Kady-ism

After biking 63 miles on the first day of the MS150:

"I'm just going to go to the Country Fresh Deli, call my Mom, and tell her to come and get me."

Actual 'Country Fresh Deli'

Don't Sing

When Summer and I worked in Arizona, it wasn't all spiders and scorpions and gravel-filled water meter pits. There were bathroom breaks at the community pool and FedEx stops where we got to get in the car and drive somewhere. And that's where the magic didn't happen.

(Something hilarious happens at 0:38.)

Sunday Favorites: "Throw the Sheets Away!!"

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on December 1, 2009:

I was just reminded of a story about an old roommate...the one who said "gotiate" instead of negotiate, "taminated" instead of contaminated, and "seya" phone instead of cellular phone. One morning she said she felt as if I "belitter" her, instead of belittle. "Lungs" instead of Lunds, and she spelled Ryan's name Ronnie...what a laugh a minute that girl was.

So anyways, one day I was down in the laundry room, and moving my white bed sheets from the washing machine into the dryer. As I reached into the machine for the last items, I found an unidentified black item. "No big deal," I thought...the sheets didn't appear to show signs of color from a black item...but before I threw said unidentified black object into the dryer I kind of looked closer to find out exactly what it was. As I looked closer, I recognized it less and less and then finally realized it was a pair of my roommates' underwear. I screamed and cried and freaked out imagining the crotch part of her underwear rubbing up against the part of the sheets that my face touch, and then I calmed myself down, no doubt rationalizing that at least now that they've been washed it's not that bad that I've got them in my hand. Then I rechecked the washing machine for any last items to put in the dryer. And there. Stuck. To the side. Of the inside. Of the machine. Was a pad.

I called Kasey and FREAKED out. "What should I DOOOO????!!!?!", I screamed into the phone.

"THROW THE SHEETS AWAY!!", she replied.

Honorably Mentioned...

I kinda love being featured just about anywhere on the Interwebz. But this particular one made me proud...


I got a mention on The Lifetime Fitness Healthy Way of Life blog!

Pete and the Beautiful Hard Polished Rock

I was complaining on facebook, as I sometimes do, that I accidentally sat on a pee-toilet-seat today. This would normally NEVER happen to me because I am a pretty diligent inspector/liner. But I was out of sorts and very stressed out (it was another 14-hour-day folks. This round-the-world trip isn't going to save for itself.)

Anyway, my friend made me feel a little better when he reminded me it's not as bad as what happened to my brother Pete when he was a little boy.

Apparently Pete was walking along and found a beautiful hard polished rock in the snowbank. He liked it so much he wanted to keep it. So he picked it up with his little kid hand and stuck it in his little kid coat pocket.

Two days later he stuck his little kid fingers back in his little kid coat pocket to find that beautiful hard polished rock and pulled out a handful of poop.

"That boy ain't right."

Summer-isms, Vol. 38

"I didnt notice my caretaker was carrying a gun. Because I was too busy petting his pit bull." 

"You just got to wonder about some people when they go jeans shopping."

"He's always really quiet, and I'm like, 'shouldn't we at least be smiling at each other? We both have these tiny dogs.'" 

"I don't do 'nature struggle' stories."

"That was back when children were men."

Thanks a Lot, Siri

Has Siri ever embarrassed you?

Last night I was texting Summer (I think we were talking about how when you've decided to make a significant purchase and you're sick about spending a lot of money it's hard to be nice to the sales people. Impossible to even crack a smile.) Anyway, that's not the point of the story.

I was working late and walking to get dinner at Subway. I was using Siri's voice text so I didn't have to text-and-walk-and-get-hit-by-a-car. And then Siri kept on a-recognizing what I said:

In my defense, I did not say "Hi I love a foot-long..." I said "Hi I'll have a foot-long..."

Later that night, Summer went on to run 12.1 miles. (We're training for an August 4th half marathon.) I did not. I worked late and ate 12.1 inches.

