Now that it is cooler in the mornings, and I don’t worry about Rex’s paws on hot sidewalks, I have been adding “urban” walks back into my weekly routine. I say “urban” because although the routes follow sidewalks and streets, we pass fields of cows and horses, flower farms, beaches, and the Country Club at which Rex is periodically boarded. Last Sunday we were taking such a route, a loop of 7 kilometres, when we came across a large amount of backed up traffic. I thought it was a construction delay, but no. As I approached the intersection it became clear that there was some kind of road race going on, and traffic was stopped to allow a seemingly endless amount of runners to pass.
This is my biggest grievance with this city: the lack of signage for roadblocks and sidewalk closures. I cannot count how many times I have been out walking and suddenly, without warning, the sidewalk would be ripped up or otherwise blocked off, leaving me with two suboptimal options: doubling back for blocks until I found a crosswalk, or jaywalking. Would it kill them to put up a sign? On this day, there were no markers indicating a running route, merely neon-clad people with stop signs at various intersections, gesturing that-a-way. In fact, not all roads were blocked off and it was apparent that the race itself was taking place on the sidewalks and bike lanes; vehicles were driving on the roads with the runners, but of course, were blocked from driving through the runners.
I witnessed a wild case of road rage, wherein a truck tried to turn right. He had been driving on the road with the runners, but was waiting for a gap in the crowd of runners to turn, at which point he would no longer be in the running route. He started to turn when there was a gap. I suppose he would have made it just fine, without, you know, mowing anyone over, but one of the race workers ran up and started hitting the slow-moving truck with his stop sign. The truck, unbelievably, kept going while the neon-clad man shrieked and pummelled his truck. How the fuck am I going to get to work? the driver of the truck screamed back at the neon-clad man. It was upsetting but also? Some signage to say that the road would not be passable would be nice. An ounce of prevention, etcetera. We do not condone road rage here at the Boyhouse, but I was reminded of one of my former bosses, who told me sometimes he really could understand Michael Douglas’s character in Falling Down.
As it was, I was standing there, unable to cross the street, wondering what to do. I was not the only confused pedestrian: there were many walking on the other, non-running side of the street. I desperately wanted to join them, but that would involve crossing through the flood of runners and also Frogger-ing through moving cars. I neither wanted to get run over nor pummelled with a stop sign. Rex was getting more and more excited with the crowd of runners and cheering people. Let me tell you something about Rex: he is a very good dog, he is well-behaved and affectionate, he listens and understands when I talk to him. However. When he gets excited, he barks. He does not bark when a stranger enters our home, but a friend? Bark bark bark. He’s the world’s worst guard dog. He is also huge, and so his bark is loud and deep and non-dog people can be unsettled by this. I suppose I could have turned around and retraced the way I came, but I was more than halfway by that point, and I didn’t want to add an extra three kilometres to our walk. I made a choice, and I went with it. Since I couldn’t cross the street safely, I short-leashed barking Rex and started to walk against the flow of runners, keeping as far out of the way as I could. I thought if I could just get past this mass of people, I could zip across the street and be out of the crowd. Optimism! It’s my downfall.
Unfortunately for me, as soon as I made this decision, the 2:00 pacemaker ran by (was it a half marathon? I still don’t know because THERE WAS NO SIGNAGE), and with him was a mass of people. Now we were fully in the crowd, but going the other direction. As the bystanders cheered, so did Rex. Bark bark bark. In this grim way we walked another block and a half, which was the longest block and a half of my life. I saw a small gap in the runners AND the vehicle traffic, and I immediately seized the day and my chance. I ran across the street and broke free of the crowd. Relieved, I thought I could wind my way down to Lakeshore Road and from there make my way back to the car.
What a great plan! Except that by the time I got to Lakeshore, it became apparent that it too was part of the race route, except now we were trapped walking WITH the flow of runners. Happily, these were the super-fast runners – the Catrinas, if you will (HI CATRINA) – and so they were few and far between. Unhappily, as they passed us at their high speeds, Rex got excited with the thought of running! With people! And so again I short-leashed him and tried my best to keep out of the way. Awww cute dog! the runners said as they passed. I smiled weakly. Rex barked.
Finally, I could see more neon-clad people up ahead, directing the runners to turn left. Traffic, again, was backed up massively. Now I had a plan! I could walk past the turnoff and keep going straight. I would be free! Hopefully no vehicles would angrily u-turn onto the sidewalk and run me over, given that traffic was backed up as far as the eye could see, but I could find my way back to the car. Eventually.
By this time, Rex had calmed down. He wasn’t trying to run. He wasn’t barking. Few people were running past us now, similar to the number of people who would run past us on a normal, non-chaotic day. We approached the corner where the runners were turning left. I could taste the finish line, as it were. Not the literal finish line – who knew where THAT would be – but I would be out of this chaos. And as I approached the turnoff, I heard claps and cheering and you can do it! type commentary.
But there was no one around me.
I looked around. The bystanders were cheering for me! I smiled a little sheepishly. I’m not…I’m not in this race? I said, which felt like a statement of the obvious, to which a woman replied We know. We just like your dog. Rex barked.
Weekly Reading
American Fantasy. I wasn’t prepared for a book about middle-aged ladies on a booze cruise that features a middle-aged boy band loosely based on the New Kids on the Block to be a moving statement on midlife reinvention and revival, but here we are. It took me about fifty pages to really get into this book, because there are so many characters and it was hard to keep track of who’s who. But once it got going, it really captivated me. I was never a NKOTB fan even though I was exactly the right age, but I knew a lot of girls who were, and this felt like a peek into crazed fandom. It also felt so resonant, the musings of middle age and what it is like to be in your fifties. It did not make me want to go on a cruise, let alone a musical cruise, but it made me smile and also think a lot about the little gifts that life gives us.
Clutch. This really seemed like a book I would love – five women navigating friendships, relationships, careers, and motherhood. But the truth is that I should have DNF’d it. I should have known after the first few chapters, when the women take mushrooms in chocolate form and then go shopping, that this book was not for me. And yet for some ungodly reason I pushed through. I found it incredibly dull and tedious, with excessive detail and telling, not showing, with no nuance or emotion. I did not care about a single character except for a horrifying scene involving dogs. I cared about the dogs. The rest of this was a total slog and I wish I hadn’t wasted my time. Ah well, onward and upward.
Limelight. I really enjoyed this author’s The Sweet Spot, so I thought I’d check out her back catalogue. This book is about a woman who moves with her family from Dallas to NYC, and through a series of events, becomes a personal assistant to an absolutely odious teenage pop star, with the job to get him ready for his Broadway debut. It turns out that I really don’t like reading about odious teenage pop stars, so this book wasn’t a win for me by any stretch. However, I really do love Poeppel’s writing style, so I am going to try again with another of her books. The writing style was what kept me going, despite disliking the story.
Happy October, friends! I realized, in preparing to do another Ask Me Anything, that I have not answered a question from the last one, ten months ago. Whoops! That will be for next week, and apologies to my friend and one of my longest-term readers, Steph (HI STEPH). In the meantime, don’t forget about Elisabeth’s walking club, the CBWC (HI ELISABETH) and perhaps you too can become an unwitting participant in a road race. xo
