Hi everyone…it’s Jay.
I wanted to leave a little update as to the girls’ progress on the walk: two days down, one to go!
The girls are hanging tough, but all stories about the walk will be about the agony of the feet! Blisters, bruised ankles, corns…oh my!
Erika wanted me to thank everyone who has supported the team, and to encourage people to send her a text message.

I was in the mall with the girls this afternoon, picking up last minute supplies and feasting on all the carb-loaded, fat-laden junk we’ve avoided for the last year – I mean, c’mon, 60 miles – it’s not like we’re not going to walk off those french fries!
We were standing in line when a woman started up a conversation with us. She saw my 3-Day t-shirt and asked if we were doing the walk. She told us how her sister just celebrated her 5-year anniversary as a survivor, and I asked for her name to add to the pink ribbons on my pack. She wrote it down for me, and then insisted that we take a donation right then and there. It simply amazes me how many people have been touched by breast cancer.
If you gave me an “In honor of” name when you donated, I’ve got a ribbon for her on my pack. If anyone wants me to add a name, I’ve got extra ribbons and pins – send a text message with the name anytime over the weekend.
It’s nearing bedtime, but I wanted to share this quote: You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen. But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your soul’s own doing. – Marie Carmichael Stopes
I can’t wait to spend the next three days with beautiful women who do amazing things, laughing and crying and walking and stumbling and sharing stories and hearing about the very amazing women we’re doing this walk in honor of. I’m not going to lie – I completely fear the physical pain of the walk – but I know it’s so going to be worth the emotional journey and memories I’m going to take away with me and worth knowing I’m doing something for a cause that’s important to me and to people I love.
Have a good weekend, beautiful people – and if you feel so inclined, please feel free to send us encouragement and messages. We can check my cell every so often, and your support would be wonderful – especially around mile 19 on Day 2, I’m sure!

Phone call to my mom this afternoon:
“Hey mom, instead of giving more money to the Komen foundation, which already has $2400 of our closest friends and family’s money, why not give to the ‘Your-daughter-is-too-poor-to-buy-the-gear-necessary-and-has-already-spent-over-$400-just-to-walk-the-60-miles-that-raised-the-$2400-to-begin-with Foundation?’”
God. I haven’t hit up my folks for money since college. Still, I’m yay happy that she’s sending a check our way next week. I may be all about raising money for a good cause – and risking “mild trauma” for that cause – but I’m also all about paying our mortgage on time, too!
So Team LiveStrong – me, Jessie and Su (we will be thinking of you, Amy!) – will wait in line with 4,000 other walkers tomorrow to check in, and then begin our walk Friday morning after the Opening Ceremony. I’ll try to audblog along the way, or at least each night when we get back to camp. I’ll also likely post one last time before the whirlwind weekend begins.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who donated. I wouldn’t be able to do this if it hadn’t been for your support. Muchmuchmuch special love everyone who donated and to everyone who sent positive vibes the last few months, including (but certainly not limited to!):

Alisa at gingerbreadwisdomplum

Emily at the remedy

Jennifer at the working mom

Kymberlie at Neurotic Fishbowl

Hugin & Munin

Rita at Gossip Lounge

Michelle at Ya Gotta Believe

Wendy at Twodolla

Amanda at Expressions

Melanie at Desiderata

Margie at Buzzaroni

Lisa at Glimpse of a Grrl

Matt at The Perils of Being in 3-D

Geraldine at Teegee.net

Monochromatic Girl

Robyn at Shutterblog

Princess at Yoga Princess

Michele

Matt (who better starting posting again soon!) at I, Geekus

Patricia at LunaNina

Christine at Big Pink Cookie

Deb at Deblog
- and many other bloggers whom I know donated but I can’t put the email you donated from and your blog url together in my head (please email me and let me know!) , countless blogless friends and family (you know who you are) – and most importantly, the hubby, who got up early and walked with me when he didn’t have to, who put up with me and my whining, training, blisters, crying and still loved me through it all.
You all rock! Now one last request – pleasepleaseplease send lots of positive anti-blister-you-can-do-it! vibes our way this weekend as we push through 90° humidity to walk those 60 miles. And if you’re in the area and want to come cheer us on, the cheering stations are listed in the more. We’d love to see you!

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“Ahhh, cherry tomatoes. Little bursts of tomatoey goodness.” – JessBess
Our garden is out of control. I’ve given up trying to keep things neat and organized, and quite frankly, I’ve grown to love it BECAUSE of its craziness. String beans are growing where the seeds happened to fall after I left them out on the railing. Tomato vines are twisting over pepper plants, zucchini plants and cucumbers are climbing the walls, and we still haven’t figured out how that tall plant thing is supposed to be lettuce. Apparently, the place where we got our veggies isn’t the greatest and everything was mislabeled. Our jalepenos actually turned out to be bell peppers, and we have yet to identify two or three random plants. It’s like finding little surprise presents everytime we poke around to see what’s growing.

So I scooped Stinky Walker up from the cozy place on the floor where he was happily resting his stinky self, and cuddled him in my arms, hoping he would sleep on my lap. As I sat down next to Jay on the couch, Walker started his “Get your hands off of me or I’ll breathe my decaying stench on you – oh wait, I’m going to do it anyway” growl, jumped out of my arms and went full tilt for the window -
apparently not realizing that it was closed. The echo of his head against the glass really shouldn’t have been nearly as funny as it was.
Poor kitty. Heh.

