Diversions

AGMA thought October was going to be a crazy month…

Two weeks ago, on 10/3, I flew to Chicago.  At O’Hare, I met my friend who had been flying for over 30 hours to get to the Windy City from her home in Australia.

She looked amazingly perky.  AGMA would have been bleary eyed, grouchy and hangry.

But then she is 20 years younger than me…  Bitch.

We spent the next few days hanging out with TMAGITW (the most adorable grandchildren in the world) and seeing the sights in a rainy, cloudy Chicago.

Then on Sunday, 10/7, we both ran in the Chicago Marathon.

What???

AGMA finished.  But I was very sloooooow.  Let me put it this way…  You could have flown from Chicago to Dublin, Ireland in the time it took me to run/walk the marathon.

Where’s my Guinness?

And, against all odds (medical issues and under-training), my friend finished as well.  It was a show of true grit and determination on her part.   She wanted to give up at the 30K mark, but, because she was running in the 2nd largest marathon in the world, she pushed on.  This was her first marathon.

AGMA was incredibly proud of her.

I’m convinced that the main reason we both finished was because we had:

THE.BEST. CHEER. SQUAD. EVER.  

My sweet B (almost 4 years old) and my darling V (almost 2 years old) were at mile 9 and then again at the finish holding their sign, GO NANA RUN   

The picture my DIL took of me, B, V and my son with the sign will be one of the photos that will go in the the “pictures for the photo montage at AGMA’s memorial service” box.

I honestly can’t even begin to describe how special that run was because they were there watching and cheering.

Crusty ol’ AGMA got a tear or two in her eyes.

Then, on Monday the 8th (still very sore from the marathon), my Aussie friend and I flew back to Altanta.  AGMA began her 7 day stint as the Atlanta hostess with the mostess.

I can even begin to list the  “stuff” we did while she was visiting.  We spent 7 days on the run.  She’s a very laid back, easy going guest (I mean, she’s Australian…), but AGMA still felt pressure to make sure she had a memorable visit by doing and seeing as much as we could.

Hence no WP post last week.  Sorry!

She jetted off to NYC this past Tuesday.  I wonder if she was as tired as I was?

Probably not.  Bitch.

But no rest for a wicked AGMA…

This week has been hectic with playing catch up from the previous two weeks, working a job, seeing School of Rock (so cute!), helping new citizens register to vote, 2 physical therapy appointments, a haircut, and and and…

The rest of the month isn’t going to be any better.

Warning: posts may be few and far between for the next few weeks.

But the busyness of the past 2 weeks has been a wonderful diversion; a much needed break from Cadet Bonespur’s unhinged insanity, social media bad news, and the Georgia election frenzy.

I was touring Chicago when sexual predator Brett “I like beer” Kava-NOT was confirmed to the Supreme Court.

I missed the first reports of Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal and savage dismemberment death at the hands of the Saudi’s in Istanbul because we were in the North Georgia mountains.

And I missed the initial report that the Georgia Secretary of State and elections czar, Brian Kemp, who happens to also be running for governor against a very popular African American woman, Stacey Abrams, was not processing 53,000 new voter registrations (mostly minority voters) because of a 2017 enacted “exact match” requirement.  This, of course, was passed to suppress minority voters.

You can read about it here.

Of course, civil right groups are suing claiming that the “exact match” requirement violates the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act and the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

And they would be right.  But it probably won’t matter in Georgia, a state where the GOP has elevated voter suppression, election tampering and gerrymandering to fine art.

So AGMA’s two weeks of sightseeing, running and tour guiding were lovely diversions from the relentless sh*t that Americans have to face everyday when they look at social media or watch the news or read the newspaper (do people still do that?)

Can we go back to having a President who causes a scandal because he sports a tan suit or his wife wears a sleeveless dress?

Life was so much simpler in the “good old days”!