I feel Wicked

OK - I have to admit that 2 1/2 months ago I had heard about the musical Wicked and that it was supposed to be great. I had never heard any music from it or knew anything about the story line. As a matter of fact, I really couldn't stand The Wizard of Oz (other than the song Over the Rainbow).

Things changed when Marcia and I were planning our trip to Washington to our nephew's, Ryan Miles, wedding. Marcia called me one night after reading an email from our sister-in-law, Debra, that she was going to see Wicked in Seattle. We decided it would be worth spending the money to go and see it.

Someone at work loaded my iPod with most of the music from the musical, so we could familiarize ourselves with it before the big night. We played it a few times while driving through Washington and Oregon and thought it was pretty good.

Then, on a Sunday evening, a magical event occurred. We saw Wicked and I fell obsessively in love. Once again, the romantic streak in me came out and I was hooked. So was Marcia. For the remainder of our trip, we played the music from Wicked almost every second we were in the car.

Fast forward a few days later. We were back in Utah and needed to make a quick 2 day trip to San Diego and back. I brought the iPod along and we were enjoying the music, but I really also wanted the missing songs. A quick stop at Best Buy in St. George and we had the 5th Anniversary 2 disk version of Wicked's CD.

That kept us going for the two long days of driving.

More obsession followed. Wicked is my constant running companion on my iPods (OK - I have to admit I have 3 of them).

I also bought the awesome Wicked pop-up book.

While Jennifer and Jeremy were staying with me last month, they bought me an early birthday gift of the deluxe leatherbound version of Wicked & Son of a Witch.

Next up for my addiction, I am awaiting delivery of my birthday gift to myself, the Grimmerie.

I would ask for an intervention - but I sure don't want one. Hmmmm - wonder if I can arrange a marathon around seeing Wicked somewhere?

No dignity allowed here...

Today is my birthday. I woke up early and went for an 8 mile run, then talked to Jenn for a few minutes while I was downing my after run protein shake. She and Jeremy bought me a deluxe version of Wicked and Son of a Witch for an early birthday gift while they were there. (More about my Wicked addiction later :) )

Kevin came down as I was heading out to take Twilight on a cooldown walk. He had shown up the night before and spent the night.

After we came back from our walk, Kevin took Twilight up to his room. I thought he had gone up to get my gift. Imagine my surprise when Twilight jumped up on the chair next to me a few minutes later in this getup. I simply could not quit laughing. It is a perfect gift!



He had also bought her a lifejacket. Makes a handy carrying case, doesn't it?


After enough time humiliating the dog, we went out to see The Blind Side and then Bajio's for lunch.

My kids are so sweet!

1st Mountain View Trail Half Marathon

I'm still recovering from my latest knee injury, but love to volunteer at races. I think it is important to do so – because you need to give back to those who provide all the great running opportunities for you.

My daughter and son-in-law (Jennifer and Jeremy Merkley) joined me on Antelope Island yesterday morning to run Aid Station 4 at the first ever Mountain View Trail Half Marathon. The morning started off spectacularly. I have probably only seen two antelope in all my times running on Antelope Island, but we saw a herd of almost 100 pronghorn antelope on the Mountain View road yesterday morning. Fantastic! They are so awesome looking.

We sent up the aid station and had lots of time left, so Jeremy and I walked about 2 miles on the trail, visiting and enjoying the sights.

About 70 minutes after the race started, the first two runners blew through the aid station. If you have ever helped at a race you know that there are a variety of runners. The competitive ones will not stop and do everything on the run. They hardly talk and are very focused. Later runners are much more relaxed and the last runners just take their time, visit, stop for multiple drinks and are just out there to finish. A great group of runners came through and we enjoyed cheering them on.

Once the sweeper runner came through, we dismantled the aid station and Jenn and Jeremy took the van to the finish line and I ran the last 2.5 miles to the end.

My sister has been letting me use her van while my kids borrow my jeep and it was a lifesaver at least twice yesterday. We needed a big vehicle to get all the gear to the drop point at the end of the race. Then, as we were pulling out of the parking lot, a group of runners stuck out their thumbs to hitchhike (they needed to get 13.1 miles back to the starting line), and we piled a total of 11 people in a seven person van.

It was a beautiful day for a race. Sunny, not too warm, and a little breeze. I just wish I was able to run that far right now!

Eye don’t like this

Lasik surgery is wonderful. I had it done to both eyes three and a half years ago and love not having to wear glasses all the time.

