That’ll make your shamrock shake!

I thought of a funny cartoon based on a discarded sign I pass by on my walk to and from work:

Frame One: Shows Man A walking past Man B. Man B is a bit shaggy and suspect. Man B is holding up a sign that reads: “Show Me You’re Nuts”.

Frame Two: Shows Man A busting out some crazy dance moves and pulling faces.

I only peeped six hours, but I’m gonna put eight on my time card.

Today I woke up in some kind of weird mood. Nothing was right. The air felt heavy on my shoulders. All my muscles were achy and I was super blah.

I went to work, because that’s what I do. About an hour into things, another lady asked me as a matter of conversation, “How are you this morning?” I could only respond with, “Bleh.”

Instead of laughing and saying, “I hear ya!” or “Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays!” she asked me what I did differently over the weekend. I asked why she was asking. She said whatever it was that was different would be the reason that I felt “bleh” this morning.

To be honest, this weekend WAS different. On Saturday, I only ran one mile with the new people at the running club. I usually run seven miles with the old people at the running club. On Sunday, I laid in bed feeling grumpy. I usually get up, get dressed and walk over to a free yoga class in the morning.

Had I known that skipping my usual physical activities on the weekend would cause me to feel this badly on Monday, I’d have forced myself to get up on Sunday to make up the mileage missed on Saturday. At the time, I thought I was taking a much-needed break… but it hurt more than helped.

My co-workers invoice for the deskside therapy will probably arrive in an interoffice mailer.

I sure hope I get my merde ensemble before the training season begins.

Sandcrabs are using their death ray!

You know I love all my Friends on Facebook, but I swear I’m going to snap if I see one more link to animal cruelty prevention sites that have attached images of mutilated dogs and cats.

I thought about putting that up as my status update: I love y’all but I am going to defriend you if you continue to post pictures of dogs with their throats cut.

Of course, I didn’t say anything, in large part because I don’t want to have to deal with the responses. “Oh, we have to show how HORRIBLE people can be!”, etc.

No. You don’t. We can imagine. Doesn’t a picture of the injured animal somehow empower the abuser? “Look what I did! Ha! It’s all over the internet! Woo!”

After I calmed down over it, I just “silenced” those people out of my News Feed. I still see the pictures if I go to their page, of course.

The answer is that I should just give up on Facebook altogether.

Take, for example, these plastic, self-cleaning ducks…

I had all these notions about throwing out a bunch of clutter this afternoon. In my defense, I did clean an entire bathroom and vacuum all the rooms today, so it’s not as if I lay on the couch for seven hours reading crazy stuff online.

Though it may have been seven hours, now that I think on it.

I finally threw out the PS3 box. I had been keeping it IN CASE WE MOVED. That way I’d have the original packaging and all. If I had an attic or something, I might have continued to keep the box, but I don’t and it’s been two years now. I made the sacrifice. If we DO move, I will be forced to use INFERIOR PACKAGING for transport of my PS3.

Maybe the movers will break it and reimburse my purchase of a replacement system.

Haha!

I also found a school backpack from TWO TEARS AGO. It still had a full load of papers, books, permission slips, candy wrappers and broken pencils. That may have been the easiest part of the cleanup. I retrieved a handmade ceramic coaster from the depths of the backpack and then took the entire thing to the trash chute.

If I actually used tags, I’d probably tag this entry as “steampunk”, since that’s all the rage these days and this post totally epitomizes the hipness of the 19th century.

Our campus features a low gym coach to clone ratio!

Why am I still sitting on the couch at 11:45 on a Friday night when I have to get up at 5:30 on Saturday morning? I’m sure to regret this decision later… probably around 5:30 on Saturday morning.

Tomorrow is the first orientation day for the new members of the running club and I have to show up early to help get things ready. I’m a mentor for my pace group this year, so I get to wear a bright yellow shirt every Saturday for the next 31 weeks of my life.

Maybe one day I’ll write out my marathon running experience.

One day. After I forget all the terrible parts and only remember the euphoric parts. It’s like selectively remembering the realities of natural childbirth.

