Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Some Days the Bear Manages You

As the old saying goes: some days you manage the bear and some days the bear manages you.

That's what ran through my head on the treadmill the other day when I ran a solid mile and a quarter at a 12 minute pace. Then I realized I had left my inhaler at home just as my chest began to tighten up a bit. I took it down to a walk and squeezed in another mile and a quarter before doing some circuit training on the weight machines in the woman's gym and then finished up with a yoga class.

Which was more than I thought I could do as I could barely walk Sunday - my butt was soooooooooo sore. Needless to say I didn't run either.

The past couple of days have been rough in that sort of "blah" way. You know, it's cold and gray and the last thing you want to do is go outside, let alone run. Add to it an endless slate of meetings, local politics and everything else - let's just say I chalked it up as needing a break for some reason.

I was planning on breaking out of the funk by going to yoga until the toilet seat fought back.

No, no... it's not what you're thinking. See, when you have 3 teen boys in the house, they tend to slam things. I think it's in part that they're unaware teens and in part that they don't know where their limbs end. The end result is I noticed the other day the toilet seat was cracked and picked up a new one. Unfortunately, the aches and stiffness from Friday's session took it's toll and I didn't get around to replacing the seat.

Then someone dropped it today and it cracked all the way through. No more putting it off. I took a screw driver and vice grips into the bathroom and set to work.

Unfortunately the screws on there had rusted (freakin' budget warehouse special!) and one screw head disintegrated and the other just was frozen to the point of being easily stripped the first time I applied any force. This meant calling in the MIT trained engineer (aka my DH, Mr. Bear). Immediately he evaluates the situation and brings in a couple of more screw drivers, pliers, WD 40, small file saw and a hammer.

("Hammer?!!" I'm thinking quickly calculating the cost of a new toilet for when he smashes the porcelain. Fortunately he didn't use it.)

All I needed was him to hold the screw in place so I could force the wingnut off. It was sort of like using an elephant gun where a BB gun would have sufficed, but the seat came off without damaging anything. I popped the new seat on and all is good again.

So I'll go out, do my midweek grocery shopping (the boys have polished off a pound of turkey breast, a pound of corned beef, a gallon of milk, 2 liters of soda water, pears, kiwi fruits, cookies and almost a full bunch of bannanas in less than 72 hours - teenagers) and feel a kinship across time to what my mother must have had to do back in the day with three teen boys in the house as well.

Fortunately none of my dump a half gallon of vanilla ice cream in a mixing bowl, break up a bag of oreos over it and then dump a bottle of chocolate syrup on top. But there are still days when I wonder if I should get a small freezer chest and start buying things like bagel bites and bagel dogs in bulk.

Tomorrow I will run - even if it's on a treadmill. I will also run Friday morning and feel back on track. That's good thing about these days when the bear manages me... it's a reminder that I can't always be the one in control.

8 comments:

JOJIT said...

Aaaahhhh! The challenges of being a parent is hard but you do it for the love of your family, right?

Anyways, hope your run tomorrow will be much better and this time,
DON'T FORGET YOUR INHALER!

Jenn said...

I am SOOOOO dreading my boys becoming teens...LOL!!!

Anonymous said...

My DH is also an engineer, but his tool of choice for any household task is a butterknife. He's an electrical engineer, you see. :)

GB said...

I hope you're days have been getting better! Sounds like you had a few doozies in a row. Hang in there.

L*I*S*A said...

I'm with you on the ice cream with Oreos and chocolate syrup. Yum...

Red said...

In 72 hours?.... Whew I thought you saw me at lunch? jk

Jenn said...

PPPPPPPPIIKKKKKAAAAAA!!! Where ARRRRRREEEEE YOUUUUU??? Hope everything is ok :)

GB said...

You Okay? You haven't blogged in a while. Hope all is well.