come with me now in 2013-2014

Friday: it took me 40 minutes to get a mile down the street. Um. I can run there and back in 40 minutes. Turns out the night-time repaving hadn’t dried, so they just closed the right lane by the Interstate during the worst of that highway direction’s rush hours. For the love of… I got to work at 8:30, after saying fuck it, calling Jason, and stopping at Chick Fil A for a spicy biscuit. Those biscuits are delicious. I was busy at work and stayed sort of late–at 5:20, Jonathan kicked me out. I said that I felt bad about declaring a full 8 hours on my time sheet when I had barely worked 7.5; he said no one cares, go home and kicked me out. I do like staying late. I stayed late Thursday, too, legitimately, and traffic was a breeze.

I wanted to do a short run, even as allergy symptoms started at 3pm and increased through the night. By the time I got home my head felt like it was in a vice and gunk covered my throat, making my voice scratchy. I took some decongestants and psyched myself up. I was all ready for a miserable, unenergetic run, and then I walked into a wall. I then decided that maaaybe I shouldn’t be on a moving floor if walls are challenging.

The Sisters came to talk. Aaron actually talked a lot, sharing stuff, that I love love love to listen to, even if I had a hard time focusing. They’re not allowed on computers during their missions, so we struck a deal: they give me their shopping list, I find them coupons online, and they give me cookies. DONE.

And this is how I serve the Lord financially.

We went to bed early. It had been a trying week.

*

Today!

In hindsight, I was screwed when I put on jeans and a t-shirt for a day playing outside with kids and Aaron thought it was the hottest thing ever.

We got breakfast at Taco Bell. The Waffle Taco is legit. I dropped my car off at Pep Boys for an oil change/inspection, Aaron got briefly lost looking for Pep Boys, and then we headed off to Kara’s to babysit his nieces and nephew for the extended afternoon. Jack (7) and Katy (6) were excited to see us and Leah (2) was less enthused, but picked up after her brother and sister were. We got them dressed and prepped for a day at the park, grabbed a bag with extra clothes for Leah and some water bottles, and loaded up the mini van. After I buckled Leah into her carseat and climbed into mine, and Aaron backed out of the driveway, he had the first weird deja vu moment of this could be us in 10 years. (The second came at the park, watching me and the older kids go ahead while he walked with Leah and she sang her made-up Playground Song.)

We spent almost two hours at the playground, alternating who had Leah and who had the older kids. I had Leah most of the time, except for when I was pushing Katy on the swing. She swung with some older kids on the tire swing until they all got nauseous/dizzy. I was pretty proud of her!

The other big notable playground story was when Leah was on the seesaw in the littler kids’ section. Sometimes she had a partner, sometimes she didn’t; if she didn’t, I pumped the other side with one arm. That’s a gym workout, right? If she did, I blew bubbles at her. Another freaking adorable little girl was wandering around and I blew bubbles for her for a while and rocked her world. I’m sure this did not contribute to the girl’s dad checking me out.

I got checked out by a playground dad while there with my toddler niece in a pair of jeans, an old t-shirt, and no makeup. I have reached this level of adulthood, and I am not entirely sure what to do with it.

Leah was also invited to a birthday party by one of the older girls that Katy had swung with (it was… her sister’s third birthday, or something, so Leah was target-child age), but they couldn’t manage Leah and Jack and Katy, so I had to decline. Leah never noticed. Thank God. She was envying the balloons pretty hard all day. Oh, and the girl referred to Leah as my “daughter,” sooo there’s that. So not ready for this.

On the way out of the playground, Jack and Katy found a big red balloon in the parking lot. I think Leah has an emotional fixation on that thing.

After the playground came lunch at McDonalds and their play place, in a calculated move to Blow As Much Energy As Possible and Crash Later. Leah’s only fussy time came when she really wanted the playground pebbles out of her shoes, which is fair. We herded them around McD’s and fed them and let them chase each other around the plastic play place, and then headed home for carefully non-declared quiet time.

Which totally worked. I pranked Aaron by getting Jack to put Frozen in the DVD player. Jack played Pokemon cards with Aaron, Katy sat and quietly worked in her Frozen activity book, and Leah zonked out in my lap while I received football updates by text message and my left arm started to lose feeling. She slept for a little over an hour and zoned on me (including falling over) for another 30 minutes. Perfect.

And by then it was dinner time, Kara came home, and we got to leave. Babysitting challenge: ROCKED.

Picked my car up, got a very big discount from the guy cashing me out, and headed home. I went for a very solid run. So I’m up to 6-minute intervals. I was at 5.5 minutes when the Pacific Rim theme came on. It was perfect on the beat with a 10-minute mile pace. I went another 4.5 minutes at full speed. IT. WAS. MAGICAL.

I CANNOT DESCRIBE THE MAGIC MACHINE ROBOT PRACTICE-RUNNING-FROM-KAIJU PRETEND-I’M-TRAINING-TO-BE-A-PILOT GLORY IN THOSE EXTRA 4 MINUTES. Oh em gee. I did another 7-minute interval for the hell of it at the end, and was feeling so good I lightly jogged back to my apartment. Also, it was chilly and I was sweaty.

So now I need to groom/shower and stuff. And generally survive the night, because I can smell the I-watched-you-with-a-baby-all-day other-dads-were-checking-you-out testosterone dripping off Aaron. Halp. He’s out with his buddies right now. Hopefully distracted and not ruminating.

I need to get the entire Pacific Rim soundtrack on my MP3 player. Bring on the miles.