Bird Fights Prius - and other tales from Long Run Saturday

As you may know, I've signed myself up to run a 10K trail race in March. This race is exactly twice the distance of the ONLY trail race I've ever done and almost twice the elevation gain.

To put it for you in a way I know you'll understand, it scares the shit out of me.

The thought of gaining that much elevation over such a short distance sounds terrible. Like, the likelihood that I'll make a public shame of myself will increase by 10 fold, if not more.

So, in an effort to forgo as much publicly shameful behavior as possible, I decided I'd go out and run the distance and elevation beforehand so that I don't die during my race. Normal people call this, "training".

In fact, I used to call activities done in preparation for a race, "training", too, once upon a time, but now that so many factors of my well-being are at stake, I basically approach these races as though they may be my final act on earth if I don't prepare adequately and the word, "training" hardly seems to cover that.

However, I'm loathe to see these "training" days otherwise, given the near treacherous conditions I faced on Long Run Saturday.

Where do I start? OH RIGHT - at the beginning - where, before I'd even run Step #1, I punched myself in the face.

What?

Oh yeah. Apparently yours truly needs an operating manual for a pair of arm warmers. The operating manual would go as follows:

1. Arrive at your running location
2. Slide arm into one arm warmer WHILE GRIPPING THE TOP OF THE SLEEVE FIRMLY
3. Repeat with other arm warmer and arm
4. Run comfortably despite horrid conditions

Unfortunately, I didn't have any manual like this, so instead I did it as follows:

1. Arrive at your running location. Realize it's really fucking cold.
2. Put on beanie. Decide it's still really fucking cold.
3. Put on gloves. Decide it's STILL really fucking cold. Decide it's high time I wore these stupid arm warmers I keep dragging around and not wearing.
4. Slide right arm into arm warmer, being sure that big end is on top and little end is at the bottom. Pat self on back for being so flipping smart so early in the morning.
5. PUNCH SELF IN FACE WHEN GLOVED HAND SLIPS OFF STRETCHY ARM WARMER WITH THE VELOCITY OF A LEAR JET
6. Scream bloody god damned murder in the middle of empty park and inspect lip in sideview mirror. Confirm presence of blood and freshly swollen blood blister.
7. Throw arm warmers back into the car out of spite and give them the finger.
8. Commence run, lamenting the decision to leave cozy arm warmers in the car out of spite.

So, yeah, I punched myself in the face because I'm retarded and then left my much-needed arm warmers in the car because I'm retarded and then pouted (with the aid of my newly swollen lip! Bonus!) for the first mile of my run because, again, I'm retarded - and a child.

Boo on the stupid girl.

Super good start to a really long and arduous run. Good going, me!

Then, because excitement never alludes me when I go out on these mountainous adventures, it was snowing.

Don't you make fun of my Fuel Belt shoe thingee. JUST DON'T DO IT.

Yes. You read that right. It. Snowed. In. The. Bay. Area.

Weird.

And, oh goodie!, when I showed up at the park, which is, like, at 1,400 feet, there was snow on the ground and trees and bridges and yay. And, since it was a balmy not-quite-freezing-but-still-butt-ass-cold 34 degrees, lots of that snow was melting and making rivulets and puddles and mud just every fucking place that there wasn't snow.

So I charge through puddles like an eight year old? So fricken what?

Where's mah snowboard?

This was my beanie, post-run. Notice the sweat that's frozen on the brim. Cozy.

So, in addition to my newly minted swollen lip, I had the opportunity to slay myself in numerous other ways. Thankfully, nothing horrible befell me during my six mile out and back route. I mean, aside from the monstrous 1500' elevation gain, of course.

I didn't slip, fall, slide off the side of the single track trail when a group of Asian women wearing huge green Poker Dealer visors refused to make way for the ninja woman rocketing down the trail, or even twist my ankle.


I did however manage to skip across newly active streams, forge more than one wet weather creek and crunch along frozen snowy trails once I reached the cold summit. It was a long hard run and BOY HOWDY was I tired afterward and sore yesterday. But, it got done and I'll go out and do it again as many times as I can before race day is here and I have to punch myself in the face in front of a crowd.

