Just Trying for a Picture

As I was enjoying my daily constitutional this morning, I reflected on how pretty nature can be even in the big city. The wispy red clouds which greeted me as I left my house were sublime; a thin mist held sway just above the grounds of nearby Wayne State University. A few minutes later I noticed the morning Sun shining straight down Warren Avenue, wonderfully illuminating even the asphalt pavement in a yellow glow. I decided to try to get a picture of that.

Taking out my phone, I tapped on the camera icon. I sought the best angle for the shot without the bright Sun obliterating the scene. Too much Sun and you wouldn't see anything; it would overpower the lens. Once or twice I tried but things weren't quite right. A third attempt seemed to offer the best picture. 

As I began to take it, other sweet morning sounds came to my ears. There was the blaring of a bugle which may have been a car horn; there was an earnest voice which offered, "Hey old man! Get out of the street you're gonna get killed!"

So maybe morning rush hour traffic isn't the right time to catch nature's beauty. At least not in the middle of Warren in the city of Detroit.

Near and minor injury

Getting older means, among other things, being more careful about little stuff. Stuff such as picking up your feet when you walk.

Hiking around the neighborhood the other day I nearly went end over end when I hit my left foot against a slightly high section of sidewalk. I managed to keep my balance, not falling even though I took a couple drunk looking steps regaining my balance. Laughing as I got back to walking properly, I reminded myself that, particularly as Woodbridge and the Wayne State University area have their share of uneven walks, I really should pick up my feet as I go along. Or at least pay better attention to where I'm headed.

But wait, there's more. As I took my glasses out of my pocket when I arrived at the old barn with morning exercise over, I pinched my finger between the earpiece and the lens as I went to put them on. I tell you I drew blood. Putting my glasses on. Can you imagine that?

I would should you but it's my middle finger and, you know, decorum.

Later and Later

I read somewhere, who knows where (probably a meme or something), that we lose 70 minutes of sunlight during August. That's more than an hour, Captain Obvious tells me.

It does seem as though September is a much different month than August. Maybe that's why. They're both still Summer, September until the 21st anyway, yet the one does feel much more autumnal. August sets it up by giving time away. What's up with that, August?

My morning walks have to start later and later. Boo, hiss. I like being out before 6 but it's becoming less of an option. 

Yeah, slow news day. Quiet Ron.

Technicalities

One of the things I like best about this time of the year is that I can take my morning constitutionals early. Why, as early as 5:30 AM in fact, about the time I'm typing this out. But this morning I can't walk.

Well, I can walk. I walked from the bedroom to the library to the computer to hammer out this thing. But there's a thunderstorm, and the radar indicates that rain will last for several more hours here in the D. So I'm taking a weather break. I've walked eight days in a row before now, so a day off isn't tragic.

And why would you have thought I couldn't walk? Just don't try it while chewing gum. It's a challenge.

Up and at 'em, down and out

While I don't actually work out, loyal readers know that I walk for 45 minutes to an hour a solid five days a week, and often six. Indeed I have walked as many as seventeen days straight. Yes, I count. What else are you supposed to do when walking seventeen straight days? Besides, that sort of thing feeds on itself and sort of encourages exercise. I mean that.

Admittedly I don't watch my food as well as I should. Oh, I watch it. I just watch too much of it and then eat it all. Too fast. Especially corn and potato chips, although a few chocolate fudge cookies might find their way into the mix. They're a great follow up to a dry salad.

I'm reasonably active for the proverbial man my age. I do not live a sedentary lifestyle. I'm active at work, lifting things and moving them around, loading and unloading my van and the like, walking from place to place routinely at the Shop. Stairs are no problem. I go up and down them as if they're made for getting between levels. My joints don't bother me as a rule: there's only the occasional body aches and pains which, I am told, are the rule and not the exception as I age. Sure, my back bothers me with annoying regularity. But remind yourself what I just said.

My point here is that I don't think I'm in bad shape. Then why has it become so hard to get in and out of cars?

