After doing intervals and elevation on my run Thursday, I was so looking forward to a good hike or run, or both, this past weekend. Being Canadian Thanksgiving, we had three days off, the first of which was completely rainy–but then it began to get cold and sunny. This morning we had our first frost. Anyway, on Saturday we were in Vancouver with some friends watching a VIFF film and I took a bite of popcorn, which immediately gave me a weird reaction with the left gland swelling in my neck. This increased over the weekend and it’s been hard to eat much of anything or even swallow. I went to the doctor today at work who ordered some tests. But the bummer part was that I stayed in all weekend because the gland is extremely tender and sore, and along with it I have a lot of pressure on my left ear and temple. Plus I am constantly coughing up phlegm. I guess it’s a cold or bad allergy, but I just want to be normal again because, despite feeling so crappy and being able to barely swallow, I am craving a good long run/hike before it gets icy, if it even does this year!
So I have been reading quite a bit–the first of my weird fiction books that I ordered coming in. Going to really dig more into the The Boats of the Glen Carrig, by William Hope Hodgson, tonight!
Meanwhile, now that I’m under the weather, we are in for some big storms starting tomorrow night and lasting for a few days. So I guess I’ll take being ill now (even though I love running around in storms, so wouldn’t mind getting better). If materializing, the storms would parade in from the west–remnants of typhoon Songda–and we could see a rain and windstorm like that of Stanley Park in 2006, according to the Vancouver Sun. It’s something to keep an eye out for.
Since the blog is titled “Running in the Anthropocene,” I would be remiss without mentioning Hurricane Matthew, which hit Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, and then the US last week. I hardly ever watch news anymore, but for a while I was pinned to one of the Florida weather stations that does a live stream on the internet. The hurricane did much damage to Haiti, many many deaths, and then it was downgraded from a category 4 to 3 by the time it got close to central Florida. Yet, it continued to cause flooding and storms, all the way up the coast, to Prince Edward Island, even. Storms these days are linked to climate change and have the capacity to be more dangerous than they used to due to rising sea levels, warmer ocean waters, and so on, contributing to storm surges and higher waves, which threatens people living on coasts. I believe that while humans have always experienced tragedy due to natural events, we are starting to see these become more dangerous now.
It’s also a strange political time when someone like Donald Trump is a nominee to be the president of my country. A tape just came out of him talking lewdly about women. I felt like saying, you know…I want to trust my president similar to the way I trust my own dad. Donald Trump is a creepy pervert who can’t keep facts straight about political issues, is thin-skinned and publicly humiliates anyone who disagrees with him at all, and who is so dangerous on so many levels that I really am frightened if he does become the president. What frightens me more is his fan base, including some top Christian leaders in the US. I try to not watch any of his speeches, but one came up on my news feed tonight, where someone was chanting at a Trump rally, “Hang her in the streets,” speaking of Hillary Clinton. That amount of blindness and hatred and fear is something I want to say far far away from. I’m sure he’d be impeached pretty quickly if he won, but still, who would vote for someone like that? Thankfully, his numbers are plunging in the polls. But, like Rob Fee recently tweeted, “How are so many people JUST NOW offended by Trump? It’s like getting to the 7th Harry Potter book & realizing Voldemort might be a bad guy.” It’s what I’ve been thinking all along, week after week, gaffe after gaffe. And it’s what I thought in the beginning when he ran for the 2nd time.
Lucky for me, I don’t have to deal with Trump, being north of the border now, but, face it, everyone in the world would have to deal with him anyway. He doesn’t even believe in climate change and he’d probably start a war early in his office because he has no political savvy whatsoever.
If for some reason this blog survives another ten years, I personally want it known to my great-niece Adelaide, and any future grandchildren I might have–look, dudes, your old geezer here did not support Trump and fought constantly for people to be aware of climate change. A lot of us tried. We have no idea how that may or may not trickle down into your futures or if it helped at all.
For now, dusk hastens the sky. It is just 6:30 pm. It will be another clear and cold night with stars before the first storm hits us tomorrow night at which time I plan to hunker down inside with my solar stuff, if needed, candles, and warm blankets–or, if I am better, I’ll take a run in the storm. I am now going to bed early to do some reading. I feel myself fading quickly after a long day of work. I hope to get back to my regular running soon.
The featured image is from the 2006 storm that devastated Stanley Park; the photo is taken by Morgan Woodbury.