Forget that – I’d already been outside for an hour and a half and I couldn’t stand around anymore. I decided to walk.  It wasn’t that bad, really, except that I had a bag full of dinner and was looking forward to getting home. I was facing away from the rain the entire way, it was pretty warm out and I’d dressed properly. But my coat was getting stiffer as I walked – when I get home I saw why. My coat and bag had literally frozen solid all along the backside.

It was my BREATH. It’s not below 0 degrees yet outside, but it was cold enough that my warm breath was barely visible. When I held the camera up by my head to take a picture, the warm air swirled around it and condensed into tiny droplets that were caught just centimeters from the flash when it went off.

So I guess my lungs are kindof sparkly. With water! I almost had it figured out like three times in that last post : for all my talk about ice fog and lungs you’d have thought I would put two and two together.

Normally I’d associate this kind of thing with snowflakes or raindrops or air frost crystals caught in a camera flash, but it was dry last night – and not particularly cool. I checked the pollen forecast and we’re way out of season, and our citywide air pollution index is negligible, ruling out forest fires and dust storms – so I suspect this is local dust stirred up by the construction around the mall, or debris from the Queensway.  Totally invisible without the strobing light, though! I imagine we’re breathing this stuff in all the time. Maybe I have sparkly lungs? *shudder*

I owe a great deal of credit to Madeleine who proposed the race, Natasha who’s been encouraging me through the weeks leading up to the run, and the gang at work (Chris, Rob, Kevin and Shelley) who have been inviting me to join them for a lunchtime 5K a few times a week. It was definitely easier to keep motivated knowing that people were rooting for me!

I think I might be a little bit hooked now! It was a fantastic experience and I’m really proud of how I ran, and wondering how much better I can do if I stick to it. It might be time to treat myself to a new pair of runners or something.

This one struck close to home when I read about it. Danielle died Tuesday morning when she got “doored” by an illegally parked car on a busy street and fell into traffic. I’ve always been anxious about passing parked cars, since friends of mine have been doored in the past, and luckily they’ve gotten away with fairly minor bumps and bruises. I love my morning commute but I’ve had a few close calls of my own, and there’s that persistent whisper in the back of my mind that even if I do everything right, there’s always some element of risk when you’re mixing cars and bikes together on the road, and that things can happen so fast.

So sad. My thoughts go out to her family, and all of my cycling friends who dare to brave the downtown core in their morning ride in. Be careful out there.

Well it turns out you can actually pay them a visit right at the Canadian Agriculture Museum! SpiderGoats! Right out in public! This is one right here:

I wonder how they ended up at the Agriculture Museum and not some research facility? I did a bit of reading on Google and it looks like the company that created them, Nexia Biotechnologies, recently closed shop and were de-listed since being acquired by… a Chinese elevator manufacturer. Super weird.

If they were standing around giving away ice cream I’m afraid we missed it, but they were more than happy to let us make our own.

I only took a couple of cranks at the churn, our ice-cream maker was mostly powered by the exhausted arms of ice-cream addicted child labourers.

We also got to attend frozen yogourt and gelato-making demonstrations, roam around to see the cows being milked, visit the newborn calf (Hermione!) and hang out with the pigs and sheep. Awesome day – it’s a great museum, and it’s right in the core of the city.