8 month old thoughts

"Life is pretty darn good" 

"After all, I was born only 8 months ago into a family with lotsa love."

"And I've got this monkey on my back.  Oh, actually, it's my Dad, he loves me."

"And I've got a Mum that cuddles me, an uncle that dotes on me, 

a gran that will play with me and best of all, 

a name that I will grow up being proud of, Anthony."

Anthony Lyall Farnham.

So I am doing the 2014 New Zealand Ironman event next week

Was going through some old files tonight, once all the Once Were Runners runners were gone.

It is only ten days to Ironman and it seems everything in my life at this particular point of time is all about Ironman, ironmen, ironwomen and iron things. Up until the past few days there was a little more balance in my life, but once it got to the two week count down, everything became Iron focused.

Fortunately the focus is not about me.  Or my Ironman.  For although I am doing Ironman this year, it almost feels that my event will be a virtual event due to the fact that my focus has been, and will be, on so many others on the day.  Purposely so.

They will be the group of amazing individuals who I have categorised in my file as ‘Finely Tuning Athletes’.  Those who I have coached or trained with for many, many months now – most since early winter last year.  Those who had set themselves their own personal challenges and who I have seen ride the roller coaster of athletic endurance challenges.  Six who will be competing in their first ever Ironman event and others returning for their 2^nd, their 4^th or 5^th time.  Throughout the whole day I will be constantly searching to catch a glimpse of each one and in a nano second will be analysing how I think they are faring.

It will keep me from the edge of disintegration into emotional wreckage. 

I had decided a long time ago that I need to be doing Ironman this year.  However with certain health and injury problems I could not make a final decision on entering until the very last minute.  There were supposed to have been hospital procedures to have been done, knee operations to have occurred – but due to the public health system and some very weird circumstances neither of these ended up being done.  Thus the body is still battered and broken, but the spirit is stronger than the body so come the last critical days my entry into Ironman 2014 was submitted. With a sense of immense relief and certainty.

I need to do Ironman this year.  Not just for myself.  For Tony and myself.  For neither he nor I can move on, move into the future, until this is done.  I have such a strong sense that he wants me to do this Ironman – that he has planned for me to do this Ironman and to do it alone.  Without him.  For every other of the 13 Ironman events I have done it has been done with Tony somewhere around me on the course, somewhere in reaching distance where one glance of eye contact from him would lift my spirit, my drive and my confidence to move forward and reach that finishing line.  And be with him.

                 

Had Tony lived this year’s Ironman would have been his 30^th.  How he would love to have gone out on the 30^th.  I can do that for him.  Last year son Glenn did the 29^th and presented Tony with his personal finishers medal two days later when returning to Auckland to see Tony in Mercy Hospice.  The very last thing Tony consciously did was clasp that 29^th finishers medal in his left hand and hold it there as he went into unconsciousness, forever.  I know he was so very proud that one of our sons did his 29^th Ironman for him.  I shall do his 30^th.  And tie our personal Ironman legacy of Tony Jackson all up in a tidy finality, for us both.

So tonight I decided to pick up a couple of old folders, ones that I have not been able to open for quite some time and flicked through photos and papers of Ironman events past.  For the first time I was able to look at the photos with an almost happy sense of gratitude, rather than despairing grief.  Yes, this Ironman will be a tough one – and I know I am going to have many private heartbreaking periods throughout my long day, but for me it has more purpose than any of the others I have done. 

For I have to complete this finalisation – and at the same time focus on a number of those special ‘Finely Tuned Athletes’ who will be creating their own legacy, of being an Ironman. 

                                     

                              

                           

                        

It ain't all bad.

In fact today has been a far better day than many over the past period.

No, I have not found the diamond that has disappeared from my wedding ring – but I still look, everywhere.  Due to other more urgent matters the repair/replacement of the ring has been put on hold until Monday when it will have to be my priority Number 1.

I find it deeply disconcerting for me to not be wearing my wedding ring.  Not only do I feel terribly disloyal to Tony for not having it on my finger, but it is a constant reminder to me of what love and marriage meant to us and while I have neither anymore, just having the ring constantly on my finger gives me a sense of emotional security.  It constantly reminds me of what a treasured life I did once live.  Unlike many people I like to look back to the past, especially the happy past I have had, for it is reflecting back there that gives a sense that the past was not wasted, most particularly because I made someone so happy.

Today though, the ring had to take a back seat, had much to do and little time to do it.  

In amongst the busy day though, I found I had won $36 on last week’s Lotto.  Sure, it was not the millions, but that is irrelevant, what is relevant is that I won $36.00.  Enough to put a smile on my face for a while.

And as all good Lotto winnings should do – most of it went straight back into more Lotto tickets – in the hope of actually winning something greater than $36.00.  If I do, I shall not let you know.  If I don’t, I probably will.

Another good part of my day is I finally got my new bike shoes and pedals fitted on my bike.  That was a hugely exciting interval this afternoon, having the new pedals put on the bike, sliding my feet into my new shoes and test driving the freshly polished bicycle. 

