Weekend Ruckus

One of the vocabulary words I taught this quarter was "raucous." Inevitably, my middle school students confused it with "ruckus" when trying to use it in a sentence. Rather than writing, "the raucous behavior of the students was so out of control that Mr. L. couldn't teach," they wrote things like, "There was so much raucous I couldn't think." I hate to break to you kid, but you got bigger problems than raucous.

But the lack of raucous awareness in my middle school language arts classroom is neither here nor there. The raucous, er, ruckus I'd like to discuss is my past couple of weekends. I've got two words words for these past couple of weekends: raucous ruckus.

The weekend of December 2 started out with an ill-informed coworker couple of Laura's entrusting us with their small son. What did I do with the well-mannered bundle of three-year-old? I took him running in the dark!

We took a spin around the neighborhood--a spin I found exceedingly difficult every time this spin involved moving the Target jogging stroller up steep inclines. On Saturday morning I wised up. First, I put some air in the jogger's tires. Then, I made Laura push it. Cha Ching!


I also took a video of Laura pushing the jogger down the sidewalk but she says I can't put it on the blog. Although she's not the boss of me I was hoping to get her to make me a fish sandwich tomorrow so I'm going to have to respect her wishes.

The next day, Laura and I spent over two hours at the YMCA. I lifted some weights while she ran to the Y and then we both did some swimming. I've got this crazy idea I should do a triathlon this spring and my #1 goal is to refrain from drowning while competing.

I also planned to do a little running in afternoon and I procrastinated just long enough to catch the beginning of some significant snowfall. It was the perfect amount of snow--just enough that my Yaktrax had good traction without scraping the pavement and not so much that the depth slowed me down significantly.

While running in the snow I got to try out our new ipod touch. I don't really need music when I run, but it was cool taking some pictures on the Big Rivers Regional Trail from underneath a bridge. The photo opportunities alone make me glad that I let Laura wait in line from 10 PM on Thanksgiving until 2:30 AM on Black Friday.


This past weekend raucousness continued. Laura's side of the family came up from Rochester and we got to do some kicksledding at Lebanon Hills Regional Park. I'd never done it before but I'd definitely do it again--it was a lot like pushing a jogging stroller except steering is even more difficult and you can jump onto the sled when going downhill. The minimal steering guarantees that you'll run into something at least once. I mostly pushed the kicksled but I also got to ride in it for awhile.

For some reason I felt like I was pushing the sled faster than I got pushed, but maybe it just seemed faster because I was at a higher vantage point.

Yesterday the ruckus of weekends ended and today the raucous behavior of my students began. I'm looking forward to putting in some extra miles next week as there are only four more days until Christmas break! Who knows? Maybe I'll even write an extra blog post or two.