You Need Kool-Aid

I went for my two mile run around 5. I felt like I was in quicksand. It wasn't the heat. For some reason, that doesn't bother me. It was probably because I was out last night from after work until sundown. I got kinda lost in my neighborhood toward the end so I covered even more territory than I intended. I got lost because my friends J & J (who live a few streets over) texted to ask if I wanted to go for a walk and I had so much to catch them up on that I walked/talked them home and I had to go the long way home because there are too many streets that circle around. The D got mad at me once when we were in the car and I got lost. I need to study the map. Even so, every single fuckin' street name starts with an "M". Seriously. What were they thinking?

Last night, when it was getting dark and I was almost home, I had a sweet little flashback of hearing my mother do that two-fingered whistle thing she did to call us home in the summer when it was getting dark. I can't whistle. At all. Fingers or no. FF tried to teach me. Without success.

It was sweet coming home at dusk. It's the first time I've noticed the fireflies this year. It made me fall in love with my neighborhood even more.

In between my 5:00 run yesterday and coming home, I walked to the little park and swung (swang?) on the swingset, talked on the phone to my one and only employee to tell her she was fired since she never worked for me - just for my client - and that they would hire her. Thank god I never got around to getting my LLC set up with the state. I never want to have an employee. Not to get into details, but when I met with my client and their new employee, everyone was thrilled with my brilliant plan. I called the payroll service guy to come give his schpiel at the last minute and he wowed them, and better yet, made me look good (even though I had to prompt him to tell them how much of a discount I'd negotiated). I'd just called him at the last minute 45 minutes earlier for an impromptu meeting with treasurer of another client (he'd already done the proposal, but I hadn't gotten around to setting up the meeting), and I'm certain they're in the bag, too. The treasurer smiled before he said he'd get back to him. That's rare.

Wow, here I go, getting off track again. My whole point was that between running and swinging and talking and walking and running more, my legs were probably just too tired from yesterday to make it the whole two miles without stopping tonight. Oh, I made J & J swing, too. I told them how it really works your muscles. Quads and inner thighs, and your guns, too, if you lean way back. Probably some ab action, too. But mainly the quads. In fact, tonight when I was doing my post-run swing, I noticed how incredibly hulkish my quads looked. I guess between the running and swinging and running up and down the stairs to my enchanted aerie a hundred times a day, that's unavoidable. So I had this crazy thought of challenging FF to a leg wrestling contest. I think I'd stand a chance of winning. But we'll have to adjust the wager since he has a natural advantage, based on his gender and all. A point spread of sorts. However that works.

Ok, back to the Kool-Aid reference. I've talked about discovering Led Zeppelin on my MP3 player and how it really energized my run. And I mentioned listening to it in the car with FF last weekend. He'd read my blog, I suppose and made a point of playing it for me. The song is Whole Lotta Love, of course. The one and only one of theirs I know. And that's because my older sister (who just happens to be the same age as FF, which is six years older than me), would play it full blast every morning while we were getting ready for school. I hated that song. It was either Whole Lotta Love or Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac. Over and over and over again. And that is just part of the reason I could never have voted for Bill Clinton. But that's neither here nor there.

Back to Whole Lotta Love. If you're familiar with it, you might realize that it isn't a sweet little ballad. And that all those sounds he makes midway aren't just simulating a stifled sneeze. In fact, during that part in Dude's car, he looked at me and asked me if it was simulating some other physical, ummm, reaction, but not a sneeze. I tried my best to look innocently puzzled and said, "I never thought of it that way, but now that you mention it..." He likes to try to make me blush, but really, the only thing he does that embarrasses me is to tell those stupid limericks. And then, I'm just embarrassed for him.

After all, I've pooted in front of the man. What could be more embarrassing than that?

Ok, now I'll explain the title of this post and then I'm gonna close up shop. Since I was just about eight years old when this song was big, I really just thought the guy was falling down a well or something. It seemed kinda scary. But it wasn't until tonight, when I was running and listening to it that I realized what the first line of the song really said. Which is, I think, "You need coolin'". I like my version better.