The pause in blogging has been brought to you by Ruby and her newfound climbing skills.

IMG_1382  (Click the link, not the picture, if you want to see the end of Asa’s peace of mind regarding his Legos.)

I discovered this expression of Eliot’s climbing genes yesterday when I came around the corner into the living room.  Ruby had made it most of the way onto the desk when I got to her.  Time to burn all the chairs.

This week started off on a surprisingly sour note and has stayed pretty grim until this morning.  I’ve been in a bit of a post-running-100-miles funk.  I hadn’t really recognized the depression because there’s so much good stuff going on right now.  But my light has definitely been dim.  And then someone was grumpy with me first thing Monday morning.  Really grumpy.  And it was entirely out of the blue.  Anyway, I have learned some good lessons from it all.  So there’s that.  Love learning.  Yup.  Love it.  Of course, I’d prefer not to be blind-sided by it…  Poorly communicating grumpy people stink.

Eliot’s been quite a port in a storm this week.  As usual.

On that note, here’s a nice article about some research about what makes for lasting marriages in The Atlantic.

“John Gottman began gathering his most critical findings in 1986, when he set up “The Love Lab” with his colleague Robert Levenson at the University of Washington. Gottman and Levenson brought newlyweds into the lab and watched them interact with each other. With a team of researchers, they hooked the couples up to electrodes and asked the couples to speak about their relationship, like how they met, a major conflict they were facing together, and a positive memory they had. As they spoke, the electrodes measured the subjects’ blood flow, heart rates, and how much they sweat they produced. Then the researchers sent the couples home and followed up with them six years later to see if they were still together.”

“By observing these types of interactions, Gottman can predict with up to 94 percent certainty whether couples—straight or gay, rich or poor, childless or not—will be broken up, together and unhappy, or together and happy several years later. Much of it comes down to the spirit couples bring to the relationship. Do they bring kindness and generosity; or contempt, criticism, and hostility?

“There’s a habit of mind that the masters have,” Gottman explained in an interview, “which is this: they are scanning social environment for things they can appreciate and say thank you for. They are building this culture of respect and appreciation very purposefully. Disasters are scanning the social environment for partners’ mistakes.”

Anyway, Eliot definitely carries us in the “building a culture of respect and appreciation” category.  I carry us in the “marriage is like an ultra marathon analogies” categories.

Which brings us to MdS.  (Not really, but I need a lot more coffee for a proper segue.)  I’m working on sorting out my meals for the race.  Last week I tried some lightweight, calorie dense freeze dried meals that were both expensive and awful.  I was eating them in my kitchen, but they wouldn’t have tasted any better with the This-Is-The-Only-Food-I-Have camping bump.  (Also known as the This-Is-The-Best-PB&J-Sandwich-I-Have-Ever-eaten bump.)  A friend recommended the meals by Hungry Hikers, out of Austin.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Right, well, I’m teaching a class at the University of Arkansas this weekend, so I’d better get to the supermarket to make sure the family doesn’t have to resort to anything freeze-dried on Friday.