The Elusive Beach Jew

We finished celebrating Rosh Hashanah today. We're a little slow. We went to the beach.  Big part of celebrating Jewish Holidays, the beach. Jews have always been big surfers.

As part of the RH tradition, you're supposed to cast bread upon flowing waters, symbolizing the casting away of your sins for the year. I brought a lot of bread. And we cast that shit. And lo, 30 seagulls did swoop in aggressively and they did eat each one of our sins.  Yeah, dirty birds. Eat those sins.  It was weird; to watch a seagull gluttonously eat the sin of gluttony.

Then we played in the sand and the rocks and tide pools. It was perfect beyond reason. There was literally a lone bagpiper standing on a tall rock near the surf, the mournful tones of the bagpipes carrying over the entire beach and out into the sea. I think he was playing Single Ladies (all the Single Ladies).

It was a good way to close the Rosh Hashanah ceremonies.

I write this again after coming home from a run. friday night running is fun. The sights and sounds included a man and a woman holding hands and crossing the street against the light. I believe the woman was worried about it because I heard the man, who had a blond sort of Hulk Hogan style haircut stuffed partially under his cap say, "I'm in the crosswalk, so if they hit me I have a fahckin' law suit, numbah one."

I didn't get to hear number 2, but I'm assuming it was something like, "And numbah two, my internal organs have been completely useless for the last eleven years." Or maybe, " And numbah two, I'll fahckin blast a car right in the face." Probably it was simply, "And . . . what comes after numbah one?"

There were also two more drunk fans cheering me on at the park, "How many times around is a mile? Is that dog a pitbull? You have feet!"

Then there were kids smoking clove cigarettes, I swear. More kids rapping badly into an eyefone, ("I'm spittin' mad rhymes, I like limes, they used swords in olden times, muthafuckas drop dimes, etc."), one paunchy middle aged dude running around with his big ass dog. Definitely Motley.

HM

Running is stupid

I've been running. Not fast. And not too far. And not well. Often by the end there is drool and always by the end there are gross torrents of sweat and legs filled with wet sand and owies, and a breathing sound like an asthmatic pig. But I'm doing it. About half an hour 5 times a week. I'm up to approximately 3 and 1/3 miles. 

I should preface this by saying that I hate running.  Really, it sucks and it's stupid and hurts my muscles and sometimes I get unpleasant chafing and I rarely did it before now, and also douche bags often do it. But now I do it.

I started out doing it because I had lost some weight, I was feeling good, and I had to get the goddamn dog some exercise. The goddamn dog needs a lot of exercise. The goddamn dog is athletic like Jim Thorpe or Bruce Jenner or Serena Williams or Wolverine.

The best part about running with the goddamn dog is that when I'm running my hardest, when I'm in that last lap and I'm pushing myself near to the point of puking, I can look down at that goddamn dog and see that she's laughing at me. Laughing her dumb ass off. Gallivanting along, panting just to be charitable, big moron doggy smile on her big moron doggy face.

And the more we exercise, the more stamina she gets. The more exercise she needs. I should probably just tie her to the back of the car and go.

But still, I'm proud of myself. For a 38 year old paunchy dude with bad achilles tendons who hates running, 3 1/3 miles (and counting) ain't half bad.

Of course, my eating habits have suffered somewhat. After you've run a few miles, it becomes mighty easy to rationalize that snack of chocolate covered butter pats washed down with a cold cheese smoothie. Mmmm mmm!

Other things . . .
The peanut has started ballet, the next session of swimming lessons (she's an eel now. I think the next level is level The Incredible Mr. Limpet.) and school.  We're hoping to over schedule her young so that she can get her nervous breakdown out of the way before middle school.


HM

P.S. Troy Davis's execution is on my brain. Just needed to mention it.