Much-needed update

It has been a busy month ... let's see how much I can type up here. First, I've been jogging four days per week pretty consistently and just this Monday I was able to jog the usual 2 miles without needing to pause. Exciting but slow and steady progress; I do 12-13 minutes per mile, if the distance markers are correct on the trail. What's funny is how the stairs wipe me out when I come back in afterwards.

We did indeed go and see Neil Gaiman read downtown. We tried to get the tickets the Wednesday before but found that they were no longer available on-line and I had to go get them in person at the place. So I took a trip via Metra and found myself at a darkened ticket booth which was still not at all set up but there were people milling about the area. It turned out the website failed to mention that the tickets wouldn't be available until Friday. So I was disgruntled but I remained polite and did let them know I'd come quite a ways. Long story short, they promised me two tickets would be waiting for when we got there Friday night. We needn't have worried because it wasn't sold out. After a quick dinner with Tom and Keegan, we arrived late for the reading but found that we were just on time. The reading was fantastic; the overhead screen showed a close-up of Neil's face so I could easily understand him. However, they neglected to turn on the video in the second half so I became quite bored and thought he'd forgive me for pulling out "Smoke and Mirrors" and reading it while he read. I was somewhat able to follow along when he was doing Q and A though. Afterwards, we hung out with Sally, Karen and her boy at their hotel room for a bit before finally heading home.

The following week things didn't go so well when I got into an accident. I was driving in the left lane of a four lane road and at an intersection where the light was green, I ran into the back of another car who was waiting to turn left. It's not entirely clear how it happened, but I remember seeing one car in front of me, then noticing "for rent" signs, and when I turned my attention back to in front of me, a different car was stopped. The distance was too small for me to do much but I did try to brake, knowing that the best way was to run into her rather than try to swerve into the other busy lanes. My airbag went off and the hot tea I'd just gotten spilled all over my pants, but otherwise I was physically fine (there was a little airbag rash that I noticed later but it never hurt and I was stiff and couldn't move my neck to look up for a couple days later but overall yes, I am okay). I couldn't open my door to get out and had to roll down my window. My car was totalled with the repair estimated at twice as much as my car was worth. The other woman's car was leaking gas so she had have hers towed too. Commence a lot of stress, insurance crap, trying to not let my general annoyance with area drivers become too out-of-control, etc. Let's just say I really hate the smell of airbags; I peeled off the K College window sticker but had to throw it away because it reeked of airbag.

The rest of the month has been dealing with that but a few other things have happened also. Colin and I both got Google Nexus Ones as birthday presents / this year's toys and overall I've been enjoying it, even without any data plan attached. Still playing around and trying out different apps. There is interference with my hearing aid when people call me but if I hold it a certain way it doesn't happen (unless I'm on the phone with Mom for half an hour and my arm is about to fall off) and I should be looking into new hearing aids soon anyway which will almost certainly have bluetooth connection. Then I'd be really cool!

Last weekend we went and saw a house in Zion. Even though it's two miles from a metra station, it'd be over half an hour drive to Colin's office, and the bedrooms are barely big enough to fit queens in, it's the one we've liked the most so far. Parking - check, puppy - check, good landlord - check. We're still looking though, all around north Chicago area.

We also saw my brother William who was in Chicago on a school trip. It was only for a couple of hours but it was really good to see him. He and his buddies were deceived by the look of the Chicago pizza and thought they could eat it all among the four of them but it turned out that they were only able to eat one slice each, so Colin and I got to eat their pizza after all, even though we ordered a separate pizza which came later and we just had boxed up.

Colin's birthday was Monday. It was pretty low-key but we managed to go out to dinner with a bunch of coworkers which was fun. I did play crossword puzzles on my Nexus One for the last bit while they talked shop.

Today is really warm. 81 degrees right now! I'm looking forward to Tom's birthday party tonight even though we (Colin) still hasn't gotten the beer for it and I'm not sure when we'll be getting there. Time to get back to accomplishing things.

OMG Neil!

This morning, I was slowly jogging earlier today for the second day in a row. Just getting my body used to the idea: "Body, this idea is called "jogging." Remember it?" "Oh my goodness! I'm heavier than I ever was when I jogged or ran before in my life! And I have whiny wimpy muscles! But this could be fun ... it's not that hard ..." Hence the *thought* rather than the action. The key is to go SLOW.

While I was jogging in between the raindrops (it's been thunderstorming and raining on and off the past couple days and I managed to go out when it's not doing those things), a bike passed me from behind. Things like this startle me. I've been hit by bikes because I don't know they're coming. Near my house in Charlevoix, there's a paved trail where some fanatical bikers go like 50 miles everyday so whenever I went walking, running, rollerblading, or biking on it I was constantly trying to not get run over by them. Then I started thinking "How could this problem be solved? Oh hey, that's easy - write something on the back of my t-shirt like HARD OF HEARING or DEAF. But probably not HOH ..." So now I need help figuring out what to put and how to put it on shirts. But doesn't that sound like a simple solution? I mean, sheesh, took me a while to think of how to avoid a certain type of accident ...

Then I got back and found Neil Gaiman had posted a new blog post and - oh my goodness! - he replied to my inquiry! You can see it at the bottom of the post found here: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/04/how-to-mortify-your-daughter.html And I wrote a reply thanking him and explaining that a sign language interpreter would be lost on me. So now I'm going to be getting one of the books at the library with "Chivalry" in it to read. And Colin and I definitely plan on going to the event :)

So now it's off to have coffee with Colin before heading to the library and the grocery store. Colin's had to go in earlier than usual the last couple of days because of morning meetings and this morning I missed my alarm because I'd moved from one side of the bed to the other and I slept in later than I have in a long while. I might have needed that sleep though.