After a minor setback with a nasty but brief cold last weekend, this week marked a new high spot for the training program.  No, not in miles (though that will come with tomorrow’s 20-miler) — it was the first time this year for outdoor running in just shorts and a singlet.  A business trip took me to one of my favorite places, Richland Center, Wisconsin, where the rails-to-trails offers very peaceful, scenic training.  It was 61 and sunny the afternoon I arrived — glorious weather for my 8 mile run.

The next morning, for my 5-miler, was a bit different.  Foggy and 30 degrees, so it was back to tights, long-sleeve jersey, vest, gloves and headband.

But we’re getting there…

I just saw a commercial for “Top Chef,” I think it was, where one of the judges says, “That was the best meal I’ve ever had.”

No matter how many years and meals I have left to me, I’m pretty sure no meal will ever compare with Mom’s chili after a long day of cutting firewood in the northern Michigan winter.

My sister Lucy’s pasties tonight were pretty darned good too.

I was listening to my whole Queen collection on the iPod in the truck last week.  This one really caught my ear — a nice pretty little song written by bassist John Deacon:

And I’ve always liked this one, despite its being chock-full of mixed (no, not metaphors, but) similes:

As an aside, I’m probably not telling you anything new when I point out that guitarist Brian May received a PhD in astrophysics in 2007, the same year he turned 60.

This morning a couple colleagues of mine and I were on our way to fly home from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, this morning.  As we got close to the airport, the guy driving nodded forward and asked me, “Is that a Three Mile Island?”

I looked ahead and said, “Well, it’s a couple of huge cooling towers for sure.”

Only when I got home and searched did I realize I was seeing THE Three Mile Island.  For some reason I thought it was farther east.  Fascinating.

Why do people think using ask as a noun (“The ask from the executives is for us to do our freakin’ jobs”) makes them look smart?  Because it doesn’t.  In fact, quite the opposite.  Please help.

We’re getting into the big miles now.

A couple weeks ago, I set yet another treadmill record — 15 miles. That’s a long run made longer by doing it on the treadmill. But it was snowing that day and the roads were icy, so it was the way to go.

Then the weather finally started to turn, oh so slowly. It hasn’t exactly been that burst of springlike weather that’s so fantastic when it comes. Instead it’s been a slow warm-up and retreat of the snow and ice, kind of like what Robert Silverberg’s characters say is about to happen at the end of Time of the Great Freeze. But at least the roads are safe now.

Today it was 17 miles in high 40s and wet (it poured last night) and foggy. It was uneventful, which is just what the doctor ordered. So I’m feeling pretty good about where I stand, with almost two months before the big day.

Here’s hoping winter is gone for good. (Yeah, I know — it isn’t.)

Back when I didn’t have kids, I’d hear those who did say, “They grow up so fast,” and think it was just one of those mindless things people say to hear themselves talk. And it may well have been. But now I know it’s also one of the truest things ever said.

I had two experiences in the past few days that highlighted the fact. The first was when I brought back something the Reverend Doctor Vinoski Sweetness and I used to do when he was a toddler, called Up Please – Climb Please – Upside Down Please. It’s fairly self-explanatory; I’d sit on the couch and he’d climb into my lap (standing — yes, that could be painful) and say each phrase in turn. I’d lift him by his legs straight into the air, then drop him over onto the cushions. Then I’d hold his hands while he climbed onto my shoulders, and I’d drop him again. Finally he’d put his hands on my shoulders, I’d grab him by the legs and turn him upside down, and drop him again.

So, no, he’s not so big I can’t do it anymore. (In fact, it’s twice as fun now that Bug can do it too.) But he used to say — like Bug does now — “Up pwease… cwimb pwease — upside down pwease.” But I learned upon reviving the game that he can say his Ls now. When did that happen?

Then yesterday I got up early and started work on the last steps to finish a stained glass panel I’ve been working on for my Mom for years. (Literally.) It took a while, and the boys each got up. And did their own thing while I worked. I didn’t have to break stride once. When did they get old enough to take care of themselves in the morning?

It’s scary. And cool. And scary.

Memphis radio personality John “Bad Dog” McCormack passed away this week after a battle with leukemia.

I remember when he first started working with longtime “Wake-Up Crew” partners Tim Spencer and Bev Hart.  I was living and working in Mississippi, and Sweet Miss ViVi was still finishing school in Memphis, so I spent a lot of weekends traveling up to see her, usually driving back Monday morning for work.  The Wake-Up Crew made that drive a whole heck of a lot more enjoyable — though it was always a drag to lose the WREG signal down near Tupelo.

After we got married and spent a bit longer in Mississippi, we moved back to Memphis for a while, and became big fans of Bad Dog’s “Twilight Phone” pranks.  ViVi picked up a cassette collection of them and we used to listen to it incessantly, almost falling over laughing to his “Mackie Dean” character and his quick calls asking people to take delivery of a neighbor’s flimsy paper bag full of tarantulas.  (I still regularly use a line from that last bit — “Oh, they wouldn’t kill you.  You might lose a limb…”)  The one where he had his brother’s pal thinking a huge bond deal he’d done had just fallen through was priceless, priceless, priceless.

Bad Dog was only 55, but his final words to his fans were anything but bitter:

“I have gone to be with God, and he is holding me tightly and I am surrounded by many of the Ronald McDonald House kids. Do not say you have lost a friend. One is only lost when you don’t know where they are. You know where I am.

“I thank each and every one of you for your support and prayers. I love all of you and that will never go away . . . None of us is guaranteed tomorrow, make every day great, be the spiritual leader of your family. May peace be with you. Your friend, Bad Dog.”

Peace be with you too, Bad Dog.  Thanks for all the laughs.

Despite a very busy last weekend for the Reverend Doctor’s birthday, the Sweet Miss ViVi still had piles and piles of dirty clothes separated on our bedroom floor for staging before laundering.  And then on Monday morning, voila!  Clean slacks and t-shirts and undies and such!

And she does this week after week, month after month, year after year for all us boys.  She doesn’t get to escape to an outside job like so many women do nowadays, because we both agreed years ago our kids (if we ever got around to having them) would have their mom at home with them.  So this is her career, which so many people disparage as being unfulfilling and lacking challenge and reward.

And I’m sure it’s all that for my beautiful wife fairly regularly.  But my boys have their mom when they need her, and I know the best person possible is taking care of them during the day when I’m in the salt mine.

So thank you for all that you do for us, dear.  My t-shirt I’m wearing still feels wonderful, fifteen hours after I put it on, because I know you cleaned it for me.

Postscript:  and the lifetime achievement award in the same category goes to Dooley, my mom, who did the same thing — but with seven kids, not two!  I’ll especially never forget her hand-washing our basketball practice clothes and game uniforms most nights during high school, hanging them down in the basement where the woodstove dried them so they’d be ready for the duffle bag the next morning.  Thanks, Mom.