Snowy tree crotch behind me. HA! Crotch.

Just kidding. I'm totally not bringing the arm warmers to a race. I'd probably kill someone.

Anyway, when I got back to my car, all triumphant with YAY! I didn't die from that ferocious elevation gain even though I have a fat lip! I found a tiny bird - a finch maybe or a swallow - throwing DOWN on my car.

And, as the poop stains dripping down the passenger door would suggest, the throw down had been going on for some time.

See, this little bird was perched on the passenger side door pooping his little heart out while pecking the ever loving crap out of my sideview mirror. Just going to fricken town over there - feathers flying, poop shooting, tweeting like someone had jammed a baby carrot up its butt and left it there.

I really didn't know what to do. I stood there for a minute and stared at the bird. I tried to lovingly call out to the bird, "Hey you fucking bird! What the hell are you doing?" I tried to shoo it away without getting within poop shooting range. Only when I took out my phone to take a picture did it fly away, leaving poop and feathers and Crazy all over my car door. So, I decided that I'd go stretch and forget that my car had been in a battle royale with a bird the size of a pear.

Not ONE SECOND after I turned my back to start stretching my noodley quads did the tweeting and pooping madness begin again - in earnest.

And when I turned around, there was little Mr. Psycho Poop Shooter, pecking away at my sideview mirror like his own reflection had done him wrong...oh so wrong.

It was hysterical. Though, again, no photos because that's the only way to defeat an attacker such as this - point an Android phone in its direction and its anus recoils so that it can retreat post-haste.

Weird.

And then I went to Whole Foods for some coconut water. That's all.

I'm kinda trashy [RECIPE]

So, I'm a little bit of a food snob.

Not because I'm a really good cook or because I know jack shit about gourmet dining or even because I've, like, been to a million Michelin star restaurants or anything.

I'm just a snob because I'm an ass and harbor all kinds of snobby little food issues in my pea brain that I tend to trot out whenever I damn well feel like it.

Let me give you a little taste of my food snobbishness: I don't believe that anything sold in a Wal-Mart is actually organic.

I just refuse to believe it because I associate organic food with certain business and food practices and I don't believe that Wal-Mart falls in line with any of those things. I have these prejudices and I don't even shop at Wal-Mart. I don't even think we have one nearby. Still though, I think that organic food at Wal-Mart is a lie and I won't have it. Don't ever put food in front of me, proclaim its incredible organic-ness and then tell me it's from Wal-Mart because I will just throw it at you and call you A FOOL.

So, there's that. Also, I scoff loudly at anyone who claims to produce BBQ from a backyard grill. Though this is less of a personal food snob grudge that I hold and more of a global ignorance regarding the fact that grilling is a completely different act than making BBQ and the world of backyard grill manufacturers fucked this straight up when they started selling GRILLS as BBQs.

Just don't tell me you're making BBQ and then let me find you dousing your Weber with lighter fluid while bringing out the hot dogs. I'll kill you.

No really. In the face.

All that said, though, let me share with you the trashy, breaks all the rules of snobbish authentic dining, I should be ashamed of myself if it weren't actually pretty good thing I made the other night after a brief but inventive discussion with Bubba about what he did and did not require from his evening meal.

Me: Bubbs, what dinner wishes do you have tonight? (Yeah. I actually ask that. But in a funny voice so that he doesn't think I'm actually subservient or from the 50s.)

Bubba: You know what I want.

Me: Me?

Bubba: Yes. Also meatballs.

Me: Ah, of course. Meatballs. Fine. I can make meatballs.

Bubba: (makes *mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm* face)

Me: You want pasta with those balls? I could make the Best Sauce Ever. Yep. (Yep. We call it this at home, too.) to go with the meatballs and some pasta.

Bubba: (Eyes roll back in head. *mmmmmmmmmmmmm* face is paired with orgasm noise.)

