UPDATED: Evidently I'm really good at keeping an eye on things

Along with the sleep-baking and having the ability to hear messes being made (which may or may not cause me to wake out of a dead sleep), I also have a very instinctive talent in finding four-leaf clovers at will. I don't know what it is, but lately I have been noticing that I see things that no one else sees (not dead people) (oh lord, I'll never go to sleep tonight now DAMMIT STUPID SIXTH SENSE MOVIE).

Last night I was at a baseball game, and upon leaving the restroom, I was shocked to see a snake slithering my way with only about eleventy billion people around, not noticing said slithering snake. Not noticing until I said something along the lines of "HOLY SHIT, YA'LL, THERE'S A SNAKE RIGHT THERE." I tried to shoo it out of the stadium but then I caught sight of an usher and made him pick up the snake and take it back to the woods (but not before I pet it; I'm not brave enough to pick up a snake but I'm only slightly scared to touch one and therefore felt compelled to do it).

So imagine my surprise this morning upon arrival at work to discover THIS:

i name him darth dracula

Me to approaching Orientation Leader and possibly two incoming first year students:

Me: Um, hey... I don't know ya'll, I just really feel like I have to tell someone this. So there's a bat on the sidewalk right there. I think he's dead though.
Orientation Leader: Oh my God. That is a bat. AND IT HAS HAIR.
Potential First Year 1: Maybe he's just asleep?
Me: Yeah, I don't think they sleep like that on the sidewalk. THEY HANG.
Potential First Year 2: OH MY GOD HIS EAR JUST MOVED. I THINK IT IS ALIVE.
OL: I thought bats were reptiles?
PFY 2: (attempting vainly to feel for wind blowing to assess whether Darth Dracula is slightly alive/very drunk or just a bat corpse flapping in the breeze)
PFY 1: Yeah. I'm late. Let's just leave it.

So then I found someone from facilities to call the bug man to come take away a potentially rabid bat corpse away only to find out later on that one of the librarians saw the bat and sent two people out to see it/poke it with sticks and found it missing because the bug man had come and given him a bat funeral. Or flushed him down the toilet; I don't know how one goes about getting rid of a dead bat. But then since someone else saw Darth Dracula, maybe that doesn't make me so special after all, but I'm the one who named him therefore I WIN.

Oh, one more thing I spotted and visit often to gather posy boquets to brighten our Dowton Loft:

the free flower store where the kns used to stand. i'm pretty sure i'm the only one who takes advantage of this city service.

The next two items have nothing to do with anything, but first, I cannot stop watching this video. It makes me very happy indeed.

You're welcome.

Second, I'm still learning how to treat Regina like a roommate and not a husband. Because it occurred to me just the other day that perhaps most roommates don't hug good night. Or kiss goodbye. Or maybe they do? In any event, no one's complaining so I'll stick with it until she tells me to stop.

Over and out.

UPDATE: After work yesterday I wrote this blog and promptly went home and went for a run. Once I hit the Gay Street bridge, a mouse jumped in front of me and scared the hell out of me. Running back, he jumped out again, and having forgotten about the mouse, he proceeded to once again scare the hell out of me. But this time he ran in front of me the rest of the whole way down the bridge.

way to get your cardio in, mouse

Obviously, I am Dr. Doolittle. 

While not exactly the bravest thing I've ever done, I'm still pretty proud.

I spent most of yesterday out on the lake with friends to celebrate the visit of Emily, little sister to long time friend Amanda. Emily is such an impressive person; she's beautiful, she's smart and best of all, she's one of those women who automatically can make you remember all the fabulous things about yourself and feel all the more attractive because of that. She's the girl you want to be your friend at a party - you can just bask in Emily's residual aura. She has a fancy job up in New York City that keeps her hopping around the country, and when she shows up in town it's like a lightening strike - she's here, then she's gone. Emily's the only person who I think could ever say "He's the first person I called when I was in jail," and make it sound luxurious.

It was during yesterday's laketime that Emily walked me up to the top of the swim deck, clamored up on the railing and helped me up to stand beside her. She held my hand and said, "Ok. Let's jump. We'll do it together." And I hesitated, looked down, and said, "No. I don't want to." And Emily said, "Or not!" and gleefully sailed into the lake while I climbed back down off the railing.

A few weeks ago I was bemoaning a pulled hamstring to friend Heather, and whined to her, "I KNEW I shouldn't have tried to learn to wake board so close to a race," when Heather said, "Megan. That's the little voice inside your head that you should be listening to."

Congratulations, Heather. You are right. Little voice, keep talking.

(But I should confess that after I got off the rail, I did go back downstairs and dove headfirst into the lake. Then I drank a beer and burped real loud. And I have a penchant for treating all of downtown Knoxville like my rumpus room. I am unafraid to walk around in my pajamas. BABY STEPS. At least I didn't jump from two stories.)

what? I WAS THIRSTY.

Best. Church Lockin. Ever.

