In this world, there are those who are not only accident prone, but incident prone. What is incident prone you may ask. Well, it is those people who always end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. The ones that die because of such incident proneness fall into Class A. Those who are severely injured, must enter the Witness Protection program, or acquire any other extreme, though not fatal emotional and physical damage fall into Class B. People who make it out of “wrong place, wrong time” incidents with a few minor injuries are Class C. I belong to this latter category.
Ever since my wonderful father got my potato shaped body of the couch in seventh grade, I have been addicted to running. I am one of those who like trail running in particular. Give me a less traveled dirt trail through some woods and you have given me a tiny slice of what I hope heaven is like. I have been training for the “Hurt in the Dirt” race for awhile and yesterday I upped my intensity per say. There is this nice little paved path that loops around downtown Salt Lake that I was intending to go on. When I reached City Creek, however, I saw there was a dirt trail on the other side of the river that looked promising. I was not disappointed in what it had to offer: tons of rough terrain, trees everywhere, and marijuana. I had been running for about two miles when I slipped off a particularly rough part of the path and got my right leg covered in blood and dirt. Normal people would have realized the trail only gets worse after this point and turned around. Good thing I am normal. I trudged forward proud of the blood pouring down my leg and the dirt smudges on my face. As I went into the heart of the woods, a sickening sweet smell filled my lungs. Another signal to turn my butt around. I kept going, wanting to hit that hour mark before turning back. The smell became stronger as I pushed forward and I eventually saw something that did get me to turn around. A camouflaged army tent with some intense hand made fortifications. You know what? They could have just been innocent campers chilling out in the heart of the woods where no one really goes and where it takes an hour to reach civilization. I convinced myself of this, but still obeyed the warning signals going off in my head, “Go back you idiot girl”. As I ran back, I took a fork in the path and ran about a mile before encountering 6 guys right off the path getting high. Terrified, I sped up a bit and was banking on the idea they were too high to chase me, aim a bullet at my skull, or even care that I was there. As I sprinted into the brush, I heard one of them go, “Dude, where was she coming from? Do you think she saw the stuff?” I like to think by "stuff" he meant what they were smoking opposed to the possible marijuana field behind the army tent further back. While making it back to civilization, I pondered why I had escaped a possibly dangerous situation. Class C people generally escape by means of intellect, quick thinking skills, intuition, or by the aid of good Samaritan like people. Since none of these are ever really applicable in my life aside from the good Samaritans, I realize it was divine providence. I had gone to the SLC temple just prior to my run and was being blessed despite my idiocy. God beat Darwin. Natural selection would have wiped my sorry self out long ago, but divine providence has made sure I made it to this point of life. I realize this trend might not continue much longer, ergo, I have determined to go to the temple before every run from now on. Happy and Safe Running to You All!
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Exercising My "Physical Prowess"
Since my life is roughly as thrilling as that of James Bond, Indiana Jones, or a long list of other fictional adventure seekers, I feel it necessary to relay the details of my ever exciting weekend on this lovely blog (still really detest this word). Thursday was promising. I woke up at about 10:30AM, read for four hours, napped, ate, felt unproductive, ect. I decided to do something with my lazy day and headed out to buy gifts for people I love, which certainly improved my lack of productivity. Oh, I also got shot at while grocery shopping. I luckily finished my day with a fantastic 7 miler and went to bed aiming for a bit more excitement to fill Friday up. I got up really early (10:30AM), did some exercise (rolled over twice in bed trying to hit off my alarm), and ate a hearty and healthy breakfast (I grabbed a cheese stick as I raced out the door). I had made a reservation to go kayaking with Caitlin at noon and we were supposed to be up the canyon a half hour before “the launch”. We luckily made it with plenty of time