Car Woes Redux

Got up bright and early yesterday to go run with the Galloway Group, only to find that my car was stone-cold dead. Click-click-click, no turnover. I went for the 12 mile run alone in my general neighborhood.

Later, Jocelyn ~ bless her competent and prepared soul ~ came by and gave me a jump so I could go over to Abbie's for dinner. I drove out of the way on the beltway to try and juice 'er up, which seems to have worked. I was able to go home and to church this morning.

Now I'm in the Clarendon Apple store waiting for the fine folks at NTB a block away to replace the battery and call me on my cell. They WERE going to charge me $99 for the thing, but I expressed such horror that they immediately knocked $50 off the price. (Imagine what their mark-up must be!)

[By the way, the Apple Store is packed. Buy stock now.]

Home Again, Again

No more traveling for awhile, mmkay?

I am TIRED.

There's a pile of Dad's financial stuff sitting on the desk waiting for me to deal with it. I'm hoping to go for a long run on Saturday. And Sunday, I'm basically at church all day, what with one thing and another (search committee, healing ministry retreat, etc.). Monday, it's back to work.

I had an interesting time in Austin, along a variety of different dimensions. I feel pleasantly stretched.

Except for the part about being TIRED.

Sleeping late tomorrow. Wake me at your peril!

Toasted

The conference is over. I can now stop substituting calories consumed for sleep missed.

I had nine hours of sleep last night (although it was interrupted early this morning by a staff colleague calling to ask if I wanted to share a cab to the airport, grrr, I specifically told him last night that I wasn't leaving today, why can't anyone ever remember anything?).

Looking forward to the R&R portion of the program now.

In Austin

Rising from the crypt this morning at 5:30 am after a scant two hours' sleep, I schlumped onto a plane at eight, and six hours later I find myself in Austin, Texas. DC had finally cooled off to what looked to be a beautiful weekend... here, it's a sweltering 100 degrees. Thank god for air conditioning.

I have a heavy work schedule while here, but there are a few intervals of socializing mixed in, and I'm tacking one extra free day on the end. On Wednesday and Thursday I'll be having two get-togethers at wildly different ends of my personal spectrum. It should be a fun exercise in compare and contrast.

Why I'd Like to Meet Him

Read this.

Lawyers Have Heart 10K

Oooh, it was HOT and STEAMY.

Which, while good in some areas of life, is definitely not what you want while running (75F and probably 80% humidity at 8 o'clock in the morning). Also, I only had about 4 hours of sleep last night.

Enough with the excuses!

I was 839th out of 910 women (8th percentile) and 36th out of 41 in my age group (12th percentile). Pretty much of a wash from the Capitol Hill Classic. But the pace, well, that was significantly slower: 11:41.

Still, I'm under my 12-minute pace, so that's good.

On Canal Road, someone yelled out of a car to a runner taking a walk break (not me): "Run, don't walk!"
I wanted to yell back: "Run, don't drive!"

Who Moves On

It makes sense that the less wounded you are, the quicker you heal. The smaller the loss, the easier it is to invest again.

Andrew is dating; I wish him well.

Apple's Revolution

Okay, since I'm a raving Apple fangirl, I feel duty-bound to comment on today's WWDC announcement.

I was really surprised. I'd read all the advance buzz, and I was all full of rationalizations about it, but I was wrong wrong wrong. Pigs have wings, hell has frozen over, and Apple will have Intel inside in two years' time.

So, do I buy that G5 iMac I've been wanting, or not?
Should I juice up my Cube and tough it out for a couple more years?

Hmmmm. Dunno.

If Apple's smart they'll cut their hardware prices again to keep product moving through the pipelines. I think I'll wait another month or two and see what happens. Although I'd REALLY like a new machine.

Home Again

So glad to be back.

Despite having maintained a stiff upper lip the entire time I was in Boston, when I saw the National Cathedral in the distance as I returned by cab from the airport on the GW Parkway, I started to cry.

The work has just begun. My Dad is really falling apart. Any anger and resentment have pretty much crumbled in the face of his extremely pitiable state.

I brought home one of ~ if not the~ last drawings he ever did. It's a tender little sketch, slightly vague and shaky, of a tendril sprouting out of an egg in a nest. So tentative, so hopeful. I asked my sister to give it to me (it was up in their bathroom), because although it breaks my heart, it also reminds me to be gentle when I think of my father.

In Boston

Exhaustion.

Some positive steps.

Steps that seem like mere milimeters compared to the miles to go.

You can only do what you can do. Even if it seems utterly inadequate.