1:39 AM. Jim and Marsha. Jim insists that his leg is getting stronger and stronger by the day. You know, Jim is a true inspiration. In fact, interestingly enough, he is such an inspiration that when Miss Alli's Mom fell and hurt her foot while Sister S and the nephews Little A and Little B were visiting this week, she valiantly went to the zoo anyway and walked all over the place that same day. She said, only partially tongue-in-cheek, that if Jim could do the race with 25 stitches, she could certainly handle the zoo on her "sprained" foot. Of course, her bravery appeared ever so slightly rash the next day when her entire foot turned purple and swelled up until it resembled a large eggplant with terrifying sausage-like toes protruding from it. I am ashamed to admit that I asked her if I could throw a dishtowel over it so that I wouldn't have bad dreams about it later. We finally convinced her to go to Urgent Care, which led to an X-ray and the discovery of the snapped fifth metatarsal on which she had inadvertently wandered around for several hours looking at the snow monkeys and the dolphin show and whatnot. She's hobbling around much more efficiently now with the assistance of her crutches, and I keep trying to get her to look on the bright side, which is that she would make an outstanding superhero called something like "El Crutcho" if she could figure out how to swat people in a really stupendous fashion. So far, she has not taken me up on it. So thanks, Jim. My mother never would have ignored her medical emergency without you. Anyway, Marsha interviews that she and her dad want to finish the leg as quickly as possible so that "these healthy, fast teams will be rather embarrassed that a couple gimps beat 'em." That's exactly what I suspect Mom was thinking when she passed those three irritating twelve-year-old boys on the way past the tiger enclosure.