catheroominations

The body shop called me today and told me that my car is “very repairable.” Squee!! I don’t have to buy a new car and take on car payments, and deal with that whole new car smell and drive something brand spanking new and shiny like a MINI Cooper. Thank goodness I don’t have to do that and can continue tooling around in my nice little Accord coupie doopie.

I have decided to refer to my car as bionic when I get it back. Problem is, my car is clearly female, but I don’t want to call it Jaime Somers. For one thing, I have a friend who has a friend with that name and that would be weird if we were going somewhere and I was all, “Hey, I can drive Jaime Somers,” and my friend who has the friend named Jaime Somers would be all, “WHAT?! How?!” To avoid confusion, I could name it after Jaime’s male counterpart Steve Austin, but my car is a GIRL. (I guess. I don’t know how you tell.) So, I’ll just refer to it as a bionic car. When it is rebuilt it will be able to throw SUVs across lanes of traffic, and leap over them should they get in its way. Oh, and it would be able to see obstacles miles and miles ahead. Because that is what bionics can do for you.

I have to admit that I am now a more timid driver. It takes me days to back out of a parking spot in my Hertz-owned Chevrolet Cobalt, partly because I’m not as comfortable in that car, but also because, Oh please don’t anyone get in my way, or I might hit you! And I look over my shoulder like 10 times before changing lanes. No one there? Yeah? I can go? How about now? Can I go still? All clear? Yeah? OK! Here I go…but is my lane still open? Aaaahhnnd…go!

I was feeling some serious guilt about my accident, and have been anthropomorphizing my car. I keep thinking, Here’s this perfectly nice car that never gave me a bit of trouble, and what do I do? I smash it into a big-ass SUV, just like that. Some thank you. If it turned out to be totaled, I would have been very sad to lose it. I even patted the dashboard and apologized to it after the tow truck dropped it off at the shop, consoling it as if I was kissing a loved one goodbye before they went into the OR. I might need to see a professional about this. Maybe the Honda dealership offers couple’s counseling?

But dude, my car is going to be bionic! Better than he it was before. Better, stronger, faster.

Look what I did on the way to work:

I’m fine, aside from a few aches and pains in my neck and back. My car, as you can see, is not fine, and I will not have it for about 3 weeks.

Until today I’d never caused an accident. I looked down for a minute, while I was in stop and go traffic, and traffic came to a STOP while I was still in GO mode. Unlike most days, I was not drinking hot coffee at the time. I was also not talking on the phone, putting on makeup, eating, texting, or adjusting the radio. I was looking at the dashboard. Or something. I don’t even know what caught my attention and took it from the road, but when I saw how close the monstrous SUV was, I slammed on the brakes and watched my hood crinkle up toward me. And then I said fuck. Which was probably louder than the crash.

The girl I hit was very nice and had the cutest red patent leather Mary Janes I have ever seen. I wanted to tell her that…”So, I’m not going to apologize for hitting you because that’s the last thing I’m supposed to do, but I will say that your shoes are adorable. Please don’t sue me or anything, K?” Seriously though, there were just a few scrapes on her bumper. Thank goodness.

We did all our official business, filed a police report, got a tow to the body shop, and now my car is waiting for a full tear-down to see if it can be fixed. If it can’t be fixed, I’m getting an SUV, dammit.

Got electrolytes?

Originally uploaded by catheroo

I spent a sunny California day in Santa Cruz today, helping to hydrate Team in Training runners. I gotta say, having people be so happy to see you is a pretty cool thing. Also cool? Not running!

I’m going to Disneyland to run another half marathon!

If I had to sum up yesterday’s Kaiser Half Marathon Typhoon Kaiser in San Francisco in one word it would be awesome. Or cold. Or rainy. Oh, and windy. Hard, duh. And painful. Or far. And exhausting. Yet exhilarating. And exciting. Also emotional. And incredible. Any of those would be the right answer.

Most of this won’t be interesting to anyone, but I feel the need to document it, for me. I apologize for rambling on and on about me, but here I go anyway.

keep reading Catheroo, you just ran your first half marathon. Whaddya gonna do now?

I did it!

I’ll post more detail later. Right now, I can’t think straight enough to type.

Oh! My Half Marathon playlist runneth over! For realz! I got so many songs, I had to narrow down my choices and have just one per submitter, so I could fit everyone! Seriously, y’all rock. I got about 30 emails’ worth of songs too, so I now have enough to last me almost 5 hours. Hopefully I won’t need to hear all of them.

By the way, even if I don’t like a song someone suggested, I added it to the playlist. Because it was important to them that I play the song. I told one friend, “I’ll be sure to notice at what mile your song comes on and I’ll recall later that that mile sucked ass because the song totally bit.”

If you want to see what I’m running to, you can see the list here. Some songs just plain rock and have a great beat. Others have sentimental value, or inspiring lyrics or titles.

With such great music, I’m sure to have a great Half Marathon! Hell, I might keep running past the finish line just to keep listening! (Or not.)

Special thanks to blog babes Ali, Mere, Tobie, Annie, Jenni (and I even added Vika’s suggestion!), Music Mama (even though I couldn’t find the songs online), Sandi, Saj, and distractedspunk.

*That’s a song by ABBA, but is too slow to run to.

And this post is too. Go. Read it. It will make you feel all warm inside. I love this post. I love the “ding. ding. ding.” It put me right there with her and her bucket. I love the way she tells a story and you will too. Go visit her and read through her archives too. She’s talented, smart, funny, and she’s also a pretty hot babe.

I will never look at Salvation Army volunteers without remembering this post. I will even give them some change, and I will make eye contact and smile. Because this post had such an impact on me, I am giving mcgee at memoirs of a gee the Perfect Post Award* for January. Because she rawks.

*The Perfect Post Awards were created by Lindsay and Kimberly. The next time you see a post and think “Whoa. Damn. Wow.” nominate it for a Perfect Post Award.