Bound for Our Nation's Capital

It's official! I booked my work conference in Washington DC today. Occasionally, this job does have its perks and I will be headed to a national meeting of accountants in early December. I haven't been to DC in several years, but loved it the last time I visited and this time I have a husband to take with me. Hopefully I will run into the Obamas out for a stroll or at a bare minimum a few friends I know that live in the area! Can't wait for December 4th!

Your Rat is Dead

Almost two weeks ago, my husband and I were sitting in the family room watching some TV. We heard water dripping in the kitchen and couldn't figure out what it was. My husband walked in the the room and realized our "water dripping" was two mice, eating bread wrapped in foil on the counter. I've never had a mouse in my house and I did much screaming and crying. We quickly went to a store at 10pm and bought traps and bleach. We set the traps and went to bed. I didn't sleep much as I envisioned mice crawling on my face while I slept, Daniel slept like a baby. Within a couple days, two mice had been caught, the kitchen had been thoroughly bleached and all was well with the world. Cut to last night... ************************************************************************************* Daniel was out of town and so my mom came to visit. Around nine, I headed into the master bedroom and saw a really fast "critter" run behind the elliptical (thank god someone is exercising around here, but that's another post.) I ran screaming from the room and for the next thirty minutes, my mom and I screamed and jumped around, a la Lucy and Ethel, as I tried to gather up the courage to run into the bedroom and grab my purse. (You know my new Coach purse wasn't spending the night with the mice.) We set traps and barricaded the door so the mouse wouldn't continue to explore the house. I "slept" on the couch, although images of mice crawling on me wouldn't leave my head. ************************************************************************************* This morning, I had my carpet replaced. Part of that job was recarpeting my master bedroom closet. I felt bad sending our installer into that room and warned him of whom he was sharing a room with. About two hours into the job, I was debating my mom on how much to tip the installer. I wanted to tip him something since it was Sunday and he was doing the job all alone, except for the mice. Was it $20 or $50, the two bills at my disposal? As we talked, I heard a cracking sound and then he walked into the room where we sat and said with a thick accent, "Your rat is dead." At this point, he wiped a hatchet clean on a cloth and dropped a baggie containing the mouse in a garbage pile. I felt the need to explain that it wasn't a rat, since that would be really disgusting, but decided against and decided that a $50 sounded good. ************************************************************************************* So, this is an ode to Fernando, the Lowe's carpet installer. He went above and beyond the call of duty. While I doubt I will sleep in that room tonight, (some combination of mouse murder and potential mouse friends lurking in wait has me envisioning mice attacking me while I sleep), I really appreciate his effort.

My Exciting Life

I am an accountant by trade and I mostly do research accounting. When I tell people that, they usually respond with a snide remark about how exciting my life must be. I can easily take that in stride, since I actually like what I do most days and find it plenty interesting. I guess that would indicate that I have a lower "excitement tolerance" than most people and it probably explains why things have been a little too exciting for me lately. ************************************************************************************* Per last week's post, I live in a neighborhood that would be voted "Most Likely to Have Regular Shootings" if neighborhoods participated in high school superlative contests. Then Monday night as I left work, I was notified by our security guard that we were banned from leaving the building. Apparently, two suspicious packages were within a block of our building and the bomb squad was called in. After sitting in the lobby for two hours, we heard two massive explosions as they blew up the suspicious packages and then we received a police escort to our cars. ************************************************************************************* Tuesday morning, as I went through airport security, my bag was selected for additional screening. Through the course of the screening, they detected trace amounts of explosives on my bag and then went through a process of searching me and removing every item from my carry on and individually checking it. I still made my flight, but I saw the way other people were eyeing me and hoping I wasn't on their flight. If I can see one positive, it's that no one wanted to sit next to me on the Southwest flight and so I had extra room. *************************************************************************************Tomorrow I head home and I am hoping that the return flight is less eventful. The last few weeks have had more than enough excitement for me!

Back in the Saddle Again

On Monday, I officially started my training plan for the Rock 'n Roll Arizona Marathon in January. In the three weeks following our marathon, I was the runner's version of a sloth: I vacationed, I went to an out of town wedding and I ran ten miles. For a normal person, or non-runner, this probably doesn't sound like sloth-style living, but my former catholic guilt has apparently transferred to my running life. I felt lazy, purposeless, like I was losing tons of fitness and a little dirty for my three weeks "off." ************************************************************************************* In order to make up for three weeks of pain-free living, I set ambitious goals for my training this time around. Since I would really like to cut nearly an hour off my marathon time for this next race, I need some serious commitment to training. That's something I didn't exactly have last time. I probably did about 5% of my cross-training, 50% of my core work and about 75% of my running. This time, I would like to average about 80% of each. It's unrealistic to think I won't need a break here and there in the next fifteen weeks, but I should be able to complete most of my training days. ************************************************************************************* Well, here's the report of week 1. I did 66% of my running and 33% of my cross-training and core work. That leaves me at 50% for this week's training. I could make excuses, such as: "due to a shooting in my neighborhood and fear of death, I didn't run on Wednesday" or "my parents were in town and it would have been rude / impossible to cross-train during their visit". Both those things would be true, they just don't get me any closer to a 12-minute/mile pace in AZ. So, as I close out week one and head into week two, I am going to be optimistic. I spend four of my six training days this week in Dallas and the hotel has a top notch workout room. No excuses this week!

In the Ghetto

On Wednesday night, our neighbor rang our doorbell around 9. We don't know our neighbor well and she sold us a bum mini-fridge at a garage sale, so I wasn't too happy about the late night visit. She informed us that two men tried to force their way into her home earlier that day and that she just saw them again on our street. She had called the police and they promised to up their patrols of our neighborhood, but it still really creeped me out. Then yesterday, there was a shooting at the Walgreen's just down the street. As a matter of fact, I had been at the same Walgreen's roughly two hours before it was robbed. It just turns out this is the fourth shooting fatality within a 1/2 mile of our home within the last three and a half years. I am normally afraid of nearly everything and this stuff isn't helping much. Yesterday, I was too uncomfortable to do my five-mile run in my neighborhood in broad daylight. Last night Daniel and I discussed whether we should start running in a different neighborhood. ************************************************************************************** All of this just really enforces for me that it's time to get the hell out of dodge. I couldn't be more done with the Land of Entrapment. I did enjoy my time here and my neighborhood hasn't always been a battleground for druggies, miscreants and thieves, but I can say that the "maybe this isn't the best place for you" message has been delivered. Our house will hopefully be on the market sometime this month and we can get serious about our adios to good old New Mexico.