Miracle at Milepost 93

Yesterday I took a long run on the C+O Canal towpath.  Starting from Williamsport, MD, I first navigated some 10 miles of roads, then intersected the Canal at Dam # 4 (Milepost 84).  From there I ran upstream to investigate the section of towpath that was repaired and opened in 2012.

I had my camera along, but kept getting bogged down with stopping for shots.  There were just too many interesting things to shoot: canal historical artifacts, flowers, critters.  I finally got a running rhythm going and told myself that unless God himself came down and appeared to me right there on the Canal, I was going to park the camera and keep on running.

Well, a very short distance later I encountered this black racer snake.  God, being omniscient, must have known that seeing this critter would of course cause me to stop and take some photos.  Ergo, this snake must have been God incarnate.

[Photo of God...all photos by Gary]

 

 

I'm thinking about reporting this occurrence to the Vatican.  I seem to recall recently where the new Pope created a lot of saints and recognized a number of miracles.

 

Here's why I LOVE running on the Canal:

 

A typical scene

 

 

The newly opened section Milepost 84-88

 

 

More tomorrow....

 

 

One Relaxed Cat

Meet Amanda (photo by Gary), who is a cat we bottle-fed from a small kitten. One would think that she would be sweet and loving and totally enjoyed being handled.

One would be wrong, but I like to think she loves us as much as she can.

More on running soon.

 

Cats in Art: Woman With a Cat (Bonnard)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I'm using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.

This is part 2 of 8 of a multiweek study of the cat art of Pierre Bonnard, a French painter (1867-1947). In this series I will feature Bonnard's cat art both before and after this painting, which is one of his better known pieces.

This image is the second of two published by Zuffi, and dates from 1912:

Image credit National Gallery of Australia, Woman With a Cat, Pierre Bonnard, 1912, oil on canvas, 30" x 30", held by Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France

Zuffi comments:

The twentieth century boasts, right from its start, a large number of great artists who sincerely loved cats, but perhaps none had as much sensitivity and discretion as Bonnard.  For the French master, a delicate artist who took his cue from Impressionism, which he reinterpreted with lyrical intimacy, the cat is the animal to whom one confides the secrets of the heart: the cat is not a mysterious symbol or an elegant arabesque, nor a slightly disturbing presence, but a tender, discreet companion.  This painting, which in its balanced simplicity is rightly considered one of the painter's masterpieces, offers a subtle psychological interpretation of the relationship between a solitary young woman and a cat that appears at her side like a mute witness to her inner secrets.

Or in the case of one of our cats, a not-so-mute witness.  Ca Beere is a talker, as well as being a "face kitty" (fascinated with your face), and is alone among our felines in liking to have her belly rubbed.

Back to Bonnard--to me this painting is kinda haunting but in a non-threatening way.  I wonder what the girl is thinking, what the cat is thinking, what their lives were like, and what is really happening in this image.  The girl is looking straight out at the viewer, but the cat seems to be studying something off to its left.

The National Gallery of Australia site points out the usage of both circular and angular lines, and comments that the

...angle of the cat’s body, straightened foreleg and flattened ears suggests an animation lacking in the stillness of the woman’s body. Her slight lean towards the table and her steadying hand suggest she is waiting for something to happen.

So I guess that Bonnard succeeded in creating a lasting image that meaningfully persists in our world a hundred years later.

 

Dehydration, Revisited

A few weeks back I did a post I called "Dehydration: Think 7-Up, Not Mountain Dew" wherein the color of your urine during and after an athletic endeavor is probably the best clue to whether you are drinking enough fluids.

A run earlier this week and daily life brought that home again, and I wanted to point out how dehydration is not always obvious in the sense of causation.

That run was undertaken during cooler weather, so I had no particular impression of copious sweating.  But when I got home my short, shoes and sox were all pretty damp.

Clue 1 ignored.

That morning I had run early and only had drunk a single cup of coffee prior to the run.  Then afterwards I had another cup of coffee, not a big glass or two of water. 

Clues 2 and 3 ignored.

Then I set out to working on some stone steps in a new flower bed (I'll post separately on that cool project, with photos, when it's done).  At this point I did sweat a bit.  Yet I still did not drink much.

Clue 4 ignored.

Gradually I felt a strong headache coming on.  I went to the bathroom to pop some Ibuprofen and figured I might as well pee while I was there.

Think Mountain Dew, not Seven Up--heavy yellow and not much volume.

I finally realized that I was dehydrated, and it'd had been creeping and building up throughout the day.  Not the result of a major athletic effort but more or less a cumulative result of not paying enough attention to the clues that were obvious. 

As an athlete I should have known better.

More Golf Ball Coverage...and Ultrarunning

[photo by Gary]

In yesterday's run along my beloved Pig Farm 10 mile route, I found a golf ball in a corn field (the corn is barely up and visibility is good).

This one was in a field beside the road, at least 1500' from the nearest house, with a scrubby woodlot on the other side of the road.  Certainly NOT a result where someone was practicing in their backyard and one got away.

Then a mile later I found the golf tee laying on the road.

Thus my incisive golf-ball-while-running coverage continues.  Last previous post was here where I postulated:

The ubiquitousness of finding golf balls in unlikely places now leads me to consider some formerly outlandish theories. I'm beginning to suspect that they are alien eggs, prepositioned, awaiting a hidden signal, and when they all hatch en masse there will be hell to pay for mankind.

The link to Ultrarunning?  None, other than I was running when I found these artifacts.  Plus Ultrarunning is a sport; golf is not.  Case closed.

 

This is Why Blogging is Tough

The cats lay all over the computer area...when they're not laying on me, walking in front of the monitor, or stepping on the keyboard.

Amanda

 

 

Ca Beere

 

 

"Animal Spirits"...and Ultrarunning

     The need passed as I grew;

     the mind took over, devising
     paths for that force in me, and the body curled up,
     sedentary, glad to be quiet and read and read,
     save once in a while, when it demanded
     to leap about or to whirl—or later still
     to walk swiftly in wind and rain
     long and far and into the dusk,
     wanting some absolute, some exhaustion.

 
Source: Excerpt from "Animal Spirits" by Denise Levertov, via The Writer's Almanac for 14 May 2013.

As I always note whenever I post a bit of poetry, mots of you can't hit that DELETE key fast enough, the moment you see the verse format.

But this poem is about being an active child, then a largely sedentary adult, except for those times when the body demanded to be used.

People who are active as adults (such as Ultrarunners) know they joy of motion, for the sheer animal pleasure of it.  We know the pains and the pleasures, and the sheer exuberance that comes from going to the edge in an extreme athletic endeavor.

And the beauty is that you get to define what "the edge" is, and how close you care to come to it:

     to walk swiftly in wind and rain
     long and far and into the dusk,
     wanting some absolute, some exhaustion.

  

Mount Vesuvius...and Ultrarunning

[image credit NASA and Slate]

Sorry to shout but YOU REALLY OUGHT TO READ THE BLOG BAD ASTRONOMY.  You don't even have to have an astronomical bent to appreciate it--author Phil Plait makes it of interest to laymen and scientists alike.

The photo above  was taken by astronaut Chris Hadfield from the International Space Station and is of Italy.  Phil Plait commented:

I love this picture: Looking down the throat of Mt. Vesuvius, surrounded by towns and cities. Over a half million people live in the “red zone” of the volcano’s blast region. 
 

I find the photo almost mesmerizing.  The connection to Ultrarunning is pretty tenuous: just the fact that where I run I do not have to worry much about natural disasters or dangers.  Weather would be the only real concern; certainly not volcanic eruptions.