“Never Thought it Would Be Like This,” Area Woman Says

There’s nothing to make you feel incredibly lazy like 200 marathon runners up and going at the break of dawn.

Sunday was the annual Chicago Marathon and our lobby was a madhouse. I admire people who run marathons. Clearly they’re insane, but it’s still admirable.

Tim and I applied for our passports this morning. In six weeks we’ll either receive said passports or an off-base rejection, giving our upcoming Bahamian cruise a dash of illegality (’cause it’ll be too late for a refund and damned if i’m spending money and not going). Hopefully we’ll just get the passports; that’ll make everything easier.

On my next good hair day I’m going to get an Illinois driver’s license and register to vote. Then I’ll be an official, uh, Illinoisian. Illinoisgander. Whatever these people are called. I just asked my manager who’s lived here over twenty years and he doesn’t know either. So if you, Dear Reader, know please enlighten me.

It’s been in the thirties the past few days. It should not be this cold this quickly. Something I was thinking about yesterday while walking in the cold–why is that we’ll put on layers like, a shirt, a sweater, and a thick winter coat over our abdomens, but just wear jeans on our legs? I know there aren’t any vital organs to protect in them but dangit, I’m tired of frozen thighs.

**WARNING! The following contains very surprising information. Read at your own risk**

McDonald’s
1 quarter pounder and a medium fry = 890 calories

Panera Bread
Broccoli cheddar soup in a sourdough bread bowl and a lemonade = 920 calories

I’m not at all saying that McDonald’s is healthier (their largest chocolate milkshake is almost 1200 calories!), but I’ll admit they don’t deserve nearly as much crap as they get for being unhealthy. Another point of note, the Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese has less calories than over half of the chicken sandwiches (grilled AND crispy).