Weekend Plans Post: Participating In An Event Without Knowing About It
A million years ago, the cable channel Spike! had a show called “Oblivious”. It was a hidden camera show. The host would wear a disguise (for example: a florist) and a customer would come up wanting to engage in commerce (for example: buy flowers), the host would then ask him or her several trivia questions, and then, at the end of the questioning, give the person cash based on how many of the trivia questions they got right. “Oblivious! The Game Show You Don’t Know You’re On!”
It was a decent enough concept, I guess. It didn’t really take off.
Anyway, last Friday, I had finished work by 2PM and it was cold. Like, really cold. I was tempted to not run but my boss said “WE’RE RUNNING!” and so I put on my shorts and hoodie and got ready to run a nice 5K in the late-October air. It was juuuuust cold enough for the first minute or two to be unpleasant, but after that, everything was fine. My core was warm, my hands were warm, my feet were warm. Who cares if my knees were chilly?
We got a good time this time. 52 minutes! The cold pushed us, I guess.
Anyway, he pulled ahead in the last two minutes and really turned on the gas and I was just fine keeping my normal snail’s pace and he went to his car and then ran back to the finish point with some weird… object? In his hand? And as I passed the little fence post we use to mark the end, he handed me a CU Boulder Virtual 5K medal.
Apparently, he had enrolled me in the Boulder Virtual 5K without my knowledge.
So I got a medal for a 5K I didn’t know I was running.
I’m still tickled pink about it.
This weekend has no events. Well, no events to my knowledge. Maybe somebody will sign me up for something without my knowing about it again.
No grocery stores, no visits to Costco, no trips to PetSmart. Just chores and errands around the house, maybe do the banking, maybe have some foodstuffs delivered. Maybe play some games.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is Alice wearing a CU Boulder Virtual 5K medal. Taken by the Author.)
1. Now I’m wondering if my cross-country ski exerciser is actually telling me km and not miles, and my roughly 35 minute workout that I THOUGHT was 3.2 miles (so: a bit over 5 km) is only 3.2 km, and boo, that makes me annoyed.
(Hm, no, the NordicTrak website has the manual, and it says the distance is in miles. So, woo, I am doing a 5K several days a week. I have the metabolism of a piece of floor tile so I need at least that much of a workout)
2. Weekend plans are a little house maintenance stuff (laundry etc.) but also one Big Last Trip Out to the larger nicer grocery store and a swing by the JoAnn’s because they’re warning case counts are going up here and I suspect soon traveling far to shop will not be a great idea AND we may even see closures of “non essential” businesses again if things keep going. Also there’s another event next week that the paranoid side of me says I probably want to limit my time in public in the aftermath of….I don’t KNOW that anything would happen but I tend to be a “don’t start nothin’, won’t be nothin'” kind of person and also a “don’t go stupid places” person….though when every place is a stupid place, what do you do?
I will say I’m allowing myself more little trips out because I can tell after all those months of doing NOTHING but a quick grocery run weekly, my mental health took a nosedive and I am really dreading the “bad winter” lots of people are talking of, and I feel like doing a thing or two now may fortify me against that. As long as we have sunny days, though, even if they’re cold, I can probably get out to a few of the walking trails here and that might help too.
(I had to count on my fingers….it was essentially 7 months that I didn’t go out except for groceries and a couple medical appointments. I have literally no memories of that time which kind of scares the hell out of me, it’s such a blank spot in my brain. I hope I’m not suffering some kind of cognitive decline but I always worry because you hear how people who are alone are at greater risk of almost everything compared to people in families…)Report
There’s risk and there’s *RISK*.
I think that going to choir practice or hanging out with friends and not wearing a mask while you eat with them is pretty risky.
I think that wearing a mask (and gloves?) while you go to the grocery store and not talking to anybody except the cashier (maybe use the self-check instead) is not particularly risky.
I mean, there’s risk getting out of bed in the morning, right? It’s just that we’re not good at categorizing risk and we think that if we can go to the grocery store then we can go to the mall and if we can go to the mall then we can go to the baseball game and if we can go to the baseball game then we can go to the hockey arena and, dang, there was a spreader event at the hockey arena. NO MORE GROCERIES!
When, really, getting groceries isn’t *THAT* dangerous. Just keep moving, don’t talk to people.
(I really, really miss my people, though.)Report
Every time I go to Costco my wife hands me a validation slip that I have to give to a nice person at the door who then puts a smiley face on it. I feel like I’ve earned some secret “pusher of the heavy cart” award. The heavier the cart and the longer the validation slip… the bigger the smiley face.
Congrats on the 5k. Whenever I see a number and a ‘k’ my mind goes back to the Camino and my ankles start to hurt.Report
Write, finish the astronomy club newsletter, sit outside because the rain has stopped, buy magic mushrooms to take on Sunday. Watch episode 6 of Ted Lasso and maybe Gravity Falls. Plus I need to get a check cashed at the credit union too.Report
Oh, yeah. The government gives us back our hour tonight.
Finally.
Seriously, this needs to be the last time change ever.Report