Fidget

Once again this year, I ran our local Butte-to-Butte 10k on July 4th. I decided my goal for this year was going to be to finish in under an hour. Last year was so, so hot - I wondered if I should carry a water bottle rather than depend on the water stations which can get congested and cause delays. BN offered to wait along the course with a bottle for me, so that worked out well. He didn’t register for the race but ran on a nearby trail and then the last couple of miles after giving me the water. I could see him getting gradually further ahead of me. There’s usually a guy at each mile marker calling out the elapsed time, and mine were hovering at the 10-minute mile mark - 21, 29, 39… the 5th mile didn’t have anyone. But I knew I would be cutting it close if I indeed made it in under an hour. BN popped out from the sideline near the 6 mile marker and urged me to speed up, I still had a chance! Aaaagh! I put on a burst of speed and caught sight of the finish clock in the middle distance. 59:33… 34… 35… ! Another burst of speed and I staggered across the finish line gasping, oh-my-god-oh-my-god! (There are videos of 5-minute increments of the finishes here but my browser won’t let me see it so I don’t know if I show up or whether I look like a complete idiot. You’ll have to check it out and let me know! I’m wearing a green tank top, black shorts and my white-and-green “track town USA” bandana for good luck (from the olympic trials, left behind on a bleacher near us)

While I was trying to get some breaths of air and waiting for the timing chip to be cut from my shoe (hi-tech this year!) a guy next to me leaned over and vomited. Gross! I looked away and edged to the side. I took some more gasping breaths. I looked to the left again just in time to see the vomiting guy hurl again. Great. I finished level with the vomiting guy. At least I wasn’t the one barfing.

My official time was 59:54! Yay! As they would say at the Trials, that’s a PR for me!

For more than a year, Eugene has been a-buzz with news of the 2008 Track & Field Olympic Trials to be held here at the U of O Hayward Field. Evidently the Trials used to be held here every 4 years and now they are back after an absence - renewing much pride in our title of “Track Town USA.” Finally the big week arrived!

BN and I got to go see the Monday events. He’s teaching a morning class this term so I rode my bike to campus (no parking within a 2 mile radius of the venue!) to meet him there. Before entering we scarfed down the sandwiches I’d packed (no outside food or beverages, you must fork it over for overpriced festival food) and got to the field right as the first event was starting, the men’s decathlon 110m Hurdles. Those went so quickly that I didn’t get any good photos - those guys probably had to count every step to stay in sync with the hurdles, and I couldn’t even get my shutter finger in gear quick enough. Oh, well.

The rest of the daytime session was decathlon events - next was the Discus Throw. This was also hard to capture on film since the throwers were in a small “batting cage” down at the opposite corner of the infield from us. But we had a good view of the distance markers and we were amused to note that they used remote-control toy trucks to carry the thrown discuses (disci?) back to the starting point.

(Click on the pictures to see them bigger)

One of the most interesting and suspenseful events to watch was the Pole Vault. There was some complications around who started at what bar height, but basically how it worked is each athlete had 3 attempts to clear the bar, and if he made it he’d go on to attempt the next height increment. So the decathletes were gradually eliminated until the only ones left were Tom Pappas of the top-3 superstars and Ashton Eaton, a local darling from the UO track team, only 19 years old. TP set a new personal record (PR) and AE cleared almost every attempt, rapidly rising to almost the same height as TP. Yay!

We jammed out of there to grab an early dinner at McMenamin’s, our preferred burger joint about a block from Hayward Field. (no overpriced festival food for us!) When we got back the Javelin Throw was under way.

The evening session started to get a little crazy, with multiple events going on at once - the men’s Hammer Throw which was actually outside the main field; women’s High Jump and Long Jump (we didn’t get a great view of those) and Javelin; and lots of running. Here’s a picture that shows the big screen where we could see some closeups and instant replays that we would have missed otherwise; the sand pits for Long Jump and the High Jump poles with landing pads. The men are lining up for their 400m Dash semifinal.

It was so much fun to be at the trials and see a little bit of everything. We watched 2 semifinal heats of women’s 3000m Steeplechase - the girls have to run about 8 laps with several obstacles consisting of a fixed jump thingy (don’t want to call it a hurdle, not sure what the real name for it is) and a puddle of water. I’ve run across obstacles like these out in the wild while backpacking - downed trees and muddy creeks. Glad I didn’t have to run and jump… (but those girls didn’t have 20 lb loads on their backs, either.)

The stadium really filled up by the time the evening session was in full swing, and the peak of crowd-cheering intensity came during the astonishing finish of the men’s 800m final. Just twice around the track, the top 3 finishers came from behind for a flashy finish - and all Oregon-sponsored. 2 from the Oregon Track Club and one from the U of O. Rock on, home team!

