What to Do With My Day Off?

I awoke this morning to the sound of a garbage truck doing its thing in the proximity of my house. As garbage trucks tend to stop at every house, this one did its thing for quite some time. Fortunately my trash has been out for two days because of Monday's holiday so I was able to simply roll over and resume my beauty sleep.

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One Man's Trash...

For the first time in my life I took the trash out the night before, saving untold minutes of anguish, and untold lives as I would not be driving to work roadrageously.

As a result of replacing all of my windows, I was left with quite the stack of old windows. As far as old windows go, there isn't much wrong with most of them so I hate to just trash them. The other option is to build another house and reuse them. Off to the trash they went.

Yesterday morning (which is normally trash day) I went out to get in the car and noticed the windows I set out were gone. Sweet, someone wanted them. So I let the car idle for a minute while I went back in to retrieve another set. Sho nuff, when I got home those two windows were gone too. Since trash day had been moved out one day (remember the holiday) everything else sat there untouched. It would be picked up on the morn.

At this point I'm pretty psyched. At the rate of one set of windows per week it would take over two months to get rid of the whole stack. This morning I thought to myself "Self, if every time you put out windows someone comes and takes them, maybe you should put out all the windows and none will be picked up with the trash" so that's what I did. Wouldn't you know the only one remaining is broken anyway, so it hardly counts.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

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Running Errands, Running

I spent most of the late morning and early afternoon running errands. I felt very accomplished, as some tasks had been on the list for a while. A few weeks ago I came across a box of magazines I didn't even know I had. The addresses on some made it clear that I had moved this box twice without ever re-reading a single issue. Does anyone re-read magazines anyway? Off to the transfer station with those.

The last chore was to swing by Family Footwear to pick up some new road shoes. I should be honest here, buying running gear is never a chore. I spent some time last night online selecting just the pair I would buy, which of course they didn't carry, but the guy who helped me was very knowledgeable as far as running shoes go. He's been there as long as I've been shopping there and he's always been able to help me find what I need.

I went back home with my new pair of Nike Pegasus shoes and decided that despite the 90 degree heat and humidity I was going to test drive my new kicks. A quick change of clothes and I was on the road. It was one of those runs where every 10th car is being driven by someone I know, so I felt like a celebrity, putting one fist in the air every few minutes. ECOW passed twice and she's always good for a honk. It was a good run.

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The Cookie Bowl

After that unplanned run, I had to load up the boat and head over to Stockbridge Bowl for the Cookie Bowl, a canoe/kayak race with cookies for prizes. I was turned on to this race by one of my buddies from the Thursday Night Run. Since I had never heard of it, I assumed it was some rag-tag race with a dozen or so boats. I assumed wrong.

The parking lot was loaded with cars by 5:15 when I pulled in. I don't know exactly how many boats were there, but I would say 75 is a safe estimate. This was no rag-tag bunch either; some of the boats likely cost more than the cars they rode in on. In case you aren't amazed, keep in mind these boats still require that you paddle them. Shit, some of the paddles people used cost more than my boat.

About 2 miles into the race I was hitting the wall. "How the hell am I gonna make it the rest of the way around the lake, then do another lap?" That's when I slipped into a rhythm, zoned out and pulled that boat around for a 72 minute finish.

For most of the race I had these two girls in a canoe on my ass (figuratively, not literally). At first I tried to chat them up, but they were concentrating on going in a straight line and unresponsive, so I just kept to myself. At the end they tried some bullshit and made a break for it, trying to pass me. There's no way I was going to let them draft off me for nearly 6 miles only to get beat in the last few hundred yards. In a blistering (at least on my hands) speed I left those hoes in my dust. Or steam, spray, whatever. I gave it another shot to chat them up, thinking my now-bulging arms would have them swooning, but they weren't having it. Eh, no skin off my teeth.

The best part is that the woman I drove there didn't listen to me when I said "I'm going to put my race number over here, let's not get them mixed up", when she put them together in one of the boats. She assumed (making an ass out of you and me) that her number would be lower because she got it first, and we ended up with the wrong numbers. As a result, she placed first in the Women's Open Kayak division, earning herself a bag of homemade cookies. Of course, I earned those cookies because they gave her my time (about 15 minutes faster than hers), but whatever.

I ate the cookies.

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Cooldown Lap

After the race, we went for a cooldown run in Lenox. It was a great night: low 70s, lowish humidity and a gentle breeze. We ran the back roads which is like running out in the country, a peaceful route at any time. I fell victim to several calf cramps (hmm, maybe I overdid it today) that slowed me to walk a number of times, but it was good anyway.

Now, it's time for my beauty rest.


Over and Out,
Old Coot