to spare, but ended up having to outdrive a giant rolling stone that was barreling down the canyon. Good thing The Beast has a lot of acceleration power. Caitlin and I were thrown into a bus with a bunch of tubers and the instructor so kindly informed all of the tubers how to safely go down the river. Since Caitlin and I are Olympic kayakers, we weren’t really concerned that he provided zero instruction for us amid his warnings of how dangerous the river was and how people died sometimes when they assumed they knew what they were doing. Not concerned at all. We loaded ourselves into the kayak alongside a plethora of tubers who were extremely prepared for the river journey. Caitlin and I, decked out in $2 dollar flip flops and casual swimsuits, thought our fellow river buddies were a little over prepared in their airtight water shoes, sunglasses, wet suits, and camel backs. Oh how wrong we were. We barely made it ten minutes before our epic crash landing. I feel 100% responsible. Not necessarily because I was miserable at steering, thought trees magically moved out of the way if you were barreling toward them, and had organized the whole trip with little knowledge of kayaking, but because of my black cloud. I should have emphasized to Caitlin before our journey how I am not only a magnet for freak accidents, but because those freak accidents generally involve the people I am with to be injured to a greater degree than myself. Examples: Last time I braved a river Me: Bruised elbow, excess of spider webs on my shirt, and calloused hands Kara, my canoe partner: bloody lip, knees, a spider bite the size of a grapefruit, a new fear of water. Skydiving adventures. Me: Broken tail bone. Instructor: broken back…Yeeaaah. Anyway, our kayak collided with the tree and poor Caitlin and I were thrown into the icy waters of the Provo river. The current was so strong we couldn’t take a single step in that direction and our feet kept getting cut on the rocks as per our cheap shoes floated down past the “overprepared” tubers when we fell. Luckily, a good Samaritan tuber so kindly grabbed our kayak and directed it to us. Caitlin grabbed onto it and then started whooshing down the river clinging desperately to its side. As I watched her pale face fill with fear and hopelessness as she bobbed swiftly away, I realized my ever impressive intellect and skill in judgment was proving itself as useful as ever. Good ole Steve the tuber caught up to my lovely friend and dragged her to the side of the river until I managed to bang myself against ever rock in my attempts to reach them. We hobbled onto our kayak with Steve’s help and Caitlin submerged into shocked silence for the next twenty minutes. My attempts to lighten the situation with comments on how we were like my Disney hero, Pocahontas, didn’t really seem to help, though my eventual mastery of steering did make things go a lot smoother..until we hit the bridge. Apparently the bridge is a death trap and we had received the instructions to get out right before it and walk the kayak to the other side of the river. We managed to pull the kayak out and drag it up shore with our impressive manly strength. Without shoes, it felt awesome to walk on jagged rocks, prickly weeds, and searing hot dirt. Eventually Caitlin let go of the kayak and let me drag it on my own. As I waddled along, I heard a very peculiar noise-a loud, blasting horn and rattling of some sort. Taking little thought to it, I looked at the weird wood and metal thing I was walking over. Weird..why is there this random metal, wood, criss-cross contraption in the middle of my path to the river. The horn started to get louder and the genius that I am, finally recognized the noise and what I was currently walking across with my ever so light kayak. Loud horn noise: train. Wood, metal, criss-cross thing: Train tracks. Awesome. I furiously started pulling the kayaking that was going nowhere fast. Caitlin, still in shock, came over and started kicking it to make it go down the hill. We made it over in time-barely in time. The rest of our river adventure was thankfully uneventful, minus Caitlin almost getting her head knocked off by a fish that was dangling from a poor fly-fisher we almost hit. I don’t think anyone on the river was impressed that day with my steering skills-especially the multiple fly fishers. When we finally got back to the launch site, Caitlin practically kissed the ground with happiness exclaiming, “We made it! We’re alive!” Haha, that girl is one heck of a good sport. In response to my profuse apologies, Caitlin simply said, “It really was..fun. Just not something I will ever plan on doing again” Good thing she is a very forgiving person.
