"rest" days are anything but restful

I hate rest days. They are boring. Not that I desperately want to get out and sweat everyday, but there is a certain amount of smug pointage that comes with exercising, and on rest days, I have to get my smug elsewhere. Fortunately, the cow-woman in the Volvo who nearly hit me this morning is comfortably stupider than I am, so thanks for the smug, you ignorant slut.

So come on, dear readers of whom I have none: how do you get your smug on?

Oops I did it again

After the misery of the Portland Marathon, I swore left, right, upside-down and sideways (and backwards, since that was the only way I could walk) I would NEVER EVER RUN ANOTHER MARATHON. Apparently I didn't mean it. Come April 2012, I'm going to attempt to run the "challenging" Big Sur marathon. (I love that they call it "challenging," because, you know, other marathons are "easy," "carefree," and "a breeze.")

I suck at documenting stuff (note absence of info about Ragnar, which was awesome, and RSVP, which rocked), but I thought I'd try again. Since I don't officially start training until December, this is the long, dull ramp up to the beginning of the marathon schedule. Lucky you!

So here's an exciting photo to be getting on with: my shoes. And the icky wrap thing I wear around my leg in a somewhat superstitious attempt to ward off shin splints. These will likely NOT be the shoes I wear for the actual race, but they're close enough. Anyone want to follow the schedule with me? I'm doing Hal Higdon's Advanced 1 this go round, I think, so if you're interested in joining along (not on actual runs as I don't much like running with other runners, sorry, but you're welcome to join me here on the blog), you can find the training schedule here.

training by racing?

I should probably explain that, for me, "racing" is basically "slightly faster training." I don't really race 'cause I'm not fast enough to place anywhere and I live in terror of pushing too hard too soon and not being able to finish. So, if you're at all impressed by the idea of multiple races in a month, by all means go ahead and be impressed! But like your momma once told me: you're easy.

So last weekend I did the Coeur d'Alene 1/2 marathon (you can't cross the finish line until you spell the town name correctly, but I'd done my homework), and today I'm heading out in....8 minutes to run the Mud & Chocolate 1/2. I'm hoping to go light on the former and heavy on the latter.

I have bagels. I've had coffee and done what my friend Rachel insists on referring to as "serious business." I'm already wearing my Garmin and I'm a little queasy. Yep. Must be race day.

This is a trail run at the Redmond Watershed Preserve, an area I've never been to. I'm not expecting a PR here, or even close to it, but staying under 2 is my main goal these days for halfs. I'll let you know. I'm also planning my first "Really Like Ragnar" set of runs for later this month. That's the bit where you run your first leg, wander around feeling nervous for a few hours, run your second leg, try to sleep a little, run your third leg in the middle of the night, all interspersed with peanut butter and fear.

Again, I'll let you know.

If you see me out trotting up hills in the wee hours of o-dark-thirty, please wave. If you must honk or otherwise make a loud noise, could you wait until you're where I can see you? I'm planning on being jumpy and carrying my pepper spray, and that could just be ugly for both of us. I'm also planning on taking video on the AngstCam. I think that could be very amusing. Or deathly dull.

Wish my luck this morning, as you know I'm wishing for you. Two minutes.

Hugs.
RA

No-regrets Ragnar

I decided for reasons I am yet unclear on that I wanted to run in the Ragnar Relay Northwest Passage race this year. Because I don't have 11 friends foolish enough to do this with me, I submitted my name as "looking for a team," and some women rashly invited me to join them.

Every runner on a 12-person team runs three legs over the course of 187 miles (Blaine to Whidbey Island) over "a day, a night and a day." Legs vary in distance and difficulty, from 5K to over 10K, from "easy" to "very hard." Teams have a limited window to complete the distance, but at this point, I'm having a hard time nailing down exactly how big that window is.

I said I'd be happy to run any leg, so our team captain gave me position 1, with legs 1, 13 and 25. This is perfect: not so hard that I'll end up getting our team swept off the course (I hope), but not so easy that it won't present a real challenge. It also means I get to start with a representative from every team (the only time we'll get to see that) and run from Peace Arch State Park, which sounds pretty frickin' cool.

