Do you know what they have at the skating rink now? A skate buddy. What a skate buddy is, is a walker type contraption made out of PVC caulked together in a tall tipped over 3-D U and mounted on skate wheel casters. The kids stands wobbly on their skates in the middle of the U surrounded by protective PVC and just glide across the hard hard skating rink without ever even knowing how bad it hurts when you fall down on that hard rink and your skates are untied and your knee lands square on the laces.

When I was a kid you learned to skate and you learned to skate fast because you didn’t want to be the kid falling all over the place that everyone would make fun of. And you certainly didn’t want to be on the ground because it was the 80s and everyone had on a No Fear shirt and you could see in their faces that they meant it. Then there was the obligatory older junior high kids holding a roller derby right in the middle of open skate time and you might get killed or even worse your fingers run over.

The fuel that rocketed you from wobbly on wheels to skater extraodinaire was humiliation and fear. Skate or die. (Also when I was a kid it was safe enough to drop your child off at the skating rink on Saturday morning with her friends and pick her back up at noon. So this whole skate rink social was kind of Lord of the Fliesish.)

Then if that wasn’t enough, there was the whole snowball thing. You could A. stand awkwardly on the wall and wait to be picked by the really really cute guy with the No Fear shirt and skater haircut. And you’d be so nervous if he did that you would probably forget how to skate. Or it would be the really really nice but awkward guy who kept offering to help you up when the open skate roller derby threatened your fingers and who is going to someday be the perfect husband. Because somewhere around 25 he’s going to grow into his face and be cuter than the skater dude is now. Plus akward guy will be like a rich and famous social entrepreneur/humanitarian on the short list for the Nobel Peace Prize. But right now he is threatening your very place on the social food chain by picking you to skate around the rink with him and HOLD. HIS. HAND. Or B. You could go hide in the bathroom until Endless Love stopped playing. Then come out and act like you had no clue you had missed it and act all disappointed and stuff.

Any way you skin it though: Humiliation. We knew how fun skating was because we earned it. And it hurt. The immense please of rounding a corner and doing a turn right in front of your friends to skate backward so you can face them while you all sing Hangin’ Tough at the top of your lungs, will be totally lost on kids of the skate buddy generation.

They will skate. Sure. And they will be good at it. Fine. But they will have always expected to be good at it. Never been frustrated by it. And never had the opportunity to feel the success of skating all the way around the rink under the glow of that disco ball for the first time. They will no have a true understanding of how fun it is because they will not have had to struggle to earn it. They will have turned into fine skaters protected by a shield of PVC on wheels. You gotta fall to know how good standing up feels, much less shooting the duck.

An Emergency
Once I was standing in line for the bathroom at gymnastics with Bob who was crouched down on the ground trying to hold back a flood with her foot and holding her breath too for good measure and a lady came running up in a dither holding her 3-year-old underarm and looked me straight in the face and said, “I need to go next. It is an emergency.” And she didn’t even smile. Like she was serious.

Um, yeah lady. Of course it is an emergency. He is 3. How many 3-year-olds do you know who give you a 5-minute warning? Do you see my child kneeling on the floor practicing lamaze? Kids this age only go when it is an emergency. This is how many children are introduced to the concept of praying and God. Dear God in heaven please do not let her pee in her leotard.

Gotta Run
Prior to running the OKC Marathon the year it was 30-degrees, sleeting and lighting, I completed my fueling regime with a race start time of 7 in mind and used the restroom at the alloted time at my friend Cassie’s house before we jogged over to the start line. However the race did not start at 7 because it was lightning. This meant I had an extraordinary amount of fluid on board that was not going to be put into action as intended. Also I have a very small and very nervous bladder. I visited the bank of Port O’Johns about 43 times during the rain delay.

I was just about to make one last visit when they finally decided that since the lightning was gone and that 30 degrees and rain was probably OK conditions to go ahead and hold a marathon in it was time to line-up. My bladder isn’t the only part of me with crazy nerves. I wanted to make sure I was in the right place at the right time. And decided that maybe I didn’t really have to go GO, I was just nervous. So I walked to the start line with Cassie. We giggled. We clapped and did that closed mouth quite screamy thing with the really wide eyes you do when you are nervous and excited because we were about to run a marathon. We jumped. And then I knew that I really did have to go GO.

