Night of the Walking Dead

My husband, Dan, just loves The Walking Dead. Dan is trying to convince me to watch The Walking Dead with him. Dan forgets that I will plague his sleep with bloodcurdling screams and strange sleepwalking episodes if I do, in fact, get hooked on this show.

"You know it's a soap opera . . . with zombies!" is Dan's strongest argument.

"You're watching a soap opera? That must be brilliant marketing."

Dan will indulge in mostly anything if it is connected to zombies. He has actually considered reading Jane Austen - well, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but close enough.

I am intrigued by zombies. Unlike other monsters, zombies are completely unaware of their former selves. They are void of any sort of seductive or even malicious qualities. They are just trying to survive, like animals. And anyone can be a zombie given the right circumstances, soul sucked out, no way of knowing right from wrong, just a shell of what was once human.

Zombies kind of remind me of me . . . during a night terror. This is why I cannot watch The Walking Dead with Dan, at least not at night and not during the work week. Even when Dan and I watch back-to-back Lost episodes, I end up trapped in a dream, being stranded on desert island, running away from smoke monsters.

Dan's The Walking Dead addiction began because he needed something to watch while running on the treadmill. Even the periodic growling sounds coming from the exercise room scared me.

Once he graduated to watching the series in the living room, I would emerge from the bedroom, singing at the top of my lungs, "LA LA LA - I can't hear it!"

The problem was Dan couldn't hear either.

Every once and a while, I would time it wrong. Then I would simply yell, "Are those zombies? Aggghhh!" and run screaming from the room.

If you are a Walking Dead fan, you know that the show returned to the air waves this month. Dan, who has now finished the first two seasons, recorded the season three marathon.

The evening that Dan embarked on season three is the evening I now refer to as "The Night of The Walking Dead." I hid in the bedroom.

"I'm going to take a shower. You can start your Walking Dead marathon."

Dan was so excited by this news that he limped around the house, chasing after me, his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth.

Later, I came out of the bedroom and found Dan watching the show, with almost all of the lights off.

"Fun, huh?" Dan said. "I had all of the lights off, but I couldn't see well enough to eat my orange."

"You're not going to persuade me to watch this series if you're going to watch it in the dark right before bed."

The other night, after yet another zombie bender, Dan admitted that he had a dream about The Walking Dead.

"There were no zombies. I was just running around a prison by myself."

"Were you at least looking for zombies?"

"Yeah," he answered sheepishly.

So will Dan ever get me to jump on The Walking Dead bandwagon?

Maybe I'll pick it up in the summer . . . when I can watch it in the early afternoons.

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NORDIC TALE RERUN - Victory in 2011: The Blue Trail Conqueror

This blog post was originally published in January of 2011. I thought it apropos to re-post this story seeing how I spent yesterday and today Nordic skiing, my first time out on the trails since a relatively scary crash about a month ago. This weekend, I feel like I have gotten my "ski legs" back. In a few days, I will be live again with a new post entitled "Night of The Walking Dead."

When you first read about my cross-country skiing exploits (refer to Adventures in Cross-Country Skiing), you might have noticed that I was a bit of a chicken. I never ventured off the green trails except for the few times my devious husband would say with feigned assurance, "You'll be fine. The sign says 'More Difficult.' It's not like it's a black trail."

Then I would unintentionally prove him wrong as my body rolled down a hill or as I descended the slope on my bottom or occasionally my stomach.

"That will show him," I would think to myself as I climbed out of a snowbank. "I am indeed not fine at all."

But 2011 has transformed me into a reformed cross-country skier. Say goodbye to the yellow-bellied "I-Only-Ski-Green-Trails" chicken. I am "The Blue Trail Conqueror!"

My story carries with it a universal theme that I think all archetypal heroes experience at the beginning of their quest, the disbelief in their calling, self-doubt.

Last year, during one of our Nordic skiing outings, Dan said, "I think you are getting better at this. Would you want to try some blue trails sometime?"

"Absolutely not," I said indignantly. But I didn't stop there, "Just because you’re an adrenaline junkie doesn't mean I am. You knew that about me when you married me. That’s why I chose cross-country skiing; otherwise, I would have taken up snowboarding. Some people like leisurely activities without a lot of risk. This is a hobby, not insanity. The compromise is I do some of your activities at my own pace . . ." And I continued that way for the rest of the trail.

When the trail (and my tirade) finally ended, Dan's response was, "At least you ski faster when you're angry."

Eventually, I began to consider taking more difficult trails, but I never actually skied any of them. During one particular incident during this stage of my heroic epic, I was standing at the bottom of a hill, surveying a trail.

"It's not the going up I'm worried about. It's the fact that I wouldn't be able to stop on the way down, and I could die," I said. (A fellow skier laughed as she passed me, most certainly having heard my philosophizing on her way down the hill.)

This year, we happened to choose the perfect day for our first cross-country ski trip - a calm, overcast day, fluffy, powdery snow, a beautiful gray mist over the lake. And it was early in the winter break, so there were not many people on the trails who could crash into me.

Dan convinced me (“The powder will slow you down. And it’s softer when you fall.”) to climb a hill I had refused to attempt before. Usually, I would make it about halfway up and then turn around and ride down the gentle incline.

