Runners, On Your Mark...

Race day is here and I'm ashamed to say that I didn't train much this year. All that talk last year when I was incapacitated that I would never take being a biped for granted ever again...remember that? Remember my proclamation that once my bionic leg was ready for action, I would never waste time on the couch when I could be out walking or running? Ring a bell? Let's just say that all those good intentions paved a pretty sturdy path downstairs. Of course the only logical thing to do was to wimp out and downgrade from the half-marathon to the 10K. Then, just because I wasn't feeling guilty enough about my laziness, I saw a guy with one leg, on crutches, wearing a half-marathon bib. Shame on me.

Once I put aside my guilt, I joined in the pre-race festivities, which included lots of dancing, selfies, and meeting fun people - the usual.

 

The race itself was great with a flat course, sunny weather, and beautiful views along the Malecón.

Then, the unimaginable occurred...they ran out of medals! Oh, the horror! No, seriously, I'm talking complete and utter horror! If you don't already know this, I'm here to tell you that the ONLY reason we get up at the crack of dawn and trek mile after mile is FOR. THE. BLING. No other reason. Fitness, endorphins, runners high, blahblahblah, whatever. BLING. Period. So when they ran out of medals midway through the 10K and still had runners out on the course, oblivious to their impending disappointment...uh oh. Needless to say, chaos ensued. It was pretty likely that we would have been crushed in the crowd had we stayed in the general area, so we left and went in search of adult beverages. Long story short, we figured the medals were stolen because later that day some street kids tried to sell them to us. Crazy, huh?

BTW, Jilly G got her medal because she finished way ahead of me and then she gave it to me, because that's just how sweet she is.

C'mon, Try It...Mikey Likes It!

When traveling, I'm of the "when in Rome..." mentality concerning food. I generally try to avoid bugs and eyeballs, but I'm pretty open to asking a waiter to recommend something local and then going along with the suggestion. And yes, occasionally I get surprised due to a "lost in translation" moment.

For example, our Cuban waiter recommended an appetizer of six fish medallions with scallions and tomatoes on a bed of lettuce. Sounds delightful, right? Well, I'm thinking he may have used an incorrect translation for "medallions" and he actually meant "bodies." However, we picked the meat off the bones and, when I closed my eyes, it tasted pretty good. I just had to cover up the carcasses when I was finished.

Next up...seafood soup with octopus. I'm thinking calamari because squid-octopus, same thing, right? Kinda like the fried rings you get as an appetizer at Gordon Biersch happy hour. Wrong again. These were the scary Jules Verne octopus tentacles with suction cups. (I have a lingering childhood fear of suction-cup-tentacles-of-death because of that movie.) So, while I was eating one, I was picturing the other.

But, once again, closed my eyes, and it was great. So apparently, if I don't have to see it, I'm good with it. I guess this is similar to my mom's theory that if she didn't tell me what was in it, I would like it without question. Although, I'm pretty sure I would've figured it out at some point. I'm also pretty sure it won't stop me from trying more weird stuff in future adventures.

Havana, ooh na-na

While preparing for our Excellent Cuban Adventure, I realized that I know very little about the country that was practically my next door neighbor while growing up. I am familiar with the basics, of course: rum, mojitos, cigars, music, baseball, Hemingway. Here's what I learned.....

Fun facts:

• Blowing your nose in public is considered to be extremely rude.
• Government vehicles in Cuba must stop to pick up hitchhikers.
• Voting in Cuba is mandatory.
• Until 2008, Cubans were not allowed to buy cell phones or computers.
• There are two different currencies - one for tourists and the other for Cubans.
• Fidel had a thing for John Lennon (he thought they were both dreamers...um, okaaayyy) and had a bronze statue put up in a park. The glasses have been stolen so many times that now there's a guard standing by.
• Cuba is sometimes called El Cocodrilo, which is Spanish for alligator, because the island looks like a gator from an aerial view...in more ways than one!

Rum:

• Bacardi rum originated in Cuba, but when Fidel took over they decided to consciously uncouple and moved their headquarters to Puerto Rico.
• Havana Club is now the official rum of Cuba and it's sold everywhere but the U.S. Bacardi makes a competing product with the same name and it's sold only in the U.S. Ah, the rum wars!
• The Cuba Libre cocktail is called that everywhere except in Cuba. There it's called Mentirita, which means "little lie", which is probably because you were lied to about how much of a hangover you'd have the next day. I will not test this theory.
• Supposedly Havana is the birthplace of the Mojito cocktail.

