Today was the second race of the year I ran with my cousin towards her twelve months of races goal. This is her personal goal: to run a 5K or similar race once per month for the whole year, but she's invited me to join her in the last two and we've had fun running together.
We were joined today by another one of her friends, named Malise, which my daughter thinks is neat, because her name is similar to our dog's name, Matisse, only the dog as a 't' sound instead of an 'l' sound. The three of us didn't break any land speed records running, but we enjoyed the meandering course through a park near the downtown area that today is known as an area of fields dotted with older buildings housing government offices, but in the days when my cousin and I were younger, was known because the campus housed a "mental institution."
There is a lot of land on the campus and I find it hard to believe it was all taken up with insane people needing round-the-clock care, but when I was young, that was the only thing the site was known for. When I was older and working for IBM, I went to do some work for the division of motor vehicles city planning group in one of the buildings on site. I remember them showing me future street maps and telling me how everything was measured out in the metric system—because we would be changing over to that system in the coming years.
That was my first experience on-site and I must admit, I was looking for signs of ancient gurneys in the hallways with restraints dangling down the sides. I saw no signs of that and it turns out we're still using the imperial system. I wonder if the department of road planning is still around in one of the buildings today.
I've run multiple races through the park with today's 5K being held exclusively within the bounds of the park/campus. At the end of the race, they gave everyone a rose, what with this being the theme for the race. Malise and I told my cousin she was up for picking next month's race and we'd drive to her this time since she'd come to town for us the past two months. We declared her the event coordinator seeing as how she'd picked two clement days of weather for what could have been cold, dreary winter race days.
I haven't been exercising much, if at all, so having a race to run every month has been a good thing for me. It is also nice to have a chance to catch up with my cousin, who has always been the closest thing to a sister I've ever had. She gave me some good advice today, as she always does. She's a decade further down the parenting path what with her daughter in college now and has, "been there, done that" and survived. Her experience and wise advice is always a comfort to hear.
The Big Boy Update: My son and husband made heart-shaped brownies today. This is the kind of thing I would say, "forget that" after finding the grocery store didn't stock heart-shaped brownies pre-made but is just the kind of challenge my husband likes. He and my daughter got a heart cookie cutter the other day and today he made with my son two large batches of brownies. The remnants were about as much as the beautifully shaped heart brownies my son will be taking to school tomorrow for their early Valentine's Day celebration. My son also created a hand-written card with a stamped border background and added a fun food-shaped eraser into a bag for each of his classmates. This is a Montessori school, there is no candy allowed.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My mother called the other day about getting their Internet connection restarted once the power was back on. I talked to my mother for a few minutes and then told her I was going to put my husband on the phone as he was more familiar with the AT&T router they had. My daughter said in the background, "yeah, men know more about electronics than women." If she could see, she would have noticed me glaring at her, and then laughing.
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