To some that would seem rather sad, my excitement at new bike shoes, it probably is.  I don’t care. It excited me.

The day has since concluded with a most pleasant early dinner out with three cheerful and chipper lady friends;  the dinner being the prelude to the evening as when finished we walked to the Vector Arena where Dolly Parton would entertain us for over 2½ hours.

I confess to being somewhat apprehensive as to what the greater audience would be like. Aging country fans dressed in country gear, Texan hats and boots and all.  Or aging aged, dressed in their knitted cardies and comfy shoes, coming to relive the past, the long distant past, for that is after all, where Dolly comes from.

By her own admission it is 30 years since she was last in New Zealand.  I knew that, because my sons told me that.  When I informed them, rather sheepishly, that I was going to the Dolly Parton concert they happily informed me the very first concert they had ever been to was when I took them to see Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, 30 years ago.

I had completely forgotten that fact from my past and was truly impressed at what a nice mother I must have been to have taken two teenage boys to a live concert, to a Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers live concert.  What lucky teenage boys they were.

Tonight I had envisaged the high possibility that my friends and I would be the youngsters in the audience.  Obviously I would have been the oldest of the youngsters, but would still have the pleasure of being younger than most others in the audience.  But not quite so.

Yes, there were Texan hats and knitted cardies and comfy shoes – but so many of them were on the heads, bodies and feet of young people.  Young as in late teens, twenties and early thirties.  This was a surprise.  I would have thought their generation would have skipped Dolly totally.  But not accordingly to the annoyingly, irritating and rude quintet of wine swilling twenty-year old girls sitting behind us who talked through almost all the first half and tipping the wine over the chap sitting next to me throughout the second half.

As an aside, the silly man.  It took him three lots of wine sloshing over his head before he finally turned and complained to the low-level IQ’d screamers behind.  Silly man.

Well, Dolly was truly the show woman to top most show woman.  She may be collecting the pension now but she’s spending it cleverly in ensuring her figure remains as it was 30 years ago and in keeping that voice toned and tuned to be as good as it ever was.

She connected with the audience – well at least the screeching quintet behind us told us she did – she talked almost as much as she sang and was clearly enjoying herself in delivering what the audience had hoped to get. 

She belted out old and new songs.  Melodies and country. Played more musical instruments than you could imagine, including a small “sexaphone” and danced constantly on precarious high heels than not even the screeching girls could possibly balance on.

It was many months ago, sometime last year, that our own little quartet decided to make a girls night out with Dolly.  I confess to being reticent initially, solely due to the dollar value the night would cost, but tossed practicality aside and thought “bugger it, I’ll go.”  

Probably one of the better decisions I had made in my annus horribilis.

Thanks K, V, P.  Thanks lots.

       

I should never have got out of bed today.

I should never have got out of bed today.

Oh, it started off all right.  Quite good actually.  Up early and in the outdoor swimming pool before the sun had come up over the horizon and chewed out a good 2.5 kilometres of swimming.  Followed this with an enjoyably lazy, well earned and long post-swim coffee before heading home to an unusually whole day being at home to finally get some catch up work done – in all areas.  

Had already scheduled myself a timetable for the day, to run as so:

• ·         1 hour – the first hour - to get some boring and dreaded housework done as loathe sitting in a house seeing basic cleaning that needs doing.
• ·         1 hour – the next hour - to spend outside in the yard to get something out there done and then feel good for having done so.
• ·         All other hours in the day to be spent in front of the computer to catch up on long overdue communications, research, accounts, speech making and training programmes. 

Figured that should have some of the ‘monkey-on-the-back’ stuff analysed, sorted, clarified, classified, closer than yesterday to being completed and thus leave the mind clear and free for an hour or so of evening exercise – preferably at a spin class where the heat, body odours and noise will take the mind off any other pressing concerns.  You try worrying about anything serious when the bloke on the spin bike in front of you reeks of stale body odour from wearing the same cycle garments he wore the week before and shoved back into his bag last week, to be brought out again this evening and put on and worn for yet another hour of total sweat producing exercise.  My logic and thinking brain cells brain cannot operate under such circumstances as they are totally over exerted by the brain smelling cells and thereby means the thinking cells goes into total evacuation mode – a positive then for stinking men as they managed to take my mind off any worries.

So that was the plan.

Until I pulled up outside the house this morning, after the prolonged coffee break, was unloading the big van and noticed I had a flat tyre.

                                             

Now, I had a flat tyre – of the most dramatic type – only a couple of weeks ago when I pulled into a parking spot along busy Mt Eden Road in the Mt Eden Village. As I pulled in there was an enormous “BANG”  that was so explosive and loud that every pedestrian walking the streets of Mt Eden Village jumped and almost dived into the shop doors for fear it was a bomb going off.  It certainly startled the butchers in the butcher shop I parked adjacent to.  I saw them both jump with fright.