I had tried this same trail when we were first married (the self-doubt era of my epic journey). I had attempted the entire uphill and the descent on the other side that completed the loop. I found myself flying down the hill, gaining momentum, yelling at the other skiers, “I can’t stop!”
But I did stop (and drop and roll) right at the bottom of the hill (my heroic descent into Hades). Hence, my trepidation on this particular trail.

This year, however, the downhill did not seem nearly as steep as I had remembered it.

“Here’s the part I was talking about,” I would mutter . . . then, “No, never mind. It must be the next part of the hill that gave me such a hard time.”

“Uh oh, here we go," I would say, preparing once again for the free fall. "Um, never mind . . . that was fun.”

I continued that way down the entire hill until I made it gracefully to the bottom.

Dan took me on one more blue trail, a nemesis trail of mine that I had tried a few years ago and on which I had fallen as was my usual custom.

“There’s no way this is a blue trail. This is too much fun . . . They must have rerouted it since last time . . . It’s way easy. They must have it marked wrong . . . It can’t be done already. We didn’t even get to the hard part," were my responses throughout the trek.

“The powder must be slowing me down,” I said as we reached the end of the trail.

“I think you’re just getting better at this,” Dan said.

So that was how my 2011 commenced. I emerged from my quest victorious, The Blue Trail Conqueror!

What was Dan's response to my accomplishment, you ask?

"Do you think you'll want to try black trails sometime?"

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Valentine's Day: It's Alright With Me

Well, I guess I should blog about Valentine's Day. I do it every year. It is not my favorite holiday, but it is not my least favorite holiday either. I don't love the commercialism surrounding Valentine's, but I don't really like the commercialism surrounding Christmas, Halloween, or Easter. And did you know they are already displaying St. Patrick's Day paraphernalia in discount stores? I didn't even know that was a thing.

But aside from the corporate marketing that turns Valentine's Day into a reflection of America's greedy consumerism, it is alright with me. Here are a few of the reasons why:

1. Flowers
My husband, Dan, gets me flowers - usually red roses - on Valentine's Day. That's nice. The only other time I get flowers from him is when I am performing in theater productions. One time, he forgot to get me flowers after a show, and I gave him the silent treatment. Now, I get flowers on Valentine's Day and after musical performances. Not that he wouldn't get me flowers on other occasions . . . if I asked. But we are not very spontaneous people.

2. Lots of chocolate
I actually started enjoying Valentine's Day when I became a teacher, before I even met Dan. Why? Because as a music teacher who sees 600+ students a week, I get lots of chocolate on Valentine's Day. Yes, I get One Direction fake tattoos and Sponge Bob Square Pants stickers, but the chocolate makes it all worth it. And those little paper valentines that have been bought in bulk since the dawn of humankind are kind of cute. Besides, it keeps me updated on what's cool for young people nowadays.

3. No kids
A couple of weeks ago, I told some of my colleagues, "I have to leave our February 14 meeting right on time. Not to rub it in, but I don't have any kids. That makes my husband and me DINKS (Double Income No Kids), and that means date night every night. Oh yeah!"

Of course, my teacher friends laughed, but a few of them mentioned not being able to get rid of their kids long enough to actually have a date night. That made me a little sad. But I am sure I am missing out on the many joyful rewards and fresh outlook on life that children bring with them after they spring from your (and that would be "my," not Dan's) womb.

4. Nice dinner 
Even though I just made my DINK lifestyle sound hip and happening and wild, Dan and I usually just go out to dinner on Valentine's Day. We might catch a movie if the holiday of love falls on a weekend. But I can't really stay up past 9:00 during this time of the school year. I end up falling asleep right after dinner anyway.

Dan and I thought about trying a new restaurant this year. That thought lasted for about five minutes.

"So . . . Asiago's?

"Yeah, it's my favorite."

"Mine too."

FROM US

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Waking Up to Baby Bumps

This morning, I woke up to a baby bump.

No, not my baby bump (Whew!).

Kate Middleton's baby bump.

This is big news. On Today, the anchors were so excited to announce that the Duchess of Cambridge was finally "revealing" her baby bump and a "fuller face." Now I have never been pregnant, but I have a basic enough grasp of biology to know that women don't really have much control over "revealing" their pregnancies.

On E! Online, Kate's "side-bump" was not only a top story this morning, it was also labeled as "Most Read." I probably contributed to this statistic - for research purposes only, of course.

Two summers ago, while touring Buckingham Palace, I found myself in a room overrun with tourists buzzing excitedly around a glass case displaying none other than Kate Middleton's wedding dress. I felt like I had stepped into the royal version of The Twilight Zone.

I have come to terms with the fact that, even back in the States, I cannot escape this Royal Twilight Zone. In the past several weeks, I have been inundated with reports of Kate's horrific morning sickness and the fear that she may be getting dangerously underweight. Then the media started commenting on how Middleton has been "laying low." Ummm . . . maybe because she has been throwing up her guts?

Now three months into her pregnancy, the tabloids have finally caught up with her, shopping for workout clothes, sporting a supposed "baby bump."

I just don't see a baby bump. If I were wearing a cape like that, I would look pregnant too (maybe even more so). And it seems awfully gauche to refer to a royal's (almost non-existent) pregnant stomach as a "baby bump," doesn't it?

That led me to ask myself another question:

Why am I even paying attention to this?

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