rose

I'm sometimes amazed how clearly I can remember certain details of a situation and have no recollection of others. For instance, I remember the precise spot in my bedroom where I was standing when I heard the heart-breaking news, my junior year in high school, that this guy I was too-oo-otally in love with had kissed some other girl.* I mean, I remember EXACTLY where I was, I could go there right now. I can not, for the life of me, remember how my bedroom was arranged - I mean, which wall was my bed on, no idea. What tiny scrap of carpet was I standing on, got it. Why is that?!

Similarly, I think I will always remember exactly where I was as my grandmother passed away. I've already forgotten what I was wearing, but I do know the intersection I was at. That morning, like many other Saturday mornings, I got up early and went running. It wasn't my best run ever, admittedly my mind was elsewhere. But during the run a song came on my iPod, and it reminded me of her. Not because we ever listened to it together, but the lyrics seemed to be exactly what I wanted to say to her. On my way home, somewhere slightly after 10am central time, I replayed Tom Petty's Wildflowers in the car, while silently telling my Memere that she belonged somewhere she felt free. Listening to my mom's stories of that morning, this pretty much coincided with the beginning of the very end. Almost makes me feel like she heard me. And then managed enough strength to wait for my parents to get there and be by her side. I couldn't have wished for anything better for her, than if I could have been there myself.

Her death came as no surprise to any of us, I had spoken to my mom the day before and we knew that she was very weak and going to go soon. In fact, when we spoke that day we both were wishing that she'd go quickly. She'd lived 98 mostly good years, and as best we could determine, she was probably tired of fighting. I give her credit, because I imagine I'd have quit fighting long before she did.

Six weeks later, and I often feel selfish whenever I realize how much I miss her. I know full well that she's better off, but I haven't actually come around to the place where I feel much comfort in that. I consider myself very fortunate to have had such a close relationship with my grandmother, and to have so many wonderful memories of times with her. But, I still sometimes find myself waiting to hear a weekly update about her from my mom, then needing to remind myself that there isn't going to be one. Nearly 30 years being a family of four, I suppose it's understandable that it'll take some time to get used to this.

Tomorrow my parents are heading up to Dracut to attend the funeral of my mom's Uncle Henri - my grandmother's baby brother. She was the oldest of four, and Henri was the youngest, and this marks the end of their generation of Ostiguy's. I can almost find some additional closure in that. I never knew her other brothers, or her husband - they had all passed away before I was born. But I did know Uncle Henri. It makes me feel happy thinking of them reunited somewhere. I know it would make her happy too!


*Turns out, in true high school girl fashion, I was freaking out over nothing. The boy who kissed the girl was NOT my boy, but a different one. I just ASSUMED we were talking about my boy. Stories about another boy?! Why tell me those!?

a new month, a new me

If you know me, you may know of a few things that I don't do that seemingly every normal person does. I don't drink coffee. And I don't ride a bike. I tried to ride a bike once, but that ended quickly.

A little over a month ago I moved into a new house - and everything has been wonderful. It's cheaper, bigger, nicer. My best friend lives in the bedroom next to mine, and we have a new roommate who is pretty much the 3rd awesomest person in the world. And, I now live 1.5 miles from school. How can this situation not be a win?! Well, we're about to find out.

My commute to school used to consist of a 15-20 min shuttle bus ride, on the days I opted for that. Or a 15 minute drive, followed by sometimes a 15 minute walk from where I could park my car. The latter is what happened most days. From the new place it's a 5 minute drive to campus. The search for parking and resulting walk seems too much given the short distance of the drive, so I've opted for no driving. There is a bus right outside my apartment, I can take it down the street to the baseball stadium, switch to a shuttle to take me to the football stadium, and switch to a shuttle that will take me to the Psychology building. You read that right, 3 buses for 1.5 miles. Seems, wasteful. So, the only logical answer is - ride a bike. It'll be the fastest, most independent way to commute. Not to mention, earth friendly.

But. It's a bike.

I rode with a friend of mine one day, and with a non-1974, non-Panasonic bike, I actually did much better.

Then a very generous friend (and blog reader) decided to give me her bike. She was moving out of Austin and could not fit it in her car. So, now I've got a bike. I bought a helmet, and a bell for the bike, and I should be all set to go. I rode the bike around my neighborhood for a short while last night, just to make sure it seemed ok. And I've been planning out my route to school for weeks. There is one small problem. The hill at Dean Keeton. There's no way around it, I must go down this hill. Yes, down. I'm afraid of the down. The up, fine. It'll be hard, maybe impossible, but the down - I'll be going so fast. I won't lie, I'm terrified.