I love my van, and with no small reason. Besides needing one for my job, I can get up into a van and then down and out with ease. Getting down into a car and then up out of one can be, well, even I find it funny as I struggle to bend my body just so to make it happen. I don't remember having to twist myself a full one eighty before, trying to find the right angle for entering a car or excising myself therefrom. 

This may be precisely what a man searching the landscape for an excuse might say, but I do believe that cars are lower than they once were. The old cars I used to drive before vans became the biggest part of my driving regimen didn't seem so close to the ground. Is it about aerodynamics? Just let me get into the car and the extra ballast and will see to that.

So I wonder: is it a matter of flexibility? Do I need to work on that to become more agile and make the ups and downs of car entry and exit easier? How might I do that?

The first friend or family member who says 'yoga' will be disowned. If you are not a friend or family member I will make you one simply to disown you. In the meanwhile I will be content with 'cars are lower'. It makes sense to me.

Check check

I have gotten everything I wanted out of this past weekend, and more.

Quality time with the Ohio Cosgriffs: check.

A decent amount of weekend walking: check.

Not one but two Fourth of July fireworks and parades: check check.

Decent picture of two sandhill cranes in the wild while on a morning walk: check.

Back home safely: hopefully in the next few hours. Then, the Good Lord willing,  a final check will be added.

Buzzed

I'm wondering if perhaps the word has gotten out. Do the birds, and by that I mean birds in general, think I'm a threat?

A few weeks ago I wrote about the sparrow which kept flitting along a fence ahead of me as though I were invading its personal space. Maybe I was, but it was wholly unintentional I assure you.

Yet does that idea register with our avian friends? This morning as I hiked along the service drive of the John C. Lodge Freeway I could not help but hear the chattering of the birds above me in the trees. They were pretty obviously incensed and concerned but I didn't think a lot of it initially.

Then this one little blackbird swooped down from behind and buzzed right past my ear. It was close enough that I heard all too clearly and cleanly the buzz as it zoomed by. The little truant then soared back around to perch in the tree from which it came to stare down hard at me.

I assume it was protecting a nest. Perhaps I only startled it. It may have even been completely inadvertent. But I fear that the birds may be keeping a sharp eye on me.

They can go ahead and join the paranoids to spy on me as a group then.

Predictability is funny

Some things just make your day. It can very nice indeed if your day is made early.

I know I'm a creature of habit in both my activities and my, shall I say, slogans. I like repeating several of me Pops common remarks such as 'Every day above ground is a good one', even though me sister hates that one. But I've developed my own sayings too. A common one when asked how I am is, 'Not bad for an old man'. It apparently has become rather well known.

As I finished my typical morning constitutional today I stepped into the local 24/7 gas station and party store for a paper. I still like the occasional morning news even though in this Internet age I probably know most of the expressed events as it is and as such what I buy is already dated. But it's still a paper and there's still comics and crossword puzzles which I don't know, thank you very much. I might also as I did this morning buy a coffee, especially as I had none ready at home. What says lazy worse than a man with a Keurig who buys a large coffee for a buck sixty-five because it's easier? In my defense I was of course already at a spot where I could get my java immediately while my Keurig and my percolator were four whole blocks away.

Gathering the paper and the joe I set them on my side of the glass enshrined counter. Reaching for my wallet I asked the attendant conversationally, "How are you today?"

I looked up to see a broad smile on his face. "Not bad for an old man!" he heartily exclaimed.

I laughed out loud. "Well, good for you!" I replied to the much younger than me guy. But I appreciated the humor, and it truly made my day.

4:30

Perhaps what I like best about being up north are the wee hours of the morning. If there's an advantage to not feeling well, as I did not feel well yesterday, it's that medicines can ease you into sleep. I slept from about Noon until 3:30 Friday afternoon, got up long enough to have a bite to eat and re-medicate, and was asleep again from 5 late in the afternoon until 2 or so this morning. I'm still a bit headachy though.

Be that as it may, sometimes a walk can clear the mind. A small headache I have discovered might actually break with activity. So at 4:30 I took a walk, just as the dawn was rising.

