Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

I told me AP as I left Friday that I wasn't sure that I'd survive a measly 2-day weekend. I still don't know...

I did have a little something to look forward to today: Librarian Jessica stopped me last at school to say that she and Frankie were meeting to run on Sunday, and he was going to bring the twins. Cool! Seven o-clock, I get to run with my boys.

So I'm waiting...and waiting....people start to poke fun "miss the 6:30 train??" since that's what time my club usually runs. "No, waiting on some people..."

Then I see them jogging toward me, and I inquire, "Hey guys, how far do you want to go?"

"Ten miles," Jesus answers resolutely.

"Oh-kaaaaay. Really? You're up for 10? Well, let's go now." I hadn't planned on running more than 4 or 5, but if they want to...I guess I'll always be coach.

So we start off, headed west, thinking I could take them on the RO loop. But really..these speedy 15 year-olds plodded along, obviously still not awake at 7:30. So I thought better of it and not wanting to get these guys stuck 4 miles away and dead on their feet, we headed to the Rose Garden. Much better idea.

I think the surface finally jarred them awake about 3 miles into it after we turned onto Tiel Way, but befor then they hardly made a peep. We chugged on in short for about 7.5, I think. When we hit the Golf Center, I told them, "Half mile left..." and they took off, racing each other through the crowd. I was so proud.

Mah bay-bees! All grown up and on Varsity now. Sniff :-)

R & R (running and racing, duh!)

Saturday's schedule called for 11 at marathon pace again, and I'd say it went event better than last time. Met the "Wankers" at the pool at 6 and headed to the GRB. Lordy the weather was awesome!

Barry was kind enough to put out Gatorade for the group, which I retrieved afterward. A very-laid back run with friends. Although Lady Catherine is still without power, it's nice to be sort of back to normal. I had to resist racing her in, as I knew 5 p.m. would bring he first HARRA race of the Fall, the Cross Country relay.

Allison put together a team of Open Women, and all in all we seemed to enjoy ourselves. I knew the Tornados chicas had a superfast team: Jenn Brown, Diana Hirst (need I go on??), Michelle Friedman and Lee...Carruthers, I think it is? AFAIK, these ladies all run 18-19 minute 5ks, so if not outclassed, the idea that we would be competitive was a j-o-k-e.

Ally signed us up and wanted to get back to her new hubby and the football game, so she took first leg. Not sure of her exact split, but she was speedy! The two runs during the previous 24 hours left me with dead legs, so I hobbled in at 14:28. Not my best, but not my worst, with. Saltwater Taffy was our third leg, and I know she ran strong. She's so modest and takes competition seriously, and she came in APOLOGIZING! "I'm sorry, I died, I couldn't have been any slower..."

I reassured her, "Look, Taffy, I don't know what your spilt was, but it's fine! We're glad you ran with us. And it's only 5:43 right now, so you probably ran almost exactly what Allison and I did!" Assgrabber was watching Holden, so I drug her to the keg to calm her down. A Roadrunner youngster, Jen, ran our anchor leg, and left pretty early to get on with her graduate student Saturday night.

Even Grind joined in the fun. After suffering a broken "ring toe"on his right foot, he hasn't really run in 3 weeks, so he pedaled on over to Dr Bob and asked if he could help on the CPR/AED team. He even rode in with with Out of Tuna as she finished leg 4 on one of the more "recreational" teams.

So we're drinking the St Arnold amber, chatting up our pals, and winning door prizes. The sun is going down and it's kind of loud, so most of the crowd isn't paying attention. Pretty funny...they call out 75C, and no one runs up. Leno calls out, "Any runner from team 75!" and I realize that it's us and bound forward. Just as I arrive I hear, "Bullshit!" and Taffy runs up behind me. I about bust one laughing, so I back off, but Leno gives me a prize. too. I look at it...it's an Ultimate Frisbee. Yeah, because I can throw.

I notice immediately that it is more useful as a cocktail tray and take to sashaying about with my beer on it.


So here's the irony...some of my club members ask, mostly to be polite, I think, "How did you do?"

I really didn't know. After Jenn's team, I couldn't tell who the other open females were.

