Unsolved Mysteries


 Life is full of unsolved mysteries.  Some are big (where is Jimmy Hoffa?) and some are small (where did the other sock go?).  Some CAN be solved, but we don't necessarily want them to be (why can't I get rid of those 10 pounds?  Why is it taking so long to lose just one pound?).  Some will just remain frustrating mysteries and I suppose we have to deal with that.

I was thinking about all this while I was out walking this morning.  Yes, spring is seems to be really here (meaning temperatures are above 42 when I get home).  Since the mornings are warmer (although still dark), I've taken to the streets again.  Walking outside in the mornings gives me time to think.  I feel that I come up with some of my best ideas/topics when I'm out walking.  (You might disagree as I ramble on here.)  

One particular mystery, which really ISN'T a mystery, was why I am moving so slow these days.  The answer, which I don't want to hear, is that I am getting older and I just don't move like I once did.  When I started seriously walking on a regular basis probably in the spring of 2012, I was faster.  While I could never walk the 12-15 minute mile that I can do indoors (or least that's what Leslie Sansone's walk aerobics leads me to believe), I was for the most part just over 17 minutes a mile.  (To be honest, leaning more towards 18 minutes.)  Now I'm holding at about 20 minutes a mile.  I'm hoping that as the mornings get lighter, than I will be able to move it down, but the "mystery" is why I'm slower.  Maybe the app is off?  Or maybe it's that I'm older and feeling it.  While my left knee has recovered from the mysterious injury of December, it still sometimes feels "different".  My guess is that the "different" is the new normal.  Not unlike the tinnitus in my right ear.  (Another mystery!  What caused this change back in January?  Why won't it go away?)

Moving on to mysteries that do not involve my health, why can't anyone (excluding myself) put the cap back on the toothpaste.  It's not even a screw on cap, it's just a little piece of plastic that is attached to the cap that you snap on.  While I say ANYONE,  I mean one specific person; the person who uses it last at night and in the morning.  Do I have to say who it is?  I suppose I should be happy (and I am), that this person brushes his teeth regularly.  But the uncapped toothpaste left on the sink (or sometimes put in the basket on the back of the toilet where I keep my sundries, or where I USED to keep MY sundries, a basket that is now overflowing with other items that do not belong to me), instead of put away on a shelf in the medicine cabinet doesn't make sense.  Leaving trails of sugar on the counter after making tea doesn't make sense either.  Or not cleaning up crumbs or being unable to keep rice on a plate (or in a mouth). Leaving soda cans around the house instead of throwing the recycling bin in the basement is a puzzle.

Which brings me to my final mystery...what happened to my blue recycling bin?  Every Tuesday, our recycling is picked up.  (Not by the same company that picks up our trash on Monday and Thursday.)  On Monday night we put out the blue can either with co-mingled items (bottles, cans, etc.) or paper.  (It varies every other week.)  Monday night my son put the can out with paper.  It wasn't overflowing (as it has been in the past).  It was there Tuesday morning.  Sometime during the day, they came to pick up the paper.  Usually I hear them...yesterday I wasn't really paying attention.  I was on several calls and I thought I heard the beep, beep, beep of the truck backing down the block, but I ignored it.  (Why wouldn't I?).  Later in the afternoon, I noticed that the can was not in front of the house.  I though my husband had put it away.  But he said he didn't.  There were no cans rolling around on the street.  As a matter of fact, there was only one (empty) can on the block, which was standing across the street in front of a driveway cattycorner from us.  I knew that wasn't our can because it had been out earlier in the day.  (Which is confirmed by reviewing our front door Ring.)  There were no other recycling cans on our block.  I don't know if there had been any others that day because that wasn't captured on our Ring.  The truck taking the recycling (and perhaps my can?) wasn't caught either.  The camera just captures motion at the front door and by the time my husband went out to check (which is caught on camera), the can was long gone.   

So where did it go?  WHY did it go?  Who would take an empty and kind of dirty can?  Are there people who do drive by can grabs?  Did the recycling people take it along with the paper?  And if so, WHY?  What was so compelling about my can?  (And unlike the guy in the Progressive Insurance commercial, we have not put our name, address and phone number on the can.  Maybe he's right...you can't be too safe, even when it comes to garbage.)  Could it have been aliens?

It seems as if this mystery will remain unsolved.  I'll get a new bin. (Checking on line, they are not cheap! That explains why the township only gives out a limited amount free of charge.) Furthermore,  you can bet that from now on I'll keep closer tabs on my can/bin.


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