1. A favorite recent pastime of mine is going to a park in the afternoon and sitting in my car to listen to a podcast. There is something about the sun, the scents of summer, and the people watching when combined with a good podcast that really sets my soul at ease. I spent so many good times riding around on my bike as a kid. There were certain scents that I remember from back then that instantly trigger good feelings. Don’t laugh, but two of them are dead pine needles and dirt. Yeah, that sounds like an idea for a terrible novelty body wash, but it’s true. The brown pine needles in the hot sun give off a scent that brings back the teenage boy in me. That combined with the smell of dirt, like after you’ve dug a hole or moved it around, it’s like it unlocks something inside. Hey, come on, I know that all of you have certain smells that trigger memories. Mine just happen to be part of the playbook of a typical 1980s boy. So when I am sitting at a park and can smell the pine needles, it’s an automatic release of endorphins. I’m not saying I want to buy an air freshener that smells like dead pine needles, but if someone gave me one for free, I wouldn’t throw it away.
2. I am a connoisseur of energy drinks, if that is a thing. Since college in the late 1990s, I’ve tried pretty much everything there is to try when it comes to energy drinks and pre-workout supplements. There have been some that I liked more than others. Many of those I liked ended up being discontinued or even banned due to their ingredients. Even now, in my late 40s, I will try most energy drinks. I was shocked this week when, of all people, my mother had a recommendation for a new energy drink. It’s from The Loaded Tea Shop. These are in powdered form with 200mg of green tea caffeine and a few other vitamins. My mom and sister enjoy the flavors; many have funny names like Frog Spit. I have had a couple of the powdered sticks and do enjoy them, but I will admit they are a bit pricey. If you click the link and go to their website, you will see that each stick, even when on sale, is $4. I guess my favorite energy drink is usually the cheapest one that is on sale. When I get one, they typically cost $2-2.50. If you go by the directions, each stick could be 2 servings of 16 ounces, so it’s possible it’s more affordable than I think. Anyway, I have enjoyed them and am linking to their site so you can try for yourself rather than just taking my word for it.
3. No matter how old I get, I still find and enjoy the beauty in the small things. Arriving for Monday Runday this week, I ended up being distracted. I spotted a greenish dragonfly landing on a branch nearby. Rather than go off to the track to start some exercise, I was fascinated by the insect. It seemed to be relaxing, so I was able to start getting photos and videos. No matter how much I filmed or how close I got to the dragonfly, it just sat there. Eventually, I had to get going, but first, I wanted an action video of the dragonfly flying. I was shooting a slow-motion video, which was beneficial. I slowly started moving my finger closer and closer until finally it flew off. I probably spent a few minutes hanging out with the dragonfly even though it felt much longer. Ironically, for as long as I hung around the dragonfly, I could have stayed longer. That is because once I got to the track, I was still the first one there. Then again, there was only so much room on my phone to video an insect sitting on a branch.
4. I have to start this off by saying cancer sucks. This week, I found out that a former patient at my work passed away from brain cancer a few weeks ago. Her name was Christine, and she would come in routinely with her husband, Doug. When they first came in, she was battling a brain tumor. I think she had already had one surgery to combat it. She used a pair of our therapies that promote healing at the cellular level. They are PEMF(pulsed electromagnetic field) and EWOT(exercise with oxygen therapy). When they would show up, I would drop what I was doing if I could to spend time chatting with them. She was so sweet and friendly even in the face of something so horrible. I don’t know how she did it. Coming in twice a week for several months, she got positive updates. Her brain tumor was shrinking, and we were so excited and hopeful that she would beat the cancer. Sadly, the last few times she came in, October of last year, I noticed something. She was not able to ride as far on the bike or take in as much of the 93% pure oxygen that makes up the therapy. Then all of her appointments were canceled as she prepared to fight the resurgent cancer. We wished her all the best, which was all we could do. This week we found out that she didn’t win the battle. She was only 68 years old. Rest in peace, Christine. My heartfelt condolences to Doug and the rest of her family. Oh, and most of all, fuck cancer.
5. It was eerie during the middle of this week when the sky went from sunny and very soupy, to a yellowy haze. It felt like a horror movie was starting. We had an air quality alert, which I thought was due to how hot and humid it was. It turned out to be at least partially due to smoke from Canadian wildfires. The smoke rolled in so quickly that the temperature dropped five degrees within minutes. Sadly, there were more than 800 wildfires across Canada, with many located just across the border north of Minnesota. I am sure by the time this blog goes up, that number will change, hopefully for the better. It feels as though this sort of thing occurs far too frequently now. There are typically a handful of days a year when smoke from some wildfire drifts down into New England. It makes for an interesting sky, but there’s nothing else good that comes from a wildfire.
6. Over the last 12 years, I have been privileged to do easily many dozens of author events based around various books I have written. It is never lost upon me that people, most of them total strangers, take time out of their days to come out and hear me speak. It is a humbling experience I will never take for granted. I have done multiple events at many libraries all over Cape Cod. It is increasingly rare for me to do an event at a place on Cape Cod that I have never been to before. This week I got to speak at the Snow Library in Orleans for the first time. It was a fun event with a beautiful setup. I am distantly related to Cape Cod’s Snow family, so it was fitting. In addition to the rows of chairs in the conference room, I was fascinated by a sort of balcony level of seats. There were two rows of fixed seats in the upstairs level of the conference room. I wish that it had been a busier event where people had to go and sit up there because I bet the visual would have been cool. Of course, I forgot to go upstairs to see the view from there. I am so grateful to everyone who came to the event at the Snow Library and hope to do it again at some point in the future.
