Let’s go… Slaho!

3:15 Saturday morning… time to get out of bed. Many who know me have heard me say it. Whenever I see 3:15 on a clock I feel like it’s God telling me He’s watching me. I made sure 3:15 was the time I saw on the clock when I got up (maybe it was cheating because I set it up that way, but hey! It works for me… and for those wondering why 3:15 it’s because 3/15 was the day God sent me head first into this world… literally!!)

So, I was now getting myself ready. Many layers of clothing… check. My shot blocks and supplements… check. D-tag on correctly… check. Bib… check. Newly glued Jesus porcelain thingy… check. It seemed I had everything. Still, after yesterday I wasn’t taking any chances. I tripled checked everything to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. I got a wake up call from Javi to make sure I didn’t oversleep. I was awake. I was good. He mentioned it was clear out. I reminded him that it wasn’t 3:30 I was worried about. It was 5:30 and I wasn’t taking any chances. I had to make a stop before getting to the race area. I was going to CVS. I was going to get trash bags. I didn’t have a raincoat, and I was looking for a cheap way to stay dry. I stopped at CVS at just before 4 and got myself a 20 pack (the smallest they had). I figure I’d share with my comrades and that I’d bring the rest home work their original purpose. While there I also decided that it was a good time to replace my dog eaten shades. (I’m not sure if I had mentioned I replaced the shades in my other blog… if I did, now you know exactly when I replaced them)
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Job.
That’s what my running partner was calling me the day before the race. I felt like him too. Everything seemed to going against me the days before my Goofy quest to run 39.3 miles over a two day period in Disney World. Some of it was my own doing I think, particularly the mind games I was making myself go through. Some of it was just plain old dumb luck. And I was really beginning to believe that God really didn’t want to me to run that weekend.
Here’s a small recap of what happened in the couple of weeks leading up to the race.
It started with me going to buy a pair of new running shoes. I had just come back from visiting Javi, my long distance running counterpart, who I somehow wound up training with more than anybody from here in Miami (and the person I trained with the most after him lives in Gainesville… is there nobody I can train with in Miami?). Upon returning I realized my shoes had seen their last days. So I went to buy new shoes. Problem was that my wife had lost her ATM card and the new one hadn’t come in yet so I had to take cash out to buy the shoes. I went to the bank and withdrew $200, some for my shoes and some for whatever else I was to buy until the cards arrived. Well, I bought my shoes all right, but apparently I left the envelope at the register when I left… so my $100 shoes turned into my $200 shoes. I was bitter to say the least. And little did I know but this was just the beginning. (more…)

My Christmas tree is dead. We’re still 4 days from Christmas and the poor thing is just drooping and dry. It’s my fault really. I bought it at Publix where they don’t saw off the bottom for you, then was too lazy to pull out my hand saw and take a bit off the bottom. I watered it plenty, but the poor thing just wouldn’t drink. So it died. And it’s just sitting there, leaving needles on my floor, but leaving a nice scent in the meantime.

Well, it’s only four more days, right? Then I can just dump the tree. What’s four days anyways? Yeah, that’s one way of looking at it. Here’s the other. My tree is not an ADVENT tree. It is a CHRISTMAS tree. In other words I should have it up for Christmas. ALL of Christmas. Not just Christmas day. But the entire Christmas season. That, of course, traditionally ends on the feast of the Epiphany (what my Hispanic lineage refers to as “La Fiesta de los Reyes Magos”, or “Three Kings Day”). One of the things that I’ve noticed has been lost during this whole secularization and commercialization of Christmas is that people have not just forgotten the meaning of Christmas… they don’t even know when Christmas is. Everybody still seems to know that Hanukkah is nine days long. But nobody seems to know that Christmas is 12 days long. HELLO! That song is not about gifts!! There really are 12 days of Christmas. No, you’re not expected to give or receive gifts for 12 days (though it’d be nice), but we should be celebrating throughout that time.
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OK so technically this is not going to be a poem. And Ide is short for Idelio (pronounced, ee-deh, not “eyed”), but it looked nice that way and when I think of an ode I think of something giving an uplifting description (just in poetic form). So, an ode this is…

Today was a rough day for me as I was there to bid a final goodbye to an old friend. It was sad in a way because I’ll never be able to see or speak to him face to face again. On the other hand, I couldn’t help myself from smiling for the man had done something that he professed he would do better than anybody I’d known until now: he cheated death for 37 years. If the Grim Reaper had had his way with Idelio he would have taken him long before I ever would have had a chance to meet him. He was supposed to be gone by the age of 7. And after he turned 8, there was no reason to believe at any point in life that he should go on any longer. And yet he did… day after day after day, after month, after year, after decade. He wasn’t being fooled either. He and I talked freely about his mortality numerous times over the last 20 years, he constantly reminding me that every meeting may be our last, but that he was going to make sure that somehow it wouldn’t be. Well, the day finally came, and though many expressed shock at it’s suddenness, I couldn’t help but think otherwise, and could only smile at the fact that we were all fortunate to have him as long as we did.

