Inner Banks Thoughts

I have mentioned somewhere on this blog before how a song can take me back to a memory and make the memory as clear as it had happened yesterday.

Yesterday, as I left the office (which as a guvment employee, I can do right at 5:00), I heard on the radio that Levon Helm had died. That name didn't even register with me, at least not until I listened to the story a little further. Levon Helm was one of the members of The Band. But, wait a minute, I thought. I always associated Robbie Robertson with The Band. I never knew anyone else's name in The Band. And it turns out that Levon Helm was the drummer for The Band - a band from the 60s and 70s influenced by the likes of Bob Dylan all the way to Bill Monroe. Not only was he the drummer, but it turns out he sang the vocals in some of my favorite songs. His life is a great story - The Band broke up maybe due to differences between Robertson and Helm. He later was dianosed with throat cancer and completely lost his voice - even the ability to laugh. After redaiation treatment, he slowly got his voice back and eventually recorded an album that earned him a Grammy in 2010 and another in 2011. You may even remember him as an actor having played Loretta Lynn's father in Coal Miner's Daughter.

I was first introduced to one of my favorite songs in the world by a movie I saw at the movies when it came it out in 1983 - The Big Chill. (My parents thought I was too young to see the Big Chill, but I went anyway with my friend, Beth. Just to prove to myself that I was old enough to see the movie, I wrote a little review of the movie afterwards that I think I still have.) After watching the movie, I bought the cassette of the soundtrack and wore it out. On that soundtrack is The Weight by the Band. It along with The Track of my Tears (also on the soundtrack) to this day would probably make my top ten songs of all time lists.

I probably did not have much more exposure to the Band or pay much attention to them until summer of 1988 when I worked in Yellowstone. That summer, we didn't have access to TVs at all. We didn't have cell phones and we sure didn't have any internet service. What we had was music - not on an I-Pod - but we had cassette tapes. I remember on the busride into the park with these strangers that I would be spending the next three months with, we were all comparing which cassette tapes we had brought as a way to get to know each other, but also to see who we could borrow tapes from because access to music was so limited. There was the group of guys from Ohio who loved the Beatles. My roommate, T, liked the 10,000 Maniacs which is probably why we decided to become roommates since I had a cassette of In My Tribe.

And then there was Birt (which is spelled like dirt, he always said). He wasn't on the bus because he drove his big brown and white pick em up truck from his home in Laramie, Wyoming. And he was all hippy. We met him because he was the cook at the Snow Lodge where we worked. As a waitress, you wanted all the cooks to like you, because they could make you or break you. If the cooks didn't like you, they would move your order to the back of the line even if was supposed to be in the front. Fortunately, that didn't happen to me. And if they did like you, they not ony got your orders out timely, but you never know what they might do. One breakfast shift, when I was dragging from hanging out with everyone so late in the evening and then having to open up the restaurant at 5:30, Birt saw that there was no way I was going to make it through the shift. He put his hand over the counter between the kitchen and waitstaff area and handed me a little pill and said, "Here, take this." To this day, I have no idea what it was, but I took it and suddenly, I felt like I could finish that shift and I became the best waitress in the Snow Lodge for a few hours.

One night, we were hanging out, talking about movies. And Birt started talking about two movies - The Last Waltz and Harold and Maude. Lea and I mentioned that we had never seen these movies (I had probably never heard of them, but I doubt that I mentioned that). A couple of days later, Birt had driven to the nearest town - probably West Yellowstone - probably an hour and a half away - and rented a VCR and those two movies. I can't remember if he had to rent the tv or if he had one. And we all stayed up until the weee hours of the night watching these two movies. The Last Waltz is a concert documentary directed by Martin Scorcese of the Band's last concert. I don't remember either movie very well. But I do know from that point on, The Band and Cat Stevens will always take me back to Yellowstone.

As I sit here listening to the Best of the Band, I wonder how in the world am I typing on this computer connected to the internet, when it is only 1988??