I however was not about to get out of line and run to the John. The year before I’d run 6-minute miles trying to catch up with Cassie because I slept through my alarm and arrived late. This year I knew I couldn’t do that and I was really going to need her to get through the sleet and lightning.

The first rest stop I thought. That can’t be too far away. I’ll forget I have to go once I start running anyway.

None of that worked and not too far in was a lone loo set out for construction workers I think. There was already a line. I jumped in it. When I was finally next up a man came running up and said ohmygoshIhavetogo canIpleasegonext. I just looked at him. I think Cassie said something like you have a penis. Use it. It was awesome.

What a Circus
I have an older brother. And he is good at it. He’s strong. Ornery. And dedicates ample time to giving his younger sisters a hard time. Also he has Down Syndrome and he uses it to his advantage. Once during intermission at a fancy circus thing at the Civic Center, Josh walked with me to the restroom so he could go too.

Outside the hall where the men’s and women’s room door faced each other was a bench. I told the little man to wait for me there if he got out before me. Women’s room lines being what they are, I figured it was a safe bet he’d have to wait.

This is where Josh shines in the pestering department. I thought I’d taken all the proper precautions to thwart his attempts by assigning him a very specific spot that was easily accessible to wait. And emphasizing the wait part when I told him.

Just as I finally had my opportunity at a stall and the door was closed, I could hear an old woman shouting “Lindy? … Is there a Lindy? … Lindy?” For the record my name is Lindsey. However I knew what she meant. She meant Lindy.

She meant Lindy because that is how she heard my brother pronounce my name as he was standing all 4-feet 11-inches of him cute faced and angelic and appearing lost when she asked him if he was OK. I sped through my turn and barreled out the stall as fast as I could. All the while the lady desperately called out in search of Lindy for the poor young man outside who seems to be lost.

“Lindy?” she said again.
“Me. Me Me. That’s me,” I said.
“Lindy?” she said.
“Yes.” No use in correcting her now it would probably be embarrassing for her.
“Oh. Well there is a young man outside who is lost … white noise. white noise. white noise.”
“Thanks, I got him,” I said.

All I could think is lady you got played. How often do you run into little Down Syndrome dudes in suits outside the restroom area of a civic center during $75 a ticket fancy circus thing who are lost and not just waiting on someone to come out of the lady’s room?

Josh thought it was funny anyway. Two for one.

So here’s my theory: This and Mr. Rogers ruined an entire generation. The Mr. Rogers thing is kind of an aside, but I’ll explain. I love Mr. Rogers. In fact when he died, my Mom called me to make sure that I was OK. My favorite T-shirt says It’s All Good In My Hood and has Fred Rogers’ mug on it. But Fred Rogers told us that we were special and set an expectation that we should be told that. A LOT. So now we have a generation people who think they are special and should be told that. A LOT. And it’s gotten progressively worse. Anyhow. Cheese.

So dealing with change. Or forgiveness. Or anger. Or all of the above. Whatever this “Who Moved My Cheese” book is about. I’m good with that. But maybe think of a different metaphor. Because here’s the deal:

What if I’ve been thinking about that cheese or let’s change it to the last four squares of the dark chocolate endangered species candy bar — the one with the monkey on it — that I’ve kind of been putting to the back of the cabinet hoping that no one notices it. I’ve been thinking of that all day long between meetings and e-mails and calls from teachers.

What if I spent 45 minutes on a treadmill watching HGTV thinking about how after I make dinner, bathe the girls, clean the kitchen, supervise homework and tuck two fuzzy heads snug into their beds, I’m gonna lay on the couch freshly showered in my sweatpants and Mr. Rogers T-shirt and eat that monkey candy bar all by myself. No sharing. No one asking me to watch this. No oh I forgot to send that e-mail. My scalp will be tingly clean. My achy exercised body will be warm and soothed. I’ll smell like rainwater or whatever scent of Bath and Body Works my brother bought me for my last birthday. And I’ll eat that chocolate.

Then the last story is read. Foreheads kissed. The last ‘night Mamas said. The last glasses of water drank. The last I can’t sleep fixed. The shower taken. And the space behind the peanut butter and in front of the honey is void of chocolate. … The. Monkey. Is. Gone. I’m supposed to keep my shit together? And if I don’t there’s something wrong with me? I just want my freaking chocolate. That chocolate was the key ingredient in my happy place all day long. Give me my freakin’ chocolate.

