Birthdays, Fish Sauce, Deck Fires and Oh, some Running

It was eventful week-end in the Larsen household.  My baby girl turned 17 on Saturday.  I know it sounds terribly cliche, but how did this happen?  It certainly takes place in a blink of an eye.  She is wonderful young lady and I couldn't ask for a better daughter.  Malena is kind, compassionate, smart, funny and a little bit feisty. (Okay, a lot feisty!)  She spent the day with friends getting manicures/pedicures, lunch, shopping etc and we celebrated her birthday on Saturday night, nothing elaborate, just burgers on the grill, movie night (The Gray) followed by cake and presents. 

After presents, we all started to notice a strange smell in the kitchen.  It took us a few minutes, but finally realized that the bottle of fish sauce I had in the fridge and been knocked over and was leaking all over the kitchen floor.  For those of you not familiar with fish sauce, yes it smells that bad!  As we were cleaning this up my daughter says, "I mean really, who keeps fish sauce in their house anyway?" while glaring at me.  Hey I didn't hear her complaining when she was enjoying my delicious spicy curry chicken with green beans, which always contains a generous portion of the magical fish sauce.  Of course I never announce that this is a key ingredient, but I can tell you she would notice if I didn't use it. 

So, after getting the fish sauce smell out of the house,  I turn in for the night about 11:00 only to wake up at 2:30 smelling smoke and noticing some flickering lights outside the bedroom window.  I look out the window and the deck is on fire!  Holy crap! I throw on some shorts and grab the garden house and begin doing my best fireman impression.  Somehow the grill got knocked over and obviously the coals were still hot and we ALMOST had a huge catastrophe.  I hosed down everything pretty good and tried to go back to sleep, but it was not meant to be.  It is hard to sleep when your heart is beating a million miles an hour!

Oh, by the way I did make it out for a run , successfully completing week 7, all in one piece.  It was a pretty easy week, but nothing is easy when it gets this warm and muggy.  Here is to a less eventful week.  It going to be a challenging one from a running perspective, so I don't need any more fish sauce catastrophes or fire alarms!

Happy Running