I’d actually intended to just do a roundup of the interesting outfits and shirts I’d seen and have just one more marathon post, but I got diverted by this woman: Jaimee Joroff. Funny shirts are one thing, flags – for all their additional drag – are another. But firefighter gear? That’s some serious shit, even if she did concede to wear sneaks rather than boots. So I punched her number up in the MCM website and googled her name.
Un-freaking-believable.
Near the top of the list of results was this 2004 MD press release. Ms Joroff is apparently wearing EMS gear because she is an EMS technician. An EMT who finished training despite being in an arm cast. A year after graduation she participated in a challenge that involved climbing seventy-five flights of stairs. In full protective gear, tank included. I don’t know if any of you have ever SCUBA dove, but I have enough trouble lumbering my ass over to the edge of the boat and letting gravity do the rest of the work to get into the water. Even if the tank is one-fifth the weight… I don’t think I’m making 75 flights if you strapped helium balloons to me, much less a metal air tank.
One of the other Google results was about the 2005 winner of the Harpist of the Day award given out at the Richmond Highland Games and Celtic Festival. No no, it’s not Ms Joroff…. she was the 2004 winner. That year’s event was the 23rd and 24th of October. The week before she was running the marathon to raise money for the Burn Foundation’s Summer Burn Camp for Children, according to the above-linked MD press release.
All the other results are similarly race results and/or information on monies raised for charity. If she’s not working hard to save lives at work she’s doing it to save lives indirectly, though she might take some time off to make money for charity with her harp playing.
Here’s to you, Ms Joroff. I appreciate that you’re out there working to help us all and it tickles me to know that someday I might have my life saved by an award-winning harpist marathon runner with a heart of gold. Thanks for making the world a better place in what seems like your every waking moment.
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
Well I used to say something in my profile about not quite being a “tinker, tailor, soldier, or spy” but Tom stole that for our about us page, so I guess I’ll have to find another way to express that I am a man of many interests.
Hmm, guess I just did.
My tastes run the gamut from sophomoric to Shakespeare and in my “professional” life I’ve sold things, served beer, written software, and carried heavy objects… sometimes at the same place. It’s that range of loves and activities that makes it so easy for me to love DC – we’ve got it all.