It is OK to be mad, upset, shocked. And I’m gonna feel OK about it. It’s my right to say Who Moved My Cheese no matter what that book says. Oh and I’ll judge your cover. Cause guess what. That is how humans got to the top of the food chain. Our ability to judge a cover and dodge its sharp teeth and poison.

It was a cold, dark and rainy Sunday. Our house was quiet and calm. The rain dripping from our gutters cast the shadow of a waterfall onto our walls. If the morning was a color it would have been white. I think our kitchen was even clean. It was as if the Mayans were saying this is the last March 10 that will ever happen and you should embrace the solitude of the moment and exploit the last few hours of overnight babysitting with a blanket, the couch, a cup of coffee and Yard Crashers.

It was driving me crazy. I was laced up and ready to go. I had 16 miles to run and had been looking forward to it all week. But here’s the deal: I don’t do cold and rainy unless I’ve paid a $110 registration fee and that happens to be what the weather is doing that day. I’m fine with running in rain. I’m even fine in the cold. But I will not willingly submit myself to both.

The hyper Oklahoma weathermen were all saying it was about to blow over … every commercial break … for like 3 hours. But it didn’t. So finally my run went from something I couldn’t wait to do, to something that had to be done. My plan was to go to the gym, watch Yard Crashers while I ran on the treadmill and then run some on the indoor track. Then maybe go back to the treadmill for some No Reservations and I’d be done before I even realized how freaking boring running 16 miles inside was.

And I was right for the first 7 miles. Then I moved to the track. I really don’t mind the treadmill. I know some people can’t imagine something more boring. For me that is the indoor track. What are you supposed to do while you run on an indoor track? Look at the same walls over and over and over and over and over and over — that’s 6 times in case you lost count — before you’ve even run 1 mile? It is horrible.

Because you have to make 6 laps to equal a mile on the indoor track the turns are kind of sharp. When I first started I noticed the smallest hint of pain. But you kind of expect that after running 7 miles. When I took my first turn on the track that pain went from a hint to a billboard. But I mean you hurt when you run so I kept running. And it kept hurting.

I thought if I could just get through 5 miles on the track that would only be 4 more miles on the treadmill. I could do that. So I kept running and I kept thinking this pain is going to go away any minute now. But I’d never really had a pain like this one. This pain was in an exact spot. I mean it radiated down to the bottom of my foot and it kind of felt like someone stabbed me in my shin with an icepick. But I could pinpoint the exact spot to the centimeter where that pain was radiating from. Shin splints and sore muscles cast a wider net that is less pain more ache.

The thing about training for something like a marathon or a century cycling event or just being a very active person is that you have a very close relationship with your body. You know it through and through. You know what it needs. You know how it will react to what you give it. You can identify pains. You know what is causing them. You know how long they are going to last. What will make them stop. But this pain was foreign to me. When I finished my fifth mile on the track I mashed around under my tibia hoping to find a knot. Maybe this was the mother of all shin splints.  I searched for some other soft tissue in my ankle or foot that hurt. There was none.

So I finished up my run on the treadmill hoping the change in surface was all I needed. It wasn’t.

I hobbled back to my car to go ask my med student husband to diagnose my injury. Mostly because it is cute. I already suspected and was in denial that it was a stress fracture He asked me to move my foot around then went to find a book. He pointed to a page and asked me does it feel like the pain is right there. I looked and then nearly puked right on his $350 book. I didn’t realize he was going to show me a real live dead human dissected foot and ankle. He went and found a book with illustrations and asked me again. He suggested tendonitis. I think he was being nice.

The next day I had a 5 mile run on the schedule. During the week I usually run at night after I put the girls to bed. That may sound hectic and it sort of is until I get there, but I really enjoy it. I can watch TV without seeing dust on the bookshelves or feel like I should be folding laundry. I get to have an hour all to myself, guilt free. But I couldn’t think about any of that during this run because I was in so much pain I thought I might throw up.

Tuesday I had a 6 mile run. It didn’t hurt as bad. So I thought that confirmed that it was a soft tissue thing from the 16 mile run. And maybe if I just took off until Sunday when I needed to run 10 miles, I’d be good as new.

Sunday was a beautiful spring day. I love running through Norman early on a spring morning. It is different than the morning before so anywhere you look something new has bloomed or sprouted. The birds sing and the train chugs. You can smell washing laundry and frying bacon coming from people’s houses. And it feels like it is all yours.

