Liz's New Zealand Adventurings: October 2006

Addictive habits

Guess what?! I've decided to train for a marathon - 26 grueling miles. Sounds fabulous! Since living at Micaela's house, I've been running often and am beginning to feel the love. I've decided I like running most at night, in the dark and the cold.
Two weeks ago I went running with Mel, a new RN at the ED, on some trails nearby. It was somewhat overcast and began sprinkling heftily once we started out on our run. And it was just damp enough that the dirt turned to a heavy mud and stuck to the bottom of our running shoes. By the end of the run we were soaking wet with a combination of rain and sweat; our shoes were heavy with mud and our faces were red and prickly from the cold. We laughed and washed off our shoes in puddles. It was a good day.

Last week tomorrow, Sarah and I ran downtown after dark. It was chilly, but not windy, and it took longer than usual for our muscles to warm up. We ran by the hospital for a time card signature and were requested to make a coffee run. With Platinum credit card handed over, we ran to Java and ordered the 2 requested Bowls of Soul. The return journey was hilarious - coffee overflowing lids, passing creepy others in early Halloween costumes, and laughs of running off with free coffee and a physician's credit card. That, too, was a good day. Better actually, because it was spent with sister.

Last night, after my 2 hour nap in preparation for my night shift, I went for another run, in 2 parts. I'm beginning to fully enjoy falling into my "sustainable pace," feeling my knees rise and my calves push off in rhythm with my breathing. Sometimes I like to step once in each block of the sidewalk, allowing only one foot to land in each square, switching up the fancy foot work to coordinate with the different lengths of cement. That gets the rib cage expanding and pulse pounding. I first had a little warm-up run with a stop off back at my house to leave a layer behind and stretch. Then I went off in search of a co-worker's house quite a few blocks away, pushing myself in speed. It felt good.

I'm enjoying the fact that I have a goal in mind and that I'm pressing on toward that goal. I figure, if I can train for and complete a marathon, I can become a PA. For sure.

a deep, throaty, genuine laugh

Typically I despise email forwards. They're irritating and they give one the false hope of actual email in their inbox. But Kristi sent this to me tonight while I was at work. And I laughed out loud. My so-called giggling was questioned and I shared the cause. More laughs. See for yourself.

ENGLISH COMPOSITION
Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of e-coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.
18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
23. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Perfect Patient

"Well, it all started when I forgot to take my Seroquel and Lorazepam...I got these really bad chest pains, but I had those two years ago too. No, wait, maybe that was the time I had a rectal abscess that I had to be admitted for. Hmmm... well, I know for sure that the amoxicillin gave me a reaction when I used it for a UTI I had 8 months ago. Fever? Oh yeah, I had one for 5 days, then yesterday, then for one hour today, but my headache and foot pain today are much worse than the back pain. And I vomited twice 6 weeks ago. Did I mention that I'm suicidal?"
- Complements of S to the L.