Quote of the day

Until I got onto the internet I had never met somebody who gets actually angry about the fact that some people care about things that he or she doesn't. It would be sort of interesting to meet some of these people in real life:

IN A GERMAN LANGUAGE CLASS:
"Excuse me, but why in the hell are we learning German? I don't want to speak German, and I don't see why anyone else should. Can't we all just speak English and shut up about stupid foreign languages I don't care about?"

"If you don't want to take German, why are you enrolled in this class?"

"I'm not; I was just looking on a bulletin board and noticed that German was being taught, and since I don't think German is interesting I felt I should come here and let everyone know that they're being stupid and wasting their time."

AT A DINER:
"Why do you serve blueberry pancakes? I hate blueberries, and I don't really like pancakes that much, either. If people would just shut up about their blueberry pancakes I could get back to ordering waffles in peace."

--from Molten Boron

Overheard at the downtown Starbucks

"Yeah, I'm at Starbucks because the Internet connection at the hotel was so bad. So I'm at Starbucks. Listen to me. Never stay at the Millennium. Make a note of that. Never stay there. Never stay there. Write it down in blue pen. Never stay there. Never."

Who won?

"Is anybody playing the winner?"

We paused at the question, because it was something we hadn't considered. We had just assumed that, whichever team won, the other team would play against them again, and the four of us would just continue playing until we got sick of the game or Bart's closed, whichever happened first.

But this was cornhole, and the etiquette is clear. "No, you can play the winner," one of us said.

Very shortly, Mr. W and I became that winning team, and the newcomers lined up next to us. Like us, they were a boy-girl team.

I'd never met the girl before, but all the same, I'd met the girl before, know what I'm saying? She was the sort of girl who approaches strangers in nightclub bathrooms and tells them she looks fat so she can hear them say, "Oh, no, you're so skinny! I'm the one who looks like a big whale!"

And she didn't know how to play cornhole. Which, OK, a lot of people don't know how to play cornhole. When this happens, you tell them, "Aim for the board and try to get it in the hole." At that point, your student is ready to play cornhole.

Not this girl. With every bad toss, she would wail about how terrible she was and how her partner shouldn't have picked her in the first place. After two rounds, the game had to be halted so her partner could give her a crash course in cornhole technique. "Hold the bag gently," he instructed as I stood two feet away, uncomfortable and uncertain if the lesson was going to be long enough to make it worth my while to join my friends across the courtyard.

As the game progressed, it began to feel less like a cornhole game between two couples in a small bar in Newport and more like a battle of achetypes - her, with her four-inch heels (by the way, Bart's has no convenient parking lot, so anyone who's there probably had to walk a few blocks), casually foul mouth and insistent whining that she was terrible at cornhole but didn't care because she came to drink, not to play some stupid game; and me, with my flat shoes, glasses and ability to at least get the bag on the board most of the time.

And yet, I still found myself playing the role of the girl in the bathroom, feeding her ego. In cornhole, this works by cheering on your own opponent, saying things like, "I knew it. You're a ringer, aren't you? Any moment now you'll say, 'Why don't we make things interesting,' and then I'll be out 20 bucks." Or you can give her tips like, "Well, it's kind of like pitching in softball." (At which point, she will huffily say, "Ohmigod, softball?")

Mr. W and I won the game, of course. The other couple disappeared, our friends returned, and we played each other for the rest of the night.

Winning at cornhole is easy enough. But I still haven't figured out how to win against the girl in the nightclub bathroom.

I usually get the Bol ...

My Chipotle Burrito:

Chipotle Fan.com

Opening Day linkage

Mondays are the busy day for me at work, so I cannot write a lengthy post on Cincinnati's Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

Gina, on the other hand, is actually going to the game (lucky!) and has a hilarious post up on her unique brand of Reds fandom.

Belated Mini Recap

The Heart Mini Marathon race course heads out of Cincinnati going east on Columbia Parkway, then turns around and heads back. It's a road I've driven down hundreds of times before.

