R-E-S-P-E-C-T...find out what it means to me

When did I turn into a snob? When did certain behaviors from people become unacceptable to me? Am I truly that judgmental or has humanity begun a descent into full-on desecration? I know I set very high expectations of myself (met with disappointing results on several occasions), but who am I to assume those expectations on others? …Or, am I just getting old and crotchety?

I witnessed some amazing things in D.C. for just the few short hours I was there. Lots of highs and several, “Did that just happen?” moments that forced me to judge humanity. First of all, I’d had a horrible experience with disrespect and lack of customer service via the airlines just the day before. My castmate Clay was undeservedly rude because a flight attendant was rude to him. This, in turn, made another passenger in front of us mouth off to Clay and literally pick a fight on the plane. His exact words were, “Remember Buddy—we are landing in the same place. We’ll take care of it then.” (the modern day version of “Let’s take this outside.”) I’m not kidding you. I actually said, “Did you just pick a fight?? Are you 12????” I was actually laughing when I said it. I received no reply.
We were left in limbo by several airlines. Thank God it was just a measly comedy show and not a loved one’s funeral we were trying to get to. We would’ve paid our last respects from a random snack booth in the Atlanta airport.

Yesterday, we’re at the Vietnam Memorial Wall. It’s virtually silent as people slowly walk by the 53,000 names. Reverance, respect, contemplative and emotional…when out of nowhere some woman’s cell phone starts ringing!! And it wasn’t one of those nice chirpy rings. Heaven’s no. It was one of those frantic rings that instills a sense of panic to everyone around. You could feel the tension of people around her who were internally begging her to quickly press the silent button. You’d think that’s what she would do. You HOPE that’s what she would do. That’s what I would do. I gave her too much credit. She dug through her purse and answered the damn thing with the sing-songy “Hello!” and proceeded to have a conversation about someone’s birthday. Are you kidding me??? My friend Dena and I just looked at each other and gasped.

It wasn’t more than a minute later as we proceeded down the procession of people and names when an older gentleman so eloquently and audibly announced that he thought the design of the Vietnam Wall was “ALL WRONG. What they should’ve done was…” At that point, my internal exasperation took over and I couldn’t even pay attention to his architectural pontification. I stood, once again, in horror and judgment.

By that point, my tolerance for humans was nearing its peak. Other minor occurrences happened all within a matter of minutes and all within the same space of this reverent area. A young boy screaming to his mother, “Why is it taking so long to walk through here???” (I know he was too young to understand and probably tired from seeing a bunch of buildings that mean nothing to him--yet) Teenage boys running through the crowds of people and running into Dena without so much as an apology, young parents and their children completely disregarding the very obvious “Please don’t not walk on grass” signs and allowing their children to walk right UNDER the fence and chase the squirrels who could easily have bitten these young whippersnappers.

God knows I’m not better than anyone else. I just marvel at the obvious lack of respect and honor that is so pervasive in our society now. What the hell happened? Or, as athletes, are we just more keenly aware? As athletes, we respect our bodies, we respect our fellow athletes. We respect nature, the earth and its surroundings. We respect life. It’s a respect and inspiration that I hope to pass on to others. I just hope they slow down, relax long enough and turn off their cell phones long enough to hear it.


7 Days to Boston…Today’s Gazelle workout…1.5 mile warmup to Zilker Park. 1x 3000m repeat at 6:46 pace and 1.5 mile cool down back to Runtex. I love tapering. I’ll stretch and do core tonight. I can’t wait.

Nutrition:

5am banana, ½ w.w. tortilla with PB
9:15am the usual—kashi, berries, yogurt
1:00pm salad with fat free dressing, Zen chicken teriyaki with veggies and brown rice
4:00pm 2 small pieces of chocolate
9:00pm (after a long HOA meeting!) dry Kashi and 1 cup of quinoa with feta cheese. Normally, I probably just would've skipped the meal, but this is not the week to be skipping meals, especially good complex carb meals.