Especially since the last .75 miles of my final leg looks something like this:

I has a fear.

My race profile is 6.3 miles (hard), 4.4 miles (moderate) and 7.8 miles (very hard) for a grand total of 18.5 miles.

I'm not that concerned about the distance, since I've run farther than that doing marathon training and races. What spooks me slightly is the little-sleep, wow-my-teammates-are-fast aspects. I don't want to be the slowest, and I really don't want to be the grumpiest. I calculate my third leg as happening sometime in the middle of the night, which should be interesting....

I'm going to try to limit my incarnation as the seven dwarves to just four: Bashful (at first, I've never met these women!), then periodic rotations through Sleepy, Happy and Dopey.

So Friday began my somewhat unintentional training for the Ragnar. I went for a run that just happened to be slightly longer than my first leg. So I decided to see if I could do all three legs in 24 hours. Saturday morning I went for a moderate (read: leisurely) 4.4, and Saturday afternoon ran a hilly 8 to, around and back from Discovery Park. It went surprisingly OK.

I'm hoping to do a more realistic trial run as the race day gets closer: an early morning hard run, a late afternoon moderate run, and a middle-of-the-night nasty. If anyone wants to come along for that one, some company sounds just peachy.

I'll keep you posted.

Help with the Hills

It's 36 degrees out there. Thirty-six?! Rly? Spring is acting like my brother who nearly had to be induced when my mom was a few weeks past the due date. (That's a question: who past the due date, mom or baby?) How does one induce spring artificially, and what are the potential consequences?

Anyway, I'm just about to go on out for a long run, and it has me thinking about the race I did last week. The run itself was fine, but even more interesting were the conversations along the way. Most of the time, I prefer to run the same way I prefer to fly on an airplane--without talking to the strangers around me. But long-distance running can get awfully boring, so runners often move from conversational partner to conversational partner depending on gait and goal time.

One woman was from Canada, but given that we were on Whidbey Island at the time, she was closer to home than I was. We chatted for awhile, she was a runner at about my pace and strength level, so it was reasonably comfortable. All of a sudden, half-way up one of the bigger hills, she said, "Talk to me. I want to walk."

So we talked. About nothing in particular except that we were doing fine, all was well, no one needed to walk, we could see the crest of the hill (never mind that there was snow on it, and Mallory's remains), etc. etc. We got to the top just fine and then got separated at the next water stop.

Many runners invest a lot of ego in being runners: I know I do. So asking for help and admitting you want to walk is a big deal. And she was running really strong at that point; I was surprised when she said she was thinking about walking.

I looked for her at the finish line, but I couldn't find her, so I don't know the end of her story. I'm sure she did well.

This little tale has neither punch line nor happy ending (nor ending at all, really), but it made me wonder if I'd ever be brave enough and strong enough to do what she did and reach out, ego and all, for help getting up the hill.

Clipped, a modern-day fairy tale

What do you do when you hate your stupid temp job, and an animated--if deeply creepy--icon on your desktop offers to give you the world? Read the story after the jump.

Eat your heart out, Virginia Woolf

I'd like to think Virgina Woolf would be proud, and maybe a little envious. I have a room of my own. (And I'm gaining 5 pounds a year, but I don't think that's what she meant by "have five pounds a year.") I am ensconced. There's no other word for it.

The room is nice. It's downstairs in our house and peeks out from under the balcony of the second floor. My bird (squirrel) feeders are outside this window, and once the birds have adjusted, they'll be back. Right now there's one soggy house finch looking miserable and cranky in the bottom branches of the plum tree. It's been a long, wet winter.

My room has, at the moment, two cats (one on my lap, the other staring out the window), two computers and one human. And for writing, that's about the perfect configuration. Toastie, my partner, has set up the computer for me so it gets WiFi. There's an odd-looking thing doing the backstroke on my shelves which he tells me is the antenna.

This is my writing space. My staring-into-space space. I am fortunate, I know, to have this space, so here's my promise not to waste it, squander it, twist, fold or multilate it.

