Tonight I had the pleasure of walking with my lovely wife... we're trying to re-establish a healthy exercise routine that we haven't been able to stick to since moving out of Parkwood. I've been walking on the treadmill, but I'll take the upgraded scenery any chance I get... have you seen my wife?
So you can imagine my disappointment when she said she was going to "let me" finish the walk while she went in to get supper ready. On the one hand, I'm all about the supper part... we put the lasagna in the oven before we left and I knew we'd be eating well. But without her, I had no one to talk to (or more accurately, listen to).
Now you may think that last comment was a shot at her being talkative... but you'd be wrong. If you've ever walked or run, you know that carrying on a conversation while doing so can add a significant cardio component due to having to move that much more air. My lung capacity is pretty puny, so having someone to listen to works great! I keep my end up, but more importantly, it keeps my brain engaged in something productive.
Without her, my mind was left utterly vacant. I realized this after about 30 seconds... On the treadmill, I mindlessly watch Netflix. I have a couple of TV shows that run about 41-43 minutes, so it times out pretty nicely with my 3 mile distance goal. Absent the video and audio feeds, my mind was left to fend for itself.
So my first thought was literally "what should I think about?"
I considered reciting scripture, but that didn't work. I started with John 1:1, but couldn't get it quite right. I had seen it mentioned in a story in today's paper, about the oak tree that was sculpted into an eagle at St. John's Catholic Church. Then I got distracted by the dogs...
All the dogs.... it seems everybody on our little walking loop has a dog. I saw big dogs and little dogs, stray dogs and dogs behind fences... some I could see, some I could just hear. I was thinking about all the dogs, but then I heard a UPS truck...
That UPS guy drives up to a neighbor's house and leaves a package. As he's walking back to the truck, I hear the neighbor open the front door (he didn't wait) and say "thanks!". He asked if her last name was "Doe" and she said "yes", then he replied that he wasn't sure of the address... really??? Just left the package. Then he went down the street a couple houses and stopped again. This time he lays on the horn... HONNNNKKKK HONNNNKKKK. I'm puzzled, but then I see that he's stopped at the front gate trying to find a way in to ring a doorbell. I passed the truck at this point, so I'm not sure if he left it at the gate or found a way in. I heard him stop again behind me and HONNNKKKK, but I couldn't pay attention to that because I was about to hit a curve in the road....
When I hit the curve, I started thinking about how they oversimplified the rules in grade school: "ride bikes WITH the traffic, walk AGAINST the traffic". That may work on straight, flat, city streets, but out here in the country it ain't so simple. As I walked with the traffic around the curve, I realized I was on the wrong side, however I was on the inside of a curve, and worried that if I moved to the outside of the curve, I might get hit. But then there's the sun... I'm walking into the sun, low in the sky, so someone approaching from behind me is driving into the sun and probably can't see someone walking. So I moved over. But then I got to the shadows, and started to smell something...
Of course, this is near the small cemetery on Bayou Blvd., so my mind tried not to think much more about that smell. I looked in the ditch to see if there were a dead animal laying around, but didn't see one. At this point, I just picked up my pace a little.... safely past the smell, I started thinking about math...
I actually started doing mental math, just simple multiplication problems, in my head. 2x1 = 2, 2x4 = 8, 8x6 = 48, 9x8=72, 50x9 = 450, 450x2 = 900... at this point I couldn't help but laugh at myself - and besides, I couldn't go to four digits.
About that time, I realized this would all make a good blog entry, so I started thinking about all the stuff I had thought about...
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