Hibernation Is the Best Medicine

Song Lyric of the Day:

We live to see the dawn of sky / And so we rise up to the east / And so we rise up to the sun / The sun is come

Lavender Diamond / “Rise In the Springtime

10:17PM.
The Relay for Life went really well. Obviously, I never found a free wi-fi signal, or I would’ve blogged a bit from the event. I got to the World’s Fair Park at 3:30PM and started setting up my team’s site. Another team captain friend, Amy, recommended me for an interview with our local CBS affiliate, WVLT Channel 8. I spoke with the reporter and texted as many people as I could to TiVo or record the Friday night newscasts; I ended up with a soundbite and some airtime on the 11PM newscast. I’m just glad I didn’t look worse, considering I’d been wrestling with our shade tent in 90 degree heat; a cop working the event was nice enough to help me secure it until Ken could further stabilize it once he and Vanessa arrived.

So much goes on at these events, so I’ll just give you some highlights. If you want any more detail or have questions, email me (the form is on the left; IE shoves it down on top of my Flickr badge) or leave a comment.

7PM: The Survivors’ Lap kicks off the Relay, with my mom and Marjie’s husband, Tom, wearing their medals during their turn around the track; they’re both 5+ year survivors.

10PM: The Luminaria ceremony takes place, with three female bagpipers (two are cancer survivors) playing “Amazing Grace.”

Sometime after 11PM: I walk with my dad and start crying, which I’d held in during both the Survivors’ Lap and the Luminaria ceremony. I then end up crying again when I walk with my mom, after telling her how grateful I am she’s still with us. My parents leave for the night shortly thereafter.

12:30AMish: Jonathan and Benjamin, the birthday twins, come by to say hi. They stay a couple of hours, walking with our team members and hanging out at our site.

2AM: The adults take over the fountains, playing and getting soaked.

3AM: Tamara and I represent our team in Fairytale Trivia since Vanessa is napping and doesn’t want to get up at that point. The questions are so hard and obscure we only get five out of 16 right — but that still earned us Relay bucks since we got the highest score (tied with two other teams).

3:15AM: Caren takes her leave, since her puppy, Willow, is beyond overstimulated. In their subsequent absence, our energy starts to wane even more.

3:45AM: Delirium starts to set in.

4:45AM: I finally lay down to take a nap. I almost manage to fall asleep when the emcee’s voice startles me back awake.

5:30AM: I crawl out of the tent to help start taking down our site.

6:10AM: The committe members notice that most teams are already gone, so they move up the closing ceremony and last lap. We get some Relay for Life swag in recognition of how many Relay bucks we earned (Target’s team earned the most). I get some swag for having sent the most emails (112) on a particular day.

7:01AM: I lay down in my own bed and pass out.

2:21PM: I drag myself out of bed, shower, and head upstairs to the couch, where Rich and I veg watching Running With Scissors.

7PM: We manage to muster enough energy to get dressed and drive to Johnny Carino’s for a birthday dinner for Jonathan and Benjamin. Several glasses of Coke do nothing to wake us up.

Rich and I got home and resumed doing nothing. The pain concentrated behind my right knee finally starts to abate.

Thanks again to all my intrepid teammates: Mom, Dad, Vanessa, Rich, Ken, Caren, Tamara, Marjie, and Rich. Thanks also to our honorary teammates Jonathan, Benjamin, and Doug. And a heartfelt thanks to Momma Carol for the delicious sandwiches she made for us; she did a great job keeping us fed throughout the night, despite her not being able to be on site with us. To think, in a year, we’ll be doing this all over again.

***

Rich and I woke up at 11:30AM today; we both stayed up somewhat late last night despite being exhausted. You know how it is — you’re so tired you can’t sleep. So while he was playing Neverwinter Nights upstairs, I was in bed rewatching the end of Devour to try and make sense out of it before packing it up and shipping it back to Netflix (Has anyone else seen this movie? Can anyone clear that mess up for me? Was his mom his girlfriend too? If so, ewwwwwwwwwwwwww!).

I declared that today would be a day of doing absolutely nothing. The only time we did anything remotely productive was when we unloaded the Xterra around 1:30PM. Then it was back to doing nothing (although I did work out around 5PM).

Thanks to doing nothing today, I’m finally making some significant progress with my game Dead Rising (swords are now my favorite weapons). That’s pretty much all I made progress with today, and it felt great.

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One Response to Hibernation Is the Best Medicine

  1. the liberal samurai

    I’m glad there’s folks like you to do good stuff like this! Hope the knee is better.

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