Join me?

Free books to libraries, schools

Now Marietta has found her way to Kindle, I reckon I can reduce the stock of physical books in my parents' basement. If any school teacher or librarian would like some books, I'm happy to pass them along and get them in the hands of readers. All you pay is postage. If interested, please add a comment below so we can get in touch.

To review the book in advance, www.mariettaandthecreepingnasties.com.

Kindle vs Kindling

Marietta and the Creeping Nasties is now available on the Kindle! Woot and such! You can buy this "utterly delightful romp of a story" (as Truman Capote once never said) for $3.99 and download it here.

The next book in the series, Marietta and the Giant Mistake, will be trundling along after its older sibling soon, so keep an eye out for that.

While you're waiting for Marietta and the Creeping Nasties to download, here are some more reviews to entertain you:

"Whimsical and wonderful" Kirkusdidn'thappen Reviews

"Marvelous. A tour de force" The New York not in the this lifeTimes Book Review

"I laughed, I cried, I blew my nose and laughed some more." Ohhowyouwishprah Winfrey

If I were to start posting again...

...would anybody notice?

It might be better to write about runs in here and reduce the boredom on the faces of friends and neighbors.

New Neighbor

Adam? Hey, Adam? Can you come grab me that apple?


6:10 Monday morning. I go outside to feed my guest cat, and find a thick, colorful scarf rolled in a tight tube, coiled up outside my back door.

Only...it's not a scarf. And I'm going to be very late to work.

This is a corn snake. They are not native to this area; in fact, my friend says when corn snakes are not masquerading as pets, they are to be found slithering through the warm and wet climates of the southeast.

I have no idea how this guy got here or why he chose my back step to curl up on, but there he was at 6:10 this morning, lethargic, far too cold, possibly dying. Several desperate calls to Animal Control (which helpfully opens at 7:10 am, so don't plan on any animal emergencies before that) yield zero results. Finally, as the snake begins to move either away or up into the siding of my building, I break down and call 9-1-1.

At this point, I have no idea if the snake is dangerous. He has made some half-assed strikes in my direction, even temporarily trapping me outside my back door. While he is moving slowly, I have no doubt he could go faster if motivated, like, to grab a chunk of my calf.

The 9-1-1 operator is one of several heroes I will find today. She tries Animal Control--no luck. She says she'll keep looking and call me back.

A few minutes later, my phone rings. It's hero number two, a guy who calls himself Sasquatch. He identifies the snake from my description, and assures me (if "assures" is the right word here) that the snake's bite isn't venemous. Note he doesn't say that the snake won't bite, just that the bite won't kill me. He does urge me to bring the snake inside if at all possible. It's too cold, we don't know how long the snake's been out, he has a long drive from Woodinville in morning rush traffic.

I call on heroes three and four: Andrew and Wendy. Wendy, who lives upstairs, is down in a flash. Moments later, Andrew arrives from his home a mile away. He has gloves. I feel like such an idiot--gloves hadn't actually occured to me. I may not be the first person you want to contact if you're having a crisis. I'm just sayin'.

My cats have been closed in the bedroom for most of this drama, as I'm concerned for their safety. The entertainment value of watching Beebs deal with a giant snake just wasn't worth risking her maybe getting hurt. I might get a fake snake, though, just so I won't miss out...

Andrew picks up the snake and muscles it into an empty kitty litter container that I have for no reason I can think of other than that I haven't taken it out to the recycle bin yet. We put the snake in, and I carve a very small hole in the lid. We put the coffee pot on top to provide a little warmth and set the bin near my heater. Andrew and Wendy return to their separate Fortresses of Solitude, and I'm waiting for Sasquatch to show up at my door.

Sasquatch is only slightly less exotic than the animal he's here to claim. Built on the Santa Claus model of burly and bearded, he is clearly extremely fond of snakes and extremely knowledgeable about their care. The snake is no worse for his time outside, Sasquatch tells me, and he'll be fine. I heave so many sighs of relief, I start to hyperventilate. Sasquatch bundles the warmer and much-friskier critter into a pillow case (why is it always a pillow case?), gets back in the truck and drives off into a happy ending.

