Now Norma Knits

Fitter Knitters Represent at the Vermont City Marathon

So about that running thing.

Yesterday I was joined by four wonderful women to run the relay race in the Vermont City Marathon.

The Fitter Knitters

(Our shirts got us a lot of attention and friendly inquiries and photo ops! If you would like to get a shirt like ours, go ahead and go here and order one. They will put your name on the back if you ask. You can search around if you want one with sleeves like Lisa has, on the right in the photo. Or different colors. Whatever you want.)

I'm completely new at this marathon huge race thing, and thankfully at a dinner party the other night, a friend who has run this race gave me a tip about making sure I lined up in the right place for my expected pace. I've been running 10-minute miles in most of my races. I was hoping to run 9 this time, but I decided to undershoot rather than overshoot, and lined up with the 10s.

~~~

One of my teammates, Kat, shot this photo at the start line. I'd be some little speck over there by that 10:00 flag by the white house. I was standing right next to that flag. It was a mob scene, but a very sedate and happy and polite mob.

It was SUCH a beautiful day for a race right next to the Burlington waterfront and running through the city and neighborhoods of Burlington. The whole community embraces this race, with the most wonderful and supportive and entertaining crowds. I am very thankful there is a relay option -- otherwise I would never be able to participate in something like this. We learned a lot about things that worked well, and things we would do differently next year.

Yes, we are already talking about next year. Heh.

We got up at the crack of dawn -- 4:10 a.m. in my case -- we ate crockpot oatmeal, and Vermont bacon and fruit, and drank a little coffee. (Next time I would remember to drink more water, even though it is 4-freakin-something-a.m.)

Wheels up at 6 a.m. to head to Burlington.

We arrived at about 6:35 a.m., early enough that we snagged a prime parking spot in a nice shaded garage, verrrrry close to the race site. We walked the block to the waterfront, and turned around to see an ocean of people walking down the hill. Five minutes later, and we would have been fighting for parking. It was astonishing, really. So the extra-early departure was a good idea. It made for a very long day, and it messed up, maybe -- ahem -- some of our natural rhythms, if you know what I mean. But no matter.

In the first leg of the race, I saw a hot pink sign held by a spectator that seemed made just for me: "F*&king AWESOME!" In the first mile, I had terrible dry-mouth -- it felt like my tongue was a big wad of dry cotton. I was extremely worried about that. "Ohmygod, are you kidding me? I didn't drink enough water and I'm THIS dehydrated? I'm going to let my team down ON THE FIRST THREE MILES?!" But that fuckin' awesome sign made me smile against my dry teeth, and press on and hard (the first mile was up a hill, as well). My body quite quickly cooperated and released the probably-retained water from the salty bacon I had eaten that morning. My mouth became moistened and I felt fine, albeit a bit hot. SCORE ONE FOR BACON. And the human body.

Another sign that made me laugh: "Worst Parade EVER!"

At about Mile 2, I came upon a senior gentleman runner whose shirt said, "Larry. 1,300 Marathoner." People were congratulating him on the marathon he ran the week before, "Great job last week, Larry!" and asked him, "Is this 1,301?" He said, in a southern drawl, "Somethin' like that."

I Googled him just now. A lawyer from San Antonio! Fantastic!

I passed two people (and saw several more later in the day) whose shirts said, "50-State Marathon Club" (or something like that). The woman seemed to be being interviewed as she was running. I heard her say, "This is my 48th state." She was YOUNG. She seems to have a long running life ahead of her. Will she go through the 50 states TWICE? Or will she move on to something else, like swimming all the channels in the sea?

On Church Street, at about the 3-mile mark for me, a super-fabulous Patriotic Transvestite, dressed in ridiculously wonderful red-white-and-blue garb and sparkly outrageous blue glasses, was urging us on, to not slow down, to keep on moving. Made me smile so hard, made me bear down and speed up, and makes me smile again just remembering it. Even though at that moment I was hot and cranky and thinking, "SO glad I'm only doing 3.3 and not 26.2... or even 6."

During Kat's leg (I think it might have been the most difficult leg of the race), she was cheered on by bagpipes, bands, neighborhood parties, and maybe best of all, these Taiko drummers at the base of Burlington's version of heartbreak hill:

Taiko drummers at Vermont City Marathon from Norma Miller on Vimeo.

These guys helped to give her the will to get up that hill.

Kat made it up that hill and handed off the bracelet to Lisa. Lisa took off like a shot. On her leg of the race, she ran through lovely neighborhoods where property owners had their garden hoses on, spraying overheated runners if they wished to be sprayed for a cool-down.

More fun memories for me: A text message from Carol at 11:53:  "Still no Lisa."

Next text message was 12:04 from Lisa: "On bus." 

Made me laugh. Because in other words, Carol must have just barely pressed "send" on that text, and then, "OOOOOOPS, there's Lisa! RUNNN!"

(Lisa and Carol are pretty zippy!)

We all had the most fun time. At least two of us (Adrienne and I) had personal bests, as well. Smiles all around.

I managed to break away from the 10-minute milers about halfway of my little 3.3-mile portion of the race (the first leg), and kept pace with my hoped-for 9-minute milers. My average pace was 9:30/mile, according to my trusty Map My Run app:

Yeah, I was happy with that.

We sweated, we focused hard, we had packs of fun, and we got 'er done. We had laughs and wonderful camaraderie. It doesn't get any better than that. It was a beautiful, beautiful day. I feel sore but happy today, and I'm so appreciative for my teammates for joining me in this adventure.

A year ago, I didn't believe I would ever run a race of any kind. I had no interest in doing so -- it didn't even enter my consciousness as an idea of something I would do. Not even a 5K. It was just a non-thing. The idea that less than a year later I would take part in something like this... I don't even know what else to say about it. It is just plain awesome.

But I have no aspirations to run a marathon. No no no no.

QUOTE OF THE DAY YESTERDAY, from teammate Lisa:

"A half marathon is only four 5Ks and a little bit, Norma."

Yeah.

No.

Maybe.

But no.

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After the race:

Fitter Knitters VT City Marathon Team 2014

Kat Kennedy, Lisa McGuire, Adrienne Martini, me, Carol Bradford-Roe

So.Much.Healthy.Fun.

The sweet necklaces we are wearing in the photos were a gift from Lisa.

Thanks again, ladies!