I guess I've always been competitive. I think it was a dormant trait for some of my childhood only appearing occassionally, but still rearing its ugly head some. I wasn't really involved in sports or naturally competitive activities, so it had to show at other times. I wasn't aware of it until at my friend Ruth's wedding (which was probably in 1994), I was talking to one of her guests. He had been a leader at some of our FCA meeting in junior high school or high school (early to mid 1980s). His name is Dean Brior. As I started talking to him, he said, "Oh, yeah, I remember you. You were the one was bound and determined to win the 'I'm going to find the Bible verse first' game." And I suddenly remembered that competition where he would call out a Bible chapter and verse and whoever found it first won. And this was at least ten years later and that is what he remembered. Keep in mind that I am an Episcopalian, not a Baptist. To this day, I'm not sure if Leviticus is New Testament or Old Testament, but turn it into a competition and it's likely that I will be the first to find Leviticus.

But today, people who know me know that I am competitive. It seems to come out with certain people. And I seem to bring it out in certain people. My running competitor is Alden. I can't remember if I have told our running history here before but it goes back years. When I met Alden, we were both young lawyers. The day I first met him, we were sent to a deposition in Plymouth by our respective firms and after the deposition, we went out to lunch at one of the greasy spoons in Plymouth - The Little Man, I think it is called. He was about to marry Susan and they quickly became one of our favorite couples to hang out with. The four of us played on a lawyer softball team together and we formed a semi-regular spades game. Time passed. Frederick was born. And Franz and I decided to run a half-marathon a year after he was born. Shortly after that, Alden got the running bug and he decided to run a half-marathon.

One day, we were talking in court and I asked him how he did in the 5k the previous weekend. He relayed his time and I haughtily, but offhandedly said, "If that is the best you can do in the 5k, you will not beat my half-marathon time." Little did I know how late he had stayed up the night before the 5k or how much he had had to drink. And thus it began. A competition that continues to this day.

When he ran his first half-marathon, he inked my name on his forearm as a reminder of "you will not beat my half-marathon time." It didn't work. He couldn't catch my time. Over the years, I improved my time and he also improved his. We ran our first race head to head a couple of years after their twins (my godsons) were born. This was the Shamrock Half in Virginia Beach a few years ago. He beat me head to head, but still did not beat my personal best time.

And then about five months ago, he emailed me and told me he and Susan were going to run a half in Wilmington (their home) and invited me join them or I might have invited myself. He had just finished his first full marathon (yes, a little slower than my marathon time, but who's keeping track of those things??) So, he was feeling good about this half-marathon. And so was I. My training was going smoothly and I was ready.


We have a tendency to egg each other on and Susan just rolls her eyes at us and says,"Really? Do you really want to start this?" Susan texted me as I was driving to their house and said they were going to pick up our running bibs and check into the race for all of us. I told her to just tell the registration person to pick up my bib under the name of "Alden's demise." "Really?" she said, "before you even get here?" Shortly after that, I get a text from Alden saying they went to pick up my registration, but there were too many Carolina girls registered and they couldn't narrow down "slow and easy" to me. "Really?"

Mary Emma and I arrive at their house the day before the race after a day of watching the NCAA tournament in Greensboro. We did all the day before race activities - hang out, eat pasta, lay out our running clothes and go to bed early. The race started at 6:30 (and if I had known that ahead of time, I don't know that I would have entered). We piled in the car sometime after 5:00 am and headed to parking lot to catch a trolley to the race start. It was pitch black. We kill time until the race starts. I run into an old friend from law school and one of my friends from Washington who was getting ready to run her first half marathon and then we line up. Alden and I have an unspoken understanding that we will be running together.

After the race started, it took us several minutes to cross the start line. We should have tried to start a little closer to the start line because our first mile was so congested, we were lucky to be running at all. We were behind people who were walking after the first mile. It was very frustrating and our first mile was 9:30 and I began to worry that we were digging a hole that we would not be able to get out of. So we sped up some, but for the first three miles, we were still way slower than our goal pace. Right after mile 3 or 4, this girl asks me what our pace is and I tell her and she darts off, clearly disappointed in how slow we are at this point. (The next day, I got a facebook message from this same girl. I have no idea how she recognized me, because I had no idea who she was, but she worked in my law firm for a short period of time as a paralegal and she looked me up.)

But after our first three miles, we ran and we ran well. We talked about how quickly the miles were ticking off. Along the route, different colleges had groups set up cheering people along. You would run by a Wolfpack tent, a Carolina tent, etc and the cheers would pull you along and even add a bounce to your step. Alden went to LSU law school and we went by the LSU tent, he completely subconciously kicked it in and I had a hard time keeping up for a little while.

