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and at the plate.

Let me set the stage for you.  It was Nick’s first High School dance, he asked a lovely girl named Samantha to be his date, and she said yes.  We dutifully hit the mall and bought the obligatory black suit.  “Buy it a little big”, I was told by a more experienced mother of high school boy.  The hope of course was to get two years, four dances, and maybe a couple of weddings out of it.

I held off buying a shirt and tie that day knowing full well we had no dog in the fight.  Jordie was a senior by then, so from a girl’s perspective… this wasn’t our first rodeo.  Samantha would be deciding the color scheme of their ensemble.

I was delighted when Sam proved to be a “no fuss, no muss” kinda gal.  “Black and gold dress” she told Nick, with at least two weeks leeway before the big dance.  I was thrilled to find a gold, (but not too gold), paisley tie.  I love, love, LOVE me some paisley!  A complimenting pocket hanky I’m convinced was the key to channeling Nick’s inner ZZ Top that night; he was a Sharp Dressed Man.

As for Samantha?  She was a sight to behold in her black and SILVER dress!

sssssSTRIKE your out…

As we shimmy down Memory Lane, let’s now revisit the fashion fiasco of last year’s Sweetheart Dance.  This is the one where the girls ask the boys; Nick was asked by a very sweet volleyball player named Carly.  She gave us a much shorter window of opportunity to find a shirt and tie that would compliment her pewter dress and cranberry shoes, but all my angst magically disappeared when I found a lovely cranberry and pewter PAISLEY tie!  (Did I mention how much I love paisley?)

As soon as we arrived for the group photos that night it was clear once again, all was not in sync with the color Gods.  “Is cranberry the new pink” I wondered?   Admittedly… there are a lot of choices when it comes to pink. There’s pink, hot pink, fuchsia… there’s even that horrible 80’s version of pink called mauve.  Cranberry, I would argue… is a distant relative of pink at best.  Carly’s shoes however, were pink.  Hot-stinkin- pink. 

sssssSTRIKE your out…

Not to miss a beat, Nick was back in the game for Homecoming this year when  Belen, his close friend since kindergarten who had moved to Miami over the summer,  decided last minute to come back for Homecoming  weekend.  We were so thrilled with the news that I didn’t even gripe about having to run around the morning of the dance to find him a turquoise shirt.  In fact... it turned euphoric when I found another... wait for it... PAISLEY tie. (Be still my paisley-lovin heart!)

But here’s a question that comes to mind:

Has anyone born after 1990… ever heard of sea breeze green?  Because I’m here to tell ya kids... that dress is NOT turquoise.  It is sea-friggin-breeze-green! 

sssssSTRIKE your out…

So here we are again.  A mere 48 hours away from ‘Sweetheart Dance 2012’ and Nick just received photos of two different color pairs of shoes his date Jackie is vacillating between.   She did share however that her dress is a “flat” black…  (as opposed to shiny), which I suppose (?) matters. 

(Full disclosure: Nick’s suit is shiny black and it still fits… sorry Jackie.)

Perhaps I’m being too hard on these girls; not everyone is a control freak like me.  I used to discreetly snip a piece of fabric from Jordie’s party dress, then she’d deliver it directly to her date’s mother, always allowing ample time for her to shop.  Not only did this result in magnificent “his and her” party wear, but Jordan could count on a fabulous corsage as well. 

And the best part?  Those moms loved and appreciated Jordie.   OK, whatever… at least they didn’t write snarky blogs about her!!!

Which reminds me…  I better get Nick on the list for one of those crappy “extra” corsages the local grocery stores will have on hand Saturday in anticipation of those girls who don’t have their shit together.  Hope they have something in flat black.

Batter up…

I TRI... again.

It was one year ago this week… with great fear and trepidation… that I committed to my first-ever Triathlon.  In retrospect, signing up and paying the entry fee was the easiest part of the journey! 

My initial inspiration came from two good friends who live in different states: Kathy in Kansas and Josie in Indiana. Less than a year prior, Kathy and Josie had never met.  I credit their similar interests (biking and physical fitness), values (family first… always), and ME (their common denominator) for developing a strong sense of friendship with each other after just one fun-filled weekend here in KC!

Kathy, an avid biker, completed her first Triathlon in the summer of 2010.  She knew swimming would be her biggest challenge, which now in my "experienced" opinion, would venture to guess is a high percentage of first-timers biggest fears; it certainly was mine!  The 5k presents a higher level of difficulty for Kathy than it does most… she had a hip replaced several years ago and is not able to run it.  But boy is she a speedy walker!  The 10 mile bike course however, piece of cake… that’s usually just a warm-up for her.

Josie grew up in a physically active family, her Dad opened Indy’s beloved ‘Bike Line’ years ago and her family still runs the successful bike store today.  Josie majored in Physical Education at UIPUI and juggled raising 3 kids, teaching, and working at the family business for most of her adult life.  Faced with turning 50 years old a couple of years back… Josie did not like what she saw, and was even more alarmed at where she saw herself going.  Instead of moaning and groaning about it like most of us do, Josie got up off the couch and changed her life!  30 lbs later (and lighter), she too challenged herself to a Triathlon.  She tore that course up and had it not been for a rookie mistake which penalized her, she would have had a USAT certified finish time!  Go Josie, go Josie, go Josie…

Both Kathy and Josie began to subtly nudge me into believing I too could become a Triathlete.  When it was clear to them I would need more than a gentle nudge, full-on bribery became their strategy, coupled with good-ol’-fashioned guilt! 