Red Hat – Company founder Marc Ewing was given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes) while at college by his grandfather. People would turn to him to solve their problems, and he was referred to as ‘that guy in the red hat’. He lost the cap and had to search for it desperately. The manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux had an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found by anyone.

The origins of many company names. Really cool. (Thanks Kathy!)

Randomness:

One of my ESL students used the movie “Scarf Face” in her paper as evidence of violence in the media. I’m sorry, I understand language barriers, but that was just beyond cute.

Another student told a room of mixed-religion students that the reason we non-Christians don’t believe in God was solely because we wanted to do bad things and not feel guilty about them. Not cool. THAT was a fun “discussion” to mediate.

Jay and I swapped school stories over dinner, and I learned that my husband had gotten ISS once for insubordination. No…. not MY husband. Not insubordination! That’s soooo unlike him. Nevermind that the insubordination was refusing to remove Victoria Secret pictures from his locker. The horror! And to think, no teacher asked me to remove MY pictures of Stephanie Seymour. Clearly blatant sexism, I tell you! That ISS should be wiped from his PERMANENT RECORD!

I realized, over dinner that ten years from now some of MY students might be talking about me the very same way we were talking about our old teachers! Freaky.

I talked to one of my old girls today – she’s away at college. She told me that she has a corkboard on her bedroom wall with pictures of her sister, her mom, me & Alisa, and under the pictures it says, “They got you here, now you do the rest.” How sweet is that? Love you, A.

DNC day one, down, no casualties. One more day to go.
The trek home was painless! I swear, the media hyped up the horrors simply so that we would all go, “Now that wasn’t too bad, now was it?” I made it home in a little over an hour – less time than my normal commute takes. I really believe they scared everyone into staying home, because I flew almost the entire way home, and I left the city at the height of rush hour. I LOVE the DNC!
Like the wonderful husband he is (who tolerates my complete freaking out when I’m smack dab in the middle of a major Boston intersection, screaming on the phone that I’m going to die and I have NO idea where I’m going and DIDN’THEKNOW that traffic is backing up ATTHISVERYMOMENT on EVERYSINGLEMAJORROAD I needed to take and GETMEOUTOFHERERIGHTNOW), Jay had a bottle of wine waiting for me when I got home. My camera came in the mail, all better. My evaluation with my supervisor this afternoon was kick-ass (I’m a “tremendous asset” to the program and I “truly connect” with the kids on “all levels the program strives for” – have I mentioned I love teaching?). The coffeemaker came back from the dead miraculously while Jay was on the phone with the people at Cuisinart, and I don’t need to be up at 4:30 tomorrow morning – but when I do get up that much-needed half hour of sleep later at 5, coffee will be waiting. Yay!
Makes me wonder what those 165,231 meltdowns in the past 24 hours were all about.
The only major icky part of the day – my mom’s been having some medical problems the past few days, and she finally went to the doctor today. They couldn’t get her in with the specialist she needed to see, and essentially told her to go to the ER if it got intolerable overnight. I’ll be keeping the phone on the nightstand, and I’m sure I’ll be on edge all night, waiting for that call from my dad. We’ll know more tomorrow afternoon. If necessary, I’ll make the trek down to NY tomorrow evening to spend time with her, should they admit her for anything. We’ll see how things play out.
So… that was my day, and now I’m off to finally crash and burn, hopefully after a nice massage from the hubby, because he rocks like that (hint, hint Jay ). How was your day?

Nothing like waiting until three-quarters through the summer job to discover just where the computer lab is on campus. *heh*
The commute in this morning was a joke. There was no traffic. I’m not sure if it was because of the god-awful hour in which I left or if it was because two-thirds of the city made good on their threat to work from home this week. I was out of the house by 5:30 and on campus by 6:15 – which left me a good hour and forty-five minutes to wander aimlessly around Kenmore square – and let me tell you, there is definitely a very different element in Kenmore at 6:30 in the morning. I’m not easily shaken, but there were definitely a few characters that had me looking over my shoulder as I walked to get coffee.
I was still trying to shake the grumpies when I discovered that my first paycheck of the program was finally in – and it was a good third more than I had anticipated. It’s amazing how a little more money totally changed my perspective on dealing with the commute in.
All in all – not to terribly inconvenienced by the DNC yet. I avoided battling everyone on the way in simply by leaving wicked early, but I’ll be leaving with everyone at 5. If you want a call while I’m parked in traffic on the way home, send me a text message with your phone number and I’ll see what I can do.

Being up at 4:30 to leave by 5:30 to make it into the city to teach at 8 sucks.
I live 37 miles from the city for chrissakes. I hate the DNC.
I hate even more that our coffeemaker just oddly decided to die while we were gone. Our wonderfully expensive grinds-it-makes-it-fresh coffeemaker my sister got us for our shower. I’m up at 4:30 on no sleep and no yummy coffee. Not the best way to start the week that ends with walking 60 freaking miles!
(Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who donated while I was gone, by the way! I haven’t had a chance to look at who/what/when, but I will! And if they didn’t ask you for an address, please send it to me, ok?)
And my supervisor wants to meet to discuss the classroom observation they did on me two weeks ago during the only break I get today. 2 hours driving, 4 hours teaching, meeting, teaching, meeting, teaching – until 5, when I get to hop in the car for what I anticipate will be a three-hour drive home.
And I have to drive into the city because they closed the commuter rail and because I’m not T’ing it because I don’t trust anyone and now a 37-mile drive is going to take me over 2 hours.
Not a happy eka at all. AND I HAVE NO COFFEE!!!! Definitely one unhappy me.