Givingthanks Day

   I am generally a thankful kind of guy. I am thankful for many of the bigger things such as a great family, good job and good health.
   I am, however, pretty constantly thankful for some of the everyday things most of us take for granted.
   Walking and running for an example. I know several people who, through either accident or illness, have lost the use of their legs. Sometimes, even when I am just walking across a parking lot, I know what those people would give up just to be able to do that again. They could have just lost their homes and jobs five minutes previous but if, all of the sudden, they were able to walk again the pain of those losses would miraculously disappear. So it takes very little for me to be thankful for the ability to walk.

   I know people who cannot hear and people who cannot speak and I am thankful that I am able to do both of those things. I know people who have lost children, people who have cancer, and people who are brain-injured and I am thankful that none of these things have befallen me.
   Here is the problem I am having, though. I am deeply and profoundly thankful but I am not sure to who or what. I don't believe in God or gods so it doesn't make sense that I should be thankful to them. I tend to think that misfortune and good luck are in some ways just pure chance. So why be thankful to a simple spin of the wheel?
   Thanks needs to be directed at someone or something. I think this is somewhat part of its definition. If there is nothing, no-one or nowhere to direct your thanks then perhaps you cannot, by definition, be thankful. Perhaps the most you can be is happy, rather than thankful, with whatever your good fortune is.
   So I guess I am happy. Somehow or other, though, notwithstanding the atheist in me, I still feel thankful...

Mugs

   Off to the right is a pic of my favourite mug. It's my favourite for a variety of reasons. It was given to me by Doralyn back near the start of our relationship when our lives were awash in turmoil and the sentiment on the cup was what we were living by at the time. Apart from that, it just feels right, both in my hand and when I'm drinking from it. It seems to hold the right amount of coffee, as well.
   My job takes me into many different people's houses and apartments and they all have a shelf where they keep their coffee and tea mugs. Generally, taking a gander at someone's collection of mugs is somewhat akin to peeking through their medicine cabinets--in an unspoken way you absorb information about them. Sometimes it's what's on the mugs, sometimes it's whether they're stacked or not, are they placed on the shelf bottom-up or bottom-down, or are they even on a shelf, maybe they're hanging from hooks or on a mug tree. Just from looking at a person's mug collection you can get some ideas of where they've been in the world, where they've worked or gone to school, how old they are, what their favourite colour is, what their sex is (if you weren't sure already), what their religious and political orientations might be, what their sense of humour is like, and so on. Often, you get an idea of what their sensibilities are, how they feel about things.
   From my observations over the years, here is a composite of how many mug collections are constituted:

   a Tim's mug (almost a given, for coffee-drinkers anyway...)
   a humourous birthday mug, denoting the drinker's advanced age
   a set of mugs from a previous life, one's missing, one's chipped
   one or two mugs with inspirational sayings (see above)
   a sports team mug
   a super-hero mug
   a pet mug
   one stolen mug
   a souvenir mug from a trip abroad
   a "novelty" mug, almost unusable as an actual mug
   one or two travel mugs, often used as just regular mugs
   one or two "holiday" mugs eg. Christmas, Father's Day, Easter,...
   a "John Deere" or a "Nascar" mug (man's, usually)
   a "work" mug, with some kind of business logo on it
   please feel free to add to the list...

The "obligatory" Tim's mug

   Just the number of mugs tells you something about a person; how important coffee or tea is to them and how it fits into their lives, perhaps how sociable they are. How a person feels about the bottom-up, bottom-down issue is probably relevant. I know some people who store their mugs right side up so that the rims don't touch the dirty shelf and some that store them upside-down so they don't collect dust inside them. I imagine this will tell you something elemental about the mugs' owner, if you extrapolate just a touch.
   I think each mug sits you down into a slightly different zone when you use it, depending on your mutual history. This is definitely what happens with me and my favourite mug--it gets me to my coffee with a sense of rightness, for lack of a better word. Necessarily, it will sit in the dishwasher for a day or two at a time, but I'm always somewhat relieved when it is back in the fold again!


Handle broke but couldn't bear to part with it!

   Hopefully none of you have suddenly become paranoid about your mug collection and what it says about you. I think that if you have reached the point where you are visiting with someone at your house for tea, coffee or maybe even hot chocolate then they have likely already formed some sort of lasting impression about you that will not be affected by your choice of mugs over the years. Be proud of yourself, be proud of your mugs!
  
  
  
  
  

Yearn-to-Run: Part Two

   Well, I have finished my first road race! This morning I ran in my running group's target race, the Gobbler Gallop. I ran the 3K distance, as did most of us, and came in with a time of 23:33. I am told this is not bad but, at the same time, I was pretty near the back of the pack. More or less, this was kind of what I was expecting.


Our Learn-to-Run group. L-R Kathryn(fearless leader), little Nick, Mary, big Nick, Catherine, Kelcey, Peter, Pauline and myself

   It was a good day for running, dry and cool, and a great place to run, through Springbank Park. Springbank is such a popular place for runners that, unless you were wearing a race bib, it was hard to tell who was racing and who was just out for their regular run.
   Nothing much about the course surprised me, the first half is essentially flat but the second half has a couple of hills, one going down and one coming back up. Fortunately the longer and steeper of the two was the one going down but the second one, going back up, was a demoralizer. I walked it, only because I knew by the time I got to the top of it I would be near the homestretch and I really wanted to have enough left to kick it up a notch. I was able to kick it up a little and passed three or four people in the process. What I wasn't expecting however was the slight little incline up to the castle at Storybook Gardens. This began only about a hundred yards away from the finish line and I almost had to walk it as well, right in front of family and friends. Did manage to finish it, running, but Doralyn managed to get a picture of me as I was crossing the finish line and it wasn't pretty.


The "unpretty" picture I was telling you about...

   So the Learn-to-Run clinic and the target race is done and under my belt. I've more or less decided to keep on running on some kind of regular basis but likely will not join the 5K clinic, although I am under some pressure to do so by the people in the rest of my group.
   I must admit that running in a group has its advantages, there were a few Saturday mornings when, if I'd been all by my lonesome, that I might have just packed it in early. There's something to be said for peer pressure and I hope I don't miss it by running on my own.

   My main motivation at this point is that I feel better since I started running three times a week and I wouldn't want to miss that feeling. I will try and keep this up and perhaps even increase it.

   Tomorrow they're calling for an extensive frost. Winter is around the corner so I guess it's time to bring out the layers and the long johns and the toques. I've never run in the winter before and I'm thinking I might just try and find an indoor track somewhere...