~~~

I'll make another plea for donations for my upcoming runs for charity. Maybe do it for the Fitter Knitters, because we rock.

See this post, and thank you.

 

 

A Note of Gratitude

Kristen said these words the other day, and then Jessica did, too:  "Your readers are SO GENEROUS."

I love you.  You are all so wonderful and you make my life so much richer. 

And here is a guest post from Kristen:

She-Who-Now-Has-A-PhD-But-No-Job here filling in for Norma while she rests her garden-and-puppy-weary body and Harlem-Renaissance-weary mind.

While I have thanked many privately, I wanted to publicly declare my gratitude to all of you who stepped up to the Great Destash 2009 challenge.  The current financial fracas—oh, hell, this is Norma's blog, I'll just call it what it is: SNAFU—is hitting every one of us and I was overwhelmed by how many people were willing to go look at my stash and even consider merging one of my woolly adoptees with their own.  I always knew knitters were special people, but when my dear friend Norma put out the call my head spun with the speed at which you answered!

A week later, I've found myself in that lumpy-throated-stinging-eyes state when I did some math.  Confessing this is a wee bit ego bruising, but, frankly, you helped me make my COBRA payment for this month.  Given that I've got a couple of irritating health issues and a few ridiculously expensive prescriptions, this is no small thing.  Thank you a thousand times over.

A bit of good news to share:  I've recently been offered a one-year visiting lectureship at my alma mater, so at least starting in September I will be employed and "secure" for the next academic year.  (Meanwhile the summer job situation remains a most hideous beast, which I'm sure any of you with college-age children have discovered right about now.)  I hope in the fall I will have the opportunity to help someone else through this current economic slide as all of you have helped me.