What you cannot see in the city you can see quite well in the country. Through breaks in the lowest clouds I could spy the first faint rays of the Sun creeping up from the horizon, the heavens through the clouds more gray than blue. I can't recall seeing much of early dawn while in Detroit; you can tell the Sun is on its way by how the sky overhead brightens but you don't see much horizon. I wished it weren't so cloudy so that I might have seen early morning color. Tomorrow maybe.

I went far enough out State Route 134, the major thoroughfare near Hessel, that I felt I should turn back. A storm was a brewin' - I had checked the radar online before heading out, as old men will do - and I thought I had best not stray too far. This had me headed west. I could make out low rumblings of thunder and the faintest lightning not more than ten degrees above that horizon: quick flashes chased by tiny rolls of grumbling sound. I watched the western flashes of light grow closer, heard the thunder rise in timbre as I neared home.

As I sat on the porch with a hot coffee the rain just began. It isn't so hard yet but I expected to be chased inside sooner rather than later. It is just as well. The bread won't toast itself.

Weather irony

Dressing for my morning walk yesterday, I put on a fleece hoodie with my winter coat over top. Then I went outside where the sun wasn't quite up but there was significant morning twilight. I could see well, as well as see my breath. And I thought, it's interesting that on a May morning just before six, with a decent amount of daylight already, I'm dressed for winter. Yet there will be September mornings at about the same time where it will still be dark. But it will be warm, and I'll be in shorts and a tee shirt.

Isn't nature weird?

Athlete's rhythm

We Cosgriffs, we walk fast and with a mild waddle. That's just how we are. We're so much that way in fact that it's hard to walk slow. I mean it.

I turned my ankle one day last week. No, I did not hurt it while taking it out my mouth, yes, ha, ha, quite witty of you. I enjoy jocularity. 

Anyway, I twisted it while hiking around the neighborhood last week in my normal, Cosgriff pace. But I hit a curb wrong and had to stay off my left ankle for a while. Thursday I could hardly put weight on it, although there was no swelling.

I tried walking Saturday and Sunday yet within a few feet - a few feet, ha, ha, now I'm witty - it was obvious that a regular walk wasn't in the offing for a couple more days. Yet this morning I figured it was time to get back out there. But I would walk slower. You know, get exercise but don't put too much pressure on the ankle. Work my way back up to normal. Like an athlete. Yes, exactly like an athlete.

That's where I found out that walking slower was a chore when you're used to walking fast. Typically I walk nine blocks in around eleven minutes. Yes, I count the blocks. I always have in order to know my pace with regard to time. Today it took me fourteen plus minutes to hike nine blocks. It was agonizing. Still, I managed to walk close to an hour at that rate. 

And now back at home my ankle feels fine. So hopefully it's all for the better. 

Reflections on walking

I took a morning walk this morning, well before sunrise. I was out the door at 6:20 in fact. Why not? It was a warm morning as mornings in December go, about 40 degrees, and no rain or snow in sight.

Years ago I would have never gone out in the dark just to traipse around the neighborhood. You never know where the boogeyman might be laying in wait for you, right? If anything I would be out long enough to get into my car and get going somewhere. But the childish fears of the dark are gone. I simply don't fret about it. I just walk. 

I do find too that in some ways being out in the dark is as compelling as being out in the sunlight. 6:20 in July is typically sunny and comfortable. 6:20 in December is cold yet psychologically comfortable if isolated. I feel delight in both, truth be told.

To be sure, I keep my head on a bit of a swivel this time of year. But I try to do that in summer as well. I keep a watchful stare far into the darkness or distance as the case may be for odd movements or shadows. Yet they are invariably simply other folks walking themselves or their dogs, or on the way to work. The world may be a dangerous place. It just ain't all that dangerous when you think about it.

My two philosophic cents for you this morning. Have a great Friday all!

