Hat on Top, Coat Below
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Random Weekend Stuff
October 9, 2006
So now that I’ve come down from my post-race high and had a chance to study the results online, I am somewhat chagrined to admit that it appears there were only 8 women in my age group, so finishing 7th there is maybe not as much of a success as all that. When I look at overall results, I see that only 12 ladies were slower than I was, and two of them were 8 years old. I did finish ahead of a few men, though one of them was six and one was sixty-eight. The females who were faster than I was ranged in age from nine to sixty-one. So yeah, I’ve got lots of room for improvement, but still–finished! 11:57 pace! didn’t come in last!
Before the race, I went to Chicagoland for two days. I’ve gotten a couple of Mom’s bills setup on autopay but it’s going to be a while before I can get them all taken care of that way and of course I can’t know how things really are over there when I’m here. Things there are better than last time. Mom’s got more energy overall and is now able to drive herself to the store for short errands and the like, so that’s progress. I’m still frustrated that she doesn’t seem to be testing her blood sugar as frequently as she’s supposed to, but short of grabbing a lancet and sneaking up on her and doing it myself, I’m not sure what else I can do to change that. Friday was a teacher in-service day so my niece was off school and I was able to spend some one on one time with her, which was nice. I used some of that time to educate her on the difference between Michigan and Michigan State; as a Spartan, I just couldn’t let her buy that Michigan shirt without saying something. (She was wearing a Spartans hoodie at the time, so I thought at first it was a joke when she grabbed the Wolverines tee, but no, she really didn’t know.)
Saturday morning I was feeling brave, so I decided to help Mom clean out one of her junk drawers in the kitchen. Recurring themes: batteries, both expired and not, wooden clothespins, spare change, postage stamps (in many denominations, a sort of a history of U.S. postage in the past decade or two), nail care products, cut flower food, matches, hardware, expired coupons, and I don’t know what all. I couldn’t convince Mom to get rid of most of the stuff (though she did part with the coupons easily enough, and eventually gave in on the refillable plug-in air freshener which had gotten all gummed up with rubber band residue and other drawer dirt), and it’s not at all clear where any of these things should be stored, so the best I could do was sort like objects into separate zip top bags and wash the drawer itself out before I put the bags back in. I’m at least hoping that’ll keep the whole thing from degenerating into a mixed up mess again.
Saturday lunch I dropped in on WNCon in Chicago. I love these people so much that I walked almost a whole block from my car to the restaurant in the completely impractical shoes of awesomeness. We spent an entertaining couple of hours eating and gossiping before I headed back home. Because I got to my car only a couple minutes before I would have had to pay for another hour of parking, I didn’t pause to take the shoes off before I drove away, and I am proud to say that I can indeed drive a stick in 4-inch heels with fringe hanging off them. Not that I wanted to do that the whole way home, though, so the heels came off at a stoplight well before I got to the Skyway.
Sunday before I headed out to the race, I made sure Mr. Pumpkin was ready for the game, in case I got delayed getting back for some reason (trip to urgent care for a sprained ankle, late breakfast out, I don’t know.) How’s that for random?
Between unpacking and quilting and doing laundry on Sunday afternoon and evening, I finished knitting Mr. Karen’s hat (modeled here by our Halloween pumpkin which we may carve at some point). It’s another double layer hat based on this pattern, but with 40 rows of ribbing instead of 30 and slightly fewer rows in the main body. I haven’t yet seen it on Mr. Karen, since he got home from his kayaking trip last night after I’d gone to bed and I left for work this morning before he came downstairs for breakfast, but I left it for him on the kitchen table. He saw it and tried it on and when he called me this morning to check about whether we wanted to accept an invitation he’d gotten, he reported that the hat fits and covers his ears like he wanted, so now I really do need to decide on a pattern for the first red scarf.