As a child, I decided Mia (that’s what we call her) would live until at least 101. The reason was because my great grandfather lived until 101 and he was active and healthy too. He even fell off a church roof at age 85, with little consequence.

So, at 93, Mia has a lot of time left. She does. Which is why it’s so hard to see her in the hospital.

What she has is apparently complicated, and if Dr. House was a real person he would possibly enjoy a case like this.

I just found out about this yesterday, so I haven’t even had a chance to Google it (which means the information I have is second or third hand.) They suspect she has a rare disease called Retroperitoneal Fibrosis. It typically affects 40-60 year-old men, not 93-year-old women.

It can apparently affect all of her organs, from the throat to the groin. The cure is surgery. But they won’t do the surgery on her as it’s too invasive and, at her age, she surely wouldn’t survive.

So instead, they are doing smaller, less invasive surgeries. They installed some stints that her body rejected because of the disease. So tomorrow they will install different stints, which may or may not work.

She is generally uncomfortable, nauseous and in pain. She’s more talkative today than she was yesterday. She’s ready to go home.

My uncle said that this could do her in. My aunt says that at 93, anything could do her in. I say she has lots of time left, and she’s tough. Why else would she have fired her landscapers, just a few years ago, because she could do a better job herself?

As you may or may not know, I spend a lot of my free time visiting Athens, Ga. And who wouldn’t? It’s such an awesome place to be. Last night I was chatting with a guy at a bar in Athens and he was telling me about his favorite Charlotte places. He mentioned some gems (The Penguin, Evening Muse, Snug Harbor) and some places I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t been to even though I know I should have (Dish, NoFo on Liz). And his biggest complaint about Charlotte was that you can’t really go from one place to another without getting in the car.

Which is basically true. And odd that he said it at that moment, because on the walk to the bar, I was talking to Chris about how bar hopping is an actuality in Athens, because a) they’re all walkable, and b) there’s no cover. In Charlotte, many places have up to a $10 cover. So you pretty much choose wisely where you’ll spend your evening, and then you plant it. If your friends want to go someplace different than you do, too bad. You basically suck it up. In Athens, you stop by for a drink or 3 and then you can go wherever you want.

Last night we stopped by a new bar Chris had been wanting to try (The Mad Hatter) and he was critiquing it (good atmosphere, bad beer selection). I looked around and realized that if this bar was in Charlotte, it would be one of the best spots in Charlotte. And it’s just one of many in Athens.

Of course, a college town does have its drawbacks. Chris is addicted to cheeseburgers, and the best cheeseburgers I’ve had in Athens are just okay compared to the ones in Charlotte. His mind was blown when we took him to Zink after the marathon in December – “This is the best cheeseburger I’ve ever had in Charlotte!” he said. He agreed that it beat Harpers, and he agreed that Harpers beats anything in Athens. I can’t wait to take him to Roosters the next time he’s in town.

—

A head injury and a beer

However, Athens does have its hazards, apparently. Last night I was almost ready to go out, just needed to decide what to wear. Was standing in Chris’ closet looking at the clothes I brought, about to make a selection, when all of a sudden something came crashing down on my head. I started screaming and crying – it hurt really, really bad. Apparently a large tupperware container full of sheets and blankets had decided to come crashing down at the moment that my head was in the way. The corner of the container slammed right on the front of my head, hidden under my hair.

Hurt doesn’t even describe it. I initially thought it was his gigantic heavy safe that fell on me, that’s how bad it hurt. Thoughts of concussion and death popped in my head. Chris said not to worry, stuff falls on his head all the time (which explains a lot), and he offered a bag of frozen lima beans to take the pain away. He then proceeded to put the tupperware container back where it was originally, and it was then I realized he has it sitting on its side. Vertically. Just waiting to fall again. And he admitted it’s fallen down on top of him before. Needless to say, I will not be going in his closet again until that thing is on a floor level or something.

A huge welt appeared almost immediately, and we laughed at how it seemed like a cartoon where the character gets hurt and it swells up instantly. I sat in pain and wondered if it would ruin my night but eventually sucked it up, put on my fishnet leggings, redid my makeup (mascara streaming down my face; Chris said I looked goth), popped some Advil and decided beer would fix everything.

