Buena Suerte

I was recently visiting Ecuador, and decided one day to go for a giant walk around the city of Quito. It looked like it might rain, but maybe not, so I rolled up my raincoat as tiny as it could get and stuffed it into my fanny pack, which you may recall I single-handedly made cool again back in 2014. And now they're all the rage. But I digress. Stuffing my raincoat in there meant I could no longer fit my wallet, so I grabbed about $160 in cash and my AMEX card and set out. 

I knew that I ought to keep my wits about me while I meandered the city and for the most part I didn't encounter that many people. I found a park and found an adorable group of old men playing giant marbles. I mean there was probably a better name for it but from what I could tell they were throwing giant balls into a circle and trying to knock the other balls out. Suddenly they all left! but they were just walking to the next spot to throw the balls from. It was cute. I wanted to sit next to this guy for a while but I didn't know if the tree would break and that would have made me die of embarrassment so I didn't do it. 

After that I started walking toward the basilica and I felt relieved because 1) I had been there the day before and 2) I was excited to try the best sandwich shop in Quito according to my friend and 2b) I was starving.

I felt something hit the top of my head, kind of like a tickle, and I looked up and saw nothing. A woman behind me said, in broken English, "oh, a bird pooped on you". I was like UGH CRAP, but the woman had some tissues and she was sort of helping me wipe some of it out of my hair. Another older man came up too and offered his tissues. Apparently some of the poop got on my sweater too, which made me sad because it's my cute favorite sweater and it's cream colored and I spent way too much money on it. I was trying to stay positive and so I said in Spanish "well they say it's good luck when a bird poops on you". And the old man laughed. He said "yep! it's good luck!"

Then a kid (who I had seen earlier and who looked very local but was carrying a paper map which I thought was really weird) came up and started helping me too. He explained that the poop was all over the back of my sweater and helped me take it off so he could show it to me. Except I was wearing my fanny pack like Micah taught me to, cross body and on my back - so he had to take my purse off and hand it to me so that he could then help me with the sweater. The purse had poop on it too YUCK and so then the lady started wiping that. 

The kid showed me my sweater and it was COVERED in poop - I had to take a picture because I couldn't believe how ruined my sweater was and although I was so sad I also found it funny and I wanted to get a picture of it. 

They cleaned me up as best as their tiny tissues would allow and then all went their separate ways. It was only then that I had a little cry because I was SO HUNGRY and now I would have to get a cab back to my apartment AND find some laundry soap because there was none AND there was poop on the back of my pants too and I didn't want to get a cab all dirty. So I took my hands and sort of wiped down the back of my pants and when they felt dry I hailed a cab.

Safely in the back of the taxi, I got a text message from AMEX. Did I try to buy $2500 worth of furniture from a store in Ecuador? Uhhhh, no --- and probably somebody had stolen my card number at some point on this trip or whatever...how irritating, so I called AMEX back to tell them I had not. The customer service representative asked me for the code on the back of my card and so I went in my fanny pack to grab that and realized my card was gone. And my cash. 

I figured that stupid kid with the map must have nabbed my card and cash while he was taking my fanny pack off. Oh that made me sad, especially since I now had no way to pay the cab. I was still on the phone with the customer service agent and started crying AGAIN because nobody likes being robbed.

I explained to the cab driver that I would was robbed and would have to go up to my apartment to get my cash card and then hit the ATM in the base of my building. Then I explained the whole story about getting pooped on by a bird and then robbed to the doorman, and to the man in the elevator and oh boy was I laugh-crying the whole time. Then I walked to the store to get laundry soap and got back to my apartment and used dishsoap in the sink to spot clean the sweater. 

As I was examining the pants, and the sweater and finally had some distance and perspective I realized what kind of a pterodactyl must have pooped that amount of poop on me and then disappeared into thin air...because I never actually saw a bird and then googled "bird poop robbery Quito" and this came up.

They got me. Good luck, my ass.

Deathiversary

Today was my mom's one year Deathiversary. That is to say she died one year ago today. I haven't said that out loud on this blog yet because I've just had probably the worst year of my life and your mom dying is never funny. And I guess I only like to write about things that are funny. 

Well - I'm back Jerry! Here's something funny:

I woke up at 4am on this, the morning of my dear mother's deathiversary to myself literally crapping the bed. Pooping in the bed. Full-on diarrhea poop. No warning. I wasn't sick. I didn't eat anything weird. Poop.

I knew my siblings might appreciate the irony and also the poop story (we are an intelligent humor bunch, us). So I sent them all a quick text on the old Mass-textomy.