When I got back to the Riv, it was time to set off with Matty on a ten hour road trip to Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. Ole Matt knew of my black cloud and refused to let me drive and also took extreme precaution in having me close to him. My good natured cousin and I drove FOREVER, but had fun doing it. When we got to Idaho Falls, we were struck with an intense desire to eat Little Cesars Pizza. After wasting thirty minutes driving around the city and not finding one, we decided to find one at the next exit. Guess how many people live at the next exit. City population: 34. Highlights of the town: A gas station. Oh boy. The next town that had more than two buildings in turned out to be the worst town in the continental U.S., Butte, Montana. That deceptive little piece of work was a living nightmare. We were STARVING by the time we got there considering we missed out on that opportune moment to eat something in Idaho Falls. The only thing that was open was a Pizza Hut. It was with great joy we raced to the door, only to find it locked with a big sign that said delivery only after 10:00PM. Blast it. Matt called the delivery number and talked to the jerk of all jerks who refused to “deliver” it to our car. Frustrated, hungry and bordering on the thin line separating us from a new version of Bonnie and Clyde, we found a savior at Papa John’s who agreed to “deliver” us two large pizzas. Yum! After demolishing a whole large pizza by our selves, the food coma started to hit and we still had four hours to go. Matt then whipped out a 5-hour energy shot. I have seen them plenty and smartly avoided ingesting them, but this called for an emergency. As Matt held it to his lips, I asked how he felt. His response set me into a fit of laughter, “It’s not too baa---WHOA! Wow! Holy cow! That is some, wow, strong stuff” This solidified my desire to abstain, but it became soon apparent I wasn’t going to make it as co-pilot much longer. With a deep gulp, I shot back one of the strongest bits of caffeine I have ever had. I apparently started talking 100mph and reminded Matty too late about my heart condition. (Don’t worry, still alive and no passing out occurred) We fffiiinally made it to Coeur D’Alene at about 4AM. While trying to locate the hotel, I commented on how the street we were on slightly resembled an Alfred Hitchock movie. Not ten seconds later, we drove past a Bates Motel. No joke. (This is getting lengthy,..) Anyway, the next day we went mountain biking through the breath taking woods of Coeur D’Alene. We saved ourselves $9 a person by not taking the shuttle (hahaha, this is now a new family joke I hope never will die), saw Mikey be the best roller-skating, puppeteer there ever was, and drove another blasted 12 hours back to SLC. The ride back was fun for me because I spent all but two hours reading the entire seventh Harry Potter book again, much to Mug’s and Mikey’s angst. I am apparently the sole creator of interesting conversation. ;) Overall, I feel my weekend adventures far surpassed anything some fictional CIA agent or treasure-hunting archaeologist could have ever conjured.
When I got back to the Riv, it was time to set off with Matty on a ten hour road trip to Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. Ole Matt knew of my black cloud and refused to let me drive and also took extreme precaution in having me close to him. My good natured cousin and I drove FOREVER, but had fun doing it. When we got to Idaho Falls, we were struck with an intense desire to eat Little Cesars Pizza. After wasting thirty minutes driving around the city and not finding one, we decided to find one at the next exit. Guess how many people live at the next exit. City population: 34. Highlights of the town: A gas station. Oh boy. The next town that had more than two buildings in turned out to be the worst town in the continental U.S., Butte, Montana. That deceptive little piece of work was a living nightmare. We were STARVING by the time we got there considering we missed out on that opportune moment to eat something in Idaho Falls. The only thing that was open was a Pizza Hut. It was with great joy we raced to the door, only to find it locked with a big sign that said delivery only after 10:00PM. Blast it. Matt called the delivery number and talked to the jerk of all jerks who refused to “deliver” it to our car. Frustrated, hungry and bordering on the thin line separating us from a new version of Bonnie and Clyde, we found a savior at Papa John’s who agreed to “deliver” us two large pizzas. Yum! After demolishing a whole large pizza by our selves, the food coma started to hit and we still had four hours to go. Matt then whipped out a 5-hour energy shot. I have seen them plenty and smartly avoided ingesting them, but this called for an emergency. As Matt held it to his lips, I asked how he felt. His response set me into a fit of laughter, “It’s not too baa---WHOA! Wow! Holy cow! That is some, wow, strong stuff” This solidified my desire to abstain, but it became soon apparent I wasn’t going to make it as co-pilot much longer. With a deep gulp, I shot back one of the strongest bits of caffeine I have ever had. I apparently started talking 100mph and reminded Matty too late about my heart condition. (Don’t worry, still alive and no passing out occurred) We fffiiinally made it to Coeur D’Alene at about 4AM. While trying to locate the hotel, I commented on how the street we were on slightly resembled an Alfred Hitchock movie. Not ten seconds later, we drove past a Bates Motel. No joke. (This is getting lengthy,..) Anyway, the next day we went mountain biking through the breath taking woods of Coeur D’Alene. We saved ourselves $9 a person by not taking the shuttle (hahaha, this is now a new family joke I hope never will die), saw Mikey be the best roller-skating, puppeteer there ever was, and drove another blasted 12 hours back to SLC. The ride back was fun for me because I spent all but two hours reading the entire seventh Harry Potter book again, much to Mug’s and Mikey’s angst. I am apparently the sole creator of interesting conversation. ;) Overall, I feel my weekend adventures far surpassed anything some fictional CIA agent or treasure-hunting archaeologist could have ever conjured.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
