Great things about marathoning, #1

Being able to eat a big bag of bagels the week leading up to the marathon.
There's a lot of scientific hoo-haa about if carbo loading helps you perform better, and if you should do it, when you should eat carbs, and how many and what kind.

I say let's eschew the science, and if I fail at my goal for the marathon, I'll chalk it up to the fact that I've only run a handful of days in the last week. At least I know my muscles will be well rested! Oh, and full of bagels.

How to make it among the elite

This past week was spent with fellow invertebrate pathologists in Park City, Utah. I can imagine what you think a week of life spent with 250 invertebrate pathologists must be like, and I know you are insanely jealous of me.
Here are the highlights:

1. Tissue culture workshop, where I ended up leaving the ever important folder with the CD of information and my notes in my hotel room when I left on Wednesday. Fortunately, my co-worker knew enough Spanish to talk to housekeeping to get it back, although he may have indirectly asked her out on a date, too.

2. Watching TV in my nice Park City hotel room. Here, you see TV yoga done to the soundtrack of TLC's song, Creep. Not quite the soundtrack I'd imagine for aligning my chi.

3. Adult Rentals. Use your imagination. Your dirty imagination.

4. The 5K run, which was actually more like 2.75K. The best part of this run is that I was helping and not running. Races are easy when you don't have to run them!

Book Reviews by my cat

Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston = NO

I have to admit, I sort of agreed with her.

Ere, the party's here!

About a million years ago, we ran this little relay race called the "Sawtooth Relay," where you and five of your closest friends pile in a car and:
1. Stop outside of Twin Falls at a gas station where you have to walk through the kitchen to get to the bathroom, and you see a handwritten sign that says "if chicken is more than 8 days old, you have to throw it out."

2. Try to pile into your friend's old Chevy Blazer only to find that it doesn't really want to start. Be nice to a lady who crawls under your car and tells your it's probably your oxygen sensor.

3. Decide to go to Twin Falls to rent a car from a lovely gentleman named Beau at the airport. He and I will be married this fall.

4. Enjoy a delightful dinner in which you guess your friend's middle name. Hint, it starts with "B" and is the name of a wine. If you guessed Boone's Farm like me, unfortunately you are wrong.

5. Drive. Watch it get dark. Camp.

6. Wake up insanely early. Go to some place in the woods. Drink coffee. Start one person running while the other people put sparkly palm trees on their head.

7. Wait for person #1 to finish running. Take pictures of other people who you don't know.

9. Take picture of first hand off of slap bracelet relay stick.

10. Decorate rented hoopty van with dollar store items. Make "The Party's Here banner" say something in Shakespearean. Secretly name yourself Pelonius.

11. Lei your car. I think there is more coffee in here somewhere.

12. Handoff # 2! Handoff # 2! Enjoy this handoff, because it will be one of the last ones you see, because camera gets put away because I have to do stuff like run and shiver in the rain. Important stuff.

13. Wonder why everyone doesn't want to live here.

14. What is that guy in the yellow and pink doing?

15. Steal paint marker, paint Beau's hoopty car.

16. Eat honey and peanut butter out of a jar. Wonder, when you start running, why all the blood in your system is in your stomach. Remember.

17. Lather, rinse, repeat for about 42 more miles. Know your camera is safe and sound, tucked away in the map pocket. No need to risk losing it by getting it out and potentially dropping it!

18. Amass upon a Sun Valley condo where someone who owns it was in the 1982 Olympics, or something.

19. Take sexy fireside pictures of resident Hawaiian, to file away in case fodder for dating sites are ever necessary.

20. Fall in love with pepperoni pizza again.

21. Take picture #2. PBR can is a real bonus in this picture.

22. Team uniforms next year? Maybe not.

Gnomey don't play that.

This is Gnomey. He came to visit me last month from Pennsylvania and we went crazy on this town of mine. Oh, and he brought Jill with him too.

Gnomey liked to watch bad street performances in outdoor malls. I think he's a little perverted, watching those girls in the sparkles but hey, whatever. He's an old guy, they get to be a little perverted.

Gnomey, Jill and I were feeling a little stiff, so we headed for our local hot springs. But, not before we met young Colton who partook in a little event I like to call, "Let's back into each other in the parking lot!" It's great fun. It's more fun if young Colton does not want to exchange insurance information, because he doesn't want to get "swindled" by my big mean insurance company. He actually used that word, "swindled." I bet he says things like "golly gee" and "wowie zowie," as well.

