Whew

The race is over. I have no idea who won, or who even finished, or how many laps under yellow there were...but I can tell you within a few digits how many apples and bananas we went through, how many bratwursts and burgers, how many subs we put together, how many meals and drinks delivered, and how many tickets I signed away.

The tickets are my particular department - I sign in all of the volunteers workers (corner marshalls, timing and scoring, start, pit, and grid, tech, and race chair) and their guests. Each worker is given one guest pass, ostensibly so that a spouse or child over twelve can come watch. Not all the workers use their guest passes, so they usually let me give them to someone else who has more then one guest. I have to keep track of who's who, which can get complicated by Saturday.

In between registering, I made coffee, got breakfast out, helped with lunches and dinners, and tidies up the tent a bit. I had a lot of help, particularly from the Nut Brothers (one left nut, one right nut, both of 'em wing nuts) and Neal B. A lot of old friends were there, people I worked with back when I first started. It was good to see them, catch up, reminisce about friends who have passed away or gone away from racing.

I'm not a car gal, but the people? I love them, and will always do my best to make at least this one race as easy and enjoyable as possible for them.

Yesterday, there was no racing, just recovering from a long week. Sprout let me sleep until eight-thirty, which felt later because I've been getting up at five every morning. Speaking of Sprout, she cut her first tooth this week. It started showing under the gum on Wednesday, came through on Thursday. Now when she noms on my finger, it hurts - sharp toof!!

This morning, I gave her scrambled egg to eat along with the usual cereal and fruit. She ate the first bit of egg, blinked three times in slow succession, then grinned and grabbed for more. I told her when she has more teeth I'll make pancakes.

Someone had a nice time, too - a couple of times he came over and helped run the grill or fryer and get meals ready, and he got to watch some racing and meet some new friends. He heard a few old stories on Saturday night as the last handful of us, not ready for the event to be over, lingered in the tent sipping Laphroaig and taking turns telling tales and looking at old photos.

It was fun...ad I'm glad it's only once a year.

How was your week?

Petit

I haven't been writing much of anything lately. That's not going to change this week - I'm running worker registration for the Petit Le Mans all week, which means early mornings, late nights, a lot of cheerful grumpiness, and not much blogging.

If you're into racing, they broadcast bits of the Petit on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2, as well (I think) as online. You won't see me, but if you look for the people in white on the corners, the ones with flags, radios, and who respond to incidents (there are no accidents at a race, only incidents), I'm related to some of 'em and know all of them by name, having worked that job for nearly 20 years before finally giving it up due to health and performance concerns (mine - they'd still have me out there if I'd consent to work turns again). Those are the folks I'm registering, making sure they get the passes they need to get where they have to go. I'll also be helping make sure they're fed and have drinks and maybe snacks during the week.

Sprout and the Evil Genius will be coming over in the afternoons to help me hold down the fort. It's Sprout's first venture into the racing world, and I hope she digs it as much as the Little Dude does.

Y'all have a good week, and let me know if you watch any of the racing.

The Calm Before

In about an hour I'm heading over to the track to set up my registration area. It's time once again for the Petit le Mans, and one of my busiest weeks of the year. Whew. I'm running worker registration again, but a few other kind folks are helping out with the hospitality aspect of things...although given the seriously truncated budget this year, hospitality won't be what it has been. Sigh.

I've got a corned beef on the stove for tonight and a relatively easy menu for the rest of the week. Bless him, Someone has offered to help with cooking and to take on the Little Dude each morning so neither Mum (who will be in the communications tower for the week as liaison, logger, and communicator for several groups) nor I have to wake, dress, feed, and transport the little fellow to the track at Ohgod-thirty AM. Whew.

Luckily, we at Casa de Crazy tend to rise a bit later in the morning when left to our own devices. There's a chance I'll be home from my morning stint before the guys are up...which means maybe I can have some fun waking Someone up catch a nap and perhaps even head over and, oh, I don't know, do something novel like watch some racing with Someone and the Evil Genius before I have my second round of registration for the day.

Bird likes to come over and "help", so I told him he could hang with me in the afternoons. If he gets tired or wants to come home, he can come back with Mum or me when we're done with our respective jobs for the day.

There's usually quite a bit of heavy lifting involved with this job, but I've told 'em that this time, I'm not doing it. I'm also going to jealously guard my time to rest. I'm not as young as I was when I was pregnant with Bird...that year, I tossed cases of water and fifty-pound bags of ice over eighteen-foot fencing and worked twenty-hour days. Not this year. I'm takin' it easy...maybe I'll have long days, but no hauling for me, thankyouverymuch.