I suited up and head out. The very first step I took hurt like someone had heated that icepick to 400 degrees and then jabbed it into my shin. So I ran 5 miles. I kept thinking it would go away. I wanted my Sunday morning spring run dammit. By the end of 5 miles I was 2 miles from both home and my sister’s house and I couldn’t decide which one to call to come and get me. Jay would have to load up the girls and my sister is pregnant and it was early. So I decided I could just run home. Then I’d have put in 7 miles and that was close enough to 10 to not feel like a loser.

When I got home I was ticked and Jay said something that was intended to make me feel better I think but I got pissed at him. I could barely walk. Monday I could really barely walk. Tuesday I decided that I could ride my  bike on my trainer and that would be OK. And it didn’t in fact hurt. Also I’d eaten a pazookie at BJ’s Brewhouse and it needed to be exercised.

Fortunately I had an appointment with an orthopedic doctor the next day. Because at this point I had put 30 miles on my leg after it started hurting and 30 minutes on my bike. Yes I am bragging. I am absolutely certain it would not have taken more. As certain as I am that I would have tried to do more.

The doctor told me that if I had a stress fracture I needed to wrap my head around the fact that I wouldn’t be running the marathon. He sent me for an MRI. Thursday afternoon my ankle was as big as my head and by Friday I was in a boot. Tibial stress fracture.

And do you want to know something? I can’t do anything. He told me he didn’t want me walking for exercise. Didn’t want me going out the zoo. Didn’t want me going to the mall (I think he threw that in there because I’m a girl, but it kinda made me laugh), didn’t want me wearing high heels (that one really made me laugh), avoid second hand smoke.

This was all sorta funny cause I was flying to Vegas two days later. Vegas is famous for walking and smoking. So he wasn’t too thrilled about that. I asked how long and he said 1 month. But he interrupted before I could finish the sentence and the end of it was “before I can do any exercise again.” And I assume he thought I would understand that was the same answer. He doesn’t know me very well. When I was pulling out of the parking lot, I realized I had forgot to verify this. I called. They laughed.

I think if you are injured and you can’t do anything they should at least give you a cast people can sign. And for the record, I want everyone to know it is a TIBIAL stress fracture. Not my foot. I’m sure stress fractures in feet hurt really really bad. I don’t mean to take away sympathy from the feet. But I broke my leg. I have never broken a bone in my 33 years. Not once and I want full credit for the bone that is broken. TIBIA. BROKE. OK well stress fracture, but whatever.

Apparently Erin did not know that she was a formula baby. We all were. My Mom cut her baby feeding teeth on a very sick baby who had to be fed super-duper nutrient enriched formula from a bottle so that his exact intake could be measured. By the time Erin
came along Mom had two kids aged 3 and 5 born 18 months apart the oldest with Down Syndrome. Somewhere in there I guess Erin imagined that Mom sat quietly and nursed her. In her head there was probably a dim room with a breeze blowing through a window billowing silk curtains as my Mom sat in a rocker wearing a gown of soft white fabric with a faint floral pattern holding Erin all swaddled in a hand knitted blanket. I think this is how youngest children assume their life always was and always should be. God bless’em. I think it is a survival thing their brains do so that they aren’t traumatized by how chaotic it really was until everyone left the house and their life did more closely resemble that fantasy.

Erin’s lucky she got fed at all.

Erin inviting Mom to take part in her breastfeeding class blew the lid right off her fantasy. I’m here to tell you there are a lot more fantasies that are about to get real unfantastical through pregnancy, delivery and parenthood.

Mom says to Erin — only actually it was an e-mail — “I’m honored that you would ask me and confused at the same time — as I have never breastfed a baby!!!!”

Four exclamations means she was laughing pretty hard at her desk when she read Erin’s e-mail.

Then shock and horror from Erin:

YOU DIDN’T BREASTFEED!!!! OH MY GOODNESS, I’VE BEEN LIVING A LIE!!!!

Eight exclamations points and then a smiley face means that she said this really sarcastic and then smiled.

Erin’s bottle was probably held to her mouth by Mom’s chin as she tried to keep Josh and I from killing ourselves or each other.

It all started when my sister sent this e-mail to my Mom and I:

I have signed up for this breastfeeding class and they highly suggest having a support partner there in case I miss some sort of information that would be good to have the day of delivery and I am too overwhelmed to remember, and I think they also discuss other items besides just breastfeeding and Mario and I are doing a separate labor class. … I was wondering if one of you would be able to be my “support partner”?

