Cats & Allergies--Uh-Oh.

Being allergic to cats and having two of them we keep indoors, I'm used to having a semi-constant sniffle. But something unknown has happened the last three weeks and I am a heaving, dripping, snotty, sneezing allergic wreck of a person.

It's definitely something at home causing the problem. I'm fine when I'm in my car or out for the day. But within an hour of returning home I have to remove  my contacts because they're covered in eye gunk.  I'm blowing my nose every five minutes and half the time I sound like Mushmouth from the old Fat Albert show because I'm talking through my stuffed up nose.  My eyes stay raw and red-rimmed from my rubbing them so much and I wake up every 30 minutes at night with dry mouth because I'm breathing through my mouth instead of my nose.

We're not doing anything different - no new washing detergent or plants or anything like that. We're not cleaning quite as often as we used to, so that probably contributes as does the constant rain we've been  having ("mold" is one of  my strongest allergies). But I have to face facts that it's the cats who are making me miserable.

Not that I intend to do anything about that other than suck it up and take it. I am trying to get better about washing my hands after I touch a cat.  (So now I'm washing my hands about 80 times/day. ) But I'm pretty much taking the road of "maybe if I ignore it, it will go away on it's own."

Give up my cats? NEVER!  I'll explode first. 

From Start to Finish

Happy 4th! I ran my first 5k this morning at the 11th Annual Rotary Club 4th of July 5K Run in Kernersville, NC.  To the left you'll see me, R. and M. before the race.  My time was 28:57 which translates into a 9 minute 20 second mile. I finished 9th in my age division (Women 35-39). That sounds impressive until I tell you there were only 15 women in my division! The winner in my age group had a time of 20:50, which averages out to a 6 minute 43 second mile. You betcha.

 I had a lot of fun but it was harder than I would have thought. When I jog around town, I probably trot at about a 10-minute mile. So the pace was a good bit faster here.  Even so, I was s-l-o-w compared to the people who were running to win. The serious racers were jogging warm-up miles before the race actually started. The course was set up so you ran 1/2 way, turned around and ran back the way you came. I wasn't even to the halfway point when the lead runners passed me on their way to the finish. These people were moving.The overall winner was a 19-year old boy with a time of 19 minutes, or a 6:08 mile.

M. won her age division for women. We whooped it up when her name was announced. 

The best part was that starting out, there was a dad behind me pushing a running stroller with two 3-year-olds in it.  You'd think I'd stand a chance, right? Ha. I ate his dust. Didn't even see him after about the first 4 minutes. He smoked me and most of the people around us.

Then there was the 74 year-old woman who just beat me across the finish line. I found out later that she's like a national champion or something in her age group so I was slightly mollified but still...74.  

But I definitely have the bug now.  There was something intoxicating bout feeling a part of this group of people stretching and milling about with our numbers pinned to our shirts. We were competing, yes, but there was a bond there was well. We were all there for the same reason. We all tread the same ground--some faster than others, but the same ground nonetheless. It was like being part of a brotherhood. I felt like I had been let into the ranks of a privileged group.

I can't wait for the next race. 

Service in a Small Town

On more than one occasion I have had friends visit me in the small, rural North Carolina town where I live and say, "So. What do you do around here?"

Rocking on the front porch isn't for everyone. And I do miss being able to run out to dinner or a movie and not have it be a four-hour event, once travel time is included. But  there are distinct advantages to small town life. One of them is service.

Just last week there was a knock on my front door. It was my mailman, holding a letter I'd put out to be mailed but had forgotten to stamp. "Do you have one handy?" he asked. "I'll wait." I ran upstairs and got a stamp and my letter was mailed out. Good service.

My dry cleaners knows both Blair and I by name, and that we pick up our cleaning on Saturday mornings. They don't even give us tickets for our clothes--it's more of a handshake basis. And if the owner is there when I drive up, he always steps out to greet me and asks if the service meets my standards. Lovely folk.

The year Blair and I moved into town there was a gift shop that has since closed in one of the older homes on the main street. We'd found a few Christmas gifts for co-workers but didn't buy them, planning on coming back. But our schedules never worked out with store hours and we called to see if maybe the items could be charged and shipped to us.  "Oh Heavens. I'll just leave the items in a bag on the back porch and you can slip your check under the door," said the owner. And that's just what happened. Any chance that might happen where you live?

 So I may not live in the most exciting town in the nation, but it's got it's strong points. Stellar service, porch parties, lemondade stands run by kids, beauty pagants with 8 contestants and cheesy Fall fairs with face painting and funnel cakes...

I wouldn't trade it.

New Client

On Friday I had a woman e-mail me and ask what I would charge to help her put together a personal commercial (elevator speech) for a a new product she's selling.  In her first e-mail to me she signed only her first name.

Now, one of my lesser traits is not admitting when I don't know who someone is. I don't want to insult anyone and after a few minutes conversation or interaction I can usually place who they are. So I assumed this woman was someone I had met recently and acted accordingly. I e-mailed I'd be happy to help her and mentioned I would be in Greensboro on X day, in case she wanted to meet.

She e-mailed back that she'd prefer to call, as she was in Canada. Ha! Turns out she Googled "freelance writers" and found me that way. (Which makes me very happy that my name showed up. Although I tried the same query and gave up looking for my name after 6 pages didn't turn it up. Does Google show different results for different countries?) 

She sent me the web site for her product and this is going to be a fun assignment. We're going to talk Monday.

It's interesting. Having done just the tiniest bit of that goal-setting exercise, new work seems to be flowing to me. But that's not the interesting part. What makes me say "hmmm" is that I wrote down that I prefer to work on books and big projects and my life's dream is not to be a magazine writer. And yet, most of the work flowing to me are magazine and smaller assignments. It's a test, I'm sure.  Am I ready to put my money (literally) where my mouth is and turn down paying assignments in a field I claim I don't want in order to work for no money in a field I say I want?

 No way, baby! Bring on the cash! What am I--some sort of fool?  (Don't answer that...)  =)

Happy Sunday to everyone.
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Running update: Ran for a full hour yesterday morning. Had plans to get up this morning and run again but slammed my alarm off and rolled back over for another 2 hours sleep. Two steps forward, one step back.