Let it rain

Ame yo fure

It’s officially the rainy season in Japan. After nearly five years of hemming and hawing, I finally bought black Hunter Tour rain boots. They cost more than sane people should spend on anything they’re going to wear to walk through mud puddles. But they’re great. They make me dislike rainy days a little less.  No more worries about muddy splashes on pants legs or stockings or tights, and when you get to where you’re headed, you take them off and wear the nice shoes you’ve got stashed in your bag. You can also wear them with thick socks as snow boots (probably won’t work in the American Midwest, you need proper snow boots there, but more than good enough for Pumpkin City!). I didn’t get the sock liners because I once saw our fashion-plate of an administrative assistant struggle for a full three minutes trying to get Hunters with fleece liners off her feet.

I chose Tours instead of Classics because they are lighter and slightly shorter. (The Classics hit slightly above my knee, while the Tours hit me exactly at the knee.) I didn’t want the short version because they would hit me mid calf and I might get the stray mud splash on my upper calf. Plus, this length makes my legs look short. My legs need all the help I can get. They get in the way a little bit when walking, but not enough to matter much. They claim to be packable. The rubber is soft enough to fold over and stuff it into the drawstring bag it comes with. But I don’t really see myself packing them. I’m afraid I’d crack the rubber.

OK, I wrote two paragraphs about rubber rain boots. In another part of my exciting, exotic life, I am doing squats. I’m tweeting with a woman in Canada and another woman in the UK, and we’re cheering each other on. We’re currently up to 45 squats per day, and we’ll add 5 squats a day until we hit 100 (which is 20 less than we did during afternoon training when I was in crew, so there’s that).

Trying to run with the Pumpkin Prince (almost) every morning. We ran three laps around his school yesterday, which is something like 1800 meters. Good for him, and good for me, since this was after I’d run my usual 6k. The family run we signed up for is coming up, and I hope to get a few more runs in before that. Hoping it doesn’t rain.

If it does, at least I get to wear my new boots.