the factors that kept us from the county fair

Tiffany and Elliot came over this afternoon, intending to accompany us to the fair. Elliot took a late nap, it rained spontaneously in a mighty cloudburst, we had steaks for the grill, and it all added up to = we didn't make it to the fair. You can see in the next picture that it was a wise decision. Elliot had a baby melt-down after his bath as he had enough excitement for one day. Poor baby. I'm not sure he would have enjoyed the corn dog anyway.

I'm reading Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I love her writing and I like most parts of the story: how they plant fifty tomato plants then have to spend the whole month of August preserving them, the chicken and turkey "harvest", the visit to the Amish friends. She gets a little technical/political sometimes and I try to learn something but sometimes skim those parts. All in all, a very good book with some good recipes!

This is typical of me. I have three training programs for a half marathon. I have them so mixed up in my head that I don't know if I am coming or going. I thought I was supposed to run 8.5 miles yesterday (remember when I say run you should read that as run/walk) but the night before I reviewed the programs and discovered I was not running far enough during the week and too far on the weekend. Oh, hallelujah! So, Kris and I ran 5.6 miles yesterday.

I just can't be rigid about this and it may lead to me making an emergency call to Regis on the day of the race to pick me up at some corner or other. Or maybe it will be fine. I'm not interested in being first and I'm really not interested in hurting myself. After October, I'm going back to normal things. I'm not interested in running in the dark, rain, or fog, or on the ice or snow. Some pioneer I would have made, eh?

I read somewhere that we have a left brain and a right brain. I think I have this in some accurate fashion. The left brain is the side that tells you to do crazy things like run five miles. The right brain is the side that drives you toward comfort and pleasure so the whole time you're out there pounding your shoes on the street, your right brain is saying things like: your toe hurts, you have a headache, this is too hard, you better stop. See how well-developed my right brain is?

We'll sit on the patio this afternoon and watch the folks leave the fairgrounds. There should be a parade of RV's, tractors, horse trailers, pick-up trucks, and pop-up campers. They'll all be thankful for cooler weather today.