Enjoy!

se kak in her han

This is how to say "She pooped in her hand" in Afrikaans. In Espanol: "se kaka in su mano". Swedish: "Huite hannen". I used to collect how many languages I could say that in. I was up to five at one point.

My most embarrassing story: Or, one of them. (I have learned to tell my own embarrassing stories, otherwise Kasey will tell them and not put the proper spin on it. As we know, she "likes to expose.") Anyway, one day, after getting home after having run a half marathon (brag), I took my shower and decided to air out and not get dressed immediately. So sue me. I wanted to check my online class or something and so I got in front of the computer. Now, and this is very important: I do not sit on chairs whilst naked. Especially on a fabric office chair EWWWWW. (FYI)

I was sitting on my foot.

Anyway again, I felt somebody knocking at my back door if you know what I mean and realized kind of urgently that I had to go number two. But, I knew that my computer takes a while to perform certain functions. And so, I decided to wait for the urgency to pass (like it allllllways does) and just click a few more times before running down to the bathroom. And then it hit me even more urgently. I had to go. Like right now. I started running. If you've been to my old house on Lake Nokomis, you know how long a distance it was for me to get from my room to the bathroom. It's like a mile. And --  so I ran and ran and ran and ran and squinched the entire way. I almost made it too, to the foot of the stairs. And then. All I could do was hold out my hand.

I mean I was trying to win and everything - who has time to "wait for the toilet"?
Getty images

Oh, We Have Lots of Fun at Work

Part of my job is to do training for the Processing team and so sometimes I do Webinars and that means opening up my screen for viewing to show people how to do stuff. I'm usually smart enough to take down anything I wouldn't want anybody else to see (celebrity news searches)...but I hadn't realized that when I receive a new email it temporarily pops up at the bottom right hand section of my screen as a preview.

 

My chair-breaking and purple-scarf-losing friend Tara noticed that and so she began to and continued sending me emails throughout the presentation with the word POOP in the subject line and sometimes the words POOP POOP POOP so that throughout training those words would appear for all to see. Over and over again.

Also, Debra thinks I'm hilarious. AND SHE'S RIGHT

I haven't yet decided upon my revenge plan, but for starters here is an embarrassing picture of her:

 

 

***And a disloyal reveal: She was Bedwetter Betty***




 

Whoever Said It's The Journey, Not the Destination Had it Only Partly Right

 

 

If you want to get to the other side of the world, here is a little warning: It takes a long time. You will sleep for an hour at a stretch on the plane in a strange contortion of your body that is anything but comfortable. You will brush your teeth in the airport bathroom, and then wash out your armpits in the same sink. Your underwear will be very dirty and you will opt not to change them because the next pair are going to get just as dirty anyways. You will stand in one million lines behind one million idiots. The plane will shake and rumble and you will not grab Carol from Winona or Matthew from Melbourne or the husband of the lady from France's hand but you will want to, and you will give yourself permission to at the last minute when things get serious. You will put your passport back in your purse even though somebody will need to see it again in 30 seconds. You will ride a train all the way to gate D and then find out your plane leaves from gate B. You will make friends on that train with John and Tricia from Nashville, en route to Italy to stay for the 9th time with friends they made just by eating at their restaurant. You will make such good friends with them, in fact, that after the six minute train ride, you will hug them and he will kiss your cheek and they will wish you luck and tell you to be safe and you will say have fun! and you will wish you could see them again but you can't. You will ask the flight attendants to please let you go up and down the spiral staircase because you've never been on a double-decker airplane before and they will let you and then you remember that you totally have been on one, you think, with your sister Kim, but you can't be sure. Maybe you're just thinking of Snakes on a Plane. Some lady will cut the customs line in front of you and your eyebrows will raise because WHATS THE HURRY and then her husband will see your eyebrows raise and you will feel bad because WHATS THE BIG DEAL and then you will wave your hand GO AHEAD and then you will both laugh. You will put a sticker on the bandanna you brought to wipe sweat and catch sneezes but mainly to act as an eye mask on the plane and it will say "please wake me up for meal service". You will help Carol from Winona with her seatbelt, her headphones, her TV, the bathroom, and her Immigration card. You will choose the salmon bisque but only actually eat the mashed potatoes because you are a fake vegetarian but really you're just not hungry because WHAT TIME IS IT? You will watch Lucy, Edge of Tomorrow, and Boyhood and several episodes of 30 Rock and you will get mad when the captain interrupts any one of them to tell you something important in another language. You will decide that fine, you will watch Guardians of the Galaxy, but only because other people are watching it around you and WHATS THE DEAL WITH THE RACCOON but you will be too tired and you will fall asleep instead. You will read a half-chapter of your book at a time and then fall asleep and then put it down and not remember anything you read. Matthew from Melbourne will tell you about his severe nut allergy and how on the way to London he had to ride the plane connected to an oxygen tank for four hours and you'll feel bad that you made fun of his gluten free sandwich. "It's all they had for me", he'll say, and you'll selfishly take the two free seats between you but unselfishly put your head next to him and your butt far away because you're feeling gassy. You will ask strangers to watch your things while you go to the bathroom and you will hope for the best. You will be seen in this getup because you're going to Africa but the airplane is freezing, and you won't even be the slightest bit ashamed:

