Blatherskite

Foolish gibberish

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about

I am a Children’s Librarian living in the Portland, Oregon area. When I am not Children’s Librianing I like to play with cameras and film. I also like playing the ukulele, knitting, sketching, and hiking.

  • Elation and frustration

    somewhere near the Old Salmon River Trailhead

    This past week has been both good and bad. The good: I ran 5k  on the Old Salmon River trail on Sunday and it was AWESOME. We originally decided to go running at Wildwood Park because the trail is paved and flat and I thought it would be a good surface for me to run on outside. But, as is typically the case on the weekend, the parking lot was full so we headed over to the Salmon River. I wasn’t super thrilled with jumping in, full steam ahead, with actual trail running in Vibrams. But I just bit the bullet and did it anyway. It was so. fun. And actually much easier than running on the track. The soft surface felt heavenly compared to the track. I had to walk over some of the rockier areas (that lava rock can be sharp) but it was an otherwise excellent run and I enjoyed it immensely.

    The Bad news: my ankle started hurting me a little bit sometime last week but I ran through the pain. It hurt a little bit during my trail run on Sunday too. When I got on the treadmill on Tuesday I took two steps and it HURT. So I decided to not run that day. It was very frustrating, especially when I’d been having so much fun! My ankle still hurts a little bit. I tried running on it a little this morning to see how it felt and it hurt. Tomorrow is a running day so I’ll see how it feels. I’m hoping very much that it is better by then. I don’t  know what it could be, whether I twisted something, or if it is from running in the Vibrams, or if it’s from running on that gnarly incline treadmill. Either way, it’s frustrating. This is one of the things I hate about running, weird little injuries like this. I am really, really hoping it’s not some kind of Achilles tendinitis thing because that would totally suck.

    So, for me, the jury is still kind of out on minimalist running. I’m not sure if it’s the best thing for me or not. I did really enjoy it on the trail. I think I liked it better than when I have regular running shoes on. I feel like I have more control (not tripping on branches and rocks, etc). But for the incline treadmill and the track I may go back to running in my shoes.

    Also, my boss gave me the Saturday before Bloomsday off. So there’s that. I guess I’ll sign up. In some ways this whole training-for-a-race thing stresses me out. So now I’m thinking I’ll do my best to train but give myself permission to walk and run it. I’m not sure I’m going to be ready to run seven miles by May 1st.

    I didn’t tell you about Raf’s running huaraches. I’ll post about that next week.

  • Photography Friday: another day in Portland

    Photography Friday: another day in Portland

     

    I met Preita in Portland on Monday, this time at Stumptown coffee downtown. I had heard all kinds of things about Stumptown coffee and wanted to try it. My honest opinion? It wasn’t anything to write home about. It wasn’t terrible though. Just nothing spectacular. My usual coffee drink is an Americano and, so far, I like the ones they make here in little old Sandy at Mountain Moka (I don’t even have to tell them what I want anymore. When I walk in the door they practically have my coffee drink ready!).

    In short: not overly impressed with Stumptown coffee. didn’t hate it, but wasn’t super impressed with it.

    Our next stop was the Food Carts because we were hungry for lunch. This was my second visit to a Portland food cart. It was excellent. The cart was called “Built to Grill” and they served Italian food. I had a vodka sauce pasta dish that was to-die for. It was so delicious that I practically inhaled the entire gigantic plate of pasta. We were also given a complimentary bottle of water “on the house” which I thought was super nice.

    As we wandered around we came upon a record shop. An honest-to-goodness record shop that sold record albums. It was really awesome. They also had a large number of concert t-shirts too. I bought myself a hot pink Misfits shirt. When I got home and showed it to Raf he looked at it and rolled his eyes. His former punk skater self couldn’t believe that the Misfits sold hot pink t-shirts.

