OC Aids Walk - Anaheim, CA

Oi! I’m a day late with this entry and a dollar short. Or $15 short more like it but more on that later.

A couple of weeks ago Kevin and I were on our way to work when I made us stop at Starbucks. We didn’t have any clean travel mugs at home for my morning decaf and I was too tired to clean one out. You would think a person who has since switched to decaf wouldn’t exactly need their morning coffee, but I do. Maybe it’s the idea of coffee that gets me going, but regardless, I had to stop. The guy behind the counter was going painfully slow though I give him props as it appeared that he was the only one who showed up for work that morning. I had plenty of time to look at the most recently overpriced pounds of Columbian and $16 travel mugs that aren’t dishwasher safe. I also noticed a pamphlet for the OC Aids Walk. Normally I avoid pamphlets like the plague, but this one caught my attention as a benefit\volunteer thing is something that I’ve been meaning to do for awhile.

When I got to work I immediately signed up for the walk online. Please don’t tell my boss I was online looking for something non-work related. I also used the company email to ask co-workers to sponsor my walk by donating some funds (probably gotten from said job) to the site as well. Quite a few of my co-workers did indeed sponsor me so not only did said co-workers go online for non-work related material but also responded back to me using company email to tell me that they did. Please don’t fire me or my good hearted co-workers Boss. It was for a good cause. You should fire Tom in Accounting for looking at porn. Just kidding, we don’t have a Tom in Accounting.

Anyhow, through my co-workers, family and friends, I managed to raise $185 dollars of my $200 goal. Thank you friends, family and co-workers, you are awesome!

All I had to do was actually DO the walk, which was 5 miles. When I signed up it didn’t cross my mind that walking 5 miles would be a challenge. It’s walking after all. I figured a day at Sea World would equate to more mileage on my sneakers than a 5 mile walk would. Then I started telling people about the walk and they started looking at me like it might be hard.

“Have you been training?”

“Um, not really. I mean, I walk every day. Didn’t you just see me walk from my desk to the printer? ….and then back again?”

“You better start training.”

“Honestly? You really think so?”

“5 miles is longer than you think.”

“Well, I guess…”

When the day of the walk approached, I was a little bit nervous. 5 miles. In my head, 5 miles started seeming like 500 miles, and wouldn’t I be more comfortable if I brought a sleeping bag just in case I only make it half way?

I got to Angel’s stadium an hour before the walk was supposed to start. Since I was by myself, I just wandered around looking awkward for hour or so, checking out booths, having some lemonade and listening to the announcers announce how much more money everyone else there made than me. I finally stood right by the start line watching the marching band set up and the Army march on by.

Church or Lube? Hard choice if you ask me.

At 9:20 AM, we were off. I walked for awhile with the band and watched as the Army ran by. Show-offs.

There isn’t really much to say about the walk itself. I did it under an hour, it wasn’t bad, and I felt good for doing it. Truthfully the worst part was that I kept tearing up. Somewhere about the time I turned 25, the hormones that control my tear ducts went out of control. I seriously cry at the stupidest things, like at every ending of Little House on the Prairie (before Albert got there, before it turned to crap), like seeing an elderly woman walk across the street with a little girl, or like seeing that commercial for the Humane Society with those stupid dogs with their stupid big sad eyes looking at me saying, “take me home, I swear we won’t eat your shoes…or your cat.” Needless to say that the reason why we were all there kept my lip quivering and my eyes welling over most of the time. I’m a dork. It might also explain why I normally didn’t have anyone nearer than 10 feet around me while I was walking. Either that or I smelled funny, which is entirely possible as well.

The best part of the walk was that we got to walk on the field at Angel’s stadium. I had never been on a professional baseball field and although I’m not a big baseball fan, it was really cool. I touched the grass (it’s real!) and tried to determine if the dirt around the diamond was made from crushed lava rock (doubt it). I have told a lot of people about getting to walk on the field but no one is really impressed by this. Hmm.

After the walk we were given a bunch of free things. Coupons for free sandwiches and burritos, water bottles, Frisbees, t-shirts, energy drinks, etc. They had a band playing but I decided to head on home to beat the traffic.



All in all, it was a great experience that I am sure that I will do again. Now if you’ll excuse me, the episode where Mary goes blind is on. Send tissues.