 

Your body will say, "wait a minute, where are we?!?" and refuse to poop after teasing you with feelings of having to poop. You will hold your head high because you are a seasoned traveler who carried on and it takes only seconds to get your shoes off and your liquids out and your suitcase up on the X-ray machine belt and this being in airports feels SO GOOD because you're GOING SOMEWHERE and you will laugh at yourself and your ego and dip your head a little because it was probably holding itself up too high. You will make jokes with every. single. person. you encounter but less than 6% of them will laugh or even get it but who cares, you're GOING SOMEWHERE! You will wish you had the courage to ask the men in Dubai who wear those beautiful white robe-dresses to the floor with beautiful checkered scarves on their heads for a picture but you don't because they're a culture, not a tourist attraction plus you're worried because you have ignorant prejudices about their opinions of women but later you wish you had gotten that photo anyways.

You will patiently wait until everybody gets their bags from the overhead compartments but HURRY UP ALREADY JEEZ and then finally you will get off the very last plane and you will want to kiss the ground but you don't because EW and then you will see this...:

 

 

 

...and you will cry a little because it's so good to be here and you're sleep-deprived and then you will arrogantly walk right by all of the people trying to get you to rent a car because you thought ahead and reserved one and the steering wheel will be on the right and the stick shift on the left and you will grind the gears in front of the man and you will hit the windshield wipers instead of the blinkers but who cares because YOU'RE HERE.

 

 

 

 

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Vol. 9

So I lay in the hospital, in and out of sleep for a day-and-a-half while nurses took care of my every need. Summer brought movies and I slept through them and there was a TV but I could barely hear it plus I was so SLEEPY.

I got to have broth (and fell asleep while eating it) and then they gave me a menu and I could pick whatever I wanted! I wanted macaroni and cheese. I mean there were so many options, it felt very luxurious. In retrospect I'm sure that macaroni and cheese was probably $475 but it was free at the time and that was pretty cool.

They kept telling me to WALK WALK WALK because you gotta get your poop churning so you can leave the hospital. I mentioned earlier that they pumped me up with CO2 and that's really uncomfortable plus my guts had just been all cut up and so I was working really hard on farting-slash-pooping. The more gas I could get out of there, the less pain and more relief I would feel. It became my "job" to fart. So they taught me how to roll to my side and then get out of bed without using any stomach muscles and a nice MA called Pemba or Phema was assigned to take me for a walk but I was scared and so I held his hand and we chooched* all around the corridors of the hospital and it was SO romantic to be holding hands with a man, even though he was quite elderly. It's so rare for me to get to hold hands and I loved it! I was highly embarrassed though when Pemba or Phema put me back into bed and I think he saw my naked butt.

I saw this one jerk and he was choochin' so fast all by himself and I was like, "you think you're SO COOL without your helper and your IV stand" and he was like, "don't worry, you'll get there" (which was a pretty nice thing for him to say, I gotta admit) and he was right! Eventually, I didn't need my helper and then I didn't need my IV stand and then it was me choochin' so fast all by myself.

So. Farting.

One time, the nurse was in my room and I farted really loudly for like 17 seconds. We held eye contact the entire time, me embarrassed but excited, and she a cheerleader looking at me like "keep going! you're amazing!" and I did keep going and then I felt like I had to go number 2 RIGHT NOW and so I scooched to the the edge of the bed and rolled onto one side and slowly got up. I started to walk to the bathroom and looked back to make sure my tubes were all in order and I saw that I had pooped a streak from the center to the edge of the bed.

I wanted to DIE. 

The nurse was still in my room! "I pooped the bed", I told her from behind the bathroom door, humiliated.

