October is Almost Over!

My, my, it has been a while, hasn't it?  It has been an eventful month in the life of 5 Things, with a trip to Milwaukee, AIDS Walk, and Halloween coming up.  So how are we busy people doing with our lists?

Kit has been faithfully updating me on the status of her laundry, exercise, and the grooming of her cat.  She also updated the contacts in her phone, accidentally calling me a few times as she did so.  She also uploaded some more photos of her honeymoon trip to Facebook so we can see her at the Tower of London and next to the weird Japanese art installations that marred the halls of Versailles.

Holly never quite got her list to me, but she is still on board for next month.  I think she may need a little incentive... like if she accomplishes everything one week, I'll buy the first round when we go out for cocktails.

As for myself, I've been doing okay with my list.  Exercise and meditation have been challenging to keep up with, but they have been really good for me.  Also, going to bed by 10:15 (or thereabouts) has also helped with energy and keeping me from getting sick.  The games thing was a dud (I can't count on having an opportunity to fit them in during the school day), but at least it got me thinking about making a list.  The refrigerator is almost clean (I've been doing it in stages).  Two more small shelves and the door shelves and I'm done.  I had to use excessive amounts of Goo Gone to get unidentified sticky matter out of various crevices.  Lord knows how long it's been there...

So we get to finish October with a party, otherwise known as Halloween.  Still not sure if said party will be in L.A. or in San Diego.  But either way, I will be decked out in the same outfit I wore to Monster Ball:

Exercise#1, 2 AND 3...

I was wondering if I could count this as all 3 exercises for this week... haha just kidding.  But can it at least make up for me doing only 2 last week?

Yesterday, October 17, I participated in AIDS Walk Los Angeles.  It took quite a bit of effort to get there - an hour of driving around, getting stuck and rerouted, going to 3 parking structures, which were all full (and driving up and down 2 of those structures to find out that they were full!), waiting in a line of cars squealing their tires on a steep hill in the rain, trying to get up to Sunset Blvd., and finally parking on a street a half a mile away from the start line.

Once we got to the start line, we were 1 1/2 hours late, and they were starting to take down the markers of the course, so we weren't certain where the course was, and we took a wrong turn that made us cut out five miles of the walk!  Oops!  So we found the mobs of people who were closing in on the finish line, and we walked against traffic on the other side of the street, in the opposite direction, until the route turned, where we would have picked it up if we if we hadn't gotten diverted.  Also, our team had gone on ahead, so I didn't get to see Kit (who was also participating) until hours later.  That'll teach us not to be late to a walk, ever again!!

Once on the walk, however, it was really fun, great exercise, and not as crowded this year on account of the rain.  I didn't mind the rain because I was wearing water resistant clothes, and it was very light rain.  Everyone was having a great time cheering each other on, and there were lots of dogs walking too, and people wearing outrageous costumes.  Check out some of the sights:

colorful characters

walking the dog

hey, if you're gonna tag a building, this is one of the nicer things you could say...

there were nuns of all colors of the rainbow...

H and I crossing the finish line

October Things!

I finally got a hold of Kit's list, so here it is:

1. sort and organize my trip pix. pick out at least 10 pix I can share with friends/relatives/put on FB
2. groom the cat
3. exercise 4 times - at least 1x per week
4. add my speed dials to my new phone which includes updating their contact info
5. clean the shower


Still no word on Holly's list yet, but she's doing her best (this is all new to her).  Will update when I hear from her.


In the meantime, I tweeted that I did some of my exercising in Milwaukee, so I wanted to upload some pics I took on my walk (I needed to walk off all that cheese, beer, and Bratwurst!)

City Hall

The Milwaukee River

The white thing beyond is the Calatrava architecture of the Milwaukee Museum of Art

As the wings begin to close...

Fully closed - I took a video of it closing, and it was fantastically slow.  You can barely see it moving.  So, you know, don't expect a life-changing event.

Riverwalk - not sure who this statue depicts, but he has Gene Simmons' tongue

Fall colors...sigh... we just don't get this in San Diego...