Goodnight Elisabeth

"I woke up in pieces and Elisabeth had disappeared again."

I thought he would succeed. As I lumbered along the streets west of my home, running from near the bank where daughter No. 1 works after leaving her car in the lot for her (drove her to work and daughter No. 3 to school), I listened to the story of Jack Seward's attempt to kill the vampire Countess Elizabeth Bathory. I was certain he would slay her, prompting me to conjure the title of the Counting Crows song. Spoiler Alert! It wasn't to be. The former sanitarium director, now an itinerant vampire hunter and morphine addict wasn't up to the task.

The episode alluded to is from Dracula The Un-Dead (The Sequel to the Original Classic) by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt. Dacre Stoker is the great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, one of my favorite books. I bought the book some time ago and started to read it but became sidetracked. Fearful it would go unread on my shelf, I picked up the Playaway audio book (unabridged) at the Galesburg Public Library the other day. At first I wondered if it was cheating to divert to the audio version, but my wife, who works at the library, assured me that "listening is reading, too."

The audio book was a pleasant diversion to take my mind off the cold. The double-digit temperature today was deceptive. I've run on colder days recently, but this morning seemed overly chill for 25 degrees. Too much time this weekend in the warmth of the house perhaps. 

Street scavenging continues to be a challenge with snow on the ground, though it wasn't a wasted run. I did garner an even dozen aluminum cans over the course and picked up a losing scratch-off ticket, remembering the old second chance option. Unfortunately there were no directions on the back of this one for mailing it in to the state lottery offices for a drawing. Into the trash with it. On Maple Avenue in front of Churchill Junior High I found a Chevy hub cover, likely off a big pickup. I started to take it to display next to the Ford hubcap I found this summer, then decided to leave it in case the driver who lost it should retrace his/her route and recover the lost cover. If it's still there Wednesday, it's mine.

Farther along Maple Avenue I found a heavy 3-inch bolt, which I added to my collection for some reason. The only other discoveries were a couple of fun(ny) signs.

Ah, the District 205 "Dream Big" campaign
to boost attendance. I don't suppose they
wanted students dreaming of Big Macs.

Today's Stats

Temp: 25 degrees F

Distance: 5.38 miles

Treasure: 12 aluminum cans; 1 3-inch bolt; 1 Chevy pickup hub cover; 1 losing scratch-off ticket (Illinois Lottery Diamond Dazzler 5X game).

iPod Playlist (shuffle)

Again no tunes, just a few chapters of an audio book. Today I caught chapters 6-10 (partial) of Dracula the Un-Dead.

Quotable:

"Mina backed into a corner, cowering in fear. She was angry with herself for being so weak; she would not be a prisoner in her own home, to anyone or anything, least of all to herself. Her previous experiences with the supernatural had taught her that shrinking away like a frightened schoolgirl would not force evil to recede. Confronting it head-on was the only way to combat the darkness."