"IT'S ALREADY GONE. DON'T BE EMBARRASSED."

"OK. thanks. I'm also going to need a new gown."

And that is why nurses are just the nicest people in the entire world. 

Miyo, who REFUSED to get in bed with me even though I begged and begged. She preferred to sleep on the RADIATOR than cuddle with me. Little turd.

These two, I did not beg.

*chooch is a Shash-term, which means walk, basically. Go for a chooch. Just choochin', etc.

A Text From My Sister Keri

'I felt sorry for little Dickie last night and so I didn't put him to bed in his kennel. He was so happy he left me a smiley face to wake up to. (I promise I did not alter it.)"

Appendectomy Aside...

Maybe you did and maybe you didn't notice the weird sink in a previous post about my Appendectomy...

This weird sink:

I am SO proud of myself for figuring out how to get those arrows on there.

We found it very strange and "middle-of-nowhere-Wisconsin"(?) that there was this extra weird sink and so we tried to figure out its' purpose. Upon closer inspection, we found out there was totally a poop-streak in it.

Now...how?...I mean, it's not a place you can sit down for a nice poop, and so the obvious conclusion is that this is the sink where the nurse empties the bedpan, right? So it's like a vicarious toilet. Doesn't that seem like the only logical explanation? And so, then logically, wouldn't it make sense, also, that the SAME NURSE would have absolutely noticed the poop streak and given it an extra flush? 

Is it just me? Or is that what should have happened? 

Exhibit A

This was an obvious photo to stage. Beata was so scared. HA!

"Beata! Relax. You're not going to get poop on you! Now don't laugh."

Stress on Vacation

 

Toilets are pretty advanced in Japan, as I've mentioned before. They will sing to you, they will wash your butt, or your front-butt, if you prefer, and sometimes they are a video game and you win if you hit the right targets with enough force.

 

But sometimes they are just downright practical, like the one pictured here. In order to save water and space, I think. The sink is attached and only activates itself when you flush. Which, for the anxious Minnesotan(!) only creates the following stresses:

 

1) hurry!

2) is the water dirty?!

3) hurry!

4) like, is it recycled poop-water?

5) it's attached to the toilet...

6) HURRY!!

 

 

Why is life so hard sometimes?

 

It Was the Pizza Man!

On Tuesday, I was very ironically on my way to a massage appointment when BAM! An off-duty pizza man rear-ended me. Then my car hit the car in front of me.

And then, my sturdy little reliable eight-year-old-never-had-a-scratch-one-owner 2005 Acura TSX was no more.

It's funny. I left work for the massage appointment, long overdue and very anticipated, missed my exit and then took several wrong turns. I was going to be twenty minutes early and ended up losing 30 minutes in bad traffic. It was bumper-to-bumper. There was time to notice people and I noticed the pizza man. I smiled at him because I liked his sun hat with chin strap and also how his long, long beard was braided. I got in front of him in a fit of competition at a stop light and then several blocks later the sun got in his eyes and he didn't see me and now I don't have a car and my back and neck really hurt. Life is funny sometimes.

It happened so fast! One minute nothing and the next, I looked in my rear view mirror after a horrible crash and saw a braid, a beard, and a deployed airbag. I pulled over and got out to make sure everybody was OK. They were. We started exchanging insurance info and then suddenly I felt a strange feeling...I left my drivers' license with the bearded man and RAN across the street to a children's center where I begged for a bathroom and then had a bout of explosive diarrhea. I ALMOST DIED, OK?!?

The sun really was blinding.

I was able to drive home by propping a taillight where I thought people could see it. The next day, my sweet little basement neighbor man texted to say he saw my car and would help with whatever. We cleaned out the car because I had a feeling it would be totaled (which made me cry) and he followed me to my favorite mechanic Dave Halverson at my favorite body shop in Minneapolis, Halvey's on Chicago. Dave was pretty sure it was totaled too, so I gave him my keys (which made me cry). I guess I'll never take that solo road trip up to Alaska I've been dreaming about. I was gonna put a mattress in the trunk, and now there is no trunk. 

My neighbor drove me home and then a rental car was delivered by Halvey's people. Slightly painless. Pun not working in that scenario.

Injury back stance.

A comment on how I always get people to stage photos: I make them! Do you think Dave wanted to be in this photo? No! But I reminded him about how I almost died and how my unborn children almost didn't have a mother and he was forced to oblige.

I also never got a "sexy lady pose" with the car. Well, it's better late than never!

Where is the sexy lady though?

