One of the very, very, very few things I'm uncomfortable about with my quality of life is the lack of time I spend with my parents. Unlike many people, but like most people I know, I have good relationships with my parents. I like spending time with them. Unless, of course, Dad and I are talking politics. Then all gloves come off.

Because I don't spend a lot of time with my parents, I feel I lose out on great stories from their lives. I wish I wrote down more of the ones I hear. Why, just tonight, Dad related to me this story:

"A friend of mine told me he had sex seven times in one night. I was talking to my dad at dinner, and told him about this guy, about how he had sex seven times in one night. Grandma piped up, "Ike and I don't have it that many times in as many months!" Dad turned to her, "Well, he's missing out."

What a hoot! My grandpa telling my great-grandmother to have more sex. I'm sure Grandpa's stories would have been entertaining, too. I miss him.

Update: Moving this to a book entitled, "Conversations With Dad".

G has decided to help me go all-out on my workouts preparing me on my road to Team USA. Instead of working on building muscle with weight-lifting, we did a full plyo class. The class was made "worse" by the presence of another trainer, who was learning the game plan. Having a new guy watching means, of course, we have to show off. Well, at least I did. G did say a couple times that the workout was harder than most because I'm training for team USA, which made me feel good.

We started out with ladders. We had a few more than we normally do. Nominally, we had

  LR-RL-LR-RL
  Ali shuffle
  facing sideways, L over R in, L below R in, repeat
  facing sideways, with left foot in, R top bottom, as above
  facing sideways, RL in, RL below, RL in, RL below
  facing sideways, LR in, LR below, etc.
  L hop in/out, R hop in/out
  "hopscotch" with only L foot, again with only R foot
  hopscotch L-R-both
  quick feet: LR in, LRL out, RL in, RLR out 
  cross over: L cross over (foot lands perpendicular to the
    direction of travel), RL out, R cross over, LR
  hip switch (L outside on L, R outside on R, twist, landing
    with feet perpendicular to direction of travel), twist
    back, landing with feet on outside, repeat advancing one
    square.  repeat with other foot first
  two taps: heading L: LR in, LR out; heading R: RL in, RL out
    I caught up to Kris on these.  Zoom!

I was tired already after the ladders. I zipped along hard, both trying to keep up with Kris and showing off for the new guy.

We started the workout outside, with shuttles. With an 8# ball, we shuffled down and back throwing the ball back and forth between each other. We did a progression of 2 lengths (down and back), 4 6 8, then back down 8 6 4 2.

At the first 6, it became apparent that I wasn't doing them correctly. Instead of lowering my butt and staying on my toes, I was shuffling on my heels and leaning forward ("hunching over"). So, at 6, we rolled the ball instead of throwing it. The point was to practice lowering the rear and staying on the toes. We rolled for the 6 & 8 lengths, returning to throwing for the remaining 8 6 4 2.

Next came the "I of pain" shuffles (perhaps spelled "eye of pain", not sure). 5 cones, each spaced 3 steps (~3 yards) apart. Starting at cone 1, run to cone 2, run backward to cone 1, run to cone 3, run backward to cone 1, etc. Kris did 4. My times were 18.3, 17.9, 18.2, 18.0, 17.9. I did 5 because my time didn't decrease each time. The first 17.9 I cheated on, and didn't go all the way back to cone 1 on one of the backward runs.

Next were some quick feet drills. Ugh-a-rooni. Using a Reebok Step, with one riser, we did 1 set of 3 exercises, and 2 sets of 4 exercises, each for 30 seconds:

• feet together, jump on the Step, jump off to the side, jump on the Step, jump off to the other side, repeat
• bound over: two feet together, jump over the Step, landing on the other side, spring immediately to jump back over the other way, continue
• single step: RL step up, RL step down, LR step up, LR step down
• single step with crossover: same as the single step, but step up with the outside foot, using arms to explosively bound onto the step

3 sets of jump ropes were next. My goal was 120 jumps in a minute. If I didn't make it, I had to continue with 110 jumps in the second minute. If I didn't make that, it was 100 jumps in the next minute. This trend would continue until I managed the required number of jumps in a minute.

I didn't make it.

I went all the way down to 90 before I was so tired I couldn't manage more than 4 jumps without missing a jump. So, I threw down the jump rope and just jumped for a minute. Even then I had less than 90 jumps, so I had to do them again. Argh.

Kris had the great idea of jumping on the cement, since the cushy floor was causing problems for him. My second jump rope set was no problem, hitting 100 jumps in 52 seconds. Whoo! The third set was back on the squishy surface, and I managed 100 in a minute. Barely.

Next were 3 sets of lunge jumps using the Step. Using the Step meant our lunges were deeper, and the jumps harder. The first set was 15. We had sets of 15 because I stopped 15 times when trying to jump rope. D'oh. When G realized I hadn't swum today, he added another 5 on sets 2 and 3.

Last were abs.

• bicycles
• single leg V ups
• partner throw downs
• side to sides with 25# (!!!)
• lying down, 25# straight up, lift straight up
• lift feet up, hold weight up, lift weight to touch feet
• lying down, weight (8# at this point) over head, do V up bringing weight over to touch knees
• 6-12" leg holds
• lower back: supermans, twist lifts, lift straight up.

