Running Through a Dirty City
03-20-06, 12:50 PM

Back in September, I decided to give up the job search until I completed a year with my employer as well as just try to experience life without something hanging over my head. Well, the months past with a few things resolved in addition to entering a new phase of life where my parents now require, if it is even possible, more attention than in the past. Yes, dad is in the nursing home finally but now we�re faced with selling their home and some of their belongings so mom could find a smaller, �modest size home� in which she could manage the upkeep. I�ll predict that her so-called down-sizing will result in 3,000 to 3,500 square foot townhome which is a super-size for most people.

So, feeling trapped, once again, and desiring to cover my own bills as well as purchase items that I need (e.g. clothes, car, insurance, etc.), I started the job search once again. After four weeks without a reply to my applications, finally a company called and I had a phone interview with a person in Portland for a job back in here in Kentucky. In my assessment, the interview didn�t go as well as I hoped but this was not the job I truly wanted, however I�m holding onto to hope that a second interview will follow.

Over the week-end, I ran 22 miles and walked away (ran) with the conclusion that I live in a dirty city with neighborhoods and streams filled with trash, chucks of concrete, spare tires, etc. After viewing another diarist�s photoblog of an European city, a clean city I may add, I�m rather embarrassed that we, rather I, live in such filth. Every week-end, I have to clean up trash in my front yard that people discard out their windows � beer bottles, newspaper, fast food wrappers, a baseball bat, liquor bottles, diaper, etc. And, I live in suburban hell, the supposedly clean part of town. I suppose I�m sensitive to the issue because I know the city puts a lot of money into an anti-littering advertising campaign but puts very little money into crews and equipment to pick-up trash. The advertisement is more a political/publicity opportunity for the Mayor to attach his name and face to posters than actually investing in the upkeep.

I�m rambling here�.

Any rate, the next day after the run, I stopped for Perkins stack of blueberry pancakes, hash browns, orange juice, coffee and sausage. Later in the day, I ordered an extra large, �King Kong� promotional pizza and ate the whole thing myself. The good thing about running � I won�t gain a pound from this gluttony.

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