Me: Hey! We have some mozzarella left from pizza...What if I made some sort of bastardized baked ziti with meatballs, where penne stood in for ziti?

Bubba: I think I just came.

Me: Nice. So, I'll make that, then.

Bubba: *Big smile* and then zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (just kidding)

And with that, I took a nap in the truck (we were driving home from the mountains) and then later set about in the kitchen making a shame of myself in the cooking way.

Finny's Bastard Ziti with Meatballs

Recipe by moi

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 pound or so of ziti or penne or another smallish, tube-ish pasta that you like. Ours was even whole wheat, to add to the bastard factor a bit more.
1/2 pound shredded mozzarella cheese

1-2 T dried oregano

For the meatballs:

1 pound of ground beef

2 T minced fresh parsley

1 T garlic salt

1 T fresh ground pepper

For the sauce:

1 recipe of the Best Sauce Ever. Yep.

(4-5 large ripe fresh garden tomatoes, sliced into 1" rounds
4 good size fresh basil leaves
1 head of garlic, top chopped off
1/3 cup mellow red wine (we used a yum Cabernet)
kosher salt
fresh ground pepper
yum extra virgin olive oil (if you don't want to spoon it into your mouth, find another bottle)

To make

Start the sauce to roasting by following the recipe here. 

Step 1: ROASTY

Mix the meatball ingredients in a medium sized bowl with your hands (don't be a pansy) and form into smallish balls - about the size of a ping pong ball. 

Be advised that my meatballs are not of the fluffy variety much heralded these days as The Way A Meatball Should Be. Bubba prefers his balls more firm and meaty rather than fluffy and marshmallow like and, hey, I can't blame him. He also demands MY meatballs, which makes me love him extra.

Start your large fry pan to heating on medium-high and drop all these balls on there in a single layer. Roll them around a bit so they settle and start to brown. When they've browned a bit on one side, roll them around so they'll brown some more. You get the idea - you want them to cook. 

In case you are retarded, let me show you what cooking meatballs look like.

Yeah, see - you're smart.

Now, start the pasta like a normal person would - fill up a pot half way with water, make it seasalty with a good shot of salt, bring to a boil and throw in your pasta of choice. JUST DO NOT COOK THE CRAP OUT OF IT. 

Goddamn it. I can not handle mushy overcooked pasta. It makes me fucking mental. So, please, for me - your devoted Finny - just cook it for a few minutes until biting into it returns a thin white line on the bit edge of pasta (this is what "al dente" means folks - "to the tooth", like how the pasta feels "to the tooth". Mushy pasta doesn't have a bite. It only has BLECH.)

Then, drain your pasta, toss with a small amount of olive oil to keep it from clumping up in a horrific mat of pasta-ness, and pour it into the bottom of a 9x9 glass dish or baking pan.

Please enjoy the one non-whole wheat penne pasta right there. I mix them all in one big bulk jar. So sue me.

Atop this pasta perfection, add your browned meatballs in a single layer.

Still hot from the pan. OR they're on fire. Your guess.

Atop that, add your Best Sauce Ever. Yep. being sure to cover the layers below so that there isn't a horrible scene of charred rubbery pasta clinging to the sides when you take it out of the oven.

This uses an entire recipe of the Best Sauce Ever. Yep. Just in case you were entertaining ideas of using the leftovers elsewhere. Nope.

Cover it with a thin layer of mozzarella (resist the urge to hide all color beneath with a heap of cheese because it will turn into shoe leather and that's disgusting) and a bit of oregano so that the final product will look herby and delicious. Also, because oregano is herby and delicious and will lend itself to your trash-tastic dinner and make you feel more classy. 

CUH-lassy.

Feel better about myself as a person, now.

Yay. 

Then bake this Bastard at 375 for about 30 minutes, moving it beneath the broiler for a few minutes at the end to get the cheese to bubble and brown a bit.

You don't have to be ashamed. It DOES look damn good.

Retrieve from beneath the scorching hot broiler and let it cool for a second before you melt off your face on Bite #1.

You're going for DELICIOUS, not DEATH-DEFYING.