How I Celebrated America's Birthday
1. Skipped out on the usual 4th of July 6AM breakfast and had the same meal at 9AM in our pj’s instead.
2. Finished reading “Catching Fire” at the Riverton City parade
3. Had Matt describe what a heart breaker he was over dinner at Chili’s
4. Ate delectable kabobs and other tasty food at the family BBQ
5. Pretended to be pirates on the trampoline with Lincoln
6. Went to church and sang hymns about patriotism
7. Had another BBQ minus kabobs, plus heavenly grilled chicken
8. Went on an hour long bike road through the boonies of the Riv
9. Took a 3 hour nap
10. Watched an intense firework show with Joe’s excellent commentary
11. Ran and owned a 5K with Luke
12. Rewarded ourselves for a race ran well with Jamba and Great Harvest pumpkin bread
13. Saved a baby cow with a random family
14. Got head butted by said calf and sacrificed my favorite zebra stripped sunglasses for the greater good
15. Sat in the park and read Plato’s Republic
16. Decorated Grams living room for her birthday with Lauren’s artistic aid
17. Went to SLC and increased my culturally expanding palate at Mazza’s
18. Walked around the magnificent SLC county capitol with my sista from another mista
19. Drove the road that inspires awkward conversations
20. Hated on The Beast for being a butt head of a car
21. Helped Lauren almost die falling out of The Beast
22. Loved The Beast for enabling me to go on adventures
23. Kissed a hot movie star (juust kidding. Seeing if you were paying attention)
24. Grocery shopped with Sarah
25. Hugged Brian and Sarah a lot and
26. Ate a pizza with two lovebirds
27. Roasted marshmallows and listened to Brazilian music with my fantastic cuz
28. Pondered the magnificence of the beautiful America
29. Remembered my loved ones who fought to defend my liberty and freedom
30. Loved my life a whole heck of a lot
2. Finished reading “Catching Fire” at the Riverton City parade
3. Had Matt describe what a heart breaker he was over dinner at Chili’s
4. Ate delectable kabobs and other tasty food at the family BBQ
5. Pretended to be pirates on the trampoline with Lincoln
6. Went to church and sang hymns about patriotism
7. Had another BBQ minus kabobs, plus heavenly grilled chicken
8. Went on an hour long bike road through the boonies of the Riv
9. Took a 3 hour nap
10. Watched an intense firework show with Joe’s excellent commentary
11. Ran and owned a 5K with Luke
12. Rewarded ourselves for a race ran well with Jamba and Great Harvest pumpkin bread
13. Saved a baby cow with a random family
14. Got head butted by said calf and sacrificed my favorite zebra stripped sunglasses for the greater good
15. Sat in the park and read Plato’s Republic
16. Decorated Grams living room for her birthday with Lauren’s artistic aid
17. Went to SLC and increased my culturally expanding palate at Mazza’s
18. Walked around the magnificent SLC county capitol with my sista from another mista
19. Drove the road that inspires awkward conversations
20. Hated on The Beast for being a butt head of a car
21. Helped Lauren almost die falling out of The Beast
22. Loved The Beast for enabling me to go on adventures
23. Kissed a hot movie star (juust kidding. Seeing if you were paying attention)
24. Grocery shopped with Sarah
25. Hugged Brian and Sarah a lot and
26. Ate a pizza with two lovebirds
27. Roasted marshmallows and listened to Brazilian music with my fantastic cuz
28. Pondered the magnificence of the beautiful America
29. Remembered my loved ones who fought to defend my liberty and freedom
30. Loved my life a whole heck of a lot
Friday, July 2, 2010
Overdosing on Chlorine
As I collapsed into my bed on Wednesday night, I noticed I had gotten a text from Brother Packham at 11:30PM reminding me about the ward temple night for Thursday evening at 7:00PM. I sighed and decided I wasn’t going to go as per I had gone to the Salt Lake temple that day. As I was saying my prayers, I was struck by a feeling I needed to go. I decided to ignore it and resolved to go trail running instead. I woke up excited to start my day with the promise of Arabic food for lunch and a trail run to cap off the evening. Can I just say how amazing lunch was? I went to Mezza’s with a co-worker and if you haven’t been, you need to. The first thing I tried was the limeade. Talk about heaven in a glass. They squeeze fresh limes right into your glass then bring a tiny little pitcher of rosewater and orange blossoms to mix in at your own discretion. I also tried falafel for the first time and am in pure disarray that I have not been eating this delectable food source my entire life. Since I took an hour longer for lunch, I had to stay an extra hour after work. Perfect! Another valid reason to not go to ward temple night. As I was driving home, I took the usual exit and my car seriously started driving itself to the temple. I tentatively asked, “Are you sure I have to go