So what I want to know is maybe can we both go? Cause someone definitely needs to soak in this information that they are going to be dishing out for Erin’s sake. But someone really should be there to document, make immature comments and collect jokes to tell at family dinners. And it just so happens I know someone perfect for that job. I mean let’s face it my Mom is head over heels a better candidate for the position of BFSP. Next to BFSP in that breast feeding class brochure, there is probably a picture of my mother.

But Mom’s diplomatic and says that she’s honored but vollies the option to me. A priest and a rabbi walk into a bar …

So I ask:

Can we both go? I can see about a million blog posts coming from this. So my mom and I accompanied my sister to a breastfeeding support person class the other night … Is there a day for that like Administrative Assistant’s Day? How do I answer the phone after being selected for this job? Thank you for calling Erin’s Breastfeeding, how may I direct your call? Also won’t some of the context be lost if you take separate classes? I’ve seen how arguments go down when you’ve understood information from the same class differently. My teacher said two short inhales and a long exhale. Well my teacher said one long inhale and two short exhales.

Does this e-mail firm up who you’d want to be there?

Then Mom being the model BFSP she is fires back quickly:

Erin, don’t panic from Lindsey’s e-mail. I’m going with you!

What a suck up.

Also what I want to know is … About that in case you are too overwhelmed to remember thing. I’m just gonna throw out there, speaking from personal experience, you’re not only not gonna remember the breast feeding part, but you also aren’t going to remember the breathing part or the finding a calm place part or the why the heck you wanted to have a baby in the first place part or any of that other stuff. However my information almost always gets trapped on the wrong side of the synapse. Those neurons fire away and then finally just look at each other, shrug their shoulders and say I’ve got nothin’. So maybe I’m speaking out of turn on this one.

Erin chose Mom of course:

Clarification: Mario and I are taking a labor class together that is separate from the breastfeeding class. However if we weren’t and we were getting mixed information, we all know that in the end I would be right.

We’ll just go with Mom coming with me, but thanks for the offer of exposing me to all of your Wolf Shorty fans. You’re still welcome to blog about it but maybe just leave my breasts out of it. Maybe you could sit in on a class if you would like to blog about it and then not have to worry about answering phones in any which way.

Thanks for all the support!

Since I didn’t get selected for BFSP, I’d just like to give my sisterly advice.

At 3 a.m. when you are trying to calm the spawn of Satan that most certainly was switched in the hospital with your actual baby but is now in your house sleeping feet from your bed and is summoning the beasts of hell with a shrilling siren of a cry, you won’t remember a damn thing from that class. And while you are crafting strongly worded letters to the hospital administration about their carelessness, which resulted in the “babies” being switched and you’re digging through all those free pamphlets and formula samples they send you home with you to find the hospital’s mailing address you might come across The Nursing Mom’s Companion book. You’ll think this book is just more free junk they sent you home with. It’s cheaply made and looks like all those other informational things that are actually advertisements for nursing pads and other implements for babies and breasts.

That book is the key to everything. And you’ll want to have Mom there when you are digging through all that stuff looking for mailing addresses because 1. she is skilled at letter writing and 2. she’ll actually open that book and thumb through it. And when you say it’s just some dumb advertisement she’ll say now wait let’s just look at it. She’ll discover that the book actually has bullet point information about breastfeeding that is easy to understand even at 3 a.m. without your glasses on and no hours of sleep with the spawn of Satan in your hand.

You’ll discover things like Kung Pao chicken and a dozen chocolate chip cookies may taste perfectly wonderful to you, but don’t taste so well when turned into milk.

Mom will also drive your husband 30 minutes to the nearest purveyor of implements of breast feeding, pound on the door before the store opens and explain the situation to the shopkeeper, who will nicely open the shop ahead of schedule just for her and then load her up with all the implements you could ever think you might need and some you didn’t even know about.

You have the perfect BFSP. I’m just honored you think I have fans, even if that was a sarcastic remark. Oh and if they don’t give you that book at the hospital, I still have my copy dog eared, highlighted and annotated.

