Skip to main content

My Gasparilla Parade

Today is one of my favorite running days of the year. It is the biggest annual party day in Tampa, a day when grown-ups dress in pirate garb, start kegging at 10 in the morning, get rowdy over cheap, plastic beads, and create chaos along Bayshore Boulevard and all streets leading up to it. But these aren't the reasons I love today.

Lately I've had trouble waking up for my early morning runs, and while this morning was no exception, I did have some extra incentive to actually get out there and not put it off until tomorrow. Because of the Gasparilla Pirate Fest and parade scheduled to take place later in the day, the road was blocked off all along Bayshore Boulevard, where I usually run. This may not seem like a big deal, but two of the main drawbacks to running regularly on Bayshore are the concrete sidewalk and the noise and exhaust from vehicles constantly passing by. This morning, we runners, walkers, and bikers got to roam free in the streets, as if Bayshore were our own personal playground.

But aside from the freedom of the open road, I also got to see the preparations for the parade in action: various vendors setting up, police officers congregating, tailgate parties kicking off, kids tossing a football in the street, and a couple of random pirates walking by. And by the way, this was all around 7:30 in the morning. The actual parade doesn't begin until 2:30pm. This much "partying" I can handle, but come 10, 11 o'clock, the real debauchery begins. And for this reason, I have always left my South Tampa home on this day to allow those who enjoy the noise and crowds and drunkenness to do so without my irritable temperament getting in their way.

So I write this from a quiet suburban neighborhood in Citrus Park, where I can enjoy the day in peace and spend some time with my favorite almost-one-year-old.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

People Liked to Read...

Surgery Chronicles: I Exhale

I've really been holding my breath with this recovery, more so than the last one for some reason. After getting past the three-week point (which was two weeks ago, when I started to write this), I felt a little more at ease. Since then I've been changing my own dressing daily and slowly weaning off of crutches so I can now walk around in the boot—hands-free! I'm still a slave to icing and elevating as much as possible throughout the day. But the very best part? There's no other foot left to do. After this, I'm done, done, done. I can start to return to a life not defined by sitting and waiting and feeling confined and limited and trying my hardest to heal but having little actual control over any of it.

I wrote in my last post about the difficult emotions I'd been having throughout this second surgery recovery. I think I underestimated the psychological toll I would take doing one foot right after the other. And while there was a feeling of elation after gettin…
Post a Comment
Read more

Surgery Chronicles: Hard Feelings

I'm one and a half weeks out from my second foot surgery, and, by all important measures, I'm doing well. But boy has the past week been difficult. In the first few days post-surgery I was in a pretty good mood; the surgery had gone well, I was in the excellent care of my mom, and I had made it past the last major hurdle of this months-long event. All I had to look forward to was recovery and progress and gradually returning to my normal life, whatever that might look like.

But even though I've gone through this process once already, it's still just as difficult this time around. There's the constant worrying about this weird feeling or that new pain, the accidental step in the middle of the night when I forgot which foot was injured, and the agonizing wait time between appointments. Now it's compounded by concern over whether I'm taking good enough care of my first foot. Did I ruin the surgery when I stubbed my toe falling off an exercise ball? Am I using …
2 comments
Read more

Surgery Chronicles: 12 Weeks and Progress

I'm now more than 12 weeks recovered from my second (and final!) foot surgery, and life is starting to feel a little more normal. When I last wrote an update, seven weeks ago (still blaming Irma for all of my delays), I had just gotten off of crutches but would wear my boot for two more weeks. I've been out of the boot and walking in shoes for just over five weeks. The constant discomfort I've felt in my foot from swelling is finally starting to wane. I work in the office now, I do my own groceries, and I even attended a work conference recently, which meant lots of walking at airports and the conference hotel, frequent standing, and few opportunities to elevate and ice. I was very concerned about how my feet, particularly the left one, would endure. And while it wasn't comfortable, I made it through, no worse for the wear in the end.

I joined a new gym/community center recently, with a new and beautiful outdoor pool, and I'm so happy that I'm able to use it n…
2 comments
Read more