Max Riffner

The Parlor

My weblog work journal.  »Archives  »Links

Ucky

Only in the Midwest can you have record breaking highs and lows in the same week. Sunday was 100 plus degrees, and last night was hovering around 50 degrees. The thunderstorms produced by this front was enough for a leak to start in the kitchen from the roof.

Last night, I cautiously got up on the roof with my father laughing at my wobbly ass climbing the ladder, loaded with sealant materials. We weren’t able to find anything, so I said we should go into the attic and scope it out from there.

The attic entrance is above the stairs leading to the basement. Again, this did nothing for my ladder uncertainty. We climbed half in to a very cobwebbed attic and our search was again fruitless. Time to call a professional.

I decided to actually fix stuff around the house though, goddammit (which seems to be falling apart around me). First up was the garbage disposal. It stopped working last week. I opened the cupboard and felt around, noticing that the plug had been pulled almost all the way out. Plugged it back in, and Action Jackson, it worked!

Next, I ran out to the hardware store to pick up a few things, but mainly to fix a very stubborn drain. Based on this review, I grabbed a Zip-It line, hoping that it would clear the block that all the chemicals I tried would not. While it did pull out a tremendous amount of foul-smelling bio-gunk (which was blue gray in color, you know that’s bad), the drain is still not working to spec.

I blame the Chief and her hair. She’s not here to defend herself anyway.

Two failures and one success later, I stood outside whilst the dog was urinating, relishing the fresh cool air. It reminded me of when I used to be a runner. Since my bike is currently touring the state of Iowa without me, I thought, what the hell. A test run couldn’t possibly hurt me too much, could it?

See, I’ve had these unpleasant seeds planted in my head from my brother and father, both of whom just came back from injuries to start running again. When my brother came over to see me last week, we were talking about bikes and he said “yeah, but you know? I’m just a runner. I can’t get into bikes.”

I was a runner, too, so I knew the elitist feeling he was talking about; that shared bit of respect runners have for each other because you do something that 90 percent of the population tries to avoid.

I got suited up and walked up to the old middle school track a block away from me. I set my watch and away I went.

I didn’t injure myself, but it could have gone better. It was pretty damn painful overall as I tried to remember what it was I liked about this knee-pounding experience. Once my achillies tendon started to tighten up though, I quit immediately. My doubts realized, I walked back home after my quick 15 minute run. I wasn’t sad, it just pointed out how ill-suited my body is for that exercise and that it was pretty amazing that I did it for as long as I did.

In fact, all it really did is make me want a new sexy bike even more.

You can also browse through the Parlor archives.