I'm still looking for the animal's owner, so if anyone in Seattle, particularly in the area of Beacon Hill, finds themselves a corn snake short, leave me a comment. Meanwhile, I have to go do something about that cappebara that just showed up on my back step.

I'm sorry--you're too stupid to eat this.

I bought a hot-air popcorn popper last weekend. I bought it partly because it fits in with my ongoing effort to save calories and partly because my catsitter seemed so disappointed when I told him I ditched the crappy old one that didn't so much pop popcorn as fling unpopped, sizzling-hot 'granny' missiles around the kitchen. This one's for you, Buck.

This morning, I made a bowl of popcorn. Hey, I had a day off, and popcorn is technically in the 'cereal' family. I completely obviated the machine's calorie-saving function by melting a tablespoon of butter in the little tray on top and dousing the popcorn with it, but to complete my whole "it's a breakfast food" thing, I ate it with a glass of milk. It was delicious--quick, tasty, nutritionally neutral rather than actively bad for me, and simple.

Simple. I've been making popcorn on the stovetop at least once a week for nearly my entire adult life and several of the years before it. I love popcorn. I am a purist, however; strictly oil or butter and liberal cloudings of salt. None of your yeast flakes, bacon salt or garlic salt for me, thanks all the same. And Kettle Korn? Well, if it were real popcorn, they'd spell it right. Popping a bowl of popcorn presents no real challenge for me, even when I do the DIY version. It's not like assembling a German-chocolate cake, for example. And yet...

My new popper, a machine which ostensibly makes this relatively simple task even simpler, came with instructions. There are nine steps to making popcorn in this hot-air popper. The President could launch missles to take out half of Eastern Europe in fewer steps. Ok, before we consult the surprisingly long and detailed how-to manual, let's see if we can even come up with nine steps:

1. Fill little tray on top of popper with unpopped popcorn kernels.
2. Pour the unpopped kernels into the popper proper.
3. Plug the machine in.
4. Wait.
5. Unplug the machine.
6. Eat.

Personally, I'm thinking even six is stretching it. But since Orville Redenbacher clearly has no desire for his popcorn fans to end up gracing the Darwin Awards list, I'll see what I can do to make these directions even simpler and more idiot-proof. Additions in red:

1. Set the popping machine upright on a flat surface. Not a road, more like a kitchen counter.
2. Fill little tray on top of popper with unpopped popcorn kernels.
3. Pour the unpopped popcorn into the popper proper. You should probably take the lid off first.
4. Plug the machine in to an outlet in the wall.
5. Point the popcorn descent ramp at a bowl sufficient in size for all the popped kernels. They will be bigger when they come out than they were on the way in. Prepare for that.
6. Step back. Do not immerse the machine in water at this point. Or any point, really.
7. Wait until all the kernels (or at least all that are going to) pop.
8. Unplug the machine. With your hands. Not your teeth.
9. Eat the popcorn. Breathe normally between bites.

You'd be astonished how closely this resembles the actual instructions. Here are the parts they felt worthy to be bolded:

Do not place salt, butter, margarine, shortening, or microwave popcorn in the popping chamber. ("Shortening"?! Did they forget "lard"? And don't get me started on the extra comma. Positive note: I love that my $2o popper has "chambers.")

Caution: Do not leave unit unattended while popping. Presumably it's OK to back away slowly when it's just sitting there. But never smile at it, or it'll lunge for your throat.

At step seven, which details how to unplug the machine after use (and which comes with a disclaimer footnote blaming unpopped kernels on the quality of the popcorn), there's this gem: "Carefully remove the cover--use hot pads--and pour the remaining popcorn into the bowl, then place the cover back on the unit." Why the bolding here? Are they afraid that hot-air popper neophytes might place the cover in the toilet, for example, or throw it out, figuring they had to use a new one each time like a coffee filter?