Natural childbirth vs. running your first marathon. One of those activities is painful, but you get a medal when you’re finished.

Isn’t it against the rules to shoot an opponent in a foot race?

One of the maddening things about Facebook is that it highlights the inability of your friends to actually read anything longer than 128 characters in a “status update”. I blame Twitter. And a general lack of paying attention.

Tonight I posted a link to a funny blog post by The Oatmeal in which he described his experience running a 50-mile ultramarathon last Saturday. I received a number of Facebook messages congratulating me on completing the ultramarathon that I ran last Saturday.

Le sigh, right?

I’m going to post the link here for no reason other than because I think people who are already reading blogs might be able to figure out what’s going on.

My attempt at humor was to pull a quote from the post (“Despite 2/3 of my running buddies sorta having near death experiences, I’m actually really happy I ran the race.”) and compare it to my own experience running the 2011 Los Angeles Marathon.

Speaking of races, the training season for the 2012 LA Marathon begins three Saturdays from now. I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to shave off about 90 minutes from my finish time next year, solely by not stopping with my running buddies every time they need to pee. Live and learn!

Existential void where prohibited

See? It’s only the third day and I’m a panic over having to write something that might induce weeping or laughter. I knew this was all a bad idea.

Yesterday, the big excitement of my day revolved around taking the new(er) car to the smog station. I remember getting the DMV registration paperwork and thinking I had all kinds of time to renew. Ho, no! It was all due yesterday!

There was no way I could call in late on my new job (“Uh… yeah, I forgot to do something that I’m supposed to do every year, so I’m obviously a bad planner and you should fire me….”), but there WAS a way I could take the car to the smog station over lunch. It meant that I had to find a new place closer to home. My usual smog station was nearest my old job, so that was out.

I discovered a smog station a couple of blocks away tucked inside an “auto service center” that I always avoided because it has one driveway that’s usually blocked by trucks. I’m not a fan of no-way-out drive-up places because that’s where you’ll get trapped by the zombies after the apocalypse.

Hoping for a zombie-free encounter, I drove over there, ENTERED THE WRONG DRIVEWAY, passed a car wash and separate “auto service center” I didn’t know was there, and ended up behind the place I needed to be. I circled around and got the right driveway the second time.

No one else was at the smog station portion of place. It still looked a bit sketchy. There were mechanics and auto body people and all kinds of I Don’t Know What, so I avoided eye contact and conducted my business with the smog fella.

He said it would take fifteen minutes. Why? Yo no se, as they say.

The car passed and I was on my way, only $50 poorer after using the $10 off coupon.

She dusted herself with Super Weight Gain Powder to attract him

Back in August 2009, I joined Weight Watchers. A year later, I made my goal weight and qualified for Lifetime membership. Awesome!

As a Lifetime member, I weigh in once a month and so long as I’m fewer than two pounds over my original goal weight, the month is “free” and I can attend as many meetings as I wish.

I had been going to a Tuesday night meeting after work. It started at 6 PM, which was handy for me, since I was off work by 5:30 PM. The location was very near to my office, so I was able to leave my desk and stand on the scale within twenty minutes.

Now that I work in a different location, the Tuesday night meeting is no longer convenient. Walking to work complicates matters, because I’d have to leave work, walk home, retrieve the car and slog through rush-hour traffic. I could probably get to the meeting before it ended at 6:30, though that would defeat the purpose.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that one of the ladies who works in the same giant suite as me also goes to the Tuesday night meetings!

I made some small talk, of course, before I approached her with my request. Perhaps, some random Tuesday when she was already going to the meeting, she could take me with her. She wouldn’t need to give me a lift home, because I could take the bus for the return trip.

OMG! It was as if I’d asked her to set her hair on fire!!! She started telling me about how her car was a death trap and was ready to break down AT THAT VERY MOMENT. She didn’t think it was a good idea for me to ride with her JUST IN CASE her car broke down.

Wouldn’t it be safer if you had someone in the car with you when your sled stopped rolling?

I thanked her for considering my request.