The thing is, when you're in a car, you don't notice just how hilly it is.

You start off downtown, just before Sycamore, and you run a few blocks, and you're surrounded by skyscrapers and other runners, and the theme to Rocky is playing, and you think that you will actually be able to run forever.

And then the buildings sort of fall away, and this hill stretches in front of you, and you can see thousands of runners off in the distance, disappearing over the crest. And you think, "I shall join my fellow-runners at the top of the hill! It will be a piece of cake! Dah-dah daaaahhhhh, da-da-da-da daaaahhh, get-ting STRONNNG now!"

And of course, three steps up the hill, and you think you're going to die.


But that's not all. Once you actually reach the top of that hill, you have a perfect view of the rest of the course - downhill for a while, then up another hill - come on! - where you turn around. Of course, then you get to run up the "downhill" you're thanking God for right now, before finally heading back to the skyscrapers and the cheers.

Keep in mind, my family and I only ran the 5K. If you ran the 15K, you got to run up Torrence. I wouldn't wish Torrence on anyone.

Gina likes to say running hills will rip your legs off. For me, it's more like they rip my guts out. By the time I told my dad, halfway up that last hill, that I needed to stop and walk, I felt fairly confident that if I ran another step, I would throw up. It's the first 5K I haven't run all the way, but then again, it's the first 5K I've participated in that wasn't totally flat.

My time? 39:05, according to the little Old Spice logo chip I zip-tied to my sneaker before the race. So I actually missed both of my 5K goals this race. That's OK - they're really more "guidelines." I figure if I actually make it to the starting line, I've already accomplished my real goal.


As I mentioned, my entire family participated in the race. (That's me, my dad and my sister - my mom took the photo.) In 2006, we did Race for the Cure in memory of my dad's mother, who died of breast cancer. This year, we'll be doing that again - but I told my dad we should also do the Heart Mini in honor of his father, who died of heart disease. (The health problems suffered by members of the Hudson family are one reason he and I started running in the first place.)

The Heart Mini is not anywhere near as emotional as Race for the Cure, but it is striking to see all the teams that have been built for runners' loved ones. (We didn't have a team, but our registration packets included stickers that we could write "Grandpa" on and stick on the backs of our T-shirts.)

The Mini is the place to be if you're at all sporty and live in Cincinnati. I ran into Carrie from the Harry Potter parties and her husband, which was cool. Before the race, I saw the CiN Weekly Flying Pig blogging twins, Amber and Crystal. I was going to go introduce myself, but they were talking to someone and I didn't want to interrupt. I also kept my eye out for one of Mr. W's co-workers – who I had been told would be volunteering at the Bob Roncker's booth - but I never spotted him.

You will be mine, free ham

YEAH! I got all six coupons!



I'd like to thank the Bigg's cashier who plugged her broken printer back in after I told her I'd bought those six big cans of diced tomatoes specifically to put my total over $50; the guy ahead of me in line who forget to take his coupon, allowing me to snag it with the purchase of only a tray of sushi and a bag of Baked Doritos; and Gina. You guys made it all possible.

Off the hook

As I was getting dressed yesterday morning, I heard rumbling outside my window. It sounded like a large truck.

"That's odd," I thought. "The garbage was picked up yester ..."

OH SHIT.

Construction on my street started that morning, and I forgot to move my car the night before!

Oh shit. Oh shit shit shit shit shit!

I threw on my coat and dashed outside, where I found three cars: mine, a Parking & Transportation car and a tow truck. Guess which one had its front wheels in the air.

"Hi!" I shouted, trying my best to smile. "That's my car - any chance you could maybe, like, not tow it?"

My neighbor, who had been chatting with the policeman, said, "Oh, I thought it belonged to one of those guys (pointing to a house across the street). We've been trying to tell them!"

"No, that's my car," I said. "What do I need to do now?"

The policeman said dryly, "Pay the ticket; move the car."

