Google Earth map and tells you how many miles it is. Very cool. Although, you can save your walk as a public profile, which baffles me. Hello! Do the people who publish their running route want to get stalked?!? I am very careful to save my routes to a private profile, but I think its handy to show someone you live with or a friend your route, so that if you are unlucky enough to get kidnapped from your early morning run, they know where to start looking for your corpse. Ha! I don’t really think this way, but you just have to watch your back when you have a vagina in this world. Especially if you preffer to run by yourself. Anyhow, that’s my tip of the day, passed from a friend to me, and from me to you. Have a good Sunday!

I am clinging to routine, to my running schedule, to perfectly balanced meals devoid of junk, to my new vitamin regimen, to quiet days, to nights holed up in our flat with books. I am storing my energy and stockpiling balance. I am meditating. I am soaking up all the calm I can now, because after next week, our lives will spiral into a true koyaanisqatsi.

Next Sunday, I’m throwing a brunch party for all of our people to descend on our apartment and adopt our stuff. Potted herbs, a years worth of paper backs (and for two hungry readers, this is a lot), OS hiking maps, comic books, shampoos I tried and wasn’t a huge fan of, spices, shoes I hate, and other bits of randomness that aren’t fit for a trans-Atlantic crossing need homes.

On the following Tuesday we’re off to Greece for two weeks. We tossed around weather or not to take this trip for a while. But a part of what we wanted from this year abroad was to travel, and although we did get two amazing weekends in Brussels and Paris, we were itching to do a proper, long holiday. We rationalized that Greece will never be closer. We are unlikely to see as favorable of an exchange rate as our pounds have to the euro (the US dollar is weak, weak, weak). It would never be as cheap. We will probably never again have European employers who allot billions of paid days off for us to enjoy a vacation without wondering how rent was going to get paid. Plus, we’d been paying taxes here in Scotland – both local and national — and found out recently that we weren’t supposed to have been. While the phat reimbursement could have gone to paying off our credit debts, it could also fund this trip of a lifetime. What can I say? We were seduced.

We are going first to Crete for a few days, to hike/ride donkeys to the cave that Zeus was born and raised by a goat in. We will also pet Minotaur. Then we’re off to Milos, an island riddled with amazing volcanic formations, caves and haunted by the endangered Monk Seal. A few days later, we’re off to the mainland to kick it in Athens and steal away to worship with a man I found online who thinks he’s an oracle and has direct communication with the sun god Apollo in Delphi. It will be hilarious.

Four days after we return from Greece, our lease is up and we move to the guest bedroom of our good and remarkably generous pals Dan and Bryony. Two days after moving in with them, I run my 10K race. After the race, I step up my training for a 1/2 marathon and kick it with Dan and Bryony for the 20 remaining days of my work contract before saying farewell and heading stateside. The last week before we go is also particularly insane for me, as I’ll be in Dundee for a big chunk of it, as that is where the conference that I’m on contract to market is taking place. When I get back it’s a good bye party at work, then by a good bye party with friends, followed by a good day set aside for that monster hang over before we board a plane.

Where are we going? No idea. What will we be doing next? No idea.

First stop though is MI for two weeks to visit family and attend my mom’s pirate wedding in Mackinac. Then, we move…somewhere. Not MI, though. The unemployment rate there is astounding and the job listings are dismal. Shaun is in the latter interview stages for his dream job in NYC. He is also in discussion with a San Diego company who he has a strong relationship with. My applications are out, but I’m not torqued about any of the prospects and Shaun is. I’m applying to jobs – he’s applying to positions he is passionate about. So if he gets something, we’ll go to whatever that is. Do I want to move to San Diego? Not particularly, but we’re not really in a position to turn our noses up at anything. And we don’t have to stay anywhere forever.

Naturally, we have debt. Most of it is Shaun’s student loans; we now both can pay homage to our education in monthly installments. A relatively small, but never the less present, amount is credit debt incurred from traveling. We expected this. We accepted this. Actually, we expected a bit more than this and I’m pretty damn impressed with our restraint. I’m not worried about the money stuff. We are always very responsible about paying things off; we make games of scrimping and saving. Poverty isn’t so bad when you have a plan out of it.

