InnerTeub

My library holds have been coming at me in force – books put on hold months ago all popping up at the same time – and I’m plugging through like it’s my job. (It is not, sadly, my job.) After a long spell of not really loving any books out there, it’s been so wonderful to read a bunch in a row that have left me captivated.  I just finished Divergent, and OH how I loved it. It was as captivating as The Hunger Games, but I think I liked it even more, mostly because I liked the two main characters much, much more. (For those that have read this book: FOUR, amirite?) (I am right.)

Speaking of books, a girl I knew a while ago just wrote and published her first book: The Me Years. I love the premise of this book – girl in mid-twenties dating the wrong people and taking the time to figure out what matters to her in terms of faith and values and yada yada…mostly I just like the title because I really do consider those years in my twenties (she says, with an air of authority, now that she is all of thirty years old) as my “me years” – responsible to no one and nothing, spending time figuring what was interesting to me – did I want to spend my weekends out and about partying, or did I want to spend them on a bike training for an Ironman? Did I want to join this club or that club or work 80 hours a week to get ahead and do it without feeling guilty about being absent? Looking back, it really was a great handful of years to just trial and error through the way I wanted to live my life, and I think a book written by someone who is better than me at writing about these things would be really interesting.

HOWEVER. This girl I knew awhile back? I knew her because she dated my brother. And my brother has a role in this book. And while my brother and I frequently discuss our relationships, it’s VERY HIGH LEVEL and while I appreciate being close to him and all, I kind of don’t think I need to uhhh, read too much detail about his relationships, amirite? (I am right.)

So anyway, this is all my way of saying: Will some of you go read that book for me and let me know if it’s sibling appropriate? I’d really appreciate it.

A few weeks ago I scraped my car against the side of a cement post while making a sharp right hand turn into the gas pump. (Follow? Needed gas, had to position car close enough to pump in order to um, pump, cut the turn too close,  scrapped the back passenger door/wheel well on the post that was there to um, prevent cars from cutting that turn too close.)

In my defense:  it was 5:30 in the morning and I’d been up since 4am with a dog that has gotten so conditioned to the morning park/hike/walk thing we’ve been doing that he cannot possibly wait until, you know, the SUN comes up, so my getting gas at 5:30 en route to the trail head was my way of procrastinating until it got light enough to go there and the coffee shop drive through opened up so GIVE ME A BREAK IT WAS PRE DAWN AND I HAD HAD NO COFFEE

(In my non-defense: this is so not the first time I have had this kind of accident. Not just “scrapping the car” type of accident, but, by my count, this is at the very least the third time I have scrapped a car in the EXACT SAME SPOT (rear passenger side door/wheel). Guys, I dunno. It’s a spacial perception thing or a TOO MANY DAMN THINGS IN MY WAY thing or … I don’t know. I’m a good driver and have a relatively low accident/speeding ticket to time spent driving ratio, but … right hand turns, man. The death of me. )

(What this means to me is I obviously need a mini, right? Smaller car would solve, this RIGHT?)

(Anyway.)

ANYWAY! So after much groveling and apologizing and general feeling-bad-ing about it, I sack up and call our insurance to get this taken care of. Now, I love our insurance people. I am only half joking when I say one of the top five perks of marrying my husband was access to USAA. They are phenomenal. And sure enough, in the space of a ten minute phone call (dial to hand up), the USAA rep had arranged for an appointment at a body shop nearby, arranged for a rental car to meet me there, and assured me that it would all be super painless and easy. But the best part? The very very best part of this entire incident?”

Customer Service Rep: “So would you say the cement pillar came out of nowhere, then?”

Me: “… yes”

Customer Service Rep: “Well, that happens. Were any cement pillars harmed as a result of them unexpectedly jumping into the path of your car?”

Me: “…no”

WERE ANY CEMENT PILLARS HARMED. You guys, I can’t even. I love this nameless Customer Service Rep. Now THAT is how you take an auto insurance claim.