Feel free to make the following comments while eating:

• If I served this to my Italian friends, they would knife me in the fucking throat
• I'm ashamed of myself for liking this so much
• I wish we had garlic bread. Like, the kind you get that has Parmesan cheese all spackled to the top. 
• My drink's empty. Bubba, can you make me another G&T?
• I want to marry this. Baby, can a man marry a dinner? If so, I may want to marry this dinner.
• ARE YOU LOOKING AT MY MEATBALLS? Heheheheh...heh...why aren't you laughing?

Or whatever. Those are just things that came up at our dinner table.

Enjoy.

Other fruit that lends itself to lewd innuendo

I see you're enjoying taking sides with the forthcoming vegetable harvest.

I also see that Team Cucumber is in the lead and that you are all taking this team choosing in the spirit in which it was intended, which is to say that you are drawing your own lascivious conclusions about the team names and their meanings and starting to fan the flames of competition in the comments.

I like that. I like to watch people get riled up about crazy shit. This is probably why I like professional sports and also not-so-professional sports like the strong man competition, for instance.

Watch a dude tow an airplane with a rope? Yes, please. Watch the spectators cheer as though this ferociously huge man-beast is their own personal lord and savior? YES, PLEASE. If only I could get these fans to fight each other while wearing their favorite strong man's face on a Tshirt...

All in due time.

For now, though, I encourage you to pledge your allegiance to the vegetable team you think will produce the most poundage in this year's harvest.

Sound like crazy shit? Right. Now go get fired up about it. Swearing and calling out the other team's fans is heartily endorsed.

Meanwhile, I'm planting more produce for your amusement.

What? This doesn't do it for you?

OK. So that may not bring to mind many provocative thoughts.

Still nothing?

Well, nevermind then. Perhaps grapes - EVEN CONCORD GRAPES - aren't that erotic.

How about now?

Oh wait! Yes they are. I knew it. You also see sexiness when you see grapes.

Anyway, the story here is that I planted grapes. Four Eastern Concord variety grapevines, to be precise. And thanks to sexy Bubba (who refuses to pose in his underwear with grapes - lame.), I also have a fantastically simple and effective trellis for the forthcoming grapes.

Just a handful of eye screws,  galvanized cabling, a few ferrules and a small turnbuckle turned the fence into an adjustable grape trellis.

Neato.

It's hard to explain how much I love this turnbuckle.

And, perhaps as a result of the grapes' desire to see underwear models parading around our backyard, they've begun to grow.

You see the leaf so do not even try to tell me that you do not. LOOK HARDER.

Now, my hope is that the grapes will grow big strong vines on which many big clusters of luscious Concord grapes can grow so that I can sit in that chair you see there and pluck cocktail snacks from the vine without getting up.

I figure with a bit of stretching, grapes will be within arm's reach.

And also meanwhile underwear models wander the yard.

Obviously.

Adopt a Crop: Choose sides

Let me admit something to you, my gardeny friends, when I ordered seeds this year, I got greedy. I ordered everything I wanted and didn't leave a bare patch anywhere for guessing.

Cilantro, Thai Basil, Sugar Baby Watermelon, Lettuces, Random Carrot, French Beans, Banana Peppers, Pickling Cucumbers, Snack Pack Watermelon, Big Leaf Basil

This is good because it means I probably won't fall too far afoul of my own rules not to go buying every fucking thing I see at the nursery once spring arrives, but there's the bad side, too.

The side that says that there's no room now for a crop to be chosen and adopted by you guys.

Back to the good side, though - I have guilt. Like, I like doing Adopt a Crop and forcing you all to follow really closely some chosen crop and then at the end of the season I give away something preserved from that crop. 

I like that - it's fun and it reminds me to do a contest every now and again so that you'll come back here and love me. Plus, it gives me a reason for all my gardenblahblahblah that's sanctioned by you, ya big freaks.

So, even though I don't have an empty plot for you to fill with one of four choices given to you in pollster format like years past - thanks to guilt and my own desire to keep this thing up - I do have a way for you to get in on the garden good and early and maybe work up a good violent competition amongst each other.

