kramer

This morning, we had to have our little dog, Kramer, euthanized. He has been declining for a while and for the last few days had more trouble walking. Yesterday he wouldn't eat or drink and he seemed to be in some distress. Never an easy thing to do, this was particularly painful for Regis. He and Kramer spent a lot of time together in the last couple years and he'll miss him terribly.

On Saturday, I did my practice run for the half-marathon. I put on my little shoes, packed a peanut butter sandwich in my pocket, and down the road I goes. (Isn't that the way a Shel Silverstein poem ends? I wraps my hair around my bare and down the road I goes...) I made it a little more than ten miles and wasn't even winded when I got done which probably means I could have gone faster. My goal was not to go too fast, though...it was to see if I would survive that distance and apparently, I will.

There are 2,000 people registered for the marathon, half-marathon, and 10K on Saturday. Regis joked that I could just pick up my feet and be carried by the crowd. I can't imagine that many people running down a city street. It will be incredible and I'm quite sure I will cry because I always do at the beginning of parades, when Santa comes out at the end of the Thanksgiving Day parade, when the bride comes down the aisle...all can evoke my tears. You can see it doesn't take much, really. I cried during the 4th of July Fun Run. I think I was overwhelmed and amazed. How could this be real?

Regis is going to drop me off at the starting line and he says he will be there at the finish line for me. I'll come home to take a bath and a nap and then we're going out to celebrate. I'm excited about it now and a few weeks ago I had a real bad case of the dreads. This is better.

I have two days off this week. What is historically been known as MEA vacation, the state teacher's union convention, is really a couple days off during the most beautiful time of the year. We have no plans other than to go to the cheese shop in LeSueur on Thursday and to Mankato on Friday to pick up my race packet. That's it. We should probably think about raking the leaves but we'll see. I refuse to go into a long weekend with a to-do list.

The following week, Regis and I are going to Cragun's for a conference. We leave Wednesday about noon and won't get back until Friday afternoon. There are worse things than going to Brainerd in the fall. We like to go to Madden's for dinner Thursday. This place is on a golf course (yuck) but there are no golfers this time of year and it's beautiful. The food was delicious and the setting sublime.

Every day is shorter. This morning it was dark until past 7:30. I don't dread winter...only the dark. I think I better get out all the party lights and string them up everywhere.

We made stuffed peppers on the grill tonight. It's one of our favorite meals. We decided that our favorite grill meals are: carne asada fajitas, stuffed peppers, stuffed mushrooms, and pizza. We're going to try and squeeze them all in one more time before we put the grill away for the winter.

Well, that's it for Monday, my friends.