I must admit that when I first met the man, I didn’t know what to make of him. He was the first person that I can honestly say I regularly interacted with who had a visible physical disability. You’d never know it by talking to him, though. He never let you look at him or treat him with any sort of pity. He was what he was and that’s the way he was supposed to be, so deal with it. It was a great attitude to have and an incredibly refreshing one that made it easy for me to interact with him. It took my focus off of his right hand which was misshapen and which he could not control, and from his very obvious limp. Growing up I had an issue that whenever I would see someone with a disability I couldn’t help but stare. Idelio quickly taught me to stop doing that; all the while he never actually said, “don’t stare at my hand.” It just became natural to not look at it, and to see the man behind it.
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Made you look…

Yeah I wish I had written something substantial here myself but no… I didn’t. All I’ve got to show for the last 18 days that went blogless are the 73 spam comments I was sent claiming that my blogs are very helpful. Well at least somebody claims to have been to my site, because I sure as hell haven’t been here!!

I did run today. And I do have a propensity to write after running. And I am in training to run 39 miles in a 28 hour period which means I need to run a lot… so maybe I WILL be writing more in the coming weeks. Just don’t hold your breaths. And it’s a shame too because every day at some point I’m like, “Man, that would be something awesome to write about.” But by the time I actually get to a computer the thought is gone like an Albert Pujols walk off grand slam.

Well, here’s to writing a few lines!!!

I haven’t gotten in front of the computer much over the last few days. Just had a lot on my mind I guess… and stuff I really didn’t want to write about, really, though maybe I should have for my own sake. Then I noticed that it had been 5 days since I blogged. And THEN I realized that with school returning to session I need to get more disciplined if I am going to continue blogging. The first week is never too intense, but week two is, and if I don’t separate some time to jot down my thoughts, they will never see the light of day… or in this case the light from the computer screen. So today I resolve to write at least once every two days… even if what I write is gibberish, or just two lines. Maybe I should return to writing some of my Short, Short, Short, Short Stories which I have abandoned writing over the last couple of years. I need to let the Short Story Muse inspire me so that I could return to doing that. Or maybe I should shoot a couple of slahoems (Slaho’s poems, for those not knowing the lingo) out. Or maybe I should continue working on my book on Young Adult ministry, the one I started writing over two years ago, but just haven’t transferred to the computer.

I don’t know where my mind will wander, but I definitely have to write! It keeps my mind focused and it helps me to organize my otherwise random thought process. And it forces me to come up with questions and answers while I am running, which I am going to be doing a lot more of as my training intensifies for my upcoming ventures. So the challenge is on! School is back in session… AND SO AM I!!

Here’s to WRITING!!

When I woke up this morning I had a strange urge… chocolate milk. It had been a long time since I had chocolate milk, one of my favorite treats as a kid. When I was growing up my dad would wake me up every morning with a nice cold glass of chocolate milk, sometimes made with Hershey’s syrup, and sometimes made with Quik. Regardless, I remember thinking as a kid that there was no better way to wake up. And these were the thoughts that were going through my head as I drank down my cup. Man, those little things in life can sometimes spark the best memories.

Last night I was looking for a spark because I was a bit down. Looking through Facebook I read about the meteor shower that was going to coming into the Earth’s path (or vice versa) over the next few days. I’ve always liked shooting stars and this was going to be the best opportunity to see one for a long time, and the best time to view it was going to be between midnight and 5 am. So after watching a DVD with Dania last night, I decided to head out. But before I headed out I did something then that I usually reserve for right after I finish my run, or sometimes even until the next morning. I gave Dania a big kiss and told her I loved her, and then went to the beds of my sleeping kids and gave them each a big kiss also (thank God they didn’t wake up, and in particular the baby, because Dania would have been REALLY ticked off). NOW, I was ready for my run. You see, I realized that however unlikely, leaving for my jog may be the last time I see my kids. Any moment just might be my last. Just 36 hours ago that was true for an acquaintance of mine.

Yesterday was August 11. It was my mom’s 79th birthday. 79 years is a long time, but it seems that nowadays a lot more people are reaching that age. My mom has gotten there but only after going through a number of trials, most specifically a long bout with cancer, which fortunately she has overcome for the time being. But it has left her week and tired. The treatments really left her a shell of her former self physically. She’s nowhere as strong as my grandmother was at that age, and she went on to live to be 100. I’m not sure how long she’s going to be around, but I must admit that I am very fortunate to still have her, and I have to take advantage of the time she has left here whether it be for another year or for another twenty. You never know when that moment will come.
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I’m in the process of putting in a new microwave in my house. Somehow or another the handle of my other one came off and the paint started peeling off of my last one. It has been in pretty bad shape for a long time, but I never seemed to find the time to take it down and replace it with the new one we bought some 5 months ago (It’s one of those over the stove ones). It also made it easy to put off the job because despite its decrepit appearance the microwave seemed to still work pretty well.