Elevated

Have you ever been so shocked by something that you aren't speechless, per se, but instead without thinking at all you utter something really stupid?

Like the one time at work when I was alone on the elevator. When I arrived at first floor, the doors opened and I was face-to-chest with the most beautiful man I had ever looked up and laid eyes on. I was so dumbfounded as our eyes locked on one another other that my dry mouth could only faintly utter one word:

"Tall."

In a google image search for this post, I entered 'Don Draper elevator' (naturally) and after finding millions of very handsome yet disappointingly non-elevator images of Don Draper, continued on to find this hilarious yet unrelated video. It gave me a case of the LOLs. Enjoy:

Sunday Favorites: Shut Up, Airport Worker Man.

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on June 10, 2010:

On the left, please find my passport photo, taken back when I was Scarlett Johansson.  On the right, a Visa Photo I had to have taken in New Zealand so I could travel throughout Southeast Asia.  After ten tries and a really dumb lady photographer I was getting pretty irritated.  Plus tired?  I don't know.  The point is...cram it, every Passport-Stamping-Customs-Staff-Member who has ever had me come through their line.  They look at my passport, then at me, then back at my passport, and then they say (yes, they ALL say it):

"You shouldn't have cut your hair."

My drivers' license photo is almost identical to the one on the left.  And, since tomorrow is my b-day, I have to renew my license and get a new photo.  Crap.  As far as taking good photos, well...it's like Summer would say.  "You're not very good at this."

Summer-isms, Vol. 37

"I just spilled a third of my drink down my shirt. It felt amazing."

"Tater tots have great mouth-feel."

"I hate men. I'm a manhater. Don't tell anybody."

"She sure likes little midgets, doesn't she?"

"I miss Bill Clinton as our president."

Get your Kady-isms fix right here.

Grandma's Marathon 2007

In an effort to give up on shut down my Super Athlete site, I'm moving a few stories over here to A Lady Reveals Nothing. I wrote this email to my friends and family after having finished my second marathon, Grandma's 2007:

Well, I finished. Here are the official stats:

6980 People finished. I was 6388th.

2565 Females finished. I was 2251st.

My clock time was 5:39:19, but my actual chip time was 5:33:28.

These numbers are nothing to be proud of, but I told my nephew Miles that I won.

A couple of notable items:

