Go, you chicken fat, go away!

Ever since we bought our house just over a year ago, we've been trying to renovate it.  When I say we, I mean my wife and my daughters.  So far they've ripped apart one of the upstairs bathrooms, tore the drywall out of the kitchen, and graffittied my office wallpaper.  We've had a couple of contractors come by to give us quotes, but then they seem to disappear.  But we did have one guy do some work in our laundry room.  My wife demo-ed the cabinets and the tile.  Then the guy came in and installed the new flooring.  It's supposed to be waterproof.  Well, we had some flooding issues and it appears it's not as waterproof as advertised.  So we called my old friend to see if he could help out, and it turns out, this kind of stuff is exactly what he does for a living.  So during this week, their team has come by to remove the flooring, cut out drywall, put fans out to dry everything up, and eventually they'll put things back together.  As part of the renovations, my wife wants to remove our bathtub and construct a walk-in shower.  I told my friend that after they pulled out the vanity and the toilet, and he said now's the time to do it.  So thinking that today might be the last day I get a decent shower, I better go running.

We're down to one toilet in the house now.  It's all the way upstairs and I have to go through Julianna's bedroom to get to it.  After my normal daily routine of sitting on the throne for half an hour, I headed back downstairs to get dressed.  My legs felt stiff and sore going downstairs.  I wasn't sure if it was from running or from sitting on the toilet for half an hour.  But as I started running, I felt surprisingly well.

The moon looked to be about half phase, but it was providing decent light.  I could actually see my shadow from the moonlight.  As I approached the Floodway I saw two fast moving figures approaching me.  I realized it was a couple speedwalking.  They were probably speedwalking faster than I was running.  I ran north on the Floodway path and saw two more figures approaching.  It was the two old ladies I see from time to time.  Going south down the RWCD road, I saw another runner on the other side of the Canal.  When I got to Adobe, I could see a cyclist coming down the road.  I must've fixated on it, because there was a lady running west on Adobe and I didn't see her until she said good morning to me.

Looking down the RWCD road, I could see a bright light that looked like it was on the road, also, but appeared to be way down the road.  Like past University.  The Canal takes a slight angle about half way between University and Main, so whomever it was, they must've been near that point, which was about 3/4 of a mile away.  I started thinking about how I don't normally see this many people out this early.  Then I remembered that yesterday when I took my daughters to school, I saw 5 runners within the first half mile.  The first one I saw was a blonde girl.  Now I've seen this blonde girl before and she looks exactly like the Schumacher's youngest daughter who has recently returned from her mission and gotten married.  The Schumacher's have beautiful children.  The boys are handsome, strong, square jawed chaps, and the girls look like blonde bombshell Barbie dolls.  But I thought, it can't be her because now that she's married, I'm sure she doesn't live with her parents anymore.  They do have one son and his family that moved back in with them, Blake.  Blake was the Sunday School President, and his father, Bruce, was his Secretary.  Then Bruce got released and I was called to be the new Secretary.  But this was all during Covid, so we never did anything.  Now there's a new President and I'm still Secretary.  I did take attendance in the last Zoom meeting we had.  Anyway, I realized that the first girl I saw wasn't the Schumacher girl.  When I pulled up to the light at 48th and Brown there was another girl about to cross the street.  Lo and behold, she was the Schumacher girl!  I said to my daughters, what is she doing in this neighborhood?  She doesn't live with her parents, does she?  My daughter said she didn't think so, but she probably does live near here because she's in charge of Mission Prep.

So as the memory of yesterday's drive to school were playing out in my mind, I could still see the light way down at the end of the Canal.  It didn't seem to be getting closer.  I would have guessed by how bright it was, that it was one of those lights cyclists screw on to their bikes.  But cyclists move relatively fast, even if they are pedalling slow.  I started to wonder if it was a runner and they for some reason had their headlamp on backwards, and that's why it didn't appear to be getting any closer.  But, I thought, they should be hitting that angle soon, and I wouldn't be able to see them anymore.  Eventually I realized there were two lights.  They were coming towards me, but at a very slow pace.  It didn't dawn on me that they could be walkers.  But they were.  I saw them cross University.  Their lights were so bright, that they could probably see me and recognize me from a distance if they knew me.  I planned in my head what I would say to them: "Good morning.  I could see you guys from a mile away!"  And that's exactly what I said, but right after saying good morning to them and spitting out the rest of my packaged greeting, one of them said, "Good morning, Burt."  It was the Schumacher's!  What a funny morning.