Look at this sweet "sorry you got in accident and here's a return on that butter we borrowed three weeks ago" gift from J & K:

Since the accident, I've been somewhat emotional. OK, I've always been emotional. But now maybe even more than usual. I have been insisting that everybody give me a hug, even like, all the loan officers at my office. All I want in my life since the accident is hugs. Then, today I got a voicemail from the insurance adjuster and he said, "Wow. I can't believe you're OK. He really blasted you," and I started bawling, because. Yes. The pizza man did blast me. And it hurt. And somebody agreed. And I don't know if I'm OK. I'm happy and alive, I guess. Dramatic much? I get to be. I almost lost life and limb in that three-car pileup.

Enough negativity! I like to look at bright sides. For example, my neighbor found a sock I had been looking for FOREVER! And then Dave found the OTHER SOCK TO THAT SOCK! 

Tune in for more poop stories. This blog is about poop, after all.

I Told You

 

 

We had some serious snow last night and after my dad got it all plowed up an unidentified animal trotted up our driveway, peed, pooped twice and dropped little bits of blood everywhere and then ran behind the garage and into the woods.

This is like Christmas for my dad. What kind of an animal was it? What did it eat last? Why was it bleeding? Where was it going? We walked up the driveway to inspect the poop and get some questions answered. I told you he's always digging in animal poop!

Tomorrow those gloves will probably be hugging me. Ew!!

 

See the little dots of blood? I suggested maybe it was a girl animal during it's embarrassing time.

You have to smell it to see what kind of animal it was. Duh.

"Can't I do anything without you taking pictures?"

 

 

The verdict? Probably a coyote. There was deer hair in the poop, which was a good clue. Also he said it smelled just like coyote poop.

 

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Flush and Brush

In Kathmandu, Nepal, Summer and I contacted some friends of friends and were invited for dinner. We hit it off and stayed up laughing and talking way too late and ended up spending the night. In the morning, we had to get back to our hostel and get Summer off to the airport for her flight to London.

But somebody was knocking at my back door. Hard. I didn't want to use their toilet, because their bathroom had a one foot space on top of the door and so even with the door shut, it was technically open. And everybody was just outside the bathroom finishing up breakfast. But, I had no choice. It was urgent.

Actual photo of their bathroom.

 

I did my best and deepest squat and against my preference proceeded to make embarrassing toilet noises. (When that happens to me my defense strategy is to laugh, in case anybody heard and then at least they'll know that I thought it was funny and am not trying to hide it.)

Then I flushed. The slow trickle of water was no match. Nothing.

I flushed again.

At this point I had no choice but to yell out to my hosts: "What do I do? It won't go down!"

Their response, in unison: "FLUSH AND BRUSH!"

I looked in the corner and saw the blue brush next to the toilet. (You can see it in the above photo.) I flushed. And I brushed. And I washed the turd down.

 

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The Nature Walk

 

My memories of walking in the woods with my dad usually include boots that are too big for me, walking super fast but never catching up to him, and if I ever did catch up, getting hit in the face with branches I wasn't ready for. Also, he liked to route me past disgusting dead animals like rotting cows with distended bellies or deer carcasses chained to trees for who knows what reason, pretending he didn't know they were there, just to see my reaction.

 

But there are happy memories too. We always had to stop and look at Lady's Slippers, or pick wild flowers for my mom and sometimes we got lucky and saw something amazing like a brand new baby spotted fawn. I'll never forget how he used to stoop down and stick his finger in some animal's fresh poop, and then lick his finger. He'd think for a minute and then say something like, "he went that-a-way", or "he was here three minutes ago." I always thought he was SO smart. My dad. Such a genius Woodsman!

 

I learned later in life he really wasn't tasting the poop. He was just sticking his index finger in it, and then licking his middle finger. It's a great trick.

 

I tried it yesterday on a nature walk in Nepal. Summer and I went on a safari with five Hungarians, and we walked single file behind our guide, who carried a stick. In hindsight I suppose it was really stupid that we eight were out looking for rhinoceros and tigers armed only with one stick, but, When in Nepal... Anyway, our guide stooped down to look at some poop, which I took to be tiger poop. I decided to use my dad's trick after mentally calculating that tiger poop on my finger would be worth the laugh I'd get.

 

Except nobody saw me do it besides Summer. And it was wild boar poop.

 

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An Email From my Mom, About my Dad

As with all email, you'll have to read this one from the bottom up. It seems somebody just had part of her lung removed and somebody else is really bugging her lately?


