Couple's costume- It must be serious

Despite C's complaints about Halloween, the party in our midst meant that she agreed to dress up. The perfectionist and the procrastinator may make costumes more challenging, but a simple concept done right can overcome those obstacles. After batting a few ideas around, we'd settled on a costume. What it lacked in timeliness, it made up in simplicity.

We decided to be the 2010 youtube sensation Double Rainbow. With more than 31 million views, we knew that a few people wouldn't get it, but for the most part we'd be covered. We started to realize how well covered when we were shopping for shirts with rainbows on them and found mostly double rainbow shirts. Not wanting to be a quadruple rainbow, we kept our search going and eventually settled on homemade fabric pen rainbows. C also found a sweatband set to really round out the look. Nothing like a balding man in a rainbow headband to make the crowd say "It's so beautiful."

I can't be certain that "it's so beautiful" was an exact quote, but we did manage to snag an Honorable Mention at the party. The crowd had already cheered for Google maps (best overall edging out Axl Rose), the gnarwal (most creative), and the nurse (most risque), so they didn't have much left for our double rainbow, but we know in their heart of hearts they had to be thinking, "What does it mean?"

A bit of pride, a bit of jealousy

My friends ran a 50-miler last weekend. Read Paul's recap here. I'm awed by that accomplishment. I don't know that 50 miles of running is something I ever need to do, but I don't like that I missed out on this running adventure.

I didn't just miss out either; my running right now is in another universe. They ran for 7 hours, I ran for 7 minutes. Other than Wildwood and bike commutes, I haven't really done any exercising since July. I would complain about my 7 minutes since it felt far from right, but I won't. Instead, I'll tell you about reaching for my shoes. Sometime in August, I took my running shoes out of the hallway and stored them high up in the closet. My black dress shoes that don't get out much go up in the closet. Today, even in the rain and the hint of a cold, I reached up into the closet and pulled down my dormant running shoes. They looked white and clean. They were firm and crisp, almost like new. As I gingerly brought them down, I had to push away high school cross country practices and recreational 5ks. I couldn't call up those memories today. Today I just had to put one foot in front of the other.

Today was another step on a long journey.