Short sighted

One of the nice things about Saturday (even when I still need to put in a few hours at the Shop) is that I can take my walk later. Yesterday I wasn't out the door until almost 8; 6:30 is more typical because work starts earlier Monday through Friday. It was also 66 degrees above Fahrenheit, positively balmy for October. I wore shorts and a tee shirt.

This was a conscious decision on my part. 66 and with a light breeze blowing meant it was likely to be the last day this year I could dress as though it were still summer. I meant to take advantage of that. 

This morning it's projected to be 51 by eight AM, cool enough that sweats and a hoodie are sure to be the suit of the day as I traverse around Woodbridge. Yesterday was surely the last hurrah: after going through the wash, the short pants won't see the light of day again until, maybe, April. The long cold winter has begun.

May firsts. Sorta.

My furnace kicked on at about 6:50 this morning for the first time since May.

On my morning walk I could see my breath. Very starkly. For the first time since May.

I thought I had layered enough but I didn't get past being cold on my walk until after about 15 minutes. That's the first time that's happened since May.

What worries me the most about all this is that in May I had seen snow flurries on my walk as late as the 12th. That's how long the cold held this year. Not that, with the 2020 we've had, that should be surprising. So, I wonder with trepidation, how soon will I see flurries again, for the first time since May.

The furnace just kicked on. For the second time since May. I hope that's not a portend of things to come.

Blue golf

Some things, you just don't know how they happen.

A couple of days ago I got out of bed early to take my morning constitutional. I got dressed, got my keys, wallet and cell phone (all the standard items a guy needs these days) and was out the door. Then I thought I felt something in my shoe when I went down the front porch steps. But as soon as I was on the sidewalk everything felt fine. So I kept walking.

Nothing more happened at first. But once I was about four blocks away I definitely felt something. Leaning against a tree, I took off my shoe and, holding it upside down, shook it. Nothing.

Huh? So I felt under my foot to discover something under my toes. Taking off my sock and reaching inside I found - I am not making this up - a blue broken golf tee.

How in the world did such a thing get inside my sock? It was a fresh pair which I had rolled together after taking them out of the wash and putting them in my sock drawer a few days before. On top of that, I don't recall ever having any blue golf tees. Virtually all of mine are painted white or simply plain wood.

One of the mysteries of the universe I suppose.

Internal argument

I took my usual morning walk about an hour ago. But I argued with someone as I walked. Myself.

I lumbered the four blocks to Wayne State University's athletic fields, which I typically make a circle or two of as I go. They're about a mile around so a couple loops takes up a big chunk of my daily grind. I arrived at the corner of Warren and Trumbull and began hiking east along Warren.

"What are you doing?" my internal voice asked me, vaguely panicked.

"Taking my walk?" I responded to me questioningly.

"I know that, but what are you doing?"

"What do you mean what am I doing?"

"You're going counterclockwise!"

"Yeah, so?"

"We go clockwise around Wayne State!" my voice demanded of me.

"So I'm doing it differently. Big whoop."

"But, but..."

"But what?"

"But we go clockwise around Wayne State!" insisted me.

"Who is this we? It's just me and, and, me."

"You know what I - we - mean. We go north on Trumbull and, you know, clockwise. It's what we always do."

"Not always," I responded smugly to that guy in my head who sounded a lot like me, as I continued resolutely eastward on Warren.

So I walked around WSU counterclockwise. Twice. But now I'm wondering if maybe I should have went clockwise. If maybe I ought to retake my walk.

But I hate being told I told you so.

Boot scooter boogie

I first noticed them about a month ago. In fact, the first one I saw was on my morning walk, parked outside of a home down the block. It was an electric scooter. My first thought was that the owner shouldn't have left it just sitting there. It would be too easily stolen. You know, an old guy thought.

Yet apparently it was meant to sit there as the (as it turned out) renter was finished with it. It was a Bird scooter, intended as a cheap means of transport for getting somewhere 'too close to drive but too far to walk'.