You see it all started when I had Nola. I was 25. We had no savings. No short-term disability. No government subsidized maternity leave even though MOST of the rest of the planet does but hey thanks for making my employer hold my job for 12 weeks. No money. So 10 weeks after Nola was born, I became a working mother. Being a working mom is often a schizophrenic existence. You think about what you need to be doing for your kids while you are at work and you’re thinking about what you didn’t get done at work when you are at home. And how those thoughts usually go down is something like this: I shouldn’t have yelled so loud at them this morning even though I told them to brush their teeth and they are now all stinky breathed playing the ukelele in their bedroom wearing an Indian costume even though they had on school clothes 30 seconds ago and they deserved to be yelled at and Oh man I didn’t get that done before I left work even though I was putting out fires and got called into 4 surprise meetings and there would be no way I could have finished all that work in time to get to the daycare before they started charging $25,000 a minute for late pickup. It’s hardly ever I’m a brilliant mother and a rock star at the office. Maybe I’m taking some liberties with the “yous.” This is how I think anyway. Laugh along if you are a YOU and laugh at me if you are not.

It is an existence of constant loose ends. And often the area that you end up feeling least successful in is the parenting part. Cause there are no performance review or measurable objectives. Oh well unless I guess you count parent teacher conferences and keeping the kids alive.

But tonight I hit it out of the ballpark. And you wanna know how? The centipede. Also called the worm or caterpillar, this 1980s dance sensation is accomplished when the dancer lays on the floor and then thrust herself forward in a centipede like motion (actually it is more caterpillar-like) using her legs, arms and abdominal muscles and brute strength. I use the term dancer loosely here. It was probably one of the most important things I learned in the 80s. Oh well and reading. That was a good skill I picked up in the early 80s.

We were having ourselves a little impromptu pre-bedtime dance party in the living room. The girls were flipping and jumping and laughing. Then when the floor was clear, I threw myself on it and centipeded right across the living room. They stopped motionless and then bust into laughter the kind that involves your entire body, jumped on the couch giving me full command of our dance floor, looked at me intensely and said “do it again.” I did the centipede so much, I’m crossing the strength training portion of today’s work out off. And you know what I thought? I’m a BRILLIANT mother.

I made my kids laugh. Both of them. Bob is easy. Nola, though, is a tougher audience. She’s usually like oh yeah nice yawn. But she was cackling. There was no thought about the day before or the day to come. We were just right there in our little living room, our little selves, having a jammy jam. If it had been a movie, the camera would have zoomed out and out and our laughs would have slowly faded into music that made you feel all warm and gushy as the camera ultimately shot from the perspective of someone standing on the street looking into our living room window. Roll credits.

Bob said, “Can we do this before the next bedtime because I am having so much fun.”

Yes, Bob. Yes we can. I can’t wait to show them the Running Man.

Thank you bad days, limited time and the centipede for making this moment possible. It gave me some much needed perspective. … And an ab workout. Shoot I felt so good about it, I steam cleaned my living room carpet and ran 5.5 miles after I put them to bed. Rock Star. I’m just sayin’. Some days you knock it out of the ballpark and some days you strike out. Celebrate the home runs.

Neither broccoli nor cabbage, they have taken on mutant characteristics of each of their close relatives. And like the newt none of these joined together in an attractive way. Sort of like there were a bunch of leftover parts after creating fish and frogs or cabbage and broccoli and they needed to be used so voila newt and Brussels sprouts.

You couldn’t tell someone who never had one before what they are like. I mean try to explain it. They are kind of like … Well they taste like … You put butter on them … Oh just try it. You can’t even throw it taste like chicken out there.

However, I’ve seen them popping up on menus in trendy gastropubs and heard about them being eaten in high-end restaurants where I can’t afford to eat. Which is exciting. I love Brussels sprouts. I kinda of think newts are cute too though. The thought of Brussels sprouts reaching their due day on the plates of fine dining restaurants makes me smile. I’m all about these foods that were once what people ate because that is all they had to eat, getting to get all dressed up with aiolis and infusions and ride porcelain to linen covered tables to be plucked up by sterling silver flatware. It’s all very Pretty Woman. You can almost picture Meatloaf and Brussels sprouts marching into a snotty boutique restaurant to tell them how big a mistake passing them over was. Big mistake.

As I see it, a perfect storm to give fame and hipness to Brussels sprouts is brewing.  They are inexpensive and ugly, which makes them prime poster vegetables for the hipster world. You know cause, irony. They have a compact and dense shape that holds its form during any method of cooking. And a flavor you can either throw rich sauces on or just keep simple making them a creative playground for people who make food for a living or just for really good eating. Their cost to nutritional value ratio is astounding and you can grow them making them a prime choice for hippies and parents alike. There is something to love for all of the prefect groups of people in a position to to spread the word.

