Got a rental car today. Snaaaaaazzy. Necessary, too, after waking up at 5:45 a.m. on Friday to bring George to work before I had to be in at 7:30. Ick. But at least I had use of a car. (Woo! Went joy-riding! Okay, not really. It’s a Saturn, not a Ferrari. But a lovely Saturn. Niiiice Saturn. Goooood Saturn.) I suspect I’ll be car-shopping next weekend. Groan.

Oooh, I think Kristie’s coming in this week. Ack! Can’t wait! I really hope I do get to see her, since the last few visits of friends that I’ve been looking forward to have been cancelled. (Except, hmmm, my sister. But Kettie, Annie, my cousin Laura, nada.) Tomorrow George and I are going to have sushi and see 24 Hour Party People, which I’ve been dying to see. My life is a never-ending cycle of excitement, excitement, excitement! Off to finish the dishes now…

Day off, day off! Interview in an hour and a half, and I’m still sitting in my jammies, drinking coffee. Wouldn’t be so bad if the interview wasn’t a million miles away. Ah well, I’ll hurry in a second… Actually, don’t know why I’m posting anything right now…nothing much to say.

Ahhhh…well, my financial situation may be in the toilet, but at least I have the best boyfriend in the world. Let me explain…earlier tonight, when I was sitting in my living room watching ER (one I missed last season) I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. Yep, a huge, massive, evil roach in the front hall. I ran for some spray and tried to, but failed to get close enough to spray it. So I ran into the back and called George to come get it. Fortunately for me, he wasn’t asleep, and he said he’d be right over. While I was waiting, I saw Stinky freaking out, and the roach, scurrying into my bedroom. Eeep! I screamed very loudly and crept back into my bathroom, armed with the Raid, keeping an eye down the length of the house for the roach coming near me. (It’s times like these when I’m happy I have a shotgun house.) While I was standing there, shaking, George came in, armed with his bug zapper, and started looking around. He couldn’t find it. So I started getting some stuff together, because there was no way I was going to stay in my house when there was a live roach in it. Then, George noticed that Stinky was looking behind the bookshelves in the living room, so he grabbed a flashlight, and sure enough, the creature (the roach, not Stinky) crawled out. George killed it with his zapper, then brought it outside to torture it and then toss it. Whew! My hero! 😀 It really doesn’t get any better than this.

Well, well, well…I finally heard about the job. And I was offered it. However, unless Barnes & Noble will let me stay on part time while I have this (temporary) job (until early December), I can’t take it. Hmmph. Why can’t life just be simple, just once? I have no idea how I’m going to afford rent next month. Grrrr. But I’m not going to think about it. Tomorrow night, we’re going out in the Quarter with the kids (Lindsay and Colin) and meeting up with some people from work for drinks, as it’s James’s last day. 😦 Can’t wait to see Laurie again! yay!

Nutty Chris, who is running his third marathon this year (and, might I add, third ever) wants to run a 50 mile ultramarathon in December. Crazy! I hope he doesn’t kill himself trying it. Or cripple himself. Or anything. Yeesh. I wonder if I’d feel partially responsible, since I, um, encouraged him to run London with me.

Nothing else exciting to report. The highlight of my day, at least at work, was when the fire alarm went off. It’s really high-pitched and loud. Ha ha! I’m pathetic! No, wait, it was when I was sent on an errand to get the supplies for tonight’s event in the kid’s department. That was way more exciting. Oh god, I need a life.

I sent a bunch of resumes out yesterday. I wonder if I’ll hear about any of them. I doubt it, not with my luck so far. I got depressing news from the student loan people yesterday. When I start paying it back again in November, my payments are more than doubling. Are they crazy? I’m not sure where they think nearly $300 a month is going to come from. Grr.

But life is not all bad – George left me two big red sunflowers on my dresser, so when I got home from work last night, there they were, staring at me. eeeep! Very sweet. 🙂

So, for a race report for last night’s race, I’ll post what I sent to the DRS mailing list.

Yesterday I did my second race since the marathon, the four mile Crescent Connection Road Race. It starts on the west bank of the river, at a mall, goes up the on-ramp into the HOV lane of the Mississippi River bridge, then across the river and down to the other side, where it ends by the Riverwalk, another mall that overlooks the, um, river.

I have hardly run all summer, but I’ve been wanting to do this race because although I have to drive over this bridge every day, how often will I get to *run* over it? So I wasn’t expecting much, just wanting to finish in an hour, no big deal. I thought I’d walk the first half (uphill) and run the second half (downhill).

I live near the bridge, and every day I drive under it to get to my house. My lord, is it high. And when my boyfriend and I were coming back from breakfast, I really noticed how high it was. And that meant I’d have to basically run up a hill that high. Ack!