Because there's nothing I love more than senseless violence inspired by vegetables. Is that even a thing? Well, now it is. I'm starting the vegetable wars.

Instead of choosing a crop to Adopt, you get to choose a team to win. What the hell am I talking about?

Yes, let's see here...

You choose your allegiance based on which crop you think will produce the most poundage.

I like long walks on the beach in my thong Speedo.

I like playing volleyball on the beach in my thong v-string.

And it'll look easy, based on last year's tallies, but this year there are a few things to take into consideration:

1. I'm growing two types of high-yield cucumbers, both of which are larger than last year's "mini" variety
2. Both of these watermelons are virgins in my beds (sex-ay), so I have no idea how productive, huge, small, lively or pest-ridden they may become, so their outcome is unsure. They're also both small varieties and I may not even be able to germinate them properly.
3. These seeds will all be direct sown, so no cheating and buying seedlings if their seeds croak. Given last season's touchy start with the melon seeds, this could be a deciding factor.
4. Both crops seem to have some deep seated desire to go to the beach, so they may both vanish from the garden as soon as the weather warms up.

So, given those random nuggets which are likely of no use to you whatsoever because I know you just want to pick sides and get to kicking each other in the face...go!

Pick yer team
	Team Cucumber
	Team Melons
Free polls from Pollhost.com

You'll have lots of time for sucker punching and eye gouging before the seeds even go in the ground, so just go ahead and bust out your best shit talking now.

Depending on the weather, the amount of work we get done on the beds and the installation of the bees (more soon), these seeds could go in the ground any time between the middle of March (our last frost date is 3/1, suckahs) and the beginning of May.

Lord help us all if I don't get to plant until May, though, because that will mean that we've had another unseasonably cool spring and I am coming out of my skin with WHEN CAN I PLANT MY GARDEN ALREADY tantrums, which will be ugly - at the very least.

At which point I will likely pick a team to root for just so that I can have an opponent to punch in the face. FYI: I fight dirty.

A shot of hot cheese in your pants

I don't know where it came from, but one of Bubba's favorite random lines to throw out at me, usually at a time when he wants me to smile instead of acting like a crabby horse's behind, is:

A little song
A little dance
A shot of KY in your pants

If you know the origin of this random saying, you probably should keep it to yourself because I suspect it doesn't come from the most savory of sources.

Anyway, I've embraced it because - HELLO - it makes me howl. Or at least, in the case of my crabbier WHY ISN'T ANYTHING WORKING? moods, it makes me stop wailing on the object of my dissatisfaction to watch Bubba jostle his way around the kitchen while singing his short ditty and gesturing toward his crotch.

Have I told you that my husband is the most hysterical man on the planet? This is a fact. I could have it scientifically proven, but then you would all just dislike me for having disproved your allegedly hysterical beloveds and I can't have that kind of discord on my hands.

Look at Egypt? I don't want that in my front yard.

Anyway, let's never speak of politics again, but instead review how this hilarious man and I cobbled together a bunch of random occasions, events and impulse purchases into what we refer to as "What we did for Valentine's Day" for those who have the nerve to ask.

Personally, *doing* things specifically for a certain day sort of bugs me. Not for Valentine's Day specifically, because I'm not in a beef with this particular fabricated event, but choosing a specific day on which certain types of things *must* be done makes me chafe because it most always presents a pain in the ass.

To prove my point, let's take, Today - Valentine's Day, and then consider the *doing* that's supposed to be going on - things like going to fancy dinners, giving of red roses, delivering of chocolates, making of sweet love...Yeah - all are pains in the ass if they MUST BE DONE ON 2/14.

Here's why:
For one, it's Monday today and I don't know how many of you usually go out to a fancy dinner on a Monday night and then follow that up with a rocking night of nude romping, but for me - not so much. I get up early to run on Tuesday mornings and I tend to work all day on Mondays given the pesky full time job I enjoy, so the concept sort of falls outside the bounds of possibilities.

