Letters to Holly

Friday, January 6

TURN. IT. UP.

The store has my shirts for sale. I'm giggly. I'm eating shoestring potatoes in glee. I am constantly listening to this song. I already have new shirt ideas in progress. I'm also thumbnailing the comic, and I can't decide which to do first.

I'm so ecstatic I literally don't know what to do with myself.

Monday, January 2

A Good Walk Spoiled

A group out of Asheville, part of the American Volkssport Association, attempted to organize a volksmarch in our town for New Year's Day. They sent a press release to the local paper, and we pounced on it. Your Sister remembers doing these in Germany, and she invited Your Parents along. Your Aunt came over for the day just for this event. An event for which no one from the organization showed up.

The article told us to go to a Bi-Lo near the trail's start point. We were to register there. Your Sister thought one person could register for everyone, and I disagreed. I was sure we'd each have to sign up and probably pay. We met Your Family at the trail beginning, and I went to the store, where the article said I could ask for a "walk box" to register and get the walk details.

The first store employee I met at the customer service desk didn't know what I was talking about. A second employee took over, said she had the info I needed, and she presented a "walk box." It was a plastic file bucket, and it had folders labeled Register, Past Awards, and Club Information. It also had a registration log (with the names of five people other than us). Instead of individual packets for the walkers, the club handed the store one bundle for the entire event. The person who slid the bucket over to me asked what the race was about. She had no more information than I did.

Inside, I found envelopes to mail in a club membership along with one's fee. I couldn't give that money to the Bi-Lo people (as they didn't know about the race), and I wasn't about to leave cash in a bucket presented to everyone who asked for it. I couldn't use a credit card to pay for our registrations, and I had no checks. We couldn't officially sign in. I added our names to the log to act as a census and noted that there was no one who could greet the newbies. I took a copy of the trail map and a few registration slips to show Your Family what I found. We walked the path anyway.

The weather was nice. We know that trail. We've taken the deputy on it more than once, and he was well behaved. He took the first half in the stroller and either walked back or rode on our shoulders. Your Aunt strayed a few times, and we doubled back to fetch her. She wanted to wander, but we had a lunch/nap deadline with the sidekick. We fed everyone before they drove back home, and no one seemed to mind the lack of organization. We seemed to be the only ones there for the event, and I'm glad. Heavy trail traffic would have made family chat tricky.

I'm at work today, and Your Sister has a school workday. She's still catching up on papers and informing parents of student grades. She hopes the lighter semester workload will let her go back to Wednesday yoga classes.

Picture of the Day
I'll post more about this on my official blog, but this is the artwork I toiled over last week for the podcast folks for which I made the cartoon supergroup. They asked for a zombie. I made him a Mercury astronaut.