#8 - Tell everyone I love I love them

This one was really important to me. I don't think you can ever really tell people you care about that you care about them enough. And sometimes they're gone before you can fix it. Plus, they just deserve to know.

I wanted to do this personal to each person I really wanted to tell. So some people got a visit. Some people got a letter. Some people got a conversation. Some were spur of the moment.

I wanted to add something to it though, so I ordered 50 silicone bands (thanks for the idea, Casey Jordan) as little love-you tokens. I had them printed with "Enjoy the Struggle." 

 

I used that for 3 reasons.

1. Printing bands with "I Love You," while appropriate seemed a little weird for people to wear around.

2 & 3 are both because of Rachel Townsend. I first met Rachel when she was the student teacher for my aerobics class when I was a senior in high school. When I graduated, she took a full-time position at my high school and coached cross country and soccer. The girls loved her. She coined the phrase "Enjoy the Struggle" for the cross country team to remind them that the challenge and the hurt made them stronger and they should enjoy that growth. I find it such an inspirational saying. Especially after the last couple years where I have had lots of frustrations. It reminds me to keep in mind that I'm becoming a better me by surviving these things. Rachel entered my life again when I started working for Kidsport, a summer camp put on by the Michigan PE department. She was the Assistant Director. The kids loved her. And then again, when I started student teaching at Pioneer High School and her husband, a former UM football player, was one of the PE teachers there. I was weirdly connected to her in so many ways even though she & I were never close. She was always such an inspiration though. Smiling and strong and loving and pretty and fit. Things girls want to be.


In the fall of 2003, my grandma died. It was really tough. I never felt like I told her I loved her enough nor spent enough time with her near the end because it was so hard to see her sick.

When my family was on our way the funeral, which was just a graveside visit, I had to stop at work at Saline Community Education. I was out of it but I noticed people were talking about something that had happened. I didn't comprehend it until I checked my voicemail and there was a voicemail saying that Rachel Townsend had died suddenly.

Rachel and a friend had the goal of running marathons and qualifying for Boston. They came to Chicago for the 2003 race. Rachel ran her heart out and qualified for Boston. But then dropped dead in the chute. She didn't even make it to the hospital. She had a freak heart defect that no one knew about. And it never would have mattered if she hadn't pushed herself to such a tough goal.

Her service was the opposite of my grandmother's. My grandma's was small, just our small family.

Rachel was in my high school gym with people I knew from high school, college, UM athletics, my PE classes, and Kidsport. It was surreal. I knew each speaker personally except her sister: my cross country coach, my track coach, my favorite PE teacher, a former cross country teammate, and finally her husband showed a slide show of the weekend.

Since then, I write Enjoy the Struggle on my running shoes and sometimes other things. And I keep her in mind, especially when I run. That when things get tough, we get tougher.

I put it on my bracelets to remind me to Enjoy the Struggle and to remind me that I have some wonderful people who will always support me through my struggles and I will support them and help them get stronger. I also chose that because Rachel went so suddenly and I would never want any of the people I love to not know that I love them. And how much.

So all of you out there, I love you. Thank you for
your support.











Enjoy the Struggle.

#1 Eat a fish I caught.

I got the idea for this one from reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I highly recommend it. It is definitely not the preachy, be-a-vegetarian book I heard it was. Michael Pollan's not a vegetarian. He's not telling anyone to be one. He explored what food is and where it comes from. He decided to first have a McDonald's meal and then see if he could figure out where all the pieces of it came from and second to make his own meal, fully from things he himself hunted, gathered, and cooked.

The book made me think a lot about what I eat, how messed up the food industry is and how detached we are from our food.

Don't worry. I'm not going to get all preachy on you either.

This item made the list because I decided that I should be more attached to my food and realize what I'm eating. I decided that if I could catch a fish, clean it, and eat it, I

could keep eating meat for now. Could I kill some big mammal? Probably not. I mean, I have a hard time killing bugs. Bugs. Even ants. And it hurts me a little when people kill spiders. (I got that

weird hang up from Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer, which felt a lot like Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged to me: really thought-provoking message but just not good literature. Though, at least Kingsolver's story and characters were believeable, so it feels like the message stuck with me a little better. If you're offended, I'll argue with you about Rand some other time. Be ready though. I have an arsenal.) I probably couldn't kill a chicken either. Probably.

But I did it. I caught the fish - accompanied by Dave Merrill, Edmund Cruz, Edric Cruz, Nader Elmasri, and Norris Narsa. It kinda drowned on its own, so I didn't have to whack it or anything, which Alicia had made mention of the day before and I freaked out. I would have a really hard time actually actively killing. Even though I know it's the same thing letting it passively die. So the fish died. You can see in an earlier post how I cut of its head, slit it's belly, and pulled out its insides.

The plan was to then build a fire, cook the fish, and it eat that night, but a huge storm rolled in and killed that plan. So Dave Merrill froze the fish for a later date.

This past weekend, Angela Mioglionico and Danielle Reyes joined me at Dave Merill's. Dave built a fire. Danielle named the fish Gary. And we cooked him up. He was a little rubbery and tasteless, but he was fine.

I only wish I could have done it all in one day so he'd really feel like a real fish I was eating. One that was squirming in my hand just a few hours before. But it worked.

Next time I want an ocean fish!

#13 Cook over an open fire.

I may have done this when I was younger, but I don't remember it.

I guess having a little fire pit feels a bit like cheating, but I'm going to count it because we cooked both Gary and brats over the fire and at them both.

Who's Gary? That's what Danielle Reyes named my fish, of course. Remember? The fresh water drum I caught in May? He was busy freezing at Dave's house, just waiting for this moment.