But today, I'm going to ride to school. Look out drivers, bikers, and walkers, here I come. Worst case, I'll take three buses home tonight!


UPDATE: as of 10:15am central time, I have made it to my office. The bike is secured outside, I've changed my shoes and mopped up all the sweat. I suppose getting home will be the big challenge. Also, I didn't hate it. It was...almost nice!

and we'll run for our lives

I'm about half way through my training for the 2nd annual Rock 'n Roll half marathon in San Antonio. Last year's Rock 'n Roll was my first race ever, I'm excited to go back there. The course is pretty flat, and the bands are pretty frequent, but the crowd was pretty sparse. This year I'll be running with at least 2 other friends, RO'D and LD, which will be an exciting addition.

I've been running on Saturday mornings with AustinFit since mid May, and even through all my traveling, I've stayed pretty much on track. I've done a lot of reading about running in the heat, because, well, it's been hot here. Today was our 58th 100+ degree day this summer. The record high was in 1923 with 66 over 100 days. The average is something like 14. So, to say it's a heat wave is an understatement. I read one article that said that it takes as much as two weeks to get used to running in heat this extreme. Which is pretty awesome since my summer started with about 2.5 weeks in Austin, 2.5 weeks in cool, crisp, San Francisco. Followed by 2.5 weeks in blazing Austin, and 2 weeks in glorious Los Angeles. If you're keeping up with this - I've basically been allowing myself enough time to get acclimated before I leave again. I say, training at it's best.

I read another article that indicated that your pace increases 30 sec/mile for every 10 degrees it is above 60. So, perhaps my 12ish minute miles are ok, considering it's routinely 90 by the time I'm running. I've been disappointed with my times, its been slower than I'd like - and tougher than I'd like. But, I'm hoping this is all heat-based, and will get easier quickly once mid-October rolls around.

Last Saturday I did a 9 mile run, and it was pretty difficult. I've been having some awesome calf problems - the worst of which came on Saturday. It's like tiny seizures in my calf muscles, you can watch them twitching away. After about 6 miles, I'd get instant charlie horses whenever I flexed my toes. This made running up hills difficult, as I use my toes often for this. I gave myself a gold star for making it to the end, even though there were longer stretches of walking in there. When I got home, I was sprawled out on a chair in the living room, RO'D was in the kitchen, and we were having some sort of conversation. In the middle of it I began yelping in pain, tried to stand up, nearly collapsed, and yelped some more.

What happened?? Are you ok??
I pointed my toe, I won't do that anymore!

I was kind of a mess, but after some TLC from the massage stick, and some pretty painful stretching, I felt better. And I've been at it ever since - so hopefully tomorrows 3 miles will be a little less painful!

This year, I'm doing one thing a little different - I've decided to try and raise money for the Huntington's Disease Society of America through my running. It's an organization that has become increasingly important to me, the disease has been plaguing the family of a very close friend of mine for many generations. The Huntington's Disease Society of America is a great organization that is involved in funding research, and helping with both patients and their families as they try to cope with this devastating disease. For those of you who may not be aware, HD is a genetic disease that is dominant - so anyone who has the gene will develop the symptoms. It is a neurodegenerative disease, meaning it affects your brain to some extreme degree. I've been blown away by the generosity that my friends and their friends have shown so far. I started with a goal of $1,000 and this was achieved in just one month. I've updated my goal to $1,500, in hopes to do even more good. Please consider donating if you can.

two days in LA

In reality, it was two weeks in LA, but there were really only two days that I was able to get out and explore. I was at UCLA for a class (advanced fMRI, aka, nerd camp), which ended up being a really great experience. It started off, well, less than that.

I arrived at LAX, after a lengthy day o'travel, with a pit of anxiety in my throat. I was going to be staying in a dorm, on campus, with a roommate, and a meal plan, for two weeks. And I didn't know anyone. No one. And the one person I'd be at all interested in seeing in LA is notoriously bad at getting in touch with, and was also having a wedding that same week. Needless to say, I wasn't exactly excited for this trip.

Turns out, not all neuroimagers are freaks, and I met some people that were totally awesome, and made the weeks go by a little faster. In addition, I have some pretty awesome ex-UCLA friends, who lent out their own personal friends as needed. Over the weekend we had no class, and I was forced/able to fill my time with random LA excursions.