Anyhow, now entering August without any real idea what we are doing yet, I am trying to keep things simple. I am trying to go one day at a time. There is no cause for alarm. Panic and anxiety are useless emotions. At bedtime, I tell myself stories of us to keep my mind from racing:

We moved from Chicago with no contacts and no jobs. We moved to Glasgow with no contacts, no jobs, and an exchange rate that meant we also had no money. What do you do? You get an apartment. You find a job. You pay the bills. You keep smiling, keep moving. Once you are comfy enough, you chase your dreams once again.

If Shaun manages to get a great job before we actually leave Scotland – that is amazing. But transitioning from one dream to the next is so lucky. We can wish for it, we can work for it, but we can’t be too surprised if it doesn’t happen. In that case, we just pick a place to move, re-group, dust our selves off, and start chasing dreams again.

The trouble is, my partner seems to be under a crushing pressure to make things seamless, to have something concrete in place before we go back. While I appreciate his wanting to make good for our future, I’m also perplexed. We’ve done the “wing-it” thing before and it’s always worked. It has to – it’s sink or swim! If things work out, great, if not, great. I’m excited to see what’s around the corner regardless, even if it is a scary monster. We chose to have big balls in this world, and now we have to bear the brassy weight of them. (Ha! I crack myself up.)

I suspect he is also grieving this transition – this has been a pretty sweet year for him. He dedicated his days to his art and was surrounded by a community of talented writers. I imagine the prospect of having to go back to lame office work (which in his mind, seem to be most things that are not writing or editing), might feel like total, soul sucking regression. He’s just going through something, I guess. I am too, but I think I have better coping mechanisms. He’s a brooder, a state I’ve never truly felt. I just get things off my chest, have a very loud, dramatic melt-down, and get over it. Or if my big, messy life reaches a particularly hairy point like it has recently, I simplify things. I break the challenge down into steps, maintain a healthy awareness of the larger picture but absorb myself in the task at hand. I’m not saying I don’t get emotionally weird every now and again in the process – I’m not perfect. And for all I know brooding could give you loads of insights that I trim out when simplifying. So I guess there is no better or worse way of dealing. We deal how we deal. We’re only humans.

Anyhow, this post is getting long and the whole point of it began with me wanting to write about my trip to the Isle of Cumbrae today.

With only a few free, non-crazy weekends left here in Scotland, I wanted to try out a fun day trip that my work friends recommended to me: the Isle of Cumbrae. A short 1-hour train ride + a little ferry trip + a small bus ride gets you from Glasgow to Millport, the only town on this wee island. There, you can eat loads of ice cream and fish and chips. You can also rent out bikes, which is what I did since I already had a delicious ice cream at the port town we left from while I waited for the ferry. Shaun stayed at home to get work done (he’s currently revising his novel for an interested agent and that must be done before Greece).

The Isle of Cumbrae is small and flat and pretty, with one whole side protected from the cold winds whipping off the Atlantic. I biked at an extraordinarily leisurely pace around the whole island twice in about two and 1/2 hours. I listened to my ipod, sang along when no one was around, and laughed at the madness of my life. I read my book on the train and wrote in my journal at a bar waiting for my Glasgow-bound train back home. I’m tired now. Too tired to think. Too tired to do anything but love the other human I share my life with. Because at the end of the day, we are just people trying to do our best. And that counts for something. That counts for everything.
_________________________________________________________________________________
How do you cope with life when it gets messy?

Hello my Xanga peeps!

I’ve been away, traveling sunny Scotland with my hilarious family. If driving your new step dad, mom, and 15 year old brother around on the wrong side of the road for a week sounds masochistic to you: think again. We had a riot. My mom and her man are in looooove, my brother Julian has grown into one of the funniest people I’ve ever met – what more can you ask for in a family? We got goofy together, we adventured together, and we only had approximately one melt-down each during the course of the week, Shaun excluded, as he managed to stay amazingly sweet throughout the rigors of navigating my driving during the entire trip.