Ah, well, time to go throw a few last minute things in the van, get the Evil Genius dressed, and then get movin'. Calm's over...

Snort

So tired. Today is the last day of the race week - 10 hours or one-thousand miles, whichever comes first. We've never done the whole ten hours. I am officially done registering people at ten this morning - I'll spend the rest of the day doing what I haven't been able to do all week...actually watching some racing! That or napping. It's a toss-up.

Go here for info on the race. If you happen to watch and see the people in white on the corners and responding to incidents, or the folks driving the wreckers and rollbacks...they're the folks I have been registering all week, making coffee for, bringing ice and water to, and chilling beer for. I know every one of them.

Or, if you don't much care about cars going 200+ miles per hour, go here. It's not race related, and you'll laugh.

Ouchie

Warning - this post contains graphic images of horrendously dirty feet and some seriously offended piggies. That ought to garner some hits from the Google Pervs.

See?

I broke my right pinkie-toe on Tuesday night. It makes being on my feet all day on an uneven surface a real treat. Whee. Look how poofy it is. Good grief, even my little toe has a double chin!!

The bruising has spread but the swelling's gone down. It's achy, and walking about on a pile of aggregate isn't helping matters - I keep finding stray rocks to step on.

Sigh.

Oh, well - it's not the first time I've broken toes, and won't be the last. Meanwhile, you'd never know I washed my feet twice a day, would you??

Let There Be...

For the race, we have upward of one-hundred-fifty volunteer workers register to serve as safety marshals, timing and scoring, technical inspectors, emergency-vehicle drivers, pit and grid marshals, and starters, as well as folks who act as general help running about delivering lunches, ice, water, and anything else that needs doing.

To facilitate our registration process and give us a place for our meetings and social events, the track provides a very large tent for our use. They provide the light fixtures but I have to run the power cords for our lights and coffee apparatus (apparatuses? apparatii??).

The lights are usually big, square, obnoxious spot lights. Honestly, I loathe them and won't turn them on if I can help it - I'd rather work in the dark...and anyway, it's not really dark there, ever, because there are plenty of light poles around to lend a little illumination from a distance.

This year? Check out our lights:

So - we have a huge tent full of sleepy volunteers drinking coffee that will peel the paint off a naval vessel (in the morning) or muddy, sweaty, tired volunteers drinking beer (in the evening)...and chandeliers to light them on their way.

Awesome.

In the Middle of it All

I am busy this week and glad of it. It's a distracition, this controlled chaos at the track. I'm dealing with other peoples' needs, making certain they feel welcome and valued at this event. I like smoothing the way and the folks working this event are, like me, volunteers. They spend their hard-earned vacation time and dollars to come work safety for an international race and I think the least I can do is make 'em coffee in the morning, open some boxes of Danish pastries, and greet 'em with a smile.

I love Autumn. I love the turning of the leaves, the color and the scent, the feel of the air. I miss feeling the days turning crisp, watching frost etch the windows and turn the grass to a carpet of diamond dust. When I lived in NH, Autumn was a feast for the senses.

Here in Georgia, it's different. I love it here, don't get me wrong, and the seasonal change still happens...but it's muted, without the flare of a New England turning.

Every year, I feel a sort of joy combined with melancholy during this season. The days are cooler, and the leaves are turning, and...I miss the places of my childhood.

This week will pass the faster for having the race to work, for having something to do besides be reminded that I am fretful about things I won't discuss here, but that weigh on my mind. It will help to be surrounded by people from all over the world, to laugh at corny jokes, greet old friends, feed folks, and watch the Evil Genius charm their collective socks off (he does every year). Still...in the middle of it all...I know I'll have moments of yearning...moments of wistful thought...

Until someone asks me a question or needs something, and then I will paste the smile back on my face and see how I can help make their day, their race, a little better.

Let's Go Racin'

I won't be online as much as usual this week; the Petit Le Mans starts Tuesday, and I run worker registration and hospitality for the event starting Monday evening. That means eighteen hour days and no Internet while I'm over there.

I will be coming home from time to time - I live less than a mile from the track, and have a few hours mid-day when I don't have to be there, so I usually come home for a shower, a nap, and some quiet.

I plan to post daily, as always - y'all didn't think you were getting off that easily, did you??