Going through a divorce as person who likes to stay busy means I really have thrown the throttle into hyper drive and am doing all the things I can to stay busy. So, when a few months ago, friend Amber asked me to run a marathon with her, I was all in. She sent me a link to the Hatfield/McCoy Family Reunion marathon, and I signed up without a second thought.

I didn't do this in a vacuum - this was to be my fifth marathon, so I knew what I was getting into. Amber and I planned to run our long training runs together, and the two of us alternately solved all the world's problems during those times. Training went well for me - only had to bail on one long run due to a pulled hamstring while learning to wake board. Amber wasn't so lucky - she dealt with blisters, allergic reaction to many forms of energy gel, a horrible wasp sting, a potential stress fracture, etc., etc., etc. But the two of us persevered through training!

Like I say, I signed up without giving it much thought, and really didn't know all of the details until we were actually on the car ride up there. When I would sketch out the few details I knew to people (not a certified course, involved some trail running, a swinging bridge was involved, etc.) I got many "Why the HELL did you pick that marathon?" comments, to which I replied, "I didn't! Amber did! This is all her idea!" The weekend took another unexpected turn when we discovered the two race hotels were overbooked and we were going to have to stay about an hour away. Not. Cool. So, imagine our surprise when we got an email from the race director offering the cots at the First Baptist Church in Williamson, WV to the first ten people to respond.

Oh I remember church lockins. One phone call later, two cots had our names on it. DONE.

Last Friday the adventure started. My car is starting to wear (the check engine light has been on for five years, no joke) so I asked Mama to borrow her car to take the trip out of town. Once the Mamamobile was acquired, I trotted out to Amber's house, and we gussied up the Mamamobile in style.

it says mamamobile up top and RAWR on the hood

 

26.2 or bust

this says two battlecats just passed, but in a cruel twist of irony the mamamobile doesn't go very fast and we got passed an awful lot going up the mountains to west virginia.

It wasn't until we got started with the gussy-ing that I realized I loved painting cars. I saved the pens and am going to do this with shocking regularity on my own car. It will be like my own personal Twitter feed.

Once we hit the road, Amber entertained us by reading a review of the race written by T-Rex Runner and it was a hoot and got us all excited for what was to come. We made it to the pre-race pasta dinner only an hour behind schedule because someone was too busy making out with her phone to actually give me directions on where to go (ahem, AMBER). We showed up, got our race packets and made our way through the Belfry High School to the cafeteria ten minutes before dinner was to end.

This is where things went slightly awry. And by awry, I mean it was all "what the hell is going on here?" No one was standing behind the line to get us spaghetti (reviews said Olive Garden catered it, and I was down with that because I love unlimited salad and breadsticks, but this was distinctly not Olive Garden) and there were no utensils to get the spaghetti. After a moment, a woman showed up and reached right on in that mound of spaghetti and plopped a fistful on a plate. When she went to scoop up sauce (with a ladel this time) Amber paused her and asked if there was vegetarian sauce. "We're out," she replied, and plopped red sauce on her noodles. But we did get two rolls and that was cool. Salad line, only French dressing. Is there anything else, querries Amber again. We're out. This is going to be the theme for the evening, by the way.

i liked the strawberry cake, but didn't get a chance to finish it because amber was worried we'd miss the hatfield/mccoy re-enactment.

We got to the auditorium in time to hear the race director give announcements about the various races being run the next day, and I was stunned to learn there were about eleventy billion races being run. And a corresponding tshirt for each race. And it did make me laugh because every time the race director would say, "Make sure you get your tshirt for the kid's fun run before we run out!" I'd mutter under my breath to Amber, "They're going to run out."

After the announcements, Anse Hatfield and Randal McCoy showed up in person and told the tale of why they hate each others guts. In a nutshell, when you get mad, you kill someone in the other clan. One rotten apple in the bushel bag? BANG YOU'RE DEAD, HATFIELD. Tripped and stubbed your big toe? KERBLEWEY TAKE THAT, MCCOY. I enjoyed that part very much, but the pictures I took were mas terrible. After that, door prizes! And guess what? THEY RAN OUT. But not before I got:

this little beauty

After that, I totally got star-struck, because we met the gal who writes the T-Rex blog! Yippee!! She and her crew were very sweet and didn't mind my stammering "HOMYGOSH I TOTALLY LOVE YOUR BLOG AND I BLOG TOO YOU SHOULD READ MY BLOG BY IT'S NOT AS COOL AS YOURS KTNKS BYE." Then we all took a photo together.

superstarz

And of course:

they seem to be getting along in this picture pretty well. hope it lasts and that no one gets shivved.

Next, we meet up with two adorable ladies from the First Baptist Church in Williamson, WV, Miss Linda and Miss Joyce. They escorted us from the high school to the church duplex where we were to spend the night. At first I was really bummed because I totally had visions of the two of us together sleeping in a row of cots like in the movies in the church parish hall, but quickly got over my disappointment because I remembered I had packed two sets of pajamas: one for "surrounded by all women/non-threatening men" and one for "I am sleeping with creeps in the room."

guess which cot is mine and guess which one is amber's?

