Rachael

I have a table. A real one, with a leaf and everything. Look:

My friend Laura gave it to me. I love the formica top, and the red/orange stripes around the side. It’s perfect for my house – I adore it. I’m going to make breakfast in the morning, real breakfast with eggs and toast and if I feel like going crazy, maybe some bacon, just so’s I can eat at the table, legs underneath and everything.

Digit likes it too.

(I am not, nor will I become, one of those people whose cats Never Go On The Table. For those of you are, I hate to break it to you, but your cats go on the table when you’re not home. They have small card parties and get quite drunk and manage to leap off just as your key turns in the door. The countertop is a different question – I *do* keep cats off the countertop. When I’m home.)

I can have that dinner party now. Sheesh. Now expectations are running so high about that proposed dinner party that I’ll prolly never even have one. Way too much on the line now. (Ironically enough, Digit is washing his bottom right now on said table. That knowledge might prevent some people from accepting the invitation to the dinner party, so I hope that gets out.)

I actually went to a dinner party tonight at The Girls’ house. See, they know how to do it. Kira whipped up an eggplant pasta thingie (and then disappeared for no more than six minutes and came out with a mixed fruit cobbler from scratch, I kid you not). And we just sat around a chit-chatted. No stress, no muss, no fuss.

Me? Muss. A given.

Now Digit’s chasing Adah and making her emit high squeaky noises that don’t sound right for a cat to make. Oh! That reminds me of a game I used to play with a friend. We’d put Adah on the couch and then push her off. She would make an odd “OOOFSH” every time. And she loved it, purring the whole time. It would be cheaper to buy a squeak-toy, but way less fun.

Severely disjointed, this post, but I must say: Six Feet Under is a brilliant show and last night’s season premiere was stunning. Running a close second in my affections is Deadwood, which I’ve adored from the first episode. I love TV.

I’ve had the oddest tired/energized feelings today. I woke early and picked up Marama by 0715, and we went for our first real training run (which went great, by the way, running alongside the Great Highway, next to the ocean, my new favorite place to run. Okay, I only have two places I’ve EVER run. But it’s my favorite of the two).

Then I came home after a good lunch out (I’ll be the only marathoner to gain weight while training), and SAT on the couch. Stared. Thought about nothing. Just was. Felt a mite guilty about it, then I got over the guilt, turned over, and took a wee rest. It wasn’t a nap, because I’m no good at napping, but I’m getting better at just resting. With the sliding screen door open to the backyard, and a cat pressed up against my side, a wee rest doesn’t get any better.

But I couldn’t get up. And couldn’t get up. And couldn’t get up. I even called a friend and desperately asked her to come over, so I would Get Up. But she had plans that were a bit more fun, I suppose, than watching a girl sink so far into the couch that she comes up with double-point needles she forgot she had. Huh.

Then I got up and cleaned the entire house. How DOES a house get that dirty in just a few weeks? I don’t even wear shoes in the house and the cats don’t go outside. But the dust bunnies in the corners! And the grime on the windowsills! Incredible.

Now I’m tired again. But I just noticed the new season of Six Feet Under has started, and has been captured by my best friend Ovit (TiVo backwards), so I gotta go. I’d make dinner if I wasn’t so lethargic…. Maybe it’s a mac’n’cheese night. Or we can skip right to ice cream if you’d like. Okay. Let’s.

Okay, just added a list of my wonderful perfect beloved sponsors. I tried to match names with sites, but I think there are several people that I just couldn’t match instantly with their site. If your name is over there without a link, please let me know. If you’ve donated, and you’re not on the list, it’s just that the list from the marathon webpage is about three days behind, so hit me next week if you’re still not listed.

I want to make sure to THANK EVERYONE! Damn, I adore y’all.

PS – I just clicked around to make sure all the links worked, and Lorette wins best Rachael-shot photo, ever. Still giggling.

Knitting content.

Here’s my LacyChickami. (Can you see the edge of my new windchime?)

I used about three and a half skeins of…. Oh, that’s embarrassing. I can’t find a ball-band. I bought it in Downtown Yarns in NY with Em and Cari and Iris — anyone remember what it was? I think it started with an A. Lord. This is why I don’t have children. The lace pattern is just one I liked out of a book, started at inch 12 and carried up to the top. Tres simple, tres BonneMarie!

Oh, and here’s a bad shot of me, but good of garden:

I have an unexpected and delightful reprieve this afternoon: I was going to work a twelve hour shift for my friend, but she just called and cancelled me, meaning I have all afternoon and evening off! I didn’t mind working for her, because she’s one of those Wonderful People that you’re lucky to have in your life (and she’s the other imperative half of TEAM 911, my marathon partner! You’ll be seeing lots of Marama in the future), but with this unexpected time off, I’ll have a chance to rip the straps of this tank. Somehow, even with trying it on first, I thought I got the straps right, but they’re about an inch too long, just that much too big that it creates the bra gap right under the arm. Not attractive. And I hate to do this kind of fixing, because 1) I hate to rip and 2) I hide the yarn ends REALLY well. It’s going to be a challenge.

