The garage guy

There's a 'garage guy' in our townhouse complex here on the west side of Houston. Whenever I am about to go for a run, I warm up by taking the two dogs for about a half mile jog each, down to the pool (where the townhouse road dead-ends) and back. More often than not, I see the garage guy on the way back. He sits in his garage in one of those abominably ugly Walmart-type folding chairs, usually on the phone, sometimes barbecuing, sometimes just sitting. The garage itself is no contender for 'garage of the month': it is stuffed to the rafters with junk of every description. That may not be how the garage guy would describe it, but you get the point.

Anyway this didn't really bother me until yesterday. We all have a bit of garage guy in us, I think. It is nice to have a little breathing space somewhere. A place where people know not to bother you. There was a stage in my life that I spent quite a bit of time outdoors with just my thoughts to accompany me. Nothing wrong with a bit of solitude now and then. Becoming harder and harder to find nowadays, with intrusive electronic tentacles reaching into all our little secret getaways.

But back to the garage guy. Yesterday, as I was returning from the pool with dog # 1 (Daisy), the guy was shooting up something in his right arm. I did not want to stare, but it looked like it might have been insulin. At least I hope so. Not exactly what I am looking forward to seeing on my runs in the neighborhood. Then, with dog # 2 (Jake), the same thing! How many of those injections do people take? I don't think a garage is quite the place for it, anyway. What else can I expect to witness tomorrow and next week?

Running is just about back on track. 1 mile warm up plus 5 miles easy on Tuesday, 1 mile warm up and 6 miles easy on Wednesday. Today will be my first run with the Strider Thursday evening group, since September 11, when Hurricane Ike was just a slowly circulating blob on TV.