Loads of pictures from the trip are up now at The Loch Ness Blog, but lest you are too lazy to click over (trust me, I understand: life gets busy), here is an excerpt from that blog. It is by far my favorite story from my family’s Scottish road trip:

Choose Your Adventure
While all parts of the road trip were grand, our stay on the Isle of Mull was incredible. People are scarce on this beautiful island. Gorges burst forth from the land and caves burrow themselves deep into rock. Green hills bubble up at every turn and cars slow on the winding, one-track roads to avoid the goats and sheep who take naps on the warm pavement. Seals flop on the rocky shore and birds of prey swoop through the sky. Little brown mice scurry underfoot and wild cats haunt the castle ruins. Mull is peace. My bones softened there. I opened up to the world and to the simple comfort of the people around me in a way that had been inaccessible in me for a bit, buried by the harried frenzy of work, of city life.

As pure as Mull was, the tranquility of the place in no way prevented us from having a barking mad adventure. With a group as up for anything as we are, no place can really stop us from that. Upon our arrival, I thought we’d all go for a soothing, short walk along the beach to Mackinnon’s Cave. As the path seemed short and relatively straight forward, I also forwent purchasing the OS map that accompanies this little walk. And this is where things get interesting.

Many walking paths in Scotland that intersect with private property are not as well maintained as the paths in national parks. There is no park ranger; there is only the courtesy of the land owner and the footsteps of those who walked before you. So I didn’t think it too terribly strange when we chose to scale a massively steep hill and walk along a staggering, sheer cliff in pursuit of a “spiraling downward path” to the waterfall and cave below. After all, the hike description promised “increasingly dramatic views.” And we were having so much fun that I’d forgotten that the hike was supposed to be short and soothing. Juje remembered though.

“This is definitely the wrong way.”
“Juje, there is no right or wrong way. There is just this, what we’re doing.”
“I’m going back.”
“No you’re not.”
“We should have turned right back there.”
“The hike isn’t about the destination. You’re there already.”

Soon enough, Juje relented and enjoyed the scenary along with the rest of us. All was going well when suddenly, inexplicably, we found ourselves face down, bodies pressed to the earth, clutching for our lives to tufts of grasses growing on the sheer, vertical face of a cliff. This was not the “spiraling downward path” I had in mind.

“Julian, go in front of me so that if you fall, you’ll land on me and I’ll die instead.”
“No. Things seem to be going pretty good for you right now.”
“But you haven’t even gotten a chance to really live yet.”
“I live.”
“Okay. Just be sly. Everybody: acknowledge your will to live.”

Thusly, we scooted our way across the bluff, landing on horizontal land after more than a few sweaty, horrifying moments. Panting, and dusting ourselves off, we couldn’t help but laugh. Juje was right. We almost died. It was hilarious.

Making our way back down to safety, we had to cut through cow fields where evil cows stared us down, sized us up and made us wonder if we’d survived scaling the width of a sheer cliff just to experience death by bovine. Lucky for us, the cows seemed content with their grass.

When we were possibly less than a quarter mile from the car, hours later, with empty water bottles and shaking legs, we saw a sign that made us laugh until our sides hurt. CAVE, it read. An arrow pointed dumbly.

“We have to finish this properly,” I declared.

We followed the arrow, making our way along the rocky beach, alive with sea creatures and craggy rock scrambles. The cave rose from the beach about a half mile down, its great howling mouth opening to the sea.

I was so excited about the cave, the haunted wetness of it, the undulating echo, that I forgot to take any pictures at all. I was 12 again, racing around with my brother, shouting into the cave, feeling the moss on its sides, imagining a giant, pinching crab was about to leap from the shadows of the cave’s belly and devour us whole. It was amazing. I will remember it even when I’m old and rotting. I will remember it when I need to remember happiness in its purest, cleanest, most worth while form.

________________________________________________________________________________

What is one of your top favorite family adventures?