And the one that makes me laugh out loud is this wonder at step nine: "Wash the butter melter if it was used to melt butter." Dear god. This is possibly the most cynical statement regarding human intelligence I've ever seen. First, we must tell people to clean dirty things, and second, it's called a "butter melter." It doesn't actually do anything! It's a plastic tray that gets hot, and if you happen to have put butter in it, then the butter will probably melt. You could equally call it a spare change tray, if that's what you planned to use it for, or a hamster thermal spa.

The tragedy of all this is, of course, the poor shmuck with half of the Great American Novel at home in his or her drawer, currently condemned to thinking out all the infinite ways the Great American Idiot could possibly screw up a simple batch of popcorn and how to talk him out of it. As my boyfriend's darling daughter says, "If there weren't a need, there wouldn't be instructions."

In giant letters on the first page of my "manual," it says "SAVE THESE INSTRUCTIONS." Oh, I plan to.

Our Christmas Adventures!

Our routes--every bit as arduous as they look!






Happy holidays, everyone!

We've been doing some serious traveling this holiday season: first there was the trip to Burlington, which was just amazing. I was worried our flight wouldn't take off, but then I remembered that we were driving, so that was OK. The natives are reasonably friendly, though we had some trouble with the local dialect. The food was good, but getting vegetarian fare proved difficult, as always. We had something called “peet-zah:” apparently a holiday tradition in that area. Foreign culture, foreign customs, I guess.

Then there was the fun but exhausting long-haul to Kirkland and back. Again, the weather provided us with some challenges, but we soldiered through it, eager for what adventures awaited us! We did some shopping at a store there they call "Seifweigh" or possibly "Chafeweigh." It was hard to tell what they were saying to us. We had lots of fun doing a sort of modified charades to "talk" with the locals. Toasty's impression of a cinnamon-raisin bagel in the so-called "bei-ker-ee" department was hilarious! Good times.

Glad you all had a great and festive holiday season. We took lots of photos, which we'll happily share if anyone's interested.

Hugs,
Rags

Aren't you supposed to be in Mexico?

(This picture taken just down the street.)


I tried to get to work today. You wouldn't know it to look at me now, pajama-clad with a fresh pot of coffee brewing, but at 7.30 this morning, I really tried to go to work. I showered and brushed my teeth, I dressed for survival situations, I had a fully charged cell phone and a day's worth of rations (some dry Frosted Mini-Wheats and a bagel), plus flares, a bear whistle, a tent, a set of crampons, a team of Sherpas and a yak.

Seattle does not do snow well. I used to abuse this city for shutting down every time a few flakes fell (and not out of a sorority window during a drunken rush-week brunch), but really it's a bugger of geography. Seattle is hilly. And hilly cities are hard to drive in when there's hard-packed snow turning to ice on the roads. This situation is not aided by the idiots who think owning a four-wheel vehicle is license to drive like Ricky Bobby.

Anyway, there was no work to go to, as I found out after I'd walked a mile or so. I turned around and went home, ruminating on how, like someone else's inadequately stifled burp during a wedding, snowdays are a great and wonderful thing, no matter how old you are.

Back at home, I've spent most of the morning dealing with some guests who may have overstayed a bit: hummingbirds. I go out periodically to clear the snow and ice away from the feeders so that the wee, winged, migratorily challenged hummers can suck up the gallon or so of sugar water a day they'll need to survive the next week or so. I finally came up with a cunning plan, though. I moved one feeder so it's very near my outside light. It's under the cover of my upstairs neighbor's balcony, so the snow doesn't cover it, plus the little heat generated by the light keeps the ice off the feeding stations and the dumb birds.

I have also posted a map of North America with an arrow pointing south. I'm hoping they figure it out.

Hi-Falutin' Literary Pursuitin'

Cleared the 40,000 word bar today, like a decathelete with wings on her shoes and lead in her ass. Never mind. Only 10,000 more to go. I have to get them in this week wherever I can--the Seattle half-marathon is this Sunday, and I don't really want to try to run it whilst pushing a cart with my laptop on it, unspooling 13.1 miles of extension cord as I go.