    After we left the record store we wandered around a bit and happened by Voodoo Doughnut. I was stoked. I had heard so much about it and hadn’t tried it yet. We went inside (no line! woot!) and I ordered what Preita ordered, which was an Oreo Cookie topped doughnut, drizzled with peanut butter topping (an “Old Dirty Bastard” is what this particular one is called). As yummy as it was, I could only eat half. So I wrapped up the other half and saved it in my pocket for Raf when I got home. Raf declared it delicious also, and this after being in my pocket for an hour and half. So Voodoo Doughnut totally lives up to the hype.

    This doughnut is called “The Old Dirty Bastard”
    Record shop
    Food Carts!

  • My running adventures

    Barefoot Running

    About a month ago I bought a pair of Vibram KSOs. Apparently they can’t make these fast enough so many stores are out of a lot of the sizes. I had to buy the men’s version and they are wide so I’ve been getting blisters. It’s not terribly bad though.

    I had been easing myself into barefoot running on the treadmill, running barefoot for a portion of my run. I loved it. It gave me lots of energy, for some reason. But as I’ve been reading up on it, I’ve learned that you don’t want to rush into it too fast. Then I bought the Vibrams and I just started running the entire treadmill run with them on and, while it doesn’t feel as fantastic as running barefoot (all of those nerves on the bottom of the foot) it’s still better than running with shoes, I think.

    Around the time I bought the Vibrams our treadmill died. We decided to buy a new one and we found one locally that looked good and was on sale for a great price. We got it home and put it together. We discovered that we had bought an incline treadmill. I hadn’t known such a thing existed. When I saw the word “incline” on the ad I just assumed it meant that you could make it incline, like all treadmills do. Well this is inclined all the time. You can choose between a 10% incline or a 20% incline. In short: it is a fucking gnarly workout. And when I say gnarly I mean I am dizzy when I get off the thing.

    I had worked up to running 5k but when I tried to run 5k on this thing it was just too difficult. So my new goal was to just be able to run for 30 minutes on it. Today I accomplished this goal! I only ran 2 miles but I did it.

    I’ve added a fourth run to my week on Sundays. I want to run outside at least one day a week. (when it’s light at 5am I’ll run outside in the mornings but until then, it’s the treadmill.) I’ve been running on the high school track to get my feet and legs used to running with the Vibrams on outside on harder pavement. The first week was excruciating. I discovered muscles I didn’t know I had. I hobbled around for days; my calves were so. sore. The second week was a little bit better. I got that same blister on my left big toe and my calves still hurt but the recovery time was much shorter. I was in pretty good shape the next day. The third time was this past Sunday and it felt awesome. Like the other times, I ran three miles. But my pace increased and I ran a 10 minute mile which is very good for me.

    I’ve been thinking about running Bloomsday for few months. It’s a good excuse to got to Spokane to visit the family AND it gives me something to work toward. I asked for the time off at work and if I can get it off I’ll sign up. I need the motivation. It’s 12k. Which is considerably more than 5k. But at least it will be a healthy challenge. I found this really cool training tool on the Runner’s World website called Smartcoach. Unfortunately you have to sign up for an account to see the page which is a huge pain in the ass, but It’s kind of worth it if you want to train for something. There is also an iPod app, as well. Anyway, you fill in the form, entering details about the race you want to train for, and it gives you a training schedule. So I’m going to use it to train for Bloomsday.

    This post was a little chatty so I’ll stop there. Next time I’ll write about my husband’s homemade running huaraches.

  • A list

    A list

    Trees reflected in a flooded meadow on the Columbia Gorge

    I’ve been thinking about blogging about my barefoot running adventures. I’m not sure if anyone will think it’s interesting or if anyone will even read it. But it might be fun for me to read later on. Actually, I’m not running completely barefoot. I’m running in Vibrams, which do give some support. I’m liking it but it’s not as easy as I thought it would be. It’s kind of a challenge and my muscles really hurt. Way more than when I ran with shoes on. But it does feel like I’m getting more of a leg workout than running shod. So. Perhaps I’ll document this experience for posterity’s sake.

