The tastiest strawberry

Tags

happiness, strawberry, tastiest strawberry, tiger, zen, zen story

A Zen Master was attacked by a fierce tiger. Running away from the tiger, he reached to the hedge of a precipice. To save himself, he hung from a root of a tree bulging out from a crevice of the cliff. He realized with horror that the root was giving way. Above him, there was the wild tiger waiting to pounce on him. Below, the yawning gap of the precipice ready to swallow him. Death was imminent. He was terrified.
All of a sudden, in front of him he saw a luscious wild strawberry bush with ripe, colorful and tasty strawberries. Forgetting all about the tiger, the precipice and his impending death, the master plucked one of them, put it in his mouth, and with delight said: “Strawberry how sweet you are”! A Zen Story

***

As told to me by a good friend on a Friday night in a bar on Oxford Road, May 2011. And referenced many, many, many times since.

Sunday round-up: 15.07.2012

Tags

abraham lincoln vampire hunter, dressmaking, gett off, physio, purple, running, sewing

Hope you didn’t get here looking for a running blog today:

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|  M   | Tue |  W  |  Th |  F  | Sa | Su  |  TOT |
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|     |      |     |     |     |    |     |   0  |
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Some of the pain from the injury is still there, and spending half of the week with the flu hasn’t exactly helped.
I went to see the physio on Tuesday and he did some strange Ninja move that feels like someone pushing hot rods into my feet, my knees and my hips. Delightful.
Pain aside, it was a useful visit as he took one look at me and pointed out that I overpronate like nobody’s business and I might want to look at different shoes for the marathon.

I am seeing the GP tomorrow to enquire about waiting lists to see someone about biomechanics. In the meantime I am refraining from training in case something else flares up and I am unable to dance at my friend’s wedding on Saturday.
Being unable to dance at her wedding is up there with not showing up, and it’s not going to happen.

This is what I am wearing at the wedding:

Only that’s just the front panel of the skirt, so if I wore it in its current state I would follow in the footsteps of Prince, and I don’t think that style suits me as much as it does him.

In other news, I finally got round to see Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. It’s so terrible that it is actually amazing! Really, go see it. It’s like Snakes on a plane, but better, and that was a tough one to improve on.

Sunday round-up: 08.07.2012

Dear readers, welcome to The Week Of Meh:

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|  M   | Tue |  W  |  Th |  F  | Sa | Su  |  TOT |
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|  5  |      |     |     |     |    |     |      |
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I hurt my foot while I was out on my Monday session. I put my right foot down wrong on one of many bumps in the kerb, and my shoes probably weren’t tied sufficiently tightly (that’ll teach me skipping the usual small dose of caffeine before heading out at 5AM).

As a result I hobbled through the rest of the week and used my left leg to compensate, resulting in both legs being in pain by Wednesday.
I am seeing the physio on Tuesday but it’s enforced rest until then.

As the week unfolded I also managed to pick up a sore throat, a cough and toothache. I think my body is trying to tell me something. It’s either “Slow down” or “F- right off”.

There wasn’t much in the way of sewing, either. I think I have decided what dress I am wearing at my friend’s wedding and I have traced most of the pattern, which is just as well since the wedding is in 13 days!

For the thing which I greatly feared has come upon me, and that which I was afraid of has come unto me

Tags

Book of Job, running, sewing

I have hurt my right foot running yesterday morning.
I also have toothache, which I only get when I have seriously overdone it, and I got emotional when the lodger spoke Italian this morning, when I know full well she does.

So hello burnout, nice to see you. Incidentally, your name shares so many letters with the word Bournemouth! Hindsight is always 20/20, I guess.

Going to take some time out from running, even though the thought of it terrifies me. What will do with myself? Am I supposed to “watch what I eat”? What does that even mean? I always thought it was just one of those expressions people misuse, like “literally over the moon”.

I guess this isn’t a terrible time for this to happen, since I have to practise making cakes for my friend’s wedding in three weeks. The same wedding for which I still haven’t made a dress.

And I am not the sort to pass on an oportunity to wallow…

Sunday round-up: 01.07.2012

Tags

buttonholes, running, sewing

First of all, we’re halfway through 2012 and I haven’t fallen out with any of my friends yet!
This is a 200% improvement on 2011. What happened in April and May doesn’t count because in both instances it had already happened last year anyway.

But on to running! This week was a bit jumbled, but in a good way:

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|  M   | Tue |  W  |  Th |  F  | Sa | Su  |  TOT |
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|  5  |      |  3  |  5  |     | 13 |     |  26  |
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On Monday I trained in the morning and after work I cycled into town to see Moonrise Kingdom.
It’s the best Wes Anderson movie, meaning it’s the best of the best of a lot of movies out there. But it was a late night, and on Tuesday I eschewed my usual run to head straight into work.

On Wednesday morning I headed out reasonably early and soon realised that a sizeable piece work was due at 11:30, so I cut two miles from my circuit and headed to the office. You’ll be pleased to hear that I made my deadline with a whole 11 minutes to spare.

Thursday morning I just had the most snoozealicious snooze of them all, but still managed to get my 5 miles in.

On Saturday I ran a tough 13.1 miles on 5 hours’ sleep thanks to my sewing mojo coming back from wherever it had been for a couple of weeks.
Some of it was pretty horrible, including 3 whole miles of hitting the wall, but I managed to finish and feel quite good about that.

As far as sewing is concerned, after The Dress Of Awesome I got seamstress’ block.
The magic had left the building and I was holding the door open by telling myself I needed to make separates for work, and that I had to learn to make buttonholes.

I didn’t learn how to make the wretched things but made some progress, and in the end decided to go back to making real stuff instead.
On Friday night I proved that you can make a skirt in an evening (pictures coming soon), and also discovered that I am a lot better at drinking wine and sewing than I was last time I tried. It’s all downhill from here!