Thoughts on a wet Friday

Anyone else who thinks all this rain we're having is the fault of the Amgen Tour of California raise their hand. Yep, I see lots of hands waving out there. It can't be a coincidence that we've been dry as baby powder all winter and now that we have teams of professional cyclists speeding along our roads, we also have winter storm warnings. While in theory I'd find the racers slogging through an errant California snow storm amusing, in fact I'm not too thrilled about it. Especially since I look to be one of those slogging (not a racer mind you, just a slogger). I've been looking forward to our Half Moon Bay ride all season and now it looks like it'll be soggy, at best. Fingers crossed for a break in the weather on Saturday. And for a patch of sunshine to lead the pro boys along the roads all week.

It's come to my attention that today is Friday the 13th. Ooooooh, spooooky. Actually, not. I don't have superstitions, I have phobias instead. I'm much more likely to tiptoe around a cow than I am to avoid walking in front of a black cat. I don't have a lucky -- well, a lucky anything, now that I think of it. I don't knock on wood and I don't throw spilled salt over my shoulder. I don't walk under ladders but that's because I don't want anyone dropping a bucket of paint (or a box of nails) on my head. A date on a calendar doesn't mean much to me and if something goes wrong today, it'll have nothing to do with Friday the 13th.

It has also, quite forcibly, come to my attention that tomorrow is Valentine's Day. There's no way to avoid it if you (1) listen to the radio, (2) watch television, (3) step inside any type of store, or (4) get email spam. Even when I was in a relationship I wasn't impressed with the day, created by retailers to sell pink and red stuff and shiny and sweet stuff. Now, since I love red things I've normally been able to pick up something for around the house in my colors, but my house is full and I don't need anything else, red or not. (Heh, I typed that "read" and yes, I buy lots of things that need to be "read.")

V-Day doesn't make me sad I'm single, doesn't make me long for romance and flowers and la-di-dah. What it does is create obstacles to my walking into a store. For a bearaholic like me, it's like waving a bottle of scotch (or vodka, or rum or tequila) in front of an alcoholic. Stores are filled with bears. Red bears, pink bears, little bitty bears, bit honkin' bears, cute bears, dainty bears, overbearing bears, bears bears bears. I'm trying so hard to limit my bear buying to medal bears and its --- so --- hard --- to --- resist. I've been strong, so far.

This week has been a wash, exercise-wise. I only took off a couple of days, but the days I did things, they weren't necessarily the things that are on my training schedule. I can't stress enough how much I miss having a running buddy, someone that I feel obligated to meet up with, someone who makes an hour run flow past like minutes. I've never had much get-up-an-g0 and on dark, cold, damp evenings I have much less. Throw in several nights in a row with little or no sleep, and I just want to curl on the couch with a blankie and a good book or my knitting. Not good for conditioning, not good for health, not good for weight control. Oh well, maybe next week I'll do better.