Then, red roses. I, personally, am no fan of these flowers, whether they be in cut form or still attached to their thorny plant that looks ugly in all landscaping Idontcarewhatyousay, but if you get completely realistic on this Rule of Valentine's Day, it doesn't make any sense. Roses aren't in season until May sometime, so procuring red cut roses right now means that you must haul them from another part of the globe so that they can sit all out of place on a desk or sideboard in an American household.

That's just stupid. Plus, daffodils are right there and blooming in my yard right now, so why not daffodils? Are roses SO superior? Do we all love RED so much? I doubt it. Daffodils are super cheerful. Give someone daffodils, I say.

And as for chocolates, I know it seems off to ever charge chocolate with being a pain in the ass, but let's all remember that this is just February and didn't we all turn the corner on the new year and take on some newly refreshed expectations of not being a fucking fat ass in 2011? I'm just saying that pounds of chocolate lingering on your liquor cabinet right next to the couch doesn't really do anyone any favors in the Fitting Into My Jeans category.

Not that I refuse chocolates, I'm just saying that they are a pain in the ass in the grand scheme of Real Life That's Not Holidays.

So, that rant aside, for those who will inevitably ask or be curious as to what two shrieking, dancing, ridiculous heathens like ourselves *do* for Valentine's Day, I will tell you that we did the following things, though with no real expressed purpose other than those which I list below:

• We rode bikes to tacos on Saturday. But that's what we do every Saturday. We just call them Valen-Tacos when we eat tacos close to this holiday made up by retards
• I bought us a box of See's Candies' chocolate covered cherries with a gift card from my mommy because obviously
• I bought Bubba a bottle of bourbon (Woodford Reserve, if you're curious) and a tub of peanut butter cups from Trader Joe's because he was out of it and I have wanted it, respectively
• We went into SF for fondue on Saturday night because we missed hot cheese in our lives and this is the best place to go for it in the bay area. (FYI - no hot cheese actually made it into anyone's pants. Danger.)
• I gave Bubba a card that says, "Gimme Sugar" on the front because I wanted him to share his peanut butter cups with me
• I left a Valentine for our cleaning lady because she's nice, I bet she likes chocolate and maybe this will help her decide not to hate us when she's vacuuming up the multitude of hairballs from the corners of our house today

I think that's it. 

Whether any other Valentine's Day related occurrences will befall us, I have no idea. I've planned nothing. I will go home tonight and cook dinner like I normally would (though we will be having The Best Tomato Sauce Ever. Yep. which is something) and we will have cocktail hour like we normally would and sit in front of our fireplace in flip-flops like we normally would and, I assume, Bubba will have me clutching my splitting sides in hysterics over some thing absurd and/or inappropriate because that's the kind of famously funny guy he is. Also, I clearly like my drink, so that helps.

Happy VD, friends. May your loves burn with the fire of a thousand whores' crotches.

It's still Long Run Saturday no matter what you think.

In training for road races, in the past, Saturday was always my Long Run Day. So, if I was training for, say, a half marathon, Saturday might mean, "Day I Run 12 Miles" or something. It wasn't always something I looked forward to, but it was something I did because of the fear of failing shamefully in front of 10,000+ people on race day by keeling over at mile four after not training properly and instead getting drunk on Friday nights and then skipping a Saturday Long Run to nurse a hangover with ill-gotten fries.

That's, in a shell, what Saturday Long Runs always meant to me: plodding along on pavement for a lot of miles while avoiding Murder By Soccer Mom In Escalade. But now they mean something else.

Firstly, they're not all that long anymore. In fact, they're practically short. They're usually around three or four miles.

Secondly, I do look forward to them. Mostly because they involve listening for hawks overhead instead of listening for SUVs bearing down on my backside.

So, while I still call them my Long Runs, they're really not all that long but OH are they hard. Actually, much harder than any 12 mile trot through the streets of San Jose, even though I'm covering less mileage over all and don't have to dodge homicidal minivans.

Know why? Because, friends - there are hills.