to the temple today?” My answer couldn’t have been clearer or more definite. Okay, fine. I drove to the temple parking lot and had a wonderful conversation with a wonderful friend while I waited for 7:00PM to roll around. When I walked in the doors I was sad to see only Brother Packham and another boy from our ward there. Wow! A whole two from the singles ward made it. I thought, “Well, this is why I must have to be here. To raise the dwindling ward temple goers”. I got dressed and since no one was there, we got ushered in to the font right after confirmations. The boy stepping out of the font had this HUGE grin on his face and one of the temple workers smiled at him and passed him his name slip with the astronomical number of 100 on it. I stared incredulously at him and quietly asked, “You seriously did a 100 baptisms? In a row?” He just kept smiling and shrugged, “Guess so”. As I stepped into the font, the temple workers joked about me doing a hundred names. I laughed too, but secretly wished it wasn’t a joke. When we reached 25, they asked if I really felt like I could do an hundred names. Done! I was dunked into that luke warm chlorinated water a hundred times and honestly, I don’t think I have ever felt happier after going to the temple. I wore a silly grin for the rest of the night and it is still ever present on my face today.
Maybe I ingested too much water in the font, but I wanted to go swimming in the morning bad when I got home. I got together my huge pack, set my alarm clock for 5AM, and then woke up at 4:30AM with fear it had failed to go off. I just sat on the edge of my bed and waited for 5AM to come and then raced out the door to South Jordan Aquatic Center. I walked in expecting 6 or 8 lanes to show off my swimming skills. There were only two. Two that already contained two very hairy men with pot bellies. Arg. I awkwardly waded through the pool and asked one of the hairy men to share his lane. He literally just looked at me without saying a word. Cool. “How about we just stay to one side instead of doing circles?” More staring. Okay, seriously? It is 5AM, I know I look beyond homely. Then he just took off and started swimming. Get prepared to eat some major bubbles you silent, hairy man. After 12 laps, I was pretty sure drowning was on my agenda today. Mister silent man was kicking my trash. As he was speeding past me with ease at one point, he bumped my leg and my hand flew into the divider. Blood gushed everywhere into the water. From my pinkie nonetheless. How lame is a pinkie injury? “Oh, that huge noticeable scar on my pinkie? Yeah, I got that from a fight with a forty something man at the local pool. It was intense. I won, obviously. This impressive battle wound proves that”. Not quite sure currently why I thought I would still be in swimming shape considering I haven’t really been for the past three months. Overdosing on chlorine apparently convinced me I wasn’t an asthmatic walrus and also convinced me I need to devotedly go to the pool for the rest of the summer for the sole purpose of seriously kicking the hairy man’s butt.
Maybe I ingested too much water in the font, but I wanted to go swimming in the morning bad when I got home. I got together my huge pack, set my alarm clock for 5AM, and then woke up at 4:30AM with fear it had failed to go off. I just sat on the edge of my bed and waited for 5AM to come and then raced out the door to South Jordan Aquatic Center. I walked in expecting 6 or 8 lanes to show off my swimming skills. There were only two. Two that already contained two very hairy men with pot bellies. Arg. I awkwardly waded through the pool and asked one of the hairy men to share his lane. He literally just looked at me without saying a word. Cool. “How about we just stay to one side instead of doing circles?” More staring. Okay, seriously? It is 5AM, I know I look beyond homely. Then he just took off and started swimming. Get prepared to eat some major bubbles you silent, hairy man. After 12 laps, I was pretty sure drowning was on my agenda today. Mister silent man was kicking my trash. As he was speeding past me with ease at one point, he bumped my leg and my hand flew into the divider. Blood gushed everywhere into the water. From my pinkie nonetheless. How lame is a pinkie injury? “Oh, that huge noticeable scar on my pinkie? Yeah, I got that from a fight with a forty something man at the local pool. It was intense. I won, obviously. This impressive battle wound proves that”. Not quite sure currently why I thought I would still be in swimming shape considering I haven’t really been for the past three months. Overdosing on chlorine apparently convinced me I wasn’t an asthmatic walrus and also convinced me I need to devotedly go to the pool for the rest of the summer for the sole purpose of seriously kicking the hairy man’s butt.
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