—

Speaking of fishnets

For anyone curious about how I wore the leggings, I chose this look, thanks to your advice:

The only drawback: The boots have a buckle on them, and I realized the hard way I cannot cross my legs – the fishnets get stuck on the boot! Other than that, I love it!

—

Make new friends

I’m getting ready to go for a 3-mile run with Beth, who I have not yet met in person but whose blogs really inspire me! She’s getting ready for the ING Georgia Marathon in March and she’s used to running on these Athens hills, so I fully expect her to leave me in the dust. Looking forward to it, though!

Or at least, that’s what I thought I was waking up to. I’m visiting Chris in Athens, and I woke up to him screaming. I sat straight up and went instantly into fight mode. I think my arms were even in punch position. My heart was pounding.

Turns out, he was yelling at his cat to stop scratching.

To which I told him in not-so-nice words that it’s not very kind to attempt to give his guests heart attacks. And then I lay awake until I heard the alarm go off, hours later. Too freaked out to sleep.

This morning I promptly started doing Google searches in order to prove to him that yelling at his cat will not keep him from scratching. And oddly enough, I found lots of tips. Not one of which was “scream bloody murder at him.”

—

But I do empathize. I remember being straight out of college, working a job that brought me home at 1 a.m., and the only one awake to greet me was Breanna, my puppy.

And as much as I loved her, I hated the barking and the biting furniture and biting me and eating anything in sight just to throw it up on the living room carpet later.

There were even moments I pondered taking her right back to the rescue group where I got her. I would have just been a foster mom for a few months, I would reason in my head, and that’ s not a bad thing, right? And on some occasions she was annoying enough that the only thing that stopped me was the knowledge that more people adopted puppies. If I took her back after the cute puppy stage, I’d be cheating her chances of a home.

So I hung in there. And when she was 2 years old, I was even able to get her a fenced-in yard. All my problems would be solved! Except it was then I discovered she could scale any fence, any height. Let’s just say my neighbors got to know her really well. Some of them loved her – she’d climb into their yard and walk right into their kitchen, where they would entertain her for dinner. Some of them hated her – I had her shoved into my arms a few times by an annoyed neighbor with an angry look on her face (although, Breanna always came home from there with a rawhide – no wonder she kept going back!) I invested in an invisible fence (okay, invested is the wrong word. I happily accepted my parents’ hand-me-down invisible fence. Then again, along with their fence came their dog, Tiffany. No such thing as a free lunch! For the record, I’m not complaining. Tiffany was an angel. Especially compared to Breanna.)

Then when the complaints started coming in about Breanna’s high-pitched, annoying, howl-like barking (did I mention she’s a beagle mix?), I invested in a barker collar.

Wondered if I could remember the address of that rescue group on several occasions …

And then amazingly, slowly, almost without me noticing, she grew up. And now, 9 years later, I’m so glad she and I have made it this far. She still has a horribly annoying bark, but she uses it less. And she hasn’t tried to scale a fence in years (then again, she still has the invisible fence collar.) And I’m so glad I lost that address to the rescue group. Partially because I know no one else would ever love her like I do. But mostly because she’s an amazing cuddler and she has my heart.

She even likes to go hiking with me ...

—

And last night, I was wishing she was there to help me fight off the intruder.

P.S. Yes, I have 2 dogs. Kishin was just never as frustrating as a puppy, so I have very few complaints about him regarding that …

I’ve been lazy this winter. Not as lazy as I was before I started “really” running, but lazier than I would like. At some points I’m only running once or twice a week.

I’ve gotten cocky. After running the marathon, I have this subconscious attitude that if I can do that, the half marathon I plan to run in April will be easy. As in, I don’t need to train. As in, I’m being dumb.

When I have been running, it’s been on a treadmill. I do not like running in extreme cold, so I’ve been staying indoors. Part of this is I’m clumsy and I have no desire to slip and fall on ice, but part of it is I just don’t feel like it.

I’ve gotten fat. Okay, not super fat, but I’ve put on about 5 lbs since I’ve started being lazy. Part of this is probably due to the fact that I’ve also been eating like crap.

Just when I decided all this had to change now, I got sick. And spent the better part of a week on the couch not running.

