Adventure

My silver birthday

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The good news is that I didn’t spend the first few hours of this birthday in the ER. Instead Paul and I took the kids out for sushi. The restaurant had a nice, quiet atmosphere with live classical guitar music. I had a glass of Riesling and we all sampled each other’s sushi. Two out of three kids liked sushi. I once heard that two out of three ain’t bad. Ha ha. I bet right now you are thinking that I am a really sophisticated, classy, and perhaps elegant woman. If that is what you want to think then you better stop reading because Saturday night I was in the mosh pit. 

Saturday night? Well Saturday night I played the birthday card. The birthday card is something that I bring out the couple of weeks before or after my birthday, okay okay pretty much the whole month of July. I think that birthdays became such a big deal for me because as a kid my mom went out of her way to make me feel like a princess on that one day of the year. My autistic brother went to grandma’s or aunt Grace’s for the day. He wasn’t the center of our universe or talked about for that one day of the year. Since my birthday fell in the middle of summer I could take friends swimming, have a sleepover up north, or go mini bike riding. 

Back to Saturday night, I talked Paul into seeing a metal band with me. Paul likes classical music. No, not classical rock. I am talking about Beethoven and Bach here. Pretty wild guys in their day, but not ours. We also dragged our pastor along. Makes confession a lot easier. No, seriously, he has an appreciation for the music. This was a pretty crazy crowd. Not a quiet crowd like the one we had at the Metallica tribute concert. Who would’ve guessed? We hung out in the back, moving out of the way when average sized bouncers dragged out surly drunk fighters. Three quarters of the way through the concert I wanted to get in where the action was. Even though the little voice in my head told me to stay away because I couldn’t risk getting hurt before the marathon next month. I imagined someone crushing my foot as I inched my way into the third row, the music beating into my chest and my hair feeling the static of the vibration. The adrenaline rush, the anxiety of passing out, feeling surrounded by people yet all alone, enjoying the music. The guy two over started punching someone which edged me over into the mosh pit. The guys there moved this weak, fragile, old (strong , marathon trained, young) lady out of the way. But that happened Saturday night when I was still 40. 

Another year of life with lots of things checked off my bucket list this year and  just as many added. Another birthday under my belt!

My 40th birthday

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I spent the first couple hours of my 40th birthday at the ER in downtown Chicago. 

Today is my last day of being 40. Tomorrow is my silver birthday. No, it is not because I have silver hair as the kids thought. It happens when the numbers in your birth date flip flop, the opposite of a golden birthday. I just found out about this 2 months ago. Good thing, I guess, since tomorrow is the big day. But I have to work tomorrow. That can be a hazard of being self-employed. My employee who covers for me, especially on the long running days, has the day off tomorrow. Her mother is having surgery. Sorry you have to work it is my silver birthday would be totally wrong. But I digress, you probably want to know how I ended up in the ER. 

Last year I started my birthday celebration off with my first and only ear cartilage piercing. Milestone birthdays always require special rituals. My friends took me out to eat and dancing afterwards. I started celebrating July 3rd as my real 40th birthday was on a Monday and let me tell you that the nightlife around here on a Monday night is nothing worth blogging about. Half of my friends were up north already for the holiday weekend, so it was a rather small crew. I headed up north the following day myself and that is where it happened. My youngest daughter, Arabella, got sick with a fever. I took her to a fast care when we got home Sunday because she had a 104 temp after meds. They said she had a virus and sent her home. Arabella got a lot of rest and seemed to be feeling a little better. 