Re: blog comments


November 27, 2012 7:18 pm

hahaha. OK, nevermind. It was quite cathartic writing it. Yes, you can tell Summer I knew a big word.

So of course I looked it up just now to be sure and it was quite a perfect word for me to use in this instance. But look at the #2 definition...I must say the catharsis was not such that I actually had to poop...close, but no banana log.

ca·thar·tic

[ kə thrtik ]

1. purifying: producing a feeling of being purified emotionally, spiritually, or psychologically as a result of an intense emotional experience or therapeutic technique
2. having purgative effect on bowels: describes a medicine that causes emptying of the bowels
3. purgative medicine: a medicine that causes emptying of the bowels

Synonyms: purifying, cleansing, liberating, releasing, intense, emotional

On 11/27/2012 8:03 AM, Kady Hexum wrote:

Hahahahahahaha  mom I don't know this sounds pretty passive aggressive!!Sent from my iPad

On Nov 26, 2012, at 10:44 PM, Dianne Hexum <dhexum@wiktel.com> wrote:

 I was so irritated. I had an extra long comment all typed out and then couldn't figure it out and it got lost.DANG!!So I am going to type it here and maybe you could do a whole new blog on it:

 On May 4, 2012, We Don't Know if We're Mad or Happy

 dbs had posted that he thought cement pouring would be a great reality show subject.
 dbs: I think you have something there. A reality show about cement pouring could be truly entertaining. Picture this possible scene: The guys are ready...the truck is backing up to the forms. The chute comes down and here comes the cement. But wait...here comes the husband/homeowner. Interested...in the way...and talking.Yakking yakking yakking. The guys are scooping, shoveling, smoothing. Nodding, smiling, yupping. The husband/homeowner doesn't seem to notice the eye-rolling and glances as they wonder who is going to get this guy to move or shut up.

 The camera pans to the house where the wife/homeowner is looking out the window with her own issues she is battling. Should she help these guys....or not? The problem is that one of the guys is leaning on his shovel...talking. OK...that's it. She marches out on the deck and tells her man to get out of the way and quit talking so much. Let these guys alone so they can work. Oh great, here comes the electrician...why can't they all come when he is uptown? The husband/homeowner gleefully hustles over thinking that he can surely tell that last story again...this guy will love to hear it (at $85 per hour)

 Yes, dbs...you could have something there.

-----No virus found in this message.Checked by AVG - www.avg.comVersion: 2013.0.2793 / Virus Database: 2629/5919 - Release Date: 11/25/12

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Dumped

As a divorced woman, I'm no stranger to rejection. I've even come to expect it, which is precisely why I sabotage any budding relationship possibilities. However I was completely taken aback by a particularly hurtful email I received from an acquaintance in response to a sincere inquiry looking for news of his safety after a natural disaster.

While staying on Kotor Bay in Montenegro, I decided to go ocean-kayaking. Not satisfied with the hostel's published price of $36 for the day and no option for an hourly rate, I walked out of the walled city and headed for the shore to see about finding a better deal.

When I got there I found a few kayaks locked up on a stand, for rent by the most adorable 20-something Montenegran boy. He was sitting in a fold-up camping chair feeding a stray cat. Awwwww! I asked him how much. $7 for one hour! (Money saving tip: buy direct from the source.) I only needed an hour anyway. He gave me the most hilarious tutorial about "how to kayak" even after I told him I was an old pro. He called my butt my 'bottom' when describing how to get in and out of the kayak. Awwwwww! And then offered to keep my shoes so they wouldn't get wet. Awwwwwww! I gave them to him, but tried to keep the little socks I wear, because, gross. He grabbed them out of my hand. "Oh. Um. No...I'll keep them...gross!" I said as he held them in his hand and walked them over to my shoes.

"How could I be grossed out by the socks of such a beautiful woman?" he said. Awwwwwwwww!

I set out.

I really enjoyed myself, at times taking photos with one hand and paddling with the other. When I returned the kayak, the adorable Montenegran boy remarked, surprised, "You have beautiful eyes." (AWWWWWWWWWW!)

I ended up chatting-slash-flirting with him for quite a while (obviously) and later in the conversation he said something again about my green eyes (they're blue). I joked about wanting a baby -- as is my custom with much-younger men. We laughed as he told me how when he arrived to work that morning, he found a human turd right in front of his kayak stand and he was pretty sure somebody did it on purpose. Oh, how we laughed. (My kinda humor).

