Non Sequitur Box

On a lonely Friday evening, I went to watch The Giver in theaters alone. It got a lot of bad reviews, but I enjoyed it. The Giver is another book I enjoyed since childhood. When I got home, I downloaded The Giver quartet (by Lois Lowry) to my Kindle account and blazed through the series. In order, the series includes The Giver , Gathering Blue , Messenger , and Son . As a warning, I've included a bunch of spoilers. The Giver The first book in the series, we are introduced to Jonas and his utopian society where there is no music, no color, no dancing, no love, no real emotions. Life and death is planned. Climate is controlled, and there are no animals (except fish). Everyone is assigned a position in life at their special coming-of-age ceremony, but Jonas is selected . He is the Receiver, who will go to the Giver every day for training. The Giver is a man who holds all the memories (good and bad) before the time of the community. These are passed down from Giver to Receive...

I read this book over the summer, so some of the details may have escaped me. I remember enjoying The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin as a young girl, so I re-read the book this year. I am happy to report that I still enjoyed the book. It is a very simple book, but I think children and adults (who are young at heart) can both enjoy it. The Westing Gam e is a mystery surrounding the tenants of Sunset Towers. Our heroine is young Turtle Wexler. The other tenants are somewhat humorous caricatures. Turtle's father is a doctor and her mother is odd. Her sister is quiet and pretty, to be married to a young doctor. There is the Chinese high school track star and his parents, who run the restaurant on the top floor of Sunset Towers. On the first floor is a coffee shop, run by a couple who have two young boys. One of the boys is friends with the track star; their other son has a disability and is confined to a wheelchair. There is a wise lawyer, an attention-starved secretary, a doorman, ...

Today I ran the 3rd annual Navy-Air Force Half Marathon in Washington, D.C. I met my three goals of negative splitting, running under 1:25:00, and placing in the top 10 for females. Preparation I've been training with Capital Area Runners for a few months now, and I've run new PRs at multiple distances (1 mile, 4 mile, 10k). I was already signed up for the Richmond Marathon in November, and I had set Newport (RI) Half as my tune-up race in October. Coach said I should run this race as a secondary tune-up. I'm easily convinced. My weekly mileage has been 40-60 miles for the past month. My last hard workout was last Tuesday (6x1200m). I ran easy 7.5, easy 5, easy 4 (last mile pick-up), and easy 2 miles for Tuesday through Saturday. Core work every day, of course. Pre-Race The race only offered one race pick-up day, at the Washington Nationals baseball stadium. I got there early, and it was already hectic/slow. I felt bad for those standing in the rain later in the day...