Here’s what no one tells you about painting your house: If you’re married, you and your spouse must AGREE on a color scheme before you can commence painting. This seems like not a huge deal, right, until you find yourself in the paint section of Lowes arguing over shades of beige and going back and forth between “Dusted Bronze” and “Burnt Copper” and before you know it you find yourself thinking: How could I possibly love someone who thinks “Wilmington Tan” is even remotely appropriate for the front hallway, what the HELL, and I swear if he brings “Taylor Taupe” back into this conversation divorce is fucking imminent, man.

Which is all my way of saying that we’ve tabled the painting decisions for the time being.

“There are people out there who hate us, and they want us to die. If I can go over there, and in some way make sure they don’t come over here, that’s worth it to me”

That’s what my husband said to me just before his deployment to Northern Iraq in 2008. I was asking him how he felt about going, if he was resentful or anxious or feeling like he shouldn’t. With most people I know in the military, there is a feeling of “if my friends are going then I should be going too” but I think I was glad to hear that there was conviction in him that went beyond that.

I mention this not just because today is September 11th, but because there’s been discussions on my little corner of the Internet recently about young soliders and other recruits that enlisted after September 11th, and how sad it was that most of the recruits came from places very far from New York and D.C., the implication being, I think, that it was perhaps less their responsibility to fight than people who were more personally impacted by the attacks.

I think I understand the point — there could be, perhaps, closer examination about recruiting techniques and the reality that for all the opportunities the military offers, it perhaps unfairly targets the poorest among us for a more dangerous job than more fortunate people would need to consider, but mostly I just think… who cares if someone in the military comes from Texas or New York, isn’t the danger of the attacks coming here the same for all of us?

I lived a few blocks away from the White House in 2001, and the night of September 11th, I went to bed more scared than I have ever been in my life. I remember thinking how weird that was, that I was frightened to fall asleep; I kept my contacts in and my shoes nearby, because I honestly didn’t know if I’d get to sleep through the night. My stepdaughter has never, ever felt that way. And that’s why my husband went over, and his friends, and many, many other men and women who would likely rather be doing something else with their time, and I don’t think their sense of responsibility or duty is limited to how closely that specific day touched them.

Anyway, that’s what I’m thinking about today — how that day ten years ago changed the way I view the work of our military, certainly how it altered the cadence of my life in terms of being married to someone in the military, (and not to mention my career, which has included many years of work in the defense industry and side work with wounded veterans as part of the U.S. Paralympic program – areas that prior to September 11th were niche markets at best) and how ten years is such a long time, how my stepdaughter, if she remembers that day at all, perhaps only remembers it in the most theoretical of ways. And how I hope that is as close as she will ever have to think about a day like that — something very bad that happened, a very long time ago, with no idea that it could be her reality, too.

Me. I am. ME!!!! It’s suppose to be in the high 70s today – a nice change from yesterday’s 90 degrees– and I’m taking that as a sign to skip Crossfit tonight and go running in the woods.

In other fall running thoughts, I’ve been chatting a bit in the comments over at Health on the Run about last year’s Bourbon Chase and MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN do I want to do that again. Running through horse country in October with the promise of Bourbon at the end of your leg? Yes, please. I wonder if I can get my IM crew to rally next fall for a little runnin’ race….

Anyway! That’s what I’m thinking about today while I struggle through Friday. (Long week – home from Belgium (yes I know hard life) at 11pm on Tuesday and right to work Wednesday morning: TIRED.) I am getting excited for Labor Day weekend, both because of an extra day to catch up on sleep, but also because, finally, after 7ish months in our house, I am Ready To Nest. We are still living in white walls and lots of left over furnishings (did I tell you our house came furnished? It did. And we’re finally like, “yeah, actually that decorative bowl of pine cones has got to go.”) So it will be nice to actually have some time to do some heavy lifting and start making the house feel like ours. I mean, obviously, there’s no rush (seven months, y’all), but something snapped in me a few weeks ago where I was like “MUST PAINT ALL THE THINGS” and the sight of a what previously was a perfectly fine couch is now prompting me into a rage. So! Nesting it is this Labor Day weekend.

It seems fitting, given that last fall was all about uprooting and moving — I’m ready to make this fall about settling down and staying.

Whatchu got going on this weekend? Wanna help me paint?

We’re back! And it was awesome. It was also, as promised: cold, wet, expensive, and full of drunk Germans, but still: awesome.