One 911 call later, and a very nice cop who explains to young Colton that it's illegal to do such a thing, we're off to the hot springs. Unfortunately, the world was plotting against us:


Never fear, I showed the ditch who was boss!
Gnomey enjoyed the hot springs.

As did Jill and I.

The next day we were off to explore the great treasures of Yellowstone and Teton Parks.
We totally ruined these ladies' shot of this sign, but Gnomey was a little drunk and belligerent, so he got his way.

Stopping at one of the first areas, the Paint Pots, I was reminded of the reason I love Yellowstone Park so well, is this awesome sign:

This picture speaks to me on so many levels. If I get buried when I die, can I have this sign on my headstone? That'll stop people from walking on my grave!

Fun Paint Pots:

Wise old paint pot has wise old advice for me:

More good advice. Good for hot springs and inappropriate boyfriends.

Here is the geyser museum, chock full of geysertania. I mean, there was so much information, it was amazing they were able to squeeze it all into that room. Even with the crowds of people in there too!

Who doesn't love a good sinter? Raise your hands. Nobody? I thought so.

As much as I may write about the geyser museum in sarcastic tones, it provided me with perhaps the greatest discovery in my life. The missing pieces of my original geyser danger sign!

This one I call "Magma Bandstand." Rock the night away, kids!

This sign warns you to not bring your suicidal dog. Oh, and maybe not to wear stupid matching shorts, because your dog will then want to kill him/her/itself.

I mean, if that's not the face of a suicidal dog, I don't know what is.

It's not even ugly teenagers and suicidal dogs that can die. Your cute kids wearing depression era shoes and performing a difficult triple lutz on the boardwalk can go too.

If you haven't been to Yellowstone, this is what you will see if you go. This particular bison was rolling around in the dust, until I got my camera out and then we had a standoff. Jerk.

Gnomey got a little late season skiing in.

This crow I'll call "Petey," because my friend Michele and I call every bird we see on any trip "Petey." This one could perform tricks and would move where you told it to go, which is creepy if you think about the whole "crows can remember faces" thing.

Seriously, this guy had just said, "Get up on that sign," and he did! Good thing his murder wasn't there too. Or WAS it?

Mammoth Hot Springs. Bacteria.

We stayed at a top notch hotel in Montana. I mean the toppest of the notchiest.

We also ate in a restaurant that is supposed to resemble a mine, but pretty much just had rocks in the walls and a freaky yellow light.

One of my goals was to see the petrified tree. Which is a pretty easy goal, but I like to aim low.

Gnomey was overtaken with the petrified beauty, so he just stared at it.

And then he totally broke the park law. RANGER? Come arrest this short man!

Rocks.

Baby Animals

Waterfalls. I like to call this place "The place where my button of my shorts popped off, leaving me with only 2 of 4 buttons left in my button fly."

Aah, button flys. So old school.

Speaking of old school, in another museum we got informed about the volcano and lava and other such under-crust business. The medium for education? A giant lava lamp.

Beautiful Landscape Point. Or Artist's Point. Or Artist's Landscape. I don't remember, nor do I really care.

Beautiful girls at aforementioned roadside attraction. Please don't enhance image to inspect my fly.

In a park with lots of thermal activity, I bet they go through a lot of traffic cones in a year.

After fulfilling my goal of the petrified tree, I had to move on to a new goal, because I'm a goal oriented person. New goal: Mud Volcano.

Jill didn't like Mud Volcano, because it smelled, and the bison were walking on the boardwalk.

MUD VOLCANO! MUD VOLCANO!

I wonder how awesome it would be to put Mud Volcano and Petrified Tree together.

Some place called Dragon's mouth, which was named by early Yellowstone explorers. If there's one thing that these explorers didn't possess, it was creativity when naming things they found. If I had discovered something like this, I would have named it "Indigestion Point," or "Please fasten your seat belts and return your trays to their upright positions," or "Things are getting out of hand."

Obligatory gnome with jerky bison picture.

Car at the Yellowstone Hotel where we ate lunch.

Apparently in the early Yellowstone days, it was slang to say people were "rotten logging" when they were dating, which makes me question the proliferation of disease among the young crowd.

