Musical Encouragement

I am one of those people that doesn't like too much "quiet" in the house. I'm not saying that I don't enjoy my "peace and quiet," just not the "quiet" so much. To me, in a certain kind of way, noise is reassuring. I'm not talking about coyotes howling in the middle of the night kind of noise, or the constant drone of a near by freeway, I'm talking about music. I LOVE a good song, heck, I even love a lot of "not so good" songs, but I suppose that would be the opinion of the listener...needless to say, I love all types of music. Except rap, I don't even consider most of that "music"....'nuff about that.

Anyway, where I'm going with this, is that Bear and I went on a 5 mile training walk this morning. Yes, our chunky legs continue to be in motion, and our training for the 3 Day walk is progressing nicely. We are pretty evenly matched as far as a walking pace, so that works out good. We seem to cruise right along at a steady 19 minute mile. I know that probably sounds pretty slow, especially if you are a runner, but it's a good pace for us, and we seem to be able to maintain it without a problem. At least up to 6 miles straight....that's the furthest we've walked at one time so far. Not bad...not 20 miles in one day, but still not bad with a little over 4 months still to train.

Today we had a new little toy with us. Our other team member, Shirley, was able to score a couple of awesome backpacks from a company she does business with. They are from Skull Candy, and they are "linked" backpacks, which means that you can plug your IPod or MP3 player into a special little place inside the backpack and there are speakers in the arm straps. Very cool, yes? YES! One of the reasons this is SO cool is because on the official 3 Day walk, you are not allowed to walk with ANY type of earphones, buds, etc. Nothing can be in your ears, for safety reasons, and of course that's totally understandable, but for people like me, who last time trained for the entire walk using my IPod, it was not easy walking without music. This new backpack is going to be perfect. We can walk, still listening to music, but still following the "no headphones" rule. The speakers are strong enough to turn up and have several people listen to the music along with you, or directional enough to have them turned down so just you can hear them. Very, very cool. And it comes in PINK! Can it be any more perfect? I think not.

I must admit, however, that I do feel just a wee bit sorry for anyone that may be around as we continue on our training walks. Music makes me....well...tend to sing...and Celine Dion, I'm not. You know how some people sound REALLY good in the shower? Not me, I even sound bad in there. The dogs howl, and children run in fear. OK, maybe it's not that bad, but you get the picture.

As I mentioned, I do like most types of music....and sing along with most of it. Today we listened to a little of each of these: INXS, Marty Casey, The Jackson 5, Celine Dion, Alien Ant Farm, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Cake, Chaka Kan, Ozzy Osborne, Franz Ferdinand, Toto, Talking Heads, Jet, Metallica, Alanis Morissette, Mary J. Blige, Mozart, The Eagles, Haddaway, and Kiss, to name a few. (Hey, it was a long walk!) I can only imagine what people must think as I shift from Celine Dion's "All By Myself" to Metallica's "Ain't my Bitch." I laugh even now, just thinking about it, and how I must sound. I have the thing on "shuffle" - what can I say!