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(* to be said in your best Janice voice)

To me, clowns aren’t funny. In fact, they’re kind of scary. I’ve wondered where this started and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus, and a clown killed my dad.
— Jack Handy

So, my niece and nephew, heretofore referred to as the Princess and the Conductor, came up last Friday night to spend the weekend.  Friday night, they helped me make a special Shamrock Cake – to be blogged separately – and then went to bed to rest up for the big day on Saturday.

We took the Metro into DC – which they love.

Everyone smiled when they saw Ellie with her shamrock deely-bobbers (that’s what I’ve always called them – what do you call them?).  We arrived at the Verizon Center, and they were super, super excited because we were going to the circus, which they’ve never been to before.

I bought Adam a toy (Ellie declined) and we headed to our seats.  The clowns came out for the pre-show, and the kids were laughing and clapping.  Then, the lights went down, and were were asked to stand for the National Anthem.  And then this happened:

After that, it was basically non-stop awesomeness:

And my absolute favorite:

But wait – it gets awesomer:

There was lots of other stuff I didn’t get pictures of – more clowns, tumblers, those guys who run around those giant hamster wheel things, oh – and the rope swingers, the ones who wrap the ropes (or fabric, really) around their hands or feet and slide down and back up.  Amazing.

There were animals, too, of course, but aside from the elephants, watching them just made me sad.

I don’t know if it was the PETA assholes outside the entrance protesting making me feel guilty or what, but the horses and the tigers were just a let down.  The tigers seemed almost drugged, and watching the horses run around those tiny rings, with their heads constricted so they couldn’t rear . . . it felt dirty.

Anyway, the big finale was a guy who set himself on fire and launched himself across the arena.  It probably goes without saying that that was Adam’s favorite part – boys and fire, you know.

Afterwards, we took a break for lunch, then headed to the National Museum of Natural History on the Mall.  On our way, we wandered through the Sculpture Garden:

Once we got to the museum, we wandered around the ocean hall, where we saw the jaws of the largest shark ever known, and then the mammal hall, which had all sorts of animals from all over the world:

(Sorry for the quality; that one’s from my camera.)

Finally, finally, after a walk through the gems and minerals hall, it was time for the big deal, the reason we came in the first place – a trip through the Butterfly Pavilion.  It was as neat and amazing as billed – walking through hundreds of live butterflies of all species, nothing between you and them but air.

One landed on Ellie’s leis, but I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture.  This lady had one land in her hair:

Neither of them wanted to hold the paintbrush this big guywas on, so I took one for the team:

And then.  And then.  All of a sudden, Adam hollered, “Mel-mel, come here, look!”  And this is what we saw:

Untitled from Melanie on Vimeo.

Yeah!  A butterfly being born!  And two more trying their hardest to break out of their cocoons!  How cool is that?

By the time our turn in the Pavilion was over, the kids were worn out and ready to go home.  We drove down to Fredericksburg (they both fell asleep) to pick up David, whose car had broken down, then had dinner and came home.  Then it was time for the super special Shamrock Cake!  I know you can’t wait to see it, but you’ll just have to tune in tomorrow!

Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.
— Erik Pepke

Disclaimer: Although I am a lawyer, I am not an intellectual property attorney, and nothing in this post is intended or should be construed as legal advice.

I’m sure you’ve all heard of Pinterest, a web-based social bulletin board of sorts.  I joined last fall, but in the past couple of months, I’ve become a daily user, and I really enjoy it. You can find me here.

Just this past week, however, people are all abuzz over Pinterest’s terms of service, many of them pinning a giant pin that says, “Dear Pinterest, Please change your terms of service or I’m leaving.”  The pin links to this site, which briefly parses the terms of service, basically just to raise awareness about what we’re all getting ourselves into.

I actually became aware of the “problem” last week, through this brief article in the ABA newsletter.  Basically, the deal is this:

Pinterest’s terms of use require that you agree to post only your own original content (because you own the copyright to that) or content created by others from whom you’ve obtained express permission to post on Pinterest.  Additionally, Pinterest puts all the liability on you in the event that you are accused of a copyright violation.

This is pretty standard stuff – they don’t want to be on the hook, given the insane amount of content that is posted on their site daily; there’s simply no way they could curate it all.  And I don’t think that, in itself, this is that big a deal – Pinterest has a very straightforward procedure to handle copyright complaints.  Pinterest will remove content at the request of the copyright’s owner, and, ideally, that will be the end of that, although Pinterest does reserve the right to prosecute you for any violations of the terms of service.