I'm going to one day create a book of National Parks, but it's only going to be pictures of people pointing and looking at things, and not of the things themselves. This is the first picture in the book. Can you guess where we are?

Obligitory geyser coming out of head photo.

There was some eldery man in a wheelchair behind us complaining before Old Faithful went off that you used to be able to set your watch by it, but NOSIR not now.

I think it was rock and roll that ruined Old Faithful.

At the lava lamp-I mean volcano- musueum, we watched a movie where a young clean cut ranger took us on a bike ride around the park. As he's preparing to leave, he removes his hat to put on his helmet and places the hat on the handlebar. I was whispering to Jill, "where's he going to put his hat?" and you know what? He took off on the bike with his hat still on his handlebar, and his hand wrapped around the outside, all awkward like.

And then less than an hour later, we saw a ranger on a bike, but his hat wasn't dangling off his handlebar, it was strapped to his bag. Which begs the question, WHAT IS REAL? WHO AM I? WHAT IS LIFE?

The Continental Divide is supposed to be the high point of the continent, where water on one side goes east and the other side goes west. This water was running under the sign. Again, more lies in Yellowstone.

Just a hop, skip and a jump to the Tetons.

Before we left, I picked up my mail, because I like to take fresh mail on road trips with me. The mail I picked up was my new climbing rope. Here I am describing the routes we will do in the canyon to my new rope. Again, no enhancing the fly.

That night we stayed in Teton Village, where they set the pillows up on the bed in a pretty severe fashion, if you ask me. Am I supposed to sleep with a pillow on either side of my head?

If you have been to the Tetons, you will see this chapel. If you missed it, you need to come back and see it and take photos of it, immediately.

A little prayer for my rope in the car.

We checked out the ferry crossing and the general store where the guy was making gingersnap cookies on a big iron stove. They were yummy.

Boating across Jenny lake.

A little hike up Cascade Canyon, we found Gnomey's natural habitat. I told Jill we should set him free, but she wouldn't hear of it.

Gnomey doesn't leave his bag unattended- EVER.

The hike up turned out to be muddier and snowier than we had anticipated.

Jill had worn shoes that one might say were inappropriate. Okay they were INAPPROPRIATE because they were CROCS! Crocs are always inappropriate.

She was having a little diffulculty navigating snow in her foam shoes, so I was such a good friend I switched. YES PEOPLE I WORE CROCS. ON MY FEET.

But only because I love Jill.

If you ever finish in the Tetons and want to have lunch at an odd time, like 3PM in the early summer season in Jackson Hole, good luck with that.

In all, I think Gnomey (and Jill) had a good little adventure, that opened up the outlaw in them.

And I got some delicious souvenirs.

Hovering near depression?

I guess I should have people over more often...

June happiness is...

Vegetables! Color! PURPLE CAULIFLOWER!

Embroidered Lampshades!

These Pancakes!

Pot fillers by the stove!

My birthday is just too many months away!

The Three Wolf Moon T-shirt, available from Amazon.com.

I'm sure if I spent more time on the Internet, I would have known about this awesome product, but in case you haven't, please follow the link and read the reviews. Millions of satisfied customers!

"Unfortunately I already had this exact picture tattooed on my chest, but this shirt is very useful in colder weather. "

"For you left brain types out there, who are still unsure on whether or not this shirt would make a wise purchase, allow me to break it down for you. Most shirts like this only contain one wolf. This shirt has three wolves, plus a moon. You are basically getting three wolves and a moon for the price on one wolf. You won't find that deal anywhere else. "

"I had a two-wolf shirt for a while and I didn't think life could get any better. I was wrong. Life got 50% better, no lie. "

"Well, as a gag I ordered one for the hell of it. I was going to wear it to my bro's batchelor party, just for the reaction factor. But something spectacular happened when I tried it on for the first time once it arrived. Every night, for the past 6 weeks, I have been visited by 3 wolf sprirts. And every night, they bestow upon me endless amounts of knowledge and offerings of imitation crab meat. They consider me their brothern, and I have found clarity and purpose in my life. I now feel alive for the first time and you can't get me out of this thing! "

Things that have stung me...