We headed to Chicago later that week as planned to pick up my mom and oldest daughter from the airport after a school trip. We toured the aquarium, saw The Blue Man Group (awesome show by the way), and I bought myself an authentic 70’s hippie outfit that I wanted to wear out for my birthday. By the end of the weekend, poor Arabella was very sick and feverish. She had to stay behind with family for some of the planned events. In the wee hours of my 40th birthday, Arabella was burning up. Paul and I decided to call our family dr first thing in the morning. When we called our family dr, we found out that she retired that morning. Really? WTH! So we found that nearest ER to find out that Arabella had pneumonia. We were given antibiotics for her. That night I went to the House of Blues for my birthday. I didn’t dress up because I felt down that I had to leave Arabella behind and my other kids said that weren’t going if I dressed in hippie garb. Party poopers!

We headed home the next morning. Arabella wasnt feeling any better and on the ride home she developed hives from the antibiotic . We got home and headed back to the ER. This time the dr thought it was asthma as she responded well to the steroid treatment. They took her IV out and were ready to send us home when the dr decided to do a quick X-ray . The X-ray showed pneumonia everywhere. The dr mentioned hospitalization and put the IV back in as I started to cry. Further tests showed a really bad case of walking pneumonia. The dr reluctantly sent us home with promises of finding another dr for follow up. This is how my 40th year started. I hope that tomorrow proves to be a less eventful start of my 41st year. 

The goodbye rescue kind of sail

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Paul may have saved a man’s life last night. 

Last night we went sailing with Tom and Lisa (my running partner and bff) to say our final goodbyes before they move from Wisconsin to Florida. We keep our boat on a relatively large body of water. I am not giving anything away as our state is practically surrounded by large bodies of water and contains large and numerous lakes and rivers. It is rumored that we have more lakes than our neighboring state of Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes. But I do not want to start a debate. Let me tell you that sailing on a large body of water isn’t always a breeze. Ha ha. Last night was no exception. 

The night started off breezy even though the forecasters said that there wasn’t going to be much of a wind. We were sailing with the same friends that we went on the accidental overnight sail with that I blogged about earlier. We have had so many crazy wild adventures with them that I thought I would give them names which means future crazy wild stories. Anyway, we decided to take a sail out to a landmark for some awesome goodbye photos. Lisa and I share the love of running and photography. The sunset pictures were going to be divine. The wind took us to our destination in no time. It was so windy that there were whitecaps with two to three foot waves. We had our pants and sweaters on as it was a chilly July night. The water splashing up on us was not much warmer. Lisa and I went out on the bow and started posing for the camera when we saw a little guy in the distance out on the water struggling. We asked him if he needed help and he said he would be okay. We looped around taking more pictures. 

When we made it back to the man a second time he was clearly in trouble. He was in a small boat, about the size of a canoe with a small sail on it. He had tipped the boat over several times struggling with the waves and the wind. The water was cold, it was getting dark, he was 5 miles from shore, and we were the only boat around. It was going to take us an hour to get back to shore at dusk under motor. His situation was getting dire. I was picturing in my mind the morning news story of a man lost at sea drowning. A man in the background of our smiling pictures. My husband Paul did what any great captain would do, he threw out a line and kept us all from panicking. After the man swam to our boat, I did what any good captain’s wife would do. I wrapped him up in my warm, fuzzy purple robe and handed the guy a beer. Apparently, he headed out for a short sail about four hours before. The wind took him out and he couldn’t get back to shore. He was clothed in a swimming suit, life jacket, and inexperience. He had nothing on the boat to eat or drink and left his cell phone at home. He was in big trouble. 

Paul may have saved a man’s life last night. 

Dogs, part 2

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I have learned in the running world that dogs aren’t always your best friend. I have had multiple run ins with animals on the road. Last week I saw a fox for the first time. The week before I ran with a deer and almost saw a poor cat get hit by a truck. Thank God I never saw a bear or I would be griping about them instead. I used to run with my beagle up until last year. He is almost 8 and can no longer keep up with me. He runs with my husband instead. Last week I had to pick up my dog while running because he injured his paw. He howls and cries if we try to sneak out running without him. He loves it too. 

