Woah! As of yesterday, I’ve run 4 days in a row! I think it’s been a while since I’ve done that. And since I’m planning on running tonight, that’ll make it five in a row. That’s usually what I do in a week, but I’m going to Baton Rouge on Saturday, so I probably won’t be able to run then. But I’d really like to run around the lakes while I’m there. I’ll see if Kristina wants to. Anyway, not important. Last night’s run was good for me, bad for Kristina. It was colder than it’s ever been, and Kristina is very sensitive to cold. Can’t understand why, really, since she’s from a cold place, seems like she should be immune to it, but anyway. She had a bit of trouble at the beginning with her knee but she stretched it, then she was just cold, and the shorts she borrowed from me were annoying her, so after we had gone about half way around, she just started walking and I ran alongside her. Ah ha! Now you can see that I just use the word “running” to make myself feel better…but I’m not going to say I’m “jogging” just because I’m slow. In fact, I was running somewhat slower than usual yesterday, so at least we do run a little faster than walking pace. And she wasn’t even walking that fast. Ha ha.

On to more serious stuff…I got an email today from my oldest friend in the world, Paula. Ever since high school, our lives have been wildly divergent…she got married about 4 years ago, and now she has two adorable kids, Cole, who is now about 5, and Caitlin, who is almost 3, I think. I haven’t seen them since my college graduation, over 2 years ago. Yesterday, I found Paula’s email address in my address book, so I decided to drop her a line and see if she still had the same address. I didn’t hold out much hope since it had been so long since I’d heard from her. But she emailed me back, saying she had a lot of news for me, and today I found out what that was.

I have to say I wasn’t surprised that she had big news, because every time I’ve talked to her, she’s had big news. The first time I talked to her (since college, probably) she had gotten married and had Cole. The second time, a year later, she had Caitlin. And now, as it turns out, she’s just gotten back from spending a year in Memphis with Caitlin at St. Jude Children’s Hospital. Caitlin was diagnosed with leukemia a year ago, a really bad variety of it, and she was in chemotherapy and all of that mess. She is in remission now, miraculously, and back in Louisiana with Paula and her big brother and her dad. Anyway, that’s the gist of it. I’ve probably messed up some of the details, but it got me thinking.

Ever since I decided to run this marathon, I have thought about doing it for a charity, but since I’m in the US, and the affiliated charities are in the UK, I wasn’t really sure how to go about it. Originally, I thought I’d probably do it for the American Heart Association, in my dad’s memory, since he died of a heart attack. But they get so much money already, and yesterday I read in the paper that the local Ronald McDonald House is sorely lacking in funds since September 11. And Paula and her family stayed at the Ronald McDonald House in Memphis for part of the time that Caitlin was in the hospital, so maybe that would be a good charity too. I’m going to wait to hear what she says, she might have some ideas.