I helped him bring all the boats in. After he closed up shop, he offered to walk me back to my hostel since he was going that way anyway. I couldn't refuse when he offered to buy me food at a sidewalk meat stand. I could, however, refuse when he offered to take me to his parents' house so we could 'continue' our 'date'. He said I was overthinking it.

Three weeks later, I heard of the 4.5 magnitude earthquake near Kotor Bay and so I sent a "hope you and your family are safe"-type email, in reply to which he sent a lengthy response filled with smiley faces and the following direct quote:

"I am alive and well, but it was rough :-) However, I don't want to stay in touch. [...] I hope you will understand and be cool about it, and remember me as the funy [sic] guy from Kotor :-)"

I replied:

"I hope nobody poops on your office today. And by that of course I mean I hope somebody poops on your office today."

I was dumped via email by someone with whom I'm not even involved.

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Speaking of Trains...

We rode overnight buses to get from London to Paris, then to Berlin and then to Krakow and it was pretty awful. Espacially for Ross, whose 6 foot 3 inch body could not find a comfortable sleeping position. And so for the first day in the new city, poor Ross needed to catch up on his Zs. We decided to start taking trains as soon as we could afford them, and the first opportunity presented itself from Krakow to Bratislava. And you know how THAT went. Well, we ended up in Budapest and loved the crap out of it but couldn´t stay forever. We decided to buy train tickets bound for Croatia, but at the last minute decided to pop on over to Slovenia to a lovely city called Ljubljana on our way. I pronounced it Jub Jahna to the train station ticket seller lady and she corrected me. It is Lyoob Lyahna. Well Excuuuuuuuse me. Anyway, I heard great things about it from friends at the hostel and also from the interwebz so we headed there and I´m actually typing this from the computer at our hostel in Slovenia, which has a MEMORY CARD holder thingee and thats very exciting for me as I´m having trouble with my iPad as you know.

 

(Mz onlz complaint is that the y and z kezs are backwards on this kezboard and as zou can see itćs difficult for me to tzpe anzthing legible unless I conform to their fascist wazs.)

 

So a funny thing happened on the train today. I went to use the bathroom and when I stood at a certain angle I noticed daylight coming in through the toilet. The toilet didnt flush at all, it just dumped onto the tracks.  EW!!!

 

Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT lay down or touch any part of your body to the inside part of any train tracks in Hungary.



 

Look closely and you might see piles of human poop and puddles of human pee.

Ross is writing in his journal every single day.

Flush Boy

Ross and I stayed our first three nights in England at a friend's place out in Cornwall. Brett and his dad Luke were amazing hosts. We were very well taken care of, and had comfy warm beds to sleep in. I liked most how Brett knew after getting off the plane from Minneapolis and driving six hours out to his place I would need a beer immediately upon arrival. 

We were showered with delicious cous-cous/pork and chicken/bacon salads for dinner and sausages, waffles and tea for breakfast.

Are you kidding me? After this salad I asked Brett to marry me.

Unfortunately there was a problem with Brett's toilet. The flusher was complicated and as it turned out I was the only one in the house who was unable to get it to work...and I'm no toilet dummy. (I know how to take the tank topper off and work on the insides to make a toilet flush). But this one completely baffled me. No matter how many times Luke told me to tickle the handle I just couldn't get it. Anyway, soon the story went something like this: I would "go" and then yell "Oh, Flush Boy!" and Ross would come and flush.

Poor Ross.

This is a photo of a "privy" that I took at a museum. There was little plastic poop inside. Gross!

Pete and the Beautiful Hard Polished Rock

I was complaining on facebook, as I sometimes do, that I accidentally sat on a pee-toilet-seat today. This would normally NEVER happen to me because I am a pretty diligent inspector/liner. But I was out of sorts and very stressed out (it was another 14-hour-day folks. This round-the-world trip isn't going to save for itself.)

Anyway, my friend made me feel a little better when he reminded me it's not as bad as what happened to my brother Pete when he was a little boy.

Apparently Pete was walking along and found a beautiful hard polished rock in the snowbank. He liked it so much he wanted to keep it. So he picked it up with his little kid hand and stuck it in his little kid coat pocket.

Two days later he stuck his little kid fingers back in his little kid coat pocket to find that beautiful hard polished rock and pulled out a handful of poop.

"That boy ain't right."

Grandma's Marathon 2007

In an effort to give up on shut down my Super Athlete site, I'm moving a few stories over here to A Lady Reveals Nothing. I wrote this email to my friends and family after having finished my second marathon, Grandma's 2007:

Well, I finished. Here are the official stats:

6980 People finished. I was 6388th.

2565 Females finished. I was 2251st.

My clock time was 5:39:19, but my actual chip time was 5:33:28.