• The female winner, Mary Akor, who is exactly my age (30), finished before I hit the half-way point.
• Last year when I trained for Twin Cities I logged a total of 314 miles. I finished that marathon in 4:53:01.This year, while training for Grandma's, I logged a total of 155 miles. (I wasn't able to train as hard due to some injuries laziness.)
• I got mentioned on KFAN on Friday. Not by name, but I was at Famous Dave's where they were broadcasing. Dan Barreiro and I were chatting and I mentioned that I had run Twin Cities and the last six miles were so emotional for me that I couldn't stop crying. I cried for the last six miles and couldn't stop. So, during his broadcast, he was talking about how runners always want to tell you about their bowel movements or gastrointestinal issues during the marathon. He said, "I just talked with a girl, who told me she blubbered the last six miles. She said she was sad, happy, emotional, in pain, feeling awesome, and it made her cry. That I can deal with. Tell me about that. Don't tell me about your poop problems." (or something to that effect.) If he only knew me, right? Also I met Chris Hawkey, he was running his first marathon and cohosts the KFAN morning show with Mike Morris. He was very nice and I actually got to have dinner with he and his wife and their kids as part of a larger group on Friday night.
• I got a signed copy of Dick Beardsley's book, Stay the Course. He set the course record back in 1979 I think.  2 hours 9 minutes! No one has ever beaten that record.
• When I got to the starting line I had to go to the bathroom, so I stood in line at a biffy behind about 40 people. When I finally got in there I tucked my sunglasses in my waist pack, and of course they fell on the floor. Right below the urinal. In a puddle of pee. Thank goodness I had a purell wipe or I would have had to throw them away.
• Entering the starting area was very surreal. There were 7500 people. People as far in front of me as I could see, and people behind me as far as I could see. This of course is when I jumped up and down to see, because just standing there I saw someone's back in front of me and someone's chest behind me. haha
• I ran the first six miles in one hour (or, 10 minutes per mile). So I definitely went out of the gate too fast - my overall average was about 12:47 minutes per mile.
• It was HOT. And SUNNY. The temp at the start of the race was 66 degrees and finished in the high 70's. I really like it to be in the 50's or maybe 60's for a long run.
• Burt Carlson is 81 years old. I saw him throughout the race, sometimes me passing him, sometimes him passing me. It was his 25th Grandma's, and his 287th Marathon overall. Still I felt like if I didn't beat him I was going to have to give up running forever. Well I did beat him. By like five minutes, too. Take that ya ol' sucker!
• I met Al Franken. I saw him along the course twice. The first time it was too late and I didn't get a chance to say hello, but the second time I saw him I was on the same side of the road as him. I introduced myself and we shook hands. That was pretty cool. I felt bad because his hands were like perfectly dry and soft and I was sweating like a pig, had rubbed vaseline under my armpits to prevent chafing, had wiped my sweaty nose (not the snotty part of my nose, but the sweaty part of my nose) a million times, had high fived about 500 runners, in other words my hands weren't clean. At all.
• I saw two ambulances, one lady down with people hovered around, another lady delirious and not able to put her shoe back on. I saw a guy running with the American flag, I saw a guy running backwards, I saw a girl with huge underwear over her shorts that said "granny panties". I saw two speed walkers. I saw a bunch of "50 staters" - guys who had run a marathon in all 50 states. It was such a fun, cool experience. I'm glad it's over though. A big Thank You to Marie M., who ran the entire race - every single step - with me and she never minded if I needed to stop and rest or stretch or whatever.
• My sister Kasey came to watch me, and she saw a guy whose shirt said "Phillipines". So she screamed at the top of her lungs "GO PHILLIPINES!" and then her husband Ben told her that his shirt actually said, "Phillipians 3:16".

Stop here if you don't like my potty humor stuff.

• On Sunday, the day after the race, Kasey and I went to the public hotel restroom quick and when we walked in were hit in the face with the most horrible stench you have ever smelled. We walked around the corner to find a pile of what looked like vomit on the floor of the first stall. Upon further inspection, it wasn't vomit at all. Somebody had to go number two and didn't make it. There was stuff on the floor, the toilet, everywhere. We went back into the hallway and informed a janitor, and he got on his walky-talky and we heard him say he had a "code brown" in the ladies room. How funny is that?

Ross and Kady vs. the World

I've been planning another big trip for a while now, and am very excited to report that my cousin Ross quit his job and will be joining me. A travel buddy? Yes please! We bought our tickets to London today! We leave September 14th for a super may-juh trip that will take us to most of Eastern Europe, Greece, Turkey, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Japan and Hawaii.

The only problem is we are going to have to get T-shirts that say "I'm With Cousin" and an arrow and "...But We're Not Romantically Involved" or something, lest anybody think we're "blocked". We have the same last name, which only serves to handicap us further.

My life's about to get interesting again, folks! And y'all? Well, you're gonna have to endure a few more 'Cousins Pictures':

Helsinki, Finland

Fjords, Norway

Preikestolen, Norway

Oslo, Norway

Steaming Human Stew, Iceland

Tallinn, Estonia

2012 Lifetime Fitness Triathlon

I did it! ...and I beat my time from 2008 by 17 minutes!

