I couldn't stay, though, because I had to be back at my apartment and ready to leave by 9am. Why is that? Because I was part of a team in the Alzheimer's Association's Memory Walk. The team was Fr. Gordon's Walkers, and was in honor of my Granddaddy, who has been living with Alzheimer's for years.
Lara would be at my apartment at 9 and together Cat, Lara, and I would pick up Mary and Libby, who would be waiting at Mary's house. I got home in my pj's (sighing over how nice it was to wake up at my parents') and tried to wake myself up enough to change into some workout clothes. This was to be a 5k, afterall. My eyes were drooping as I heard my phone buzz.
Ima try to stop by starbucks. Let me know if u want something.
I gave a little whoop in my room. oh man! i would love a tall coffee with hazelnut and cream please!
My morning was already a thousand times better than the previous day had been. Lara showed up and the three of us headed to Mary's house, then off to the zoo! We made our way toward the check-in tables and waited in line, only to be told that if we had already registered on-line we could just walk in. This made no sense to us, as the line we were standing in said, "Registered Walker Check-In." This tale was next to the "Non-Registered Walker Check-In" line. So when we were told we didn't actually need to check in we looked around, confused. Oh well. We figured those of us who had raised $100 would go pick up our T-Shirts. That would be 2 of us. However, the lady handing out shirts handed one to each of us. When we told her that not all of us raised enough money she shrugged. "We have extras." Neat. We each got a shirt! We put them on over our other shirts and met up with our other team members, then headed up the hill.
We got about five yards in when one of us said, "I think I need to go to the bathroom." The rest of us heartily agreed. A bathroom break was needed. We were singing songs and laughing about the Capybaras (or, as we called them, the R.O.U.S.'s) and probably driving everyone around us nuts. We wandered up the hill, dancing and fake-power-walking. Music made it's way toward us. "What is that?" We looked at the program that had been handed to us as we walked in the zoo. (Yes...They gave all us walkers a piece of paper to carry with us as we walked.) "Umm...This is Ulysses S. Jazz, according to the program." Ulysses S. Jazz was fun, and made me think of The Great Gatsby, and a joke Mary had made a few years before: "A cocktail? For me? Why thank you!"
After finding an empty table to sit at (and some free coffee, of course!) we listened to the Pre-Walk information. Well, to be perfectly honest, we didn't pay too much attention. After all, we needed to figure out if that guy who had been talking was Gary from "Gary and Catherine in the Morning on 101.7" and that takes an awful lot of energy. "Let's go introduce ourselves and take a picture!" Lara said. Mary and I agreed, and Libby and Cat laughed at us as we tripped across the lawn. When we reached the edge of the stage, however, we couldn't quite make ourselves go up to him and introduce ourselves. "What if it isn't him?" Lara asked. I stood there, camera in hand, trying to gether the courage to talk to him.
"Sheesh," Libby said, walking up to us. "I'll go talk to him." She did, and it turns out it was him. So the rest of us rushed over and joined them.
"This is so cute," Gary, of "Gary and Catherine in the Morning" said. "This hardly ever happens to me!"
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| Note how he standing...Yeah, silly Gary from "Gary and Catherine in the Morning." |
We laughed our way back to the table and finally took a good look around. No one seemed to be as pumped for this walk as we were. "We are making this party," I said.
"We make every party we go to," answered Cat. "Come on, Steph!"
We had to agree. While our team was laughing and cheering and having a fabulous time, the other teams seemed to be half-asleep, or just plain boring. I shook my head at them and gave a little prayer of thanks that our team was so incredibly fun, and then noticed they had a designated "Team Picture Area."
"Guys...Should we go get our team picture taken? Come on!!" We jumped up (well, I jumped up, and was quickly followed by Lara, Mary, Libby, and Cat, and then later Sunny and her daughter Melody) and hurried to the "Team Picture Area." I'm fairly certain there was dancing and stylized running involved. We got ourselves organized and took a picture.
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| Not everyone was there yet, so we took decided to wait patiently for them... |
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| Our first try. |
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| Everyone listened to Lara telling us all to smile. |
After that was our warm up. We should have known by the warm up what the walk would be like. A geriatric aerobics instructor got in the stage and lead us in a series of marching moves and arm swings. After one song ended she said, "Alright! Let's do another one!"
...........
"Alright. That was actually it. Okay, let's head over to the start of the walk." Our team walked (read: "hopped, skipped, and jumped") to the starting line and joined in the speedy countdown to the beginning of the walk. We where whooping and hollering and cheering and grabbing the stickers that were being handed out and walked over the official starting line.
"Okay, where to now?" We looked at each other. There was no set route. We shrugged at each other. "Why don't we go over there?"
We spent the next forty minutes or so (really, it was quite possibly less) wandering around the zoo, taking plenty of breaks. Like at the gorilla enclosure (our first stop):
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| Mary was trying to be invisible. |
Or the playground:
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| Lara decided to catch a ride on the turtle. |
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| Libby needed a break...So she sat down in an egg. |
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| This was pretty much how the walk was for us... |
The free food was DELICIOUS. And even though we weren't exactly tired out from our oh-so-strenuous walk, we did enjoy the time sitting together laughing about who said what just 10 minutes ago and enjoying our sandwhiches and cookies.
And it was all for a good cause.
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| Ephesians 5:2 |
This. Is. Hysterical!!!!!
ReplyDeleteWish I had been there, too-
Mommy