General Rambles

Spent last week refreshing my awful Spanish and transcribing notes from Heidelberg. What you saw here last week was about 1/4 of what I wrote. My Spanish is really rusty. My flashcards were an intimidating soul crushing thing the first day I looked at them again. Day two was a lot easier and it all came back to me. By the end of the week I was confident in my Spanish again. Good week last week. Lots of writing, lots of Spanish and lots of excercise.

I am heavier than I have been in three years. It is a horrible feeling and only two of my pants fit comfortable. The lowest I have been in four years (wait, make that a decade or more) was 169 pounds. Wendy would pat my flat stomach every day and say "You are so thin Jamie Wakefield!"

It's been a while since she's said that. It's okay though. She fell in love with me when I was 208 pounds.

I'm heavy when I'm at 180. Right now I'm 184. In order to try and remedy that, Wendy and I went running four times last week. (I gained a pound) At 43, I'm happy to be running 3 miles four times a week. At one point Wendy and I were doing 40 minutes and four miles when we were at our most fit. We're trying to get there again. To up the ante, my sister Molly (hereafter known as "The Gazelle") asked if we wanted to do another challenge on "Nike Plus."

Thanks to a lot of snow, binge drinking, a broken hip, her assistant quiting so she had to work seven days a weeek for a month, Wendy and I handily crushed The Gazelle like she was nothing. Wasn't even a challenge. We rock that much. Confident in another drubbing, we accepted her month long challenge for most raw miles.

Last week, Wendy and I ran just under 12 miles. On Saturday The Gazelle ran 8, equivalent to just under three of our runs. She's training for her second half- marathon. Which means that in one day (this month, during the challenge) she will run farther in one day than we run in a week. Of course, I have an excuse, she's not old like me. She's only forty.

I might have to hire someone to do a Tanya Harding to pull this one out. I'm praying for snow too.

This week I started up classes in Spanish again. I was thrilled on Friday when I found out my favorite teacher was teaching my level right now and told me that it was a good group of students for me. (Read : No Italians.) Today was a bit scary. It started out well with me and five good looking young women in the class. A half an hour into the class a guy was introduced and he was also not Italian, Spanish at a lower level than mine and not obnoxious in any way. I'm pretty much in Heaven.

Of course, the hard part was how awful my Spanish is after essentially two months off. It will come back though but today was embarassing. Maybe it was because I was tired. Not much sleep last night.

Wendy consented to try World of Warcraft with me last night and I thought she would be bored in ten minutes (being a lawyer, entrepenour, super model and all) but she wasn't. When we played Magic she seemed to identify most with Green so I thought for sure she would roll up a melee or hybrid. She went right for the casters instead and rolled up a Warlock named "Inti." I started another Paladin to level with her.

We rolled some kobolds, some wolves, some brigands and rescued some wine. (How fitting.) We completed the starting area an hour and a half after we usually go to bed. She seemed to really get into it and I am very exited. WoW is exponentially better as a duo then as a solo.

In ninety minutes we're going out to try and catch The Gazelle.

Wish us luck.