Saturday morning started early, around 5:30, and a friend of VC and Libs took me up to Malibu to see the tide pools. The tide was extra low, and we were able to see some sweet sea life in the rocky areas along the shore. It was a beautiful little hike around the cliffs to get there, and the beach was full of crazy surfers and dog-walkers alike. It was a fabulous way to spend the morning. Followed by some delicious lemon pancakes, yum! From here I went and rented a car - and I was off. I started with lunch at In 'n Out, and then I drove down sunset through Beverly Hills. After seeing the most awesome palm trees ever, I was off to Hollywood Blvd where I drove past Grauman's Theater and saw the Hollywood sign up on the hills. I spent the rest of the afternoon at the big Farmer's Market on Fairfax and 3rd, tried some Pinkberry frozen yogurt, and then was off to Dodger Stadium to catch a Dodger game.

The game was pretty awesome, although seeing Manny made me want to hurl. What's worse, I was sitting next to a tiny 3 year old boy who clearly idolized the idiot. I couldn't even jeer or boo, I just sat quietly.

On Sunday I woke up a little later than I had been, and was so happy to realize that I could still go running at 11am without fear of death by heat stroke. I found this new website that let me search for runs in LA. I found a great 6 mile loop through Beverly Hills, and I was off. It was a great run, through some gorgeous neighborhoods - with incredible palm trees. I was amazed by how few people there were out and about too. It was incredibly peaceful, and totally too much effort. I was so tired and sore when I was done. I spent the rest of the afternoon out by Santa Monica, and put my bare feet in the pacific ocean for the first time that I can remember. I forgot how much I missed being near the ocean, or how much I took it for granted growing up.




Two weeks later I've filled up an entire notebook, used the ink of one pen, made 4 or 5 new friends, survived a twin bed in the dorm, disgusto cafeteria food, and even saw a bunch of fun sites in LA. All in all, not the trip I feared when I landed at LAX.

aerially challenged

I've adjusted to the fact that I'm going to be a person who just has trouble with airlines. Remember that time I had to board last so that they could install my seat, or when I slept in O'Hare after having made an emergency landing in Cedar Rapids. Oh, and there's the time I was stranded in Houston when I missed my flight by mere seconds. And who can forget my trip home from Australia, that ended in a 4 hour drive with a car full of strangers from Dallas to Austin. So, it's no surprise when things go awry, and I've learned to just roll with it. Why did I expect this flight out to LA to be any different?

The first leg was fine, Austin to Phoenix. It was hot when we left, it was hot when we arrived, the flight was short and uneventful. There was something like a 45 minute layover and then we'd be off to LAX. Our flight was first delayed by a few minutes, then a few minutes more. Then they began the boarding procedures. And most everyone was thinking, here we go!

They would have been wrong.

After we'd all been sitting on the plane, at the gate, for about 35 minutes the captain comes on and tells us that there's a small problem. You see, an instrument in the cockpit that is encased in a glass casing has cracked. While the instrument works just fine, they can not fly with the cracked glass. The captain alerts us that the ground crew has rushed back to the hangar to remove the same instrument from another plane to install into this one. It should take about 20 minutes, and we'll be good to go.

Another 35 or so minutes later the Captain gets back on the horn to tell us that "this plane isn't going anywhere". And that we will all have to get back off the plane, but they have to figure out how to do that appropriately. We "sit tight" for another 20 minutes.

After we've deplaned, and are sitting back in the gate, people are angry. There is a lot of grumbling. They switch us to the next gate over, and in pulls a new plane. I think some people were sighing in relief that this hiccup wouldn't be too costly.

They would have been wrong.

We boarded this plane, or started to. The families with children and passengers requiring extra time got on. The bums in first class got on. And Boarding groups 1, 2 (me), and 3. And then, the halted this procedure as well. Turns out, our crew was about to time out and wouldn't be able to make this flight. Rewind, we all pour out of the plane back into the gate.

Cue the grumbling. It was like a stand-off. Angry passengers, annoyed gate workers, everyone yelling and snipping and moaning. I just curled up in a chair to watch. It was a sight to see. I think we sat here for an hour. Then, up rolls a flight crew - hooray. And we start boarding the plane. Many people seemed happy.

They would have been wrong.

Turns out, this flight crew had somehow arrived without a pilot. I'm not sure if they lost him along the way, or what, but we had no pilot. In fact, there was no US Air pilot in the entire airport at this time. In fact, they boarded us all on a plane without really knowing that. So guess what we did then? We all got OFF THE PLANE!

Now, it's a real mob-scene. I watched one gate worker lean over to another guy and she said something in his ear, and he was off. Pretty quickly he returns in a cart with boxes. Boxes full of snack-packs. And water. The scene that ensued was much like what you might imagine happens in third world war-torn countries when the red cross rolls in to pass out food and water. I mean, paper was flying, people were shoving. It was insanity - and we'd only been stuck for maybe 3 hours at this point. Stuck in the friendliest airport in America, mind you, with plenty of food courts, shops, and free wireless internet.

US Air called up a few pilots. I imagined those conversations went something like this:
US Air worker, "Hey, Joe, you wanna come in and fly this plane for us?"
Joe the Pilot, "Well, nah, the game is on and I'm kinda comfortable."
US Air, "But see, there's this mob of people, and they're quite angry."
Joe, "In that case, heck no! Call Bob!"

It seemed to take a while, but the gate worker was very pleased with herself when she was able to announce that they had located a pilot and he was in the building. Everyone began to cheer and clap and jump up and down chanting.

They would have been wrong.

Apparently once the pilot arrives to the airport he has one hours worth of preflight paper work to do?! Who knew. The cheers turned to grunts, and the gate workers tried to toss more water bottles around - hoping this would help.

After about a 5 hour delay, boarding and unboarding 3 planes, we finally had a plane with working instruments, a flight crew, a pilot, and were pulling away from the gate. I was waiting for the cheers, it didn't happen. The flight attendant announced that they were going to give everyone on board a free cocktail for our troubles. I waited for the cheers.

Forty-three minutes and one glass of red wine later we landed in LA. And that's when the crowd decided it was finally ok to cheer. Welcome to LA!

2009, Third Quarter.

We can sum up 2009, Second Quarter as complete slacker.

Ok, that's not entirely fair - but I did slip into a dismal abyss when it comes to things I usually like to do quite often. We can make a list:

1. frequent blog entries
2. Project 365
3. cooking
4. running
5. bathing

On the plus side, today I finally switched the wall calendar in my office from April to July, last week I moved from one apartment to another, and a few weeks ago I got back into the saddle with my running - I'll be doing 6+ miles on Saturday morning. The outlook for the 3rd quarter is brighter, but I suppose there wasn't much direction to go but up!

a lesson in skin care

I'm generally the one who is slathering up with sunscreen, while some of my friends forget it, or choose to go without. Mostly, this horrifies me, so I figured I'd offer my Happy 4th of July wishes by talking about skin care.

Some of my friends aren't freaked out by the prospects of skin cancer, I guess that's where we differ. I'm all for not looking pasty white, but at the same time, I understand it comes with some risks. I generally like to find a good balance between lack-of-see-throughness and too-much-sun-exposure. There was a rumor for a while that any sunscreen over SPF 20 was a joke. This is only partly true. There are two types of rays - UVA and UVB. UVB causes the burns, while UVA generally causes the wrinkles, and is generally more responsible for skin cancer. Typically US sunscreens only contain protection against UVB, but not UVA. Then for a while there was one product that was approved to be included in sunscreens to protect from UVA, and that was only in some sunscreens at SPF 20. There is a new product, in Neutrogena, that has a broad spectrum UVA-UVB protection, and combine two different chemicals to not only block UVA but also to make that protection last longer in direct sun exposure. You can be sure, my sunscreens (yes, I said sunscreens, plural) of choice have this type of protection.

My daily routine is to use a face lotion that has SPF 15 in it, every day, on my face. I also have a body lotion with SPF 15, that I'll use on my shoulders and arms when I'm wearing a tank top. This is just everyday. To go to school, the grocery store, sit in my apartment.

When I'm heading out for a run, I generally use this face stick, which does not clog pores nor run into your eyes. I also use a sport spray on my arms and shoulders, and lately I've been running with a hat.

On days, like today, when I am heading to sit directly in the sun pool side, I do have an extensive routine. I start with an SPF 55 cream sunscreen. I put this one BEFORE I put my suit on, to make sure I even get under the edges of wear the suit would go. And I let it dry a bit before pulling my suit up over it. I do this as I get dressed, generally HOURS before I'm actually IN the sun. I also use it on my face. Then, when I first get out in the sun, I reapply using the sports spray and the face stick. I do not get in the water for at least 30-45 minutes after this. From here on out, when I reapply - and I do try to often - I use the sports spray. As you're applying, don't forget things like your ears, the tops of your feet, the backs of your knees. They are often over looked, and hurt quite badly when burned.

And, after the sun, if I am burned (which does happen sometimes, even with all this effort), my favorite after sun lotion is Burts Bees. And just remember to keep any sunburn moisturized, this will help much to get it to heal quickly.

Happy Fourth of July to everyone, wishing you lots of BBQ, watermelon, cold beers, good friends, and a beautiful sun-safe day!