Tee hee

Okay, more on Charleston at a later date . . . I came across the following online this week and thought it was excellent advice.

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks
than Americans or the Brittish.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than
Americans or the Brittish.

3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart
attacks than Americans or the Brittish.

4. The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and suffer fewer
heart attacks than Americans or the Brittish.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats
and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans or the Brittish.


CONCLUSION:

Eat and drink what you like.
Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

Jellybeans

What makes them so darn good? I made the mistake of buying some last night and have eaten, oh, about a quarter of the bag. So far.

Well, the trip to South Carolina was lovely and all-too short. I have only a few minutes (have been at various doctors this morning but have to be at work in the p.m.) so will begin with Thursday and see how far I get.

After considering the rather pathetic state of my '88 Accord, I decided to rent a car for the trip. Since the Enterprise (which I had never seen before) was about a mile from my apartment, I decided to walk over there. Armed with the address, I started out on Broad. I walked and walked and didn't see it, and finally noticed that the block numbers were a bit too low. (In the suburbs, only about one in five businesses have street numbers on them, so this took longer than it should have.) I call the car rental place and get an answering machine. Finally, in despair, I walk to the hoity-toity Volkswagon dealership to ask for help. Turns out the car rental place is behind the dealership, a good five hundred yards behind in fact, and completely invisible from the road. Hmmph.

Anyway, I am eventually given a lovely Chevy Cobalt to drive. It was excellent. The drive down was lovely too - a beautiful spring day, sunny and clear (though a little cool for my taste). The trees with their new leaves were a luminous spring green, lacy clouds of dogwood dotted the woods, and as I went further south, lushly dripping purple wisteria began to appear.

Also of note are the turbo-charged hand dryers I noticed in a few North Carolina gas stations. You know how most hand dryers send an indifferent stream of tepid air out until you give up in despair and wipe your hands on your pants? Not these. It was like holding your hands in a wind tunnel - water was gone within fifteen seconds, but I kept my hands in longer in fascination. The air came out so forcefully that it blew the skin around on your hands and you could see tendons and muscles you don't usually get to see. Like a dog with its head out the window or something. (Yes, I am easily amused, why do you ask?)

More later . . . off to get some jellybeans carrots.

A more detailed analysis of the race

So, I was finally able to check the race site again and discovered that there were 20,588 finishers in yesterday's race; of these, I finished 9,305 - about halfway back. 12,021 of these finishers were women (that's many more women than men! obviously races are not the place to pick up boys . . . ), and of those I finished in place 3,737, just a third of the way back. I similarly finished #588 in my division (women aged 30-34), which had 1,573 participants in all.

The race has a costume contest every year, and some of the entrants were just excellent. See the link here. I also ran past Charlie Brown and some of the Superfriends. Superman, Wonderwoman, Batman, Robin, and who else? Is there a Supergirl? (I smoked the Superfriends. Gratifying.)