Once I ate an entire loaf of fish pâté out of spite.
___________________________________________________________________

Funny confessions, people?

I started training for the 10K this week. Everything I’ve read so far says that I’m probably fit enough to go out and run this without any training (I run 4-5 times a week on normal, non-shingles weeks, with lots of walking, hiking and Frisbee playing in my spare time. And I can’t tell you how much I miss my big, blue bike here in Scotland), but I’ve never really tried to increase my mileage for some reason. I usually just do my route when I wake, shower up and move on with my day. I like having muscle tone and not being life-threateningly huge like my biological dad, but I don’t run for fitness reasons, exactly. I run because it is a space in which I have incredible daydreams. Most of the goals that have been worth pursuing in my life were conjured by my wandering mind during my morning run. So this is a change for me. My pal Helen and I are running it together and are on Hal Higdon’s 8-week training schedule. Neither of us like working out with other people (it disrupts the daydreams!), which is good. We work out separately and just talk about how it’s going. So far, its been gone this:

Sunday is Long Run Day. I increased my usual 2.5 mile run to a 3.5 mile run. It was a cinch! I thought it would be harder, but it just took an extra 12 minutes or so. Stretched for ages. Felt great.

Monday is Stretch and Strengthen Day. I lifted my little free weights and stretched for an entire episode of Greys Anatomy after walking home from work (a good 45 minute ordeal – its not the walking that sucks, but that I am generally really hungry and ready for dinner while I’m doing it).

A little side bar about Grey’s Anatomy: we got that show on DVD when I had shingles because everyone always talks about it and I needed something to keep me company in my illness (we don’t own a TV). I was disappointed to find that the writing is chock full of lame “sayings”, the patients have more depth than the main cast sometimes, the cast is riddled with gross clichés (Sassy Black Woman, Detached Asian Chick, Frat Boy, Model-Turned-Doctor), and the main character delivers everything like it is a Neutrogena ad. That said, we bought the series and I’m finishing it if it kills me. I like Sandra Oh a great deal. She deserves a better show, a better script. She deserves the leading role; she is ten times the actress that Ellen Pompeo is. But the weight lifting and stretch was nice.

On Monday, Shaun and I also went for a long walk to a pretty English garden called Victoria Park and talked about favorite flowers. Mine is Gerber Daisy because they are so literal; it is the flower you draw when you think of the word “flower.” I also have unbridled enthusiasm for Chick and Hen plants, Sequoia trees, cactus, and succulents. Shaun is still working on having favorite for nature things.

Tuesday was a Short Run Day. 2.5 miles, a bit of weights and stretch. Totally fine and easy. Except that we are really skint right now (it’s the last week before payday), and I had no pocket money for the subway; I had to also walk to and from work. I usually only walk home from work, if its nice out. Adding that extra 3 miles to the day felt great but it sucked all enthusiasm for a nice, after dinner walk or Frisbee game. All I had energy for was vegging in front of the laptop, lamenting the poor scripting of Grey’s Anatomy again. Plus, I was too tired and hungry to focus on cooking dinner properly, so I made this gross, overly salty risotto and I’m mad that I wasted three cute zucchinis on it. They deserved a more dignified death. So I’ve reached a fitness limit of sorts, which is always annoying. I’m not fit enough to want to play in the park after a day of walking/running 8 solitary miles combined with a full day of work. I think I can get there and that sort of endurance should come in handy when I am a parent some day.

Today is Cross Training Day. It’s just 30 wee minutes of some cardio thing. I think I’ll just walk to and from work and play a little Frisbee tonight. That seems like it will cover it.

Thursday is another Short Run w/ Weights. Friday is Rest Day. Saturday is Cross Training again. Sunday is Long Run and round and round we go for 8 weeks until the race.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Have you ever trained for something or reached an annoying fitness block? Is anyone else signed up for races this summer/fall?

