Nebulous Mooch

After much consideration, I’ve decided to take my apartment running to the next level–the great outdoors. This of course terrifies me because of the heat (though it is fall, temperatures are still hitting the 90′s in lovely Florida) and the dogs. Dogs chase anything that’s running. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to pull on a sports bra, lace up my running shoes and brave the great outdoors. Don’t worry I also put on a pair of shorts. I’m not interested in streaking.

When I told my husband that I was going to start running in the mornings, he was excited to come along. My husband runs outside on a regular basis already, so I knew running with him might be embarrassing for me.

By nine in the morning the heat is already oppressive. My husband bounds along smiling the whole way, while I feel like I’m going to pass out before we even get to the corner. At about four minutes out,I ‘m already asking how much time we have left. Sweat is stinging my eyes and my lungs are burning. He’s barely breaking a sweat and isn’t out of breath at all.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

“Yeah, ” I manage to say through desperate pants for air. I want to say, “Do I look alright to you?!”

When we get home he goes on and on about how great he feels. I just want to pass out. What makes running outside so much harder than apartment running? Is it the heat? I don’t know but I’ll keep trying. I ran a whole fifteen minutes without stopping on Monday. Today I ran for seventeen minutes. Don’t scoff. It was hard. Maybe I’ll be able to run for twenty minutes nonstop on Friday. Maybe I’ll die from heat stroke. Can you die from that?

In movies about dogs and cats, why are the cats always the bad guys? What’s wrong with cats? I like cats. We always had pet cats when I was growing up. They are independent and mysterious. Some call them aloof, but they just don’t understand cats.

There is a cat that lives outside our apartment. She sleeps under our balcony. Sometimes she sits at our sliding glass door and cries to be let in. She’s a strangly patterned cat. She’s not quite gray and not quite brown. When we go outside, we have to be on the alert because sometimes she tries to slip into the house.

Yesterday she did just that. My husband ran inside to grab sometime he forgot–he’s always forgetting something. When he turned around to leave she had just crept into the front door. My husband said that she was looking all wide-eyed and skiddish. He quickly chased her out.

I like this cat. We’ve talked about adopting her but none of us can really make the commitment. I don’t want to house train her. I don’t want to clean a litter box. I don’t want to pay for vet bills. I think she might already belong to someone anyway. Even though she’s not wearing a collar, she looks so well groomed.

She disappears for a few days at a time and then she comes back. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has more than one home. Cats like that adopt people. She’s probably adopted a few to suit her various needs.