We realized how much age was catching up with us several times on the run. Once, I just blurted out "Living on a Prayer", because I heard someone playing it a quarter of a mile ahead of us. When we finally caught up to the song and Alden could finally hear it, he said, "Are you psychic? How did you know Living on a Prayer was playing?" He has gone hard of hearing.

And then, we approached mile 12. We knew we both had PRs in our sights. I said, "OK, if we kick it in the last mile, when do you think we should do it?" Alden replied, "I don't have it in me." I adamantly said, "You and I have run too good of a race. We are going to finish this race and we are going to finish it strong. We are going to get PRs. But let's wait til 12.5 to go." We get to 12.5 and we are already going at a pretty good pace and I say, "Let's wait a little while longer." And a few tenths of a mile, Alden says, "Go on." So, I do.

And as soon as he sees me goes, he decides he will try to go too. He never was able to quite catch me, but he only finished about five seconds behind me. And as soon as it was over, we each knew that the other person made the other a better runner for that 13.1 miles.

And within five minutes of crossing the finish line, Alden looks at me and says, "When is our next race? We are going to beat 1:50 next time." We haven't picked it out yet, but I know if I have some healthy competition, it will be a good race!

Mile 1 - 9:34
Mile 2 - 9:01
Mile 3 - 9:12
Mile 4 - 8:51
Mile 5 - 8:44
Mile 6 - 8:49
Mile 7 - 8:49
Mile 8 - 8:43
Mile 9 - 8:45
Mile 10 - 8:36
Mile 11 - 8:36
Mile 12 - 8:34
Mile 13 - 8:20
Last .22 (My GPS said the course was 13.22, not 13.1???) - 1:42

More to come.

I hope to have more time later this week to write about this great weekend, but right now, I will leave you with some pictures.

I find the lost earring!!!! I'm in a state of disbelief!!

Just a quick update on life here. I am in training mode - training for a half marathon in the middle of March in Wrightsville Beach. I am told the course is very flat - so my big concern is the weather. I just got home from a 12 mile training run at a 9:00 minute mile pace. In order to reach a new PR, I think I have to break that 9:00 minute mile barrier and I don't know if I have it in me, but I am going to give it my all and see what I can do. Let's wish for nice spring weather and a flat, flat course and a slight tailwind for the entire race!!

Franz and I are about to reach our 15th wedding anniversary on the 1st day of March. My brother-in-law and his lovely wife offered to keep our kids overnight last weekend, so we dropped them off at their house in Raleigh and went to the Umstead for a relaxing evening. We watched the Carolina - Klempson basketball game and then went to an outstanding dinner at their restaurant. We each had three courses. My first course was oysters over caviar - the first time I have eaten caviar in my life. Second course was duck consomme and my last course was seared ahi tuna. The food and the dining experience was phenomemal. I highly recommend it.

But on a sad note - when franz and I got engaged, he proposed not with an engagement ring but engagement earrings. And somehow, on this trip, I only returned with one of my engagement earrings. That has put me in a bit of a funk.

The kids are growing up fast. They are both playing basketball right now and are both quite good. They surprise and amaze me every day.

So, I sign up for a half marathon in March (it would be my first one in a year and a half) with my rival/competitor and great friend, Alden only to realize once I look at my 2012 calendar that it is the same weekend that I got tickets to go see the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament in Greensboro. Mary Emma had such a great time when we went last year, but I have been so pumped about training now that I am ten pounds lighter than I have ever been for a half. What to do? Right now, just wait and see, I guess. If UNC doesn't play in the East bracket, then things might work out. If the weather forecast looks bleak for the half, maybe I will sit on my behind and watch 12 hours of basketball that weekend.

I have actually had a little time to blog this past week, but I couldn't think of anything good to write about, so I probably wasted that little bit of time that I had playing Bejeweled, my biggest vice these days.

I have just finished a book that I would recommend called Life, on the Line by Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas, the founders of Alinea, which is considered to be one of the best restaurants in the country and has been named the best in North America at one time. I can't consider myself a foodie, but I love Top Chef. I hope to one day visit The French Laundry, Per Se and, of course, Alinea. I have told Franz that once I reach my weight loss goal that my reward will be a weekend getaway to Chicago to EAT! I am not sure that he has agreed to this . . . . YET.