My upper butt and butt sides hurt.

When I was in high school, we lived in a house with 2 bathrooms: one for my mom and her husband, the other for the three of us kids. Bathroom use worked out fairly well, as BJ's school started a 1/2 hour after Chris' and mine, and I liked to sleep in. ("Liked"? Who am I kidding? I still like to sleep in.)

Chris would take a shower first in the morning. Yep, we're a family of morning-showers. He had the unpleasant habit of leaving his dirty underwear in the bathroom when he was done showering. Even after we asked him not to, he'd leave them on the bathroom floor. Every morning BJ and I would stumble into the bathroom to get ready for school, Chris' underwear greeted us.

We tried many tactics to get Chris to pick up his underwear. We complained to Mom. We picked them up and left them on his bed. We played soccer with them as the ball, in front of him and his friends. We used them as weapons of mass destruction.

No luck.

Each morning, they were still there, waving at us with a fragrant, freshly worn underwear smell. Eventually I gave up. I stopped hounding Chris to pick up his dirty underwear, and started picking them up myself. And what a thankless job it was! A little sister cleaning up after her older brother! Oh, the shame!

Except that I didn't put them in his dirty clothes pile.

When he left his dirty underwear in the bathroom and I picked them up, I put them in a bag (plastic, tightly sealed) in the back of my closet. One by one those dirty underwear migrated from the Chris' butt, to the bathroom, to the dungeon of my closet.

I didn't think much of the underwear. I just picked them up and put them away. Eventually, there were no underwear on the bathroom floor in the morning. Ta dah! I had done my job and done it well. No more underwear on the bathroom floor! Joy!

Strangely, however, Chris didn't complain. Who wouldn't notice that you've gone from lots of underwear down to, say, 2 pair. But I didn't hear him say anything about them. 2 pair: the one he was wearing, and the one in the wash.

One day, a while after the morning brush with discarded underwear had stopped, I heard my mom complaining, "How can you have only 2 pair of underwear? I just bought you new ones two weeks ago! Where did they go?" Chris, "I don't know." as he started another load of laundry.

Ooops. Someone noticed.

I went into the back of my bedroom closet, pulled out the (now quite heavy) bag of dirty underwear and brought it out to the livingroom. And handed it to Chris. In front of my mom and BJ, both of who looked stunned. I explained why I did it. BJ smiled. Mom said nothing (though I suspect she was laughing inside at my cleverness). Chris was relieved to have underwear again.

He never left underwear on the bathroom floor again.

Man! I want a house with enough land to have this surprise:

Date:   	Tue, 23 Nov 2004 07:42:29 -0800 (PST)
From:   	Vicki 
To:  	        chris, Sonnie, Kitt, BJ, Barbara, Judy
Subject:  	Chickens!

Came home from the anniversary party and look what we 
found! Only 2 of the 18 or so eggs hatched (and
survived). We think "birth" occurred either Sunday or
Monday ... they sure are PUNY!

Your farmer friend,
Vicki

Kris and I took Bella and Annie for a walk tonight. When we're short for time, or just lazy, we'll take them up to the school and let them run around the big field. They get to run around, we get to walk and talk: a big win all around.

Well, on this walk, Bella stopped at one point, and started chowing down on some cat poop. I have no idea why this dog likes eating cat poop [1] (a google search answered that question quickly), but it annoys me to no end. I can't stand the shit-breath she has when she's done.

So, on the leash Bella goes, and we start walking home.

90% of the way home, Bella stops. Figuring she's just peeing, I keep walking. When the leash goes taut, and she resists, I realize something's up. When I look, she's eating more cat poop. I made the mistake of thinking it would be solid, and that I could just knock it out of her mouth: I stuck my gloved fingers into her mouth and tried to flick the poop out.

Big mistake.

My fingers come out covered in cat poop. And I'm angry now. I'm angry that this stupid dog ate cat shit not once, but twice. I'm angry that I now have cat poop on my gloves (ones my mom gave me a long while ago!). I'm angry that her breath smells of cat shit and she's giving me a shit-eating grin while still chewing. So, I did what any angry, shit-gloved, beagle-dragging woman would do.

I wiped my gloves on the dog.

Just as I was reaching down, somewhere in the fog of my anger, I heard Kris call out, "Not on the dog! Ewwwww!"

I really must listen to him more. I ended up dragging Bella home (mostly literal, she heeled very well for those last 150 yards), plunking her in the shower and giving her a bath. Did I mention she hates baths? She smells nice now. She also got a greenie. Stinky breath dog.

Footnote:

http://www.animalbehaviorassociates.com/ pdf/RMN_dogs_eat_poop.pdf

A behavior that is very common in dogs but not well understood is the eating of feces. Technically this is known as coprophagia. When given the chance, many dogs will eat the feces of other animals such as horses, deer and house cats. Raiding the litterbox is a common activity for dogs in households with cats. The behavior may be derived from the carnivorous (meat-eating) heritage of our pets. Carnivores frequently eat the internal organs and stomach contents (including poop) of the animals that they kill. As a result, eating the feces of other animals may be a normal extension of their carnivore behavior. There may be proteins and other nutrients in the feces that are eaten.