Thank-You-Note Friday

Because not everyone comes back and reads the comments, I wanted to highlight the comment I received late in the day from Ryan yesterday:

Oh man. This is too awesome.  I can't even BEGIN to thank everyone who has voted for me.  It means so much to me.  I really don't know what to say except that I will model any and everything anyone here knits!*  Again, thank you everyone.  Let's hope this all works!!! ;-)

And NancyMc, the shirt I'm wearing says "Deuces Wild" and has two women laying across my chest.  The shirt is from Express Men.  Now, you might be thinking, "that shirt is a little inappropriate, if not obscene!" But what you don't see, because of the angle of the picture, is that those two women are crocheting.

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Our Dear Rachel H. responds:

...But Ryan, darlin'? You've gotta be a bit more careful with what you promise a pack of wild knitters.  "I will model any and everything anyone here knits!" ?? Dude, that's just asking for trouble.

*[Note from Norma -- yes, he ought to be careful -- does anyone remember what the number one Google search for this blog used to be?]

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AND:

The Red Scarf Fund total as of last night at about 8 p.m. Eastern: $2,535.   

It's been exactly one week.  We are smokin'!

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Rather than show more prizes today (yes, there are more to show!) I'll share (with her permission) this note I got from Lynn in Virginia.

I have to thank you Norma. I was new in the area when I started reading your blog and found out about Red Scarf. Then I found out that the headquarters for OFA is a couple of miles from my house. So I sent an email offering to help last year, but things were so hectic no one got back to me until it was pretty much over. Instead I helped process scholarship applications - an experience that moved me enormously and really drove home the importance of the work this organization is doing. This year I will be helping with Red Scarf, but it won't end there.

Lynn

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Random Friday Photo, because I know some people hate blog entries without a photo.

Why I willingly pay $4.49 for a dozen local farm eggs:  The colors.

Just a Quick Note...

...to thank you all for your supportive comments yesterday and to let you know that the biggest drama of the day was that I lost my keys and couldn't find them at the end of the day.  After a huge search involving the assistance of all the sound personnel and lighting techs and security guys, I found them. 

In my purse.

Underneath my lipstick. 

Heh. 

Um.  Oops.

And there was a small irony:  The only speaker who tripped me up was a senior college student, American, local (I even know her dad, it turns out), no accent.  She only read at about 6,900 words a minute.  She was a tad nervous, clearly.  The only good (and it's good enough) mistranslate was when she was going like a bat out of hell and she was quoting the guest of honor:  "When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitive tits become irrelevant."

I kid you not.   It was supposed to be, of course, "national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant." 

Cripe Almighty.   

At one point I just stopped writing.  I had to stop, take a deep breath, and regroup.  It was the only thing I could do.  It was better that than make mincemeat out of the thing.  But the speaker I was worried about?  Piece of cake.  Except when he said Shavuot and Yahrzeit.  I was quite pissed at myself that I didn't have those in my dictionary, but then why would I?  Most reporters around here wouldn't even know what those are, but because I'm Jewish, I could have possibly anticipated them.  When he said, "Between Passover and Shavuot," and I knew for a fact that I did not have Shavuot in my dictionary, I substituted, "between two Jewish holidays."  And when he said Yahrzeit, I just pretended he didn't. 

Head in the sand works for me. 

And kaddish did not translate properly, either.  Damn.   I saw that it didn't the first time he said it, and when he said it the second time, I wrote instead, "prayer for the dead."  It's all about making a readable and understandable transcript.

The reason for no speech being supplied ahead of time?  Because he winged the entire thing.  No written speech. 

The many hours of prep I put in paid off in spades, though, and I got lots of love and positive attention from many in attendance.  Many hearing people, including the sign language interpreters, were, at times, reading the translation because they could not understand the accent.  Later, a VIP asked me, "Just out of curiosity, how did you know all those Jewish words?"  Heh.  Of course, he doesn't know the half of it, because the true question is, how did I have them all in my steno dictionary.   Knowing the words is one thing -- having them translate is quite another.  Of course, knowing them is the requisite first step. 

I'm exhausted, and I have a long day ahead of me Thursday, and possibly Friday as well.  So I just wanted to pop in and tell you what an awesome bunch you are.  Oh, and there are only one or two pole burns. 

