Wednesday Potpourri

Over on Pickled Beef, Tink asked for a little help in restoring her faith in humanity. I don't get out much and so didn't see any continuum-altering opportunities for good deeds, but I did what I could.

About half a mile from our house is a nice recreational park. It's mostly an open field used for kids' soccer practices and the occasional Sunday morning cricket match (seriously.), with a splash park and a couple picnic shelters plonked down in the middle.

The park also has a 1.55 mile long walking/jogging/biking path that runs all the way around its perimeter. At several points along the path, the city of Allen has provided permanent stations for dispensing doggie poo mitts and receptacles for the disposal of any such collected during one's walk around the path. Neat idea, huh? I think so, but the local pet owners apparently don't agree. Maybe it's in our nature to rebel against doing what someone else wants us to do (pick up after your pony-sized mastiff, in this case), or maybe it's just too much to ask people to hang up their cell phones so they'll have a free hand for a doggie poo mitt.

Either way, when Turtle and I went out for a ride this past weekend, I was dismayed to find a couple large piles of poo on the path. Not next to the path, in the grass. On the path. Instead of spending the rest of my ride fuming, I thought of Tink's post, rode to the nearest poo station, and grabbed a couple poo mitts.

“I'm going for another lap,” I called to Turtle. I held up my poo mitts and waved them. “I got doody duty!”

I discovered a few things over the course of that lap:

• The poo mitt is really simple to use. Just put it over your hand, pick up the poo, and (!important) turn the mitt inside out so that your hand is outside the mitt and the poo is inside.
• I intensely dislike [the behaviors of] lazy, self-centered people.
• Riding around with a couple bags of dog crap in the pockets of my cycling jersey makes me giggle. I even made up a song, to the tune of The Pretenders' “Brass In Pocket”. (I leave the lyrics to the reader as an exercise.)

It was easy and fun (almost). From now on, when we do the park loop, I think I'll grab a couple poo mitts and police the area as we go. No charge.

Other recent randomness:

• Turtle wouldn't let me buy her anything for her birthday or for our anniversary. Instead, she's had me testing my somewhat limited home improvement abilities. First, we rolled the dice on some decorative painting technique. Not a big deal, on the face of it; I'm proficient with both brush and roller. The risky bit was where I had to use a brown glaze and a rag to attempt an antiqued effect. The result was… acceptable. Then came the energy-saving window film. I've done two windows so far, with not too many bubbles but no small amount of cat hairs embedded like flies in amber. The jury is still out regarding the film's effectiveness at blocking heat.
• Last month, Turtle's hairdresser friend from St. Louis was in town and we got to meet them for dinner. During the course of their conversation, the two of them concluded that I needed a new haircut. Turtle's friend gave me clear instructions, which I passed on to my barber yesterday. After I'd signed the waiver, he went to work on me with the clippers and #2, #3, and #4 guides. The results? Well, it's comfortable; it will save some money on gel and electricity I would have used to run the hair dryer; it shows quite clearly where I'm going to go bald first; and it makes Turtle look really young.
• I had a really nice ride Sunday afternoon with the Recumbent Bicycle Enthusiasts of North Texas (RBENT). We met out near the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport and did a loop around the perimeter of the airport for a total of about 23.5 miles. It was a really good turnout, and it was great fun seeing such a large variety of recumbent bikes and trikes rolling down the road and turning heads. Oh, and the dinner at Hard Eight BBQ (Coppell, TX) afterward was really yummy, too.