Sticks and snails, and puppy dog tails...

What is the old rhyme?

Sugar and spice, and everything nice, that's what little girls are made of.
Sticks and snails and puppy dog tails, that's what little boys are made of. 

Last year, Monkey was really sick.  During his second round of his alopecia treatment, he was also fighting his ump-teenth round of bronchitis that even required an extra night's stay in the hospital because he needed oxygen at night.  It was then that we learned he was allergic to cats and dogs.

As a result, we had to find new homes for our longtime family members Athena (my cat) and Jasmine (our dog).  It wasn't easy, but the immediate improvement in Monkey's health, and an entire year without antibiotics of any kind (knock on wood) made it worth it.  I think he only missed one day of school this year with a stomach virus, and managed to get off his inhalers altogether.  This spring, we really missed our big yellow dog.  But all it took was our Easter visit to Minnesota where we stayed with family that had dogs and we knew we had made the right choice.  Within a few days, he was wheezing and needed his inhalers, and it took six weeks after we came home for him to get over it.

This is a little boy that loves nature.  Both of our boys are at the perfect age where a dog would be their best buddy and partner in crime.  But there will be no fur or feathers for our house anytime soon.

Last Friday, Monkey came home very excited.  He and his friends at school had spent their time at recess hunting for snails.  He found a clear plastic container and set out to the back garden with his little sister in tow, to hunt for his new pet.  They came back empty handed and disappointed.  Another attempt the next morning was equally futile.  But hope was not lost.  Monkey was invited to play at a friend's house for the afternoon, and I knew his friend had a giant garden with all sorts of wildlife.  He took his snail house with him and I explained the situation to his friend's mother.  She said Monkey was welcome to take as many snails as he wanted, as they were eating all of the vegetables and strawberries in her garden.  I told him his quota was three.

Later in the day the father of his friend dropped him off with a sly grin and a cryptic message, "the snails are your problem now."  I didn't even know that snails could grow to be the size of baseballs.   Ok, so that's a slight exaggeration.  But the big one is definitely bigger than a golfball.  Monkey named him "Super Size" and explained that the two baby snails didn't count towards his quota of three, bringing the grand total to five.

Probably, Monkey's new pets would be happier on the patio than anywhere we could find in the house.    We put a table next to the back window on the patio so we can watch the new pets from inside the safety of our house.

I have to admit, that first day, Super Size was pretty exciting to watch.  He was a giant.  He moved all over his new home, exploring his container.  And also, it seems, looking for escape routes as we caught him actually pushing the lid off the top.  The lid was quickly secured with a potted plant and we added a slice of plum to their home to keep them happy.

The next morning, there was nothing.  No movement, nothing.  As the day went on and the snails were silent, I worried that the potted plant had blocked too many of the little air holes.  It appeared as if we had killed the whole lot of them.  We opened the lid to look, and didn't bother to secure it, feeling bad that we had deprived them of precious oxygen.

The next day went by, and after school, Monkey and I went to the patio to deal with the dead snails.  Only, there, sitting next to the container, was Super Size himself, tucked up in his shell taking a nap.  Huh.  It appears as if he hadn't really been dead after all, and took advantage of the small window of opportunity when the container was open, to escape.   Not only did he escape, but he came back to eat the basil from the potted plant.  And being the size of a golfball, he's not exactly inconspicuous.  We left him asleep on the table and took the container to the edge of our driveway to dump the contents by the forest and put in new leaves.  When we dumped the container out, the other two "dead" snails promptly came out of their shells and made a break for it.

It was nice to know we didn't kill them after all.  We cleaned out the snail slime and added fresh nature.  We fed them some basil leaves and named the rest of them.  Monkey returned Super Size to his new home and secured the lid.  Today, Monkey made a "to-go" container and chose one to take to school with him for the day, the one he calls "Speedy."  He was under strict instructions regarding his snail quota.  It's only half-day today, which means less time at recess to hunt for snails, which will hopefully help him abide by the snail quota rules.  We shall see.

Jinxed.