Saturday Photo Album, Complete With Exclamations

  Blue!  Sky!  Blue Sky! 

  Warm! Pinch me!

Seeds!  (Cookie! It worked!  You sent me spring! Thank you!  Ahhhh!)

Socks! Crocus! Bee!

Stripey crocus!

Garlic!

SPINACH!  SPINACH!  SPINACH! (despite the deep-freeze following the April 1 planting!)  Pinch me again!  This stuff rocks!

Head! (Julie, you nut!)  Thank you!

Happy me!  Happy you!

Sensory Thrills, Anger Control

I've just received a fresh order of Blessed Juno soaps.  My goodness, Laurie has a way with scents.  I'm not fond of perfumes and colognes, as they often give me a headache, but essential oils and naturally-scented soaps, if done right ... whoa, yeah, baby.  Sensual and brain-awakening.

This order includes a bar each of Lavender Grey, Lavender Oatmeal, Sunshine, Gentle, and Sachet.  The package, when it arrived, included a sample bar of Aweigh.  Aweigh is, to my surprise, anise-scented.  Holy cow.  I probably wouldn't have ordered it without smelling it, but now I want an entire order of that one alone.  These lovely herbal scents make my brain sparkle.  I'm asking myself how fast I can use up this soap so I can order more. Nice.

Vermonter Home Girl Pippi (didja know she has a book deal?) sent me a gift of a cheerful skein of exquisite softness over the weekend (colorway:  "Mermaids"). 

She is unabashedly working on tempting me to knit more socks, and when I said, "Don't forget, the socks I've been knitting are small and in worsted weight," she said I didn't scare her; and not to forget that she had some worsted weight hand-dyed yarns too! Well, when I received this, I immediately thought "Abigail."  The shade of royal blue that dominates this skein is one of Abigail's favorites. I'm thinking a hat, not socks, and not Dulaan.  I'll work on finding a pattern that I feel is right for Abigail.  Thank you, Pippi!  Your aesthetic is beautiful, bold and bright, and makes me so happy. I can't wait to see the book.

Speaking of socks (or not, heh), a few weeks ago, I purchased one of the last skeins of the original Real Vermonter sock yarn from Jessie. (she has a new version now)

She named the color, "Girls' Night Out."  I might call it "Cape Codder."  It is the color of the cocktail, sans the lime garnish.  Come to think of it, maybe that's what Girls' Night Out refers to. This will make a beautiful pair of warm socks something (maybe not socks) for me.  The soft all-Vermont 70% mohair/30% Romney/Corriedale wool content will make it extra-warm, and the color will be a joy to look at.

We are lucky to have so many talented folks among us, with such lovely products on offer. 

In other news, I'm busy warming up my boxing gloves.  I'd like to punch a few people's lights out. 

Raising The Cool Quotient

Reason No. 145.7 that I love having the blog:

The coolest friends.  (Is this really my life?!)

Regina, you know my soul and rock my world. 

I can't wait to wear that t-shirt.  Won't I be the coolest mama?  And I'm so excited to introduce Abigail to Teddy Thompson*. Thank you! The next time I see you (soon, hopefully), I will hug my thanks to you in person.

*It's so super-cool when a mom can introduce her young adult daughter to some music before her friends can even do so.  Wicked cool. 

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The Contest:  Or What Ancient Project Did I Finish?

The long-overdue gift for a friend -- thrummed (fleece-stuffed) mittens made from Coopworth wool roving, which was a beautiful gift from Carole, and which I spun into the yarn used for these.  The thrums are locks of an incredibly beautiful Polwarth fleece, a gift from Kim.  The inside of the mittens look like this:  The story of these mittens is they were knitted for a friend, but I ran out of yarn (and there was no more Coopworth roving to be spun) before I could complete the two mittens, so I went back and took off the cuff of each mitten and knit a different cuff made of Lamb's Pride worsted.  Other things got in the way (notably, the Red Scarf Project and lots of other projects), and it took me over a year to get back to these. 

