Rant from the Gym

Okay, I left the gym before typing this up, but the rant began at the gym and has grown and developed into what follows.

People come in to the library in their pajamas. They wear pajamas to the grocery store, college classes, to McDonald's, basically everywhere. This aggravates me, because if I bother to put on real pants and brush my hair before leaving the house, other people should have to do the same. But you all know this, you've seen it yourselves. You may not even care about it. And you are entitled to that opinion even if I think you're insane.

But here's the thing. I'm going to the gym now, and people walk in, get on the machines, and start working out...but they aren't in gym clothes. They aren't even in pajamas. They are dressed in jeans, boots, sweaters, flannel shirts...two women last night were wearing eyeliner and probably a tub of bronzer each. Then a man walked in and I swear he had just left the fields, because his boots were so caked with what I hope was mud that he left chunks of it behind on the elliptical machine.

I also think people have so much trouble switching from their pajamas to real clothes that they have decided that wearing leggings as pants is okay just so they can pretend that they didn't have to change in the first place. But if people love wearing them so much, why are these few people wearing jeans and fancy work shoes to the gym? It can't be comfortable. There has to be...chafing. In PLACES. But I understand not having an extra set of clothes, or thinking if you're just walking on the treadmill for fifteen minutes, it's not necessary to change. Because really, it isn't that important. Weird, but not important.

But the muddy boots. What is up with the muddy (we hope) boots? Why is the staff of the gym not saying, "Dude, you need to wear clean footwear if you're using the equipment?"

How hard is it to bring a pair of shoes not caked in filth to the gym with you? HOW HARD IS IT?

And who walks out of the field, looks down at their legs, ankle-deep in mud, and says, "You know, I could totally wear these to the gym. No one will care, right?"

WHO?

They even make the children in gym class switch to inside gym shoes. Do they not remember the special gym shoes from elementary, middle, AND high school? Does it not occur to them that making someone spend their night chipping mud off the elliptical machine is not courteous? And if your shoes are caked in mud and you still want to work out in them, and in the clothes you wore in the fields, why didn't you just stay in the fields to work out? Run with the cows. Cows like running with people. Cows used to run in the field along with me while I ran on the road. They did it all summer. They like it. It's herd behavior.

Is this a rural Indiana thing, or are people doing this everywhere? This worries me.

Leave the filthy boots at home. Let's keep it classy, Indiana.

Things Just Happen

I have been reading a great deal of Terry Pratchett of late, which is a consequence of reading Dodger, a book I highly recommend.

The result of this is that I now have various quotes from his novels bouncing around in my head, which is a decent place for quotes to be bouncing, when you think about it. And one of those is a bit of philosophy from a character named Didactylos, who said, "Things just happen. What the hell."* And that was today.

We had loads of snow. All kinds of snow. And naturally, that meant I had to drive in said snow to reach work, which is inconveniently located outside of my house.

On my way to work, as I drove along on an inch of solid ice and a haze of snow, I saw an abnormally tall person leaning over a car that appeared unnaturally short and not at all on the road.

And that tall person was Paul. Of course.

He had attempted to turn into a parking lot in order to turn around, finding the roads unpleasant enough to persuade him to abandon the trip to Warsaw. And he turned into this parking lot only to discover that he had turned into nothing at  all, because the semi tracks he used as a guide were not going into the driveway of this business at all, but rather, over the ditch.

Paul's car went into the ditch, not over it.

I turned my car around and went back to Paul, who had already called Dad. Dad was on his way. When he arrived, he had brought a snow shovel and various plans, which we exhausted in rapid succession.

Plan A: Rock the car. In which A Person sits inside the car, puts it into reverse, and presses periodically on the gas, resulting in lots of tire spinning and mud.

Plan B: Rock the car, in which A Person continues to sit in the car, in reverse, pressing periodically on the gas, with Two Other Persons pushing the car, resulting in more tire spinning and a good deal of mud.

Plan C: Rock the car. In which A Slightly More Frustrated Person continues to sit in the car, this time in drive, pressing periodically on the gas with Two Other Persons pushing the car, resulting in Two Muddy Persons in Less than Stellar Moods, and also tire spinning.

Plan D and E: Shovel around the car some more. Repeat Plan B and C.

Plan F: Stare at car. 

Plan G: Realize that the only likely way the car will be free of the ditch any time soon is if a random driver happens to have 1. a 4-wheel drive and 2. a chain or strap and 3. the desire to help us.

Plan H: Hope that people will be nice and help us at some point, because it is getting chilly. And muddy.

Indeed, Plan H was the winner. Not a moment after Dad said he hoped someone would come help, someone came. They had a truck, to able-bodied people, and were ready to drag Paul's car from the ditch, if only they had a chain. Did we?

No. We so didn't.

But no worries! Coming down the road was a cement truck, which just so happened to contain a friend of the two men who'd stopped to help. And he, they said, would have a chain.

And he did.

Moments later, Paul was free of the ditch. We applauded (which is an entirely different sound when the applaud-er is wearing mittens), and Paul set off down the road for home. I took his picture first, for obvious reasons.

Then, I proceeded down the road to the library, where I have been ever since. Luckily, the mud on my pants dried rather quickly, and I discovered that the snow-brush thing I have for my car happens to double as a very effective clothes brush. 

Happy Monday, everyone.