Suffice it to say I cave easily when there is a party and good friends involved in the payoff.  Josie promised to come to Kansas City and join me.  Kathy, who had thought she was going to be a ‘one and done’ triathlete, committed to doing another one AND she convinced her 70 year old mother-in-law Judy, her incredibly athletic (just-didn’t-know-it-now-is-an-animal) sister-in-law Heidi as well as her rock-star sister Kim, to join me in losing our triathlon virginity.  They also promised me a rockin party afterwards; what can I say… I’m easy that way.

I won’t bore you with the details (again) of my brutal training.  Most of you were subject to a painstaking barrage of Facebook status updates for months regarding my training.  February through April was me moaning about needing to start training. In May, I finally began training, only to get derailed by gallbladder surgery on the 25^th (my 20^th wedding anniversary taboot!), leaving June wide open to have a case of the “Oh poor me’s”!  July was the month I finally got serious… think about that… I basically trained in one month.  It kicked my ass, but I did it.

And that my friends is the segue I’ve been searching for to bring this story to its point.  Completing last year’s Win for KC (all women’s) Triathlon, was hands down the most empowering thing I have ever done for myself.  I had, according to my surgeon, the 5 characteristics most common to women with gallbladder disease: I was fair, female, fat, fertile and forty (fifty in my case!) The “real” me had every reason in the world to doubt my ability to be successful.  But…

Josie believed in me.  Kathy believed in me.  And there was one more person, who unbeknownst to me until the day of the race… so strongly believed in me, that a miracle happened at the finish line.

Jilly, who most of you know as my dear, dear friend diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic disease a year ago this month, was waiting for me as I crossed over the electronic timer.  There were so many people cheering all of us finishers on; the crowd was truly electrifying.  I was already an emotional mess, a combination of exhaustion and exhilaration, but when I spotted Jill… tears in her eyes approaching me with wide-open arms… I embraced her and kept it together until she spoke these words:

“You inspire me Chrissy, I am so proud of you.  I am going to get better.  I am going to beat this thing.  And I am going to someday complete a Triathlon.”

A truly miraculous change from the way she’d been framing her cancer up to this point.

So here it is again, a mere one week away from sign-up day.  I will always be grateful to Josie and Kathy… they clearly inspired me to believe I could do the impossible.  But it is Jill who is my hero… and the reason I choose, like Kathy, not to be a “one-and-done” triathlete.

We don’t always know who we inspire, and we’re certainly not privy to know why or how; people tend to keep their fears private in our society.  But 5 months of blood, sweat and yes… tears, is nothing to pay in exchange for the opportunity to make a difference in someone’s life.

Inspiration is truly a full-circle phenomenon; by being inspired, we become inspirational.  By being inspirational, someone else becomes inspired.

Jill is holding her own by the way.  She is beautiful, she is strong and she is determined.  And let’s not overlook… inspirational!

If this is your year to be empowered… check out Win for KC Triathlon.  It’s open to 1000 women and sold out in 2 days last year… don’t be late!

Spam… it ain’t just for breakfast anymore.

Santa brought me a new laptop for Christmas.  I’m somewhat suspect that he had me mixed up with someone else this year, because he brought me a tablet as well.  Let’s face it… I wasn’t that good!

Much to Mikey’s Santa’s surprise, I was way more into the tablet than the laptop.  So much so, that I did the bare minimum to get it up and running; the only sense of immediacy coming from Nicholas, who was psyched about getting my leftover Toshiba.

Fast forward to today when I finally got serious about my email accounts.  Realizing I hadn’t checked my spam-trap account since early to mid December, I knew it would be chock-full of junk.  But sift through it I did, just in case there were some real ones in there, which of course there were!

My rough estimate would be in the range of a 300 to 1 ratio; Pure Crap to “Holy Crap… free Brad Paisley tickies for tonight?” Damn the spam-trap!

But whereas when you or I send an email, the “From” field has our name in it.  Not so with the fine folks who flood our spam accounts.  Allow me to share some of the "less creative" aliases with you.

Genie Bra Works, Pennies for Hot Items, Lint Lizard Clean (not to be confused with Lint Lizard B1G1 OR Lint Lizard Features), Credit Card, Top Credit Card, Credit Comparison (aka: I’ll decide!), Insurance helper, Insurance Finder, Health Insurance Helper (those 3 have the makings of a love triangle on Match.com!), Free Credit Report, Get Subsidized Housing, Depression Help, Burial Insurance… honest to Pete, they came in that order… can you say foreshadowing??? Scholarships for Moms, Become a Ultrasound Tech (does that come with a scholarship I wonder?), Asian Dating, Private Jets, Alaska Cruises, Internal Revenue Service (Twice!), Alcohol Rehab, Quit Smoking (if I quit drinking, I would quit smoking… so that’s a wash!), and my personal favorite from this latest batch… drum roll please… Need a Larger Penis?

Of course I have my usual stalkers; they at least use their names (wink wink).  Veda J has a real thing for me. He’s always sending me a JPEG file and asking me to return the favor!  Dane Carlson is FAT with Business Opportunities for me.  Then there’s Devon Davenport, who keeps insisting he can “put me in the lap of luxury”.  Go Devon go, you big hunk of… wait, that’s not even his real name, is it! 

These men will try and court me for a few months before finally moving on to some new trollop; that’s just the way they are, short attention spans.  But women who troll the internet are a completely different animal.  You ignore them and they want you that much more.  Case in point? Anastaysia: a young Russian woman who has a direct - do not pass go, do not collect $200 - route into my recycle bin. But she is relentless in her pursuit.  All she has to do is switch up one little letter in her email address (Anastasia) and she is back in my box. (Ha… she wishes!)  Anastaysia you see, insists I am the answer to her long, lonely, cold winters.  As long as I have a credit card and a webcam…

Let me state for the record, I have never… ever… tasted Spam.  I will go to my grave with that being the case.  But add a "–trap" to the end of it… and Spam becomes a delicacy in my book!