7. In a sort of ‘snatching defeat from the jaws of victory’ moment, I was out on the tidal flats this week during the time when the Canadian wildfires were impacting the skies over New England. I walked out to get some surreal photos of the red/orange sun over a boat resting on the sand. I brought my trusty selfie stick. It allowed me to get a few cool angles on the photos. I had to hurry to get to work, so I was walking back to my car across the sand. I guess I was a little too rough trying to get my phone out of the holder on the selfie stick. Not only did my phone come free, but so did the holder itself. Yes, I managed to break my selfie stick after taking some cool photos with it. But wait, longtime readers of this blog will remember that the same thing happened last June. So I have broken two of the same selfie sticks in 13 months. Now, the big question is, do I get the same stick again, which is convenient, affordable, but also apparently pretty fragile? Or do I spend a little more on something that claims to be sturdier? I say ‘claims’ because with my luck I’ll spend more money on a new selfie stick and probably break it when opening the box or something. We’ll see what happens.
8. Some things can’t be blamed on the runner’s high. I went for an afternoon run one day this week. It was a perfect afternoon with sunny skies and the temperature around 80. I had a great run, ending up putting in 5.5 miles in total. When I got back to where my car was parked, it was natural to think about what was for dinner. Luckily, it was a short walk across the parking lot to a supermarket. I was exhausted but walked over to grab a few things. I went to the self-checkout as I always do. While scanning, some pissed-off-looking Karen came up complaining that she couldn’t find containers of Parmesan cheese dust to shake. That idiot distracted me, and I didn’t notice that I had scanned my one can of soup five times. I had to call an employee over to start voiding my mistakes. Once he was done, he had no sooner walked away than I accidentally scanned the dang soup again. That made six times. He had to come back over, and I swore I wasn’t messing with him. He didn’t seem to care either way. I could blame it on the runner’s high or that entitled Karen, but I’ll just laugh and say it’s par for the course for me.
9. I’d like to think that I am not that hard to see when I am out for a walk or run. Yes, I like to dress in black a lot of the time, but I also am out during the day and not at night. So it comes down to a select few drivers who either shouldn’t have their licenses because they can’t see properly, or shouldn’t have them because they are dangerous and don’t care. I’d say it was the former during one incident this week. I was down a quiet road in a quiet neighborhood on a beautiful morning. Even on quiet roads, I run on the side, not in the middle, out of respect for other drivers. This red sedan goes by me, so close that if my left arm had been anywhere but by my side their mirror would have smacked me. They could have easily slowed down or maneuvered slightly to the left; there was plenty of room for both of us. But no, this car just kept right on going like I was invisible. I saw it was some old lady driving. Didn’t matter, I let her have it, yelling and swearing. Seriously, what if I hadn’t been hugging the side of the road? Would this old bag have just plowed into me? She stopped about five houses ahead of me. Rather than keep going so I could get up close and scream at her more, I decided to just let it go and turn around and run back the other way. The run and the scenery were too good to let some blind cotton ball ruin it.
10. This week saw the return of the new Cape Cod tradition, Big Nick’s Ride For the Fallen. It is in honor of Yarmouth resident Nicholas Xiarhos, who was killed in action in Afghanistan in 2009. The ride itself consists of well over 1,000 people on motorcycles traveling from the Massachusetts National Cemetery down into Yarmouth, where it ends. The wild part is that the procession goes right by where I live. It ends up being roughly ten straight minutes of revving engines going by. Every year, I plan on filming it, and every year, something comes up. This year, the plan was to set up my selfie stick tripod and shoot a cool time-lapse video. Of course, you know from a few entries back that my stick broke. I wasn’t going to stand there for at least ten minutes holding my phone, so I just watched from a window. It is a cool new tradition and one that has a lot of meaning and raises money for good causes. Some year, I will film it, but you can see it yourself at the link: Big Nick's Ride For the Fallen
11. I tend to type pretty fast and wild when I get into a groove. Luckily, with spell check and Grammarly, I can cover my tracks and not look too foolish with any mistakes I make. However, the problem comes when the word you misspell is actually another correctly spelled word. The one that keeps coming up for me is the word ‘core.’ Why? It happens when putting together notes for workouts I did with clients. There are a lot of people who I have do core rotations to strengthen their abs. Way more times than I’d like to admit, I rush to get my notes done and have misspelled ‘core’ as ‘crow.’ I have gone back through my notes and wondered what in the world is a crow twist? I know there is a crow pose in yoga, but none of my senior clients could do that. That one isn’t bad since only other office people would see it, and they really never check what I am doing in the gym. The one that is more embarrassing is misspelling my own name. I will text clients and preface it by saying who it is. ‘Hi X, it’s Chris from Mind Body Spine.’ Pretty simple, right? Except it’s not when I get caught between names way too often. I have typed Christ and sent it. Not Chris, not Christopher, but Christ. ‘Hi, this is Christ…’ Those I can’t get back. I haven’t had anyone say anything yet. One of these times, I should give some profound advice after. ‘Hi, this is Christ, the answer you seek will come after giving $500 to your trainer.’ That would never work, but if it did, yay, cash windfall!
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| Yay, windfall! |
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