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I Just Can’t Do It

Call me a wuss. Or a sissy. Or a loser. Or you pick the moniker.

I just can’t bring myself to go out and run today.

Wednesday, it was 75 degrees with 76% humidity when I ran. That, coupled with a personal issue of the female variety, made the jog/walk routine close to intolerable. But I still did jog a full 18 minutes.

Today, when I stepped outside with the dogs, I was immediately enveloped in a thick, warm, wet blanket of air. I checked the Weather Channel Web site. The temperature was again 75 degrees, but with 90% humidity. And that issue of a personal nature is still nagging me.

I did not run. I just couldn’t. I chose to stay in air-conditioned comfort instead.

How much does humidity really matter? Only a non-Marylander would ask. It’s 79 degrees in my office right now. But the humidity level is only at 36% (yes, I have a thermometer in here).

Oh well. Perhaps I’ll get back out there tomorrow.

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What Are Words For…

…when no one listens anymore? When no one listens, what are words for?

Can you name that song from the 80s? I think it was early-80s. That’s one of the ones that pops into my head frequently for some reason. I have so many brain cells wasted on song lyrics…

Can’t think of it? To learn the answer, watch this really cheesy video. Sorry it couldn’t be embedded.

Speaking of WORDS, I haven’t done a Wordle lately. Notice that “Paw” is the biggest? That means it was the word most frequently used on the blog page I used to build the Wordle. In this case, it has nothing to do with dogs. It is referencing the town of Paw Paw, West Virginia and the nearby Paw Paw Tunnel on the C&O Canal.

Speaking of words… here are two words for my Dad: HAPPY BIRTHDAY. He turned 71 today.

This image is from his birthday weekend in 2007. He was only 69 then. He and my Mom were getting ready to board my brother’s boat.

And, um, speaking of words again, I need to wrap up this post and get to work. I have lots of words to create today.

So, TTFN! (ta-ta-for-now!)

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Developments

A couple of notable events happened today.

I ran my first 20-minute session! I was excited. Well, if I’m being honest, “excited” is probably not the best descriptor.

I was tired and quite sweaty afterward, but also happy to have done 20 minutes. Despite the fact that the dreaded humidity has returned to Central Maryland. After a string of three consecutive days with morning temperatures in the upper 50s/low 60s, that was pretty hard to take. We experienced those temps at the WV place, where the AC didn’t run much at all from Thursday through Monday afternoon, which is when Hubby left to come home.

Wanna know why Hubby didn’t come home until today (Monday)? He had to wait for the guy from Frontier Communications (our phone company) to come and install our Internet service. Yep, we have finally entered the digital age. Not because were were going through withdrawal or anything, but because we plan on installing a security camera. The Internet service is necessary to transmit the images to us in Maryland, or wherever in the world we happen to be. Assuming we have access to the Internet from that place, too. So now, if our alarm goes off, as it has in the past (twice for no clear reason), we won’t have to call the Sheriff to go and check things out until we know for sure that there’s a problem.

Finally, I might have the answer to the odd fatigue I’ve been whining about.

Eating before running didn’t help, it just gave me abdominal cramps. Drinking lots of water did help, I felt better after making sure I ingested 64+ ounces the day before. But I still felt a little off.

A couple of months ago, my primary care doctor told me to start taking an iron supplement since I was borderline anemic, which is not uncommon in certain women my age. No big deal right? That’s what I thought.

I went for my yearly endocrinologist visit today. She always asks if my meds are the same. When I mentioned the iron, she was concerned that it might be affecting the absorption of Synthroid since, for months, I have been taking both together every morning. A couple of hours later, she called me with preliminary blood results that, sure enough, indicated I have not been getting enough Synthroid into my system. Iron, like calcium, cannot be taken at the same time or even within hours of Synthroid.

I’ll have to see if that’s it. I sure hope so.October is approaching fast. I know 20 minutes is good, but it’s nowhere near 10 miles…

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Um, Hello? I Am Back

I couldn’t think of a decent title for this post. Sorry. Now that that is out of the way…

Guess what I found?

The Paw Paw Tunnel! I was here once as a kid, like 30+ years ago. I thought it was cool and have always wanted to go back.

NOTE: if you want to see a bigger version of any of these shots, click on the picture. When done looking at the pic, use your browser’s BACK button to return to the blog.

