Sickness, exercise, & unexpected adrenaline

(c) 2010 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

As I may have mentioned, we've been sick.

Fortunately, Pumpkin's now sounding & sleeping much better, thanks to a round of antibiotics. Penguin's eyes are all cleared up... now she just needs to catch up on her sleep so she stops acting like a demon child.

I managed to transfer my pink eye from the right to the left, but in just a couple more days, I'll have done a week's worth of drops on that one, too, and can get back to my oh-so-more-comfortable-and-convenient-and-nonfoggy contacts. Mr. Kluges is still coughing... and even though he claims his green-and-now-very-red eye is festive and seasonally-appropriate, he has a stop at the quick clinic planned for tomorrow... so he can get his own eye drops.

(Yes, our dear families, we sure hope we're not still sick or contagious by Christmas! We will understand if Purell becomes a stocking-stuffer of choice.)


Not that that was exactly why I decided to do a quick post. But since I was sick (plus, you know, wrapping presents & doing other Xmas stuff every night), I haven't been exercising. We even ended up calling off our belly dance troupe practice last Wednesday due to conflicts & sickness, so I was really feeling the lack of any sort of exercise.

Sunday night I decided to hit the treadmill. Sure, I knew I wasn't going to be running my usual 3 miles, but I figured even if I just walked for 45 minutes, it was at least something.

So I put in "Miracle on 34th Street," the first of 10 "why haven't I seen that yet" movies I'd like to watch. (Suggestions still welcome either at that post or this one.) I was alternating walking and running, and doing much better than I'd thought I would. "This isn't bad!" I thought. "Sure, I'm taking it super easy, but I thought I'd have to take it easier!"

THEN SUDDENLY A BLACK SHAPE FLUTTERED PAST MY HEAD AND OVER TO THE CISTERN WALL! IT WAS A BAT! A BAT!!!

I know, I know, bats don't try to get into your hair, they see just fine, blah blah blah, but YOU try not ducking when a bat unexpectedly flies past your head, in the basement, in the winter, while you're running on the treadmill! Landing on my knees resulted in a couple of little scrapes, but I can vouch that pulling out the safety key really does stop the treadmill.

Of course, by this time he'd disappeared into the closed-off cistern or the hollow block walls, but yeah, me and running were done for the night. I did a little research on-line (not that I'm going to try to refind the links to post right now) and I think our basement might be just cool-constant-temperature enough to be cave-y and somewhat suitable (in a bat's mind, anyway) for hibernation. Also, one website said that they will occasionally wake up from their semi-hibernation to get a drink and eliminate waste. So, I'm guessing that's what he was doing?

...but it's not a real incentive to go down and exercise again!