Dave Merrill built the fire. (I didn't, so Ev & Brian, that one's still up for grabs.) He also defrosted Gary and wrapped him up in some seasons for the fire. He had also run out to get us some brats.

Here we are cooking Gary and the brats. More in the next post about eating a fish I caught. (I was angry Angela Mioglionico kept forgetting to be on photo duty.)

#61 Make deviled eggs.

Yeah, yeah, I know they're not difficult to make. The thing is, I love them, and I've never made them. So I figured I should just try it, realize how easy they are, and then make them whenever I want and stop maxing on them every time they're around.

(Sidenote: every time I ask for one of my mom's recipes that I love, it ends up being one of these: something that's crazy easy to make and if it takes any time at all, it's just marinating, not the actual preparation. Examples include stuffed mushrooms and marinated chicken kabobs. So delicious.)

Angela Mioglionico decided to make an event of it, even though Angela didn't actually want me to invite Nader Elmasri or Edmund Cruz, as they were my #1 and #2 leaders at the time.

So we threw the Smigs, Smegs, and Devilled Eggs Party.

I felt a little rushed making the tasty treats as I had to work much later than anticipated.

The most difficult part was hard boiling the eggs. I can cook. I swear I can. But I cannot hard boil an egg to save my life. I just can't remember to take them off the heat. I screw it up every time.

However, this time: Success! Thanks for supervising me, Ang!

Then I mixed in the ingredients, including the juice from the amazing McClure's pickles. (If you live in or visit Michigan, buy them. Yes, they're pricier than other pickles. They're worth it. Spectacular. Thank you, Ted Allen, and "Best Thing I Ever Ate." Also buy the Blood Mary Mix. But mix it with half tomato juice, half McClure's Blood Mary Mix, because man, is that mix every pickley.)

Ed, Nader, Chris Zann, Chris Niblock, and Mark Matishak all got a piece of the eggs. Ahmed Atia, Norris Narsa, Danielle Reyes, and her friend Santana would have, but we only had 6 eggs (12 halves). See, Angela hates deviled eggs. And she was in charge of the shopping. And convinced me 6 was enough. Because no one wants to max on deviled eggs before drinking. Yes, I could have gone to the store to get more. I didn't. I was swayed. Ahmed, Norris, and Danielle, I promise to make them and bring them to work one day so you can be official.

#15 Go to the Ballet

Top 13 Things I Loved about the Ballet

13. I got some gossip from my new friend. Not much but one of her friends had dated one of the dancers.

12. I saw a lady with helmet hair. It was seriously a foot tall. She looked like she was ready to get on stage for "Hairspray."

11. I saw 14 people pushing Segways across the street while on my way to the ballet. Ha.

10. Ungraceful people. It was even funnier seeing people do not so graceful things during intermissions. Some lady dropped her huge purse with a big plop and it was much funnier than if we hadn't just seen people dancing around beautifully.

9. Apparently it was the last show of the season. That was kinda cool.

8. Because it was the last show of the season, they honored some ballerina who had been with the Joffrey for 26 years. That was touching. All of the dancers and her family came on stage and each gave her one flower until she had a huge bouquet. Sweet.

7. I made a new friend. No one would go with me, so I went alone. There was a girl in my box, also alone. Apparently she loves the ballet enough to subscribe (meaning she's a member and goes to several shows a year at a discounted price) and she can never find anyone to go with, so she goes alone all the time. I would have told her to call me next time and I'd go with her but she had to leave early, in the middle of the 3rd... act? So hello out there, Julia. Thanks for taking my picture!

6. Multimedia. They did a whole speech and video presentation explaning the show and how it came about. That was cool because the Joffrey can be quite modern and it definitely needed some explaining. The choreographers even explained their inspirations, which were dreams. I liked it.

5. I had a box seat. It was box #1 so I could see the up front stuff really well but not everything on the side of the stage. It felt fancy to be in a box and sit in fancy chairs though.

4. The auditorium. It was a really, really pretty auditorium.

3. Muscles. I felt like I was at a live version of Body Worlds. I mean, those cats have NO body fat, which is possibly unhealthy, but it was so cool to see people who are so leanly muscular. I guess that's the kines geek in me. Both the men and the women were so impressively fit. (Sidenote: while watching I remembered that I had had a dream that we were having a party at the Campus Rec. It was pretty much the lock in, but we were dressed up and planning to dance at some point. Karlo showed up in a cut-off shirt to show off his impressive abs. It was weird.)

2. Costumes. Apparently I'm girly enough to love flowy skirts and pretty colors.

1. The dancing. So pretty. So graceful. So impressive. I don't know how they don't kick each other in the face all the time. Just so crazy athletic and kinesthetically aware.

Top 3 Things I Did Not Love about the Ballet

3. All the bowing and clapping. They did a whole bowing thing after each "act" and it got old clapping. I wanted to clap loudly for the ballerinas/inos but I got tired of clapping by the end.

2. Men in ballet shoes. They have their own type of ballet shoes, not toe shoes, that almost looked like they were barefoot, but they weren't, I don't think. It weirded me out. I mean, I guess actual barefeet could get sweaty and slippery, but still weird.

1. All the white boys had douchey haircuts. That was weird. And distracting. It just kept making me wonder if the ballet required them to have those bowl cuts all the boys had in 7th grade or if it was by choice.

Overall, I liked at least 10 more things than I disliked. I would definitely go again and would consider buying season tickets. I really loved it, way more than I thought I would. The dancing was amazing.

Update: I went to the "ballet" again. This time it was to see the lovely Danielle with the PE girls. It was... the best 23 seconds of my life. The rest was... interesting.