Running From Kathy Bates

My friends seem to dig the fact that I now run to stay in shape. They encourage me and give me kudos all the time. But it drives me nuts when I hear them say, “Oh, ‘I’ could never do that.” I say, “Yes you can!” Because — as of this writing — none of my friends are paraplegics. As we used to say back in the day: there’s nothing to it but to do it. And here are a few tools to help.

A Beautiful Day for a Protest

Two friends invited me to go with them to the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City and I said yes for purely selfish reasons. First, I hoped to get a good story out of it. Second, the weather forecast said it was going to be 80 degrees and sunny. What better conditions to exercise my constitutional rights? Yes, I’m a fair-weather protester. I don’t work for the United States Post Office. If the forecast had been for rain, snow, sleet or hail, the most protesting I would have done would have been to hole up in a Starbucks and send an angry email. 

Running at the Speed of Evolution

When I hoped for the chance to do another 5K run before the end of the Summer, I never dreamed I’d be doing it in another country. September found me in the Middle East on my seventh tour with Armed Forces Entertainment. While staying at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, the head of our security team knew I liked to run and mentioned that the base was doing a 5K Freedom Run to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of September 11. Perfect! I was all in. I did blanche a bit when he told me that the run was at six o’clock in the morning. But hey, when I wished for a chance to run, I neglected to tell the Universe what time would be good for me.