Winters in the City

I walk a whole lot. Well, I live in the city and don't have a car. I walk. I walk everywhere.

Today is the coldest day of the year so far and technically, winter hasn't even started. It's a windy 24 degrees. My family back in the burbs doesn't understand that every street in the city is a wind tunnel and that Philadelphia is a lot colder than central Jersey.

It makes me think of how lazy people in the burbs are. There's a convenience store on almost every corner yet they warm up their cars for five minutes and drive just around a minute and a half to get cigarettes or a cup of coffee. I admit there are many days when I wish I could do that. I would very much welcome a trip to the grocery store by car. My noble steed also known as my push cart basket thingy is great. But no matter what handy dandy tool you have to help you get those groceries home, there's nothing like throwing them in the trunk and driving home.

It is just so cold out. It's painful. Anyhow, over the weekend I was just dying for McDonalds. I think it happens to us all at least once every two months. I've eaten it less than six times in Philadelphia and that was when Mike was here and one of us drove to go get it. But I wanted it. So I walked the mile to go get it Saturday night. I strategically placed my purchase in my shoulder bag and walked the mile home smelling those crisp golden fries the whole way. Once home, it was still nice and hot and delicious.

In Jersey, it's as if there is some unwritten law that states that upon you or any one of your friends obtaining a license, walking any distance further from the back of a parking lot to a mall or from your front door to your car is illegal. Not one person I know would walk to get McDonald's or walk to a grocery store and carry six bags of groceries home as I have done so many times before my noble steed came along. People walking in Jersey, unless they appear to be walking for fitness, are either completely invisible or looked upon as poor or peasantly. I was in the car with someone once who saw someone they knew walking and they said, 'oh, he must have lost his license.' I wondered if maybe he just went for a walk.

It's a shame. I've lost weight and formed some sort of shape in my legs since I've moved here. There's been countless three day weekends in Jersey where I don't think I walked more than just around a house. My legs knew it once I got back to Philly. I could feel it.

Anyway, because it is so unbearably cold, I take a bus and a subway to get to work and the walk is around 1/4 mile from the subway...give or take. Just this morning I thought of how the people I know in Jersey with their cars would pass up going somewhere if they had to walk 1/4 mile in the icy cold to get there from their car. I'm just used to it. I wish my ipod was behaving because it seems to be broken. (not holding a charge) But I love walking just not in this cold. I really hope I don't go back to being a lazy fatso when I move back to NJ.

Ok, almost lunch time. I'm gonna go walk to Amazon Cafe for some soup. Ten minutes in the icy cold and it's still too hot to eat when you get back! Yes!

I like walkers.