*This is from Hogfather by Terry Pratchett, which is an awesome book and a fantastic movie starring Michelle Dockery, who happens to also star as Lady Mary Crawley on Downton Abbey.

Near Death Experience Number...I've Lost Count

I tried to leave work yesterday, but the rain was coming down in sheets and I was wearing my new cute little ballet flats (the ones I was obsessed with last week), so I waited a bit. That choice either 1. saved my life or 2. greatly complicated my drive home.

On the drive through the country, I saw fields filled with only water. The road actually had a current. Really. I don't know how many inches of rain we got in five minutes, but it was a LOT of rain. And the wind was insane. When I got to the gas station in the little town near my house, I pulled in and waited for the wind to calm down and the HAIL to stop, because it was just that bad. I don't have trouble driving in the rain, but I was thinking at that point that if visibility was poor enough, I wouldn't see a car in the opposite "lane" of the little country road I now have to take home because the bridge over the river is being torn down.

I would like to take this moment to repeat: If I were blind, I would have no idea this bridge is out, because no one took the time to, you know, post the fact the bridge being ripped apart on the state's website, or send out fliers or newspapers or...anything. Surprise! Road construction! Who knows when it will be finished--we'll get back to you!

When I could see to drive, I started my car again and made my way over a bridge and onto another road. As I traveled, I noticed a barn that had a perfectly good roof that morning...but the roof was now gone. Nice, I thought. I wonder if that other chunk of tree has fallen on the house? Then I noticed that the same house was missing shingles--that's how windy. Or how tornado-ey.

I drove down the little hill we used to race our bicycles over, across the tiny bridge over a now-roaring creek, and stopped behind a pick-up that was now executing a rather pathetic three-point turn. I could tell why: there was a tree down over the road.

But seriously. This dude was in a pick-up. Couldn't he, like, DRIVE OVER the pathetic little skinny branches? I knew I could drive over those wimpy branches. And I almost did. But as I got closer I noticed there was also something else wrong. The tree had taken a power line down. And it was now on the road, in a puddle. A puddle my car was now sitting in.

Great, I thought. I really did want a little electrocution with my commute. Whatever.

That was when my fuel light went on.

Crap.

I had to find a new way home. Those of you who know me at all are well acquainted with my sense of direction. I don't HAVE a sense of direction. I am like the opposite of one of those homing pigeon things. Spin me around in a circle and I couldn't find the bathroom in my own home. How did I expect to find a new route home when the two paths I knew about were blocked?

I'll tell you how.
Hello, gorgeous.

I pressed the little button that said "Home" and drove back along the road to my last turn. I proceeded on THAT road, and I thought I was doing okay. I was heading further North (forward) and that meant I would have to turn in that other direction, the direction that was right. I mean left. I would have to turn left (this is why that GPS comes in handy).

I went over another tiny hill and discovered--another felled tree. This one was ginormous, too big to even consider driving around, because it would have meant my car in a ditch with no suspension, sinking rapidly in Indiana clay. I turned again, zig-zagging closer to North Manchester and further from my house.

Did I mention the fuel light was on? Because it was.

That road turned onto another country road, this one unpaved. While the car sank in the mud of the "road," I stayed on the phone with the 911 ladies in two counties, because I was sort of in two counties at the same time. The poor 911 ladies could barely hear me because cell service is so bad out in the country.

That is why that movie, Deliverance, could totally happen, even though everyone has cell phones they could use to call 911 if they happened to be stalked by crazy inbred hill people. And I have seen those hillbillies. They come in the library to check their facebook pages and their Match.com requests. Seriously. They are on Match.com, so think twice before you go looking for love there.

I tried to explain this to the 911 ladies, but they couldn't hear me.

By the time I had reported the downed line, I was reaching the end of the soggy dirt (mud) road. I turned onto another road, which was, fortunately, the road I was originally trying to get to when blocked by the power line. Unfortunately, the road was mostly flooded.

At this point, I was sick and tired of all of the turning. The road was flooded, but I could still see through the flood water enough to know how deep the water was and if there was still road underneath it. So I did the Country thing. I plowed my car through the water. Yeah. Even though the nightly news told me that's an easy way to die. Whatever. They never tried to drive home in these conditions. They have HELICOPTERS.

When I arrived home, Mom opened the freezer and presented me with a bowl of hail. She had sent Paul outside to gather it, because she thought I should see.

At least my Monday night wasn't boring.

The Color of My World

The snow has melted; the temperture having peaked to above -15 F. It is merciful, the cold being so torturous to us.

The ice began to melt over the weekend, and Sunday evening before the Grammy Awards, the thicker ice from upstream broke free and swept downstream, with a crash and churn of water. We walked outside to watch it. The peices would slip underneath each other and pop back out. Others crowded along the bank only to be lifted over the edge by the rising water.

When we woke up the next morning we found piles of ice at the river's edge.







However, it has turned the world to the color it reaches as we near the spring, the bland grays and browns of March before the grass grows.









Everywhere I walk, the ground squelches as if I stood on a sodden sponge. It is unpleasant.





There is the footprint of Darcy, my dog, and a racoon left much earlier.

I had wanted the Malabrigo so much, and my need for color was so great, that I went to Warsaw today and grabbed a skein as quickly as I could. Pausing only for it to be wound into a ball, I left.







Here is the sun.





And now I feel better.