A Voice in Ramah

A voice was heard in Ramah
Sobbing and loudly lamenting:
it was Rachel weeping for her children,
refusing to be comforted
because they were no more

A voice is heard in Ramah
and in all the places of sadness.
It is the voice of God,
who as a mother,
has seen the pain of her children
and seen beyond it.

"Keep your voice from weeping
and keep your eyes from tears;
for your grieving has been heard
and your work shall be rewarded.

"There is hope for your future.
I have prepared a place for your children
and will keep them in perfect peace,
until the old things have disappeared
and there is new heaven
and there is new earth"

Gracious God,
In your motherly heart,
you share and bear the pain
of all who grieve for lost children.

Keep in your kindness
those whose names are written in our hearts
or on our consciences,
until the day when we see them face to face
and know that our grieving is over
and that all your promises are kept.
Amen.

From Cloth For The Cradle, Iona Community / Wild Good Worship Group. Pages 120 - 121.

I saw Lady Mary Crawley on my run

On Monday the high hit FIFTY EIGHT degrees. Alleluia! It was kind of nasty and insanely foggy, but nevertheless, alleluia!

Since the temperature was above freezing, I had to take my new lululemon shorts out for a run. I got to squeeze in a quick, easy three miles on the aqueduct before yoga. The great thing about my yoga studio is that I can park there and then run up to the Old Croton Aqueduct trail. So convenient. Since it was an easy (and wet!!) run, I had to stop to take a picture of this sight. It was a billion times more awesome and eerie in person.

Seriously, those robber barons sure knew what they were doing. You can't see it due to all the fog, but the Hudson is right behind the mansion. I am pretty darn grateful that I get to take in view like that while I run. Does anyone else suddenly have the Downton Abbey song stuck in their head now? Right? Where's Lady Mary?

I somehow managed to fight the urge to pretend to live in Downton Abbey land and go dramatically sweeping down the rolling lawn (but y'all, I do have an antique, 1920s engagement ring. That counts for something, right?) Naturally, Bombs over Baghdad came on my shuffle as soon as I put my headphones on after taking the picture. Of course. Gosh, I'm so hardcore. I really should sync my playlist to play the Downton Abbey music right when I come out of the woods onto this estate. How amazing would that be?

Speaking of amazing, the English countryside, and Lady Mary Crawley, and majesty in general, here please appreciate another view from my run on Monday:

Downton Abbey still stuck in your head? Before I moved to the Great White North, I thought the South had cornered the market on tacky. Wrong again! You better believe this place had loud music to accompany their decorations. Merry Christmas and you're welcome.

December Updates

So here's what has been going on in the Snoop household as of December.

- Mr Snoop has been flying across the country for interviews. He does not have very many, but it has still been insane. I can't imagine what it must be like to have a large number of interviews and have to fly around everywhere to get to those. Then again, all of his interview have been well south of the Mason Dixon, which means longer and more travel.

- My main goal in life right now is to try to stay sane in this interview process. Luckily (I guess) December is such a busy month. So my life has looked like..

- Work

- Yoga. I always knew I had tight hamstrings, but I had no idea they were this bad. My down dog is absolutely atrocious. And I have had many, many sightings of panties man. My theory was correct. He comes in his regular clothes and then just strips down to his underwear. I would freeze.

- In a possibly related note, I am coming down with a sty/pinkeye. This typically happens when I am stressed, but I still blame panties man. Yes, I bring my own mat. But still, I knew that sh*t is unsanitary.

- Christmas prep. Typically I have all my shopping done by December 1. Ha. Not this year. This is complicated by the impending arrival of a new niece (!!!!) soon. Still need to make a big brother gift.

- I made my first lululemon purchase. Typically, I do not like to spend ridiculous amounts of money on clothes I am going to sweat in. But then there was a lululemon outlet. And they had $19 running shorts that have a zipper in the back waist for a car key. And they were marvelously comfortable and pretty darn cute. So I bought 3 pairs. I'm justifying it by the fact that they were originally $68 a piece (I mean really?? Come on!).