The terms of use also state that you grant Pinterest the right to license or sell the content you post.  This, as the site linked to above explains, means that if you post a picture from my site to your Pinterest Board without my express permission, Pinterest can sell that picture, perhaps to a marketing company that uses it to advertise a product.  If I see the advertisement and call foul, the company will head to Pinterest, which will waste no time at all fingering you, and the next thing you know, you and I are squaring off in court.  I do think this is pretty shitty, given that it’s YOU who will be on the hook for the copyright violation when it was Pinterest who sold the thing in the first place.

As I said, though, these terms are pretty standard.  The problems I have with them are these:

1. Pinterest bills itself as a social media site – the point is “to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.”  Part of the fun is seeing what your friends (and strangers) pin and then repinning those images to boards of your own, often starting a conversation when you see who else likes the things you do.  If you can only pin things you own the copyright to or things that you have express permission from the copyright owner to pin, the social aspect absolutely disappears, except for “likes” and comments.

2. If Pinterest was serious about preventing copyright violations, and it says it “respects the intellectual property of others and expects its users to do the same,” it should have come up with a better model.  I’m thinking of something along the lines of the way you can set your account on Facebook to require the site to seek permission from you when someone wants to tag a picture you’ve posted.

As it stands now, no one has any control over what’s posted.  For example, say I pin my own picture, and my friend Karen asks me if she can repin it.  Of course I’m going to say yes.  But once it’s on her board, I’ve lost control of it – her friends can repin at will without ever getting my permission, even though my permission is non-transferable.  The same is true for something I post from someone whom I’ve sought express permission to do so – I can’t transfer that permission to Karen, but there’s nothing to stop Karen and her friends and their friends from repinning it anyway.

3. Look at the link I just posted and the examples Pinterest gives of how to use the site – click on one to enlarge it.  There is no way “Joy” owns the copyright to all those pictures, and she has not cited the source of the picture in the caption (which is supposedly good pinning etiquette).  “Tim” certainly didn’t take that picture of the D&G belt he’s got posted on his style board.  Pinterest is actively encouraging you to use its service in a way that violates its terms of use.  This is the one that bothers me the most.

To be honest, though, I am actually not too worried about all of this for one simple reason: Aside from situations in which people attempt to profit from images posted on Pinterest to which they do not own the copyright, I find it very hard to believe that the companies and people who do own the copyrights will object to their images being pinned on Pinterest.  Because almost no one pins things they don’t like, it’s essentially free advertising for stuff people love, and if you’re a business, that’s always good.  If you’re a blogger and you monetize your site, well, more page views equals more money for you.  If you don’t monetize, it’s still great to get eyes on your blog; it increases community and you never know what will come of it.  Maybe this is simplistic, I don’t know, but that’s the way I see it.

Again, this is not my area of the law; I have no idea how things will shake out.  As the ABA article says, “Courts are still deciding whether the site owner or the user owner should be ultimately responsible.”  Obviously, when you signed up for Pinterest, you agreed to the terms of use, and you’re bound by them.  Of course, like most people, you probably didn’t read them.  I know I didn’t (bad lawyer!).  Hopefully this discussion will get you to do your own research and decide for yourself whether you’ll change your pinning ways, delete your account, or continue on as before.

(Lawyers, chime in if I’ve misstated or misrepresented anything – I’d be happy to make corrections.)

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
— Theodore Roosevelt

Hey – did you know there’s no prize for running the whole thing?  There isn’t.

This is what occurred to me Monday night as I was ending my run.  I wasn’t able to run the whole thing – I stopped twice for brief walking/stretching breaks, but managed 3 good runs of 8-10 minutes each over the 28 minutes.  I was lamenting that I’d had to take those breaks, feeling like I’d failed, again, after Saturday’s run.  And as I was doing my cool down walk, it hit me – there’s no prize for running the whole thing.

That’s a pressure I put on myself since I started Couch to 5k.  It was also a point of pride, since, until Saturday, I always had run the whole thing, even when the number of minutes of continuous running jumped from 5 to 8 and then to 20 and 25.  And certainly the goal of the program is for you to be able to run for the amount of time assigned each week – that’s why it felt like failure to me on Saturday and on Monday -but the program is a guideline.

There’s no prize for running the whole thing.  There’s not even a prize for running that 5k I’m signed up for next month.  The point is to do my best and to not stop trying.  The reason I started running again was because I wanted to feel strong, I wanted to try to love it, I wanted to run 5ks for fun.  When I measure myself against those goals, I’m in good shape.  I don’t love running the whole time I’m doing it, but there are definite moments, and I do love the sense of accomplishment I feel when I finish a run.  I do feel stronger – that I can and have run for 25 minutes at a clip (not fast, mind you, but still) when just 8 weeks ago 3 minutes seemed daunting is proof enough of that.  I’m excited for the 5k next month – Karen’s going to run with me (we’ve “run” it before, but we were both near the back of the pack – we’re going to do better this time!) – and I’m on the lookout for more.

