Dinner party

We are hosting a dinner party tonight! I am subbing in for my mother-in-law this Thursday since she is out of town.  I therefore threw caution to the wind so to speak and bought a few extra items for the occasion namely a pan of lasagna to feed everyone in the event that my planned meal (which ill-advised I am cooking for the very first time) is no good.  Some times I am a planner and in this instance I am.   Primarily because I invited a bunch of family members over to eat dinner and celebrate my sister-in-law's birthday so I kinda have to feed them and I sometimes mess up new recipes!  I also bought all the stuff I needed to make Spicy Fettuccini with Shrimp:  some shrimp and whipping cream!  We also stocked up on produce. Anyhow, if the recipe is any good I shall share it tomorrow.  Sidenote:  Orchard Markets www.theorchardmarkets.com has shrimp on sale this week so head there for your seafood needs! Also Orchard Markets has been a sponsor of Brainy Day 5K www.brainyday5k.com (the race the I founded and direct) since its inception so that is another great reason to shop there!  Their service is also second-to-none!

Enough with the boring housekeeping stuff, onto my running story from this morning's jaunt!  First of all, I am doing myself no favors running in weather like today I can fully admit that.   When I am so desperately trying to prove my sanity is intact, running in conditions like today probably doesn't help me out. But Mother Nature isn't exactly helping me out any either.  Seriously, it is going to snow more tonight!  Up until the chickens went on laying strike, it took me an hour and a half to take the trash out and haul wood to our home, and my incident running this morning I was enjoying winter and I didn't complain one bit!  But I got really mad about this one although I suppose had it been ninety degrees and sunny it still would have sucked just as bad.  I had to take a five minute Mommy Time Out before I could even put pen to paper. That's how mad it made me.

Here is how it all went down.  I took off setting new land speed records on my mission to reach the summit of the bridge that connects Spring Lake to Grand Haven.  I was having a jolly time of it too and made it to my turn around in forty minutes which given the weather conditions at the time (basically totally insane: 20 degrees, windchill below zero and lots of wind and blowing snow to name a few) was pretty damn good.  I was happy. 

Yes I also thought I had finally mastered the use of the neck warmer thingamajiggy (you need to turn it about a quarter turn every 10 to 15 minutes to prevent frozen in the shape of your face situations and you should take a couple minutes to breathe fresh air when you do so to avoid feelings of claustrophobia or light headedness both of which I had experienced while trying to figure out the best way to use the contraption) so I was happy, maybe even giddy as I ran along. 

Anyhow, I headed back to the aquatic center www.slcfac.com and was about a mile into my return trip when it happened.   I was just trotting along minding my own business when I saw a dark SUV slowing down considerably to pass me and I thought to myself, "Isn't that nice that they are being so careful around runners" and before the thought even left my mind, it was quickly replaced by a few choice swear words (that shall remain inside my head as I try to keep this as G rated as possible) because they totally driveby smoked me (and so soon after I joked about it too). It was a couple, dirty douche bag men, not a nasty chainsmoking whore, but the effect was the same.  I was nearly choked by the dirty, nasty, carcinogenic gases that were blown from their vehicle.  As I fought to clear my lungs of the toxic fumes that had just been rudely blown into my face, I noticed one of them throw their cigarette butt out the window which pissed me off even more.  If there is one thing I hate more than driveby smoke incidents, it's people who throw their cigarettes out the window! Ever heard of an ashtray idiot!  Had I not been so disoriented by my current state of affairs, I totally would have taken note of their license plate and reported them to the proper authorities.  Seriously they deserve some tickets.  It nearly knocked me out, as I had already been struggling to keep my breathing regular with the head wind I was experiencing and then they went and blew their skank a** air in my face. 

Once I regained my composure, I spent the next half mile or so analyzing the incident.  I imagine that they saw me running and thought something along the lines of, "man that's one crazy person out there running in this shit. Who does that? ... Aren't these cigarettes delicious? Let's share them with the runner!"  Well I might be slightly crazy, but at least I am not likely to die from lung cancer.  I doubt they can say the same.  So that is the end of the story. The rest of my run was uneventful, but if you can't tell I am still mad about this incident so if you are a smoker please don't blow your exhaust out your window as you pass runners, or bikers, or any other human being, or animal, or other lifeform because we all know "second hand smoke kills".


Vern Out