apropos of anything

(The last part doesn’t apply, of course, but it’s a much funnier line when you include it.)

Yesterday marked my return to exercise. It’s been quite a drought, but I think I’m finally committed again. (I think this because of the panic attack I had when I regained my pre-parasite weight relatively quickly; I’m not actually sure I’ve gained back only my pre-parasite weight, either.)

And of course there’s always the thing that even slender couch potatoes will have future health problems since it’s the couch potato thing more than the slender thing that matters.

So yesterday morning, I woke up, drove to the nearby middle school, and ran around the track for an hour. It left me a little sore (muscles that have grown complacent and lazy will whine when you make them work), but nothing too bad. Then this morning, I woke up and hiked to the top of Kennesaw Mountain with Maimunah. (The long-timers among y’all will recognize that as number 24 on my 101 in 1001, and the astute among y’all will recognize that I need to update that page.)

They have a LOT of cannons at Kennesaw Mountain.

We did the easy hike, the one mile to the top of the mountain. It seemed prudent, especially for our first time out and given our time constraints.

The crowd wasn’t too bad when we got there (just in time for a cannon demonstration in front of the visitor’s center, and let me just say right now that even cannons lacking cannon balls are LOUD), although more and more people arrived as the morning progressed. It’s a very dog- and kid-friendly park. We’d often see kids running up part of the trail and then later see the same kids being hauled up the rest of the trail by their parents. The easy hike is only a mile, but it is uphill.

The view from halfway up. The pictures don’t really do it justice.

I definitely want to go back and try out some of the other trails, eventually working my way up to some of the longer ones too. Also, the Web site claims there’s horseback riding at Kennesaw Mountain as well (number 84 on my 101 in 1001), and I’d love to try that as well. I haven’t ridden a horse since we got caught in a monsoon as we were going up a mountain in India when I was twelve, and the adults got horses for the kids to ride on so we could hurry and not catch pneumonia or typhoid. We didn’t get either of those, but I did get food poisoning from the masala dosa I ate in the ramshackle restaurant on the side of the mountain, and now I will never eat a masala dosa again. That’s neither here nor there, though.

I know Kennesaw Mountain is the site of a Civil War battle, so I wasn’t surprised by all the references to the War Between the States. The plaques in honor of the Confederate generals did take me a little by surprise, as I expect that kind of thing more over at Stone Mountain on the other side of the city. Also, considering just a few years ago they changed the name of downtown’s Bedford Dr. to Central Park Dr. and changed the corresponding park from Bedford Park to Central Park (because General Nathaniel Bedford was in the Confederate Army and a slave owner), I was under the impression the city was trying to limit the number of Confederate ties it trumpeted.

But anyway. It took me nine years, but I did finally make it to the top of Kennesaw Mountain. The endorphins that cropped up along the way were just a side benefit so I don’t kill my (non-existent) husband.

I saw a “W the President” sticker as I was turning into my complex the other day. Then, not twenty-four hours later, I saw a “W the Moron” sticker in the parking lot at work. (I love the people I work with.) And just now, as I’m reading Omar G’s blog, I see a photo of a sticker he saw in D.C., and it’s just too funny:

Live, on an actual car!

For some reason, this is more amusing to me because it’s in D.C., not that it wouldn’t be hilarious here in good ol’ Republican Georgia, either.