Three words: Neosporin Pain Relief

The Procedure, Part II:
1) discover that popped blister is red and infected
2) apply Neosporin three times a day
3) it stays infected
4) decide to take a solo training walk anyway
5) it hurts
6) ignore it
7) it hurts
8) it hurts
9) stop, pull out supplies, apply extremely spiffy dressing made of moleskin and medical tape
10) it feels great
11) finish the walk
11) brag

ARGH. Lots of stress. Last-minute stuff for the 3-Day. A million errands. Spending too much money. Not enough time to do even half the things we need or want to do. And also suddenly talking about travel later this summer -- Tony has developers in Morocco, Barcelona, Paris and Romania, so must figure out how many of those to combine into one trip, and how much it will cost for me to tag along. Probably too many and too much.

And it's still too windy to go write in the dangle chair.

The Procedure:
1) walk 58.5 miles in two weekends.
2) get a blister the size of your big toe... on the side of your big toe.
3) soak blister in tub while you build up your nerve.
4) hold nail scissors in an open flame for ten seconds.
5) snip bottom of blister.
6) brag.
7) get out of tub, howl in pain. Without their protective bubble, blisters are a lot more sensitive.
8) bandage.
9) brag.

Note to Self: do not use regular medical tape to hold toe-cup on little toe. Moleskin costs more, but it does not rip all your skin off when you remove it after a long walk.

Other than the tape mishap, we are loving walking to Palo Alto on the weekends. The walk seems to get shorter every time (actually 12 or 15.5 miles, depending on our route,) the sun more bearable, and we always get a great welcome when we arrive at my family's house. Mom even bought our favorite salami and baked a big tray of vegetables today, because we enjoyed them so much last weekend.

Now we'll see how our feet feel after another 15.5 tomorrow.

Tony flew home last night, and I had treats waiting for him. A brand-new XBox -- courtesy of Ubisoft -- sitting downstairs. Also a new game I pre-installed on his system, and a box with, finally, our Dragonflies. (They are <1 oz windbreakers made by Patagonia, but out of stock almost everywhere and took ages to find.) He brought ME Aero bars -- my super-favorite Canadian chocolate bars. So we are pleased with one another.

Today he is wearing his lucky blue shirt because he has a big presentation to make. Send good vibes...

Surprise -- Tony has been last-minute whisked away to Toronto to visit a developer. He won't be home until late Thursday. Next week, probably New York. It's all very exciting, though we're not getting a single frequent flier mile; they put him on some goofy airline we don't have an account with. Argh.

Bisters. One on my big toe. One along the top of the ball of my foot. And two huge ones -- one white, one yellow -- on my little toe. Very much like walking on razors. We finally cobbled together a combination of padded moleskin, regular moleskin, and gel-filled elastic toe cup that allowed me to finish our 31-mile weekend with good humor. Disgusting, though. When we peeled everything off this evening, we were both highly impressed with how Eco-Challenge my foot looks.

(His feet, and my other foot, are fine. Just this one went haywire.)

Tony swears the alarm only went off once. Maybe I heard the cellphone ringing downstairs? I doubt it highly, but anything's possible.

Woke up at 5 am in a state of inner rebellion. Did NOT want to walk another fifteen miles today. Did NOT want to walk sixty miles in four weeks. Did NOT want to climb any mountain at all, ever, let alone the highest peak in Africa. Now I'm awake again and feeling better, but the alarm has gone off three times in the bedroom and Tony has not gotten out of bed. I don't have the heart to go rouse him, in case he's going through a similar crisis.

Quote of the day:

"Sail forth--steer for the deep waters only,
Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all."

Finished our first fifteen miles of the weekend! Fifteen more tomorrow, and in the meantime we're eating low-fat ice cream sandwiches and watching the Hudsucker Proxy DVD. Our feet are a bit sore but muscles and tendons just fine, so far. We went to the drugstore to augment or stock of moleskin and toe gel cups and that sort of thing, and we'll see how we feel this time tomorrow.

Yesterday a bombshell -- my dad & his family are preparing, probably, to move out of the Bay Area. Still absobing this. Very unsettling.

Got a last minute invitation to my sister Megan's high school graduation this afternoon. Tony can't come because of work, so I'm going on my own. Problem is, the only pants that fit me are jeans, and this is a no-jeans occassion, so I just had a marathon session sprinting through the mall.

Irene is coming over tonight so she can join us on our fifteen-miler tomorrow. The weather looks reasonably mild so we might just survive. Only 28 days till the walkathon!

Me with my notebook in the dangle chair, out there for hours writing and eating pickles. Life is fine.

Walked twelve miles to Palo Alto yesterday, then did it again today. Today was harder, mostly because it is HOT out there. Next weekend we'll do the same thing, but go the long way around to increase the mileage to fifteen. Will we perish? It is possible. Stay tuned.

Now preparing for a BBQ with our friends Adrienne and Toni. Toni drives the BugMobile on weekends, showing scorpions and centipedes and spiders and such to kids. I can't wait to hear about it -- I wonder if they need a volunteer?

They set up a huge Samples Trailer in front of our market yesterday. Outside was a tent with munchies to taste -- stir-fry and peanut butter and catfish and V8 Splash -- and inside were thousands of recipe cards ("We ask that you limit yourself to twenty-five) and more samples to bring home -- little sugar-free jellies and Balance bars and goldfish crackers. I found it on a morning errand walk, and Tony and I had a blast there when he got home.

Today it is gone. I went to the market to drop off some mail, and found the parking lot empty. It was a little depressing. I wanted peanut butter.

Tony brought twelve brand-new games home from work today, for review. Twelve! We're gonna have so much fun...

Rhonda and I just finished our 12 mile walk, and guess what... we're NOT EXHAUSTED!

To show you this, I've just updated my Games section, finally adding some details and stories to the EA.com section, as well as offically creating a new Ubi Soft page. Hope you will enjoy it.

Tony

Walked seven miles to the Foster City street fair, then met Mom there and got her fitted with a toe ring. Then a trip to Target for camping supplies -- a pair of those silver emergency blankets, glow sticks, a flashlight/lantern, that sort of thing.

Tonight we're spending the night on the floor testing our new sleeping bags. We'll open the windows for authentic Brrr Factor and see how it works out.