In the mood for a giant eat? Unlike Pizza Hut, my pie won’t give you the shits. It’s also cheap, nourishing, and fun to make. And because no kitchen should close before offering something chocolaty to munch, I bring you my favorite cookie recipe for a sweet finish. Read on, hungry people. Read on.

Gather:
3 teaspoons of yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups white flour
2 cups wheat flour
Pizza toppings of choice

Now do this:
1.) Wash your filthy paws.

2.) Get out the biggest bowl you have; hopefully it’s big enough to fit a human head, because while you are probably not a cannibal, every kitchen needs a head-sized bowl. Dissolve yeast into warm water into it (the bowl, not your head). You can frizzle the yeast around with a fork – that seems to help. Splash in oil and salt. In another big bowl, mix together the different flours before kneading them into the big ‘ole yeast bowl. Squish the mix around with your bare mitts and notice how completely warm and crotch-like the whole ordeal smells. (Ha! Well it does!)

3.) Once the bowl stuff is squished into a big, yeasty dough ball, let it fester in the bowl undisturbed for about 40 minutes.

4.) While the great ball of yeast is rising, chop up stuff to put on your pizza. I like red sauce, rocket, sausage, peppers, fresh mozzarella, and basil from my basil plant named Little Cat. Once I tried olive oil, leftover chicken, caramelized onions, spinach, and a mozzarella/parmesan mix, which was also good. Someone once said that figs and goat cheese was good, but that sounds sort of dry to me. Maybe figs and mascarpone would be better? Anyway, whatever you like on your pie is good.

5.) Oh yeah, preheat the oven to 425F. And clean off your counters with something that’s not toxic. You’ll need a spot to sprinkle a bit of flour onto for rolling out your doughy balls.

6.) When the dough is all arisen, separate it into two balls. Take one at a time and roll it into a flat disk on your clean, floured counter top. When it’s a nice disk, pick it up and drape it over your fist and make little punching motions towards to ceiling. This makes it all stretchy and is fun to do. Lay your crust out on a baking sheet and top with whatever you chopped up.

7.) With the other dough ball, break off little bits and twist them into bread sticks. If you want, you can brush on olive oil, push in garlic bits or feta or whatever stinky little food thing you like. Put these on another baking sheet.

8.) Bake everything for about 20 minutes.

9.) Partake in a giant eat. Extra red sauce makes a nice dip for the breadsticks.

Wormy, Weird Cookies
This recipe is ripped directly from the pages of Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. These cookies are fit for devouring and provide another place to shove all that zucchini that your gardening friends will be pawning off this time of year, when they are flooded with the green knobs. If you like these yummies (and you will), buy the book or get it from your library. It’s full of great, seasonal eating tips.

Gather
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup butter (softened)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup honey
1-tablespoon vanilla extract

Combine in large bowl.

1 cup white flour
1 cup wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Combine in a separate bowl and blend into liquid mixture.

1 shredded zucchini (about 1 cup)
12 oz chocolate chips

Stir the zucchini and chocolate chips into the other ingredients, mix well. Drop by the spoonful onto a greased baking sheet, and flatten with the back of a spoon. Back at 350 for 10 to 15 minutes.

This is how happy you will be before, during, and after cooking this stuff:

“I like feed!”

In completely unrelated news, my step dad and his lady friend left for home sweet home this morning. (Saturday morning, rather. I’m unable to sleep for some reason tonight, thus the 3 am blogging.) The time we did get to spend together was some of the most honest, good time we’ve spent together in a long time. The last time we talked as much and bonded as much was the summer I was home from my freshmen year in college. We went on a really long afternoon bike ride together on a rails-to-trails route in Michigan called Paint Creek. We talked about the future and the past and the world; it was really good to see him. Here we are in Edinburgh:

Also, I signed up for a 10K race that happens in Glasgow in early September. While I’ve always been a runner, the longest race I’ve ever done has been a 7K. I start my training regimine tomorrow. Horray!
______________________________________________________________________________________________
What are you up to this weekend? Whats your favorite recipe at the moment?

