Duck, Duck, Goose

There are two places I regularly go running – down the street in front of my apartment complex (tree man territory) and across the street at a pond. The pond isn’t that big (hence pond and not lake), so I make a lot of trips around it. One thing that I dislike about the pond is the number of creepy dudes that seem to emerge from the office buildings surrounding the pond at running time. What more than makes up for that unpleasantness, is my many animal friends that live and frolic there.

Ducks

The ducks are skittish. Honestly all the critters are, but the ducks do enjoy some distance left between me and them. My favorite thing about the ducks is that they have baby ducks. Every spring a new batch of ducklings appears and I get to watch them learn to be animals. I’ve learned a few things about ducklings:

1. They like to be in constant contact with the momma duck. This means pushing and climbing as they meander through the pond.
2. They are confused. Always. Whenever I run by and the momma duck panics, the ducklings just scuttle around in the duck cluster they’re always a part of.

I also like to watch the drake mallards chase each other around and the see the pursuer get nervous when he realizes his proximity to me. It makes me feel powerful when the “tough” duck runs away. I like to feel powerful.

Geese

The geese and I have a complicated relationship. They love to stand on the sidewalk even though they have perfectly good grass and pond water all to themselves.

The geese are very vocal about not wanting me around. I go back and forth between allowing the leader goose to feel powerful by giving a wide radius in response to his warning hisses…and choosing to display my own dominance by staring him down until he backs off.

I like to think the interaction goes like this:

But it goes more like this:

Even though many of our interactions are hostile in nature, I think we have a perfectly healthy relationship.

But then again, I sometimes think they geese also came down to VA from NY (where I went to college). When I was in college I went for a run with a friend that was trying to start working out. We decided to run around a lake and ended up chasing some hostile geese. It turns out they were mamma and papa geese trying to keep us away from their babies. So, we stopped the pursuit.

But, I think my chasing of those geese stems from my childhood interaction with a goose at a farm. I was feeding him bread and he bit my finger. I guess no one ever told him not to bite the hand that feeds you. No more bread for him.

Blue Heron

The pride and joy of the pond is the blue heron. He swoops in and hides along the shoreline with his weird bending legs and awesome feather hair.

I have a little game I like to play with him. It’s called “Cristy tries to take Blue Heron’s picture, and Blue Heron flies away.” I’d like to think we’re both winners of the game. By the time I get my camera to picture taking mode, Blue Heron is flapping his wings. I always end up with a mediocre picture.

He’s been a little nervous around me since one of our first meetings, when I literally scared the shit out of him. That day, Blue Heron saw me approaching and decided he should seek shelter in a tree. He then proceeded to release his bowels from high up in the tree. On a side note, I really don’t think this is normal behavior for this type of bird. He looked really out of place perched in a tree because of his large stature.

Any day I see Blue Heron is a good day.

Dead Fish

Every now and then I see a dead fish floating in the pond. I like to look for it every time I make a lap around the pond.

I don’t really have much more to say about the dead fish.

Things I don’t like: creepy dudes

I generally manage to avoid them. Our only interactions are an exchange of stares: creepy stares on their end and an angry stare on my end.

About a month ago there was a guy coming in and out of one of the buildings. It appeared he worked for a carpet cleaning company. One lap around I went to swat a fly or do something of that nature and he thought I was waving I guess, because he started waiving at me. Each lap he was outside and ready to greet me.

Unfortunately, he built up the courage to speak to me. Near the end of my run he stopped me:

Guy: “Do you like to eat out?”

Me: (timidly) “Sometimes”

Guy: “Would you like to get dinner?”

Me: (after a pause and while making my “oh dear God, why is this happening” face) “Sorrrrrryyyyyyy”

Guy: “Oh you already have someone”

Me: “Yeahhhhhh”

Me: “Thanks though, that was sweet to ask” (Trying to end the awkward situation in the most pleasant way I could)

I don’t see carpet cleaning man anymore.

Ending on a non-creepy dude note:

Here’s what I have to imagine other people see when they observe me:

Soda Everywhere!

I was just looking through the pictures on my phone and came across this one:

Thanksgiving last year, I was trusted with buying all the supplies for the dinner preparation and treats for the day (my older brother was out of town and my little brother doesn’t live in the same location…he was just coming down for the weekend).

