2021 Week 16 Recap: Spring, redux

Spring is afoot, really this time. Bulbs and other early bloomers are shedding but the trees that flower are ablaze with colour. If the warmth holds out this year it should lead to one of those glorious extended springs that few places do better than England (April’s heat wave last year only teased us ahead of the frigid and locked-down summer).

The first lockdown was in full bloom at this time last year. Jackie likes to say she got through it binging wine and Bojack Horseman; I would add Brockmire to that, and this year Hank Azaria reprises the role in what is turning out to be an absolute treasure of a podcast. The first guest was Charles Barkley who used to come around and hang out with my, then, girlfriend’s sister down at Auburn around 1981 (I knew a lot of jocks and musicians, then, and couldn’t have named a professor with a gun to my head). The Brockmire/Barkley interview is, objectively, bonkers but also not at all surprising (it seems Mr Barkley and I have shared a lot of things even since we briefly crossed paths…except the success part, to be sure).

Barkley and Brockmire would both have probably appreciated the Level 2 experience overlapping my run home from The Hawthorns Friday after work. This capped off a brilliant and busy work week that also included the first of the runs-at-work section of the running map started, appropriately enough, on April Fools Day:

In a bad behaviour rut, my Fines and Fees for the week rolled in at £103.83.

Corona Christmas 2020

Our Deb gave us the Coronavirus/AcornBall for Christmas sometime in the dark ages before the turn of the millenium…I’m thinking Buggville (1996-2002) but it could have been The Farm (1994-’95). Regardles (and despite the location in the photo) it is the tree-topper this year because of its resemblance to the guest of honour at so many households this year.

In the first lockdown we were both still working throughout but with nothing to do outside after work we binge-watched a bunch of things. For awhile we were elbow deep in both Brockmire and Bojack Horseman. I’d recommend either to my Americans out there but The Bojack works for anyone in the world. If you only see one episode of either get the Bojack where he eulogizes his mother (it will compell you to see ALL the others) and if you aren’t locked into the full series of Brockmire after the first ten minutes of episode 1 then you must never drink with me.

At the end of every episode of Bojack, something like this happens. Jackie bought the ornament.

2020 Commute 40 of 52 (To): Bojack, Brockmire, and Finally Passing The #GVRAT Halfway Point

Finding it a little bothersome that this journal is becoming a running blog in the absence of open Pubs and Bars.  Mind you, there is much training at home but you can lose your professional edge in the absence of face-to-face competition.  Alas and alack….

I finally passed the halfway mark in the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee and, coincidentally, I was wearing a Whitwell Tigers shirt for the run.  Whitwell (pronounced locally as “WUHwuhl”) is just up the Sequatchie Valley from my crossing point — also, just a little further up the road to most of The Wife’s relatives in Dunlap (home of WUHwuhl’s rivals, Sequatchie County High School which is my sole reason for owning the shirt).

From the map, I estimate  a today’s 12 miles included a nice run along a ridge and a breakneck dash down a canyon into Jasper and across the Sequatchie River.  Now at 325.0 miles altogether, my current position looks like this just beyond Ronnie’s Red Eye 2 (and as fine looking a drinking establishment as I’ve ever seen in this neck of the woods):

The ACTUAL run today traced some new paths by taking advantage of the sun to guide me: for a morning journey, keep to the right of the sun and left of the shadow but, until later in the morning stay biased toward the sun.

Along the way, I stopped to inspect the stuffed toy you see here.  We watched every episode of every season of Bojack Horseman over the course of the lockdown (we also finished the similarly dark Brockmire, which I also highly recommend).  At the end of each episode of Bojack, the music was usually a goofy and infectious theme song but sometimes it would be something else or the lyrics would change; then, before the download would end a falsetto voice would say, “Boxer versus Raptor, na na na na na na na na!”  That’s my earworm for the day.