The End

This One Time At Yoga

In order to combat my well-documented crazy at this time of year, I had planned to do lots of running. But then I remembered that the sun goes down before I leave work. And I can't run on a treadmill because I'm high maintenance and it makes me feel like a hamster.

Since I can't run on week days, I had the great idea to get a groupon for a month of unlimited yoga at a studio just down the road. So far I really like it and it is helping my daylight savings induced crazy. But y'all, these yoga people are intense. My mom (Hi Mama Cat!) is a super yogi, but she doesn't take herself so seriously.

The other day at my class, I saw this guy walk in wearing jeans and a fleece. He set up his mat and everything, and I was thinking, Wow, he really must be awesome to do yoga in jeans. Well, I looked away and then next thing I know, Bam! There was a guy wearing a black spandex shirt and.... panties! Yep. The jeans and fleece guy had transformed. Quite suddenly, I might add. Teeny, tiny, itty bitty, little, black man panties. Very tight, they were.

Now I don't know if wearing man-panties to yoga is normal. The first time I took Mr. Snoop to Barton Springs in Austin, there was a dude doing this inversion in a blue speedo:

Source: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/481

But that's Austin. Totally par for the course. I didn't even really think twice because it wasn't a thong or women's underwear, you know? But seeing man-panties here in the suburbs of NYC (in late November, nonetheless) took me completely by surprise. I mean, men wear suits to casual gatherings here.

I guess if I were a real, honest-to-God, crunchy yoga person I would totally not be sharing this information with you. But I'm not. And let's face it, I'm just not mature enough to let this one slide. Fortunately, the panties guy was waaaaaay across the class from me, and I was too focused on not falling down to spy on him. Thank God, because if he had been next to me I'm positive that I would have been comepletely unable to control my giggles. Oh, and after class he just walked around talking to the teacher and other students, right there in his panties like "Hey, here I am, me, my panties, and everything else."

So now I'm doing research. Since Toto, we are not in Austin anymore, is this normal? My co-worker is a total yoga person, so I asked her. After she nearly peed her pants laughing, she told me that no, no it is not. In your experience, are man-panties in yoga an acceptable and normal occurence?

Thanksgiving 2012

Hey y'all. So we went to Texas for Thanksgiving. And it was a wonderful, much-needed break. Frankly, Mr. Snoop's residency application process has been sort of hellacious. And being the supportive cheerleader wife has completely wiped me out. Being back home was really nice. As much as I love my med school friends, it was great for Mr. Snoop and I to hang out with my Austin friends, none of whom are in the medical field. Nice to escape the "everything revolves around med school" world for a week. The trip was a breath of fresh air, literally and figuratively.

We spent lots of time outside. After living in such a cold climate for 4 years, I've come to realize how good being outside is for the soul. Cheesy but true. My friends have a tradition of playing football the day after Thanksgiving. And before that, Mr. Snoop, Chris (my brother), and I did the Austin Trukey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. It was a nice, easy 5 mile run. Next year I'm going to get my act together and make us costumes. Here we are afterward:

We also went to the Texas / TCU game. Which was really quiet and we lost. Not unexepectedly, I'm afraid. Here we are with horns up, nonetheless. Chris pointed out that because of the shadows we all look like demon children from the mouth of hell in this picture. That and I really need a tan. See above about the outdoors being good for the soul.

Hey, at least our band is freakin awesome:

I'm back in New York but Mr. Snoop is still in Texas having the greatest time going hunting with the dudes in my family. He has an interview this weekend, which was originally Nov. 1, but there was this little weather event known as Sandy, so his flight got canceled. So in conclusion: I'm retiring my pom-poms for a little bit and allowing myself to be completely freaked out by this whole residency application process. Thanks for hangin' in there with us, in advance.

10K Update

Remember that? How I was training for a Halloween 10K? Well, Mr. Snoop and I ran it and had the best time. I have had some issues in the past with running, and doing this 10K totally got me over all of those. My goal was to run the entire thing (no breaks or walking), which I accomplished. Not having a set time to make and just enjoying myself allowed me to let go of all my "issues." It was so much fun. Since it was Halloween-themed and in the Halloween capitol of the universe, Sleepy Hollow, nearly everyone wore costumes. Some of them were pretty amazing. And oh yeah, the Headless Horseman was there! He even started the race.

