In One Fell(s) Swoop

My travels over, and happily back in Beantown, it was time to schedule a Saturday run with JRod. The destination I left to him. His choice? The Fells, north of Somerville, a lovely, wooded area, with windy paths climbing around reservoirs, trees, mountain bike trails, and one lonesome Blue Moon cardboard box.


There is very little to say about this location, other than that I may have found a new favorite place to run. The route was challenging, but lovely, close to the city (less than 2 miles from the Interstate), but mentally, we were in a completely hidden and solitary wood--no sounds of cars whizzing by, no sirens blaring, no pitter patter of the feet of other runners, the barks of tiny purse dogs, no...city noise. Just the wind in the trees and the murmurs of conversation between my beloved and I, as we discussed potatoes and the Irish famine, running, hiking, exes, nature, and what we would do with the rest of our day together. (For those interested, coffee, laundry, a bookstore, a homecooked dinner of pork tenderloin, asparagus and potatoes, and the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween.)

We finished in around 50 minutes, which we estimated to be around 4.5 miles, 5 at the utmost, as the way was hilly, and we occasionally stopped to listen and admire the green lushness of the Fells, and marvel at what we knew in our minds to be the very close proximity of Boston. Happily tired, but not too much so, we meandered back to the car, Blue Moon box in hand, for a delicious apple (Granny Smith for me, Gala for he). And later, coffee.

Addendum: About a month ago, I found myself in Belmont, California, for an extended work trip. My last run there I viewed as an adventure, in running and blogging, as I opted to take my camera with me, and photograph the vegetation--mostly in order to create a new game for the 4 to 5 (total) people who actually read my blog. The test was to name 8 plants, with two additional bonus items shown--the prize? A blog feature/interview and/or dinner. I really engineered this for my mother, an erstwhile gardener. Unfortunately, she's also in the midst of getting her PhD (go Mom!), and didn't take my fabulous test. Fraught with disappointment, I whined to the one person who would actually do this--Jared (who did end up the only player, and thus the winner. :) So the next blog will be some sort of testament to his awesomeness. And maybe there will even be some running stuff in there. (P.S. Mom: Bonus #1 is a Redwood, Bonus #2 is "pot.")

BUT. The story doesn't end there. Before that, we'd agreed to see which of the two of us had the most embarrassing story. See his here. I knew that having never been on fire meant that I was most likely out of my league.

But that was before I fainted in the middle of my friend Kate's wedding at the beginning of this month. Not only was I a bridesmaid, I was at least 6 inches taller than the other bridesmaids--so tall in my heels that Jared tells me the minister, standing on the steps above me, was the same height. He also said that I didn't crumple gracefully, as though I were a willowy vixen a la a Regency Romance novel--no, his comments were more along the lines of "...it was like a tree crashing into the ground..."

Ugh. Luckily, the bride, also a runner, was graceful and charming about the whole affair, and all went on fine for the rest of the evening.