I'd seen Erin on one ALRC mixed team, while Sarah and Melissa ran on another. Since they're all over 40, the Striders put all their fast ladies on a Masters Women's team. I had no idea who our competition was.

Well, apparently, no one! Again, were standing around, clapping for our friends, and Leno calls out, Bayou City "We've Got Power", second place~ ~!

Huh.

Just wondering...

Can you claim liver damage with FEMA?

Look how sad- the cirrhosised liver spilled her drink!

On that note, Thursday night I plan to visit Discovery Green to hear The Gourds.

Back at it, and Work makes my nose run.

I sniff repeatedly as I type this post. Was does this mean? Am I ill? In the doldrums about returning to the work force? Nah, I'm pretty sure it's the MOLD. But I hope not, or it's going to be a long semester. Maybe it's just dust.

Over the my school district made multiple call-out attempts to get all staff into the building yesterday.

Seriously-I received one message Friday night, an actual call on Saturday from an AP activating our phone tree, an additional recoded message from my building principal early Sunday and then two more district recorded messages on Sunday afternoon. I think they must receive error messages if there's no answer, and I must not have been the only one without phone service. At least my Callnotes still worked.

The kids return today, and we anticipate some forgotten knowledge, much forgotten procedures, late buses and a generally discombobulated population. And these are eleven-to fifteen year-olds, so it's all relative, right?

According to this chart from Centerpoint, 56% percent of the customers in my school's zip are still without power. I wonder what our attendance will be like? Many kids will welcome school's return, as I'm sure they are 1) bored, 2) hot, and 3) maybe a little hungry.

Hungry for learning?? Maybe. We will do some writing today.

I'll include more tasty images from last weekend for those of you who just can't get enough:
This is the gigantic pile of yard waste in front of our house. Except now it's BROWN.










This is a view of the flooding from our neighbor Pam's second story porch.

The fog on my camera lens makes i nice and Halloweenie, dontcha think?







After any enthusiastic rainstorm, my street floods, and Ike was no different. This guy thinks his car might be able to make it! Go for it!

More details

So here is our house at 8:30 the morning of the storm. Still boarded up and everything is fine.

We took a short walk up the road to Anal 101 and Out of Tuna's house to check on them. They had no power either, but a house full of little boys to boot. Hurrah! Much loudness.










Here is my poor car, all scraped up from the big-ass sheet of tar paper that my neighbor called his roof. It really sucks for him, with no roof and all, but Saturday afternoon he says, "I knew that was going to happen." WTF??? I would have parked elsewhere if I'd known your house was going to fall apart-thanks for the heads-up!

I have a $1K deductible, btw. Grr.

Well that sorta sucked, now didn't it??

In all of my forty-two and a half years, this is the third weather-"disaster" that I have personally experienced. and really, Ike is the only one where I have felt any pain, nay, discomfort whatsoever.

The term "leave room for error" was created with me in mind, so I hesitate to say that I'm a lucky girl, but God certainly knows how much I can take.

Hurricane Alicia, 1983. I was a senior in high school, and frankly I enjoyed the day off. I don't remember preparing the house all, and then I remembered-oh YEAH, my mom left us in Houston while she and Don worked in Connecticut for 10 months! We had supervision, but not a homeowner-type. Another story, another time. Anyhoo, I slept through the storm and our power was back on by dinnertime.

Tropical Storm Allison, 2001. Lotsa water. Nuff said.






Then there was Ike. This is a shot I took while huddled on the porch at about 7 am. we were looking forward to stepping out while the eye passed us. but obviously that didn't happen.














Trying to capture the wind on film is tricky.















The neighbor's roof flew off and then the upstairs windows took quite a beating.









At about 7 I woke up sleeping Grind, who had crashed on the sofa with his shotgun. He rose and went to look at the yard, then later challenging the storm gods:

Tour de Art-September 19

Celebrate RRCA's Run at Work Day!

The long Run

I'm baffled. Not so much baffled as nervous, and I don't know why.

This week's long run, Coach Jon's schedule says 10-11 at marathon pace.

I'z skeered. It may hurt real bad.

I hope tonight's AT run will boost my confidence-either that or absolutely smash it. :-)

Then, bike down to Discovery Green to catch one of my favorite bands!