A seven mile run that was sweltering for the first four miles. Then I stopped to stretch and convince myself to keep with my original route plan and pray for rain. Then it did rain during what is always the worst mile of this particular route (no shade whatsoever. So that was good. Then the rest of the run was merely hot. In non running news... Last Saturday I drove to Chicago to visit my family. I was quite crabby about going for a lot of reasons. When I got to my parents' house, my mom was bugging us to go to a garage sale because she is crazy in love with buying junk that no one needs or wants, including her. I declined, but Eli wanted to go. Caleb didn't, but I made him go anyway. The sale was a couple blocks from her house, so when she was paying for her junk and the boys said they wanted to go back because they had to go to the bathroom, she sent them on their merry way. Caleb rode a bike and Eli ran after him, but couldn't keep up. When my mom got home, Eli had arrived, but Caleb hadn't. I didn't think anything of it until she walked in the door asking where he was. My mom started panicking, but I, ever the calm one, hopped in the car because I thought I knew exactly what happened. Once before he had missed the turn to her street, so I figured I'd find him lickity split. I drove in that direction, didn't see him, drove around the park, and then headed back, figuring he had to be at the house by now. Well he wasn't. We ended up having to call the police. My mom is absolutely the worst person to be around during a crisis, so I was spending most of my time trying to calm her down. The police came, got his description, said they had a few neighboring towns on the alert for him. None of us could remember what color shirt he was wearing, but I'll never believe Eli again. He said Caleb was wearing white, I thought dark ( I was of course right). Anyway, then I just had to wait at the house in case he came back or the police needed anymore information. My mom drove around. I had just called Chuck to let him know when my mom drove in. She had to point to Caleb sitting in the front seat because I was so distracted. I held it together long enough to call the police to tell them he was safe, then shed a couple tears of relief. Caleb had been crying but claimed he wasn't, and he was wheezing pretty good, so he used his inhaler while we waited for the officer to come back and my mom to go back to get his bike. They left it where she had found him--on a major artery near her house, Harlem Avenue. The officer came to chat with him about what to do if he ever gets lost again, and that was a real eye opener for me. We spent a lot of time telling the kids to be wary of strangers, but not what to do when they need a stranger's help. Now we all know. Lesson learned. | 