Lost & Found: Baby, It’s Cold Outside

I officially miss my apartment. OK, I love having a house. Space. Privacy. Independence. Yard. Basement. Daughters’ bedroom. Cool old stove with griddle top!

Looked like a wall to me.

But it was 28 degrees outside this morning. That’s BELOW FREEZING, for those of you unfamiliar with the Fahrenheit scale. Back in Swing’s Leisure Apartments, the former Knox County YMCA, I had an indoor running track, baby. So, while I ran outdoors some the last two winters – including a cold-ass New Year’s Day run at the start of this year – I mostly wimped out and ran on the track when it was cold.

Honestly it wasn’t really about wimping out. It was pure laziness. Preparing for an outdoor run in cool weather takes brains and thought and memory (what did I wear last year when it was this cold?), cuz, you know, who wants to be too cold or too hot for however long one decides to plod along? So, frankly, it became easier to throw on shorts and a short-sleeved running shirt and jog around the short track indoors than to don tights or sweats and a running jacket or hoodie and head outdoors.

After a 42-degree run Monday that nearly froze my baguettes off – thank you, mother wind – I prepared today: running tights, shorts, Monster Dash jacket, gloves – my “Man in Black” guise. Thus, I was comfortable. Hooray!

I always dig the rusty drier or whatever at the old ADM site.

The skies were a mass of clouds. Actually, when I started out there was but one huge cloud. I’d call it a wall cloud, but I could be wrong. Later it splintered into fragments that made for an awesome skyscape. I love it when the Cloud City from “The Empire Strikes Back” appears over Galesburg.
So anyway, appropriately enough, I happened across a Thinsulate stocking cap – frozen to the pavement – atop the County Highway 10 Bridge. Like I need another stocking cap. Another benefit of Swing’s Leisure Apartments was the “freebie table” in the lobby. Residents would leave unwanted, unneeded objects – calendars, spices, vitamins, Christmas sweaters – there for anyone to take as they desired. I left loads of running finds there. Well, there’s always Salvation Army and Goodwill.