They're all over Detroit now. I've since several times seen users scooting up and down the local streets. I saw five parked (I guess you'd say parked) around the neighborhood this morning. You load an app on your phone, agree to pay the charges, scan the app against the scooter nearest you (the app tells you where they are) then hop on and pretend you're a kid again, tooling around until you're done. Then you leave it wherever you happen to be, for the next user. The company somehow tracks them, so they can be gathered for recharge as needed.

It all strikes me as rather bizarre. There's nothing in world wrong with them of course. If they're useful or even simply enjoyable as recreation, okay. Still, it does illustrate to me how behind the technological times I am. I shake my head at the idea even as I write this little passage. To just pick something up that isn't yours and set it aside anywhere at all when done, well, yes. It strikes me as bizarre.

But if that's your pleasure, so be it. I might actually try it myself one day, once the novelty wears off. After all, you can't stay behind the technological times to do something when it's still trendy.

Old school is good school

I'm begining to go old school again. I've found myself buying the morning newspaper on a more and more regular basis rather than catching up on news through my computer. That's not to say I don't use my desktop or laptop for, especially, breaking news. But buying the paper does seem to have its advantages.

It begins with my now routine morning walk. There's a party store/gas station near the end of my usual route. One day at the end of my daily constitutional I just decided I wanted a paper. For a buck fifty a day it's not a bad deal. And other things are at work too.

The newspaper never freezes. It never takes forever to load; if I'm reading an article which concludes on page 3D, I simply turn to page 3D and it's right there. And while there are adds trying to distract me they are easy to ignore. Nothing pops up on my newspaper page forcing me to click it off, nor does my text get shoved downward on the page where I have to scroll to keep up with, or look for that insolent little tiny box with the 'x' to click on, to roll what I'm reading back up. I also get the puzzles for my entertainment, and the comics are found nicely arranged on one page. No going to a couple dozen different web pages for my daily comic fix.

My computer and smart phone will always be available, and I certainly get my use out of them. Still, the morning paper has reacquired for me a certain charm. I read as I want to read, jumping from page to page as I like. It feels quicker than my computer sometimes does. It's simply a nice way to ease into my news day.

Wow. I'm loving golf and reading actual newspapers. I am getting old school.

Baby it's cold outside

It's that time of year. That time where I have to ask myself how much longer I can take morning walks. Beyond there being snow and ice on the ground I have no hard and fast rules about when to give up the daily constitutional. But today left me thinking about when I should stop.

There were snowflakes wafting by me this morning. The skies were gray and the air chill, though the sun did try to sneak through the clouds. It was, at the risk of understatement, dreary.

I'll not quit for a few weeks yet, to be sure. So long as I can layer and not feel too much frost on my nose I'll keep going. Part of the trouble is that walking's become my favorite form of exercise. It offers change with continuity if only on a small scale, something regular readers will know I value. Sure, we have a motorized treadmill and an exercise bike in the basement. But man, they're dull, even with the TV or radio on, or a CD playing. At least walking through even the same neighborhood varies a bit: you can wind around it differently. And walking by itself feels like progress. Staying in the same place feels just like that.

So we'll see. Last year I made until the first significant snowfall, which happened in mid-December. December 11, I believe, was my last walk last year. So my goal is beat that. Otherwise, to the exercise bike!

At least, that's my mantra. Making it into reality will be the actual challenge of course.

The toe tee

Some things, you just don't know how they happen.
I rose this morning to take my morning constitutional. I got dressed, got my keys, wallet and cell phone (all the standard items a guy needs these days) and was out the door. Then I thought I felt something in my shoe when I went down the front porch steps. But as soon as I was on the sidewalk everything felt fine. So I kept walking.
Nothing more happened at first. But once I was about four blocks away I definitely felt something. Leaning against a tree, I took off my shoe and, holding it upside down, shook it. Nothing.
Huh? So I felt under my foot to discover something under my toes. Taking off my sock and reaching inside I found - I am not making this up - a blue broken golf tee.
How in the world did such a thing get inside my sock? It was a fresh pair which I had rolled together after taking them out of the wash and putting them in my sock drawer a few days ago.
I got nuthin'.