    I’m reading a really good book right now called “Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: a 28 day program.” It talks about meditation, the different kinds of meditation, and gets you started on a practice. I started the exercises last week and am really loving them and learning lots. I’m thinking about blogging about this too. I’ll write up a post about week one in the next day or so.

    I found out about this website a few minutes ago and think its really cool. I’m thinking I’ll participate.

    I’m kind of (kind of) thinking about playing with my Spartus Vest Pocket Camera. I bought some 127 film for it a couple of years ago and have been terrified to use it. But I’m thinking about throwing caution to the wind and having fun with it. There is a place in Portland that develops 127 film, which is very cool. I’d like to go pay them a visit sometime soon to see what kinds of toy cameras they have on inventory. I’m going to admit, some of my fear of taking photos with this camera is the idea of getting my film developed by someone else. Someone who will see what I’ve taken and will, possibly, judge my work. When I used to shoot film there would be times when I shot a roll (or two) of terrible photos and it would be so embarrassing to pick up my prints and know that the developer saw my bad photos. The thought that they might be judging me really bugged me. But I so need to get over this. It’s silly and dumb and preventing me from having fun.

    A couple of Facebook friends reminded me that 25 years ago today the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster happened. My friend, Dianne, posted the video, which I hadn’t seen in 25 years. It was really weird to see it again. What a sad day.

  • Review: Tinkers by Paul Harding

    TinkersTinkers by Paul Harding

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    wow. I am blown away by this book. At some point I will read it again. It’s that kind of book.

    I wasn’t sure how I would feel about it. The first few sentences brought tears to my eyes as they perfectly described the scene in my Mom’s house a year ago when Doug died:

    George Washington Crosby began to hallucinate eight days before he died. From the rented hospital bed, placed in the middle of his own living room, he saw insects running in and out of imaginary cracks in the ceiling plaster. Once Snugly pointed and glazed, stood loose in their sashes. The next stiff breeze would topple them all and they would flop onto the heads of his family, who sat on the couch and the love seat and the kitchen chairs his wife had brought in to accommodate everyone.

    That passage hit all to close to home. I often wonder what was going through Doug’s mind when he laid on the hospital bed in the middle of my Mom’s living room.

    Honestly, I’m not sure I would’ve been able to read it before now. I’ve, thankfully, reached a place where I can think about Doug’s death without breaking out into sobs. Also, without the experience of watching him die, I’m not sure I’d be able to take as much away from this book as I am able to at this moment.

    I’m really glad I read it.  The book was very profound. I need to read it again. In fact, I’ve downloaded the Kindle version and will actually read it rather than listen to it.

    There were a few points that confused me. But I’m not sure this is the kind of book one can understand on an intellectual level. It doesn’t have a plot, and that bothers some reviewers on Goodreads. It is the hallucination of a dying man. Do hallucinations ever have plots? Do dreams have plots? No they don’t. They are a series of metaphors and images that might seem like they are strung together with a plot, but when you try to figure out what that plot is in the morning it seems to fade away; and you are left with vivid imagery.

    I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this book all morning since I finished it. It is making me think about the veil between this life and what lies beyond this life. Whether it be what one might call “heaven” or whether it be past lives, or other lives that we might be living simultaneously (since time and space are an illusion). It makes me think about how, sometimes, that veil is very thin.

    I’ll end this post with this beautiful passage from Tinkers (the one that got me thinking about this stuff):

    He saw no reason to doubt that this shadow dreamed just as he did for the reason that he could imagine himself to be a shadow of something-someone-else and that perhaps even his sleep, his dreams, constituted his duty as a shadow of someone else and that perhaps while that someone else dreamed, he was free to live his waking life, so that this alternating interdependent series of lives formed a sort of intaglio; the waking day of each shadow was the opposite side of its possessor’s sleep.

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