Now I know Paw Paw (the town) is close to our WV place, I just didn’t know how to find the tunnel. Honestly, I hadn’t really looked. But now that our place is finished and we have so much time on our hands, we actually get to do cool stuff like explore.

I drove to the WV place on Thursday night with the doggie girls (I had Friday off). Since Hubby wouldn’t be arriving until Friday evening, I set out that morning to do a bit of exploring by myself. One of my goals was to find the tunnel.

I didn’t actually go to the tunnel. It’s only a 0.6 mile walk from the parking lot. But it was hot. My head was already all sweaty, hence the lovely hairdo, I was wearing black jeans and heavy leather biker boots. I thought of my friends who, the previous evening, had asked why I didn’t just take pictures of myself. Actually, I thought of that before I left and switched to an appropriate lens.

I found a cool road on the way to Paw Paw. From there, I went over to Berkeley Springs via yet another very cool back road. Both were a bit rough as far as road surface, but it felt like I was riding through a cool (as in temperature) forest. I didn’t spend much time in Berkeley Springs. It was hot, as I said earlier, and the traffic on 522 was backed up in both directions as far as I could see.

On the way to Berkeley Springs, I stopped near Great Cacapon (the town) and took some pics at the Cacapon River.

This is actually a train bridge.

This is the road bridge on Route 9 just outside of Great Cacapon.

As for the return trip, just west of Berkeley Springs on Route 9, I stopped at a neat overlook.

The town you see in the distance, to the left of the river, is Paw Paw. That’s the Potomac River, by the way. The land to the right of the river is in Maryland. I was actually headed almost back to Paw Paw via Route 9 this time.

I couldn’t decide which picture I liked best, with or without the bike, so I posted both.

Can you guess what happened after I left the overlook? I got rained on. It didn’t last long, though. And even though I got pretty wet, it actually felt kind of good. I dried out pretty quickly, too.

The next day (Saturday) Hubby joined me for another ride. We pretty much covered the same ground. On the way back, we went through Oldtown, Maryland. There are two things significant about Oldtown.

First, the C&O Canal passes through there. Locks 69 and 70 are VERY close by.

The above image is a shot of the canal below one of the locks (70?).

This shot shows the end of a lock and some more canal.

The second notable thing about Oldtown is the privately owned toll bridge. It’s made of wood. And it’s the only way to get across the Potomac without driving to either Cumberland, Maryland or Paw Paw, West Virginia, neither of which would be very convenient.

This is a view of the bridge from the Maryland side. The toll for motorcycles is $.25. Cars are more expensive at $.50. A lady sits in a little brick shack (toll booth) and holds out a tin cup to collect the money.

And here’s what it looks like as one approaches from the MD side.

Although we’d been here before, it didn’t register in my brain that the C&O Canal tow path is right there. It’s only about 10 miles from our house. Guess where we’ll be hiking and biking (bicycles) in the Fall?

I hope you enjoyed my not-so-little travelogue. I’ll try to be briefer next time.

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Gone But Not Forgotten

Remember the Taco Bell ads featuring the chihuahua? I loved those. There’s just something about a cute dog speaking, using an even cuter accent.

Sadly, the dog, actually a female named Gidget, recently passed at the ripe old age of 15.

Here’s a brief video clip in remembrance of her.

This may be old news for some of you, but I think Gidgey deserves to be remembered.

“Yo quiero Taco Bell.”

“Viva gorditas!”

This next one is a rip-off, but I love it!

As an aside… wanna hear something funny? Eric was moseying around the house while I was creating this post. He saw me watching the various videos on YouTube and said, “Uh, why are you watching those?” He was standing behind me at the time petting Moses. So, in a normal voice, I told him the Taco Bell chihuahua had died.

“Oh,” he replied.

“It’s just sad,” I said quietly, in a pretty-convincing, tear-filled voice.

“What?” he said.

So I did a little fake sob and said, louder, in a voice even thicker with tears, “It’s just SAD!”

“Shut up,” he replied.

“Yeah, I almost had you, didn’t I?”

‘No, not really. But if you were crying over the death of the Taco Bell dog, I was going to have to, like, run upstairs and pack a suitcase.”

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Wanna Know Where I’ve Been?

You know, the funny thing about being a blogger with a general interest blog like mine is that I am constantly wracking my brain for stuff to write about. Well, not constantly as in all the time, but a lot. I mean, I have to keep folks entertained, right? So they’ll come back again and again, and log on to the Internet at least 57 times a day just to see if I have said anything new.

