works of wanderlust

Them Feets

Sunday Runday, and I didn’t.

For a whole week I’ve been sidelined by a heel ailment that I’ve self-diagnosed as a touch of plantar fasciitis, or runner’s heel.

Them feets!

The thing is that I’m supposed to run a half marathon in a little more than a month.

The thing is that I need to keep in half marathon shape while not exacerbating an injury that could take a couple weeks to recover.

Them feets!

The thing is I’m a stubborn guy and I’m having trouble sitting it out. Resting. Healing.

I have a stationary bike in my basement tho, so while my running crew plodded out on the winter trails I descended to my little exercise space and spun out twenty klicks of aerobic fitness.

Them feets!

Then I met the runners for coffee where we can actually, finally, go inside and sit for a bit at the local recreation centre, proof of vaccination required, and all in all not quite back to normal, but close enough.

The countdown is on to race day and I’ll cross that finish line, hell or high water. Right now, tho, it might be with a limp rather than a leap.

November 28, 2021
Pandemic Puppies

At least half the dogs in our neighbourhood these days are less than a year and a half old.

The pandemic puppy phenomenon did not pass us by around here, and every day as we go for our walks in the rain, shine, epic heat or brutal cold, we encounter so many other of these pandemic pups in the park.

Pups who have neither care nor concern that the very pandemic that forged virtually every aspect of their lives to date still has a lingering subtle effect on their human companion’s day-to-day.

Some day, maybe even soon, things will go back to normal… ish.

But maybe not quite yet.

November 23, 2021
Snow Spotting

It’s hard to say whether dogs are philosophical observers of the universe around them, wondering at the world as it flits past their existential mindset … or if they are simply easily distracted.

I think I’d like to think it’s the former.

My dog and I go on three walks a day lately. This time last year, just as the snow was starting to fall, she was a two-month-old puppy and was limited to exploring the world on a short leash in the containment of our backyard.

A year later, and we’re touring the neighbourhood by foot with regularity, often meeting new people and new dogs, stopping to sniff virtually anything … well, she does most of the sniffing.

I’m not oblivious to the world around me, but after forty-five years something as mundane as a patch of grass sticking from the snow or a blue jay sitting on the branch of a tree is ordinary enough that I think my brain just naturally tunes it all out.

But not her.

Everything is a curiosity. Everything is worth stopping and savouring. If that’s not the definition of existential delight at the world … and if we can’t learn a even just little bit from that .. I don’t know what else there is to say.

November 22, 2021
Three Cheers for Traction

Having run for well over a decade in the ever changing seasons of the Canadian prairies I have fought many battles with the hardened warrior otherwise known as winter trail conditions.

Ankle-deep fresh snow. Ice-slickened asphalt. Road slop like oatmeal or worse, dirty slush.

It is only November yet already the paths have become an assortment of challenging terrain …

… except that back in the late summer I bought a pair of trail shoes.

They haven’t been a perfect winter shoe, but they have made tackling the traction obstacles a formidable challenge rather than an impassible barrier. Unlike my summer sneakers or even previous winter runners I’ve owned, there is a remarkable surefooted stability to be found even in deep snow and icy patches on the sidewalks that I’ve struggled to find elsewhere. I’m sold, and even pullover spikes or other traction offerings that I’ve used over the years don’t seem to fall into a comparable classification as having tested my trail shoes through the abrupt arrival of winter weather this past week.

So I ordered a second pair yesterday.

Kinda. Sorta. Almost.

The summer version, which I own, is a light and responsive shoe meant for muddy paths and navigating narrow gravel trails.

The winter version, that second-ish pair now en route to my house, is a waterproof, insulated version of the same shoe but with grippier soles designed to take on those cold and epic winter conditions and a warmer approach to footwear.

Ice and snow will become far less of an excuse this winter.

I mean, I say that now… ask me again when it’s dark, icy, and minus forty degrees outside this January.

November 21, 2021
Perfecting Pour Overs

Opportunity? Or maybe a concerning symptom?

I’ve all-too-often tapped into the nearly unlimited informtion pouring from the internet and found myself wandering into deep, dark caverns of complexity on a narrow and specific topic.

The last couple months that topic has been coffee.

Back in September I hinted that I had been dabbling in pour overs as a means to replace the convenient but garbage-filling pod system that had been stuffed into a cupboard a few years ago after I got frustrated buying expensive one-time capsules of sour-brewing, mediocre coffee grounds.

Tho, working from home I still found I was craving a post-lunch beverage and I’d been resorting to (if I had leftovers from the morning) reheating in the microwave, or alternatively, brewing an entire second pot in the afternoon.

Alas, a few curious Google searches sent me down into those endless caverns of eclectic know-how, intoducting me to tutorial videos, detail commentary, sub-reddits, and a couple of youtube channels dedicated to seeking the perfect cup of coffee.

The result has been that the post-lunch scramble for a simple hot drink has gradually transformed into a twenty minute experiment, experience, and extravagance as I hand grind local roasts that have been weighed precisely for the volume of my cup. I’ve learned to bloom my grounds and slow pour a gentle but consistent drizzle into the basket, as I evaluate aroma and freshness. All this results in a single cup of some of the best, most ridiculously fussy coffee I’ve ever drank.

It has become an opportunity to treat myself. It is also very likely a symptom of a concerning obsession that no cup of Starkbucks will ever be able to replicate.

November 20, 2021

about

Welcome. I’m one of those weirdos who still writes a personal blog. In fact, I’ve been writing meandering drivel online for decades, and here you’ll find all my recent posts on writing, technology, art, food, adventure, running, travel, and overthinking just about anything and everything …since early 2021.

I write regularly from here in the Canadian Prairies about just about anything that interest me. Enjoy!

There are currently 436,015 words in 576 posts.

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