Number Sixty-Nine

If you're old enough to be even a teen, you probably have some sort of connotation with the number sixty-nine other than it's the number that comes just before seventy.  It's the number that makes people giggle or offer rude comments or pretend they know far more about what that number signifies than they actually do when they're younger.

Even today, numbers like seven and thirteen, which don't have any particular significance to me personally, invoke thoughts of luck or dislike.  I've written about connotation before and how it has a powerful force over the actual denotation of a word (or in this case a number.)   And I am not immune either.

So when I got an email last night in the middle of the night about the upcoming marathon and how this year they were sending out our bib numbers in advance to make packet pickup easier, I was happy--happy because last year we had to do this bulletin board dance to determine what our bib numbers were so that we could then determine what line to stand in just to get our packets.  This was nice.  This was a good improvement.

So I scrolled down and it said my bib number was 69.  And I almost laughed out loud in bed in the middle of the night.  I thought someone had hacked their system and it had told everyone that they had a funny bib number.  I sent an email off to Uncle Jonathan and my neighbor asking for them to send me their numbers so I'd have them for packet pick-up, but what I really wanted to know was if they were a number other than 69.

I thought about it further, and decided it could be possible.  The bibs for the marathon last year started at one for the lowest last name alphabetically and my last name is rather early in the alphabet.  Maybe this was the real thing.

And it turns out it is.  And I'm not sure what to think about it.  There are people last year who were running in crazy outfits.  I saw more men and women in tutus than I would have ever imagined possible in a big race.  I saw people with strange things on their bodies to make a statement as they ran.    I am a boring wife and mother.  I don't feel like I can do this "racy" number justice.

Are people going to call out to me and yell, "go sixty nine!"   I going to have to let you know.

The Big Boy Update:  He has a thing for Ariel, the mermaid from The Little Mermaid.  He sees her face on the pink pullup underwear and he wants to wear them.  He's done this enough times now that I think he has a crush on her.  He went through a stack of pullups before bed tonight just so he could find her.  He is so over Lightning McQueen and Mater on the blue pullups. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: She was playing with a bottle and lid the other day and wanted help to screw it on and off.  First, she asked me to, "turn it."  Then she asked me to, "spin it".  I realized she used two synonymous statements for the same action.  She'll be two in two weeks.  Childhood language development is astounding.

Fitness Update:  Two miles before Halloween's evening events late yesterday afternoon.  It wasn't hard, but it wasn't easy either.  Some bothersome action in my chest area that had damn well better be cleared up before Sunday morning's run. (You hear that body?)