Final results:

2012:
Overall: 1 hour 43 minutes
Swim .25 mile: 9 minutes 43 seconds
Transition 1: 4 minutes 5 seconds
Bike 15 miles: 53 minutes 47 seconds
Transition 2: 1 minute 38 seconds
Run 3 miles: 34 minutes 17 seconds

2008:
Overall: 2 hours 0 minutes
Swim .25 mile: 17 minutes 16 seconds
Transition 1: 4 minutes 59 seconds
Bike 15 miles: 1 hour 2 minutes
Transition 2: 2 minutes 57 seconds
Run 3 miles: 32 minutes 36 seconds


Click here to read about 2008.

I'm not sure how she thought she was going to swim in that, but...

They write your age on the back of your leg.

I have to say, seeing people's ages on the backs of their legs is kind of a blessing and a curse. As you pass them, or they pass you...all you can do is look at their age and either congratulate yourself or beat yourself up. If somebody who was older than me passed me I was like, "aw HAIL no". But if a younger person passed me, I was OK with it.


This is what you get when you ask Summer to take photos for you:

Thank goodness I beat the 10-year-old.

...and the best part?

THE MEDAL IS A BEER OPENER!!!

A big thanks to my best bud Summer of HoboSiren for getting up super early, taking photos and cheering. It was great to see your face along the course, Ma.

Sunday Favorites: "Blonde" Hair

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on December 27, 2010 when I lived in Central America:





Some of you may be surprised to hear this, but I use chemical products to change the color of my hair. Here is it's natural color:

See how ugly it makes me look?

And so, I dye my hair.  The problem is maintenance.  I can get away with about 8-10 weeks between dye jobs, but at the 10 week mark, it's kind of urgent. 

The next problem is, in Central America, it's tricky to find a stylist that understands how the blonde-haired Norwegian woman's hair works.  Or more correctly, I told myself it would be difficult to find a stylist that understands how the blonde-haired Norwegian woman's hair works.  Based on my experience in Malaysia. 

And so, I decided to do it myself.  I did the first inch of my hair, or the grown out roots.  And I forgot how badly bleach burns when you apply it directly to your scalp.  Your sunburned scalp.  I was only able to leave it on for 40 minutes.  Then I reapplied for another 40 minutes.  But it only lifted to a nice orange shade.

Like this:

So, I wasted $10 on the box.  In Panama I went to the mall and bit the bullet for a dye/cut job.

The result was super nice color.  Love it.  Dude did a great job with the color.

BUT: Now, in the back, I am supporting a lovely 90's mushroom cut I would have killed for in 6th grade. It's OK. I will just have to face everyone for the next month.

Oh, Uncle Lionel.

Last Sunday, Uncle Lionel Batiste died. He was 81. 

I fell in love with him when I lived in New Orleans.

His hand. On my knee.

Cool as cool Uncle Lionel Batiste in action:

Triathlon? More Like Tri-crass-lon

I signed up two weeks ago to do the Lifetime Fitness Triathlon tomorrow.

DUMB. (I haven't trained.)  Oh well.  Would you like to read the story of when I did the same Triathlon four years ago?

No?

Too bad:

So, on the Friday night before my triathlon I needed to be at the Minneapolis Convention Center to pick up my race packet by 8:30. I figured if I left Rochester by 6:30 I would have plenty of time. On a whim, I called a friend and asked her to get me exact details about location, etc. I found out that the packet pick-up closed at 8pm. I was exactly 90 miles away and had exactly 90 minutes to make the trip, get downtown, park and get my packet. I drove like a madwoman and got to the Convention Center at 7:59. As I was running in flip flops to the pick up area, I saw another girl running. "ARE YOU LATE TOO?!" I screamed across the room. "I WAS JUST COMING FROM ROCHESTER, WOW! I THOUGHT I WOULD MISS IT! AHAHAHAAAA" No response.

Thus began a weekend of me trying to strike up conversations with everybody and being met with only blank stares.

Where's Waldo?

