Monday, October 29, 2012

Tut tut, looks like Frankenstorm


Here we are, the Frankenstorm is approaching and we are stuck at home with an unexpected four-day weekend. Work was cancelled last night for today, and then for tomorrow, while the Governor imposed driving restrictions as of 5am this morning. You can follow the Google Maps crisis storm tracker map to see what's going on. I added the red dot in between the two gray swirly dots so you can see where we are. We had Hurricane Irene come through in late August of last year (the same time as a tornado and right after that freak East Coast earthquake), but it was on the weekend and fizzled into a lame tropical storm by the time it hit us.

This time it's supposed to remain a Category 1 hurricane and the path of it goes right through Wilmington, DE over the course of two days. Never fear, me and the Sherpa and Socks are not in a flood zone and the biggest fear is that Socks will not want to go outside to do her #1's and #2's. Since we are also under house arrest and hunkering down, we also made sure to stock up on the proper food supplies as stores will be closed:


Chips and Halloween candy and ice cream and peanut butter. State of emergencies are not the time to be healthy, my dears. The fattier the food, the less hungry you'll be! FACT. (There is also a photo on Sherpa's phone after the trip to the liquor store, of course.) You may be asking why we got so much ice cream when the power might go out, compromising the fridge and freezer. I shall answer that question with another question: why do people stock up on milk right before a hurricane? In all seriousness, should the freezer go out, I will be yelling "QUICK, eat the ice cream before it goes bad!!!"


Because it is never a bad occasion to have ice cream, and if you are going to have a natural disaster strike your home, you should have a happy tummy. I decided to get a head start in the event of the freezer going out, and was pleasantly surprised to find a hurricane swirl in my Mocha Frappuccino Starbucks ice cream pint.

Speaking of being a great fat kid, I decided to be a tubby little cubby for Halloween. As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been too busy to make something all that complicated, so I thought, wow, how easy would it be to dress as a character that only wears a red polo shirt and no pants?


I tried to get the Sherpa to dress up as my Christopher Robin...


...but he was being rebellious and wanted to dress up however he wanted to dress up.


So instead, I told people that he was Christopher Robin who was arrested and in jail, and that I was an anorexic Winnie the Pooh. (Everyone said I was too skinny to be Pooh, and I thought about stuffing a pillow in there, but then people would think I got knocked up.)


Even without the Pooh hat (when it got warmer inside), I was plenty recognizable with my pot of "HUNNY" and little Piglet. And of course a balloon! The real question of course, is did I wear any pants? The answer would be "Oh bother, you had to be there." Meanwhile, it was much more fun dressing up our little puppy, who turned one year old last week:


Puppy was not as excited and delighted about her costumes as we were! This next one was extra hilarious:


She is Seabiscuit the champion race dog. The jockey on her back is made out of rubber, and when she is sprinting after her tennis ball while wearing it, the jockey bounces up and down. It's SO AWESOME!!!

So...that's the Frankenstorm update. Everyone else around here, please be safe. Our power is still on, for now. And we have plenty of flashlights and candles, and ice cream and wine!

Monday, October 22, 2012

El Salvador, sprint tri fail, ultimate update, and an ultra!

Previously, on The Sandbagger Chronicles....

  • I was about to board an airplane to El Salvador!
  • I would finish my triathlon season off with no more than a sprint!
  • I would play Ultimate Frisbee as an organized sport!
Oh, so much excitement. The trip to El Salvador was more amazing than last year, by which I mean I was less overworked and had more fun--yet still saw and helped more patients than we did last year. This was thanks in part to bringing one of our IPO residents, Brittany, who really helped me tackle the patient load. Me and Derek returned after last year's adventure, armed with experience and more supplies that we figured we would need. (Every year we leave, with a new list of "what we need for next year.")


Team O for Orthotics!


Same deal as last year--we went with a team of surgeons, representing the Healing the Children organization. There were also OR nurses, scrub techs, and an anesthesiology team. They would perform surgeries for kids with various leg and foot deformities, and "Team O for Orthotics" made braces for the kids who were either not surgical candidates, post-op braces for the kids after their surgeries, or updated new ones for the kids who had surgery in previous years and outgrew their old braces.

 
The kids were SOOOOOO adorable!


More photos can be found on the Independence P&O facebook page... more on my phone camera need to be uploaded.


Don't let the baseball uniforms confuse you! Me and Brittany wore them for entertainment value, for the kids. Of course most of them were more confused than amused. We were at the same military hospital in San Salvador as last year, hence the military docs:


Of course, now I'm less than a week out from Halloween, maybe I should've taken that baseball uniform home...I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to make something as sweet as the Buzz Lightyear outfit I had last year.

I haven't had much time to train either. Not much training during the El Salvador mission, not much training in the two weeks afterwards. I signed up super duper last minute for the Cape Henlopen sprint triathlon and pulling off a win on little training like the Diamondman and Barathon was fairly unrealistic. I took 2nd place in my age group and 15th woman, thanks in part to my embarrassingly slow transition times. Still, it was a really fun road trip with my fellow Tri-Dawgs and my first time swimming at a Delaware beach! Now I can chill for the off season...

As for how Ultimate Frisbee is going, I find it strange to sprint around in cleats, and catch and throw things, and run backwards and sideways. And team strategy? What a strange concept! I am not too terrible all things considered and have even managed to score a couple points and intimidate the other women.

I also decided not to sign up for Eagleman 70.3 and instead me and Amy are doing our first ultramarathon together--the Graveyard 100km at the Outer Banks in March!


It will be exciting! There is also a 100-mile option and while we were pondering which to do (neither of us has ever run more than a marathon, just multiple Ironman marathons), I declared "GO BIG OR GO HOME!" (100-miler!)

Amy was the logical one, and said "LET'S NOT BE STUPID!" (100-km!)

And that is the story of how we signed up for our first ultra.