We got to watch our decathletes complete their final event, the 1500m. The top 3 guys didn’t finish first in the run, but their cumulative scores were secured from the preceding events. Those decathletes deserve serious props for their well-rounded skills and stamina. Very impressive! Here they are on their post-awards-ceremony victory lap:

To wrap up the evening we watched the men’s 5000m final. For the first half at least, one guy was way out in front and the rest were in a tight pack. That was kind of a different approach than we’d seen all day. He eventually fell back to the middle-rear but we mused how the race results had been affected - maybe everyone ran faster because of him?

After an enjoyable and inspiring day, I was a bit sore from spending so much time sitting on bleacher seats, but all fired up to run the 10k on the Glorious 4th - thinking that 2008 is a fun year to be a resident of Track Town USA.

Last weekend was the annual Black Sheep Gathering - a fiber festival at the Lane County Fairgrounds in Eugene. I rode my bike over there - lucky me - some people come from far and wide and camp out in the field behind the fairgrounds. I could tell when I was getting close… and after awhile I just had to follow my nose. Sheep are cute, but they smell.

Look at the horns on that guy! I ran across my friend S from the Monday night knitting group and we strolled around admiring the sheep. There were big white sheep…

And little black sheep…

And, when I went back on Sunday, I got to watch a sheep get sheared. She was big and looked funny sitting there on her bum.

Besides all the critters, there was a huge market with all kinds of fiber-arts related goodies: spinning wheels and drum carders, buttons and shawl pins, knitting bags and handknit garments, roving for spinning and lots and lots and lots of YARN. Some knitters in my group had been planning for months about what they were going to buy at Black Sheep. But I was totally overwhelmed, there was no way for me to evaluate and choose something for a purpose or with intention. But, I did end up at the Blue Moon booth and buy some Socks That Rock. I’d heard and seen a lot of good about the yarn and it was easy to find 2 color schemes that I liked. Mmmm, pretty soft yarn. Very nice.

Later on Sunday I went to hang out with another knitting friend, M. She was spinning with her mom out in front of their house. When I got there she offered to give me a spinning lesson on one of their several extra wheels. (They are quite the fiber family.) So I learned how to spin! The concept is easy but I can see how it must take a lot of practice to get consistent yarn. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture. But I felt like that was a fitting conclusion to a fiber-arts themed weekend.

Last Friday we went strawberry picking.

They charge by the bucket, so we picked two full buckets and felt like that was probably enough. When we transferred them into the bowls we’d brought from home, we realized two buckets’ worth was a lot!

We also saw a freaky white spider (I’ll keep the image small for arachnophobes, click if you aren’t afraid to see it larger):

We’ve had a strawberry-filled week since then. We had strawberry cocktails, strawberries wrapped in crepes with yogurt (yum!!!), strawberries with ice cream, and I froze two large bags full for use in smoothies. Cool.

Today was World Wide Knit in Public day. Luckily it was also a Sunny Weather day, otherwise knitting in Eugene would have to be not-any-more-public-than-usual! I was sitting outside the Knit Shop with some knitters. A car drove up in front of the coffee shop nearby and the driver started honking the horn… apparently she was trying to get the attention of someone inside the coffee shop… not considering the knitters and farmers market shoppers who were deafened by the earsplitting honks. Just then, one of the knitter’s greyhound dog that was sitting with us started howling, a slow, melodious howl that lasted just a bit longer than you’d expect for a pair of mammal lungs. Evidently he heard a siren in the distance, his owner said he always howls with sirens. I couldn’t hear the siren, really, and I wonder if the honking driver thought maybe she’d provoked the howling. A little bit later I noticed a very old, feeble man getting into her car - and I wondered why she’d been honking for him rather than going into the shop. Must have been in an all-consuming hurry, or something…

Suddenly, the greyhound went bounding across the parking lot, his leash had gotten caught on a metal folding chair and he got scared and tried to escape, but the chair was still attached to him and clattered alarmingly against the pavement. One blink and he was already across the opposite street, and we gasped in horror as he sped uphill toward the main drag, a busy street with 2 lanes in both directions. In the time it took me to think that we should all have jumped up and chased after him he was already out of sight, and none of us could have come close to keeping up let alone catching him, and he was towing that chair as if it were a plastic bag. The owner did set out after him, and the woman next to me anxiously murmured that Eugenian motorists would definitely stop for a dog. (That is, if they even saw him, tearing along approaching the speed of sound!)

We were relieved to see him come safely back with his owner and her friend, mostly OK except for a bloody foot. (I think the chair had scraped it.) One of the other knitters got a first aid kit out of her car and someone held onto him while 2 others worked on bandaging him up. He stayed pretty calm except his brown eyes looked a little bulgy and he let out one sharp bark of protest.