Interesting thing today: at Kaladi Bros., the delightful coffee shop on Pike where they're letting us reserve their back room on Sundays from noon to 3 just for the NaNoMoFo's, we had to chase a guy out because he was using the cafe's computer to look at porn. Now, seriously. There are five or six stellar members of the Word Nerd Herd in there, all zealously typing away at our laptops and occasionally shouting out random numbers like crazed auctioneers (30,000! I just hit 35,000! Do I hear 40,000!), and he sits at the computer, with his back to us, and does his Lolita surfing. Gack. I didn't notice, obliviot that I am, but one of the other NaNos did, and she asked the staff to kick him out.

I didn't realize this, so when the barista came in to tell him that the room was reserved, I, good samaritan that I am, said he wasn't bothering anyone (except himself, I guess) and that he was welcome to stay. Fortunately, the guy had the good grace to get completely pissy and huff off, presumably to find a more welcoming cafe with coin-operated booths and a sticky floor.

Anyway, all's well, and I have just a hair under 10,000 words to crank out this week. Between the shin splints and the carpel tunnel, November has been just spectacular. More to come. Stay tuned.

Button, Button, Where the F#@*'s My Button?

For the most part, hitting that safe middle ground between dressing like a slut and dressing like a prude is not terribly difficult. There's a lot of room to maneuver there. There is, for example, a lot of possible variations on skirt hem lengths in the safe-zone between peek-a-boo to dragging-on-the-ground-behind-you. There's plenty of differentiation space between clothes so tight the wearer can be safely left in the freezer for up to six months without fear of freezer burn and so loose you risk harboring the homeless in a sort of tent-city of one.

Even in accessories, there's ample safe territory: my grandmother never once reached for her pearls only to find herself later at a ladies luncheon sporting a studded dog collar. Makeup? Easy. Don't apply with a trowel to avoid sluttiness; don't carry a bucket of cold water and a scrub brush made of horse hair to scour the Stain of Whoredom off of other women, and you'll successfully avoid the other extreme.

The only exception to this rule, for me anyway, is the buttons down the front of the average blouse. First of all, the word "blouse" is horrible, like "purse" and "panty"--these are ugly words. OK, maybe that's just me.

But the way that buttons are arranged on your standard blouse-front makes no sense at all. Either you have Strangulation Level (also known as the Jehovah's Witness Come-to-Jesus button) or Sluttastic, the button that generally comes in at just level with the nipples and then gapes open anyway. The expanse of shirt-front between these two buttons is a fastener desert. There are no options here other than application of some gack-worthy brooch you inherited from a maiden aunt. What the hell, people?

For those who know me personally, you know that the only time anyone can properly and without losing an eye refer to me as "conservative" is in the way I dress. I tend to err on the prudish, leaving the sluttery for others more equipped and capable. I cannot wear button-down shirts! I spend the entire day either tugging open the neck so I can breathe, or tugging the shirt down in the back so I can't spend the day watching that freckle next to my bellybutton and worrying if it's a slightly different, pre-melanoma color today and nor can anyone else.

I'm wearing a zipper-front sweater today. Every time I cross my arms, I have to stifle a yip from the cold zipper track inside touching my skin, but at least there's not an actual draft. I have a large pile of turtlenecks for all seasons. Could someone, please, make a button-down shirt for women that has actual buttons on it? You know that one that you put in the little, plastic, Ziplock-type baggie affixed to my price tag? Maybe you could put that on my shirt instead.

Another argument against "Intelligent Design"

To those who rabidly and with spittle flying defend the notion of “intelligent design,” I add yet another example to the pile of “oh yeah, well, what about this?”-es. Right up there with rednecks, cancer, the Taliban and Sarah Palin, I give you: the bit lip.

Think about it. You’re chewing away at whatever you choose to chew on—fruit leather, popcorn, beef jerky, an underling—and you accidentally bite the inside of your lip. What happens next (after the jumping around and cursing)? The bit you bit swells up, pushing its wounded and tender self closer to your teeth. And you spend the next eleventy-seven days biting the exact same spot over and over and over again. Does this sound like “intelligent design” to you?

