Skip to main content
Today was Sophie's first day of kindergarten and she did AWESOME! I can't believe how well she did when Julie dropped her off at the school. While a little nervous at first, she settled right in and even waved goodbye to Julie when her teacher took the class outside and the parents were leaving. I am so proud of her. Still, it's kind of sad, she's growing up so fast. I am constantly amazed at how bright she is, but it tugs on my heart. Julie is sad, too. Sophie is now going to be in school every day for the next 13 years. That "freedom" of a certain age of childhood is slipping away from us. Still, you can’t beat hearing the tremendous level of joy and excitement that she had when she called me before and after school.



I ran for about 45 minutes this morning and I felt great. The first good Monday run I've had in a long time. Must have something to do with settling in to the Pasadena runs on Saturdays. The rest of the day, for me, was average. I find myself watching the mailbox, hoping for people to make donations. Because I've set the bar high this year, I'm really nervous about reaching that goal. What if last year was a fluke? What if I don't even make half of what I made last year? Is the fundraising a failure? It's causing my stomach to do more laps than the Olympic swimmers.



Speaking of the Summer Games, there are these ads, they run them every 2 years, that show the roles parents play in the raising of a child athlete. One in particular this year has really affected me. It’s about how parents support the dreams of their children and begins with "I will be your breath" or something like that. It continues with "I will be your strength and support" etc. I can't help but think of Jake and this marathon. I running my body into the ground this year and I would do more if I could if it would help find a cure. I would give my lungs for that boy.



Not sure how I'm gong to make it through these next few months. Every time my body wants to quit on me, whether it's my back tightening up during stressful moments, or my knee clicking a hundred times or more throughout the course of the day, I just keep thinking about Jake and the hard road that may lie ahead of him.



I'll see a doctor in January about my knee. Because if a doctor were to tell me to stop running on it, that advice wouldn't be any good until January anyway. I'm running this marathon.



Aloha

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MARATHON FOOTNOTES (for those who didn't think I would really footnote a stream of consciousness thought): Footnote #1 Academy Award Winning Best Picture Films from 1969 to the Present: Midnight Cowboy, Patton, The French Connection, The Godfather, The Sting, The Godfather II, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Rocky, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, Kramer Vs. Kramer, Ordinary People, Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, Terms of Endearment, Amadeus, Out of Africa, Platoon, The Last Emperor, Rain Man, Driving Miss Daisy, Dances With Wolves, The Silence of the Lambs, Unforgiven, Schindler’s List, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The English Patient, Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Footnote #2 Members of the band YES, from 1969 to the present: In 1969, Yes is formed with Jon Anderson on vocals Peter Banks on guitar, Bill Bruford on drums, Tony Kaye on keyboards and Chris Squire playing bass. This group records...
41 comments
Read more

Basement Songs: "Golden Gates" by John Cougar Mellencamp

I’m not sure when my brother, Budd, bought his copy of John (then) Cougar Mellencamp’s “Uh Huh”. The cassette just showed up in the basement on summer, years after its release. Like most of America, I was a big fan of “Pink Houses”, and I was thrilled that now had copies of his other big hits from that album, “Crumblin’ Down” and “The Authority Song.” At this point in his career, Mellencamp was ready to establish himself as a legitimate artist, hence the use of his real name (the record label wouldn’t allow him to ditch the “Cougar” until years later for fear record buyers may get confused….huh?) In addition, there was the radio staple (at least in Cleveland), “Play Guitar”, on side 2, which borrowed heavily from Them’s “Gloria” (Mellencamp often slipped the “G-L-O-R-I-A”’s into his concerts during that number). The rest of “Uh Huh” is filled with more of the same 60’s garage band type of rock that Mellencamp champions, as well as one of Budd’s favorite tunes, the John Prine co-pe...
1 comment
Read more

In Praise of Kanopy

When I was 17, I worked at American Video, a small business housed in the Great Northern shopping strip. My time there was short, as was American Video’s lifespan. The days of the mom-and-pop video stores were cycling out. Blockbuster had just opened in my hometown and within a couple years, American Video, as well as the store where I first fell in love with movies, First Run Video, would shutter their doors. What I loved about these indie video stores was the variety of choices and the limited number of copies of movies each store had. Come in looking for Back to the Future and it’s already rented? You strolled the aisles until you found something similar like Innerspace , or something completely different, like And Now for Something Completely Different, Monty Python’s first movie. Blockbuster, and its cousin Hollywood Video, may have offered more copies of movies, but they didn’t always have the quality. Maybe your Blockbuster was different.   When Netflix and the stre...
2 comments
Read more