Have no fear - I am still here

To my lovely ladies who said they missed me....bless you! I have missed you as well. I have also missed my rants.

I've been so busy at work (which is when I can usually find a few minutes to write), and blogging at home is out of the question really (my blog is my secret), hence the great nothingness lately.

But I'm here. I'm well.

Workouts:
I'm still running and doing the lunch-time elliptical or treadmill, depending on which is available. But for some reason I'm at a weight plateau, which is really pissing me off. I'm working so hard to beat my body back into submission, and the effing scale isn't showing me what I need to see. I tried to convince myself a few times that the scale is broken. Unfortunately, it seems to correctly weigh the 10lb. weight I put on it now and then (to check for calibration, of course). So there's that....

News on the workfront:
Miss gag-snort had a "talking to" recently, and, according to human resources her hours have been reduced to 30 per week, for which she will now be paid, rather than the 30 she was actually present though she was paid for 40. So a round of applause is needed there....

Running news:
My first 5k is THIS Saturday bright and early. I'm scared shitless about it and I get butterflies every time I think about it. I'm not scared of running - I do that every day. I'm not worried that I won't finish - I run 5k all the time. I'm scared that I'll disappoint myself by finishing with a terrible time. I hate disappointing myself. It will absolutely kill me to see other women, possibly a good bit older than I am, truck right past me with no apparent effort. I'm just too damned competitive for my own good.

What other news can I relay?

Atlanta news:
Downtown Atlanta fell victim to its very first tornado Friday night. That was a shock. Hubby and I were out that night (another shock). We had dinner and then went to a small music-hall bar to see a live Irish band. That was interesting. I'm quite irish by the looks of things (actually, half Scotch-Irish with a dash of German and half English), but I had never heard any of the songs they played, nor had I ever seen Irish dancers (who popped up on stage to dance a few times). It was a fun time, despite how different and odd the music and crowd were and how out of place I felt. As we were leaving, the crowd was told that most of downtown was closed off because a tornado had hit. That was how we learned of it. We weren't affected by road closings or high wind damage, but I heard that initial damage estimates are in the multi-millions. Whew!

My car has been "in the shop" since last week. I had several things going on with it which needed fixing - and it was due for a routine servicing anyway. The good news is that the car is ready today and hubby is picking it up this morning (I drove his car to work today). The bad news is the price for the work: $2,300. Holy shit! Oh, the clothes and shoes I could buy with that! But I guess that's the price one pays for driving a luxury car, eh? You have to put ONLY premium gas in it (to the tune of almost $4/gallon) and the cost for servicing the effing car is out of this world. Sigh.

Oh yes! A fun story for me, but possibly boring for readers:
Monday night my man cub had baseball practice at one of the parks where I like to run. I made woman child go with us and decided to take dah big dog because it was her birthday (2) and I thought a 3+ mile run would do her some good. So after dropping off man cub at his practice "area" and ordering woman child to watch over until we returned (the park loop is about 3.25 miles), I took our Scooby Doo dog for a run. There were people and dogs everywhere and she was so excited. We had just begun the warm up walk when she leaned a bit to her left to sniff a couple walking by. As we passed, the man said loudly "GOD, WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU! YOU CAN'T EVEN KEEP YOUR DOG TO YOURSELF!" I'm not sure why his reaction pissed me off so much. Maybe I was pissed because it's a family park and there were upwards of 100 dogs in and around that park at that very moment. Maybe it was because it was completely uncalled for - my dog merely SNIFFED them in passing. Maybe I'm PMSing. Or maybe I'm just a bitch. Whatever the reason, I stopped and turned, seeing that the couple had also stopped and turned so that we were facing each other with about four feet between us. And suddenly I heard myself say "Oh, kiss my ass," to which the pale skinny geek guy said (quite loudly) "Fuck you!" and to which his velour-panted foreign girlfriend replied (even louder) in a thick European accent: "Zoo dunt eben haab wan." The guy ranted and raved further, though I couldn't understand him because the girlfriend kept repeating the same thing so loudly. As I stood there trying to decide if I should walk toward them and order my big bad dog to EAT THEM, I suddenly realized that the girlfriend was trying to say that I didn't HAVE an ass to kiss, and was suddenly quite pleased. I grinned like a drunk redneck at a strip club and said "Wow! Thank you!" And my big puppy and I promptly resumed our warm up walk. I happily repeated her "insult" throughout my run. "You're such a good girl," I told her.

Maybe the running IS working this ass off after all.