And not just any old hills that might be rolling and green or any other pleasant and pastoral image you could be conjuring up in your peaceful minds. No, these hills fall into the rocky, boulderous (new word alert), tree root woven switchback category that makes them not so much hills but more like ladders made from hillsides.

OK, so my whole run isn't a near vertical climb up a rocky mountainside. Some of it is though, and that makes three or four miles feel like 12 might if I were trudging along on the paved sidewalks under the punishing glare of our fair sunshine ball.

The tree canopy is a bonus, however, and I really appreciate how I don't have to run from sidewalk patch shaded by a small Crepe Myrtle to sidewalk patch shaded by an overgrown Sycamore in order to keep out of the direct gaze of the sun. The fact that I'm running (or many times "Hiking Quickly") up a steep grade is sometimes offset by the fact that the shade is keeping me from scorching to death.

Like, I fear less the threat of dying shamefully five miles from my home because of exposure and heat stroke.

I also like how the weather in the mountains is typically the exact opposite of the weather at my house, so it's anyone's guess what I should be wearing or carrying with me when I get geared up to go. If it's sunny and 50 degrees at my house, will it be 30 degrees and icy on the mountain? Raining? Should I bring a sled? It's contentious.

And then we look at Google weather and all mystery sort of dissolves. You know. Sometimes the weather forecasts are right on and sometimes you're sure you must have typed in the wrong town because how can there be freezing fog this close to the ocean?

Whatever. I'm still getting used to the intricacies of running on mountain trails rather than suburban sidewalks and roads. I'm also still getting used to the concept of getting up tomorrow morning to head up to the mountains for my first official "Long Run Trail Training Day" since I finally decided to register for my first race of 2011 - the Diablo Trails Challenge 10K.

And you know I couldn't just sign up for the 5K again, like I ran in December, because - right - I *just* ran a 5K in December, now I must do something new and challenging as though, because I didn't die during the 5K, I should obviously push myself as close to actual Death While Running as I can.

It's possible that this race could kill me.

It's not only twice as far as my first 5K trail race a few months ago that nearly took my life (gaining 900' of elevation in 1.5 miles is no piece of cake for moi), it's also twice as much elevation gain. So, like doing the first part of the last race twice.

Yay. Let's run up hill for 1400+' and see if we can live? Sounds good.

I'd be lying if I told you I signed up for the 10K because I just didn't want to be signed up for the shortest distance offered. Though I *could* try to best my age group place in the 5K race, but I'll save that out for the next race I run this year.

If I live through the Diablo Trails Challenge, that is. Which is a little iffy so don't place any bets.

However, and here's another new thing to entertain you people, I've added a Finny Runs tab to this blog, so if you're ever curious about my running history, PRs, The Gallery of Race Fries or whatever, you can go look at it and know for sure how slow and unaccomplished I am in the running arena and how I'm counteracting all this running by filling my guts with fries.

It's pretty impressive, really, how much talking I do compared with how much actual racing I've accomplished. Lop-sided? Oh sure.

So, yeah, I've signed up for a new trail race, I'm lying to myself about my weekly running prowess by calling my four mile woodland adventures, "Long Runs", and I may not cross the finish line at the Diablo Challenge because of my own shallow vanity.

Good show, me. Good show.

And more shit abounds

I am not a clutter person, friends. I loathe it in all its forms. I don't like to look around and see all open surfaces covered in any variety of detritus. I'm not even a fan of neatly stacked piles of things because all that says to me is that, with one flick of a dog tail, those neatly stacked piles can become a messy shit thrown disaster.

And I'm certainly not going to look at THAT. I mean, come on now.

In most areas of my life, clutter is at a supreme minimum. Our house is low-clutter (poor Bubba - he is barely able to maintain a pile of papers on the desk without my squinting glare), my car is low-clutter, the yard is low-clutter, everything LOW CLUTTER - it's just *my way*.

I've considered organizing the dog's hairs into careful rows, but I felt that'd be going too far. The jury's still out, though.

Meanwhile, this blog is UGH.

