It’s been a while since I’ve done a boozy post, and it’s late and I’m out of wine now, so here are two three things I’ve realized in the last 20 minutes:

1. If I’m ever allowed to get a mini donkey as a pet, I’m naming it “Hotay.”

2. I was perusing the internets and came across some dumb picture the summary of which was “hey dude wives are DUMB I totally have way more fun with my BROS when WIVES aren’t around! Let’s talk about BOOBS and FARTS like MANLY MEN DO WITHOUT THEIR WIVES AROUND.” Then I realized that boobs came up in the last conversation I had with my friend Hoecakes, and farts, among other bodily functions, come up frequently with both Hoecakes and coworker Boozecakes. Therefore, I am a manly man and also think wives suck. But I am a wife. And thus I am a Shroedinger’s cat of wifeliness.

3. This is the second reasonably accurate Schroedinger’s cat reference I’ve made today.

I also found out that Beefcake doesn’t read my blog. His explanation is that he doesn’t need to, since he “lives it.” He will be full of regret.

ETA: Drunk me is some kind of masochist who insists on watching youtube videos of Air Supply even though the lead singer looks like he wouldn’t hesitate to roofie your ass straight to Monday.

Hey guys! PINTEREST OMG! Like all females on the internet, I spend my most useless hours navigating the brain cell gauntlet known as pinterest, carefully curating the most sophisticated of inspiration boards, travelling the self-righteous path of both CREATIVE and PRACTICAL, gracefully cataloguing the most tasteful of home decor, the most delicious of special-occasion deserts, and the quirkiest of outfits and accessories.

Just kidding. I mostly use pinterest to keep track of recipes and craft tutorials, though one of my favorite pins fits into neither of those categories. When I’m not adding recipes and crafts, I’m probably being a jerk to other pinners.

I can’t, for the life of me, understand why people keep repinning the same stupid things OVER AND OVER AND OVER even when they are wrong or stupid or fake. Because I’m both highly analytical and a glutton for punishment, I think I’ve found the three categories into which all of the worst, most awe-inducingly idiotic pins fall in. And, I think, beyond categorizing these pins, one can consequently use deductive reasoning to align all pinterest users into to one of three painfully stupid categories:

1. Pinner type one: Nutrition Idiot. Pins “OMG SO HEALTHY” pins with no nutritional evaluation.

The fact that someone thought that chocolate chip cookies, regardless of the dough ingredients, would have no white sugar or oil in them but somehow magically also have chocolate chips in them blows my fucking mind. Also, your nasty-ass oatmeal smoothie has 370 calories in it if you consume it as the two servings it’s supposed to be. Let’s be honest. You don’t. My eggs and turkey sausage and random fruit are more delicious because they’re not made out of COLD FUCKING OATMEAL, AND I get to have milk and sugar in my coffee.

2. Pinner type two: Research deficient. Pins “OOH PRETTY” pins without bothering to figure out if it’s real or not.

I think my comments speaks for all of us.

3. Pinner type three: PIN ALL THE THINGS, also known as PIN HOARDER. Pins everything.
I can’t illustrate this type of pinner, but seriously, there are pinterest users with THOUSANDS of pins. THOUSANDS. There are probably some with TENS OF THOUSANDS. I can’t imagine having so much spare time and so little motivation that I spend all day long pinning pictures of stuff and never doing anything.

So, there you have it. A random list of what thing on the internet is annoying me this week. Cheers, bitches!

Hey Daintycakes, you bum, maybe you should finish writing about the Ham Run!
Yeah, sure, ok. When we last left off, I was getting ready for a big race! Race morning conditions were cool, a little cloudy, and kind of damp. The cool and cloudy part I don’t mind, but the damp part made for a somewhat clammy start. Also, the race started about 15 minutes after it was supposed to, so that makes for a bit of restlessness that no one wants when they start a two hour anything.
We all line up to prep for the start of the race. The first ½ marathon I did was the Get Lucky in St Paul, and there were something like 2600 people in that race. For the Ham Run, there were about 140. The scale and feel were much smaller and less nerve-rattling and there was a more comfortable amount of room for everyone before the race started. Of course, then the race started, without any kind of countdown or anything, so off we went!

The first mile or so of this race was on gravel roads and was, painfully, mostly uphill. Since I do a fair amount of hill training, it wasn’t so bad, but man, it does not make for a fast start.
As I mentioned, the Get Lucky was about 1857% larger than the Ham Run. Additionally, the Get Lucky course was a down-and-back, meaning that if you were maybe middle-pack running (I was a little slower than middle pack) you could see the really fast runners after they’d turned around at the half way mark. The race already felt like you were there with a big crowd, which was cool and made for some really good motivation, and you could cheer the frontrunners as they went past you. The Ham Run was a straight shot. And with only 140 people to start, runners spread out fairly quickly. I suspect that between miles 3 and 10, I had about ¼ mile on either side of me that was totally empty. Combine that with that whole area of Minnesota looking like a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and this was the most visually boring thing you can imagine.
Keep in mind, I’m not a fast runner. I spent roughly an hour and a half looking at nothing but rocks. Sure, I had my podcasts with me, but really, NOTHING to look at at all.
At about mile 11, it started to drizzle, which I don’t really mind so much when I’m running. However, it was already kind of clammy to start with. So, while I was running, I wasn’t cold really, just wet. Very wet. Just as I was finishing it started to really really rain.

If you’ve run in the rain before, you know it feels awesome right up until the moment you stop running. I crossed the line, caught my breath for a few minutes, and then became freezing cold. Beefcake had the presence of mind to bring me a towel and a dry shirt, so we made our way over to the very crowded tent to dry off and get some ham. HAM! This ham was the entire reason I entered this race!

If you’ve ever done something super exhausting, like run a race or build a fireplace or maybe fight a shark, you know that whatever you eat immediately afterwards is THE BEST THING EVER. I’m not sure why, but everything I eat after doing a distance run also tastes sweeter, which is just fine with me.
Beefcake and I ate a bounty of ham and fixins’ and went to take a nap. After, we decided to go down to a hiking trail we’d seen nearby and hike that trail. We found a couple of suitable hiking sticks and started working our way down the trail. I think we probably went about ½ mile before turning around, but this was for real “climbing and moving fallen trees” hiking.

We also went to go see some rapid that the proprietor of Way of the Wilderness told us about near one of the campsites. They were pretty, but we weren’t able to see any fish spawning.

We spent the remainder of the evening in our bunkhouse eating noodle bowls, playing Pandemic and listening to the Nerdist podcast. Monday morning, we got up, packed up and started our drive back home, and ran smack into the thickest fog I’ve ever had the terror of driving through.

Guys, this is in the middle of the woods. Winding roads, without distinguishable markers, no street lights, nothing. It was scary. We took it slow, and finally made it out into clearer weather. By the time we reached Duluth, it was a beautiful, perfect day for the rest of our drive. The end!