Just Another Manic Monday

The Bangles were oh so right, weren't they?

Thank you to everyone who has given me advice on plantar fasciitis. I have been stretching it, wearing shoes at most times (Heather, I wear my Keens like you wear Birks), and I am going to buy new shoes and the sock thing this week.

I ran a good 9 miler early Saturday morning and it was lovely. On the upside, I found someone to join me for my long runs this summer. She is N's school science teacher and I have seen her a few times at races, we have similar paces and similar goals, we are both moms of 2 kids, roughly similar ages and we live near each other. A perfect marriage! And, she offered! How great is that? Apparently, she has seen a recent race time of mine and she also has made a few comment to fellow teachers about a popular local race about 7 months ago. It's nice that someone noticed! And it's nice to know I am not the only one who checks out acquaintances finish times...

I just had a parent-teacher conference with two of N's teachers. While my child excels at math, he struggles in reading and appears to have a listening problem. Well, I knew about #3, but apparentely it hampers his learning ability. They recommended we check out a learning center that will test his cognitive learning ability and work with him to provide him the tools to help him. They did not believe ADHD was an issue as he has no trouble focusing on math.

And you know what? It just hit me. When his father takes N to school, he inevitably lets N have a doughnut and a cholocate milk. Not that too much sugar could harm a child's ability to process and learn, huh? Well... I may have ammunition for this to be the exception rather than the rule.

I did order N his first library card! An auspicious moment, no? I plan on enrolling him in the summer reading challenge to motivate him to read over the summer.

Hillary as Anti-Feminist

Camille Paglia's article in the Telegraph, Why Women Shouldn't Vote for Hillary is well written and well argued case of why women should not vote for Hillary Clinton simply based on gender. It does not address the issues of the candidates and whether Clinton's positions are meritorious, but it fully addresses the issue of feminism and the argument of women not voting for a fellow woman as a traitorous act.

More than anyting, I appreciate that I had to refer to the dictionary four times when reading the article. When was the last time you had to do that? To read an article that assumes I am intelligent is almost a novelty sometimes.

Tax Day + One

On the day after tax day, do you wonder what your hard-earned income tax money is going to do for the country and your state? Do you wonder how this country is going to be able to afford everything that the presidential candidates are promising the people of the U.S., but are not explaining how these programs will be funded?

Clive Crook discusses this in the Financial Times' article The Fiscal Consequences of the Bush Administration. Good reading, but no answers, more questions. Questions that scare me.

Third Times a Cliche

This is my third attempt at a post today. There are two other drafts that I am working on that need more time and focus than I have right now.

Adrift in a sea of responsibilities and deadlines describes my mental state. Responsibilities of having a family, a business and being a volunteer. A state of sobriety that threatens to drown the person I am and the things I like to do and the person I would like to be.

Summers when I was young, I would read anything I could get my hands on. I would ride my bicycle to the library and check out as many books as I could, return them within a week, check out more. I would read on the back porch on a lawn chair, legs propped on the wrought iron rails. I would read on my belly on a towel in the green bermuda grass. I would read in bed until the book crashed onto my face when I fell asleep.

Every now and then, I would do chores, but only between chapters of whatever I was reading. I would tell my mom or dad about what I was reading. They both professed to love reading and I knew my dad did. I had actually seen him read books. My mom would read the newspaper cover to cover, focusing mostly on the business section. She also professed to love books, but I can only recall one book I have ever seen her read - Mary Higgins Clark's Where are the Children?

I wondered how she could love to read, yet forsake reading? How could she choose to clean the kitchen or fold the laundry over an escape to another world? How could she watch Johnny Carson before falling asleep instead of reading a chapter of a fabulous book?

Now, as I have children and no time and no hobbies and nothing to set me apart other than running, I understand. There is simply not enough time in the day to do everything that you want to do. You have to choose and sometimes those choices are not what you would choose if you only took care of yourself.