Bedtime Vittles

Instead of taking my chances skating through giant ruts in the dark, I decided to get some exercise with a run on the canal tonight. It’s my favourite: I like running along the edges where there’s just a bit of traction. I especially like the canal at night because it has a really romantic feel about it, something about the lighting...I ran down a good chunk of it and the conditions actually didn’t seem that bad for skating, although one guy I saw bit it really hard.

I was thinking about all kinds of things tonight, but two themes prevailed:

1. I am so happy to have gotten my orthodics adjusted because, unlike so many runs of late, my feet were not in extreme pain, nor were they shredded and bleeding when I got home. I felt like I could run for a year or more.

2. I was also reminiscing fondly about childhood winters on the canal, which is unusual for me since I tend to summarily dismiss my childhood as unpleasant. Maybe that’s a bit dramatic - much of it unpleasant.

Anyway, I passed by one of those little side canals, and got to thinking about how they used to put that little winter village in there with the petting zoo, and one year during a Winterlude class trip I lost these navy blue earmuffs that I had just gotten (and I was sure I had left them in the petting zoo area). In hinsight, it was probably the best thing that could’ve happened because I think earmuffs were already well on their way out of style by that point. Well despite the earmuff fiasco, I have many very fond memories of class field trips to the canal and how fun it was as a kid to just be set loose to skate around and eat beavertails with (seemingly) no supervision.

I was also remembering that slide at Landsdown park. Does anyone else remember it? Or was I hallucinating? I think it was called “The Avalanche” and it was a giant slide rigged up on the side of the bleachers. We would go on a class trip every year. It was so fun and seemed incredibly dangerous. In fact, I think it was super dangerous and one or two kids a year used to fall off and be seriously injured, but for a number of years it seemed like the mentality was that a few kids could be sacrificed for the amusement of all of the other children in the city of Ottawa and environs.

Probably the city got sued one too many times because one year the party was over, and The Avalanche was no more. It’s a wonder it went on as long as it did. I loved that slide….

In other news, in about 7 hours I have to go back to school and my heart is heavy. Two weeks of unscheduled bliss has really agreed with me. It’s gonna be hard to get my nose back in the books.

goodnight friends - tabby