But I have sleep! I have time! Straps, here I come.

The Debbie Bliss hooded cabled thingie, hereby known as Brick Joy, is coming along. The cables have been pissing me off – she wrote it so that the wee cables that stand alone wrap one direction, and the cables within the open cables wrap the other. I just get that kind of thing wrong. Yep, wrong on a consistent basis. So after doing both sleeves and the left front, I’ve switched the cables to all going the same way on the right front.

And I don’t care.

I had messed up a cable on the front, just like I did on the second sleeve, and noticed it only four rows up. Did I rip? No? Do I consider that a failing on my part? Kinda, yeah. [Okay, I just had a sleepy couple of moments where I stared outside at the blackberry bush that’s wrapped around the aloe vera monster (George) and I realized that were I working on Cromarty, which is Important, I would have ripped. But Brick Joy is going to be a play-sweater, so it doesn’t have to be perfect. Not the same thing at all, and I CAN be a perfectionist when it’s called for. So I’m fine with this, and the conversation is over.]

Sorry to subject you to the whole thought-process thing.

Tomorrow is our first day of training! I’ve been calling it “The Sorting” in my head, because they’re going to have us run three miles at our own pace and then sort us into pace groups (houses). I’m so excited I can’t stand it. I’m happy I’ve been doing the three miles regularly already, so I know I can make it. And I’ve been developing shin-splints, so yesterday I went to see a physical therapist who said, basically, that there’s nothing wrong with me the right shoe won’t fix. Now I have new NEW shoes, and I’m READY. Bring it.

(And so’s you know, I’m going to have a sidebar list of all the people who donate, with links to their website, if they have one. If you’d rather NOT be part of this, let me know, but I’d love to honor you in this way, if you’ll let me.)

(And more: The donate link in the post below or to the right isn’t working for me, either… Weird. Hopefully they’ll get that fixed! That’s worrisome…)

And just for fun, Adah sleeps on TOP of her basket:

$1600!!!!

Can you frikken believe that? I am amazed and soooo happy. And that only reflects back donations made Wednesday or before, so if more has trickled in since then, I wouldn’t see it yet. On second thought, that means that money was raised in THREE DAYS. Holy sheep.

Frankly, I’m stunned. Really. I thought, eh. I’ll get a little change from people, maybe a couple hundred. Nope, sixTEEN hundred, baby. And really, while my bottom line goal (and requirement) is $3000, I had kinda said if I only get $2300 or so by the end of fundraising, that’s okay, too. I’m happy to kick myself $700 to make up the difference and call it My Hawaiian Vacation, since the AIDS Marathon provides airfare and three nights hotel stay. So, really HOW CLOSE AM I?

SO close. Thanks to you. I’m amazed by your generosity.

Listen, if you don’t mind, I want EVERYONE who donated to please send me their address (unless you wish to remain anonymous, but I can already see your name on my list….) so I can get thanks out there. Hit my email at writerach406@yahoo.com — I’ll be listing you by first name on the site, so include your blog, if you have one. I probably know what/where it is, but I don’t trust myself, in this excited state, to find it. (And hey, if you want to donate, there’s still plenty of time.)

You really are the most wonderful, amazing, generous people in the world, you know that? I have to go run now, to burn off some off this nervous energy…. And oooh, barbeque smoke is coming from somewhere into my windows. Yum. It’s a happy, happy afternoon.

Thank you. Thank you!

Turns out I can’t just NOT write. I feel like I’ve abandoned ship and left the sailors on board gasping for financial help while I drink a hot toddy in the nearest pub. Well. You know what I mean.

I confessed to Christy that I hadn’t been able to help myself, and had cheated by looking at my personal marathon webpage, the one they maintain. But they’ve been so shortstaffed that fundraising updates are at least three days behind schedule, so *I* can’t even see what’s been raised. Darn it. That’s what I get for cheating. But I can call on Friday afternoon when I wake up and ask the office, and they’ll be able to look it up for me. You KNOW I’m tempted to do that now. But I won’t. I’ll wait. I’ll be good. Promise.

And you’ll be the first to know. I’ll add to the marathon webpage when the total changes in the future, and I’ll make some kind of progress bar on my site to show how close I’m getting to $3000. August 31st (the fundraising deadline), here I come! I can do it, I can do it…. When I DO hit that $3000 mark (‘cause I will, you know), we’re havin’ a party. As Becky would say, kir royales for everyone! BBQ at Rachael’s! Everybody knit!

And for those of you who’ve given, or who might, I thank you, from the bottom and top and sides and middle of my heart.

Oh, and Bethany’s in Jersey!