While I prepare the roughly 356 pictures I took this last week during my week off in the Tetons and Jellystone, I thought I'd answer this meme, since I was TAGGED by Kristal, and I'm concerned that if I don't answer, then within 3 hours, my luck will change and I will be forced into slave labor at the local Chuck E. Cheese during the day, and will have to start entering Magic the Gathering tournaments at night to make money, since losing your job is one of the first things to go when your luck goes. And, I will also be horribly disfigured.

Anyway, I give you Things that have stung me the sort of pathetic edition, since I work with bees. I've discovered it's about quantity, and not diversity with me.

1. Honeybee. My first sting happened when I was about 4, my brother and I were playing He-Man and Teela in the backyard, and I was falling asleep in the poppy fields (I think we were mixing our medias here) and kneeled right on a bee. I remember my mom asking me lots of questions to make sure I wasn't going to spontaneously pass out, and for some reason I remember her putting raw meat on my knee. I'm sure that's more crossed brain synapses for you.

Since then, I've been stung about 20 more times, 18 of which have been in the last 5 years. The most painful was right on the top of my head.

2. Unknown species of wasp. When I was a kid, I always begged my parents to let me sleep in my older brother Dave's water bed, after he had left for college. They always said "no," because they didn't want to turn the water heater on (the bed was in the basement) until finally one day they said yes. Upon which I promptly rolled over on a wasp and it stung me. And I didn't like waterbeds after that.

3. Southern Fire Ant. I grew up in the South. And I was outside a lot because my mom didn't love me.

4. European Fire Ant (not to be confused with Southern Fire Ant). Did research on these buggers in Maine. They would sting you and then the pain would come. I hesitate to guess how much I've been stung by these guys, but duct tape was part of our uniform, to seal up pant legs. The most painful one of these- right on my nipple. My poor male student worker didn't know quite what to do when I suddenly started moaning and rubbing my breast.

6. Alfalfa leafcutting bee. I don't know if this counts as a sting, since it doesn't really hurt that badly. They only sting you when you smush them, and the most memorable time was when one was in my pants and I had to take my pants off in the middle of the night in an alfalfa field to get it out. The problem? My co-worker was scheduled to meet me at the truck at any minute, and he doesn't always use a headlamp to walk in the dark. That would have been an awkward situation.

Brisco County did not help me

Hey! I ran a marathon! My second one! And this one wasn't as much fun at the other one!

I will tell you upfront, that I did not bring my camera to the event. Actually, the camera was in the console of the car the whole time, but I really didn't know that, because my camera and I like to play hide an seek on a daily basis.

To fill in the gaps (until Kim posts the pictures she has), I re-created some visual images using the thoroughly advanced program, Paint. If you need help telling the real pictures from the Paint pictures, you just go ahead and let me know.

Here's where my medal and race number are currently being displayed. This is where they have sat since I took them off my body on Saturday. You can tell the pride that I have in them.


Okay, so I am proud that I finished it, especially since it seemed so dang hard.


I started out the trip by getting Rock Chip '09, not to overshadow Rock Chip '08 that I got at the Tetons. Both happened on a way to an event, which made it impossible to stop and repair chip. Not that it would have helped, since it cracked right away, but whatever.
And if someone can tell me why there are rocks all over the road out West, I would appreciate it. WTF, East Side of the Mississippi?


Anyway, we get to Ogden, and pick up our race packets, which we were forced to pick up on Friday. We perused the local cafes and decided to eat at a place called Karen's Out West Cafe. I believe the name comes from the fact that when you order the food, they have to get in a car and drive to an undisclosed location "out west," pick up your food and come back, thereby necessitating the hour we had to wait for our barbecue sandwiches.

One guy was none too pleased with waiting and caused a ruckus when Kim went to the bathroom to further investigate the picture on the wall that I was pretty sure was Old Elvis. It was.
The old guy ended up leaving with his family, leaving his chicken Alfredo on the table.

Kim hooked us up with some sweet digs, and I got to see what elephant skin wallpaper looks like. As we left at 4:30 in the morning to catch the bus, I decided to drive over the curb, which resulted in the slight breakage of my bumper. Nothing that couldn't be fixed with a nice bungee cord though. It is wrong to say that the bungee is still on my car? I'm going to stick with "no."