The good news? I have been doing other workouts, some. Not as much as I should, but I’ve made a conscious effort to do other things besides run. My goal is health/fitness, not just running. Plus, cross training helps me be a better runner, so it’s all for the greater good.

So, now that the sick is over, I’m rededicated to getting back to it. I’ve run every day since Sunday, and one of those runs was even outside. It was way harder than it should have been – I ran the greenway in Athens with Chris. The last time I did this, in October, it was a lot easier to tackle the hills than it was on Monday. However, I can still feel the remnants of my chest cold affecting my breathing, and I know that’s part of it.

I’ve been doing interval runs for the first time in the past couple of months. I do feel as if I’ve gotten faster on the treadmill. Now it’s up to me to apply that outside.

I haven’t forgotten about my list of races that I wanted to do, but I have had to prioritize a little more than I’d planned due to budget concerns. I am definitely running the South Park half marathon in April – that’s the one I’m training for. Of course I’ll do the fall marathon(s) too, but I might have to skip some of the smaller races. Bummer, but it does add up.

I miss distance running, and my training program is leading up to getting some of it back. I’m to run 8 miles on Saturday, so I’m looking forward to that in a dreadful sort of way.

Winter or not, I’m not giving up! Is anyone else feeling lazy? How do you force yourself out there in the winter ice/snow/rain/muck?

Then I got a job at a newspaper. And they had a lovely rule in which we had to drive into work even in inclement weather. Understandable, I mean making sure our readers saw local snow pictures and got their latest celebrity news was surely just as important as working at an ER or being a police officer, right? I digress. Anyway, I was driving home on icy roads one night from work, and I was driving like a grandma. What was typically a 30-minute drive took me 2 hours. Literally. I slowly pulled into a turn lane, and then suddenly my car was turning in a direction in which I had not asked it to turn. I ended up doing a 180 in the middle of the intersection. Luckily there were no cars around and the only damage done was the fact that my heart was beating out of my chest. At that moment, though, I made a call – my work would have to fire me during the next snow because I was never ever ever driving in this stuff again. My job was not worth my life. Luckily, it did not snow at all the next year, and the year after that I quit for reasons other than driving in bad weather.

Now, I work from home. So snow days don’t affect me so much. That said, I don’t mind them at all – other than feeling bad for my former colleagues and anyone else who has to drive in it.

—

- This season, I saw my first snow during our annual hiking trip to Mount Mitchell. And I lived in this snow for 3 days. And it was wonderful, but after 3 days of eating, sleeping, and peeing in the snow, I’d seen enough. Not to worry, though, it rarely snows around these parts and it was nice to be in actual snow – there were a few feet of snow on the mountain, and it wasn’t mixed with nasty red clay like the snow in Charlotte I was used to.

- Two weeks later it started snowing while I was visiting the Grove Park Inn in Asheville. And that was pretty freakin awesome. Nothing beats sitting in an outdoor hot tub with snow coming down. It was a beautiful snow, and a lot of it – about 7 inches. And I not-so-secretly wanted to get snowed in – I mean, there are worse things than being stuck in a place like GPI. But for the reason mentioned above, I had no desire to actually go out and play in it. And I didn’t get stuck – Jeff and his stupid 4-wheel drive got us home just fine. No extra spa days for me.

- The following weekend I was to go to DC with Colleen, a trip we’d had planned for months. The night before we planned to leave, it suddenly occurred to me that I might want to check the weather. And, uhm, there was a huge blizzard heading right toward our destination. We decided we’d make it there just fine, but driving home might be an issue. And that’s the understatement of the year – had we gone, we’d probably still be there.

- Then the next weekend (this past weekend) I was to go to Athens to visit Chris, another trip I had planned for a while. Snow foils again! It could have been worse – I won’t even go into the fact that I’m so glad I didn’t sign up for the Myrtle Beach marathon, which was also this past weekend. I have a couple of friends that had been training very hard for it, just to have it pulled out from under them last minute. I could not imagine how that must feel. So, I wasn’t planning to run a marathon, but I was so excited to go 8es dancing and instead I was glued to the news, watching the road reports.

(Okay, so I will concede journalism does have a place in this mess.)

