Today is my dad's birthday, he's 73 and going strong. Some underlying health issues pop up to haunt him every so often, mostly just reminders when it's time to get that follow-up check, but he's been fortunate, and he does take good care of himself in general.
Life and death have been on my mind this week as I have been writing a bit about those topics and just read Atul Gawande's book Being Mortal. Good read, by the way. If people would accept death as a part of life and not fear it so damn much, they might take better care of themselves on this side of the grass. Then we might not have such crazy out of control health care costs. We won't even get started on the relationship of fear of death to religion. But I could get going on a soapbox on all of these...
A former patient and now friend passed away this past Wednesday after dealing with a type of cancer for several years. He was one of my favorites. He was a musician, and was always warm and friendly and had such good energy. I know he suffered a lot in private, all the years of treatment and the ups and downs from that were hard on him. I've come to know his wife well as we've spent many morning conversations stopped along the Power Trail while I was running and she was walking her dog. I had been thinking of them a couple of weeks ago and then I got sick, and then just found out he's gone. I am glad he no longer has to suffer a medical experiment, but it's really sad when people who are such gifts to humanity get removed from our presence prematurely.
My thoughts have not been on running so much, which is good, but I am starting to feel kind of stiff and rusty. My back has not 100% recovered from the massive sneeze attack from earlier this week. It's getting there though.
The donut run idea was received enthusiastically by a number of people in the running club, so it looks like my crazy idea might take off. We have to wait for Dunkin Donuts to open in Windsor, and that might not be until after my birthday. Maybe next year, but we'll see.
So what is it with the newest male fashion statement, the unkempt, long, thick scraggly beard? I'm sorry to any of my readers who have one, but I can't handle it. Maybe it's a reliving of childhood trauma when I lived back east and I used to see those Hasidic Jews in the cities, wearing those long beards and the crazy long sideburns, and their black hats. They always freaked me out as a small child.
But I think my beard aversion has more to do with the number of men I've observed dropping food in their beards and seemed to be unaware. I wonder how long things live in that rat's nest. And then when I see these guys who are runners and I think of all the sweat and gels and snot and all the other unsavory things that happen during an ultra...I just can't get past it.
"Lumbersexual" or Duck Dynasty, hipster fad or spare refrigerator, it's freaking me out and I'm already way over it. Can't we go back to something less obvious, like tattoos and nipple piercings? At least we get a break from looking at those in the winter.
Beards, beards, go away.
Store your food some other way.
This too shall pass. For now, my advice is, if you must, please Trim It.
And this concludes my sleep-deprived, pre-solstice rant. And yes, the title of this post says late winter. Spring starts January 1st.
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