Almost as instantly the left front of the vehicle did a delicate drop.  Clearly I had managed a big puncture.  The first motor vehicle puncture I would have had in decades.  But it was a good one.  A really good one, helped by the fact that I had to call the AA and let them know I was about to be parked in a Clear Way zone within the next few minutes, at peak hour, of course.

The friendly, very friendly, AA man came and fixed the problem and made me feel ever so much a lady by reassuring me that no woman should have to do such a dirty, messy job as changing this particular vehicle’s tyre.  Sometimes it is nice to play the woeful, useless female.  I rather enjoyed being so on this occasion as he was literally covered from head to toe in dirt and dust by the time he finished the repair.

This morning I looked at the very same wheel and see the tyre is flat.  This time I can see the lead headed nail that caused the puncture.  This time the AA man was not quite so ‘friendly’ but nevertheless he was just as efficient at changing the damn thing. 

Now one must bear in mind that whilst this was happening today, only yesterday I had to wait a minimum of 2 hours at the Novus Auto Glass Repairs shop, as a few days earlier some stone or rock had hit the windscreen of my vehicle which resulted in one very long, and growing longer by the day, crack going directly from left to right of the entire windscreen.  Only at times like this does one feel grateful for all those thousands of insurance dollars we pay out.  All in all the Novus trip used up about 3 hours of my day yesterday.

Hence my better planning today. 

But, due to happenings, the first 1 hour of today’s scheduled chores did not get done. That was spent on calling AA men, talking to AA men and then taking same punctured tyre to the tyre-fix-it place, where yet another smelling-of-body-odour-man fixed the repair for me.  All in all, that took up over 3 hours.  It was whilst there I happened to look at my wedding ring.  The very special wedding ring that Tony placed on my finger on our most romantic wedding day.

                              

I have told anyone who listens that I have only two fears in my daily life, one is the fear of losing any of my teeth (due to the cost of replacement), the other is losing my wedding ring.  Why the wedding ring?  Because this wedding ring has meant more to me than any car, house or other personal property I have ever owned, such is the personal and emotional meaning that the ring has always held for me.

Sitting in the waiting room at the tyre shop I look down at my ring finger and notice… the ring is there, but main, central diamond has gone.  The ring is just one ugly big claw. 

My immediate thought is that it must be sitting at the bottom of the Parnell swimming pool and no amount of friends performing hypoxic breathing exercises to the bottom of the pool would ever find it, no matter how often or for how long I sent them down there.

On the other hand – it certainly would be great swim training – all that hypoxic breath holding.  That would extend their oxygen uptake improvements.  Immm….

I digress….

A smart trip home, dive into insurance files, ring insurance company, they ask the obvious, when did I last have the diamond valued.  Err… maybe nearly 30 years ago…. ??  yep, about then … this wedding ring was designed to emphasize a diamond I had been given over 30 years ago and never had done anything with. What better than to use it for something so special – it was nice to have my wedding ring designed around it.  Made Tony’s putting it on my finger seemed that extra special.

Cannot find the diamond valuation but do find an original diamond description. Into town to a jeweler to take the next step and ask what would be the next step. Only problem is, most of these jewelry shops do not always have their jeweler in store. Only sales staff, with the jeweler coming on on certain days, but not today as he is at another of their stores, so that was useless. 

I exited the shop, dejected, rejected, chin sitting loosely on my chest in a forlorn-type droop. Stepped out onto the pedestrian crossing to walk back to my car on the other side of the road.  Was so dejected as how the day was turning out that as I took my second or third step onto the crossing I look to my right to see one great, big, red bus fast bearing down on me.  For one tiny, momentary nano-second I thought about throwing myself under it.  Uhhh… that would literally put to rest any concerns about lost diamonds, blown tyres, house work, paper work and commitments. 

But it was only a nano-second.  In that same nano second realised that when commiserating folk visit the house they would see that I didn’t do the housework.  That would not do.  Priorities girl.

Drove ever so carefully and directly home. Without incidents.  My refuge.  Demolished half an iced Christmas cake.  Literally. Felt good at the moments of demolishing. Doesn’t feel good now though.

Am staying home for the rest of the day and night – everything can go on hold – I will not go to spin tonight - I have closed the doors, will not answer the phones – I am safe, secure and hiding from the world  … until my 8 pm massage arrives nothing else can go wrong.  I shall sit on the PC and achieve something.  That is, once I finish procrastinating doing the PC chores by off loading this drivel/moan onto the screen.  But just before I do, will go into the front room to look for something in the cupboard – it is dark in the cupboard so I turn the room lights on.  Boomph… the lights have blown…. hang on  ... there are six little bulbs in that light fitting and the whole lot are not going .... grrr...  try the other switch  ... nothing.   Grrr......   Damn it, has to be something wrong with wiring - argh, another smelly man to be involve??

Stomp out of room; and straight onto cat; cat screeches; I jump;  I trip; I land on floor and hurt my wrist.

Where is that great big red bus?