Bionic Teutonic

I’ve run into the first setback with my marathon training. Last weekend I did a 13-mile long run and while I actually felt fine during the run, two days later, on one of my weekly runs my left knee started giving me some grief and has been problematic ever since. I had left my good shoes at circus and so had done the run in my old running shoes, which I think is mostly where I went wrong. It’s mainly when I’m going downhill that it seems to flare up, but if I don’t pull back (or stop completely) it hurts like hell and I can barely walk, let alone run. So we’ll see I guess. I’m going to take it easy and scale back on the miles fairly significantly until it gets better. I was feeling really good about sticking to my plan up until this point, and it would be a bummer if my knee doesn’t start feeling better. Better to undertrain than overtrain, I guess.

There is a bus driver on my new route home that’s super talkative and is always cracking jokes about each stop, about the social ramifications of paying your fare, and other mundane observances. When I first took his bus last week, I thought it was really funny and witty and he had a bunch of people on the bus laughing. Over this past week though, I’ve found out that he does the exact… same… monologue… every… trip. I can’t take it. It might be OK to tell the same jokes if you are a travelling comedian and have different audience every night, but not OK when you are a bus driver. I think I need to figure out a different bus to catch.

I’m pleased to report that we are settling in to our new place. We still have a few bins and boxes to empty and figure out what to do with all the contents, but parts of the condo are starting to feel like an actual home. We are definitely having to downsize a bit, getting rid of old desks and random items we have been hoarding over the past two and a half years, which has resulted in a freak-out or two on both my and Ariel’s behalf, but we are getting through it relatively unscathed. Having so many friends help us move was a definite blessing and the move itself went super quick. And the walking! To the grocery store, to dinner, to coffee in the morning. It’s awesome. I also cut about half an hour off my commute to work each day, which means I suddenly have more non-work time to enjoy. Supposedly we are closing on the sale of our house either Friday or Monday, which can’t come to soon as far as I’m concerned. I’ve already moved on in my head and though we still have stuff to clean out of the house (ugh), the sooner I can be done with Rainier Beach, the better.

We finally got keys to our new place yesterday. Yay! The remodel process took a little longer than we had hoped and they kept wasting our time having us come over for a walk-through when they were nowhere near being done. We showed up twice to what was functionally a construction site, complete with a bunch of Russian contractors running around and the bathtub sitting in the living room, while the sales agent tried to play it off like it wasn’t a big waste of time. We’ve started making little trips to start the move, but mostly, we will be doing it this weekend with a rental truck. It’s nice to feel like I’m moving towards being more moved in rather than less (due to having our house staged for the last month).

Also, it was exactly one year ago today that I took my first circus class! I am so glad that I decided to check it out - it has been an amazing thing to get to do every week. I’ve been having so much fun with it and it makes me smile.

Twice now this week, in totally separate meetings, with totally different people, the subject of documenting process has come up with somebody mentioning that it’s the ‘what if you get hit by a bus and we have to carry on without you’ scenario, and somebody else responding that it’s really the ‘what if I win the lottery’ scenario and everybody else nodding in agreement. First of all - how weird is that, that the exact same conversation would come up twice in one week almost verbatim and second, it got me thinking about what kind of job is indicated by each scenario. The ‘what if I win the lottery’ scenario seems to indicate that really, we are only here for the money and given the chance, none of us would be doing this, whereas the ‘what if I get hit by a bus’ scenario indicates that we’d have to be dead for us not to do this work. So in a perverse way, the fact that you would think of the worst thing that could happen indicates a kick-ass job that you love and is a calling, while thinking of the best possible thing that could happen indicates that you are sort of miserable. Someday, I hope that I have a worst case scenario job.

Check it out: Circus performers have their own patron saint! Saint Julian the Hospitator. Nice. The story is a little grim (although redeeming) and we have to share him with ferrymen and innkeepers, but I’ll take it. Next time I’m in Paris, I’ll have to visit the church.