Wednesday Rant Day

For those of you who aren't lucky enough to live here in New England, let me tell you about the weather we've been having. February is after all, the most depressingly cold and wintry month of the year. Well, not this year. We had a string of two days below freezing this week, culminating in one of the finer snowfalls I've seen in a while. Of course, I was out running in said snow storm because that's why God gives them to us, just like thunderstorms.

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That Soft White Blanket

Well, after my run last night (which was fantastic), I tried out some yoga moves on my new mat, bullshat on the computer for a little while, had some supper, and retired to bed. Throughout the night I could hear the sweet tinkle-tinkle of Snow Day-causing snow bombarding my bedroom windows.

This morning I awoke to an NPR money-grab and hoped they'd pause to at least tell us that the schools were closed. They did not. I'm not in school, but if they're closed I consider work closed for me. By the time I was up and moving, it was clear that at least my road was perfectly fine so I got dressed, had breakfast and headed out to shovel the driveway.

At some point during the morning, the sweet tinkle-tinkle of the snow turned into the not-so-sweet tinkle-tinkle of rain. By the time I got out to shovel it was raining pretty good, and the snow was far from light and fluffy. The end of the driveway where the plow puts it's mess was truly back-breaking.

As it turned out, the schools were closed today but there's no way I'm wasting my vacation to sit at home for a Rain Day.

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Speaking of Running

Yesterday afternoon I received several pleas to plan a run. I weighed the various needs of the people pleading for a run, and posted the resulting activity on our group message board. The plan was simple: meet at a specific place at a specific time, and we'd determine the route based on how good everyone felt.

Well, I headed out 20 minutes early to run to the meeting spot. As I arrived at the predetermined location (3 minutes late, but 7 minutes before the standard 10-minute grace period ended) I saw one car and no lights on in the house. I rang the doorbell anyway, thinking maybe they were in there and just about to leave. The single set of footprints leading away from the house convinced me that the occupant had already left. Hmmm.

With 5 minutes to spare, I wrote the name of the road I'd be running on the windshield of the car and waited in the cold wintry snow. After the 10 minute grace period was up, I left and proceeded to do my own run at my own pace, lost in my own thoughts. I never did see anyone else, but I'm sure they were out there somewhere.

When I got home, there were two messages on my voicemail asking where I was. They didn't know how they could have missed me and claimed that they even went by my house (but I noticed they left no footprints), noting that it looked dark. Since the reason they "missed" me was that they didn't bother to wait (which was very obvious to me), I didn't feel it was all that important that I return the calls. Those calls would be followed by concerned "I just want to make sure you're home alright" calls, which went unanswered because I was busy with my yoga/IM bullshitting.

I wouldn't say I was pissed, because I can even imagine the conversation that led up to me getting left behind. They probably thought "oh, we'll just head towards his house and meet up where we meet up", not thinking that there were many different routes I could have taken and I could have been on foot or in the car. Hell, I could have been coming from the complete opposite direction if I had to run errands on my way. And as it turned out, I was perfectly content running by myself. I just would rather not have to make plans for everyone else only to have them not wait for me.

BAH!

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Well Cooterinos, I think tonight is going to be another bike roller night, followed by some yoga. It's either going to be rainy or icy out, with neither being preferred.

Over and Out,
Old Coot