My weekend with Irene.

In my last post, I complained about how Hurricane Irene resulted in my second consecutive year of not running the Annapolis 10-miler. Apparently, the universe decided I needed cheering up, because within a few minutes, I got two pieces of good news:

1) I am approved to take the MD state law exam for counseling licensure. This means that my application for an LGPG (Licensed Graduate Professional Counselor) license, which I submitted in late June, has been approved by the Board of Professional Counselors and Therapists. Now, I take the law exam (the next date is in late September). Once I pass, I can actually be licensed! This is a long and often frustrating process, but it is actually happening! I might get to be a counselor before I forget how.

2) My professional Iron Girl photos got posted, and they are actually good! As a general rule, I am not a photogenic person, and nowhere is this more true than in race photos. I have never mastered the art of smiling at the photographer, or raising my arms in triumph. Instead, I tend to look like this:

This photo, from the 2010 Cold Turkey 10K, features several of my usual photo problems: grimace, squinting, double-chin, unflattering pose. I have many worse examples, but my self-esteem is not solid enough to post them.

Fortunately, I did better at Iron Girl. Not all the photos are great, but there are enough good ones that I paid to download them. Here are the best ones:

Bike shot #1: before I lost my number.

Bike shot #2: no number. Not sure how they knew this was me without it.

Run shot. I think this is close to the end.

Finish picture. I remember thinking "That's not going to be good" after they took this. Glad I was wrong!

After my flood of good news, I was able to approach the hurricane with a better attitude. I made all the necessary preparations, gathering flashlights, candles, non-perishable food, and, of course, booze:

Always have a flashlight ready so you can find your wine in the dark.

Unlike many of my Annapolis friends, who still don't have power, I wound up being over-prepared. Nothing exciting happened at my house on Saturday, until about 8:30 or 9pm. At that point, I still had power and was reading by a window when I heard a terrifying BOOM on my roof. A few seconds later, a big tree branch landed right outside the window where I was sitting. I stuck my head outside to investigate and saw that the tree branch was not nearly large enough to have made the sound. I looked around some more, but it was dark and I couldn't see anything.

Sunday morning, I woke up surprised to find that I still had power. Around 7am, I was in the kitchen making breakfast when I turned and looked out my kitchen window. Normally, this window shows a view of my neighbor's house. Sunday morning, all I saw were leaves. I had found the source of the BOOM. I walked outside and found this:

That's one branch of a very big tree. This branch alone is the size of a small tree.

The branch from the back.

 Miraculously, this branch managed to fall from the tree, hitting both my roof and my neighbors' house on the way down, without actually damaging anything!

A few minutes after I found this branch, my power went out. I called my parents and told them about the situation, and my mom told me that she and dad would be right over to help with the tree. I asked "How can you do that when I don't have power?," and my mom replied "That's okay. We'll bring the gas-powered chain saw." I hung up the phone, grateful for the help, but also wondering why my parents own more than one chain saw.

Once mom and dad arrived, we made quick work of the branch. After about an hour, we had two piles. The wood pile:

...and the leaf pile:

Then, a few hours after my parents went home, the power came back on. I never even had to light the candles. So, all in all, I was very lucky.

Today, I had one more bit of good fortune to soothe my A10 disappointment. My friend Ryan and his wife Bethany travel up from Atlanta every year to run the race. Their schedule is always packed, so seeing them is always a logistical challenge. Our original plan had been a rushed brunch right after the race. Ryan and Bethany didn't get the news about the race soon enough to change their travel plans, so they wound up in MD with a much freer schedule than usual. Today, we got to meet for a long and leisurely lunch in DC, which was probably much more pleasant than it would have been right after the race. We all agreed that 2012 will be our year to finally run together!