Where in the World is Monrovia?

I’ve been lying low last few days, working on that needlepoint project, resting up, eating right, so as to be in as reasonably good a shape my 72 years old body can be for this Sunday’s 5K. Lying so low, in fact that, when I opened my door yesterday, heading to Starbucks, my next door neighbor opened her door and asked if I was okay because she hadn't seen me for a while.

I've not been to the Community Room, and I guess she didn't hear me going out for coffee on previous days. Probably because, now that I don't have to get dressed first thing in the morning in case granddaughter needed me to Uber drive her around, I've not been getting dressed until noon and out for coffee until around 1:00/1:30.

I told her I was fine, my morning schedule had changed, and thanked her for checking on me.

My fourth year in a row for the Spooktacular, I’m find myself filled with both excitement and dread.

Excitement because of the opportunity to interact with thousands and thousands and thousands of other costumed participants.

Dread because the first half of the course is a steep steady climb.

I’ve learned from experience that slow and steady gets me there, yet and still there’s always that anxiety about the climb, and the closer I get to race day Sunday, the more anxiety I feel.

Adding to that anxiety is package pickup.

Saturday is package pickup day. Thinking I’d be in the area of the Montclair Plaza for that, where I could kill two birds with one stone – pick up the race package/look for new and different Pokémon than can be found in my area, that plan was nixed when I received notification package pickup has been relocated to Monrovia.

Where in the world is Monrovia?

Looking at MapQuest, Monrovia is over an hour’s drive from here, more than halfway to Los Angeles, very near Old Town Pasadena.

That’s an insane drive for me, especially on a Saturday when the whole world is on the road but, fortunately, the race organizers have given us an option this year. They don’t generally allow for race day package pickup but, because of the location change, we can pick up our package ON race day but are warned to “expect long lines”.

If it’s anything like the lines to the ladies’ room, I’m expecting a nightmare.

Last year, the line to the ladies’ room was so long that those of us waiting were at risk of missing the Start time.

Some of the women, myself included, made a decision to invade the men’s room. Security didn’t show up in time to kick us out and it didn’t seem to bother the guys as they came in anyway and used those things mounted on the walls giving us total access to the sit-down stalls.

To give the guys privacy, the women would turn around to face the wall. I, on the other hand, have been single a long time, some of those guys were awful cute, so I didn’t turn my face to the wall.

It was above board though, as those wall things and the guys were situated where I couldn’t see anything anyway.

In order to beat the crowds, ensure a good parking spot, I generally arrive early – before dawn. Hopefully this will be early enough to also get to the pickup point before the line gets too long, so I won’t miss any of the other activities.

There’s no hope for the ladies’ room line. It’s always like that and security might be wise to us this year and block the invasion, so who knows.

Well, it's 12:40 now, so I guess I'd better get dressed and head out for coffee. Maybe I'll swing by the Community Room, so the others can see I'm still alive.