I figured I'd tell you a little about what I'm doing over there (this week with the added bonus of lots of rain!) on a typical day:

4:30 AM - get up, get dressed, make sure the Evil Genius's clothes are ready for him, start the crock-pot if I'm using it to cook tonight's dinner, grab the handheld radio (it's been charging overnight) and cell phone and head over to the track. Everything else is already in the van, packed the night before.

5:00 AM - fetch ice from the cooler halfway across the property, 4 or 5 twenty-pound bags hauled out of the cooler, into the van.

5:15 AM - unload ice from van. Ice down water, juice, and soft drinks. Start coffee urns - there are three, but they have to be done two at a time and I can't turn on the lights until they're done or we blow the surge-protector and lose power. Unload registration box containing passes, car passes, waivers, pens, and schedules. Unload boxes of t-shirts to be given to the workers when they register. Put breakfast pastries and fruit out, and any snacks available for workers to take with them to their stations. Haul cases of water from the trailer and set them out for workers to take with them for the day. Set out flags, radios and communications equipment by station number.

5:45 - make my one cup of coffee for the day (this week, I will drink coffee or tea in the morning because otherwise I won't make it to lunch, let alone through the whole day) and tuck a danish roll away for the Evil Genius when he comes over with whoever leaves the house last in the morning.

5:50 - ready the registration area.

6:00 - Open registration, get workers and their guests signed in, hand out t-shirts and swag bags, check coffee, start new urns, place more breakfast pastries, fruit, and snacks out as needed.

10:00 AM - close registration, tidy up the tent area, fill coolers with water and soft drinks, fetch more ice and ice down drinks, turn off and empty coffee urns, load urns and registration gear into the van, wait for lunches to arrive, order lunches for tomorrow.

11:30 - sort lunches for delivery by zone, sort drinks for same, send them out with zone chiefs, make certain remaining lunches are enough to feed workers who report to the tent for meals, re-fill and re-ice coolers. Feed Evil Genius lunch and try not to notice how filthy he is from playing in the field that is out parking lot/hospitality area.

1:00 - tidy tent again, stow any extra lunches (hah!!), fill coolers one more time. Cajole, threaten, and bribe Evil Genius to get into the van, haul coffee urns and us back to the house. Clean urns. Fill water jugs - we don't have a water source at the track, so I have to come home for it. Load urns, water jugs, and afternoon/evening snacks into the van. Chivvy Evil Genius into the house, out of his dirty clothes, and maybe into the tub. Shower. Check on dinner in the crock-pot. Check e-mail, phone messages, and blogs, make phone calls. Nap, if there's time.

3:00 - load Evil Genius and self into the van, return to the track. Prep the coffee urns for tomorrow. Tidy the tent. Unload registration boxes, t-shirts, and snacks for the evening. fill and ice coolers.

4:00 - open registration. This is when most workers' guests will arrive. Update the bulletin board with tomorrow's hours, notes and menu.

4:30 - ice beer and wine for after-shutdown social.

5:30 - set out snacks for the social.

7:00 - close registration, load registration box and t-shirts into van.

9:00 - chase workers and guests away, close down social, tidy tent, turn out the lights, double-check the coffee urns (because coffee failure?? not an option!!), and head home with the Evil Genius if he didn't go back to the house earlier with Mum (who is working in the communications center for this event).

10:00 - load breakfast and snacks into the van fro morning, top up the boxes of swag bags so I don't run out, fill water jugs, bring in radio to charge over night, eat dinner if there's any left, visit with out of town guests visiting for the race, tidy kitchen, tidy living room, prep dinner for tomorrow, get Evil Genius bathed, read him a story, and get him to bed.

Midnight (if I'm lucky) - crawl into bed and die for a few hours.

4:30 AM - repeat above.

In between times, I'm usually running back and forth from the tent delivering ice and water to the workers or registering people who came in late (because I AM nice, damnit!!) and generally trying to help things run as smoothly as possible. It's chaotic, exhausting, and fun.

On Thursday, we'll have night practice and I'll be home even later, and Friday is the cookout and door-prize giveaway, so late again. Saturday is the final day, and I'll take the Evil Genius all over the track so he can watch the racing from every possible angle...and while we're at it, I'll haul water and ice around to anyone who needs it, fetch lunches and dinners for the workers, make sure Mum in the tower has whatever she needs, and nap once or twice. By end of race on Saturday, I'll have the tent tidied away for the last time, all the remaining drinks and snacks set out, and a bottle of Scotch ready to share with the event chiefs and my friends from out of town.

I may or may not get out of bed on Sunday. Or Monday.