Sometimes it’s for you

This site has never purported to be a journal or a diary, or really anything more than a public place where I chose to share some bits of my life with people who are interested in reading them. But it's all been very controlled, and I've been very aware of my audience — from grandparents to potential bosses to strangers — since its inception. And so most of what I think and I do goes unsaid on this site, which for the most part is OK, except that when I look back on prior entries, sometimes I wish I had a better sense of what was really happening between the lines. So this entry is more for me than for you, because this week has been really been something and I need to get that down someplace.

It's been cloudy and insanely windy for two weeks straight, and every marathon training run has been a battle against the wind whipping across the orange and red landscape. The marathon is a little more than a week away, and I realized I've been spent a third of the year training for it. Somehow I hadn't really understood the intensity of what I was undertaking. On Monday my neighbor was murdered, though I had never met her. The yellow police tape came down yesterday. Now there are "No trespassing" signs at the driveway, and there are still lots of police cars. It's brought up lots of existential questioning, for obvious reasons. I don't know when I'm leaving Nantucket nor where I'll go when I do, but slowly my friends are leaving as the seasonal work ends and they head to other jobs elsewhere. I hate the tenuousness of the relationships I'm forging here. I'm exhausted because all I do is work, eat, run, sleep and watch baseball. Occasionally I go out after work, to watch baseball. And then last night something I've wanted as long as I can remember actually happened: the Red Sox won the World Series (see the front page of the Boston Globe). When Johnny Damon hit a lead off home run, I knew we had it, but it was nine tense innings before it ended. When it did, the bar exploded in cheers, but I sat there stunned. And then I started to cry. It was just too much. Everything from the week, from the fall, from the summer, from the whole year, it just overwhelmed me.

You can’t take the geek out of the girl

if win(Red Sox, World Series) {
return hangOver;
}

Kitchen tales and pranks

I've found Waiter Rant through Jason the other day and I've been enjoying reading his tales from the front of the house. Working in a restaurant provides a lot of fodder for stories. Recently we were discussing kitchen pranks, tasks our chef has asked some of our more gullible employees to undertake. Highlights include asking one woman to, "drain the espresso machine" and sending another to, "get the rice stretcher out of storage." I love pranks that sound slightly plausible. There are lots of kitchen gadgets, who knows, maybe somewhere there is a rice stretcher?

We had a good one the other day, but our hapless victim, a culinary intern, had already returned to school. We were going to ask her to, "mix up a batch of okra" to go with the salmon special. It would have been priceless to see her paging through the cookbooks to find the recipe.

And of course, I am so gullible that I'd probably fall for one of these tricks if they ever pulled one on me.

Marathon training advice

Well today I finished my final double-digit run before the marathon. Since last Sunday I've run nearly 49 miles! But now it's all downhill from here, nothing more than 9 miles, and aside from that seriously easy short stuff for my taper. Two weeks from tomorrow is the big day! As it nears, I'll post more about my expected outfit and finish time so that if you're in the area and plan to watch the race, you can cheer me on. In the meantime, now's your chance to help me out. Have you run a marathon? Do you have any advice for me? I know the main points: sleep well the night before the night before, eat well, etc. But anything else I need to know? Thanks.

A new shirt at Red Seat

The Red Seat's got a new shirt to commemorate Wednesday's victory over the Yanks: The Witching Hour. Looks great, and I love that it's black. Also, here's a photo of me sporting my Red Seat Building Character shirt on Wednesday night at work. I'm not smiling so much because this was before the game had begun and I was still very nervous.

The most magical day

Red Sox Make History by Beating Yankees:

From Fenway Park to Faneuil Hall, from Boston Common to Beacon Hill, the 11th pennant for the Red Sox, the first since 1986, will be remembered as the best for one reason: Beating New York in Yankee Stadium, site of last year's Game 7 meltdown.

This was for Williams and Pesky, for Yastrzemski and Yawkey, for Fisk and Rice and even Buckner and Nomar, just a few of the hundreds who suffered the pain inflicted by their New York neighbors in a rivalry that has become baseball's best.

None of the previous 25 major league teams to fall behind 3-0 even forced a series to seven games. The wild-card Red Sox became only the third of 239 teams in the four major North American leagues to overcome a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-seven series and win…It had been 100 years since Boston last won a pennant in New York on the final possible day, a 3-2 victory in a doubleheader opener at Hilltop Park in 1904.

Indeed it was a very good day.

Once in a lifetime

The Sox come back from 0-3 against the Yankees and I've refrained from posting out of superstition. I've instead watched each game, holding my breath, knocking on wood, and hoping, just hoping. And after game three, I almost even wrote an open letter to the Sox here, but decided against it. Instead, I just lay silent, hoping still. And then last night, a Bellhorn homer. And then tonight, Damon grand slam. And D. Lowe pitching like a freakin' rock star, and not just any rock star, but like Robert Plant or John Lennon, I mean, Rock Star. I did believe. I'll admit that I wavered, but I never faltered. I believed. I take my Sox do or die. And finally, they did! My oh my. World Series. I can hardly wait!!

It’s roasted mushroom season

I had the pleasure of tasting something similar to Marco Canora's Pan-Roasted Hen-Of-The-Woods Mushrooms when I had dinner at New York City's Craft back in late July. Moist and juicy and dripping flavor, the mushrooms were probably my favorite dish we enjoyed that evening. I'm anxious to try this recipe out at home, now I just need to get my hands on some hen-of-the-woods mushrooms.

Kicking my ass

Apparently this is the part of the marathon training that either kills you or makes you strong enough to run 26.2 miles. After yesterday's 20 miler, my schedule demanded 3 miles from my sore tired legs and feet this morning. I've never run a longer 3 miles in my life. And there's no rest for the weary, tomorrow AM calls for 8 miles. Which means that within 48 hours I'll have run 31 miles! I hope I can survive until Wednesday, which is a rest day. Yay rest day! Right now that's seeming very far off. Right now I can't even go down the stairs unless I take them one at a time, like a child. 🙁

20 miles is a very long distance

My marathon training is entering its final three weeks, and November 7th is fast approaching. I set out today for my final really long run, a 20 miler during which I covered a large portion of the Island. You can see the map of my route. I was going to keep updating this after I put the first 10 miler on, but since then I've been running all my long runs in the same general area, and the lines would have gotten all messy. But since this one was to, 'Sconset, the easternmost point in the United States, I thought I'd redo the map. It was a very long run, but I did it, and I'm getting really excited for the marathon!