We’re still cleaning up and basically trying to reorganize in the wake of our trip to Tennessee last week, so it was kind of an exhausting weekend, but it was still pretty good, I think. I got home from work on Friday and made pan-seared sea scallops that my wife’d gotten on sale at either Big Y or Stew Leonard’s. Either way, I prep’ed them in a rub of olive oil, parsley, oregano, salt, and pepper and then seared them on high heat for about 90 seconds on a side before serving with a mix of couscous and rice and steamed broccoli. I’ll call the meal a raging success based solely on the fact that my younger, pickier daughter Emma went back for seconds, but next time Sally picks these up, I hope she gets more than a pound. For our family, we needed about a pound and a half.
The next day was Saturday, and it was typical of our lives lately. As usual, I was the first one in the house to wake up. I got up, updated The Sellswords of Luskan and started working on the next piece of the ongoing campaign, and eventually Hannah and I watched cartoons once she’d awakened. Pretty soon Emma came downstairs, and then all three of us trouped back upstairs to the kitchen, where I made a quick breakfast and then packed them off for swim lessons. We were out the door by 7:50 and got to the pool a little after 8:00. Emma’s lesson starts at 8:15. Once I’d made sure that Emma had gotten to class on time and set Hannah up with a book and couple of coloring books, it was time for my own swim workout, my “long” workout for the week. It was:
- 4 x 100 @ 1:30 Warm Up
- 8 x 200 @ 2:50 Swim (Aerobic Pace, Target HR = 160)
- 200 Kick
- 400 Pull
- 100 Easy Drill
- 5 x 100 @ 1:20 (Tempo, trying to hold under 1:10/100--without my heart exploding)
- 100 Warm Down
If you’re wondering, that took me almost exactly an hour and ten minutes. By that time, Emma was out of the pool, and Hannah was in for her lesson. So I scooped up Emma, threw her in the shower and got her changed, and then we headed back out onto the deck to watch Hannah.
See, here’s the issue: I’d like to teach my own kids to swim, but I don’t feel like they learn from me very well. Hannah has this thing where she’s not breathing out while her head’s in the water, which means that she’s lifting her head to breath—both inhalation and exhalation—which in turn makes it very hard for her to get a full breath on her stroke. She winds up basically swimming for as long as she can hold her breath and then doggy-paddling while she breathes frantically once her breath runs out. And then she has to more or less start all over again from a dead stop. All of which I think I could fix in an afternoon… if she were listening to me and diligently following my instructions. But she doesn’t like to let me teach her that stuff, so when I’ve tried to teach her, we’ve wound up playing. Well, she winds up laughing while I wind up getting frustrated. So, bottom line, she’s still taking lessons from strangers, and I personally have time for a long workout on Saturday mornings. Which is fine. But I have to restrain myself from getting in the water with her and correcting either her stroke or her instructor every time we go to the pool together.
At any rate, Hannah finished her lesson at 9:45, and I threw her in the shower and got her changed. Then we headed home—me grouchy from hunger by this point—and I snapped at Sally until I finally got done making the waffles that fed us and kept peace in the house.
I like to make buttermilk waffles using the recipe out of The Joy of Cooking.
After breakfast, I headed out again, alone this time. I got a haircut, ran by Home Depot for the part I needed to fix my garage door, ran by the liquor store, went to the bike shop to get a couple of tubes for Sally’s rear bicycle tire, and then went BACK to the Y to pick up Hannah’s bathing suit, which I’d left sitting in the Family Locker Room. Argh. Still, I was lucky because the liquor store had both Sam Adams 48-degrees Latitude IPA and Sierra Nevada’s Torpedo Extra IPA, both of which are personal favorites of mine. On top of that, I grabbed a couple of bottles of white for Sally, one of which was from a local vintner (Jones Farms) and one of which was a European chardonnay, but I don’t remember the vintage. I was also lucky that the Y had Hannah’s suit. On the other hand, I spent almost 40-minutes cooling my heels at the bike shop when all I needed was a pair of inner tubes.
