What Was I Thinking?

Over the weekend, I got it into my head to run the 32nd annual "Four on the Fifth" road race in Chester, Connecticut. Matt and I thought it was a great idea, at first. And then we saw the weather report: heat advisory for the state, 90s all week, humidity, you get the picture. The news showed pics of people headed to the beach, the pool, the cooling centers... Matt wisely expressed doubt, and when I insisted, he admitted his fear that I would collapse of heat stroke.

I figured it would be fine at 10:oo am in the morning. It wasn't supposed to hit 90 until at least 11:00. Foolishly, I didn't really pay close attention to the humidity (which I never really understand anyway), but I did see that the number posted on weather.com was lower than the humidity in Minnesota yesterday, when my friend Robert ran (and finished - kudos, RC!) his first half-marathon. So despite his forewarning that running in this heat was hard, last night I decided to go ahead with it. I ran the Reindeer 5K in 19 degree weather, and I had run 4-5 miles a couple times this year; I could do this. What the hell, right?

What the hell was right. My husband wisely opted out in favor of a trip to the-greatest-ever-pizza-filled Brooklyn. I was sweating before I even started running the first half-mile, which was all in the sun. Then, there was the well-known fact that this road race is difficult: well-known to everyone but me. After the sun-filled first half mile, there was a mile and a half uphill (the elevation map was posted on line...). And, even after hydrating last night and all day, I've had a headache ever since the race finished.

But, Chester is a beautiful little town, which my mom and I had never visited before. On the main street, there are lovely 19th century mill buildings converted to shops and restaurants; a band played for the spectators, and the local coffee shop, The Villager, sold freshly squeezed lemonade and iced hazelnut coffee, my mother's favorite. All along the route, families hooked up their sprinklers and hoses to cool us down when we ran by. Little children cheered us on and held their hands out for high fives. Teenage volunteers passed out water cups every half mile or so. And best of all, I finished, not with the best of times (47:25), but considering it was my longest race so far and I never stopped jogging on those hellish hills, I was satisfied.

I'm here in Connecticut every 4th of July. I thought maybe I could do this every year, thinking that maybe it won't be as hot next year and that Matt and I can train for the hills a little bit, which I should do anyway. But then I met a older man who ran the first 30 of these races; he told me that most years, it's hotter.

I think next time I hear that there's a heat advisory on the way, I'll head for the neighbor's pool instead.

*photo credit: my mom

A Visit Home to Connecticut

My mom thinks that I don't think of her home in Connecticut as my home because I didn't grow up there, and in fact, I've never really lived there, outside of a couple of weeks of college vacation. I don't think of Wallingford as my hometown but I do feel like I am at home when I am at my mom's. She's wrong because I think she confuses the idea of a hometown with truly being at home. It's home because I sleep well there and because I wake up to coffee made for me. It's home because my old toys and books are there, carted lovingly over the years from home to home. But of course, most importantly, my mom's house is Wallingford is home because my mom is there.

My mom and I have routines when I visit, which I think are part of her routine when she's alone, too. We scope out yard sales and consignment shops for bargains; we head to Macy's but skip the rest of the mall. We make coffee and sit outside and look at her garden. We walk around her neighborhood to look for what houses are for sale or we walk the trail at a nearby park. We drive to Wesleyan to check out the changes since I graduated. We visit my grandmother for more coffee. It's routine, possibly bordering on ritual or tradition, and I look forward to each one because my normal routine in Minnesota is hectic and filled with people and kids and work and noise and meetings.

As I get older, I find myself building my own rituals that mirror my mother's. After I found my mom watching Sunday Morning on CBS at the unheard of hour at 8:00 am, I got hooked. I started waking up a little earlier every Sunday and watching it as I read my newspaper and drank coffee. I've tried to carve out more summer time vacation at my own house, planting flowers and tomatoes and enjoying just being home. I scope out the yard sales here, wake up early almost every day to have a little time to myself before the day slips away, and, most obviously, make coffee with milk (not nearly as much as my mom and my sister) every chance I can get.

A Day at the Flea Market

My mom wanted to spend the day at a flea market, Elephant's Trunk, about an hour away from her house. I was all for it even though I have a house full of unpacked boxes back home in Minnesota. My mother, husband, sister, brother, and sister-in-law piled into two cars and headed off for New Milford. We got there kind of late, and, in fact, some dealers were already packing up to go, but there were plenty of interesting things to see.

My mom is usually on the look out for American pottery from the 1900s-1960s or jewelry, and my sister likes to look at "old stuff" like jewelry, records, and music memorabilia. My brother and his wife checked out the books, picking out a 1980s era College Algebra textbook and a discounted hardback novel. Matt, my husband, looked at wooden cigar boxes but didn't like the prices on any he saw; plus he's a little more committed to reducing our possessions than I am. I was looking for wall art and smart relics of pop culture, like pins and posters and coasters.

Although the sun was hot that day, we wandered the aisles, marveling at the prices on the toys we used to play with. Every time we asked about the price of something, the dealer would give us a spiel on why it was valuable even if it seemed like junk. Still, my mom and I found some bargains: she bought 2 Hitchcock chairs for $15 a piece and I found a set of eight 1950s Double-Cola posters to frame in my new kitchen ---

Woods Hole, Massachusetts

I love the ocean, so visiting Cape Cod is always a welcome change from Minnesota. One great spot to visit is Woods Hole, which is a small village at the tip of the elbow of Cape Cod. It's part of Falmouth, the town where my father lives. When I was younger, I had a summer job out here at the Marine Biological Laboratory. I worked in the Embryology labs: I fed drosophila, broke a lot of lab glassware, fetched mail, and made photocopies.

Now I just go to Woods Hole for a cup of coffee and a nice walk or bike ride. On Sunday, we took a walk through town, starting, of course, with an iced latte from Coffee Obsession, my dad's coffee shop of choice in town. We walked down Water Street to a little park with access to a small beach, where we let the dogs run and swim for a bit.

There are docks here for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and my dad likes to tell me that the big boat he traveled on across the Atlantic when he was a teenager was parked at these docks.

We headed past the small aquarium where the seals are never out anymore (growing up, they were always there) and headed out to the dock where the fishing boats come in.



I've come here hundreds of times, and I've never seen a boat unloading fish before. On this day, there was a boat filled with conch and a boat filled with sea bass and scup:



After a little gift shop browsing near the drawbridge, we headed home to hit the beach. I love to find perfect spots like Woods Hole (you know my list, Terlingua, Moab...), so having one that I can come back to again and again is something I truly appreciate.