Cars:

• Cuban citizens can only legally own cars made and bought before 1959. After that, nope. The government seized all the cars and still owns them to this day. 
• Until 2011, there was an import ban on cars in Cuba, so lots of the cars on the road are '50s classics.

Cigars:

• Cuba is to cigars as Napa is to wine.
• The rollers in the cigar factories have a quota, but many of them sneak some out and roll them at home to sell them on the streets. Bootleg cigars.
• It takes nearly two years for a cigar to move from nursery to rolling factory. No wonder they aren't cheap!

Hemingway:

• Ernest Hemingway lived in Cuba at Finca Vigia, which means "Lookout Farm", for 20ish years.
• He wrote seven novels, including For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea, while there. BTW, having to read TOMATS in 9th grade was pure torture, so thanks for nothing, Papa.
• His favorite bars in Havana were La Floridita and La Bodeguita del Medio. I will definitely check out both. Ya know, for the sake of literature.

History:

• Cuba gained independence from U.S. military rule in 1902, and became the "Republic of Cuba." Of course we still stuck our nose in their business strongly influenced them for the next 57 years until Fidel Castro led a rebel army of communist revolutionaries to victory.
• In 1960, the U.S. armed and trained a group of Cuban refugees to overthrow the Castro regime, which was known as the Bay of Pigs invasion. The invasion happened in April 1961 and failed after 3 days, which made Fidel a BMOC in Cuba.
• Fidel asked his bestie, Nikita Khrushchev, if he would plant some nuclear missiles on the island to deter another invasion, and of course he jumped at the chance.
• JFK found out about their plan and then it became a whole bunch of "which boy has the biggest toy" drama. Except toys=nuclear weapons/blockades, so kinda a big deal. And who says history doesn't repeat itself?
• Eventually everyone calmed down and came to an agreement that the weapons would be dismantled in exchange for the U.S. minding its own damn business agreeing not to invade Cuba ever again. And we all lived happily ever after.

The More You Know

Today as I was sitting in traffic (which is basically the preface for every conversation I have), I was pondering the fact that I don't know how to do a lot of things. I'm not talking things like cooking, because, well, that ship has sailed. I'm not even talking about hard things, like car maintenance or flying an airplane or speaking German. I'm talking about seemingly normal things that most people can do. The reason this existential crisis popped into my head out of the blue is because, once again, I realized that I don't know how to save my radio stations in the car and it is just so aggravating. I have never known how - no matter how many times I've looked it up on however many cars I've owned, it's one of those things that just doesn't stick. So that got me to thinking about others.

Another common thing I've never mastered is lacing sneakers. Whenever I put in new laces, I have to keep one shoe laced so I can copy it on the other shoe and then switch. If I have 2 blank shoes, nope. Another one that causes me great angst, given my English teacher background, is that I can't spell the words "occurring" or "occasionally" without looking them up. Every. Single. Time. If I don't have access to a dictionary, I will use another word. Also, when I pronounce the word "gesture" in my head, I say it with a hard G, so when I say it out loud, I really have to concentrate to say it correctly with the soft G.

Then I started to think about the things I used to know that have been dumbed-down out of me. For example, I used to know how to change a tire, but then I discovered AAA, which meant no more broken nails for this girl. Now I can't even put air in a tire, it's been that long. I also used to know how to read a city map, but then came along portable GPS. These days, I couldn't tell you how to get from my home to my office and back if I didn't have the navigator on. If I'm in a strange city with no signal or a dead battery, uh oh, cue instant hysteria.

So, I guess my burning question of the day is, does everyone have these seemingly-normal-but-personally-unattainable things? Is it normal? Am I normal? What is the meaning of life? Oh wait...got a little bit carried away for a minute there.

Madam Foreperson, has the jury reached a verdict?

