Friday Leftovers (June 11)

Welcome to another Friday post, a collection of nothing.

Word Association

Play here, as always.

1. Group :: Meeting
2. Pollution :: Noise
3. Getaway :: Gotta
4. Mall :: Cop
5. Believe :: It Or Not I'm Walking On Air
6. Chimney :: Climb
7. Curses :: Sailor
8. Contrite :: Brief
9. Eyelash :: Eyebrow
10. Jobs ::: Employment

Paul Blart Mall Cop was inspiration for one. That movie was dumb but funny and enjoyable. It didn't try to be anything but dumb, which is endearing sometimes. Number five is a TV show I used to watch way back in the day. Any guesses?

Achilles Update

Oh my goodness! My foot feels fantastic!

I haven't run much this week. I've run eight miles, which really isn't a whole lot. I didn't run Tuesday or Thursday. I intended to run Thursday but had other things going on. I'm hoping to get an evening run in today and we'll see about Saturday (was thinking a short run between games in the a.m.). Sunday I still have a 13-miler planned but we'll see how I feel. I have 20 on the 20th, so I have to get strong for that one.

But not having run much has really made a difference. I am not limping at all, I barely feel anything down there when I'm just sitting here doing nothing, or walking around, or at any time. I ran five miles on Wednesday and didn't really feel it, but Thursday was the first time in a while that I didn't feel it when I wasn't running. I am walking normally all the time.

Part of it I think is the rest but also part of it is the lack of hills. Derm hills is bad. So thanks to my sister-in-law (who suggested rest), my uncle Jorge (who suggested staying way from hills) and Mrs. LB (who suggested both before I sought out help, I should have just listened to her).

Five Question Friday

Here is the latest Five Question Friday. This time it's cool for me because I submitted some questions last week and one of them got chosen. Sweet.

Mama M, whose blog it is, asks for questions from readers and I submitted several, and one of them got picked. It was actually one I just sorta had included as an afterthought, but apparently caught Mama M's eye. Double sweet. It's question number four.

And here are the questions:

1. What do you think makes a good friend, or friendship?

A good friend to me is someone who you can not talk to for a day, a month, a year and it all seems the same, as if no time has passed between conversations; someone who will give you a ride if your car breaks down, who will help you move more than once... more than four times... a lot; essentially someone who will listen, offer advice, help, do whatever is necessary to be there. I try to be those things to my friends.

It's funny but I don't really have a lot of good friends, close friends. My best man sorta drifted away, and we used to be really close (obviously, since he was my best frickin' man). Guess things just kinda happen that way sometimes.

2. What is the last thing you bought and later regretted?

A meal at a fast-food restaurant on Thursday. I should have just gotten a burrito or something but I couldn't resist. You let yourself go hungry too long and you are weak and make poor choices :( I need some more &$^^!% discipline.

3. Have you ever had a prank played on you?

Yeah. Let me see if I can remember... my family in general aren't really pranksters, although I'd love to plan some elaborate pranks on my family and daughters and... well, not Mrs. LB because I don't think she'd react too kindly.

Anyway, lemme see... might have to get back to you...

4. What is your favorite theme park?

Disneyland. Number two is Disneyland's California Adventure. Check out my collection of posts about both parks.

I'm starting to get bummed though. I haven't gone to Disneyland since February. Zero visits in March, April and May. I don't think I'm going to make it in June. In case you don't know, we have season passes and have had them since Nov. 2007. I've probably gone about 50 times since then, but as I mentioned 2010 has been light. Stupid school :(

But Disneyland is fan-frickin-tastic. Funny thing is, I never really was all that excited about it, like maybe when I was little but not as an adult. But we got season passes as a gift and I totally fell in love with the place the first time I went. Season passes are awesome too. However, I'm not sure how sensible it is to have them and not go very often. We're going to have to make some decisions later this year. Sad. Who knows? Maybe it's worth it if you go like 10 times in the summer.

5. Have you ever seen someone else give birth?

Sit back, relax, and you'll hear about watching my wife give birth. Okay, not going to go into details too much (I have some awesome pictures of... well... guts... and stuff) but I'll see what I can share here, safely.

Our first child wasn't showing us what gender he/she was going to be. The fetus was not cooperative, as it were. And then our doctor was uncooperative so we did not know the gender at 20 weeks like many soon-to-be parents do, but the doctor didn't schedule us for any more ultrasounds afterward. I wanted girls and I Mrs. LB did too, so I guess I got it into my head that the fetus was female. It was not confirmed until four days before the actual birth, when the doctor told us the baby was breech, and that in fact the baby was a she.

I was so happy! I wanted a little girl for several reasons, mostly because my mom had only had boys and my daughter would be her first grandchild. But this excitement was tempered because by being breech, it meant a c-section. And we weren't exactly prepared.

But it was nice in a way. We were able to plan it, so there would be no middle-of-the-night trip, no chance of us having to wait and wonder and wait and be anxious while waiting. I mean, there was a chance of course, of her going into early labor but since she hadn't felt any contractions, chances were slim. Even the day before our scheduled c-section, Mrs. LB felt no contractions.

On the delivery date, we went to the hospital and got everything ready, talked to doctors and nurses and all that. We got there at around 9 or 10, but it wasn't until noon or shortly thereafter that everything started to go down rather quickly. Mrs. LB was whisked away while I sat outside the delivery room. It was the strangest feeling, almost like I was at an airport waiting for some long-lost family member to visit. Eventually I went in with Mrs. LB and sat down next to her. She was feeling fine, great, no problems at all... except that her stomach was sliced open. There's a big curtain blocking her off from herself, and I didn't dare peek over the top.

But curiosity got the better of me. I glanced over and saw a side of my wife I'd never seen before - her inside. It was interesting. Her, uh, guts, had a yellow tint to them for some reason... that's probably their natural color, or it might be something the doctors used to slice her open, who knows? It was strange seeing that and then seeing my wife laying there like nothing was going on. She said she felt some faint movement down there, but very faint, far away.

Eventually, the doctors pulled out a baby, A BABY!, from my wife's inside. They held her up for me to see and I just had a goofy look on my face, well, I felt like it anyway. I just kept thinking like it was for real. The entire pregnancy just didn't seem like it would result in a child, as strange and dumb as that sounds. I don't know what it felt like, but we were just going about our business and were still living just the two of us, but now that would change. I knew then our lives were forever changed, that nothing would ever be the same. I didn't know how exactly, but I knew we'd turned the page and closed out one chapter and stepped into another. And I also knew that, whether I liked it not, I had to respond in kind and step up taking on my share of responsibilities. Not that I wasn't or anything, but still, this time a little tiny life depended on me.

So far, so good.

Now as for Kennedy... she always gets the short end of the stick... but I'm going to save her story for another day :)