The weather, though, was great. Overcast and temperature in the, oh, low 80s, maybe? Maybe even a little lower? It was an evening race. Altogether the best running conditions I’ve had all summer. So anyway, the race starts, but you don’t start going uphill until about half a mile into it. So I ran the first half mile. Walk a little of the uphill, but it’s so gradual that you can barely even feel it running, so I run some of it. First mile is 12:28. Woah! So now I’m thinking, I can definitely finish this in under an hour. There’s no way the next mile’s going to take me 17:30, it doesn’t get any steeper, so I’m revising my estimates. Mile two is steadily uphill, no flat parts, but again, it’s so gradual, I’m able to run more of it than I expected. Second mile split is 13:32.

Here’s where it gets fun. We’re exactly half-way over the river, and now the bridge starts to slope down. Only slightly, but I start to run again. And then comes the exit ramp! woooooooo hoooooooo! I just cruise down the hill, thinking of my run in Austin with Cilla (where she wondered about people who stuck to their pace on downhills), and let gravity do all the work. Fun, fun, fun, and I finished mile 3 in 10:56.

So now I’m thinking, maybe I can finish in 50 minutes. No, because then I’d have to run the last mile in under 13 minutes, and it’s all flat, and now I’m getting a little tired. So I think, under 51 minutes is fine with me. So I run, and walk a little, making sure to conserve enough energy to at least run to the finish line, and I see a corner up ahead, thinking there’s probably another quarter of a mile after that, but nooooo, the finish line is about 100 yards away, and I have 49:10 on my watch, definitely enough time to finish in under 50 minutes, and I cross the finish line in 49:39.

yay!

and i beat the big group of coast guard people. of course, they were chanting. but still, i never beat the big groups of armed forces people!

pam

Good race tonight! Just wanted to finish in under an hour (it was a four mile race, two of them uphill, so I was giving myself 15 minutes per mile.) Managed to finish in just under 50 minutes! Woo! Will post race report tomorrow.

Today someone threw themselves off the ferry that runs by my house. Ew. They died, obviously. Ick. Last night we went to the pub and drank ourselves silly. Yet another reason tonight’s race performance was so impressive. After the race, George and I went to his friend Dumas’s house. He’s a NOPD cop, but really nice and cool. He has a beer dispenser-cooler-thingy in his living room. Interesting.

No word yet. Still. But I called the guy at Adecco, and supposedly, he hasn’t heard anything either. Hmmph. I’m not sure if I buy that or not. But surely he’s professional enough to call me and tell me if I didn’t get the job? I mean, please!

But a weird thing, job-search-wise, happened yesterday. I got a call from this IT placement agency in the city, and the girl who called me was a friend in college. Not a great friend, obviously, because she didn’t recognize my name until I called her back. But strange nonetheless.

Tomorrow’s the four mile race across the bridge. Tonight we’re going out with Lindsey (from the pub) and her boyfriend Colin. They’re fun, but young, and I’m afraid they can drink more than me. And I’m afraid I’m going to try to keep up. And, ugh, that won’t make for a pretty race. At least the race is at night, so I’ll have plenty of time to recover. In theory.

Today is the first of three days off in a row. Terribly exciting. I have nothing major planned, just going out tonight, and the race tomorrow. Doing laundry. Going to buy some cheap plastic lawn chairs to put on my front porch so I can sit outside and read.

This morning I woke up to a huge roach on my bedroom floor. Almost, but not quite dead. But I was brave! I killed it! Okay, I threw one of Kristina’s law books on top of it (I knew those things would come in handy eventually!) and then sprayed a bunch of roach spray at it. Ha ha!

Getting my new stove today. Terribly exciting. I hope it’s not an electric stove, but on the other hand, if it is, my gas bill should be nonexistent. Unless my hot water heater is gas. Hmmm. I’m really freaking out about money now because I got hit with a $28 overdraft fee. Not because I went out and bought something useless or because I went out to eat or anything like that, noooo. Because I paid some bills. Grrrr. See what financial responsibility does? Hmmph. So this month, I get to decide…electricity? Rent? Phone? Which will it be…? (Okay, not really. I’m being dramatic again.)

A-okay! Jenny’s gone. And George hasn’t run away. Woo! Actually, okay, so I accuse her of being a drama queen and here I am being all dramatic. It was fine. Of course she was Jenny, but what can you do?

I still haven’t heard about the job yet. Sheesh. I really, really, really need to get it. I got my electricity bill yesterday. Sheesh. Not that it’s very expensive, but more that I can afford right now. Grrr. Need electricity! Ha ha. Duh.