Finally made it down to Athens, two days late, so all is not lost. But could the snow please stop? At least till next year?

I do have a few tips I’ll share:

= Clean from the top down. Nothing worse than getting the dining room table perfect only to remember I hadn’t yet cleaned the chandelier. Doh. Start at the top, and the dirt that misses the rag works its way down.

= Clean the floors next to last, for the reasons mentioned above. And clean the kitchen or utility sink last, because you’ll have to use it to rinse all kinds of dirty rags and mops, etc.

= Clean everything. Everything gets dirty. Baseboards. Light switches. Baseboards. Tops of cabinets. Baseboards. Air vents. Baseboards. Behind the TV. Everything everything everything (baseboards).

= Have cool cleaning toys.

Must haves:

- Pledge multi-surface cleaner (if you ever wondered “What do I clean that with?” wonder no more.).
- Swiffer wet jet. I love the smell of the cleaner, and it’s an easy way to do a quick wipe-down of the hard floors.
- Swiffer duster. Perfect for high reaching areas (fans) and delicate items (trinkets)
- Method anything. My current favorite is lavendar scented. I used to use cucumber scent. Love it all.
- Music. Cheesy romantic stuff, played very loud. Makes cleaning fun, every time.

Add to the wish list:

- Roomba. I use mine twice a day, especially when the dogs are inside. Great for the daily cleanings.
- Hoover hard floor cleaner. This takes a long time to use, so I don’t break it out all the time, but it works well. Three coats of cleaning x 2 = vaccuum setting, wet mop setting, wet pickup gunk setting. Repeat with the grout brushes for floors you can eat off of.

= Clean often. Do a deep clean every 2 weeks. Do a quick clean of the most-frequented/messy areas once or twice a day (at my house, that’s the living room, the kitchen, and the offices).

= You don’t have to clean everything, every time. I don’t clean my windows every time I clean (they often get neglected way longer than I’d like to admit.) I might forget to dust the pot rack sometimes. I don’t always clean the inside of the cabinets. Just don’t neglect any one thing for too long – trust me, if you do, you’ll regret it.

= Have a place for everything. If you know where it goes, you don’t have to waste time thinking of where to put it. Go to Ikea and get lots of fun storage options if you need help!

= Clean bathroom items such as soap dishes, toothbrush holders, etc. in the dishwasher. No need to scrub. Do not put a liquid soap dispenser in the dishwasher, even a seemingly empty one. The liquid soap left over will bubble over and out of your dishwasher – you’ll have a bigger mess than you started with.

= Don’t get overwhelmed. Make a list of what needs to be done if you feel like it’s neverending – as you cross items off, you’ll feel very productive. Play games with yourself if you want (”By the time this load of laundry is done, I will have two bathrooms cleaned” …)

= Section off the cleaning. I split it between downstairs and upstairs, not moving onto one until the other is completely clean. Within the floors, I then section by job – will do all the dusting in all the rooms, then all the wiping down in all the rooms, all the bathrooms, etc. …

= Sometimes, settle in for the long haul. Occasionally warranted are those cleanings that require you to take every book off the shelf instead of dusting around them, or the cleanings that require you to reorganize the closets or scrub the grout by hand. And during those cleanings, expect to see a little progress at a time - and expect to spend hours or days getting it all done. And it’ll be so worth it at the end. In fact, I’m in the middle of doing one as I write this blog post. This tip I thought of as I scrubbed the sticker off of the bottom of some candleholders I got for my birthday about 3 years ago … I’d say that was long overdue! I also found some painters tape underneath a window sill … that room was painted about 6 years ago.

= Don’t be afraid to get help. I read in a magazine somewhere that 3,000 square feet is the point at which a house becomes unmanageable to clean by one’s self. That’s really not that big. Add to it other responsibilities, and if you need to have someone come in once or twice a month to do a deep clean, there is nothing wrong with that. However, I will say this: I had a cleaning service come in once a month for about a year, when I was working a job that required 70+ hours a week. Three things happened that led to me getting rid of them: a) they got all the credit for my clean house, when really, it was cleaner before and after they were hired; b) I started cleaning behind them, their definition of “deep clean” was clearly different than mine; and c) the last time a cleaning lady came to the house, she called me downstairs to say, “I just have one question: Where’s the dirt?” At that point I realized I was paying $70/hour for something I was doing myself already.

