Was that frost on the pumpkin this morning?

Nope – just ice on my fingers because it was only 8° and biking it felt like -8° with the wind chill. Brrrr. I am going to have to rethink my morning biking wardrobe before tomorrow because my oh my it was cold. Definitely need gloves because even though my shirt had a hole for my thumbs, the ends of my fingers froze. Definitely long pants because my ankles were very cold and definitely warmer socks because I walked funny after I got off my bike because my feet were like blocks of ice. And most definitely a jacket because a vest just doesn’t do it. It’s very timely that I bought a super cute and very reflecty pink jacket at the run expo on Friday.

How was your weekend? Busy, fun, fabulous, all of them? Mine was busy but with lots of fun as well. I survived Saturday morning at Costco which is always a feat. Yesterday was the Army Run and although I couldn’t do the half marathon like I had planned to in January the 5K felt like just enough of a run for me. I am super happy with my time of 30:26. It is quite a feeling to participate in an event with 14,665 other people. It is such a well-planned event and seeing so many uniforms just makes your heart go pitty pat. There were firefighters along the route, I got high fived by someone in an astronaut costume, police were directing traffic and of course, a ton of soldiers in uniform. Thank you everyone who made it such a fabulous event to be a participant in.

It took 9 minutes to cross the start line and even then it takes a kilometer to get people spread out enough that you can get around the slower ones. One poor guy was about the 3km mark and was down on all fours throwing up. Should have waited until after the run to have breakfast. Then there was the poor lady I saw about 4.5km who was wearing grey capris. Remember what I said about grey? Bad, bad, bad colour choice for any wet sport. She apparently decided not to stop at the porta potty along the way and it seemed like she peed her pants. This was not sweat. Pretty gross and I’m sure very embarrassing for her. Black, black, black is the way to go and hmmmm, maybe Depends as well.

The biggest weekend stupidity: our neighbour Frank. I swear he thinks he can talk to Martians. This can't be legal. I don't think any of our neighbours were too happy to see the contraption that he added to the biggest tower of all time. Thank goodness we at least don't have it staring at us in our front window like many of the neighbours.

Last week was so busy that I didn’t get to share all of the fun things that I encountered with you so here goes:

· A skunk crossed the road in front of me on Friday morning….is that like a black cat crossing your path (bad luck) or should I consider it good luck that I didn’t bother it enough to get sprayed?

· I heard a song on Dawg FM that was called Facebook Woman. I tried to find the words for you Sharon so you could substitute Man in there but couldn’t find them. It was pretty funny.

· On the way home one warm day last week there were hordes of students to navigate through both at Ottawa U and at Carleton. Wished they walked a little faster and in less than groups of 10.

· There were a lot of guys fishing along the canal. Kind of makes me queasy to think of what is in there and I hope they throw them back.

· On my trip to the Retina Clinic last week I heard some of the most interesting tid bits: “Is that a pirate?”; “Oh no, we lost Joyce.”; “I love watching cats…so agile”; “the other cat is saying what? You didn’t bring me dinner.”; “What time is our appointment? 11:00” [I’m thinking why are you here because it is only 9:30!] “Oh boy, look at that goat!”. Took me a minute to figure out that they were watching the TV – hahaha. The movies are kind of like animal stalker movies. Poor things have cameras watching their every move.

· I overheard the receptionist say “Hello, how are you today?” and the response was “I’m blind in one eye, that’s how.” Hahaha…it was an older man and he laughed so at least he had a good sense of humour about it.

· A woman got called for her turn and she got up and said “I’ve been sitting so long I can’t get my legs to work right.” I’m thinking OMG I’ve been here 45 minutes, how long was she here?

· On the bus going back to work, while the folks were not as interesting as I had hoped, there were a few: a woman who was in her early 60s I believe had double earring holes – not a good look when your ears are hanging low; I didn’t realize that bus passes were still a thing but apparently old folks prefer them over Presto cards. A young woman got on the bus (and this is 10:30 a.m.) with an ice cream drink. Seriously. WAY too early in the day for that kind of sugary concoction I think.

· The best was the woman who drew her eyebrows on and they totally didn’t line up or match. Why do old people take off their natural eyebrows and then try to draw them on and they are so high on their forehead? Please don’t let me ever do this.

· Saw a guy wearing a Run DMC t-shirt. Does anyone even remember who they are?

· Coming into the building when I got to work I saw the guy that I was sure would be on the 85 bus. He only wore pants and he had them rolled up to capris. They were hanging so low that …. Well, it was quite a sight. His tighty whities were no longer white and they were pretty thin and all in all it was a horror show. He was being followed by a security guard who I’m sure was going to encourage him to move along to another building.

· Oh, and I had an epiphany while standing on the bus waiting to get off at my stop. I now know why bus drivers can be grumpy. They were really ugly black shoes and boots. Why I don’t know. There are some fabulous colours of boots out there to choose from. Go with burgundy or blue. Anyways, they have to sit there all day and watch everyone who is wearing fabulous shoes. I’d be pretty grumpy too. So next time you encounter a grumpy driver let them know that you sympathize and tell them about the lovely footwear choices out there that they could choose from.