Labouflage
Well, it’s been a busy 24 hours.
This time yesterday, with a dramatic rumbling and clunking, our refrigerator went into its death throes. The thing is so old that when Tim searched for information about it online, nearly nothing came up.
Up here in tha’ boonies, it ain’t so simple as having a fridge delivered the next day. Given that the one I was jonesing for (a Smeg) was out of the equation at $3200.00, the next step involved playing a dispirited game of eenie meenie minie moe on the home depot web page and ordering the one that ticked off the boxes of cheap/decent size/energy efficient.
And the delivery date will be…drum roll…April 13.
Ten days from now.
And that’s actually a more reasonable timeline than we had for the last appliance we replaced, the clothes dryer.
Is it just me, or does anyone else get creeped out when you go on the Internet to look/shop, and then any subsequent page you visit, such as facebook, then contains specific, targeted advertising for what you just looked at on the unrelated site? Now all I am seeing is ads for the exact fridge that I just bought. Insult to injury.
Further to that point, yesterday morning I got an email from a shop in the UK from which I have bought in the past. They had a summer look book out and I browsed it, saw a raincoat that I liked, and clicked on it to find out more, then left the site. An hour or so later, I got an email from the purveyor, titled ‘can we help you choose?’, noting that I had looked at but had not bought the raincoat. They’d be happy to help me finalize the sale.
I emailed their customer service: ‘I don't mind receiving your regular emails, but these ''can we help you choose?'' ones are downright creepy. Please desist.’ They replied back this morning most Britishly apologetically, but apparently the only way to get rid of that kind of contact is to unsubscribe entirely. Buh-bye.
This morning, I completed my final long run before Boston (which is two weeks today). Last week’s long run should have been the final long haul before Boston, but me being who I am, don’t be surprised if you read these same words again next week. I’ve been running for years, for decades now, and one would think that heading out for 30 kilometres in the middle of nowhere might have called for more than two energy gels and no water. Let’s call it a depletion run and leave it at that. On the way back I briefly considered eating snow. But didn’t. It was a beautiful run in any case, with virtually zero traffic, birds singing, and water tumbling over just about every vertical piece of granite. There is an upside to living in the boonies.
Oh, and finally, a propos of today’s picture. Labouflage. The ball diamond has finally revealed most of itself from underneath the white winter blanket it’s worn since December. And the dogs are beside themselves with joy, literally squealing with happiness that it’s ball season again. I noticed yesterday how well the colour of the grass matched their coats, to the point that the pink tongues and copper eyes are about all you can see of them, so much do they blend in.
