Red Screen Door: Mumford & Sons, Ugly Foot Syndrome, and Easter Eggs

I have been obsessively listening to this album for the past few weeks.

It makes an especially good running companion as there is some serious emotional energy going on with that guitar. And sometimes I want some serious emotional energy when I am out there braving the elements to squeeze a run into my day. Most of the time I am running with the kids in tow, meaning I am only rocking one earbud and having to acknowledge the occasional chirp, bark, or growl from one of the children. Those runs are okay. It's certainly better than nothing.

But then there are those amazingly awesome and empowering runs where you chase and capture that elusive runner's high. Runs where you become hypnotized by your own breathing, your footfalls on the pavement, and your album du jour. Runs when you realize that you passed the point where you had planned to turn around and so you just keep going. This was my run on Sunday morning, when I snuck out as the kids nibbled chocolates and marveled at the Easter Bunny's generosity. I caught the window of sunlight between rainstorms and my sprightly feet dodged puddles that reflected the technicolors of an almost spring-like sunrise. I felt alive and free and remembered just why I am a runner.

I had been wanting to share Mumford & Sons with my dad, because when an album speaks to me usually he hears it, too. My dad and I are actually a lot alike, and though this chagrined me as a teenager, I've come to appreciate our similar tastes in music and life in general. I'll never forget coming home from school- it must have been the early 90's- and my dad immediately pounced on me wanting to know if I had heard of this awesome band called Nirvana. He had just purchased In Utero. Yeah, that's right, my dad owned a Nirvana album before I did. I still find this a bit humiliating.

Anyway, I was super excited to turn him on to Sigh No More and the opportunity came knocking when we had him over for a birthday dinner last week. I put the album on as ambient background music and waited for his ears to perk up. He would ask me who this was and I would give him a copy of the CD, which he would then fall madly in love with, and I would own the right to claim that I had heard of them first.

As he walked in the door and was enthusiastically greeted/assaulted by the small people, he glanced up nonchalantly at me and said, "Oh, Mumford & Sons. Is this their new album?"

Damn. He is good.

Speaking of my dad and of running segues nicely into our next topic: my feet. I got a pedicure this week! Big deal, you say. But kind of it is a big deal because I had total pedicure anxiety that I was only able to overcome thanks to my wonderful friend Kate. My wonderful friend who always looks so classy and put together that I sometimes want to knock her into a mud puddle just so I can see one of her lustrous little hairs out of place. Just kidding, Kate. (But seriously? Why is your hair always so shiny and your skin so radiant?).

Anyway, back to my feet. They are ugly. I was born with a genetic predisposition for foot ugliness and, just like my eclectic taste in music, we have my dad to thank for this. And then I go and decide to become a runner and if you know anything about runners you know that their feet are super ugly. As in black toenails and dorsal fins made of callous. Yuck. So I have total runner's feet, but that's not the worst of it. My fingers tremble in anticipation of typing the next horrific sentence: You guys, I am an amputee. Yes, it's true, about two years ago I lost a toenail in a tragic visit to the podiatrist. I know, so incredibly gross, right? And so I have suffered the hardship of having incredibly ugly and now permanently disfigured feet in silence for years, but no more! Kate finally convinced me that the pedicurist would not turn me away in disgust after one glance at my mangled feet and I took the plunge into the world of salon foot care. And guess what? She was right. They look amazing! The pedicurist even offered to make me... wait for it... A PROSTHETIC TOENAIL! I had no idea that such a service was available and she went on to tell me that there are LOTS of people like me out there- my fellow toenail amputees of the world! I never even knew they existed. I am not alone.

What, no photos? Hell no, I am not posting pictures of my hideously deformed feet on the internet. But I am sure you will all stare hard next time I wear flip flops.

Back to Easter! I've been reading up on all sorts of ways to get super crafty and earthy by making your own egg dye from turmeric and red onions and blueberries and such. But then I came upon some food coloring and vinegar and that was good enough for me. You just can't be crafty and earthy all the time, you know.

Look at them! They like each other! THEY REALLY LIKE EACH OTHER! It's still so novel and surreal.

The Easter Bunny brought larger-than-life bubble wands which have provided us with a lot of bubble chasing entertainment and has made for some interesting photography, as well.