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I had planned to go out on a more adventurous romp through somewhere more interesting than my own backyard. An expedition, maybe. I had noticed there has been an awesome fog sitting on Whitemud Creek at Smyth Crossing every morning these days as I drive or bus by. I thought it might be interested to take the dog over there. But I was good: I did my chores first, mowing the lawn, cleaning up the yard, and tending to the dog. And then we got rain.
I’m not much of a hot weather person. And actually I’d very much rather be a bit on the cool side, a couple of degrees below that standard definition of whatever room temperature happens to be. A little bit of chill in the air is just perfect for me. But the problem is that I live in a climate that has quite a bit of seasonal temperature fluctuation. At the extremes we dip to the bone-chilling, skin-numbing cold of the mid-minus fourties Celsius in the heart of winter — and then into days of blurring, sweating, sweltering hot with temperatures in the high thirties or occasional low fourties (Celsius again) in the peaks of summer. I have a rule that I generally follow when I [...]
While running is largely a cardiovascular sport, I’ve been told that hill training is where the sport bleeds into the strength-building, weight-lifting, bench-pressing equivalency side of things. Most of the time we’re training our lungs and muscles to do hard repetitive actions over and over and over again, sometimes for hours, the whole ‘let’s go run up and down hills for a while’ thing is more about training those muscles to get stronger. Or so I’m told.
For the entire month of June I’m planning on writing a series of blog-a-day posts based on a set series of open-ended questions to myself. This is one of those posts. June 2nd // Something You Have Lost Something tells me that part of writing these daily posts is definitely going to be one whole part ‘interpretation and clarification’ of the question. For example, when I ask myself what’s something I’ve lost, I do not think that the spirit of the question will be fulfilled by an answer that reaches into the intangible or philosophical by saying something such as “I’ve lost my trust in the innocence of society” or “I’ve lost my freedom to get up and do things on a whim causing to [...]
Saturday. Sitting on the front porch in my plastic Adirondack chair. Sparkle curled up in her bed (too much of a wimp to lay in the grass, of course.) The sun beats through the light smoky haze drifting in from some Northerly forest fire. The cars grind past, one every couple of minutes, beating their way to somewhere, who can say. Saturday morning have become my free time. Claire has been taking a dance class. Karin takes her to the studio where she’s been a regular for a number of years now. Its been Claire’s first year. It’s a mommy-daughter thing. It suits me just fine to have a solid ninety minutes to myself every Saturday morning. Sometimes I do something productive. This morning I [...]
wherein… …we garden… …filling the spaces, pots, and planters with an assortment of foliage, plants, seeds, and other recently purchased bits of life, flora, soil, et cetera, in a vaguely directional attempt to beautify this little chunk of land we call our back yard, a haven for rapid greening in a short five month window prior to yet another inevitable snowfall that reduces it all to brown chaos, death, and depression. …we party… …or at least as much as a couple with a tag-along child can at a birthday-slash-going away party at Jess and Martin’s house, grilling various meats with folks we sorta-know through past associations at similar gatherings in distantly fleeting memories. …i run… …logging yet another nine point some kilometers around the neighborhood [...]