Anyway, bus ride to the start where we had to wait in a field full of cow patties and around fire barrels. Start of the race, blah blah blah.
The first 9 miles went pretty fast, and we were pleased. I was thinking the 6-8 mile stretch would be so boring, but there was so many people and things to see, like runners urinating in people's front yards, it was great.


Somewhere around mile 10, I saw this guy. He was wearing gold Mickey Mouse ears backwards (more aerodynamic I guess), he had a little bat belt of water bottles and he was alternating running and walking. Each time I saw him he was WALKING! And he was IN FRONT OF ME! And he was PISSING ME OFF!
Each time we would pass him, he would end up passing us at an aid station, at one point I saw him talking on his cell phone and I swear Kim had to hold me back so I wouldn't grab his ears off his head and shove them in his mouth.

I finally passed that sucker somewhere about mile 15 and didn't see him again until the recovery area. Again, thanks Kim for keeping me out of jail.

As I hit the downhill at mile 17, my knee decides to start to hurt. Which it has never done before in our 4,567 miles of training runs. I finally decide to stop and stretch it, and after about mile 19, my pace deteriorates, along with my dreams of getting a better time in this marathon than the last. And, I'm tired. And, the water they are giving us tastes like gas. It's great.

I saw some guy puke over the divider around then. That was fun, mostly because I wasn't puking, so I figured I was doing better than him.

As we got out of the canyon, there were only 3 miles left. I was so overjoyed at this, and combined with the groups of people cheering you on right then, I wanted to cry tears of joy. Don't get me wrong, it was really great. It's these feelings that keep you wanting to run more marathons, because I don't know how to re-create that feeling of relief unless you run 23 miles out of the canyon and then see a sign that says "Just think of how great your butt will look."

So, I'm getting teary, and my breathing starts to change, which isn't great for my exercise induced asthma that my doctor says I apparently have. Just as I enter the tunnel that goes under the road I start to get concerned that I might suddenly suffocate and pass out in the tunnel, and no one will see me down because it's so dark and I will be marathon roadkill.

Fortunately, I made it through the tunnel, but the event was so memorable to my synapses, every time I hear the song that was on my ipod at the time, I can feel the simultaneous feelings of fear and joy.

After a few more miles, I finally cross the finish line, and the most beautiful sight I see is a big container full of bags of ice. For me! Yay!

Oh, and they had free Jamba Juice, so that was pretty awesome too.

I finally gave Kim the present today that I had meant to give her on Saturday. Bruce Campbell's autobiography. It is only fitting since she introduced me to Brisco County Jr. the TV show during our training, and we have had several conversations about "the orb," since then. Plus, I just re-watched Army of Darkness.


So that's the marathon, in a nutshell. Rock Chip, Mickey Mouse, Death Tunnel, Jamba Juice and Bruce Campbell.

Makes you want to take up running, huh?

Is it wrong that Delilah makes me violently angry?

Tonight I turned on the radio, and the soft rock station was on. Delilah, the evening request show is on, and currently a man named Chad is sad that his very good friend Stacy is leaving town. See, Chad and Stacy used to date, but for whatever reason they don't anymore. So, Chad doesn't know what to do and calls Delilah. He starts telling her how much Stacy means to him, and starts to get choked up.

Delilah tells him that women prefer men who can show their feelings and besides, men who can express their feelings suffer less from heart disease.

Come on Chad, get with it.

Delilah's solution: To play "Could it be I'm Falling in Love," by The Spinners.

Your move, Chad.

Don't worry Kim...

...here's one race I definitely DON'T want to do.
You keep your stupid free crocs, St. Petersburg. I find it hard to believe you have the "ultimate" goody bag. Unless the bag also contains $100,000 and a bottle of wine, I think the crocs pretty much ruin it.

Bargain Bin

I'm a poor shopper in that I'll pick something up in a store and carry it with me the whole time, debating in my head if I really want it. Seventy percent of the time, I end up putting it back and half the time (of the 70%? You figure out the math) I leave the store empty handed, spending nothing more than the precious seconds of my life.

However, sometimes I pass by something and I know I MUST buy it. There's no second guessing, only furtive glances around to make sure someone isn't going to hit me over the head and knock the AMAZING FIND out of my hand before I can make it to the door.

I'm hoping it will catch on here at the Bee Lab. I think uniforms might be the way to go around here.

Butt wraps galore!

