Slow and steady wins the race

Claire, Bogey and I had a fabulous time in luxurious Fargo this past weekend. Some of our favorite things about going to Fargo include (in no specific order):

1) Sunday morning breakfast at the Cajun Cafe,

2) MOJO 104.7 FM playing hits of the 70's and 80's in the background while we dine on Russell's (in)famous veggie lasagna,

3) Late night girl talk sessions whenever I'm able to stay up long enough to hang with Veronica, Susan and Michelle (or any combination of the three) to discuss marriage, work, life and boys...

4) Drinking Brandy Alexanders at Hotel Donaldson. Or an afternoon of schooners filled with ice-cold beer at Jim Lauerman's Pub before heading to The Bismarck to shoot some pool, eventually ending up in a booth at The Empire Tavern which almost always leads to finding yourself in the kitchen of Hippie Dale's apartment at 3AM while you wonder, "How did I get here?" and - more importantly - "How do I escape?"

5) Matthew, Veronica, Susan, Kermit, Peter, Michelle, Naiya, Adele, Russell, Theo, Tucker, Ole and Berkley - our best friends in the entire world. Here's a photo from our New Year's weekend. You can almost smell the body odor seeping up from the front row of this picture (and I'm not referring to the dogs). Don't worry - it's not a scratch-n-sniff photo, so you can stop pawing at your PC monitor.

While we were relaxing in Fargo, Linda was running a personal best time at the Paris Half-Marathon on Sunday. It was freezing cold and windy, but I'm told it was a nice run... if a little 13-mile jog on a windy, freezing cold day sounds "nice" to you. I suppose running a course from Chateau de Vincennes, in the east of the city, leading through Place du Nation, Bastille and Hotel de Ville on an historic journey through the streets of the Revolution would be pretty cool... and sitting at a cafe along the route eating bread and drinking wine would be equally "nice". To each his own. I think everyone knows where I stand - and sit - on this one.

Linda placed 19,905th out of more than 27,000 runners and finished in a time of 2:17:08. I believe the remainder of her Paris vacation will be spent shopping, eating, drinking and sight-seeing. As for Claire and I, we'll be spending the remainder of our week attempting to set our personal best record for number of frozen pizzas eaten in a four day span. Speaking of which, does anyone know of a frozen pizza that's actually good? I think we've tried them all, and I'm not impressed with any of them... but I suppose we'll keep looking.

In the meantime, see if you can find Linda in this photo of the 2010 Semi-Marathon de Paris. Remember, she's wearing blue. Good luck.