However, lasik surgery tends to exacerbate dry eyes. I didn't realize until after the surgery that my right eye is a lot drier than my left eye, but quickly found that it needed more lubricating drops than the left eye did. Add hormonal changes on top of that, and the right eye gets even drier.

Last winter I started getting episodes of serious pain in the right eye. I went in to see a specialist and was diagnosed with recurrent corneal erosions (RCE). Basically, my eye gets dry enough that the eyelid starts tearing off parts of the cornea. It feels like someone is stabbing you in the eye. To fix this, I use a lubricating gel every night before bedtime. It seemed like things were cleared up, but I still used the gel most nights to make sure the eye stayed lubricated.

Tuesday afternoon, I suddenly started feeling like a grain of sand was in my eye. I had my co-workers look at the eye and flush it with saline, but they couldn't see anything wrong with it. We finally found if I used a paper towel as pressure on the eye and kept the lid closed, that the pain would go away. I finally went home and rested the eye for a couple of hours, then ran an errand to Leslie Peterson's house, and then the pain started up again. Taped the eye shut for the night to see if it would heal.

Wednesday – still felt like the eye was scratched or something. After an emergency appointment at the Moran Eye Center, Dr. Chang said that the RCE was back with a vengeance. She put me on a variety of drops and placed a contact lens in that eye to keep it from hurting so horribly and scheduled an appointment with the head eye doctor for Friday.

I met with Dr. Mifflin on Friday and he said that basically the only way to cure this problem is to have PTK eye surgery (another type of laser surgery). Basically – they will scrape the top layer of cornea off and put on a contact lens to let it heal.

Surgery is scheduled for November 5^th. I don't like having this contact in my eye, but am trying not to be too whiny and trying to remember how painful it would be otherwise. No way will I take it out – the doctor said it will tear off more of the cornea if I do. Maybe I should get an eye patch to keep that eye closed part of the time. Would that look nifty?

Kevin’s car is stolen…and found…and stolen again

Last year someone took Kevin's car from in front of his fraternity house and rolled it down the street and stole some items out of it.

Two weeks ago, it was stolen again. No sign of it and we were very frustrated and figured out that it was probably stripped for pieces since it is a Honda Accord. Much to our surprise, the car showed up again 9 days later. This time his golf clubs and radio were stolen and a screwdriver shoved in the ignition, but was okay other than that.

Yesterday came the bad news that it was stolen again.

Not sure what to do. I'm frustrated, annoyed, worried, ticked, etc.

Why anyone wants to take a 15 year old car is beyond me? Can't you just leave the poor kid (and car) alone?

Twilight has an owie

Thursday afternoon I noticed that Twi was licking her back right paw constantly and that she couldn't jump up on the shorter bed in my son's room. Friday morning these two items continued, so I took a look at her foot. It appeared that her paw was pretty red, so my daughter, Jennifer, and I walked her down to the vet's office. She was running a fever and they decided they had to cut into the paw to find out was wrong. $250 later, they showed me a ¼ inch sticker that was imbedded in her paw and she is sporting a fancy green bandage on her paw. (Ok – it looks like a green chicken drumstick).

We are supposed to keep her quiet for several days (yeah – that is never going to happen) and keep her on antibiotics and anti-inflammatories. We ended up wrapping packing tape over the bandage so that she wouldn't pull it off. It's pretty funny hearing her thump around the house J.

She appears to be in less pain now and is running and jumping all over the place. Last night her nose was warm and dry again, so I made her take a nap and calm down again.

I didn’t kneed this – Part 2

Follow-up on my knee injury:

The meniscus injury seems to be healing and is almost gone. The doctor says it is still a little sensitive, but I don't notice anything.

However, 3 weeks ago I reinjured the right knee when my dog was avoiding another dog attacking her and I tried to not trip on her. This set the knee back a bit, but also pinpointed the tendon injury more.

I was trying to run 4 miles a day each day in October, but took a few days off last week to wait until seeing my doctor on Friday to make sure I wasn't injuring anything permanently.

He says that the tendonitis is healing, but I need to do more massage, stretching and rehabilitation of the muscles to make sure it doesn't get injured down the road. He gave me some more exercises to work on and I intend to start back running 4 miles a day first thing tomorrow morning.

The knee hurts the worst when one of the following things occur:

• Taking off shoes – twisting the ankle to the inside puts pressure on the tendon insertion and if very painful
  
• Carrying heavy weights up stairs – hamstring is not too happy
  
• Hamstring contractions – I cannot do any kind of exercising where I am contracting the hamstrings. It just screams at me.
  
• Straightening the knee when it has been bent for a long time. The hamstring needs to warm up and it feels like a tight guitar string that wants to snap.