When I got home, I immediately went to work on the garage door. I’d thought initially that the left-side spring had broken, but it turns out that it was the fucking steal cable that had sheered through! So I actually needed Sally’s help holding up the door while I ran the replacement cable and hooked everything back up. But then I made the mistake of replacing the hook the cable hung on with one that was aluminum—and which promptly snapped under load—so that we ended up having to do the job twice. Ugh. Still, that was probably the worst thing that happened all day, and fortunately the hook failed while we were both outside and had the garage door safely closed. In any event, after that I repaired Sally’s tire, put away the remaining clothes and crap from my trip last weekend, finally did the dishes from the brunch waffles, and basically poodled around until late afternoon, at which point I decided I could safely and honorably sit down and crack one of my nice, new beers.
As evening fell, Sally and I sat out on the porch drinking wine and beer and eating cheese and crackers. I’ve no idea what we had for dinner (Sally reminded me later that it was hamburgers). Regardless, Sally was the one to put the kids down for the night while I did the dinner dishes. After that, we watched Fringe on Hulu and then went to sleep. Exhausted.
I like Fringe, but I think they have to start being a little more careful with the plotting, of the show is gonna go completely off the rails. The cartoon episode with Leonard Nemoy was even weirder than usual, and if they don’t stop and explain not just what the big machine and the books The First People are but also where they came from, I’m gonna be pissed. Weird plotting is fine, but there’s a fine line between plot eccentricity and plot manipulation.
In any event, the next morning was Sunday, and as I’ve mentioned here before, I’d signed up for the Westport Minuteman 10K. Moreover, I’d convinced Sally to sign up for the 5K race since her plantar fasciitis has been doing better recently. So we packed up the kids and the car, headed to Westport’s Compo Beach, got all registered, planted the girls safely on the beach jungle gym, did yoga, and eventually lined up to race. Sally’s race took off maybe ten minutes, and then so did mine.
I was tired both because of the work the day before and because I’d decided to work through the race rather than resting for it, but I nevertheless ran well. I set a comfortable but aggressive pace, counting on form and a high cadence—both of which I work on relentlessly—to see me safely through to the end. But I was concerned because running isn’t my best thing, and this race in particular has laid me low a couple of times. But I successfully charged the hill at the half-way point, and then I felt more confident. In fact, I crossed the midpoint at just a hair over 25-minutes, making me believe that if I worked the back end hard, I might just go under 50 overall!
In fact, I worked the rolling hills at the finish, and came in at 49:39, damned near a personal record. Yay me.
Sally, meanwhile, finished her 5K in 25-minutes or so. That’s not a great time, but at least she ran without aggravating her injury. That by itself was a big deal, believe me. She stayed pain-free since then, too, so to be honest, I think I’m happier with her race than with mine.
Anyway, after that, Sunday was a lot like Saturday. We went out to the dinner for breakfast, ordered a variety of omelets, toast, eggs, and pancakes between the four of us, and basically ate like kings. Then we went home, and I ironed—for five hours!—cut the grass, put away clothes, and then drank some beer. Sally cleaned the house. While ironing, I watched the Angelina Jolie vehicle Salt, and then the kids and I watched back episodes of Voltron.
Salt was okay. I mean, I’m at best ambivalent about Ms. Jolie, and the movie’s plotting swung wildly between preposterous and predictable, but there were definitely parts of it that I liked. I thought the second act was surprising, and that entertained me. Still, I think I liked the “alien mice” episode of Voltron better than Salt, though the kids and I are jointly ready to see Prince Lotor finally capture the princess and dress her up like Lea from the third Star Wars movie. Granted, I don’t think my daughters properly appreciate the things Lotor’s gonna do to Alura when he finally captures her and makes her his (love) slave, but it doesn’t change the fact that he is by far the series’ most dedicated, and therefore sympathetic, character.
Dinner that night was spaghetti and meatballs. After that, it was my turn to put the kids to bed. Then, once they were down, Sally and I started watching The Social Network (via Netflix), but we ended up going to bed at the halfway mark. We ended up finishing it last night (Monday), and I’ve got to admit that I liked it a lot. It makes me want to “friend” Mark Zuckerberg. I might actually do that if I get some free time this week.
Anyway, that’s my life. Exciting, no?
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