So, when I had to walk only 5 minutes into tonight’s run – I think the weight circuit yesterday morning was the culprit, since my calves were screaming with pain, which rarely happens, and never like this – I didn’t let myself get down about it.  I just said, “Stretch it out and get back to it.”  And when I had to walk again 5 minutes later, I accepted that this was how tonight’s run was going to go.  “Just don’t quit,” I told myself.  “You can do it, just a minute more.”  “You’re doing your best.”

And that kindness I showed myself, for a person like me who beats up on herself regularly, is some kind of prize.

Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.
— Plato

Yesterday, I set out to finally – after three weeks – complete Day 3 of Week 7 of the Couch to 5k training program that I began on January 1.  I had been completely each week, well, weekly, until week 7.  I ran Day 1, then went out of town and opted not to run while I was gone.  A week later, on a Wednesday, I ran Day 2, and it was rough, but I managed to run the whole thing.  I went to the doctor the next day because my hip had been acting up for about a month and I knew I had bursitis in my hip again (I had it in 2008 when I training for my first-ever 5k, too).  He gave me a shot of cortisone in my hip and forbid me from exercising until the following Monday.  No worries.

Well.  Sunday I decided to finally give up caffeine again.  Which I know I also said more than a year ago.  And then promptly didn’t do.  Ultimately, I was drinking at least one soda every day, and sometimes much more.  My migraines were back, and now caffeine wasn’t even working to make them go away – which is exactly what the doctor who ordered me to quit caffeine in 2008 in the first place told me would happen.  So I decided to do it again, for real this time.  I knew I was in for several days of withdrawal headaches, but I had no idea how bad they would be.  Starting Sunday afternoon (I last had caffeine Saturday at lunch time), I had a severe migraine every day this past week through Thursday.  By the time I left work Monday and Wednesday, my usual weekday running days, I was nearly incapacitated, and running was totally out of the question.  (The good news is, I’m 8 days caffeine-free; even at my worst moment this past week, I refused to give in.)

Yesterday, after a brief period of lacking motivation, I went out to finally complete Day 3 at around 2 in the afternoon.  Holy shit.  My legs were like lead, and I had to walk after only THREE minutes.  I walked for a minute, then ran again, telling myself I could walk again in 5 minutes.  I didn’t even make it that long.  I looked at my heart rate monitor and it was at 190!  No wonder I felt like I wanted to throw up.  I continued on this way, never running more than 5 minutes at a time because my heart rate got back up to 190.  At one point, I was sure I was going to have to give up and just limp home.  But I finally managed to get my breathing under control and ended up running probably very close to 75%.

I was so disappointed in myself, but, when I was walking home, I realized that, not only had I not run in 10 days, I also hadn’t eaten since 9:30 that morning, and all I’d had were some scrambled eggs and clementines.  No carbs for fuel.  Dummy.

Anyway, another thing I’ve realized lately is that since I started running, I’ve mostly neglected all other forms of exercise.  A few times I’ve done arm weights when I’ve come in from running, and two or three times, I swung by the gym for an elliptical session, and once I did Zumba.  But for the most part, running was it.  I’ve watched Lydia training for her half-marathon, and her progress pictures show that cross-training is really paying off for her.  I need to work weight training and other forms of exercise into my routine, too.  So, here’s my plan for this week:

Monday: Run – Week 8/Day 1

Tuesday: elliptical and weight circuit (upper and lower)

Wednesday: Run – Week 8/Day 2

Thursday: elliptical and weight circuit (upper and lower)

Friday: off (optional Zumba class)

Saturday: Run – Week 8/Day 3 and weight circuit (upper and lower)

Sunday: off

Does that look ok?  Should I split up the upper and lower body weight circuits?  I thought since there’s a day off in between that should be ok, but I’m open to suggestions.  I really wish I could swim; that is hands-down my favorite exercise.  I am going to look in to community pools and see what turns up.

“I’m very brave generally,” he went on in a low voice: “only today I happen to have a headache.”
— Tweedledum, from Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll

This week’s list of things I’m happy about/grateful for:

1. the moment you realize your headache is gone – I’ve been battling daily migraines since Sunday, when I decided to really give up caffeine, like I am supposed to.  Last night, I went to bed at 7:30, nearly incapacitated by the pain.  I woke up at nearly 3 in the morning to pee, and I was so, so relieved to be pain-free.  It was like a huge weight had been lifted.

2. Girl Scout Cookies!  Samoas have always been my favorite, but this year I’ve found them much too sweet.  But Tagalongs and Thin Mints have saved the day.

3. Morning workouts – it’s so simple, but on the days I manage to get up and run or go to the gym before work, I feel great all day knowing that it’s already out of the way, and I get so excited when I remember during the day that I don’t have to go to the gym after work!