The problem most people have with Brussels sprouts is that they’ve had them over cooked, which gives them that really bitter sulphorous flavor and nursing home smell. So here is what to do with them. It’s no fail, cause even if you do overcook them this will fix it — but don’t over cook them. You can steam, boil or roast them. I prefer roasting. Roll them out on a cookie sheet with some olive oil and salt. Then stick them in an 350ish oven for like 15 to 20 minutes turning them halfway through. Pull ‘em out and squeeze the juice of one lemon and sprinkle them with Parmesan cheese. These two flavors are very good at toning down bitter (which is why it works even if you overcook them and just FYI also makes a very good dressing for agrula if you add some olive oil). That should win over just about any Brussels sprout skeptic. (However if that doesn’t work fry some in beer batter and serve them with horseradish mayo.)

So here is your mission if you choose to accept it: Take up a Brussles sprout stalk, go out and spread the word.

Last May 1 during a late cold snap (thank you freaky Oklahoma weather), my running pal Cassie and I arrived at the finish line of the Oklahoma Memorial Marathon wet, hypothermic in search of our finishers T-shirt, hamburgers, foil blankets and death. We had spent the entire day running through rain, sleet, hail and lightning with the Oklahoma wind rubbing in our face that it was raining, sleeting, hailing and freezing cold. On any other day with similar weather, I would have stayed in my bed until noon and then moved to the couch for movie day under a large blanket. OK, let’s be realistic. I have kids. That’s how I would have wanted to spend it, though. Not this day though. This day I ran a marathon. It was miserable. I had a painful broken toe from being a total clutz. I had lost 4 toenails, one on a toe that I was begging anyone with a knife to cut off after an infection caused pain similar to childbirth … on my freaking toe. My hip hurt so bad I was pretty sure that the ball thing that goes in your hip bone was breaking off. And this was before the marathon even started. It took an entire week after the marathon for my core body temperature to return to normal and 6 weeks to resume a normal gait. I was never ever under any circumstances doing that again. I’d done it once. Checked it off my list. I could put the sticker on my car.  I could settle for half marathons for the rest of my life and in fact 13.1 miles  would probably be a piece of cake now. And Cassie … She not only wasn’t doing another marathon, she was never running again. Don’t even ask.

But apparently endurance sports cause brain damage, which explains a lot. Have you ever met a sane endurance athlete? It scrambles your brain so that when you remember these events it reaches for the only evolutionary response it can find for this sort of stress and preforms the same selective recall served up for childbirth and general parenthood. In order that women will keep passing children from their bodies and/or raise whining crying creatures into self-sufficient beings that are capable of reproducing thereby continuing human existence, the brain lets women remember what an accomplishment and what hard work and how freakin’ awesome childbirth and parenting are. But the brain absolutely does not let women anywhere near the memory of the horrific physical pain.

Once you cross the finish line … same thing. Begging for death one minute. About to throw your bike off the side of a mountain or yourself in front of the next car that passes. Then all of the sudden your laughing, hi-fiving and that was the greatest thing we’ve ever done we can’t wait til next year. It wasn’t necessarily all of the sudden with the marathon thing. It took a good three months to even consider strapping on my running shoes.

Then one day I went running again. And I remembered how much I loved it. And then I started to wonder how well I might do if I were to run the marathon again. Just wondering. Then it started nagging at me. Then one day I decided that I couldn’t really count that last marathon as my first cause that was more like … water boarding. Then I waited for the perfect moment to present itself, printed off a 16-week marathon training schedule — a more well rounded one than we previously used — and slipped it to Cassie. And she said YES.

I spent the final part of 2011 getting back in good running form. This included losing the rest of the 10 pounds I gained training last year. Yes gained 10 pounds training for a marathon. Didn’t seem fair to me either. Then I lost 20 more pounds that I just needed to lose because I respect my hips too much to put them through the training again without giving them a little break. And if the world ends I want to make sure that I’ve given my all to a really good last marathon time. My hips and knees feel good. I have nine and a half toenails. I’ve built up a good pace getting in those base miles. Hardcore Cassie and Lindsey are back in good running form and one week of training down. Fifteen weeks to marathon day. Here’s to another Epic Marathon — hopefully not because of the weather.

