Who Are You Calling a Shrimp?

95% of the Maine Shrimp is cooked then shipped overseas.

I know what happened to some of the 5% remaining...

This afternoon we purchased a pound of raw Maine Shrimp
- caught right here in Portland.

Sunday Brunch is already calling my name.

The Best Part About the Thanksgiving Holiday...

... wasn't the food, although Jock did make some incredible shrimp and avocado tortilla wraps.
It wasn't the chance to catch up on work, although I did quite a bit of that in anticipation of vacation in just over 2 weeks.
It wasn't the Black Friday shopping, although I did manage to snag the perfect baby snowsuit and a reflective running vest.
The best part about the last four days has been the gift of spending them with my spouse.

Which makes today a bit harder to bear as I head to Lebanon, NH then to Burlington, VT.

All Cleared for Drilling

Today’s Sunday New York Times includes “T” Magazine, a Travel supplement. On the 9th page is an ad for Korean Air featuring their “prestige sleeper seat” with the motto: “Dare to dream of comfort this ultimate.”

The trouble is, this seat looks uncomfortably like a dentist’s chair. Maybe it’s the color scheme – turquoise and white (the Korean Air website depicts the seat in red), but the print version is all rinse and spit.

Before I turned the page to something less lydocainian, I had an idea so brilliant it competes with Ralph Kramden’s Ragg Mopp: Dental Care in the Air.

Air travel is incredibly uncomfortable and so are dental visits, combine the two, connect those oxygen masks to nitrous and voila, win-win!

Be Here Now

The bright foliage and the tourists have left Vermont ceding the snow-free roads to me and a handful of locals. The interstate is so empty one could almost text while driving, but instead I eat - lunch from a rest area vending machine - and sing, loudly, as I whip down I-89 south. A license plate on an SUV says “exhale” but the land and I are holding our breath, waiting for what we know will come, for what might come. Preparing.

Listening to Hunters Brag about Bucks

I am hardly a PETA member.

I frequently have fantasies of shooting dogs that annoy me on runs.

And I suppose, hypothetically, if I were hungry and no nuts and berries were around, I would kill to eat.

But if an animal isn't annoying me and I'm not starving with limited food options, why would it be fun to kill?

I like competition and I like being in the woods,

but to know the deer that one minute is running in the forest is now dead because I had free time and gun on my hands is

creepy.

The Ones They Pick

The stereotypes are objectionable not because there isn’t some truth behind them
But that they slam doors and erect walls between people and their potential.

Our own abilities place limits on us we can’t always overcome – not everyone can throw like a Manning or paint like Hockney even with lots of practice.

Why shut more doors with thoughtless statements about how all ________ are?

(fill in blank with gender, ethnicity, race, religion).

We need to frame phrases to suggest a million possible futures.

Trapped in our own Context

It is just after 6:00 am when I enter the parking garage to drive to Manchester. I hear a shuffling noise to my left and shift my gaze toward the garbage cans where I recognize a woman I frequently see after my morning run; I usually get on the elevator as she gets off, book in hand. Now she is squatting by the trash reading a book and smoking a cigarette.

The coworker was planning to see a Red Sox game for her birthday but when she found out not only is smoking forbidden in Fenway, but also outside the park, she cancelled her plans.

The coworker booked a trip for herself and her husband to go to New York City before Christmas to see the lights, the Rockettes and enjoy the holiday atmosphere. But when she found out they couldn’t smoke in their hotel room, she cancelled her plans. She explained that she and her husband start their day with a cigarette in bed and end their day with cigarettes in bed.

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The whiners have no problem finding new and different things to whine about. Woe is ME. It is so awful for ME. No one knows how bad it is for ME. Of course these whiners aren’t the people who really are experiencing seriously bad times, but they thrive on the negativity and attention their endless pity parties bring. They sap the energy and enthusiasm from all who have the misfortune of falling into their gravitational field – their black holes have powerful sucking power.

*************

I wasn’t sure I wanted to run an extra lap this morning, but I finally persuaded myself and as I began the fifth lap I barely noticed a homeless man in green fatigues struggling up the sidewalk with his black trash bag presumably full of empties. There are so many street people here who wander the sidewalks before dawn sorting through trash cans and dumpsters in search of containers they can return to Paul’s Market for deposit returns, I don’t give this man a second look… But as I approach he puts down his swollen trash bag, turns to face me and starts to applaud. Clapping his hands as I run by. Okay so now I am not regretting that extra lap, now I am grinning and now I am running a little better and a little faster. I wave a thank you to my newest fan.