Yay, Jury Duty! I know most people say, "Ugh, Jury Duty", but not me. At least not me last week. I was super happy about it on so many levels, the first of which being that I didn't have to go to work. The next, and most obvious reason is because I watch a LOT of Law and Order, so I know exactly how the court system works. It's practically the same as going to law school. In fact, I was really looking forward to bursting out with an "I object" or "Sidebar, Your Honor".....yeahhhhh, but it doesn't work like that. In fact, now I know why "Ugh, Jury Duty" is the more common thought process.

First of all, it might have been the L-O-N-G-E-S-T day EVER. I know, I know, everyone warned me. But the thing is, I couldn't wait to be able to sit around with nothing to do. I'd read a little, catch up on some writing, play mindless games on my phone. It sounded glorious. In theory. In reality, I got there at 7:30, which is exactly 2 hours before I start my normal work day, so after an hour, my body clock was saying, "okay, time for your standup meeting, which is super boring, but at least you get to chit-chat with people" and the real clock in the room was saying, "settle down, it's barely 8:30 and we haven't even started calling names yet." Then, at 9, they gave us a 45 minute break! And we hadn't done anything yet! Sometimes, in these types of situations, the voice in my head (relax, it's just mine) starts to chant things that I really want to come true at that moment. For example, when someone boring is talking to me at work, I chant "pleasestoptalkingpleasestoptalkingpleasestoptalking" in my head and even though it doesn't work, it makes me less likely to commit a crime. Obviously, my chants of "pleasefortheloveofallthingsholycanwegetthisshowontheroad" were not working. By the time they let us break for lunch at 11:30, I thought we had been there for a week already. And speaking of lunch, an hour and 45 minutes? Good grief, who needs that long to eat in the middle of the day? I was pretty sure I'd leave that building and find out that 2018 started without me.

Finally, around 2ish, just as they were about to let us go and just as I was starting to plan my free afternoon, they called one last list of names. And guess what? The show finally got on the road. A very slooooowwwww, long, and boring road. And then, just like that, after a mere two hours of questioning, I officially became Juror #8.

The first thing the judge said to us when we herded into the courtroom was that this experience would not be like Law and Order. I really thought "I object" would spontaneously blurt out of my mouth at that very moment. He went on to say that if anyone did half of what my dear Benson and Stabler crew did, they'd actually be on the other side of the court experience. Lalalalala I'm not listening to you, blasphemer! Just you wait and see.....this is going to be an adventure worthy of Dick Wolf. Stay tuned!

Color Me Dirty

If you're not familiar with Color Runs, you need to find one in your city and sign up RIGHT NOW. It's so much fun and such a great excuse to get filthy dirty with wild abandon, plus you usually get a medal, which is my #1 motivation when it comes to exercise. Here's how it works...

It's basically a 5K race, but there are stops along the route with color stations where they throw out colored chalk and we become engulfed in a blizzard of neon. Word of warning: Stop laughing and close your mouth! I say this every year, but still manage to enjoy a few swallows of tasty dust and end up with pink and green teeth.

 

The first one we did was at night, so in between the color stations they had black-light stations so we could dance around like teenagers at a rave. We totally fit right in with all the cool kids. 



The past couple of years we've done the ones during the day and instead of having black-light rave stations, they have a giant mosh pit at the end. And because we never get dirty enough on the course, we always dance around in the pit for another hour or so. With unicorns, of course. Not only do they continue to bombard us with enough chalk to supply a 1980s school district, but they throw out individual packets so we can dump it on ourselves. And we do - by the bucket-load. Remember what it was like to be a kid and totally romp around in the mud or sand and get filthy dirty for no reason? That's exactly what this feels like.

But, wait, how do you get home without getting all that mess in your car? Ya know, it's not like we can just hop on our bikes and pedal home...we have fancy sports cars and mini-vans that we pedal home nowadays. Simple - you get a blow-job (and no, I did not make up that description or even think of it by myself, but it's so perfect that I'm stealing it). There are people with leaf blowers to blow you clean, which is actually quite hilarious because it really works.

I definitely recommend stripping down the minute you get home and walking straight into the shower. This is one of those times when that wash-rinse-repeat thing needs to be repeated several thousand times. Then, bundle up your clothes and wash them immediately - it really does all wash out, believe it or not. However, even with all that, you may find color in the oddest places for the next few days. Do not be alarmed.