But holding this book, reading it, looking at the pictures at the same time that the Kindle Fire has come out has gotten me thinking. I really don't like my Nook. It is convenient to have on trips and I will use it then, but I would so much rather turn the pages of a book, be able to go back twenty pages to look up something I forgot and flip to the pictures whenever I want. Am I the only person under sixty who feels this way?

We have been out of sports for one week (between seasons) and it is so great. I am sitting here on saturday morning drinking my decaf coffee (caffeine free for one month and 2 days, but who's counting?) Looking forward to the holiday week where it appears that we will get to see a lot of family and friends, some of whom it has been too long. Looking forward to a fun, relaxing weekend in Chapel Hill after Thanksgiving. Mostly, looking forward to a new week to enjoy in my little nucleus of the four of us. Each day is an adventure.

Pine Needles Garden Club had their very best showing ever at the Spelling Bee last night. We came in SECOND place and bought the fewest words we have ever had to buy (and since we bought less words than the winning team, those of us who like to win (Paige and I) have dubbed ourselves the unofficial winners of the BEE.

As I annually share the words, here they are.

Round 1: guru, yacht, filament, croquette, idiom, acronym, isobar, ambiguity, klompen, prosaic, sevruga (thrown out as no one spelled it correctly), ampere, incredulous, misanthropy

Round 2: streusel, insiduous, antipasto, neologism, mariachi, peloton, diphthong, dressage, cossack, borzoi, ocarina (we missed), jeremiad (we missed), precipice, adagio, perennial

Round 3: marzipan, camouflage, pneumatic, maelstom, basmati, fusillade, gauche, conquistador, serendipity, mercerize, trattoria, indigenous, bromeliad, cheka (we missed)

Round 4: (you can't buy words here) eocene (this word elimiated everyone but us and another team), trepak (we both missed), lokshen (both missed), anachronism, noviellero (both missed - I might not be spelling this one right), mihrab (both missed), recidivist, belligerent, pizzicato (the word that eliminated us - I should have paid better attention in music class!!)

I forgot to mention in my previous post that boys scream and holler for no reason at all. They are worse than girls. The renter across the street walked up to Frannye and said, "I see someone moved in next door . . . and they brought a football team with them."

But back to Tyler. His mom brought him Benadryl and although I was very tempted, Tyler was the only one who got any. Tyler settled down in the good room with Cody P. and Thomas. After lights went out, I never heard another word from their room, although I did hear later that Cody entertained them with stories well into the wee hours.

Frederick's room had five boys in it. Mistake number one. My original plan would be three boys in two rooms and two boys in the third. But I was told they couldn't figure out how to divide that up. For future reference and note to self: if they can't figure this out, tell them you are simply going to draw names out of a hat. I slept from 12 to 3:00. Heard something. Checked upstairs where everyone was either asleep or feigning sleep. Heard something again around 4:00. Gunnar was in his sleeping bag with his Ipod blaring in his earbuds. Frederick was sitting up trying to talk to Logan. I growled something about going to sleep, went downstairs, composed myself, went back upstairs and told Frederick he needed to come talk to me. Once Downstairs alone with Frederick, I gave him two options. Finish the evening in a room with me or go into an empty room and sleep the rest of the night. He chose the latter. He tells me he went to sleep immediately once he got in John Hubbard's room. Me, on the other hand, I was unable to go back to sleep quickly.

I started hearing noises upstairs a little after 7:00 and by the time I got up there to check things out after 8:00, nearly all the boys had migrated to Frederick's room and they were watching TV. I wondered why there was a sleeping bag at the foot of the stairs as I went upstairs and Tyler (remember Tyler?) said he had a ball sliding down the steps in the sleeping bag on his behind.

The boys enjoyed their breakfast of fruit and donut holes. I texted Franz to get over to the house as quickly as he could. And the boys finished the morning with ping-pong games and a final kick the "can" game as I anxiously waited on the front porch for parents to drive up around 10 or so.

As the parents came and picked up their boys, I noticed how fresh and alert they all looked from having such a break from their boys. When Brandon came and picked up Logan, he said, I love to take Logan out to work in the woods after a sleepover. I make him cut wood, haul it and clear debris until he conks out. I like Brandon and his wife, Amy, more and more every day.

When it was all said and done, all cleaned up, Frederick was really appreciative of all who had a part in it his slumber party - from grandparents, to neighbors, to his parents. And that made it all worth while.

But as for Frederick, I can say that I have done that, checked it off the list. I doubt I will feel compelled to do it again.