For the other parents who drop their kids off at my kid’s school: I resolve that in 2012 you will pull all the way forward. This one is easy. All you need to do is wait to stop your car, have your kid unbuckle, find his backpack, give you a kiss and do whatever else it takes for kids to do in the 20 minutes it takes them to get out of the car and pull as far into the circle drive as you can. Then more people can get their car into the circle drive. People won’t get frustrated waiting in the street. So you see this is like one step in the direction of world peace. People go to work happy. They spread happiness. See easy peasy. Can we work on this?

For my kid’s school: In 2012 I resolve we determine a new solution for children who are being dropped off at school in cars. See above.

For network TV: I resolve that in 2012 you clean it up. I can remember as a kid laying on the floor of the living room watching The Wonder Years and The Cosby Show while my sister, brother and I cycled through the bathtub after dinner. I don’t remember a single KY or condom commercial. I remember Cliff and Clair having a strong and healthy relationship. You knew it existed. It was tender. I do not however remember them tearing each other’s clothes off as they ran up the stairs while the camera followed them into their room until they were actually engaged in coitus. And there certainly weren’t any shows in which a man whored out to 25 girls narrowing them down one by one until he propose to the last one standing. I’m not asking you to go all prude. I can be rude, crude and inappropriate with the best of them. But do you think we can work on this? Put it in the after 9 lineup? I’m fine with the kids in those shows having sex and drinking.

For people getting on the interstate: In 2012 I resolve that you will learn how to yield. Yes. You. That red triangle sign that says YIELD real big. That is there for you. I want to make sure we’re on the same page here in case you missed the day of driver ed when Yield was discussed: Yield is not just a Pearl Jam album. According to Merriam-Webster, it is a verb (which is an action word, so it’s something that you do) meaning: to give or render as fitting, rightfully owed, or required. That means when you are getting on the interstate you yield or render because it is fitting, the right of way which is rightfully owed to the people who are already traveling at 65 miles per hour and wait until there is a safe time at which you can enter the flow of traffic. We can do this!

For Occupy X Placers: I resolve in 2012 you turn your attention to the BCS. Wallstreet may be gross, but check out how capitalism and greed have turned college football into a commercially sponsored competition of money and not talent. Go get’em.

For the BCS: I resolve in 2012 you dissolved and work out a more normal way of determining who is good at football. See above. See also playoffs.

For Ticketmaster and other ticket outlets: In 2012 I resolve that … You know what? You know what you need to do. Just do it.

For people who have too much money: In 2012 I resolve that you really consider your purchases. Presumably you worked hard for your money and you deserve to enjoy it. But just consider this: Instead of buying a $60,000 or more car, you could buy a really nice $40,000 car and then give the other $20,000 to help bring water to the 1 in 3 people in the world who don’t have it. The second leading cause of death for children in the world is diarrhea, in large part because of inadequate access to water. Water4 is a great organization looking for donations to help provide wells. You can find out how to donate your 20k at www.water4.org. Also people DIE because they don’t have enough to eat. Is a $2 million dollar engagement ring really necessary if you throw it up against that? If you would like to help with this see UNICEF or your local food pantry, soup kitchen or homeless shelter. And lastly a lot of really great medical research, hospitals and treatment centers are lacking funding and primary care in the US is pretty poor. Consider donating to research, hospitals, medical schools or scholarship programs. Get out there and do good people with too much money!

For the city of Norman: I resolve in 2012 you fix the pedestrian-car traffic gridlock at the intersection of Boyd and Asp. Here are my two cents. East/west car traffic. Pedestrian traffic. North/south car traffic. Pedestrian traffic. Repeat.

To the people of the planet: Relax, you’re not curing cancer. Well unless you are curing cancer, then keep doing what you’re doing. And do your best to make sure that thing that happened in I Am Legend doesn’t happen. That was kind of freaky. But really, smile. Say thanks. Be kind. Take some time. Go outside. Relax. You’ll be a much happier person. Plus if the Mayans were right, you only have about one more year. Don’t you want to spend it having fun and being happy and feeling good?

To drivers who don’t share the road: I resolve in 2012 you step out of your comfort zone and say kind things to cyclists and runners. People die when you don’t share the road. Isn’t sharing worth a human life?

There. Just a few suggestions for people in a position to make great progress toward global peace and happiness. Here is to a 2012 of global-improvement.