These numbers are nothing to be proud of, but I told my nephew Miles that I won.

A couple of notable items:

• The female winner, Mary Akor, who is exactly my age (30), finished before I hit the half-way point.
• Last year when I trained for Twin Cities I logged a total of 314 miles. I finished that marathon in 4:53:01.This year, while training for Grandma's, I logged a total of 155 miles. (I wasn't able to train as hard due to some injuries laziness.)
• I got mentioned on KFAN on Friday. Not by name, but I was at Famous Dave's where they were broadcasing. Dan Barreiro and I were chatting and I mentioned that I had run Twin Cities and the last six miles were so emotional for me that I couldn't stop crying. I cried for the last six miles and couldn't stop. So, during his broadcast, he was talking about how runners always want to tell you about their bowel movements or gastrointestinal issues during the marathon. He said, "I just talked with a girl, who told me she blubbered the last six miles. She said she was sad, happy, emotional, in pain, feeling awesome, and it made her cry. That I can deal with. Tell me about that. Don't tell me about your poop problems." (or something to that effect.) If he only knew me, right? Also I met Chris Hawkey, he was running his first marathon and cohosts the KFAN morning show with Mike Morris. He was very nice and I actually got to have dinner with he and his wife and their kids as part of a larger group on Friday night.
• I got a signed copy of Dick Beardsley's book, Stay the Course. He set the course record back in 1979 I think.  2 hours 9 minutes! No one has ever beaten that record.
• When I got to the starting line I had to go to the bathroom, so I stood in line at a biffy behind about 40 people. When I finally got in there I tucked my sunglasses in my waist pack, and of course they fell on the floor. Right below the urinal. In a puddle of pee. Thank goodness I had a purell wipe or I would have had to throw them away.
• Entering the starting area was very surreal. There were 7500 people. People as far in front of me as I could see, and people behind me as far as I could see. This of course is when I jumped up and down to see, because just standing there I saw someone's back in front of me and someone's chest behind me. haha
• I ran the first six miles in one hour (or, 10 minutes per mile). So I definitely went out of the gate too fast - my overall average was about 12:47 minutes per mile.
• It was HOT. And SUNNY. The temp at the start of the race was 66 degrees and finished in the high 70's. I really like it to be in the 50's or maybe 60's for a long run.
• Burt Carlson is 81 years old. I saw him throughout the race, sometimes me passing him, sometimes him passing me. It was his 25th Grandma's, and his 287th Marathon overall. Still I felt like if I didn't beat him I was going to have to give up running forever. Well I did beat him. By like five minutes, too. Take that ya ol' sucker!
• I met Al Franken. I saw him along the course twice. The first time it was too late and I didn't get a chance to say hello, but the second time I saw him I was on the same side of the road as him. I introduced myself and we shook hands. That was pretty cool. I felt bad because his hands were like perfectly dry and soft and I was sweating like a pig, had rubbed vaseline under my armpits to prevent chafing, had wiped my sweaty nose (not the snotty part of my nose, but the sweaty part of my nose) a million times, had high fived about 500 runners, in other words my hands weren't clean. At all.
• I saw two ambulances, one lady down with people hovered around, another lady delirious and not able to put her shoe back on. I saw a guy running with the American flag, I saw a guy running backwards, I saw a girl with huge underwear over her shorts that said "granny panties". I saw two speed walkers. I saw a bunch of "50 staters" - guys who had run a marathon in all 50 states. It was such a fun, cool experience. I'm glad it's over though. A big Thank You to Marie M., who ran the entire race - every single step - with me and she never minded if I needed to stop and rest or stretch or whatever.
• My sister Kasey came to watch me, and she saw a guy whose shirt said "Phillipines". So she screamed at the top of her lungs "GO PHILLIPINES!" and then her husband Ben told her that his shirt actually said, "Phillipians 3:16".

Stop here if you don't like my potty humor stuff.

• On Sunday, the day after the race, Kasey and I went to the public hotel restroom quick and when we walked in were hit in the face with the most horrible stench you have ever smelled. We walked around the corner to find a pile of what looked like vomit on the floor of the first stall. Upon further inspection, it wasn't vomit at all. Somebody had to go number two and didn't make it. There was stuff on the floor, the toilet, everywhere. We went back into the hallway and informed a janitor, and he got on his walky-talky and we heard him say he had a "code brown" in the ladies room. How funny is that?