I ran a 5k this morning. 35:33! A new world yam record! It was a great race. All women and smaller than any others I've been to. Very cool vibe. Must do it next year. (Bonus to all-woman race: the t-shirts are baby-ts in sizes that make sense. Unlike the "Medium" shirt I got at the last race I went to which fit my boyfriend perfectly. My boyfriend wears an "XL Tall" usually. Heh.)

Anyway. Perfect weather, lovely setting (down by the beach, through the woods a bit and past the blackberry patches! yum.)

Ooh, blackberry season is almost here. I had a ripe blackberry today. Soon I get to go blackberry picking and then I get to make blackberry cobbler. Mmmmmm. Normally I would be looking forward to homemade blackberry jelly too, but I have a jelly mistress: homemade raspberry jam, which I have been consuming at the rate of one jar per two weeks. (With a lil help, but honestly not that much.) However it's homemade by the same guy as the jelly, so my loyalty issues are minimal.

You should all read flaming carrot comics. My boyfriend is on the couch behind me and he keeps giggling.

No, no, you should all read emmalola's last few diary entries. They are something to read. Man.

I am on vacation! WHEE! Tomorrow I am NOT going to work, instead I am going to the amusement park to see if the bumper cars make me puke. If not, I will see if the swings make me puke. If not, I will see if the tilt-a-whirl makes me puke. If not, I will count myself lucky, get some greasy fair food, and NOT see if the kiddie-roller coaster makes me puke, because I KNOW it does. Hee, I haven't been to playland in years. Not since physics day in grade 12 and that doesn't count since I didn't go on any rides.

Later I will go see an imax movie. I am going to all sorts of random tourist spots and attractions this week. I am staying in town and I will have fun, fun, fun. In the sun, sun, rain.

My mystery dinner was awesome. I got to use the pixy stix the fabulous miss apotter sent me, in the Blue. We had to make two batches, because we spilled the first batch, which was just as well because it looked like turquoise latex paint. Hee.

We went to a lantern festival afterwards and IT WAS SO COOL! I can't believe I'd never been before. All manner of clever lanterns and costumed people and firedancers and stilt walkers (hell, a stilt BIKER!) and wow. Thousands of families out in the park being pyromaniacs. Highlight of my evening: in a park filled with thousands of people lighting things on fire, being singled out as a fire hazard. Heh. We made a pyramid of tealights and lit them on fire. And then did the trick where you get the whole surface of wax of a tealight to light on fire (tricky - takes a lot of heat and a lot of oxygen. usually we do this on a deserted beach and use a butane torch, but turns out having the tealight on top of a pyramid of other burning tealights works too.), and then dump water on it. The water boils off instantly and takes the flaming liquid wax with it, creating a huge fireball. Very cool. And THEN we were left with a pyramid of molten wax mixed with water, sizzling and oozing and basically being a little bundle of fire, and we were asked to put it out. ("It's beautiful! But um, it's a fire hazard, and we need you to get rid of it.") They actually suggested we just blow it out or dump water on it (hahahaha, yeah, spread flaming wax everywhere and then make it in to an even bigger fireball! YES!) but we talked them in to letting us dump sand on it.

ANYWAY I had a very fun last night and that is only the start of my vacation. Hah! Take that! Whee.