I have no pictures of race week, as the camera that contains those pictures is currently undergoing extensive and obsessive editing of the exact right frames to upload so as to show you the most wonderful and descriptive pictures of cars going very very fast (in other words: my husband has that camera), but I do have pictures of our last day in Belgium, which we spent in Brussels.

(A note: the race itself was in Spa, which is about an 90 minutes outside of Brussels. The only thing – and I literally mean the only thing – this town has going on ever is this race, which means there aren’t a lot of accommodations close by; options for lodging include one hotel and tons of farmland that is used for camping. And while the 20,000 person (for serious) shanty town DID look like fun — I mean, come on, of course it did — it was 50 degrees and raining the whole time (WHOLE TIME), and sleeping outside while wet and cold did not appeal to me (shockingly). Also, what good is it traveling for a living if you can’t use hotel points for a free hotel in Europe?)

ANYWAY. The point is: we spent a lot of time driving back and forth, in various states of jet-lag and hangover, and on our last day in country, the last thing we wanted to do was drive anywhere ever again, so we spent the day bumming around Brussels. Since the point of the trip was the Formula One race and Mike’s birthday, I didn’t really schedule any “me” things – I didn’t want any expectations or schedules that might have conflicted with him spending as much time as humanly possible looking at a race track.  HOWEVER when Monday came around and the race was over and we had a whole day check out the city, I was totally stoked, because the one thing I really wanted to do in Brussels was check out the Rene Magritte Museum.

Hey, you know what’s closed on Mondays? Museums.

Le sigh.

We were now faced with a cold day and no plans (Seriously, Belgium, what gives with the weather? It’s August! Why so March-like?), so I reverted back to one of the best lessons my big brother ever taught me: “When you find yourself wandering around a foreign city, your best course of action is to find an Irish bar and stay there.”

Indeed:

So! Perhaps not the most culturally mature way to spend the day, but we did get to drink some good beer (alternating between high end Belgium brews and um, low end British brews), watch some soccer, play some pool, and make friends with random British tourists, who were fun for many reasons, not the least of which being that half of them spoke like Brad Pitt from Snatch. And, MOM, don’t worry, we didn’t spend the WHOLE day like college freshmen on a bender; we did actually spend a fair amount of time poking around some of the prettier parts of Brussels while Mike gave me some impromptu photography lessons (White balance! Who knew?) Of course, that wandering was in SEARCH of the Irish Bar but whatEVER I now have artistically pretty pictures of European streets so it COUNTS as CULTURE, GOD.

And just in case you were worried that I squandered a perfectly good European vacation drinking in a bar, I have a least one piece of evidence that I did, in fact, go to the race:

(This was taken during the one hour that it was actually sunny enough to warrant sunglasses.)

Anyway! All in all a wonderful few days. Mike was hugely geeked out to be at his favorite sport for the first time, and it was fun for me to see him so happy and giggly at what is surely a once in a lifetime experience. Having never really been a Formula One fan myself, I was pleasantly surprised at much I thoroughly enjoyed the entire race week, from the location (cold and wet aside, Spa is GORGEOUS) to the actual race itself, which found me up on my feet cheering and screaming and basically acting like a damn fool. I suppose I wish we’d “made more” of the opportunity to do some culture Europe-y things, but really, getting to spend an entire day with no agenda except to hang out with your best friend ended up being the perfect end to a great vacation.

It may have been wet, cold, expensive and full of drunk Germans but if you do nothing else before you shuffle off this mortal coil then you must visit Spa – and just don’t forget to try the frites and mayonnaise..

And we’re off!! Belgium was nice enough to host the Belgium Grand Prix in Spa-Francorchamps on my husband’s 40th birthday weekend, and while the planning of this trip led me down a dark, dark rabbit hole of Formula 1 message boards and forums (and I’ve got to tell you I never thought I’d be the type of person to go back and forth on the exact right place to stand on a track to fully appreciate the acceleration out of a turn [and yes I totally used the phrase "corner like it's on rails" at one point in these discussions but I don't think the drunk Germans got the reference], but: here I am. I am that person) I am so stupidly excited to see my husband experience his favorite sport live for the first time.