I used to run with my running partner and dog mainly on the back roads. Now I run on the busier roads because the people that live on those roads keep their dogs tied up. The first encounter happened with a Great Dane. The biggest dog I have ever seen. His head reached my chest and he was eyeing up my dog like he was a little house cat. I had a really big problem here because I couldn’t outrun my running partner. Thankfully the dog’s owner noticed he left the yard and got him before anyone was hurt. 

The second dog encounter involved a black lab. This dog seemed friendly enough. He frequently would chase us and bark a bit. No harm in that, right? Well one day he snuck up on us out of a brush filled ditch. We were running at a good pace when he startled us. This ambush caused my dog to run in front of me to avoid the other dog. I tripped over my dog and landed hard in the gravel. I gashed up my knee pretty bad. It was a long 2 miles home bleeding gravel out of my knee and hands from trying to catch myself. I have a scar on my knee as a reminder of my running days with my two “best friends”. 

I will be saying goodbye to my best friend and first running partner tonight as she is moving out of the state. I will miss our many adventures on and off the road. On to happier trails and new adventures. You will be greatly missed. 

The accidental overnight sail

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Last summer my husband and I bought an old 25 foot sailboat. After about a month of ownership, we decided to take three of our friends out for a 3 hour tour. The day before I bought brand new water shoes for the trip. But we had one small problem the evening of the cruise, not enough wind. We decided to have a cook out on shore and in the process broke the first rule of boating safety by consuming alcoholic beverages. 

It was a warm July evening. I wore my capris and a t-shirt. After supper, the wind picked up out of nowhere. We were ready for the quick sunset cruise out to the lighthouse and back maybe five miles from shore. Once we made it to the lighthouse, the wind was really whipping and there were three foot waves. We thought it would be a really great idea to see how fast the boat could go. We did get the boat to go fast, faster than we have seen it go since. The problem was that the boat went fast in the wrong direction. When we got done testing the speed, we were 15 miles north of where we were supposed to be and it was getting dark. 

In the meantime, my friend and I needed to use the bathroom. We had a toilet on board, but we didn’t know how to use it. After using the facilities, we were supposed to pull a lever to empty the contents into a lower compartment. We didn’t do that. As a gracious host, I had my friend use the bathroom first. When it was my turn, I opened the lid as we hit a wave and spilled the contents  down my legs onto my new water shoes. Great, now I am soaked in my friend’s urine. No problem, I had extra clothes on board, right?! Well, no. 

Now it was dusk and we were lost. The depth finder was not working, the GPS coordinates did not take into account that there was land between point A and point B, we had no maps, and our cell phones all died. To make matters worse,  we were almost out of gas. We were in deep water! Every time we tried getting close to shore we would ground out, using what little gas we had left to get ourselves out. When we went out to deep water we hit some big waves spraying us with water. I was freezing after being soaked with urine and water not to mention the drop in temperature after dark. I used the spider filled sail cover to stay warm. One of our thrill seeker friends thought it would be a good idea to dance around on the wet bow much to his wife’s dismay. They ended up falling asleep at midnight. My husband spent the night steering the boat while his other buddy and I worked the jib sheet. Our minds started playing tricks on us and we were afraid of hitting dark objects in the water. At 5 AM I couldn’t take it anymore and had to go to sleep. Geez, all that and I missed the sunrise!! In daylight we were able to get back to shore. We almost made it to the harbor when we ran out of gas. My husband jumped into the water and had to swim the boat to shore. 

We made it home at 7 AM the day after our three hour cruise. My body was swaying back and forth for the next couple of days. The day after we got back I decided to go for a 6 mile run even though I was still swaying and felt like crap. It was the hardest run ever because I ended up coming down with pneumonia that day. 

What did we learn from our (in)experience? I am now toilet trained, we carry extra gas, extra water, and bought an additional phone battery charger. I have extra blankets, sweaters, sleeping bags, shorts, pants, coat, robe, and rain gear that stays on the boat just in case we are foolish enough to have another accidental, overnight sail.