That’s what I’ve always thought. But I haven’t posted anything since last Friday. I skipped four whole days. And not one person said, “Hey. Where have you been?”

So I figured I’d just cut to the chase, you know, be up front and honest, and ask if I have been missed.

Well???

Seriously though, it’s just been one of those weeks where not a lot worth writing about has happened. Instead of writing about one big event, I’m going to share some scintillating (or not) tidbits…

Motorcycling in West Virginia

Know why we like motorcycling in West Virginia so much? Cause it’s just a durn purty place. With lots and lots of cool roads like this that meander through the myriad mountains and valleys.

Hubby didn’t feel like riding on Saturday, so I went out exploring on my own. Which is why, even though I finally found a spot to take a picture of me and my bike in front of a field of cows, you don’t see me in the next picture.

Saturday was a very nice day weather-wise. A bit overcast at times, but pleasantly cool. It was so cool, I was wearing a long sleeved shirt and wishing every now and then for a jacket.

Back in 2003 or 2004 when Hubby and I took our first bike trip through WV, the trip that convinced us we should actually buy some land there, we came across this neat little stretch of road. I sort of knew where it was, at least the general area, but we’d never managed to find it. Well, on Saturday, I found it. It’s called Greenland Gap Road. It runs through Greenland Gap. Which happens to be the home of the Greenland Gap Preserve.

In the above photo, you can see the rocky cliffs that rise 800+ feet on the northern side of the gap. There was a cool little waterfall, but nowhere safe for me to stop, which is why there’s a link to someone else’s picture.

It wasn’t the smoothest road, but it was certainly picturesque.

Besides an abundance of scenic beauty, know what else WV has a lot of? Twisties!

This particular twisty, which is actually a series of sweeping curves, is on US Route 50 just east of Mt. Storm. There are quite a few others. But it isn’t always convenient to stop. Even if there is space alongside the road for me to quickly zip in to, the surface is usually dirt or gravel. Motorcycles don’t take well to “zipping in” to dirt or gravel. Especially big, heavy motorcycles.

On Missing Grandma…

Hard as it is for me to believe, it’s been a whole year since my Grandma Saxton passed. I’ve been thinking of her a lot lately. This morning, while enjoying (not!) my 15-minute jog, I passed a crepe myrtle bush in full bloom. It was gorgeous. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go take a picture of it to share with you, since I can’t share it with my Grandma. It would’ve made her smile and say, “Wow, that’s really pretty.” I can still hear her voice.

Engrish Lessons

Tacky segue? Grandma wouldn’t think so. She had quite a sense of humor. “Engrish” is simply humorous English mistakes that appear in Japanese advertising and product design. The site’ll really suck you in, so be careful. Here’s one of my favorite Engrish pics. This lovely note is one of their most popular posts.

Newest Blog Addiction

I stumbled across the blog, So About What I Said…, a couple of days ago. It is written by a 27-year-old woman named Melissa who has Freeman-Sheldon Syndrome. It is a rare genetic condition, which causes physical disability. It’s not the syndrome that has me so fascinated, it’s the girl. Wowee, can she write! She writes a lot, too. I keep poking through her archives to read more and learn more about her. Her biggest issue, at least the one that is most frequently discussed, is with dating. It is really quite eye-opening. If you ever, even remotely, wondered what it is like to have a physical disability, you gotta read some of Melissa’s blog.

Army Ten-Miler Training

I’m still at it. I’ve been running 15-minute stints. I am supposed to run 15/walk 5/run 15/walk 5, but I can’t seem to bring myself to do that second 15. It’s mental, I swear. Once I stop jogging and walk after the first 15 minutes, I just can’t bring myself to start jogging again. So I am just going to start adding 5 minutes to my jog times. The next jog is supposed to be 20 minutes. I’ll let you know how I do.

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That’s it for now. I’m looking forward to tomorrow night. I’m having dinner with two friends who are former co-workers of mine. Usually, we do lunch, and it’s always rushed. A relaxing dinner will be a nice change of pace.

Tomorrow night, the girls and I will be driving out to the WV place. Hubby will ride his bike out on Friday afternoon. Here’s hoping for more good riding weather!

You may not hear from me again until Sunday. I hope you’ll be okay without me again for the next few days.