Winter Walking: September Edition
It’s FREAKING SNOWING RIGHT NOW and I am NOT READY FOR THIS WEATHER.
It’s supposed to get worse over the weekend, too, so that’s great.
So in the spirit of “I need to pretend to look on the bright side of things unless I want to shoot myself in the face,” let’s list all the pros of winter walking.
- I use my on-ear headphones as a way to keep my ears warm, which means I get to listen to music when I walk (I don’t walk to music in the summer).
- I have to wear a coat, which helps hide my ugly body from the world.
- I don’t have to wear sunscreen (and thus don’t have to hose off in the bathroom once I get to campus).
- There are fewer people out on the sidewalks/river path due to coldness/bad weather.
- You burn slightly more calories in the cold than you do in other temperatures.
…I think that’s it.
So yeah. Things are supposed to improve by the end of the coming week, but it’s hard to see beyond the FREAKING SEPTEMBER SNOWSTORM right now.
Random Poop n’ Stuff
I can’t call this the September list ‘cause I DID THAT ALREADY ASLDKFJASLDKFAJF
- I ran 5k today. That’s absolutely nothing when it comes to actual distance (a reminder that I walk 15 miles a day; 5k is 3.1 miles), but it is the farthest I’ve run since I got hurt back in 2017. I’ve run 1.5 miles or 2 miles or even 2.5 miles, but I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve done 5k. It felt amazing. I’m glad my cardiovascular endurance is still there.
- This is haunting.
- Man, lemme tell ya…the more unlikely the two songs will match in a mashup, the better a mashup is.
People ask me what kind of music I like.
This.
This kind of music.
(That Slipknot/Timberlake one is a legit banger)
- Nate had to go to a funeral in BC (I couldn’t go ‘cause I have to work tomorrow) and I just spent about half an hour crying about as loud as humanly possible because I finally could do so without completely freaking him out. I think I’ve been holding that in for a long time. It felt good, but I’m also sad now.
Panic! In the Crisco
I did a thing and I’m not going to mention what it was yet ‘cause I bet it’s not going to work out but if it does it’ll be cool so yeah I’ll let you know if it does.
(Run-on sentences make me cool, right?)
Nostalgia Trip 2019
It was like 400 degrees in Moscow today (slight exaggeration), so I decided to walk around the city instead of go on the Moscow/Pullman trail (since there’s no shade and no water and a lot of heat and sun out there).
[Side note: it is quite difficult to walk 15 miles in Moscow. I did have to go on the trail for about three miles because I ran out of places to walk in the city. I could have stayed within city limits, yes, but it would have involved a lot more looping.]
After I’d wandered around the east side of town for a bit (why the hell is Mountain View still lacking a sidewalk that goes all the way from the highway to the pool? MADNESS), I decided to walk through campus. I haven’t walked through campus in quite a while, since any time I walk in Moscow, it’s either on the trail or in the UI rec center (which is still the best rec center at any university, fight me).
I was getting a nice, warm nostalgia bath as I wandered around amongst the buildings I’d spent so much time around/in. But then I went into the Ag Sci building and was hit with the mother of all nostalgia waves.
Lemme ‘splain. Both of my parents worked in the Ag Sci building for the majority of my life. When I was in elementary school and we had a day off for religious reasons or what have you, my mom would bring me into campus and I’d hang out in Ag Sci. I think I sat in on my dad’s classes a few times, too (just coloring in the back of the room, haha).
Once I started going to school at UI, my dorm was literally across the street from the Ag Sci building, so I’d always go visit my parents (particularly my mom) when I was done with classes and headed back to the dorm. I also used the Ag Sci computer lab all the time before they finally shut it down. Heck, I taught statistics in that big auditorium room (the same one my dad always taught in).
In short: I spent a lot of time in that building.
So walking through it today for the first time in quite a while (at least three years, maybe longer) was a super nostalgia trip. Even just walking down a flight of stairs – holy crap.