As the tow truck guy let my car down, my neighbor told me I was lucky that this cop was so nice. "You're the second one he's let off the hook this morning. Once they've got you on the truck, that's supposed to be it." He told me the cop and tow truck had shown up at 7:15. It was 9:30. Mine was the last car left on the street.

Finally, my Hyundai was freed from the tow truck. I pulled the little yellow ticket off the windshield and scooted the car around the corner before they could change their minds.

About 10 minutes later, I was leaving for work and the construction workers were setting up. "How ya doin'?" said one to me.

"Much better now that my car's not being towed, thanks," I said.

"Oh, they got you?" he said.

"I ran out just in time," I told him. "My car was up on the truck and everything. I got a ticket, but at least I didn't get towed."

"That was nice of them," he said. "Once it's on the truck, that's supposed to be it."

"Yeah, that's what I hear," I replied.

"But you know what?" he went on. "Those guys didn't give nearly enough notice. I was out here at 5 last night, and those signs still weren't up. I bet a lot of people didn't even see them. If I were you, I'd contest that ticket."

"Really? Huh - maybe I will," I said. (Although it might be worth the $40 to not go through what Ronson did.)

I wonder what it would be like to walk outside one morning and discover that the street is lined with "no parking" signs and your car has been towed. Maybe that's what prompted some furious fellow tenant to whip out her Sharpie and scrawl an angry, impotent message to the Cincinnati Police Department.


So, the upshot is I'm not allowed to park on my street from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday for the next month. That's going to make grocery shopping interesting - perhaps I'll finally learn to cut back.

That's a lot of Kelly Hudsons

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 301 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

38:18

(Apologies for the shocking lack of blog posts in the past couple of weeks. I have decided that Weight Watchers is to blame. Not only is scrutinizing the volume and content of everything you put in your mouth a timesuck; it's also quite boring. My posts would go something like: "Spent 30 minutes at the grocery store comparing different types of 'light' salad dressing. Found a bleu cheese dressing with only 2 mg fat per serving - victory! The search for a reasonably priced kitchen scale with a digital display continues." I'd much rather play Super Princess Peach than type variations on that sad theme every evening.)

My main goal when running a 5K is to finish the entire thing without stopping to walk. So far, I've been able to do this every time. (Of course, the 5K I ran this weekend was only the third I've run in my life, so I still think of this as a "goal" rather than a "given.")

My secondary goal is to beat 35 minutes, the time I posted in my first 5K. I did not do that yesterday. That's OK, though, because I finished the entire race, even though my dad and I haven't run in a few months. (We've switched to some program where we power-walk while pumping weights in the air. We look like big dorks.)

The race I ran yesterday was the Strides of March Carrot Run, benefiting the Nutrition Council of Greater Cincinnati. It's a small run - especially if, like my mom, the only run you've ever done is Race for the Cure. I would say there were maybe 250 people there total for the 5K walk, 5K run, and 10K run. Compare that to the 50,000 people at Race For the Cure, and it starts to sound positively puny.

But I like it. It's a nice little run to kick off the season, and the Nutrition Council puts their own fun twist on it. In addition to the usual post-race recovery food (bagels, fruit), they serve delicious, healthy soups and provide the recipes for them. (Last year it was spicy lentil; this year, meatless minestrone. Yum!) They also have a person in a carrot costume wandering around at the start/finish line and a person in a banana suit at the turnaround point. It's nice being cheered on by a big piece of produce.

Plus, the T-shirt is pretty awesome:


It's funny. I don't particularly like running, I certainly don't like running long distances, and I DEFINITELY don't like cutting my evening short so I can wake up at 6:30 a.m. on a weekend morning. But I like 5Ks. I think it's because they're so festive - the atmosphere overshadows the actual running part. Already, I've nearly forgotten how I was thinking about giving up after about 200 yards - instead, I'll remember being cheered on by that giant carrot as I gasped my way over the finish line.

And maybe in a few weeks at the Heart Mini, I'll break 35 minutes.