There are strange sentences that one may speak in your life. For example, a recent phone message I received from my friend Josh was "I think I left my phone in your car by the cloves," and yes, it made perfect sense. Or, at the end of a recent long run, "Look Kim, I'm going to poop my gummy boob!" Again, perfect sense.
Anyway, if you ask me what I did last weekend, the answer would be "Wear a butt wrap and African dance." In case you wouldn't believe me, pictures I have stolen off of Facebook.


Please note the high complexity of our costumes. First, a black cap sleeve shirt from Down East Outfitters. When I saw the shirt had cost $9 (the dance company bought it) I went off on a huge tirade about how expensive that was for a plain black shirt. Apparently, if you care about fashion, that is not a lot to play for a plain black shirt. It is a deal.
Second part of our costumes are the skirts, brightly colored. I think the pattern on my skirt represents the great African pox of '67. I was excited to wear the pox skirt, because I usually get the purple "sea shells of Africa" skirt. I am looking forward to the day I get "Batik blue butterfly" skirt. Maybe next year.
The third, and most important part of our costumes is the BUTT WRAP. Which you WRAP around your BUTT so when you SHAKE IT, everyone sees.

Fourth is the hoochie momma red lipstick, but that's sort of optional.

Here we are, moments before the curtain rises. If you are into that sort of thing, note all the white blobs in the air. Some may say it's dust, others may say they're GHOSTS! Ooooooo!

Dance like you mean it!

We were so fast, mortal film could not begin to capture us...

Anyway, this weekend I'm off to hockey referee camp, where I'm sure we will sit and tell stories over the Zamboni and braid our whistles.

Rocket vs. Fire Engine = Lunch

This blessed Easter Saturday brought forth a great bounty...of FUN!

In preparation for the weekend, I started on Friday with a little bloodletting in my kitchen sink. I am apparently going for the world record for self cutting in the kitchen without a mental issue behind it. Or is there really a mental issue and I can't bring myself to admit it? Oh, so complex. I've at least stopped pitting avocados with a sharp knife while I hold it in my hand. This cut was a run of the mill "let's scrub a sharp knife and miss," event.

Anyway, my new cut went perfectly with the bouldering comps on Saturday morning. Since climbers are lazy, my friend Josh and I were the only ones in the 9:30 AM heat. He tried to distract me by bringing his adorable child. It only worked for 20 minutes. Of course, she left after 20 minutes, but I don't really see a correlation.

Post-climbing and hand freshly re-bleeding, I met up with Katie who gave me a life healing Hello Kitty bandaid, and we headed out to Baby Animal Days, where we fought with mothers of toddlers to be able to hold a baby chick. I paid my admission like everyone else, so Bobby has to wait in line behind me! We did ride in a 1927 Model T car. Everyone was jealous of our sweet ride. Katie has the pictures, so perhaps they'll show up here on a future episode.

Then we dyed Easter eggs and drank margaritas. I didn't get a phone call telling me I was in the climbing competition finals, so I had two margaritas. Then the phone call came at 6:38PM. Finals started at 6:30 and I was in them. Oops.

The rest of the evening went off fine, though. No champion climber here, but I did invent a new sport, "high speed adult crawling." It's great fun, except the rug burn can really hurt.

Here's Humpty:

This is what you do when you try something with wax and an egg and it doesn't come out, you slap stickers on it an call it THE GREATEST EGG IN THE WORLD. What's more awesome than a rocket versus a fire engine? Not much, if you ask me.

Of course, these eggs are in my lunch today. Awesomeness has a short shelf life.

I also discovered that my precious feline is losing a tooth. Apparently her mouth gave up on it and was pushing it out of her mouth. I started calling her Elvis, but I don't think she liked it. Of course today at the vet, as she was getting tests done to make sure she was fit enough for the anesthesia for a dental cleaning tomorrow (she's a "geriatric" cat now, you know) the tooth "fell out" while they were "performing" the EKG on "her."

Okay, I added most of those quotes in for fun, but I still believe they were appalled I would let my cat look like Elvis and just yanked it out. I think "falling out," saves me money over "extraction," anyway so I'm all for it.

And since I was on the kitchen floor already, I decided to make fun of her deformity, because I don't have any children to mess up, I figured I needed to mess something up.

Besides myself, that is.

(see knife cut, hand).