PS
In these pictures, please forgive my tragic, soccar mom hair. While a short-banged bob seems like a very chic, artsy cut to get, if you have massivly thick, wavy hair like me it just fluffs up into a round, heinous helemt by mid-morning. Not even your cool, horned rimmed glasses can save you from looking suberban. Join me in sending positive vibes to my hair folicles for a speedy recovery.

I’m tired today. Bone tired. Hiked with shingles. Had to. Wanted to. Was getting better anyway. Then my city had a terrorist attack. I wrote a blog about it. Posted it on the Loch Ness Blog. Then there was an error establishing a database conntection and my blog was eaten. It came back, but it keeps acting funky. I’ve posted it here, just in case it disappears entirely. It is below.

3.15
Yesterday, while Glasgow airport was panicked and aflame, I was watching Scottish Red Kites cut through the sky. Their massive wings and their forked tail feathers were warm, pumping them through impressive dives for food. With meats in their talon clutches, Red Kites eat in the sky, bringing claws to jaws. They sleep on the wing too; in some ways, I suspect we all do.

Our Red Kite guide took us – me, Shaun, my dad Tony, his lady friend Cheryl, and Cheryl’s cousin Iain – hiking through the farm and thick wood, pointing out different types of nests, orchids, and animals along the way. With our binoculars, we spied a red squirrel, rare and pretty. We met a retired milk cow who was lovingly nursing two orphaned calves, smitten with their nuzzling and warmth after a career spent hooked to a cold, metal milking machine. We were covered by forest so thick that it suffocated the afternoon light and sprouted long, thick, and hilariously phallic mushrooms from its spongy moss. We photographed uprooted stumps that looked like monsters. We scooped up frogs and poked at pellets. We looked for tawny owls in the topmost branches, close to the trunk. Mud squished beneath our boots and birdcalls, rustling, and wind bloomed in the precious space of our silence.

At the end of the day, Iain drove Shaun and I to the train station. He took Tony and Cheryl to a train station further north, where they caught a train to take them further still, to where they are staying. The train ride back home was a sleepy one. Walking home from the station, I noticed that Crow Road was bumper-to-bumper.

“Look at the traffic! Do you think there is a parade or something on? They must have shut off a road for it to be so congested here.”

Shaun shrugged, but some charge in the air told us that the commotion wasn’t over a parade.

Once home, Shaun logged onto BBC to find out what had happened: somebody crashed a car into Glasgow International Airport. A flaming car. On purpose. All the roads near the airport were closed; people were flooding into the city.

We found comfort in the action taken by civilians during the attack. People like Mr. Crosby and Stephen Clarkson helped diffuse the situation, aiding the police, ensuring the safety of those around them. A year in this friendly city has taught me that these people are not heroes: they are simply Glaswegians. This is not to say that what these people did is not courageous, or that their concern for others, their eagerness to help, their generosity and spirit is going unnoticed. It is only to say that I notice it all the time in Glasgow; these soulful qualities are not reserved for times of crisis, they are employed always. It’s just how they are.

Shaun and I really like this show called Spooks; it’s a spy drama about Britain’s MI-5 (this is like the FBI in the States). We watch episodes of it on our computer. This season’s focus is on terrorism in Britain, how it destroys people, mostly from how it is exploited politically.

We have a new prime minister, Gordon Brown. He moved in to 10 Downing Street on Thursday, when Blair packed the last of his things. So far, his handling of the flaming car in Glasgow and the two un-detonated car bombs in London has been fairly even headed. His official public statement did not contain grand, sweeping generalizations or alarmist suggestions that we are “at war” or “under attack.” I hope it stays that way; alarmist leadership does more harm than good, and it doesn’t take an episode of MI-5 to tell you that.

Tony and Cheryl fly home to Michigan next Saturday. My mom, Rick and Julian will be in town the following Sunday. The airport is stepping up security measures, but we all know how shallow and tinny those feel when you’re actually at the airport. I hope my family can take comfort in flying to a city whose inhabitants care so fiercely about each other. It’s the only thing we can do, really. That, and try to be just as fiercely caring as they are.