| Weather | sunny, warm and nice |
| Temperature | 63F / 17C |
| Mood | pushing myself, but happy – I keep having to take naps like an old man |
| Restoring nature | 1.5 hours |
Another day, another litter cleanup in our parks. It will always be there for me if I want to grab it up. I got tired really fast, but I kept going, just like I did when I was a runner. I think part of long distance running is the mindset. As I became a mature runner, I started to think about my form. Maintaining your form is a great way to help maintain your speed in the later miles. Watch a tired runner. You can usually tell: slouching, head down, and sometimes heavy feet. Man, I miss it all. But this is story about my trashabout today.
I went the distance and now I need another nap. It’s inevitable. I had the second Pfizer vaccine a few days ago and it kicked my butt. I’m sure it’s playing into some of my gastro flare up symptoms. It’s amazing that I so easily trust an injection in my body, but it’s nothing different than drinking from the tap, breathing the air, or walking across the street. I just gotta have faith that it’s all good and safe. So I am out there doing my small part in our parks, trying to make the litter go to the landfills and incinerators instead of our rivers and oceans. I hope to go to a water treatment plant someday to see how the water cleaning magic happens in person.
Today there was no shortage of thank you’s. You know I love it. A couple male teens tried to demonstrate their <ahem> superiority with loud grandstanding and cowardly insults, but this is part of the outdoor experience sometimes. You ignore them like they are boring as heck and most of the time they get bored and go away. Sometimes you have to go away yourself and you get mocked for that, but defending your ego is not a legal self defense. Forget your ego, get away from trouble and/or ignorance if needed. It is the smart thing to do. Remind me of that sometime if I forget.
Today I brought out the large 30 gallon trash bag holding device. My wrists were getting tired fast. I just haven’t felt right since I got the second vaccine. My green litter bag got heavy quickly. After my first haul, I stayed relatively close to the trash can. It did not matter. There was lots of litter to be had along the brush by the riverbank. I do not have the strength to get a lot of the stuff down along the water. Two years ago and I wouldn’t have even blinked if you asked me to do it. I imagined using a canoe and a trash grabber to pick up all the litter near the river banks. I think it would be a fun activity for kids. Get them out on the river in a boat with a trash grabber and fish out the garbage from the banks into litter bags. I bet you would remember having fun doing that when you grew up. It might make you more conscientious about litter near waterways if you fished out a bunch of litter off the land from a boat.
After my daydreaming of working with happy kids pulling out litter with garbage grabbers destined to swim in our Schuylkill River the next big rain, I put my electric scooter in high gear. I was grateful to see that a group had cleaned up our Ben Franklin Parkway. By our parkway our international flags were gently blowing in the light wind on this lovely spring day. Additionally the bike lane was litter free. There were a series of organized black trash bags ready to be picked up by our Philadelphia sanitation crew. A few more afternoon outings like this and I will breathe a little easier at home. Thanks for reading my story today.
