Here Comes the Sun (and dirty water...)

The past few days have been (mostly) sunny, thank Jesus. I was just about to give up hope on Spring.

I got so happy about temps being in the 30+ range that I took off for a walk yesterday evening. Once I made it out of the skating rink that is our building's parking lot, I was enjoying myself so much that I decided to head to my sister's house. According to Google Maps, this is a 37-minute walk of 1.9 miles. Yeah. Google Maps didn't know about the patches of ice still lining most of sidewalks.

I'm a pretty brisk walker. I've done the route to my sister's house in 25 minutes, through 3 traffic crossings. In the summer. On dry ground. (Okay, one time it took me an hour and forty minutes, but that's because I stopped off at Walmart and browsed.) Yesterday, I barely made it as far as Walmart. That took me twenty minutes. Google clocks that at 0.8 miles from my apartment. (I might have shaved off some time when I hit a slick spot and slid about thirty feet. Craziness.) I called my nephew from the Garden Center at Wally's and had him pick me up. I got a lot of exercise in the car by clenching my jaw when he talked about how ice-free the road was.

This morning, after breakfast, I looked out my window and thought, "Hmm... Sunny again. YES!" Then I checked the temps and saw that it was about 17 degrees out. Alaska is never sunnier than on an ass-cold day. About half an hour ago, Weatherbug was showing the temp at 33 degrees. I stood at the window, debating with myself about taking another walk. Two minutes into that, a car went past, splashing ice water on a pedestrian.

Since I'm not walking today, I'm planning on getting all my exercise by laughing at old "Frasier" episodes on Netflix. I'm serious. I read that, by laughing for 15 minutes, I can burn 50 calories a day. Shoot.... My life is nothing if not pure comedy. I should be whip-thin by now.  By the way, if you want to have some fun, check out the interactive tool at WebMD (requires Flash, so I didn't use it).

I love this list of calorie burners. I looked at a few of the items and stopped at "drinking coffee", which is my favorite sport. I just wonder why, with all the java I throw back, I'm not eating to put weight on. Come to think of it, my mother used to say that worrying was a calorie burner. Although I almost never doubted a word coming out of my mama's mouth, I have to disagree with that theory. I am a world-class worrier. I worry so much, I even worry that I'm not worrying about something. My sister likes to tell me that I can worry the stink out of shit. I'm not sure if she and I are talking along the same lines, but... ~shrug~

Anyway, since it's too muddy and wet out to go walking, I'm going to go chew some gum. Better yet, I need to find some caffeinated gum.

Peace
--Free