I run 35 miles and my car dies.

This blog post is a two-fer. I have two pieces of incredible news. As my title suggests, the first is that I ran 35 miles in 72 hours. The second is that my polka-dot car bit the dust.
Item #1: The reason I ran so much is because I had the privilege of running on an all-woman team, called Jungle Rot, at the Great Lakes Relay last weekend.It is a 10 person team but we only added up to 8 this year. Yikes! That meant we had to split the approximately 270 miles of the course between ourselves over 3 days. It started in Rogers City, MI Friday Morning near Lake Huron and ended in Empire at Lake Michigan on Sunday. Add to that lots of mosquitos, an average of 4 hours of sleep per night, the chance of getting lost in the woods... and hitchhiking your way back (which happened to someone this year), shampooing your hair in Lake Huron, and spending lots of time with other crazy runner types who put sea salt under their tongues to re-hydrate (delicious!), ...and you have the making for an unforgettable weekend. I think my official mileage may have been 34.9 miles but I'm tacking on .1 miles for running (or should I say hobbling) out of the way of a bee attracted to my neon shirt. On day 3 with no sleep, there is nothing funnier than trying to run (on locked up quads) away from a bee. I also thought I was truly crazy when I saw this hill I was voluntarily running up on my 34th mile:

Certifiably Crazy!
I later realized I was following runners who had taken a wrong turn on the course, making my 5.6 leg into 6.3 miles. Ouch. But, I can't wait til next year!

So onto my second item of the blog: THE POLKA DOT CAR (aka Polkie) has died. Her final resting place is in Orland Park, Illinois. I was on a lunch break from painting at the Orland Park Library and heard massive amounts of squealing (more than I've heard in the past year-which is saying a lot) and pulled over into a parking spot right in front of --very appropriately-- Michaels Crafts Store. I even called Michaels to tell them not to tow away my craft project stuck in their lot. On that fated Friday, only one week after a cross-state trip to Kalamazoo, my wheel stopped moving apparently and was skidding along the lot making a beautiful final arc on the asphalt, leaving its last mark on this world. Contrary to family members who think it might just be something easy to fix...IT IS DEAD! I'm taking it off my life support.


A full memorial in the form of a short film will fully commemorate the car this summer. Stay tuned for that.
In the meantime, I'd like to dunk my head in one of the Great Lakes again:

A Hoax on the Folks

Many of you know that I spend a lot of time at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Maybe you even swung by their Folk and Roots festival this past weekend. I think the school is one of the best things about the City of Chicago and I don't think there is any place in the world quite like it. (The school offers great 8 week sessions in every instrument, dance form, and genre imaginable. Note: This promotion for the school is largely for strategic karmic purposes that will make more sense at the end of the story. Register for a class here.)
Okay. Anyway...I have been taking an ongoing Irish Fiddle class off and on at Old Town School for quite a few years now.

All the while I've been fiddling, I have learned about one of the school's legends. His name is Ted Johnson. Some of my fellow classmates would mention him during a fiddle class and I would always wonder: "Who is this Ted, anyway!?" Although we have both taken Irish fiddle classes many times, we never managed to register for the same session for several years. I also soon pieced together that this 'Ted' character who I never saw in class was one of the guys pictured in the photographs lining the school's hallways. The legend of Ted grew.
I decided one day that it wasn't fair that I knew what Ted looked like but he never knew what I looked like.
The only sensible, natural thing to do was to plot out how to make a picture of myself visible for Ted to stumble upon in the hallway.

I made my own print out of myself fiddling at home, stuck it in a frame similar to the ones already on display, with the caption saying: "Here's Lookin' at you, Ted. c.2010."
When I visited my next fiddle class, I had it all ready in my purse, and walked into class (probably 5 minutes late) only to find a man I had never met before sitting in class. IT WAS TED! IT WAS TED! Ted had decided to just drop by on the day I was supposed to unveil my big secret photo!
We hugged and I immediately proceeded to show the class the photo I had intended to install in the hallway. We found a place for it anyway (currently held up on the wall with those sticky tabs) and took photos of ourselves together in front of it. Here is Ted (above) pointing out another photo with him in it. As of a few days ago, the picture STILL illegally graces the hallway alongside photos of-ahem-other folk legends.
I'd like to think it is my own small participation in Culture Jamming. Although I'm definitely not trying to bring Old Town School down. They're hardly "the man." Sources around school tell me no one has mentioned anything. I heard this past weekend that the staff person in charge of installing the photographs (hey there! Are you reading this?) would maybe even like the democratic addition to the photography display anyway. Either way, I mean no harm. I love you Old Town School!
(FYI: We are standing on stairs. Ted is not that tall.)

Jean, the sign painter

I painted this sign (BY HAND!) for a show in Hyde Park at the Experimental Station today:
"After the Wars is a multimedia documentary project that combines photographs and recordings of ten veterans. The goal is to learn how war changed their lives and what their unique experiences can tell us about the country they served."

"After the Wars" is on exhibit at the Experimental Station, 6100 S. Blackstone Ave., through July 16. Admission is free.

Weekdays: 12:00 - 4:00 pm.
Wednesday evenings: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Saturdays and Sundays: 10:00 am - 4:00 pm.

Photographs by Paul Calhoun. Audio by Ben Calhoun. Edited by Cate Cahan.

CHECK IT OUT! http://afterthewars.wbez.org/