I think if I were making the human body, I probably would not put soft, sensitive, vulnerable skin right there in the mouth with all the sharp and pointy parts. I’m just sayin’.

Do these 50,000 words have to be in any particular order?

So, November is NaNoWriMo month, but of course you all knew that. I found out about this from my friend Pete, who pulled off this very difficult task a few years ago. Basically, during NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth, you hunker down at your computer, bitch at your partner, drink lots of wine, and attempt to crank out 50,000 words of a brand-new novel in 31 days. Ah, crap: 30 days. November has 30 days. I just lost one. Now I have to recalculate the daily word requirement to make it to the finish line: 1,666.666666666etc.

I'm a fifth of the way there.

When I hit the 10,000 mark, I felt pretty good. I'm cruisin', don't want to kill my characters or myself (yet), Toasty claims to still have undampened enthusiasm for spending time with me, all's pretty darn much well, that's what. 10,000 feels good. Then I realize I'm a fifth (a fifth!) of the way there, and everything around me starts deflating: my ego, my confidence, my omelet...

There was a moment on day one (maybe two), when my cat Beebs trotted across the keyboard of my computer and somehow magically shut down Word without stepping on the CTRL + S keys first. I had been saving pretty religiously up until maybe 15 minutes before this point. Beebs was punished by being fed (I'm such a monster) and not petted for the next eleven minutes. That'll learn her.

As I type this now, she's twice brought up some weird Explorer menu by rubbing her head on the corner of my keyboard. NaNoWriMo isn't quite hard enough--I had to make some sort of weird reality show out of it by throwing into the mix a cat that's really a mole, planted by Big Brother to keep throwing hurdles under my feet (fingers). Fine, but I'm not eating maggots or any other gross stuff. NaNoWriMo seems like a great excuse for an all-popcorn month.

Anyway, wish me luck, and any other NaNoWriMos out there, how about a write-in this Sunday somewhere with coffee and Wi-Fi? No cats.

Cue the Hallelujah Chorus

WWWWHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Dear Diary,

Last night we elected a guy for president who is intelligent, compassionate, educated and SANE. I R so happy.

Go, Gregoire. Clean sweep.

Anyone got a border collie?

The three women I met the other day when trying to cross an intersection.

On Monday I was riding my bike to work, and I had to wait at the intersection of Minor and Madison. If you don't know this intersection, let me just say that Minor is minor and Madison is major. Madison is one of those very busy Seattle streets, especially early in the morning. It's an access route for both north and south I-5, so lots of folks travel it. All the time.

Minor is wee. It is aptly named. Pedestrians frequently cross it without even checking for traffic. I should know; I have a collection of them wrapped around my handlebars, dying slowly.

This is a long-winded way of saying that the green light for people on Minor Minor to cross Major Madison is awfully short. Short in the same way Herve Villechaise is short. Short like my rope. Which I was at the end of on Monday.

Here's why:

I was on Minor, stopped at the very long red light. Just as the light begins to change (walk sign's been flashing the big red don't-even-think-about-crossing-now hand for awhile), three generously proportioned women decide to go ahead and cross. They are slow. Slow in the same way Sarah Palin is slow--short bus slow. The light turns yellow before they get three steps across. And then, just as the light turns green for me, they stop--STOP--right in front of me so that one of the heifers can light a cigarette.

I say to them, with as much politeness as I can muster at this point, "Ladies, I'd like to get across, please." This sounds polite but was delivered with tone, lemme tell ya.

One of them moos an actual and unexpected apology (-15 points for lack of sincerity, but it was something, anyway), and they move on across, tails swishing flies from their backs as they go.

I don't care if people are slow as long as they don't slow me down just for the entertainment value of it. I don't much mind if they smoke, as long as they don't stop directly in front of me to light their cigarettes. And I have to wonder if they would have done this had I been driving a car instead of riding a bike. I'm generally not a mean person, really, but at that moment I was scouring the surroundings for a border collie to herd them out of my way.

Next time, they get one of these to the backside: