Slodgin’ Through the Gales of November
“Hey, Kayak Woman! I see you walking all over town!” I was walking slodging along Packard at a pretty high rate of speed and this guy was yelling at me out of the third floor window of a university building more or less across the street from Blimpy Burger. It was Steve, an old Haisley dad and fellow hard-core sandal wearer, whose house I walk slodge past every day. I knew he worked at the U but I never knew where his office was before now.
“I’m walkin’ to Howard Cooper!” I hollered back. Slodging would’ve been a better word today. Rain and water and mud and slippery wet leaves. Once, faced with a puddle I knew I couldn’t long-jump over without a good running start, I bounced up onto a little hill only to encounter the mud/grass version of a slip ‘n’ slide. Somehow, I managed to keep my footing until I could land back on sorta more or less dry pavement. Er, well, at least the water wasn’t three inches deep.
I was pretty wet and disheveled when I got over to Howard Cooper but I made it in about an hour and ten minutes and, miraculously, my butt wasn’t covered with mud. I retrieved my vee-hickle, came home, peeled my sopping wet socks off, and threw them into the washing machine along with all the other wet socks that have been piling up around here all week. Mmmmm, the smell of wet, muddy wool.
It has been a cold, wet, gray fall here in the lower reaches of the Great White North. I survive by getting outside every single dad-blasted day. Getting outside helps. Splish splosh. Slodge on.