Desperate Measures

Blackheart:

In honor of the wet weather we've been experiencing of late and the new rain jacket I just bought myself for the trip (goodbye 15-year-old boxy jacket with too-short arms and hood not big enough to fit my melon-sized head!), I thought I would post this entry from my personal blog, The Blackheart Chronicles, about a little something my mother and I dabbled in once upon a rainy day...

--------------------------------

Sigh...

Although I'm a mere 29-years-old, yesterday I joined the ranks of senior citizens everywhere by undertaking my first Mall Walking session.  That's right.  Mall Walking - a physical activity where people stroll back and forth through the long corridors of shopping malls for exercise.  Malls actually open earlier than the stores within them simply to welcome mall walkers into their confines.  "Come in from the cold and rain, my friends.  Your feet are welcome here.  Leave your umbrellas and galoshes behind you.  And bring a few dollars for Hot Dog On A Stick..."

I honestly always thought mall walking was some kind of a joke.  Is it possible people really do that?  And who in the world are these people?  Well, apparently, I'm one of 'these people', if one mall walk does a mall walker make.

To properly train for our Camino trek, Mom and I have been adding long walks into our workout repertoire for quite some time now.  Months and months of walking without any discernible purpose other than... to walk.  These practice ambles range from about 10 to 13 miles a piece and take us to the far corners of Sacramento - along railroad tracks, past urban murals, down alleys, over levees, across bridges, through parks, down the cobblestone streets of Old Sac and past endless streets of houses, from cozy craftsman cottages to artsy Midtown lofts to regal Victorians.  However, now that the rains have come, our schedule has been a bit thrown off.

Now before you judge (you didn't think I could hear you mumbling "pansy" under your breath?), it's not that mom and I haven't walked in the rain before.  We spent a great deal of the Coast-to-Coast hike across England eating rain-soaked sandwiches in the moors with muddy gators strapped around our ankles.  I know rain.  We have met.  Yet, that doesn't mean I would volunteer to walk through it if I didn't have to.  You wouldn't tease a rattle snake just because one day you might accidentally stumble upon one and need to know the proper way to suck out the venom, now would you?  Which is why yesterday, when mom suggested we try mall walking for the first time, I thought, 'To heck with the rain.  Count me in.'  

When we arrived at Arden Fair at 7am, the mall had already been open to mall walkers for an hour.  Since 6am, people!  Guess those must be the Extreme Walkers (i.e. little old ladies powered up on Folgers Coffee laced with 5-Hour Energy shots.)  Just opening the doors to the mall when all the stores, themselves, were closed sent a thrill of excitement through me, like the time a group of friends and I spent the night in the Psychology Building of Sac State after brea-- ahem, taking a dip in the swimming pool. 

When we got inside, I expected to see a flurry of canes and metal walkers with halved tennis balls on the bottom of the legs, but actually, these blue hairs are pretty sprightly and swift.  And a good portion of them are younger than you'd imagine.  One woman I was keenly fascinated with had this whole zigzag technique, weaving in and out of the kiosks that dot the aisles of the mall.  She looked like a human pin ball, only one wearing an extremely... let's call it "bright", Christmas sweater.  I will say, however, that mom and I were definitely walking the fastest.  If the other walkers were vehicles on a highway, we were race cars at the Indy 500. 

The best part of the whole deal is the window shopping.  Once the stores actually opened, we couldn't help but pop inside to check out Christmas sales.  There's nothing like shopping when the clothes are still organized and folded, the employees are still cheerful and there's no one else around to grab the last pair of pants in your size.  A mercantile dreamland.  Of course, my experience at the same mall only days ago as I struggled for half an hour to get out of a parking lot filled with crazed holiday shoppers is the complete flip side of the coin, and an experience not even the most crisply folded pile of Gap sweaters can mend.  

The only downfall to mall walking is the dreaded Food Court.  Cinnabon and its cinnamon & sugar siren call nearly undid my entire 5-mile walk.  I resisted, fortunately.  Mom, herself, almost got sucked into the Pretzel Shop until we saw the employee sneeze, covering her mouth but not her nose, while hovering over a vat of bubbling butter.  Starbucks did manage to get us in the end, however.  But when you're mall walking like a bat out of hell, you need some fuel.

All-in-all, I'd say mall walking was a good rain-free time, and not quite what I expected.  Sure, some stereotypes remain true, but wherever you might find yourself walking - in a mall, along the beach, through the woods, down the streets of Sacramento or on the Camino de Santiago - at least you're walking.

I'll leave you with my favorite quotes from Wikipedia's 'Mall Walking' entry...

1. "Mall walking in the United States is especially popular amongst senior citizens."
2. "Mall walkers tend to be a crowd requiring little supervision."
3. "After walking, mall walkers may well stay on and shop the stores or patronize the mall's food court."