I have been reading a volume of “short novels” by Anton Chekhov, and in the current story the narrator mentioned cruel adolescent townsfolk who would tie an empty kerosene can to a dog’s tail and the poor thing would run himself ragged trying to escape… I felt it was an odd coincidence that I’d just read that a day or two before today’s dog/chair incident.

Yesterday I tootled around on my bike. I’d waited all week for the combination of free time and nice weather. (After our crazy upper-90’s heat wave last weekend, we had a cold rainy week)

First I went to the church to help sort all the dishes and supplies into the new kitchen. It’s a lovely new kitchen, the other one was very old. The new one has a lot more storage and is all clean and shiny.

Later I rode over to the Knit Shop to hang out and knit. They recently moved to a different unit in the same shopping complex, so they had a sale and I got a book for 25% off. It’s called New Pathways for Sock Knitters, and I had checked it out from the library (had to wait in a long list - there are a lot of knitters in Eugene.) I was already pretty sure I wanted my own copy. I’ve already started the Spiraling Coriolis socks that have a shaped instep in the form of a spiral band that winds its way up the foot. Nifty.

I think the closest I’ve come to being acquainted with a celebrity is my friend Eugen Beugler. I didn’t realize he was fairly famous in the knitting world until after I’d spent a few afternoons knitting in the Shop. He’s a fixture there, and designs lace patterns for Fiber Trends. He’s the most cheerful and gracious 80-something that I know, and I know a few.
Yesterday, we were sitting around the knitting table and the shop was gradually filling up with post-lunch shoppers and knitters. One of the employees brought the laptop over to the table to show EB a project that a friend of hers had adapted from one of his lace designs - it was a beautiful chuppah, for a traditional Jewish wedding. We’d barely finished exclaiming over that when a woman came over and said, “Eugen… is that you??” She’d been a co-worker of his about 20 years ago and he’d given her an incomplete afghan project to finish. Then, an old friend came in and reminisced for awhile about taking workshops from Elizabeth Zimmerman back in the day. EB was mentioned in a recent Interweave Knits article about EZ. We like to tease him gently about what a celebrity he is, all the while so pleased he’s part of our local knitting community.

It didn’t start to rain again until the evening. I was glad to have gotten a day out on my bike.

Last night Barak Obama returned to Eugene to address the townsfolk at the U of O campus. He’d been there about a month ago, and we’d been amazed to see the line of people waiting to get into the basketball arena stretching clear around the entire sports area, a good city block. This time we were on campus again and decided to join the lineup and pack into the library quad for this second rally.

I felt very American, going to see a presidential candidate - never done that before. In spite of (or maybe because of) my lack of experience with campaign speeches, I was struck by Obama’s sincere and personable demeanor. The people there were excited and eager to throw their support behind his ideals of change. The idea of changing how the country is run, the idea of finally solving the problems that have plagued us for decades - the idea of bringing the war to an end. These are admirable goals. Is this “change we can believe in?” If we just believe it hard enough, wave enough “HOPE” signs, will it happen?

We had quite awhile to wait before the speech, packed together with lots of young Eugenians and a smaller number of middle aged ones. A youngish man sitting just in front of us had a Barak Obama campaign image sewed to his jacket. As he stood up, another patch became visible: a cross (Christ) crossed out, in the red “no-smoking” style. I guess that’s not the kind of hope this crowd is looking for. But I believe it’s the only real hope there is, the only kind that’s not just wishful thinking.

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” Romans 5:1-5

So, it’s starting to get a little ridiculous. This is what I saw when I got up this morning. Or, actually, once I was up, showered, and walked out to the living room - BN chuckled as I looked out the window and my jaw dropped.

It SNOWED. A good couple of inches. What month is it again? oh, yeah… April. April-stinkin-20th!

I just checked the Weather Widget. It’s supposed to get up to the high 50’s later this week. Oh, goody.

A Seattle blogger coined a great term for the odd season in between Winter and Spring. “Unsprung.” Perfect.

One week ago today it was in the 80’s here in Eugene. As I write this, what is falling from the sky includes a few flakes of snow. I’m just sayin.’

Saturday was an absolutely beautiful day. Supposedly it got all the way up to 74, which felt more like high 80’s since we’d been stuck in the low 50’s in recent months. I was driving around town in the earlier part of the day, doing errands and gathering supplies for my silkscreening class that I’m taking at the Craft center. Later in the afternoon BN and I took a bike ride to Coldstone Creamery, which was doing a brisk trade on the sudden hot day.

No matter that this week has been cold and rainy again…