Because my legs work so fantastically well, I fell while bringing the 7 Up up the stairs at my apartment complex. The box hit one of the stairs and the end opened up, releasing half of the box through the stairs. Some of the cans managed to make it down to the bottom level and make a pretty big mess. Luckily the stairs in my apartment complex are outdoors.

I then texted this picture to my family with the caption “Cristy fell down.” At least that’s what I thought I sent…my phone autocorrected it to “Crusty fell down.” And apparently the picture wasn’t very clear on their phones, so I then got some confused follow up calls asking who/what Crusty was and what they were looking at.

Cristy gives herself a concussion

As documented here, I’m not so good at the sleep to wake transition process. This became even more clear in March 2011. I gave myself a concussion while trying to snooze my alarm clock.

I’m not an early morning person, but I have forced my body to adapt to very early wake-ups so that I can get to the gym and work out before going to work. Because I can’t do anything in moderation, this quickly escalated to morning workouts, lunch runs, and after work runs. Unfortunately, this all came to a screeching halt in July 2010 when I had to undergo knee surgery. The knee surgery resulted in a long rehabilitation period which meant I slept in past 5:00 AM each morning.

I’m now to the point where going to the gym is completely fine, but my body refuses to wake up in the morning. So, I’ve been working out later in the day. I still make a feeble attempt to wake up super early each morning, which just results in me feeling like a failure first thing in the morning…every morning. I hear the awful noise that happens a split second before the alarm goes off and instinctively spring up to hit snooze.

Luckily, I don’t rely on just one alarm to wake me up. I keep my cell phone at the end of my bed on a table so that I have to actually get up to silence the rings. It’s like a fun little obstacle course every morning, where the prize is more sleep. I’m very good at problem solving if it’s to avoid being awoken. I have the process down to a science.

1) Sit up.

2) Propel myself forward (on my left, non-surgeried knee).

3) Reach in a full stretch to the table to silence the alarm. This mirrors some sort of Pilates exercise.

4) Slingshot back to a sitting position.

5) Fall backwards onto my pillow.

I always thought that it was a slow, slouching motion that resulted in me being back in a sleeping position. But the events that unfolded on that March day have lead me to believe that I actually fling myself backwards at a rate comparable to that of a spaceship leaving its launch pad.

I had just snoozed my cell alarm clock and prepared to rocket myself back to sleep when something went horribly wrong. I wasn’t lined up with my bed. So, I ended up slamming my head, at high speed, against my nightstand. I immediately went back to sleep. Not so surprisingly, I didn’t remember what had happened when I actually woke up.

When I walked into the bathroom my nose felt like it was filled with liquid. So, I blew my nose. I was shocked to see blood pouring out.

Then I came to the realization that I had hit the back of my head and blood was coming out of the front of my face. I’m no doctor, but I know that this isn’t a good sign. I went about my day, and managed to survive – even though I did not feel that amazing – so I consider the results a success.

My tum tum hurts

That’s what I say aloud to myself whenever I have a stomach ache. I have a stomach ache. I’ve been spending a lot of time at the doctor and at work lately, so my time at home is spent sleeping. I have several stories written, but I want to include pictures because I have had pictures in my head for these stories since before I wrote them. Because I’ve been preoccupied with other stuff over the past few weeks, I haven’t gotten around to drawing the pictures. And I don’t want to put up some stories with half-assed pictures, just for the sake of getting some stories posted. So, instead of wasting those stories…I drew a crappy picture of how my stomach feels.

I promise there’s good stuff coming. I just need some downtime. New stories will be here soon!

Shins

My enthusiasm for my legs is at a pretty low level. They seem to have decided on their own that they don’t want to function. It turns out, I don’t really have a say in the matter. I had bad shin splints in high school, which required me to ice my legs in class after my morning runs. The shin splints magically disappeared after years and years of grief, and I spent my time in college with functioning shin areas. My legs didn’t fully function during that period of time though either - I had to go to the doctor and hospital for a number of leg/foot related injuries. The shins were golden though.

Things were good until I had knee surgery last summer. Since then, my legs have gone on strike. My shins hurt enough to make me run with a limp and occasionally they go a little numb. I know what you’re thinking: why don’t you stop running? That’s just crazy. And the problem isn’t just limited to my time out running. My legs now hurt to the touch even when I’m sitting at work. It’s pretty awesome.

