Race

I'm officially 47 today.

Instead of joining the workaholic rat race, I decided to take a day off on my birthday.

A break.

That's a good reminder to stop frantically adding bullet points to my bio and feathers to my cap. We've been working hard to achieve more and more, moving ahead to get new posts. Sounds too much, right? I pride myself on spending time to watch animated television sitcom Mr. Bean with my daughter yesterday, followed by reading few stories of Horrid Henry together before bedtime.

In fact, I'm lucky to find my daughter's school Beach Day falling on my birthday. Thus more than one good reason to take leave. The sun must have been too excited to celebrate my birthday, and we couldn't stay in the beach for the whole day without being overcooked. We returned home in late afternoon and suddenly it dawned on me that I still had time to exercise. I ended up having an evening run. My favorite part of the run isn't the pace. It's that for the first time I needed two numerals instead of one to log how many kilometres I've run.

But wait, isn't that another rat race? Yes and no. I'm not racing against anyone but myself. But at some level, every runner except the one in the lead is chasing someone.

Trots

What's harder to catch the faster you run?

This is a joke question from my daughter, and I'm tempted to give you the answer. But I won't. Instead, I give you another question: What is harder to hold the faster you run? Did I hear someone shouting the answer "Breath"?

No matter how confident you are about your answer, my personal experience today yields an even better answer: the bowel. Try as you may, it's a lot harder than you can imagine when you're trying to fight back the call of nature during your workout.

This morning, I came across an old article on runner's trots that appeared in JAMA almost 40 years ago, and then happened to get abdominal cramps shortly after my run tonight. Did I know the magic to beat a bout of diarrhea? Of course not. But I had a sneaking suspicion that running faster was a recipe for disaster. It was that simple - and that complicated. The only solution was to find the public toilet as soon as possible, that much was plain. You yearned to be quick but your guts told you not to run. Jeez, I paused my timer reluctantly and ambled to the nearest toilet.

But then, before I got a chance to celebrate my stopping a running accident, I found myself being locked inside a public toilet (after the clock struck eleven). Translation: spending a smelly night in the toilet until someone comes to open the lock and rescue me. Ugh. So, as I tried to take solace in the fact that my trousers weren't soiled, I waited. And waited. Until another runner happened to see me behind the bar, and grabbed a park warden to open the toilet entrance door for me.

If you fancy a joke to tell your daughter, my story will be a good one. At least my daughter nearly died laughing at mine when I got home finally.

Junie B. Jones

Last night I was at the hospital.

Then, after long hours of working, I brought home few library books. That's one of the best gifts for my daughter. Every time I borrow Barbara Park's Junie B. Jones books, Jasmine can't wait to finish the story on the same night. I knew pretty well that there was no exception today, when I borrowed Jingle Bells, Batman Smells! from the same series.

Jasmine's eyes remained glued to the Junie B. story when my wife tried to show her the new outfit she bought. My dear wife, please don't read the next paragraph.

Okay. Now that she's not reading, I can let you know my wife was jealous.

My daughter continued to read when we started dinner. One chapter after another.

That's the only time we won't mind when my daughter missed her dinner.