While I want you all to know everything possible that I have to share with you at all fucking times, I hate coming to the blog and seeing that hot mess on the right nav bar with things just all stacked up and BLECH.

So, I made a new tab for all these things. All these More Finny things that you can find to get More Finny, in the event that you just haven't had enough of my bullshit as it is. Which, frankly, would be surprising, but I suppose some of you are freaks.

In fact, I hope you ARE freaks and want to follow me as I make fun of myself and others for questionable outerwear choices, sign up for races far beyond my capabilities, write articles for Associated Content as though I know what I'm talking about, forge my way through NaNoWriMo each year, slip patterns into sewing books, sneak onto Craft Magazine's blog and the like.

All that kind of stuff is on that More Finny tab.

And, because I'm all self-promotey, I'm here to point you to the tab OVER AND OVER so that more people will Like me on Facebook and I'll feel personally fulfilled.

My life is very small.

Also, I want to point you to the More Finny tab because all that shit that used to live on the right nav bar of this home page here is moving there. This home page is just pure blog now and less of the distracting clutter that makes me mental. So, even if you are all reading this through a Reader and never see the blog itself,  you can rest assured that the clutter is at a minimum now and you're safe to visit the More Finny tab for all the stuff you might have been missing before.

Then race back to the home page to free yourself of clutter. FEW.

So there you go. I'm a nutter, you can follow me on Facebook, Twitter and the like from a new More Finny tab and sometimes I talk about thongs.

All good things.

Soon - I make you choose teams for a 2011 twist on Adopt a Crop. Start thinking about your favorite cucurbits and don't even TRY to tell me you don't have one.

I can't take a hint.

So, I think that all of you who were scared of February because I showed you pictures of daffodils in my garden ALREADY and then told you about our super warm weather can all rest easy now because, as it turns out, Mother Nature is a calculating bitch.

She doesn't just apply blanket punishment, is what I'm saying. She saw me being all OH IT'S LIKE SUMMER! WE'RE RIDING OUR BIKES TO TACOS AND GROWING FLOWERS IN JANUARY HAHA! and was like, "Oh yeah, whore?" and then proceeded to try to freeze us to death in Colorado on our ski trip.

Us, specifically, because I suppose she interprets my bare feet and bicycle riding as fightin' werds.

People, it was 54 below.

In case you didn't believe me.

And not for just one day either. Tuesday it was cold - somewhere around 30 below at the top of the mountain, with some breeze - and then on Wednesday it was so cold that some lifts couldn't operate, the Gondola house crew was frozen in place warning people off the mountain and we did something we *never* do during a ski trip: voluntarily go shopping instead of skiing.

We value our dangly parts, so we are shopping instead of skiing.

And then, when it got too cold to shop (yep, there's a temperature for this and it's -24), we did the other thing we never do, whether skiing or at home or whatever: we went to the movies.

I may have never said anything about this, but Bubba and I never go to the movies. I think it's the crowds. And the kicking of seats. And the scene in the parking lot that makes you doubt the collective intelligence of society.

Anyway, we braved all of the above (though the parking lot menace was ice rather than people driving madly in cars) to see a movie in an effort to keep our shivering bodies hidden from the weather outside.

I hid from Mother Nature and I'm not afraid to admit it.

Though, at the beginning of the week, I flaunted my I'm Not Afraid of You body at Mother Nature when we went to the hot springs and I'm pretty sure that lumped in with daffodils and sunny bike rides was what resulted in the End of Days weather.

So, if you were worried that February was about to be a total summbitch of bummer weather, fear not! I've taken the bullet for all of us by exposing myself and my loved ones to the coldest temperatures I'm likely ever to see.

And then yesterday, safely back in NorCal, I put on flip flops and a tank top and we rode bikes to tacos because, apparently, I really don't get the hint.

Also, the favas are blossoming, so there's that.

Tulip was ready for tacos.

So, I guess I'm in for some perfectly terrible weather abuse pinpointed at my very skull. At least you'll all be safe.

Oh, here's pictures from our trip: