So my 52nd birthday has come and gone. It was a movable feast of multiple celebrations over a few days and since we were on the road for several days before and after the big day, so I haven’t had much chance to update the blog (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it). After my birthday I suffered the most supermassive brain fart ever.  More on the brain fart later. Let’s focus first on the good times.

When last we left our intrepid travelers, we had just run the Healdsburg Half Marathon. We left Healdsburg on Monday and drove to Sausalito for the night and had a fabulous time. We stayed at the Inn Above Tide, bought a Tim Cotterill frog, walked around the town, and got to watch a beautiful rainstorm on the San Francisco Bay. On my actual birthday we drove to San Jose to spend a week working (but I did get a very yummy birthday cake that night and Chuck surprised me with a new red iPod nano – yes! it shoots video! – so don’t feel too sorry for me). We drove home this past Tuesday and were well and truly exhausted and very happy to be back in our own home.

So now let’s get to the supermassive brain fart. First we have to backtrack a bit to August. I received a notice from the DMV that my driver’s license was up for renewal and I could do it by mail. I filled out the form, attached my check and sent it off. All was well. Fast forward to my birthday when it struck me that I hadn’t received my new license yet. Oh no! And we were going to be out of town until several days AFTER it had expired!! (Brief aside – at no point in this entire debacle did I ever think to take my license out of my wallet and look at it.) Happily I didn’t do much driving while we were working in San Jose.

When we got home I called the DMV to check on the status of my renewal. They told me it had been mailed out Sep 16. Holy expired driver’s license, Batman! It must have gotten lost in the mail! The DMV guy on the phone told me that I had to go to a DMV office to request a duplicate and get a temporary license and I’d better do it fast because I was effectively running around with an EXPIRED license!! So this past Friday (just a few days after we had gotten back from 12 days on the road so we were still pretty punchy) Chuck drove me over to the DMV (because of course I couldn’t drive with my EXPIRED license!!) where I filled ut the appropriate form and waited for my number to be called. Happily and unusually, I came in during a lull and only had to wait about 45 minutes. So up I went to the window (Chuck went with me as he was back from running errands and had nothing better to do), and explained my problem to the nice lady behind the counter (I’m not brown nosing – she really was nice). She took my form and looked up my record on her computer and said that my license had indeed been renewed so it must indeed have been lost. She asked me for my old EXPIRED license, which I handed over. She looks at it, then looks up with a puzzled expression on her face. She says, “This license doesn’t expire until 2014!” Yes, Internet, I had gotten the new license, taken out the old one, and COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN ABOUT IT. Chuck burst into laughter, I fell all over myself apologizing to the very nice DMV lady (“that’s okay,” she said, “I’ll just shred this form for you, shall I?”). We left the DMV with Chuck still laughing at me and me turning all shades of red imaginable and feeling twenty kinds of stupid. All I can say in my defense is that I have been insanely busy for the past few months between work, training for races, racing, and traveling. So busy that my body does humdrum tasks like opening mail and putting new licenses away without making my brain take time away from its big time thinking activities. So thank you body but really – it’s okay to let my brain know what you’re up to from time to time.

So there you have it. My supermassive brain fart. This never would have happened when I was 51.