Sorry, this blog has absolutely no purpose. I just wanted to mention the nostalgia. I know nobody cares.
Oot and Aboot on the Scoot
I’ve mentioned the Bowness Scooter Gang on here before, but just in case anyone wants a fantastic read on the proliferation of Reddit-driven Scooter Gangs in Calgary, here y’all go:
This is the best thing to ever happen to the Calgary subreddit.
Bad Day?
Here’s a dude destroying balloons in cute, satisfying ways.
I love the sheer amount of knives.
SCOOTERGANG SCOOTERGANG SCOOTERGANG
(This has nothing to do with ScooterGang)
I have something important happening next week. I’m not sure when, but I’ll hopefully know soon.
I’m also going to be super vague about it ‘cause I don’t want to jinx things, but it’s important.
More info later, maybe.
(“ScooterGang” would be a great band name)
Another Pointless Claudia Blog
I’ve had the super strong urge lately to cut my hair short.
Like, short short.
I’ve been growing it out since before I came to Calgary (2014; partially to get rid of the bangs because they were a pain in the ass) and while I’ve trimmed to about shoulder length a few times since I’ve been up here, it’s never been quite as short as I used to wear it.
I used to get it cut almost like a pixie, but even shorter. I remember they always used that buzz clipper doodad in the back. That would be so much easier to deal with, especially since I spend about four hours a day with my hair shoved under a hat while I walk (some days it takes me an unreasonable amount of time to tame my hair for said walks, which is really dumb).
The problem is that I’m way more self-conscious about my face shape (it’s terrible) and ears (they stick out way too far) to even think about how horrible I’d look with short hair. I mean, I look horrible with long hair (or with anything else I do with my body), but I think short hair would accentuate the ugliness.
But who knows, maybe that insecurity will be outweighed by how obnoxious this long hair is by the end of the month and I’ll just chop it all off anyway.
HUH
My subconscious’ feature presentation last night was a horrific post-apocalyptic world where all human males had turned into “man-o-pedes” (centipede-type creatures that had mustaches) and all human females turned into keyboards.
That was it, there was no actual action going on or anything, but what the hell.
Aw Hail No!
Haha, so we got caught in a flash hailstorm on our way back from watching the new Spider Man movie. Observe:
We had just passed a bus stop when the hail started, otherwise we would have had to run a bit to find cover. The hail doesn’t look super big in the video, but some of them were probably dime-sized, I’d say. It sounds so loud ‘cause it was hitting the glass roof of the bus shelter.
I was yelling at Nate ‘cause that was the only way he could hear me.
Well, that’s great.
My mom’s here one night and someone broke into her van and stole a bunch of her stuff.
They smashed the window overnight and grabbed two of her backpacks full of stuff.
‘Cause people suck.
iThings?!?
Do I need one? No. Not right now. But I know I’ll need one at some point, once my current one’s battery bites it due to too many walks in freezing cold weather. I was worried that Apple would discontinue their iPods due to the fact that their phones do everything that the iPods do and more. But as this article points out, iPods are good for the demographic that can’t afford the phones and/or don’t want to deal with smart phones but still want a music player that can connect to wifi.
So yay! I’m glad there’s at least one more iteration.
Adventures in the Rain
According to the forecast, today was supposed to involve brief periods of “trace amounts” of rain. Nate and I believed the forecast, so we went out for our usual weekend walk.
Nate and I are fools.
About two and a half miles in, “trace amounts of rain” turned into “lol, better run, idiots, the sky is gonna drown you” and we had to take shelter under an overpass for a little bit before braving the strong rain to get to The Core downtown. By then, we were super soaking wet (I could wring out my coat) but only like five miles into the walk, so after trying to dry off a little in the mall, we managed to get a few more miles in by walking through the open portions of the Plus 15.
We also Plus 15-ed it to The Running Room for me to get shoes, then gunned it home to try to beat even more rain.
Fun, yo.