Well I took down the microwave only to find out that I have to make three new holes in the kitchen cabinet above my stove to install it because the new microwave attachments lie in different locations than my other one even though they’re from the same manufacturer!! How retarded! And I don’t have the tool necessary to make one of the necessary holes, the one for the power chord. So, since I need to get the proper attachment to my drill to make the hole, I have failed to finish the project. And for the time being we are without a microwave. And that soooooo sucks… and at the same time it doesn’t.
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It is hard for me to fathom because I just don’t feel old, but it has now been 21 years since I graduated from high school. I could have been born on my graduation day and been legally drinking a mojito today as I wrote this, which by the way would be nice, but I just don’t have any peppermint available at the moment. When I graduated from high school most of my current students’ older siblings hadn’t been born yet! And they themselves weren’t going to be brought into this world for another four or five years! Much time has passed since I walked the halls of my high school… as a student anyway, seeing as I walk those hallways every work day of my life, but that’s another story.

High school was a great time and I have a lot of great memories from that time in my life. I learned a lot, I grew a lot - physically (almost a foot in the four years) and spiritually - and I met a bunch of wonderful people during that time. It was great last year being able to get together with a bunch of my old mates to celebrate those four years that I shared with them in what seems like a whole lifetime ago, and at the same time like just yesterday.

The truth is, though, that I have found that for myself what truly defined who I am was my experiences in elementary school… my good old days at St. Brendan Elementary. I would dare say that most people would say this about high school, and though I can honestly say that I definitely enjoyed high school more, it was elementary school that dictated how my life was going to turn out. I think that this is why five years ago I went through such a great effort to find everyone from my elementary graduating class to have our 20 year reunion from St. B. And after a lot of effort it turns out that I was able to in one way or another to locate every single living member of that class (the one classmate not living being Liana Hidalgo, may she rest in peace in the presence of our Lord). I was excited about the prospects of bringing everyone back so we could all relive these all so important and formative years, and for some reason or another I REALLY believed that I coerce EVERYBODY to attend. Silly me.
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It’s amazing how I’m in summer vacation and yet I can’t seem to find the time to write. Every time it looks like I have a second to get in front of the computer and write, something else comes up that I either have to do, or that I planned on doing…

Case in point today… First get up and clean the house. Then go to mass. Then come back home and prepare for my Godson’s pool party in our place (which by the way was a great time for the family, though I ate so much pizza that I still think I have some coming out of my ears!) After the party it’s clean up time. Then get the kids bathed and ready for sleep. After that I have to make a grocery run because we are out of milk and bananas, two staples in our house. Of course it becomes an actual grocery run not just a minor one. Come back and shower to remove all the chlorine of course… don’t want to sleep in that stuff. Finally, go online and print a bunch of stuff for a planning meeting regarding the relay I’ll be running in November. That gets me to now.

Sure I could just get to writing now, but you all know how long winded I am. But if you notice I didn’t run today, which means I’ll be running tomorrow morning at 6:30, before I take the boys to camp. I can’t write until two in the morning (which I find myself doing as my writing goes on and on and on while my brain wanders in infinite numbers of directions) today and then sleep a measly four hours. So I get on and just do this to make sure I don’t lose the habit of at LEAST writing something.

I already know what I want to write about this week. Let’s hope I get to my two main topics plus the ones that pop into my head as the week progresses… #1. Class Reunions, #2. The Humanity of Jesus Christ, #3. Who knows but I’m sure it’ll have my head spinning with ideas by the time I write it… I just hope that I can keep all my thoughts on the two topics I’ve been going over in my head for days now organized so that my blogs will be true to the feelings I first felt when they popped into my head. We’ll see what happens. By the way, if anybody wants to know my thoughts on any of a number of other topics (not to learn from me, I’m not doing this to teach, but maybe just to start conversations, or possibly, and even more fun, arguments) feel free to make suggestions. It’ll stimulate my brain and challenge me to think, something that I think that many of us are afraid to do sometimes, because the truth is that thinking may be dangerous. And sometimes sharing those thoughts may actually make us something we don’t like to be… vulnerable. So throw me whatever you got, and let’s see where it goes.

UGGH! It’s already 12:15 am! Gotta sleep! Well, good night all! I’m a gonna read some Sherlock Holmes until my eyes can’t stay open no more…