When I have a problem like the one outlined above, I like to brainstorm possible solutions. Unfortunately my mind works in weird ways, and the only possible solutions that I’ve managed to come up with all involve me amputating my own legs.

The Snail End of Days

Growing up, my brothers and I were trend setters. We’d take up a weird habit or behavior and shortly after the entire neighborhood would follow. It’s funny how quickly things can change. Eric and I have noticed that we pretty much kill any trend that happens these days (most of our research is limited to restaurant attendance before and after we enter an establishment).

When I was around 5, we took on the lofty goal of collecting all the snails. There was a house around the corner that had an absurd number of snails in its yard. I think it had something to do with the combination of abundant water, excessive tree cover, and lack of snail concerns from the property owners. It should be clear by now that we didn’t adhere to property lines (see here). This had everything to do with the fact that my neighborhood was filled with children and we all roamed each other’s yards, and nothing to do with my parents’ attempts at teaching us the meaning of property lines.

My mom knew of our strange snail obsession, and decided to head off a repeat of the flower incident. My parents wanted us to understand the importance of obeying rules such as 1) Do not trespass on people’s property, 2) Do not take things from people’s property even if those things are only snails.

After much excited conversation with Brent, Eric, and me, my mom knew that we were quite adamant about the collection of shelled creatures. She took the three of us, along with some of the neighborhood kids, to talk to the owner of the snail sanctuary. Not that surprisingly, he was thrilled about the concept of some free child labor to help alleviate his snail problem. He told us that we were welcome to gather snails from his yard any time of the day, as long as were quiet about it and did not dig holes/tear up plants.

We were ecstatic.

Everyone in the neighborhood soon heard the news. We rushed home to amass our snail collecting supplies. The 1980s snail rush had commenced.

Every single child on the block rushed to the unsuspecting man’s yard, arms full of Tupperware containers. We picked through his yard until we were confident that we had all of the specimens in our possession. Unlike most of the children that quickly grew weary of this activity, my brothers and I kept at it like it was our job. Day after day we traveled to the snail mines to fill our quota (quota = we filled all the containers that our parents allowed us to use that day).

There was one other boy who tried to keep up. He became our arch nemesis. One day while we were out collecting, this sneaky sneak decided to take the easy way out. He wasn’t going to put in the time to earn his reward. He was going to take what was rightfully ours. He crept into our garage, where we stored our snail collection, and he made off with a few of the margarine containers that were holding our snails. Unfortunately for him, we were quite organized and knew immediately upon our return that something was awry.

We peered across the street and saw him sorting through his snail collection. And sure enough we identified a number of our snail containers in his garage. This was infuriating. Collecting snails had become our way of life, and he was taking them. He was stealing our way of life. Eric and I stormed across the street and took ALL the snails. We were going to beat him at his own game. He stood in horror as we made sure we had successfully wrangled up every last container and then returned to our yard.

This pretty much ended the era of the snail. We had crushed the snail dreams of our arch nemesis and the other children had long since given up on their snail dreams. We would have continued scrounging for snails for the remainder of our lives, but our dad put a stop to that. It turns out that snails can’t survive long in margarine containers – without food or water. My dad walked into the garage one morning to a horrible, overpowering stench and immediately knew that our snail harvesting was to blame. He opened a few of the containers to investigate.

That was the day that we all learned that snails bleed when they die.

My dad washed all of our treasure down the storm drains as we stood by and schemed about the next untapped resource to target.

Coincidence?

This is just an observation I made while watching TV. You probably won’t find it entertaining at all. But I do. So I’m going to share. I apologize in advance.

In ‘Sex and the City’ Carrie cheats on her boyfriend, Aidan (John Corbett), with Big. Big was cheating on his wife, Natasha (Bridget Moynahan), with Carrie.

In the movie, ‘Serendipity,’ Sara leaves her fiancé, Lars (John Corbett), for Jonathan. Jonathan leaves his fiancé, Halley (Bridget Moynahan) for Sara.

I just think that it’s odd that John Corbett and Bridget Moynahan have become so specifically typecast as characters that will jointly be abandoned. Not only are they being dumped in multiple TV shows/movies, they are both being jointly dumped in said shows.

I find this odd. Maybe it’s just me though.