Sunday, February 10, 2008

A Paean to LBTEPA

It's not fair.

LPTEPA, the bestest triathlete downunder, wrote a post just for moi (although you are welcome to read it, and learn). And then, once AGAIN, she CALLED ME—from AUSTRALIA—to wish me happy birthday! And once again, she had to e-mail and facebook me three times to tell me to LISTEN TO MY DAMN VOICE MAIL! (Cuz I'm not so good at the voice mail thing. Hi David!)

The good news? I finally learned how to pronounce LBTEPA.

But what's sooo unfair is that it was just HER birthday too, and I don't have her phone number. (Though she declines to put her birth date on her facebook profile, somehow she let it slip out.)

Unfortunately, I haven't got her mad supersleuth skills, despite rooting around her blog for clues as to where in the hell she lives, other than the quaint village of Melbourne.

How far, for instance, is Williamstown from Melbourne? How about Portarlington?? Because those are places where she has kicked some serious butt. (Third place!!!!)

After plotting longitude and latitude, getting out the slide rule, consulting the compass, and the sundial, I concluded that there are a LOT of LBTEPAs living in Melbourne and environs.

There are many reasons that I wanted to call LBTEPA, not just because she called me.

This is a woman who in June 2007 persevered through a broken lateral ligament
eowwwww!

then through rehab, and by September was back running. And along the way she tossed together a thesis—all without complaint! (OK, maybe she complains a bit.) She likes to make lists. On top of that she is the proud mother of a gorgeous little girl (somehow named after my little girl), has a swell husband, and has taken more time than she should have trying to help me figure out my life.

Oh, and the woman has her own manifesto. That she created. By herself.

And in her spare time, she's an accomplished, and successful triathlon activist.

So here's to you, LBTEPA! Someday I will hunt down your phone number and you'll get a call in the middle of the night wishing you the happiest of happy birthday years ever, and letting you know how lucky I feel to call you my friend. Mi casa es su casa.

7 comments:

Sunshine said...

Happy birthday to you both. Best wishes for making connection.

Susan said...

WOW WOW WOW! What a friend!

LBTEPA said...

Oh. My.
*blushes*
*stammers*
er....
thanks darl! I am not worthy, I just like to talk about myself a lot!
(BTW for the record I would like it noted that I didn't actually say DAMN answering machine.I never never never use the big big D, well hardly ever :)

LBTEPA said...

It wasn't the middle of the night, was it? I checked on worldtime.com and everything!

David said...

Uh .... have you tried caller ID?

21stCenturyMom said...

What a sweet post - on both sides of this one.

I don't suppose you'd like to share how to pronounce LBTEPA now would you?

Anonymous said...

you know she probably says "bloody hell" or "can't be arsed", but not damn. no way.

you mean her name isn't labeepta? that's what we call her up in sunny queensland.