Last weekend I ran the Pi Day 5k with my sister, her boyfriend, and a friend of mine (who has run this race with me for the past 4 years). None of us were running alongside each other, but you know what I mean. We all ran the same race and got our pie and medal at the end. This race is local, on trails I am familiar with, so I’m always comfortable running it alone.

I had originally signed up for the 10k, when I saw they had added that option. A few weeks prior to the race, it had become apparent to me that a 10k was a bad idea. I hadn’t been running much over the winter, and I also had developed some significant foot pain. I believe it’s plantar fasciitis, but I’m tired of calling it that. It just feels like two weird words paired together and I always feel like such a poser saying it out loud. I don’t want to sound all hoity-toity so let’s just call it foot pain. I can withstand a little foot pain for 3 miles of pounding pavement, but not six. So, I contacted the race director and downgraded to the 5k, and when she responded in the affirmative, almost a literal weight was lifted from my back. Seriously. Instant relief. The race went fantastic and though I had pain, it was minimal and easy enough to ignore for the majority of the race. I only tripped on my foot a few times, but had zero falls. That’s always a win.

As part of our race package, we were given t-shirts with a cute drawing of a slice of pie on the front and it says “Keep your eyes on the pies.” I’m not generally a fan of t-shirts, but this one is super duper soft. So when I put it on yesterday, I really wanted to love it. Great material, a fun pun, what’s not to love? Well, that cute graphic on the front was not properly centered. I took one look in the mirror and cringed. It’s not super obvious, but it’s enough to drive me bonkers if I keep thinking about it. I considered changing my shirt, but I was so excited to wear it to Bible study that morning that I decided to just let it go and move on with my day.

The problem with this though, is that I believe it set the tone for my whole day. In the morning I was making an egg salad sandwich for my husband’s lunch and as I slapped the second piece of bread on top of the salad, I noticed the shape wasn’t lined up with the bottom slice. Like a savage made it. Later that evening, I was preparing some Caesar dressing with “freshly grated parmesan” (a phrase I love to say). I opened up a brand new wedge of cheese, cut off a piece to shred, then set the remaining wedge down with all the other prep tools on my cutting board. When I was done with my preparations, I moved the entire cutting board to the kitchen sink, cheese wedge and all, and left it there, not having seen my mistake. I only became aware of it after dinner, when my husband was rinsing off his salad bowl and he turned to me and asked, “What’s going on here?”. I got up, looked into the sink, and cursed. “Oh, f*&$!” My precious parmesan was ruined.

Stuff like this happens to me a lot due to my low vision. Most days I can laugh about it but there are times when it really angers me. This was one of those times. I had just had enough of it. That whole day felt whackadoodle. Some kind of low-key curse was upon me and I blame that damn shirt. But at least we still had pie.