2: Run Lola Run...

This is a little German gem from the late 90s.  Before this I had only seen the work of Wem Wenders, I was seriously lacking in the German film department. My apologies. Scotland was getting a lot of my attention back then-Shallow Grave, Trainspotting...Berlin was off my radar. 

Until this brightly colored redhead took off on a twenty minute run to get her boyfriend 100,000 Deutschmarks before a gangster kills him.  Obviously the film was made before the Euro.  She does this run in a weird tank top thing and black boots.  Wow.

I say my life changes with each text.  Lola got a phone call.  The landline phone rings in her parent's apartment and she answers it. That was mistake number one. Don't answer the phone. Of course, there was no caller ID.  Her boyfriend tells her she has until noon to help him. She looks at the clock-it's 11:40.   This triggers the run that reminds me of a 5K sprint.

It actually becomes three twenty minute runs with three alternate courses she can take to get to that phone booth with a bag of money by noon. It's a really funky groundhog day minus Bill Murray before he hooked up with Wes Anderson.  Like I said, technology has advanced. She could have texted him, "I have it-I'm on my way.  Don't shoot anyone." But where is the fun and exercise in that?


The big question is:  if it had been Lola in the phone booth, would Manni have answered the phone or responded to the text? That's easy-no. Oh I'm sorry baby, did you text me?  It must have been off...

If you need a really good  speed workout, set an impossible task and try and beat the clock. Do it three times and see if the journey to the place is different. I have gotten cash to a book fair as my child was walking in with his class.  Does that count?


I want to sit Lola down and help her pick a better shade of red next time she decides to join the club. 

I also want to take a run through Berlin.  Tic toc...

Ordinary lesson 1: My sons have an underwear problem.....

I refuse to go see a movie unless the critics tell me it is ok to see one. I am also going through this "alone" phase, and that includes movie theaters.  I don't want to make small talk with some older guy my friends set me up with and he doesn't know jack about cinema anyway.   I don't want to talk about who the best first/third grade teachers are going to be next year.  I don't want to giggle. I just want to watch my movie, analyze the hell out of it,  and then go home.

I felt this way about The Avengers.  I rarely go see superhero movies in the movie theater. Now that I think on it, I had never been to see a superhero movie..wait-in 8th grade the batman movie with Jack Nicholson came out.  That was the last time I saw a superhero in a theater, 1989.

But this Avenger film was 93% fresh.   How could that be?  Should I give this movie two and a half hours of my undivided attention and free time?  There was something about it that was oddly familiar anyway.

Let's examen the cast..Scarlett Johannason, Mark Ruffalo, Samuel L. Jackson, Gwenyth Paltrow, Robert Downey Jr.  Fine...I can spend an evening with these people.  Even if it isn't at the art cinema where I have spent time with all of them before (Ghost World, The Kids are All Right, Pulp Fiction, Sliding Doors, Two Girls and a Guy-if you have seen all of those you have a place in my heart).


Indeed I was entertained-I hope the comic book people appreciate my effort. 

Later, as I'm folding laundry, I realize I see these guys over and over again every day.

Little boys and their underwear

When it comes to getting dressed, little boys take pride in what goes on first.  They can't just grab underwear, they have to look to see who is on it.  I have broken up many a fight about which Superhero is the best.  I am more inclined to go with Superman-I loved Smallville.

The other day I had laid out their clothes like I do every day-and there was an issue with my underwear choice.

"No, mom, not Phineas and Ferb...where is Captain America?  Where is The Hulk?"

I did not have the right underwear. 

I try to smooth it over:

"Oh guys man, I'm so sorry I didn't switch the laundry over.  Tomorrow, OK?  You two love Phineas and Ferb-they are almost as creative as you."

Yes, I kissed up to my six and three year old. Do you blame me?

They looked and acted like I had just killed a puppy. I swear I ruined their lives over underwear that hopefully nobody sees outside of this house. 

There was a long pause, and in my house long pauses are bad because that means thoughts are being thought. 

Kenneth was the first to speak.

"It was the run." 

He said this in a simple matter of fact way.  Like an adult.

"Excuse me?"

"You went for a run and didn't flip the wash and now we don't have our favorite underwear."

Lowell catches on to this quickly.

"Yeah, that's what it was."

Then the two of them hatch a plan-why do I have two of them again?  Their sister doesn't care what I do.

"That's it! No more runnning for you!" 

"Yep-we are going to be so bad for the sitter you won't be able to run!"

I proceded with all the stuff moms say about how some boys just have white underwear.  Some kids are lucky they have Spiderman instead of Superman on a Monday morning. Some kids are blessed just to know the underwear is clean and hole free, but not my sons.

There is no way I am going to give up my morning runs while I have a sitter to come over because I forgot to dry the Flash.  The only person I care about going faster than a speeding bullet is me. In Hartford. In October.

I'm googling Wonder Woman underwear for the day of the race.  The boys can be whatever superhero they want-they just to need to lay it out the night before, after they put it in the dryer themselves.

Now I'm ready for Prometheus...alone again...

Ordinary Marathon Times

I started running seriously in November of 2001.  I can't believe that was almost eleven years and a completely different lifetime ago.  Most people who run love it and really can't live without it.  I still don't know how I handled anything before I discovered it.

Flashforward to three children and a new location, and the next step in my running life was the marathon-26.2 miles. I am registered and training-that is where we begin. But if I was putting energy into that, what about my blog?  I have three children and a full time job and volunteer with an autism association.  Something has to give, even if women all over the world would just freak if they didn't have my ramblings to read!  Ha ha ha so not true.  Everybody finds something else to read.

There are blogs about blogs.  There are parenting blogs, autism blogs, foodie blogs, and indeed, mommies doing marathon blogs.  My blog has morphed many a time.  Sometimes it is about my inability to keep up with my three brilliant children. In Advent, I turn into this Christmas card type letter thing that goes on for 25 days.  Over Lent I decided to expose my film watching practices. 

I wasn't going to be able to keep a blog going...unless... I blogged...about...the training...hmmm

Should I share my marathon training in a way only Page could?  I can't write about running and exercising.  That just won't work. I am not a size zero.  I don't wear a weighted vest and run in my bikini bottom while I push all three children in a specialized jogging stroller up hill after hill.  My miles are eleven minutes at their worst, nine at their best.  I still haven't decided how to cross train yet and I don't know what tempo and speedwork mean, really.

When it comes to running, I am....ORDINARY....

Now all my dear Catholic and Episcopalian friends-what falls in the Liturgical calendar right after Pentecost?

Ordinary Times...

This year, that means:

May 23- November 28th-that covers the entire time I train for the race and the recovery time afterwards.  Wow...

Don't you just love it when everything falls into place?

So this is going to be an Ordinary kind of marathon blog.  I ramble about anything having to do with the subject of running and relate it back to something happening to me. By now you guys should know I can do that.  Unlike Lent and Advent, it will NOT be every day-I have to keep it simple, but watch that change.  Simple and ordinary are relative terms.

Enjoy!