= If all else fails, plan a dinner party. I mean, we all know we clean better if we know people are coming over to see the house, right? Although the dishes after may feel counterproductive.

*Note: I wasn’t always this clean. Former roommates can attest to that. I think cleaning is an acquired taste!

So I backed off. Only to hear her laugh it off the next day and admit she was just being drunk and jealous, and she really could care less about Mike. I could have strangled her. But I didn’t – instead gave her a half-lecture about how uncool that was, and I moved on. Mike and I reconnected later that semester, and the spark was absolutely still there. We spent a romantic evening at a frat party (wait, am I remembering this right?), where we snuggled on his water bed and drifted off to sleep - no funny business, I know what you’re thinking! He did kiss me that night, and it looked to be the beginning of something really great.

I went home the next day and told my roommates all about it, and we discussed whether I should invite him to the sorority’s upcoming semi-formal. The consensus was of course I should. Except, sometime between the hours of waking up and deciding to invite him, another sorority sister, Amber, stepped in and invited him herself.

Wait – what just happened?

Maybe Amber didn’t know I liked him. Surely she didn’t know that he and I had just reconnected the night before. Maybe she just invited him as friends? I decided to be adult about it and talk to her, just to let her know I liked him and find out where she stood. So I approached her, and in the most mature way I knew how, I broached the subject.

“Well, you snooze you lose!” she replied. “You shoulda invited him first.”

Guh.

Mike did go with Amber to the semi-formal, and I never found out if they were just friends or not. He asked me to dance at the event, which I accepted, but she stared us down the entire time. I didn’t bother to pursue him after that.

—-

Of course, things weren’t always so high drama. There was one guy, Jim, who made out with my roommate once and he did such a good job that she told me I should give him a try. So I did – and his signature move – kissing while pushing a girl up against a wall – was pretty hot.

—

Whether drama or fun, in college, the situations always seemed to be a similar cast of characters: one guy, and two or three or more women. And the weird thing was, looking back – these guys were pretty average Joes. It’s not like we were fighting over Brad Pitt or anything. So what was up with that?

Well, Winthrop used to be an all women’s teaching college, and although it had been coed for a few decades, there were definitely several women to every man on campus. So I always figured that the guys just lucked out in their choice of school – props to any guy that picked Winthrop.

Until, a few months ago I was talking to Chris and Jonathan and Lee, friends who live in Athens, Ga., and Jonathan and Lee told me that UGA is the same way. Really? We had a good laugh about how guys were either lucky or stupid, depending on how you want to look at it.

And then I saw this article in the New York Times. It’s not just Winthrop or UGA, but everywhere. The article not only explains why (guys going into the military, guys drop out at higher rates than girls, etc.), but also details the behavior that comes along with it. Girls putting up with cheating. Girls putting up with one-night flings and the guy doesn’t even have to text them the next day (we didn’t even have texting when I was in college. Or Facebook. Man, I feel old.) There were some questions raised in my circle of friends on Facebook about whether this article was legit. I can’t speak for that, but I can say that my college experience was absolutely what the article described.

The moral of this story is: If you’re a guy, go to college. Trust me.

— 

*Names have been changed.

There is a reason I can hardly bear to look at this photo:

Crystina Neeling and Darlene Groves, right, celebrate at Sago Baptist Church Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2006 in Tallmansville, W. Va. after hearing the report indicating the miners are alive. Groves is the sister-in-law of trapped miner Jerry Groves and Neeling is his niece. (Kiichiro Sato - AP)

I wrote the text below in February of 2006, and a version of it was published in the newspaper that I worked for at the time. Four years later, and I still can’t read it without tearing up, thinking about the families that went through this tragedy.

A day at the newspaper

When you design newspaper pages for a living, you tend to become really attached to the stories that grace your pages. I have been a newspaper designer for 5 years. During that time, the news has become so much of a part of me. You can mention a story that happened years ago, and I could tell you a) if I was working the day the story broke and b) if I did the page on which the story appeared.
  