So! I’ve got my earplugs, a euro-trashy shirt collection, and a healthy respect for drunk Germans — it’s going to be awesome.

See you all on the flip side.

(To all potential thieves — don’t rob my house while we’re gone — it’s got a cranky German Shepherd guard dog and  badass house sitter, so let’s just let it be the house that got away, ok?)

Wow, so that whole post I just wrote about our local soccer team?

Their name is the RAPIDS. Not the Rockies.

And even better, my husband was sitting across from me as I typed it, WEARING THE TEAM SHIRT.

Accurate details are not why you come to the Internet, people.

Anyway, this whole professional soccer thing is starting to remind me of the first half of Major League:

Jake Taylor: I play for the Indians.
Chaire Holloway: Here in Cleveland? I didn’t know they still had a team!
Jake Taylor: Yup, we’ve got uniforms and everything, it’s really great!

Hey, remember when I told you guys I took my friend Ellie’s Ashtanga yoga class and it killed me dead? (I’m not going to link you there – that sentence is all you need: I took a yoga class, and then I couldn’t walk, the end.)

Well, Ellie, being a good sport that she is, listened politely to me running my mouth off about Crossfit, and then went and took a class herself. Behold:

Oh my God, Liz, I can’t walk. This CrossFit thing is going to kill me.

HA. This is EXACTLY how I felt after her yoga class – it took DAYS for my legs to function again. Clearly, we need to take up like, knitting, or competitive reading, or something that we can do that doesn’t involve bodily harm

****

We took my stepdaughter to see a Colorado Rapids* game last night. The what?, you say? Good question: Colorado Rapids are Denver’s professional soccer team, and judging by the fillrate of the stadium I would guess that most people don’t know we HAVE a professional soccer team, but we do, and it is awesome, and you go find your area’s professional soccer league and GO IMMEDIATELY. Here’s why:

1. Soccer is an AWESOME game. It’s fast paced [Liz glares pointedly at baseball], extremely athletic (read: the players look awesome, plus there’s lots of running into each other and aggressive play that doesn’t devolve into mayhem, um, the players look awesome [Liz glares pointedly at hockey]), and captivating to watch. I’m, at best, a lackluster sports fan, but even I was at the edge of my seat and jumping up and cringing and cheering and getting excited as the game moved across the field.

2. Soccer is CHEAP. You guys, Americans still don’t know that this sport is awesome. You can get same day tickets that are GREAT for on the cheap. If you avoid the way overpriced stadium food, you’re looking at a decently cheap night out. And as of checking this morning, it looks like seasons tickets for four people start at $200. For the SEASON. That’s 18 home games for $200. Just for fun, try to get season tickets to your NFL franchise. It ain’t working out to just over $10 a game for four people, I’m guessing.

3. The fans are INTENSE. We sat just off midfield and in between some seasons tickets holders, groups that clearly come to every game. They knew each other (“Dude, you missed a GREAT game last week! The refs were ridiculous!”), they knew the players (“Aw man, come on Drew! Look alive!”), knew enough about the other team to heckle appropriately (“Bet you wish you’d done more speed work NOW, huh Jeff? Go back to sea level where you belong!”) It was great. Soccer is their game and those players are their people. There are no real superstars in local soccer – not really – but it was so much fun to be surrounded by die hard fans – some people with their two year old (“next year we’re going to get him his own ticket, but for now he doesn’t weigh enough to keep the seat down, so we just hold him”), one guy with this three teenage daughters (“guys, no texting! They’re offsides! Watch!”) — it’s been awhile since I watch a live game surrounded by real fans. It was great.

In conclusion: go watch soccer. If you start now, by the time the next World Cup rolls around, you can be appropriately annoyed at the people who only remember that soccer is a sport every four years and legitimately roll your eyes and say “Ugh. Americans.“

**EDIT YES I KNOW THIS FIRST DRAFT OF THIS SPOKE OF THE ROCKIES, NOT THE RAPIDS. UGH, MY BAD.

My company recently implemented a new wellness initiative (God, that sounds so corporate: “wellness initiative”): They are asking every employee to undergo biometric health screening, which would provide you with you health stats consisting of: cholesterol, blood pressure, BMI, glucose, and body fat, as well as health counseling to go along with those results.  And when I say “they are asking” what I mean is “It’s voluntary, but if you do not participate, your health premiums will increase by $1,000/year.”

