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Can you believe it? I’m going to add the new donors to my list over there, and if I’ve missed linking your site, please email me. And please send me your snail mail address iffen you don’t mind and if I don’t have it, because I want to drop you a note and those stitch markers, when I finally get around to making them (I will make ‘em before the run, I promise!).

I’m still astounded. Seriously. I’m kind of struck dumb now, actually, something that’s very unlike me. How do I say thank you in a way that will convey the thanks that I actually feel? I’m all right with words, but not THAT good. Let’s put it this way. Right now I’m sitting in my backyard. The wind is blowing, making the wind chimes sing, and I can hear the far-off roar of the freeway and one siren in the distance. The water fountain is running. The orange tabby that lives next door just skulked through the garden, shooting guilty glances at me. And while I’m out here, I’m thinking of y’all. You all were already part of my life, and now you’re part of this run. It might be silly, but to me that’s big, and it makes me feel wonderful. It should make you feel good, too.

And hey, my friend and co-worker Brandy joined up, so, along with Marama, we’re Team 911! Three dispatchers, out of our chairs and in the streets, running with a cause. Dispatchers don’t exercise as a whole, you know. We just don’t. We sit for twelve and fourteen hour stretches. Now we’re runnin’. That’s half the excitement, I think.

Okay, I’ll try not to belabor the fundraising/training thing. I swear I’ll try not to. It’s just that it’s so much in my mind right now….

But I did write. I got up and wrote. Thank god. Even if I write crap, if I write first thing when I wake up, it reaffirms to me that yep, I’m still a writer.

Thank goodness.

And that means you.

I started running, what, almost a month ago? I had images of being little and light and skimming around Lake Merritt, barely a ruffle of the sweet scented breeze following in my wake. People would smile, babies would laugh, and old men would recall the days of their gloriously misspent youth. The rowboats on the water would lift their oars, and I’d wave back generously, running lightly on.

Oh, hay-ell, no.

Today was the worst day yet. I thumped like a geriatric rhino and probably wheezed like one, too. I turned beet-root red and dripped sweat. I never thought I would make it the three miles around, and that was with four little walking breaks. It was hot as hades (anything over 75 degrees to me is too hot) and I was miserable.

I have, however, learned what NOT to do the day before you run. Do NOT drink two and a half beers and a glass of port at your friends’ home the night before. And perhaps more importantly, do NOT eat a McDonald’s Number Two (two cheeseburgers, fries, and a Coke) two hours before running.

Ach. Speaking of twos, it did feel like I was two people out there – one had to heave the other one around, and the one heaving did not like it at all.

It’s my Monday, back to work in about an hour. Had a lovely garden (MdDonald’s) picnic with my friend Monica and baby Winter (pics tomorrow, perhaps). Did laundry. Obsessively checked the marathon webpage where the total has not changed since Thursday. Did not write. Have you noticed that? Haven’t written in almost a week. I will do absolutely anything sometimes to get out of writing, up to and including sign up for a damn marathon.

Lord. I like myself, sure. But sometimes I just wear myself out.

(I did have a lovely, lovely moment last night – I was early to the dinner party, so I drove down to Ocean Beach and just sat on the sand, directly in a bonfire’s smoky path, and watched the waves and the sun goin’ down. Just was. You grab a minute today, too, okay?)

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: