A crap in the dark

Sunday, April 25, 2010


I’m really getting seriously burned out and I have to do something about that.

I headed to the park for an early hike and photo op. I had less than an hour so it wasn’t going to be a long one, but I planned on going down to the marsh. I was about 20 minutes into the woods when a nature call came knocking. Normally not a problem if I’d have packed some tp – I dig a great cathole - but I didn’t have any. Crap. Or…no…don’t crap.

I headed back to the car and the Ranger Station bathroom. I was walking…or waddling from the car to the restroom hoping no one was using it. A quick knock…no answer…and I was inside. As the door closed, I fished for the light switch, but was having no luck finding it. I opened the door again to let in the sunlight and aid my search only to discover there was no light switch…the light was just burned out. Crap.

I mean I know where my butt is and I could see the crapper before I closed the door, but…you know…the clean up afterwards? Well…this thing wasn’t waiting. I tore off a bunch of tp…this bathroom has one of those giant roll, money saving toilet paper dispensers that I have trouble working when there is light… and placed it strategically near me before allowing the door to close again and throw the room into total darkness.

And I mean…dark. It was like the ‘inside of your shoe’ dark. I managed a successful outcome, but now I had to wash my hands. I know Holly will read this eventually and I want credit for washing…even under such challenging conditions.

The rest of the day was me trying to decide if I was going to do a workout or not. Sunday was family dinner day and that meant limited window between the end of church and guests arriving – if you can call family ‘guests’. I’d hiked for about 40 minutes with my butt cheeks tightly clenched earlier in the day, and, with the clenching, I’d probably burned more calories than usual. Maybe that should be enough? The fact that I was having these thoughts spoke volumes about my burnout level. So I did…I took the rest of the day off. From exercise…not from eating.

We had tuna noodle casserole, nut bread and one of Holly’s great jello salads. I had two helpings… and they weren’t small. I did skip the brownies she’d made for dessert, at least.

Off that workout horse for a day, but I remount tomorrow…

Hike duration: 40 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 65

Calories burned during workout: 250.