Ok. So. Ignoring the fact that using BMI as a way to assess health is a quick way to get my ass to clench, I generally think this program is a good idea. Sure, the  “counseling” you get regarding your results is simplistic at best — a short explanation of why blood pressure numbers need to be in certain ranges, a summary of ways to lower cholesterol, no real discussion of how or why to improve these things – but the intent is a good one.  It’s well documented that preventative medicine is cheaper (and better) than waiting until dire circumstance (meds for lowering blood pressure are WAY cheaper that medical care that is needed after a stroke), and if a large group of people (say, an entire company) can continually monitor warning signs of major health issues and deal with them up front, that group of people (company) would tend to find the overall cost of health care going down. That’s good; it means either cheaper health care for employees, or more money to invest back in them or the company. Very fair trade off, in my mind.

I also like this because our CEO has been very vocal about her own health struggles, her efforts to lose weight, deal with chronic illnesses, and what making health a priority has meant for her. I think it’s a genuine message from the company that health is a priority and something that is valued, both from a monetary perspective and from a quality of life perspective. So, sure: I can spend an hour of time (an hour of WORK time, which was sanctioned) to get a finger prick and a blood pressure cuff and whatever. No big. Right?

WRONG. Oh my STARS people are PISSED. They are sure that either a) their health results will be stored and used punitively for those who are in poor health; b) any money saved will be used to increase the salaries of “the executives” and not provide cheaper health care plans, and c) it’s not important, ANYWAY, GOD.

I am amazed by this reaction. First, it’s ILLEGAL for the company to store individual health information and/or use that information when assessing individual performance, and the medical professionals doing the screening, as well as HR, have been very clear on this fact. (Frankly, the idea that they would seems ridiculous to me, and it never even occurred to me that their could possibly be such a sinister motive until a conference room of people started discussing it, but I guess I am more of a pollyanna than I realized.) Second: if the company is continually telling you that they’re looking for ways to offer lower health care plans, and this is one way they could do it … why would they take the savings for themselves? There’s easier ways to swindle some cash, right? I mean, in my experience, when there is a chance to show notable savings in any corporate program, executives are really eager to do that, more so than they are to squirrel more cash away in their Swiss Bank accounts.

But mostly, I think, people don’t want to be lectured about health at work. Now, I’m pretty healthy, so I don’t really care – my baseline reaction was “Oh, I should probably check my cholesterol anyway, so I’m glad they’re making it easy for me to do so”, but if I wasn’t — if my health wasn’t strong and I felt like it was something I KNEW was off but I hadn’t DEALT with it yet, I don’t think I’d want a workplace reminder. In fact, I’d just want to go to work, do my job well, and go home, and not effing hear about it. Certainly everyone has the right to say “I’m not going to think about my blood glucose levels, because I don’t wanna” …right? Or is it our responsibility to acknowledge the fact that our health care system is TOTALLY EFFED and if we have the capability to improve our health now to avoid catastrophic illness later, we absolutely owe it to the greater good to do so? I mean, I guess, but … eeeeep.

If I look at this in terms of finances — if the company was basically requiring everyone to go through counseling for their personal finances — I find my reaction to be much more extreme. I don’t think that is an area of my life that I want discussed in a corporate setting. But why not? Certainly the country is in just as big a financial crisis as it is a health crisis, yes? Isn’t it better for the overall collective to have everyone take a preventative look at their finances and have them assessed? Of course. And yet: I’d be just as uncomfortable doing that at work as the majority of my coworkers are having their biomedical screening.

I’m not sure the point of all this, except to ask: Where is the limit of corporate responsibility? My company’s CEO prioritizes health and wants her employees to do the same, and in doing so she can save everyone money. That seems like a no brainer.  But is it? And where is the limit of OUR responsibility? Do we, as employees, have a responsibility to take measures to ensure we keep ourselves as healthy as possible in order to not over burden the system?