My friend's wife is a knitter. When he opened the package, containing one completed mitten and one still on the needles, he said:  "I know what this is: A promissory note!"  He asked me if he was going to have to wait a year before he got the finished pair, and I insisted that no WAY was he going to have to wait that long.  Erk.  There have been several sub-zero days this winter during which he could have worn thrummed mittens, and I feel bad that I did not get them done well before now.  I'm happy they're finally done.  I'll package them up and mail them out this week.

And the winner is:  Margene!  She is the only one who guessed these mittens. I know exactly what she needs as a prize.  :)

Gorgeous New Socks

Look how beautiful!  I am not tooting my own horn here, because I did not knit these.  They are a lovely, thoughtful gift from FluffyKnitter Deb.  Isn't she wonderful to knit these for me?  Look at those scrumptious colors!  I have never felt socks made with Mountain Colors Bearfoot before, and this is my new favorite sock yarn.  So soft and so warm, with the super-soft mohair content.  I am in love.  Thank you, Debi and P-Man, as I'm sure he helped! They are beautiful, fit perfectly, and are much loved.

On The Treadmill

Too....much.....work. 

This afternoon, just in the nick of time before they slammed the doors shut at the post office, I drove on the hazardous roads to mail the latest finished transcript -- 189 pp.  Just before then, I turned down a job for tomorrow, giving the reason that I have too many pages to do.  After I slid back home and made it into my garage (just barely), I did an inventory, thinking that maybe I had overreacted.

900 pages pending.  At least 600 of which they want yesterday. 

Nope.  Not overreacting. 

It's 10:59 p.m. and I just had a "second dinner" at the computer for the evening -- a bowl of Campbell's Chunky Chicken Noodle (please don't point out that there is nothing good in there for me, and salt and wheat are mine enemies. I already know this.)  The first "dinner" was jarlsberg melted on Ezekiel bread and a glass of white wine.  Tell me I don't know how to live! 

Grey's Anatomy obliged by showing a rerun tonight.  (It's an OUTRAGE!)

And Melissa made me grin from ear to ear by sending me this:

I'm not sure if you can appreciate what it is, what with the flash and the bad photo, but look, she made a tiny red scarf and put it inside a clear glass ornament.  Yup.  Grinning from ear to ear, that's me. I'll get a better photo of it later.  Mel has been a great supporter of the Red Scarf Project right from the beginning, has knitted several scarves for it herself, as well as created care tags and done various and sundry other tasks for the project.

Speaking of Red Scarf, have you seen the Gallery of Completed Scarves lately?! 

The Royal Post

It was a grey and dreary day, one filled with more HP Tech Support Bite Me moments.  And just then, a ray of sunshine came through the clouds: A package from the Royal Post from my pal from Florida, Jennifer.  She is spending some extended time in my favourite place in the whole wide world, London, and she sent prizes for the Red Scarf Project.  That's the luscious selection of Fyberspates yarns on the right.  A lovely skein of sock yarn, and two skeins of Blue-Faced Leicester (omygod, is that stuff SOFT and squooshy!)

If you knit a red scarf and let me know about it, you could have a chance to win these lovely, lovely yarns.  So what are you waiting for??

Now, perhaps equally important, on the left are the things Jennifer put in the package just for me, me, me!  Jennifer tells me that she wasn't so sure about the inclusion of the Marmite (I love the new SQUEEZABLE bottle!), but her knit group insisted.  Heh-heh, I have to tell you, Jen and group:  I did not intend it this way, as I had bought some nice things to cook for dinner -- but I was on the phone for so many hours with HP support -- I went all the way to corporate, where I told them that I had reached the end of my rope with HP support and they'd better start refunding my money and they'd better start thinking about revamping their entire support system, and, oh, it's all a long story that I can't even tell, I'm so exhausted from the rage -- so I had Marmite and cheese on toast for a relaxing and comforting "supper" while I prepared to try to lower my blood pressure and watch LOST.  Then I ate several HobNobs during the show.  So thank you, Jennifer.  It was a wonderful thing you did.  Not so good for my waistline, but good for my soul. Thank you, thank you.  I'm going to go now and fondle my skein of BFL in the colorway "September."  Thank you.