Those of you who have known me for a looong time know that I dressed up as the Headless Horseman for Halloween one year (5th grade? 6th grade? Mom??). A little bit of foreshadowing on God's part, no? So here we are pre-race with the man, the myth, the legend.

Yes, our "costumes" were super homemade. But also super cheap. You can't see, but my socks said "eek!" in rhinestones, naturally. One of the best parts about this run was that everyone had their homes totally done up in Halloween decorations. And all the neighbors were out cheering us on, also in full costume. We really had the best time. No, we did NOT run together. I am way too crazy and Mr. Snoop is way too fast for that. This was Mr. Snoop's first fun run, can you believe it? Here we are after the run, not looking nearly as cute.

This is so sad and certainly cast a pall on the aftermath of the race, but someone died on the course. I found out a couple days later. So horrible and tragic. He had a heart problem, I believe. He was running just ahead of me, and though I did not see him fall, I was there right after. People were running backwards through the course screaming for a doctor. A doctor and nurse came right away, and it was right next to a local hospital, but it must have been too late. I felt so horrible, but I did not stop. I have nothing to offer, since people were already giving CPR. I would have just been in the way. So I said a prayer and kept running. Ugh. Guilt.

So aside from that awfulness, I am so glad I ran. And will definitely keep running as long as the weather allows for it. Which leads me to my other update...

SNOW. Already. Like 5 inches last night. I've already broken out the fleece-lined leggings. So grateful to have power and heat.

Sandy

Well, we made it through the storm. With more than a touch of survivor's guilt. We had flashlights and candles a plenty; a hurricane lantern; a battery operated radio; a cooler filled with ice; and pots, pans, and a bathtub full of water.

So at about 6:00pm on Monday, I looked outside and saw that our neighbor's giant, beautiful tree looked like someone was shaking a handful of cooked spaghetti. At that point, we decided to retreat with the cats to the basement. We live in a tiny, two room cottage. It was built in the late 1800s as a hunting lodge and is rock solid. So much so that though we live on a main road, you can't hear the cars. Well, we could feel our little house shaking from the winds even from down in the basement. It was really pretty scary. The cats were spooked and alternated between hiding inside the boxspring or trying to see out the tiny basement windows. The wind sounded like a 747 was taking off on our roof.

The next morning we woke up fully prepared to have a tree on our roof. We didn't. Our neighbor's spaghetti tree lost most of its branches, and they have another tree down. After all our preparations, we never lost power. We were so, so lucky. Living on a main road may explain how we kept power. We are so grateful. I know people who are still without power, 8 days later. The devastation is really pretty sobering, especially in the community where I work, which is right along the Long Island Sound. Not to mention Staten Island, where Mr. Snoop and I went on Sunday.

Last week was pretty much a wash. Since the town where I work is just now getting power back more than a week later, I did not work in the office last week. Mr. Snoop is on his ER rotation and saw lots of hurricane related stuff. The neighborhood where we regularly run is trashed. I did 4 miles yesterday and still there are wires down, trees down, trees on homes, etc. So sad.

What I learned

- If you don't have a plug for your tub, duct tape works just great. Better than a plug, even.

- So glad Mr. Snoop and I filled up our cars Sunday night. Since I did not have work last week, we still have half a tank each. I'm grateful for my little hybrid civic. 38 miles per gallon is pretty marvelous right about now.

- If Mr. Snoop and I stay in this area for his residency, we've decided that we will invest in a good generator and emergency supplies. Between the hurricanes and the nor'easters and the blizzards, people are constantly losing power/water here. The infrastructure here is just so old and they do not properly keep it up or repair it. I could go all political and talk about taxes, unions, etc; but I won't. We're just going to keep a supply of water and nonperishables on hand. I think you have to, if you live up here.

My work is doing another run to Staten Island to hook up with Presbyterian Disaster Assitance this week. Having been there on Sunday, I can tell you that they really do need your thoughts and prayers. Thanks, y'all.