First Race of the Year and Following Up with ball-droppers

Still finding Race Rivals: On Sunday we ran a 5k/10k race in Lincoln Park.  It was called the Wacky Run and they wanted participants to wear the race shirt -- a red long sleeve shirt with a shirt and tie design -- during the race.  Nike tried that a decade ago and had mixed success.  Many people did wear the shirt but the cold influenced some, including us, not to bother.

Before the race

Didn't see any of our familiar runner friends.  SHB was considering signing up and had even called me that morning to find out what was wrong with my back.it was a good run and I even gained some running rivals. During a race, you sometimes find yourself running along with someone who has decided that no matter what else happens, they are not crossing the finish line behind you.  You can tell the way they focus on keeping pace with you or trading position throughout a race.

That occurred here.  There was a lady in a pink tutu with the phrase  I may be old but I can still tri on the back.  She and this guy in a bright orange jacket became my race rivals for the day.  I passed them just as we approached the halfway point.  I did slow down for water at one of the stations and Orange Jacket guy managed to get ahead of me again. I never caught up to him, but Pink Tutu faded back.

As it turns out, I took 2nd in my age group.  The guy who took first ran about 2 minutes per mile faster than me, so there is no "I shoulda tried harder" going through my head.  Even in my prime I wasn't running 6:15s.

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We got stuff accomplished but the forward progress isn't very noticeable:  I spent Friday morning calling people who have dropped the ball.  For instance, last month this guy our handy man recommended came over and fixed the heating in our basement.  I paid by check at the time of service but asked him to send me an invoice because I might be able to get reimbursed from our home warranty that Mr Dufus gave us.

Unfortunately Mr Schneider, while a nice guy, doesn't believe in 20th century technology, like email or printers.  I've called at least 4 times to ask and he keeps promising and then forgetting.  I talked to his wife, who answers the phones on Friday and she was all "well I'll have him call you back".  That’s when I launched into my we don't recycle tirade*.  I'm like: "he doesn't need to call me back.  He needs to send me the invoice he's promised over the last 4 weeks so I can get my money.  $200 is nothing to sneeze at."

We also had a cleaning lady come over on Friday to deep scrub the house.  Basically this is the prelude to her becoming our regular cleaning person.  The next time she comes it shouldn't take as long and cost less.  I'm not sure about that.  She was a nice polish teenage-looking girl who didn't speak much English.  I'm sure I would see her at Martini Club or Stereo if I still frequented those places.  Judging from the nice car she drove off in, she is either being exploited or is exploiting someone here in America.

On Saturday People's gas came over and installed the outside meter, thus removing the one in the basement.  The one that hung instead a basement window.  Because it meant having someone put a hole in my wall, I wanted to use to opportunity to run some network cable from the attic to the basement. 

Unfortunately, I've had this back/muscle injury that has made movement and flexibility a bit of an issue. 
By the time the ibuprofen kicked in and I was feeling well enough to attempt running the cable down, the guys were almost finished and the carpenter was about to seal the wall.  I should have started sooner and asked him to make a bigger hole in the wall.  To his credit, the carpenter only cut as much as he needed in order to hide the pipe.



Most frequently taken picture at
Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum

 Saturday evening we went to a friend’s party in Logan Square.  Her place is less than half a mile from where I lived when I lived there but the difference is night and day.  For one thing, her walk to the Blue Line station at California is only two blocks whereas I had to hike a good half mile or more.  That wouldn't be a big deal to me today, but back then I did think that sucked. 

After the race on Sunday, we went to Crate and Barrel because we wanted to use these gift cards we were given for our wedding.  I really thought we were going to buy this garbage can that would pull the kitchen together so that we could move on to the next project.  (it's so expensive it better have its own IP address). Surprisingly, Nightingale just couldn't bring herself to spend that much money on a garbage can, so we spent the next two hours looking for items we could use. 

Then we came home and I grilled some burgers and chicken breasts.  Nightingale prepared lunches and dinners for the week and we essentially spent the rest of the night chilling out.  We avoided Red Widow because we do not want to get attached to another TV show.


*  years ago at a party, people asked me, consecutively, if I recycled at my condo.  We didn't have recycling set up then so the answer was no.  However, the six people asked me pretty much one right after the other such that if you were #4 you had to have heard me tell #3 that we don't recycle, so by the time #6 asked it was: NO! We Don't Recycle!