Arch Rivals in the City

My friend Dar, who's toiling along through plastic surgery residency in Cincinnatti, had an extremely rare weekend off so she came to visit. After relentlessly shaming me for being a St Louis resident but never having been up to the top of the St Louis Arch, we spent most of Saturday afternoon there.

Allow me to specify how "most of Saturday afternoon" breaks down:

- 20 minutes in the arch itself

- 2 hours jumping/cartwheeling/yoga-posing/handstanding on the grass in the park at the base of the arch while fiddling around with the timer on the camera in search of the ultimate shot

- 10 minutes (summed) telling innocent bystanders that we weren't crazy people and denying that we'd been there jumping/cartwheeling/yoga-posing/handstanding for the past 2 hours.

After that, we ate dinner at a sidewalk cafe then went to the venerated, classy, upscale, grown-up St Louis landmark known as City Museum. Picture the best playground from your childhood dreams, build it out of found objects and junkyard steel with questionable engineering tactics, install a 10-story spiral slide, a pipe organ, a live herd of turtles and a gutted airplane, then charge admission and serve pizza. Voila! City Museum! From the bowels of said museum comes a montage I like to call, "Hey Dar, you should try crawling through that."

To which she replied, "Hey Sarah, you found another inanimate boyfriend." (Wow! Printer Man, Wooden Doorstop Man, and Crosswalk Reminder Guy will be so jealous!)

War Paint

It seems like it's been so long since the Krispy Kreme Challenge. Luckily, there are other equally ridiculous things to do around here: bring on the Warrior Dash!

And now, an exclusive and irrelevant interview about the experience:

How excited was I?

Excited enough to entice me into wearing that very special spandex-and-socks combo in public again.

Excited enough to jump up and down a lot.

Excited enough to render me incapable of preventing the Dork Smile from being captured on film.

How did I train for it?

Um.... good intentions. And zero actual training. In retrospect, that may not have been the strongest regimen.

My friends Justin and Katie ran the Warrior Dash in Minnesota a few months ago amidst their training for much more serious/lengthy races. They were in shape. Oh, so wise.

Are the spandex and socks flammable?

The world may never know.

Did I slip gracelessly into a mud pit and crawl through it on all fours, even though everyone else managed to cross it in a bipedal manner pretty well?

Why yes. Yes, I did.

How did I get clean afterwards?

Bathed publicly with a fire hose while surrounded by throngs of total strangers. Naturally.

Please don't Rhwe in public

I just stumbled across an awesome little article listing words with no English equivalent.

They describe concepts that we're familiar with, but lack word for.

(On that note, please oh please oh please someday let the newly approved words of the year be gender-ambiguous 3rd person singular pronouns meaning him/her, and he/she. We need a singular "they." Please.)

Here's the list, for your enjoyment and new wordification:

1. Shemomedjamo (Georgian)

You know when you’re really full, but your meal is just so delicious, you can’t stop eating it? The Georgians feel your pain. This word means, “I accidentally ate the whole thing.”

2. Pelinti (Buli, Ghana)Your friend bites into a piece of piping hot pizza, then opens his mouth and sort of tilts his head around while making an “aaaarrrahh” noise. The Ghanaians have a word for that. More specifically, it means “to move hot food around in your mouth.”

3. Layogenic (Tagalog)

Remember in Clueless when Cher describes someone as “a full-on Monet…from far away, it’s OK, but up close it’s a big old mess”? That’s exactly what this word means.

4. Rhwe (Tsonga, South Africa)

College kids, relax. There’s actually a word for “to sleep on the floor without a mat, while drunk and naked.”

5. Zeg (Georgian)

It means “the day after tomorrow.” Seriously, why don’t we have a word for that in English?

6. Pålegg (Norweigian)

Sandwich Artists unite! The Norwegians have a non-specific descriptor for anything – ham, cheese, jam, Nutella, mustard, herring, pickles, Doritos, you name it – you might consider putting into a sandwich.

7. Lagom (Swedish)

Maybe Goldilocks was Swedish? This slippery little word is hard to define, but means something like, “Not too much, and not too little, but juuuuust right.”

8. Tartle (Scots)

The nearly onomatopoeic word for that panicky hesitation just before you have to introduce someone whose name you can’t quite remember.

9. Koi No Yokan (Japanese)

The sense upon first meeting a person that the two of you are going to fall into love.

10. Mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego)

This word captures that special look shared between two people, when both are wishing that the other would do something that they both want, but neither want to do.

11. Fremdschämen (German); Myötähäpeä (Finnish)

The kindler, gentler cousins of Schadenfreude, both these words mean something akin to “vicarious embarrassment.” Or, in other words, that-feeling-you-get-when-you-watch-Meet the Parents.

12. Cafune (Brazilian Portuguese)

Leave it to the Brazilians to come up with a word for “tenderly running your fingers through your lover’s hair.”

13. Greng-jai (Thai)

That feeling you get when you don’t want someone to do something for you because it would be a pain for them.

14. Kaelling (Danish)

You know that woman who stands on her doorstep (or in line at the supermarket, or at the park, or in a restaurant) cursing at her children? The Danes know her, too.