chaos

In the short span of 24 hours this week we bundled ourselves in 24 degrees, only to pop back to 80 the following day and then 101 the day after that.  

It seems my life has taken on a similar form of mass chaos; driving the kid to and fro; phone calls and meetings and newspaper articles and nary time in between to pedal my bike, hit a bag or engage in any other activity to keep me sane.

As if to confuse my exercise-deprived state further, this week I received my first email for the kid's football season, which seems especially odd since I have still been writing the year 2010 on the three checks I've scribed thus far this year...one of them being this morning to register my child for MIDDLE SCHOOL.

It was just, like, yesterday, wasn't it, that I handed him a handful of wipes and instructed him to clean himself up, in one of my less than stellar moments as a mother, after having exhausted every.single.potty.training.trick IN THE BOOK.

And now, according to my calendar, it's mid-May, 2011 and school is ending, and we are preparing for a new school beginning, we are playing baseball and more baseball and basketball and more basketball and preparing for football and Middle School.  

Would someone please tell me what happened to my baby?

RIP: Wouter Weylandt

Life is short and it seems more often than not the brightest stars are those extinguished first.

There is either a magnificent plan or grand chaos to explain it all; and the instances in between are merely reminders that our time here, regardless of years, moments or days, is tragically short.

RIP: Wouter Weylandt

Ritual

Sometimes, even when I am with my bestest friends riding my bike, I want to quit.

I am a convincing lot too, when I reach that point. Typically, I'll quietly put my bike back on top of the bus, pull on a cozy pair of sweats and declare, to no one in particular, "It's margarita day, I'm sagging!"

At which point, my dear friend Scott always seems to be lurking nearby. Even though I swear, every damned time I am very far away from him when I make said declaration. Every time, he's there, and every time, he'll say, "You know Ali, you can't ride every mile, if you don't ride every mile."

And I look at him and say...f&*# you.

Then I pull back on the spandex, retrieve my bike from the roof of the bus, and begin pedaling. And eventually laughing.

Blogging, it would appear, is sort of like this. One cannot make good on a promise to blog every day...without, well, blogging every day.

The thing is, there has not yet, in all these years, been a single time when after the wanting to quit and not quitting thing, when I've said, "You know what, I wish I would have quit."

Instead, every single time after the fact I say, "Thanks for making me ride."

One day, I hope, blogging will feel the same. Then I'll say, thanks self, for making me blog.

Living the Dream...

This morning...Starbucks Drive-thru

Me: Good morning! How are you doing today?

Starbucks guy: I'm amazing! I'm living the dream...

Me: Really?!?

Starbucks guy: I am totally serious. I have the most beautiful wife in the world, an amazing daughter, everything I could have ever wished for.

Perspective is everything.