Not Your Home
When traveling from OH to AZ where you will
end up staying up late and drinking multiple beers, it is well to think
about where you are when you wake up in the middle of the night to use
the bathroom. This extra time will remind you that you are NOT in your
own apartment and so you will be more likely to NOT walk, mouth first,
smack into the dresser your mother has in the hallway.Because that is what I did. Arizona is three hours behind Ohio right now because they don't do that silly daylight saving thing. So I got up at 6:30 to work, then took Johan to the vet and myself to the airport. Got to Arizona at about 3PM EST and to my mother's home at about 4PM where I immediately set about going back to work so as not to have to use all of my PTO. I had two glasses of rancid white wine before pouring out the bottle, and then returned to work.
At 11:30 EST, my mom, her neighbor Kara, and I went to the local bar where I had three tall beers. A good time was had by all and we were probably there for a good 90 minutes. I ended up going to sleep at 2:30AM EST. Woke up in the middle of the night to pee, forgot where I was, and slammed my face and arm into my mother's dresser. Fortunately, there is no lasting damage, just a sort lip. But still.
Temperature is Relative
After getting up at 6AM Arizona time and putting in 4 or 5 hours of work, having had nothing but a few pieces of cheese, two cups of coffee, and two diet sodas, I decided to check the weather. 86, real feel 89. Not bad. so I put on my jogging gear and head out. Perfect way to spend a lunch break, yeah? So what if I had a couple of beers last night and haven't really hydrated much? I'll drink a little water before I go. And hey, I ran for the first time in ages on Monday and did four intervals of walk 4 min run 4 min and that was after lord knows how much time off. I've totally got this.You know what Arizona doesn't have a lot of? Especially Southwest Arizona? Clouds. Not a lot of clouds and not a lot of lush trees lining residential streets. That is to say, SHADE. So when one reads 86 real feel 89 in Arizona, even with it's low humidity, it should still be read as roughly 100 degrees cooler than the center of the sun. And downing half a bottle of water right before you head out isn't going to help.
If you are like me, this is what is going to happen: You'll start off pretty strong, doing your warm up walk, bobbing your head to the music and feeling your ponytail swish around. Then you'll run that first four minute interval. Coming out of that, you're still feeling pretty good but you notice that you are suddenly parched like you've never even heard of water and somehow your lips have completely dried out. But no biggie, you can handle that. So you walk 4 minutes and then go into your second 4 minutes of your slow jog. Once completed, you'll realize that you are in trouble and that you need to get back to your mother's house. You aren't going to quit, but you are going to get a bottle of water to carry with you as you continue.
At this point you will realize that you are lost in your mother's neighborhood where everything looks alike. You will also suddenly notice the little lizards darting all about. You'll check your pulse using your cardio watch and see that it is 183 after you are done running and never drops below 139. You'll also notice that the metal sensor has heated up quite nicely.
You'll start eyeing the hoses that are laying in front of people's houses at this point.
Eventually you will, indeed, find your mother's house, grab the water, and then head out. You'll run your third and final interval of 4 minutes, walk 4 minutes, do a 5 minute cool down walk (all the while wondering how you got to be so stupid) and then return to your mother's house where your Ammy and her aide will make fun of you.
I am clearly not one of Darwin's proudest examples of natural selection and evolution.
