Sheesh, life got away from me again. It’s been a week of a lot of work, with the odd recreational or small surgery activity thrown in.
Last weekend, we went down to Ocean Ave here in Long Beach to watch the last day of the Tour of California. I’d never seen a professional bike race before, and it was actually really exciting! The riders were averaging 28-30MPH and rode so close to the gutter that you thought they were going to take you out if you stood too close to the curb. Given all of the glorious cameras we have, I’m sad to say that the only cameras we had with us at the race were camera phones. So it goes. Here are the sorry low-res photos we took. Turns out Chuck’s KRZR phone has a 1.3 megapixel camera, so takes much better pics than my RAZR. Next time we’ll try and remember better cameras.
Fast forward the week to yesterday and I had an appointment for more slicing and dicing at the dermatologist’s. Sic semper sun worshiping fair-skinned folks. We spend our golden years being slowly carved to pieces. I had a mole on my back that had changed color so needed to be cut out. The doctor, to save me a trip, performed a very deep biopsy – basically he took the whole thing (barring any bad findings from the biopsy) out right then and there. Chuck had the big camera, and photographed the entire proceeding. I missed it all, as I was laying on my stomach for the entire procedure. The chunk was about half an inch long and probably one quarter inch deep, and the doc closed the resulting hole up with three stitches. I was very brave – he said early on, “I’m not hurting you, am I?” To which I replied, gritting my teeth, “No it’s okay, I’m tough.” And that was just him giving me a shot of local anesthetic to numb the area. It’s a little tender today, but that’s it. No blood is pouring out of the wound or anything 🙁 Gruesome high-res pics are here. Squeamish folks be prepared – you will see scalpel action and chunks of flesh if you click. You have been warned.
Tomorrow we are doing the L.A. Marathon. It’s a very last-minute thing; basically we decided this past Wednesday to do it. Our friend Bill is a legacy runner – he’s run every L.A. Marathon, and is running out of steams and interest. This has manifested itself thusly: he doesn’t train. At all. His long run leading up to this marathon (number 22) was a three-mile run. For those who have never run a marathon, let me assure you that that is NOT enough training. At least, it’s not enough training to RUN it. Our plan is to walk it – briskly – in about seven hours with Bill. It’s an all new course, and given that our pace will be so manageable, we’ll take lots of pics and some movies, too. You can track runners online so if you have nothing better to do on a pretty Sunday, keeping in mind we’ll be at it ALL DAY, look for numbers 25261 and 25262. That’s us!
I’m off very early Monday morning to Seattle for a conference, so may not get a chance to report on the marathon until a bit later in the week. But THEN it’s time for Chuck’s BIG BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION because he’s turning 60 this coming Thursday, so the marathon may be completely forgotten in the breathless recounting of the b-day celebrations. Much fun will be had by him over the course of the week, but I can’t say more now because some of it is secret and while he doesn’t always read the blog, it would be just my luck that he starts today when I spill the beans about his birthday surprise(s). ‘Nuff said.