I don't think I should blog about running anymore.  When I do, it seems that I jinx myself and end up with a running related injury requiring me to sit on the injured reserve list for a six-week period of time. This time around, it's a stress fracture in my left foot.

Actually, I don't think it was necessarily triggered by running.  I think it was triggered by the fact that I had to drag a heavy suitcase on and off trains from here to England and back again a few weeks ago.  Wearing bad shoes.  Ok, so they weren't bad shoes, they were a cute wedge sandal, but bad in the sense that my feet didn't like wearing them as I was carrying said heavy suitcase up and down many, many flights of stairs.  I have a new respect for the American Disabilities Act.  It's not always easy to find elevators in train stations and underground stops throughout Europe.

And did you know that when you attend a writer's conference, they give you a bunch of free books?  This didn't exactly help the luggage situation for the way home.  At least I had wised up enough to turn a blind eye to fashion and wore my running shoes for the long journey home.  It was EARLY on Sunday morning anyway, and the one author that I ran into at the train station was too hungover to notice my feet.  But by then, the sensible shoe choice didn't help me much, the damage was already done.

The day after I arrived home, I went for a run that felt great at the time, but by evening had my left foot writhing in pain, that only got worse until I put it in the "boot."  Argh.  My immediate family will be the first to tell you that running keeps me sane.  When I'm not in a regular running routine, I get cranky.  Quickly.  So last week, I did what any former swimmer would do, faced with my same situation. I found a pool.

One of the many things that I appreciate about Belgium, is the easy access to community sports facilities.  (It reminds me of St. Paul, where you can find lots of options for open swim times at any one of the four universities in a two mile radius.)  The last time I was benched from running with a sports related injury, I attempted a regular swimming routine.  But it was December, and the pool was filled with all sorts of athletes who thought it was too cold and rainy to do an outdoor workout.  (They obviously had never been to Minnesota during the winter months, or they would have known that 35 degrees (F) is perfectly  fine for an outdoor run.)  The pool was so crowded that it was nearly impossible to swim an entire length of the pool without having to stop for someone.

As I headed to the pool last week, I had high hopes that this time would be different.  Although the weather isn't exactly stellar this year, it's not the dead of winter.  The fair weather athletes have mostly moved outside.  After I paid my three euros and gimped my way into the pool, I found the swim lanes much less crowded than last time.  I settled myself in to a lane with only three other swimmers and stroked my way through my first lap uninterrupted - and without pain in my left foot, which was a good sign.  Over the next 1500 meters, I learned something new about Belgium.

Swimming in Belgium is a lot like driving here.  The lanes are smaller, thus the risk of collision infinitely greater, and different rules of etiquette apply.  For example, there doesn't seem to be a yield-to-the-swimmer-coming-into-the-turn before-pushing-off-the-wall-to-start-a-lap-of-kicking rule.

Forty-five minutes later, muscles that I hadn't used in years and forgot I even had, were screaming in protest.  But I was proud to have completed a swim workout for the first time in a really long time.  (Of course, here I call it a "workout," back in college, it would have barely been a "warm-up.")

Two days later, I went back to the pool again and found it even less crowded than my first time.  There was a swimmer next to me and I recognized her from before.  She had a nice even back stroke and was doing flip turns, the telltale sign of a more experienced swimmer.   My muscles creaked along with me, and I started to realize that there might be some benefits to cross-training my running with a non-contact sport like swimming.  Ugh.  That makes me sound much more of an intense athlete than I really intend to be at the moment.  But if it keeps my knees from hurting when I start running again....

When I got out of the pool, the swimmer I admired stopped me to tell me that my swimming was beautiful.  After feeling so sore and stiff, and well, broken, the last few days, this literally made me laugh out loud.  It also reminded me of the time my teammates in college told me that watching me swim the last two lengths of the 200 butterfly was like watching the ceiling open up and an imaginary piano drop from the sky onto my back.  Certainly nothing that would be described as beautiful.  I explained to her I hadn't swam in a really long time.  She told me she swims every day.  I don't think I can manage every day, but I will certainly go back.  And maybe my new friend will want to try a swimming a set or two sometime.