If a breaking news story happens and I’m not at work, I feel cheated. I’m missing out on being a small part of history, of putting together a visual story so that people in Rock Hill, S.C., can know the news and see the emotion involved.
  
I become especially attached to stories of tragedy — and stories of miracles, for that matter. Tuesday night, I was designing The Herald’s front page for Wednesday editions. My centerpiece story (the one that goes with the biggest piece of art for the page) was about the coal miners that were trapped in West Virginia. As the night went on, it didn’t look good. At one point, they found one of the miners’ bodies. I carefully chose a photo of a woman sobbing into the arms of another miner’s family member. I found it very appropriate to convey how these families must feel. The photo was emotional and telling.
  
Our deadline is midnight. We send our pages about 20 minutes before deadline or earlier, because it takes a while to be printed and made into plates for the press.

After sending the pages, The Associated Press moved an advisory with wonderful news — 12 of the miners were alive! It was a miracle. I thought to myself, “This is why my job is important.” I get to be the one to share this wonderful news with all of our readers.
  
After that it was a hustle to make what is called a “roll change.” The press has 3 large rolls of paper that make up our newspaper run. At the time they change the paper roll, they can also change any plates that are needed — which is where I come in. If I can remake the page in time for the first roll change, 2/3 of our readers will have the most up-to-date news. All the papers are printed by 3:30 a.m.
  
At 12:45, the AP moved a story saying all the family members and the governor had confirmed they were told the miners were alive.
  
Along with that story, they moved a very emotional photo of two female family members rejoicing that their loved ones had made it through. I found the first photo I had chosen to be inappropriate for the story at this point, and this second shot [the one shown at top] really captured the moment. I changed the photo, changed the headline: ‘They’re alive!’ and changed the story.

Another page designer, Jason, stayed around to help me choose the photo and proof the page. I chatted with Althea in composing and Clarence in the pressroom about how great it was that we were able to get the story in. We wondered how many other newspapers were able to get it in. I left work at 3 a.m. (about 2 hours after I normally leave) feeling really great about the story. The world does have miracles!
  
I got home at 3:45 and grabbed the competition out of my paperbox. “Hmm, The Observer got the story in too,” I thought as I read their headline: “Miners’ families cry: They’re alive.” Then I stumbled into bed. Little did I know at 3:03, AP had moved another advisory stating that the information was incorrect, that in fact, 12 of the miners were actually dead, and only one was alive.
  
At 10 a.m., Jeff called me on his way to work and left me a message that he’d heard on NPR that the report about the miners being alive was false. When I got the message, my first thought was “those poor families.” I thought of the two women celebrating in the photo, and my eyes teared up thinking about how tragically their story had changed. My second thought was “how did I miss this?” I worried that somehow the advisory had moved when I was still at work, and somehow I had not seen it.
  
After a quick glance online and on TV, I saw that we’d all missed it. Most of the newspapers had the incorrect information.  It seems like most of the East Coast papers had it wrong, and most of the West Coast papers got it right. This makes sense as the 3 a.m. advisory would have been midnight their time — right at deadline. 
   
My editor in chief, Terry Plumb, wrote a blog on the issue. Check it out at [link has been removed by my former employer.]  
 
My first thought today is for those poor families who had false hope. What we designers do at the newspaper is an art — we have a story that we must visually make into something that conveys the tone of that story. We do that by choosing art, writing headlines that we hope compel the reader to read that story. In doing this, sometimes, in our minds, we become a part of that story. What happened to these miners and their families will be something that I will always feel a small part of. The fact that we were wrong — that the families heard wrong — is so sad.
  
I share all this with you because it’s been one of the most interesting situations I’ve encountered since I have begun working at The Herald. It’s an example of what can happen when you have a constantly updating story, a deadline and people who want to believe in a miracle. The country is full of people who are looking to blame ‘the liberal media’ for anything and everything. I’m not looking to defend what happened or the media as a whole, but I do want to say that the media is made up of individuals who work hard to bring these wonderful and tragic stories to you, and although I can speak only for myself and my coworkers, there is no political agenda attached to these individuals. We’re in this business because we want to share the stories that make up the world we all live in. I wanted to share this story with you so that you have a little piece of what goes on in our world at the newspaper.