• I arrived at the swim staging area and about 5 feet from shore there were several people, seemingly crouching down and all I could see was like 15 people, just from the shoulders up. So I go, "IS THIS THE BATHROOMS? AHAHAHAHA HA HA! ". No response. Then I got in and there was a drop-off and I realized that the people were standing, not crouching.
• During the swim, rounding the corner, I screamed out that the bouie looked like a "BIG ORANGE HERSHEY'S KISS!" Nothing.
• While I was biking, a woman and I were passing eachother for a few miles. The last time when I passed her I said, "IT'S LIKE WE'RE DANCING!!" Crickets.
• They wrote all of our ages on the backs of our legs so you could see people's ages. I passed another 31-year-old on the bike and yelled out, "GO 31! WOOO! 1977!". At least she gave me a pity, "Right now I feel 100."
• Then I passed a 64 year old guy and sang the whole way past him, "WILL YOU STILL NEED ME WILL YOU STILL FEED ME, WHEN I'M 64!" He said nothing. That one made me feel really dumb because it took me longer to sing the song than it took me to pass him, so I was still singing it for a while after I was already ahead of him. And then I thought, What if he thought I was being mean? Think about it. Will you still need me? Will you still feed me? Embarrassing.
• Everytime I passed a cheering section I would yell dumb things like, "CAN I DO IT?" And some would say "YES YOU CAN!" But most of them looked at me with a big question mark.

Lesson of the day?
I think my main problem is that I don't give people a chance to realize that I'm talking to them. I just approach talking all loud and "in your face" and they just don't hear me because by the time they see I'm talking to them I'm already done saying what I had to say. Right? It can't be because I'm annoying. Right? Mom, you still love me, right?

The reason you don't see any other bikers in this photo is because I was totally winning.

Summer-isms, Vol. 36

"I can't even remember the last youthful moment I had."


"...And then I puked up the amazing dinner I had just eaten.  It was like watching $12 go down the drain."


"She has very inconsistent sanitation guidelines."


"Oh that's right - I did puke yesterday." 

Am I Going to Jail?

I once said an incredibly inappropriate thing to a young Jeffrey Dahmer-type kid who I witnessed trying to flip a chipmunk around by its tail:

"HEY! Don't do that! How would you like it if I grabbed you by your tail and flipped you around? Where's your tail? Oh. It's in the front."

*I don't think he heard that last bit...he started running away when I started yelling at him.*


Which reminds me of a story.  And by story I mean another adorable video from our 2010 trip up north for Girls' Fishing Weekend.  Check this one for images of my mom and dad and our old house in International Falls.  *tear*

Once again, filmed and edited by the completely brilliant Shash.




Girl's Weekend in I-Falls from marble fawn on Vimeo.

Mom's Favorite Hexum Kid Quotes

Kim: 3 years old. Running fast. "Mommy, Mommy, Daddy needs some paper toilet. For his other leg."

Keri: 3 years old. To my mom's girlfriend, who was nursing her baby: "HEY LADY!!! He's bitin' your apple!"

Kelly: 3 years old. In grocery cart, being pushed by cute uncle Aaron. Expresses her love. Aaron tells her it's not to be. She replies, "But who will know, my Lovely?"

Pete: 4 years old, barging into the bathroom just as my mom heaves her 9 month pregnant belly (me inside) out of the shower. "Mom! I think your baby's standin' up!!!"

Kady: 3 years old. Insists on being called a new name every day. To neighbor friend, who asked what my name was that day: "Junius."

Kasey: 1 year old. (She was the baby. Everything she said or did was adorable. This isn't a quote, but it's pretty funny.): Kasey walks into room, walking like a duck. Diaper looks funny. Mom opens it up, finds maxi pad. Sticky side up.

We all peaked at about three years old.

The Headless Americans

When I got my drivers' license, one of my chores was to deliver dogs across Minnesota and parts of Canada for my dog-training dad. He had a friend outside of Winnipeg who lived on a dairy farm with whom he frequently traded dogs. This friend had children similar to our ages and we loved going up there. It was on this farm that I learned where cow's milk came from. (SPOILER ALERT: It's from cows.)

