Let me start by saying that if it doesn't get cooler---more OCTOBERISH--pretty damn soon I am going to take hostages. The high today is going to be 96. NINETY SIX. I have no words for how that depresses me.

In other news, I'm in the process of making my workout schedule for the rest of the year, and that's making me feel pretty darn organized. No long races--just 5ks and one 5 miler, but it makes me feel like I have something to aim for.

Speaking of 5ks, we had a pretty rotten weekend around here. I may or may not have mentioned that Lia has had a few surgeries in the past year, all stemming from a massive screw-up during a "routine" scope procedure a few years ago. Basically, she was having gallbladder pain so they called her in for a scope and told her they might make a small cut in the gallbladder duct rather than make her have the thing out. Instead, what they did was slice right through her duodenum and she went completely toxic and they didn't find the problem for almost 36 hours and she almost died. All the while her doctor kept saying "some people just have lower pain tolerance than others" and the nurse and I stood there watching Lia *scream* in pain. Needless to say, I went a *leetle* crazy, and the nurse backed me up, and low and behold a few hours later the entire trauma team was taking Lia in and (according to the trauma surgeon) "taking everything out, washing it off, and putting it back in." !!

Anyway, all of that to say that Lia signed up to walk a 5k this weekend. She exercises a lot and is very strong, but she's not *fast*. Apparently it's hard to chug up hills at a good clip if you have basically severed stomach muscles. Anyway, she was in last place at a very small local race (about 50 people) and as she was coming up the last hill she heard something behind her and it was two cops just riding 4-wheelers along behind her, waiting for her to pass streets so they could open them up again. Well, she was just *so* humiliated that she walked off the course and came home. I can't help wondering if the cops would have been so rude if she'd been in a wheelchair, or been walking with a crutch (which she does, sometimes). Ugh. I'm going to find someone to write to about it. The least they could do is just have the streets closed for a certain amount of time--regardless of who is last.

Maybe I'm being overprotective, but *geez*.

I know that was random. *g*