Courtenay Brown

I have a feeling I share quite a few readers with Ben Collins Dot Org (aka Ben), Loren (aka The Lorpeedo), and Greggy Greg (aka Greg when he is not in trubs for stealing my stuff)... those readers will know by now that I am not in the hotspot of fun-ness at the moment. Nope, I am up here in Incline all by my lonesome, with kitty of course who is totally partying without his nemesis (Greggy Greg) here. The three hyperlinked boys are all having fun down in Marin together, riding bikes and swimming in lagoons and aqua-jogging in varying states of togetherness, and consuming my stolen goods too. I am basically just ...

Last week at my mom's, I found a discarded "Free Iced Coffee on Wednesdays!" card from Starbucks. My mom isn't a fan of the coffee chain and actually I think she quit drinking coffee? When she does drink coffee though she's pretty particular, for one thing she will only drink it if it's scaldingly hot. How she has any tastebuds left I do not know. Anyhow, back to Starbucks: unlike Sal, I will happily set aside my hatred of all things plastic and chain-owned in order to cop the occasional buzz. I am sipping my free iced beverage right now and it's delicious. This morning I swam in our outdoor pool for the first time in a couple of ...

I just got back to Tahoe on Sunday night after being gone for only a week, but it feels so different than it did when I left. The major variables at work are probably 1. school is out for the summer and 2. the temperatures are now into the 70's. So suddenly there is *traffic* here in our little hamlet. There was traffic during ski season too, but less of it, and I did most of my workouts inside so I didn't really notice the cars as much. We have a Mama and Papa bird nesting in the stairway of our building. No baby birds, but there's always someone sitting on the nest so it's a safe assumption that there are ...

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(and p.s. i'm not dead ;) just a little internet-challenged until tomorrow night or so) So Greggy Greg and I raced the BAM Triathlon here in Utah this morning. I must say, even though I am not a big fan of getting up at 4 a.m. to get in freezing cold water at 6:30 a.m., it is nice to have the whole rest of the day to do stuff after your race is over. I was chilling out and eating pizza at 9 a.m., and later I am getting together with my teammate Nicole to hang out and see some more of Salt Lake City! Anyhow, the race went great. Greg and I both finished 4th! I did ...

I head back West tomorrow (Thursday) - first to Salt Lake City to race at the BAM triathlon on Saturday and then home to Incline on Sunday. I am curious to see how I feel on race day, between all the family festivities and the oppressively hot weather, this has not been a standard pre-race week for me. We'll see. Additionally, right now I am in stressed-out tears after a heated argument with my uncle at the dinner table. I didn't know, or perhaps I forgot, that I still have one or two family members who are strident Bush supporters. I posed a slightly rhetorical question to the table asking whether Dubya would realize at some point down the ...

Here I am with Munchie (pony) and Sylvan (my cousin Mika's little boy). Sylvan is 14 months old and he's a little angel, he does have a big sister to keep him in line, or bullied might be a slightly better term. I think he's going to be bigger than his sister in about 2 years, she's tiny and he's pretty average, so I'm curious to see how the dynamic develops. From personal experience, I know that little brothers get even when they get big ;) Most of the family headed home today, tonight the house will sleep 4 instead of 10 or ...

I forgot to mention yesterday that what makes this heat wave particularly noticeable here at my mom's house is that there is no air conditioning! It's a 200 year old farm house, as such it is drafty and generally effective at staying cool when it's warm and staying warm when it's cool. Extreme temperatures, however, are a bit out of its self-regulatory reach. So we've got fans in every room and everyone's pretty sedate... My uncle and brother and cousins wisely cut the morning tennis game short and are waiting until 7 pm to resume, yesterday they played all morning and again mid-afternoon and were definitely the worse for wear. I am taking it pretty easy and just trying to ...

Yesterday I flew from Reno to Maryland. A little bit of deja-vu... I made the same trek 3 weeks ago for the Columbia Triathlon. This time, the occasion is the Court family reunion. Although, "family reunion" makes it sound like we're renting a big tent for a crab feast and then having sack races and apple-bobbing contests. There are no organized activities, really we are just all descending on my mom's house and drinking and eating and catching up on each others' lives. There are twelve people staying here, another 10 or so at my uncle's house down the road, and then three are local. Five of these family members are under the age of 5 so we're having some ...

Today I received a cute little package from Tri California, the race-promoter for Wildflower. The label led me to believe I had a prize for my 4th place finish in my age group! I'd had to leave the race site before the awards ceremony because of my long drive home... so it was very plausible that they'd sent me a real live prize!! How exciting! I love prizes. Fluttering heart turned to sighs and eyerolls once I opened the package. They sent me a finisher's medal? Are you serious?! If they were going to go through all that ...