Miss Linda and Miss Joyce had us set up in style. They left us a whole bunch of snacks for us to fuel up for the race.

bananas, apples, granola bars and marshmallows. i never figured out the marshmallows.

 

The one thing we forgot when packing for the trip was Sharpie markers so that we could tattoo ourselves up in style for the race, much like we did with the Mamamobile. I must say, I am understanding graffitti much more after this weekend's experiences. We left the church for a quick run to the Wal-Mart to pick up Sharpies and a Tide pen because you know I dumped spaghetti all over the front of my white skirt.

 

One Wal-Mart trip later we had Sharpies, Lemonheads, a bikini with bicycles printed on it and a Wonder Woman nightie (and no Tide pen despite multiple forays down checkout aisles peering between shopping carts in the line) later we made it back to the church and settled down for the evening.

 

5:30 came early, and we were very close to being ready when the church van arrived to drop us off at the start line in the Food City parking lot. We Sharpie tatted ourselves gingerly bouncing in the van, and decided to take just one of the four pens with us to finish the job while stretching and waiting for the starting (shot)gun.
 

chauffeur miss joyce in the church van and us with the bag of sharpies

 

operation sharpie complete. i wore a lightening bolt as a tip of the hat to the ex mr. smith, team name on my left gun, RAWR on my right and flowers on my legs. amber wrote hal in a heart for hal higdon on her right arm and team BCBB (battle cat badass bitches) on her other arm. i tucked the sharpie in my running belt and thought, 'if i lose it, oh well.' i did not lose it. first time i ran a marathon with a sharpie.

 

And the shotgun went off and away we went.

 

This was unlike any other race I'd ever run. It was primarily peopled with folks who are 50 staters, meaning they have a goal to run a marathon in each of the 50 states. The course isn't certified, and there is no time limit; most races will sweep the course after seven hours and make you stop running. Our goal was to finish, so we decided to take it easy, have fun, take pictures if we wanted to and pretty much just focus on having fun and enjoying the experience. Done and done. This is only the second time I've taken a camera with me in a race and I pretty much wore that thing out.

 

this cutie was out to cheer us on wearing her camoflauge tutu. no lie.

megan!! that's not water!!!

As I crossed over mile five, I realized that Sharpie was nagging me. I wanted to do something else with it if I was going to run an entire marathon. So I pulled it out and made five hash marks on my right forearm. When I showed Amber my handiwork, she demended to be hash marked too, and our mile ritual was born.

 

Around mile six was Blackberry Mountain. It's a real mountain, ya'll. Knoxville peeps, it is like Noelton if Noelton was on meth, then smoked a bunch of pot then snorted a bunch of cocaine. It. Was. Tough. Proof on how steep it was?

 

 

But we made it to the top! And now I'm never eating blackberries again.

 

yes we took advice from an 18-wheeler and kept on truckin'

 

On the way back down Amber nudged me and pointed to a guy's shirt. It said, I have run a marathon in all 50 states TWICE. As we came up on him we struck up a conversation and asked about the shirt and the marathons he's run.

 

he ran his first marathon at age 49. holy mother of pearl.

 

i was stupidly excited about seeing the electrion day stabbing site. here it is!

 

amber petting the world's smallest horse

 

me photo bombing a stuffed squirrel holding a nut

 



water/moonshine stop

 

as soon as we passed the halfway point, a woman behind us made the comment that we all three were wearing the same shoe. here we have our shoe sorority picture.

 

this race is especially popular for 50 staters since it crosses into two states. it starts in ky, crosses into wv, then.....

 

crosses back into ky and finishes in wv. i'm not bragging on my guns in these pics, i'm trying to show off my mile hash marks, but you can't really see them.

 

ten miles more!!

 

part of the reason why the course is not certified is because you run through random obstacles. like two miles of mud, and

 

a swinging bridge. about halfway through i made the comment that i felt like indiana jones in the temple of doom and we held hands after that and crossed as quickly as possible.

 

me, on the swinging bridge with train full of coal rushing by in the background. i know it sounds stupid, but i often forget how close we are to coal country.

 

at a water stop arond mile 21, i got a cup of water from this woman and walked a few steps, then turned around and asked her if she was in wal-mart the night before. she said yes, and i asked if i cut in front of her looking for a tide pen. she couldn't believe i recognized her. it's a small world. or rural west virginia, one.

  

last hash mark!

 

only race i've ever been in where you get cold wet towels at the end - very thoughtful! finishers got medals and a special mason jar!

The race finish was just a couple of blocks from the church, so we walked back, got cleaned up and got ready to head back home.

amber, miss linda, miss joyce and me in front of our duplex.

 

So yea! Fifth marathon complete. The last marathon I ran I was fighting horrible depression and in a really crappy place, personally and professionally. I don't know how I managed during that time, but I did. It's good knowing that I put a bookend to that chapter and have this as the "last" marathon I ran. There's already some talk about Charleston in November, so who knows.

 

Team BCBB, peace OUT!