1) Snoopy has appeared as a giant balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade more times than any other character in history, a whopping 38 times. Bet you feel guilty about how often you walk your dog.
2) It's a bit nebulous why it became a tradition to pardon a turkey.
I went to the emergency room this Saturday night. The doctor diagnosed me with the worst case of buzz kill he'd ever seen.
Exactly one and a half drinks into the night, and six weeks before the Paris Marathon three friends and I had been training for, I felt an overwhelming need to introduce my face to the floor of a local hookah establishment. It was a potential Code WGW (White Girl Wasted) and within minutes an ambulance arrived.
Many of you have probably heard assorted tales of interactions between athletes and medical personnel. When I'd imaged these stories they were always lighthearted in nature....
EMT: "I can't get a pulse over here!"
Patient: "Gotcha! I'm a distance runner, you see. My naturally low pulse rate is hilariously confusing."
EMT: "You rascal!"
Patient: "Now put that gurney away, drinks are on me!"
The reality of it wasn't nearly so charming. Turns out, unless you're about to step onto an Olympic podium, doctors are hesitant to believe that it's exercise and not, say, opium causing your reduced pulse rate. And oh by the way all their machines are pre-set to beep if it drops below 50 so don't expect to get any sleep during your seven-hour wait.
So me and my little brother — who deserves a very special shout-out here, for not only soldiering through a seven-hour ER wait, and being the first to call 911 following my face plant in the bar, but for also finding a way to put the other patrons at ease as I was hoisted onto a gurney in the middle of their shrimp tempura roll by joking, "She always finds a way to get out of paying the tab, am I right folks? This guy knows." — passed the time by Googling the potential diseases I could be dying from.
When I was finally discharged it was at 4:30am, against medical advice, and with the discovery of an inverted T-wave on my EKG. What actually happened is still kinda a question mark.
But don't feel too bad for me, it just meant that my trip to Paris included a lot more cheese and wine and a lot less running 26.2 miles, which is, apparently, how most normal people travel overseas. It was the most beautiful, humbling, amazing trip I've ever taken. It's how I'll always remember Paris, except for the parts when we had too much wine.
"This is the way of peace: Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love." ~Peace Pilgrim