Anyway, on one particular delivery Kasey and I decided to make a little vacation of out it and stay a couple of nights. One night, one of their boys wanted to take us on a four-wheeler ride.

Marko hopped on one four-wheeler and Kasey and I hopped on the other, with me driving. Off we went, into the Canadian Nothing. Past the dairy cows, past the fields, and into the woods. Since we had just turned 14 and 16 and we were stupid teenage girls, we didn't pack for a trip to a farm -- we packed for a trip to visit boys on a farm. So we were wearing our new cute matching GAP outfits. Oh my goodness, they were so cute. Pastel short-shorts with striped button-down sleeveless shirts and matching striped pastel Keds. (It was 1993 after all.)

We ended up at a huge mud patch and Marko SPRAYED us with mud. We were supposed to SPRAY him back, apparently. But I was so focused on the ruining of my new outfit I just sort of didn't SPRAY him back. I shrugged my shoulders at him, like, 'What? Come ON. New outfit!' and then I think Marko felt bad and we started heading back to the farm. What a bust. Poor Marko. 

On the way back I felt so bad for being such a stick in the mud (pun intended), that I started racing Marko down the path. We were going back a way we hadn't come and it was a perfect stretch to race. We raced and raced and laughed and laughed and then suddenly we were winning!

Marko was left in the dust and Kasey and I were hootin' and hollerin' like a couple of city girls who just showed up the farm boy.

Kasey was wondering how far in the lead we were so she turned around to look. Marko was a hundred yards back, stopped, waving his arms and acting like a darn fool. Kasey poked me in the shoulder and I turned around. It seemed like he wanted us to stop? So I stopped.

Marko caught up to us frantically. Not ten feet in front of our faces was an electric cow wire, hung neck-high.

"Hey? Uh, Hal? Yah, your daughters are dead, eh?"

Sunday Favorites: "Hi"

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on October 30, 2008, when I was on my way home from South Africa and had a lengthy layover in New York:

7 hour layover.

Called mom and dad.

Ate.

Walked around.

Shopped for stuff.

Bought a coffee cup.

Read my book.

Went to the bathroom, where -- and I am not kidding about this -- (stop reading if you're a proper person with manners or a human being) I pooped the word "hi", lowercase, complete with a dotted "i". I couldn't believe it. I reached to get my camera to take a picture, but the automatic flusher thought I was done and flushed it all away. And then I cursed technology forever.

Goodbye New York with your fancy toilets with unforgiving motion detectors.

'Merica

Every fourth of July weekend. my girls and I go on a "fishing trip" up north. Please enjoy this little video from last year, filmed and edited by the brilliant and beautiful McShash:

Girl's Fishing Weekend 2011 from marble fawn on Vimeo.

Sunday Favorites? On a Wednesday????? ...A Day at the Farm

Today is the 4th of July, 2012. I'm back at the farm, wrastlin' up cattle. I decided to repost the story from last year.

From 7/3/2011:

My dad and I went to a friend's farm to participate in a hundred-year-old tradition of getting the calves innoculated and tagged and other necessary torture tactics (castration).  It was such a fun experience to be a cowgirl for the day.  My dad looks super handsome in his cowboy hat, no?

My first calf.  Liza took it down and I had to help hold it down.

Awwwwwww...

There's some good-lookin' dudes on this ranch.

My partner and me.

I took this one down...I kind of had to roll it on top of myself and then get out from underneath it.

This is Ted.  You might remember him from the Granada 6.  We both lived in Costa Rica at the same time.  Turns out he has been helping with these calves for years.

Full of crap.  Literally.

Facing fears...here I am fileting a "Rocky Mountain Oyster"

EW!  Erica was screaming: "it's dripping! it's dripping!"

Afterward, we went for a ride through the pasture to check on the calves and make sure they were doing OK.

Minnesota...I love ya.

Bringing the burro in the house to see grandma is an old tradition.  She fed him some Cheetos.