Saturday started out rather strangely. It was the first Saturday that I can remember where I didn't have paddling practice or an outrigger race AND I wasn't sick as a dog. I guess my back injury counts as a variety of illness, but if you aren't spiking a fever or coughing up technicolor ick it isn't really being sick. My back is feeling somewhat better, slowly, as is the cut on my thumb. I have been having difficulty finding a style of bandage that will stay on. As you may know, thumbs are extremely mobile and not easily encouraged to hold still and rest, not unlike myself. All the waterproof, seal around the entire edge style tend to pop off within 10 minutes of application regardless of the size. And if antibiotic ointment has been applied they come off even more quickly. I finally went with the knuckle style made from stretchy fabric, they look like a rounded capital H, two legs wrap around the thumb itself and the other legs extend down the wrist. They actually stay on for a few hours, longer if treated nicely.
Initially at a quandry as to how to fill a day sans paddling, my fears were quickly laid to rest. I still needed to sift through my remaining apartment building storage unit. The plan was to transfer some things to the big off site storage unit. I managed to do that solo without further damaging myself! Even got the stuff down to the other location in a single trip.
Next on the agenda was moving my little laser-type sailboat down to SSP for storage. I was not so delusional as to believe I could get the boat on top of my car by myself. Ten or more years ago and with a car having a more sloping rear window I was able to do it. My back was more healthy then than it is now and the Forester has a vertical rear window, not so good for sliding boats up. I found a neighbor who could help lift it up and I knew I'd find folks down at SSP who could help me lift it off the car. With the boat now down at SSP I suspect I'll be sailing it more frequently. Anybody want to go for a sail? And looking for a link to describe the boat I've found out the make and model, it's a Barnett 1400, I think. The good news is I know that I can get a new sail for it and it will probably be the right thing and cheaper than having one custom made by a different company.
Sunday was a good day as well. Went to breakfast with a couple of friends who then came over to my place afterwards. Llelo is such a goof when people come over. He feels that anyone sitting on the couch has extended him an open invitation to jump into their laps and cover them with hugs and kisses. One of the friends was a boy of 21 months, fun, active, curious, and having a good time with the toy VW Beetle I have. Gus was feeling some anxiety having J in his house and spent the entire visit sucking on his ducky, his equivalent of a security blanket. They tend to get rather nasty, I have a few in backup so they can go through the wash as needed. Aside from Gus, a good time was had by all. After the friends left the dog boys were overcome by naps, they were out cold almost immediately. I parked myself on the couch to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail and woke up a few hours later. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than napping on the couch with a dog curled up in your lap.
Having my thumb bandaged up blows. It makes it hard to type and it still hurts, too. Pout, pout, pout. I'm not going anywhere tomorrow. It is a difficult place to have bandaged. I've taken off the massive gauze wrap that was to help keep me from bumping it and the band aid is peeling off and not doing a good job of sealing the wound. I may need to buy another box of band-aids, a different shape, a different size, something is bound to work.
A funny thing happened Monday afternoon. I took the dog boyz to our neighborhood park for a little run around and our neighbor, Kyle, came along, too. The boys always like to have a good run after the Chuckit Flying Squirrel. Gus races for the toy and Llelo races after Gus. On our way there we saw a neighborhood dog that Llelo likes to play with so they turned around and came back to the park to play with us.
Now Gus is very, very passionate about his fetching. Corgis are fast, a passionate corgi going after his toy is very fast. Llelo was racing around like a crazy man with Riley, the yorkie on steroids (he huge for a yorkie, over 15 lbs). Neither dog is even aware of the other one. Can you see where this is going? I throw the flying squirrel and Gus takes off, Llelo is making a loop with Riley hot on his heels when WHAM Gus and Llelo collide. Both are knocked back over a foot they have hit so hard! Llelo actually looks stunned for the briefest of moments, then shakes his head and takes off again. You could almost see the little birdies and stars circling his head. Gus had already taken off for the flying squirrel. Silly dogs.
I have come to really like bread pudding. It's something my mother always enjoyed but when she'd bake it I tended to think it was gross. What can I say, I was younger, much younger, and less willing to try different things. Then one day I saw a recipe on the side of a rice milk container. I thought I'd give it a try. Yum-mee! I had this epiphany at least a year before my mother passed away so I could inform her of my previous foolishness and let her know I'd finally come around to be a believer.
A consistent problem I've had with my bread puddings is the raisins, they tend to float to the top and burn or if I've poked them down they sink and burn at the bottom. A friend suggested soaking them in hot water for a while before putting them into the mixture. Ya, good idea, still ended up with burnt raisins, not quite as many but it still wasn't the solution I'd hoped for. The other day at Trader Joe's I had a flash of brilliance: I bought a couple loaves of cinnamon raisin bread! This morning it was time to test the theory. I was slicing the bread and managed to take a chunk of the fleshy part of my thumb in addition to the bread! Yowza! I could tell right away this was more than just a regular band-aid type of flesh wound. I called Diane who agreed to give me a ride to the hospital. After 45 minutes I told Diane it was ok for her to head back to work, that Mark would come collect me after they were finished. I waited in the ER for over three hours! And was still never seen. I had called Mark and asked him to try and locate an urgent care clinic, which he did. There is one on Aurora and 85th. The doctor had already started to clean the wound before I finished the first page of my paperwork, that really smarted. An injection of something-caine, followed by two sutures, then a massive hand wrap. The doctor filled out her paperwork, asked me to make sure to sign the page giving her permission to treat me, and then I finished my sign-in paperwork. Then off to sign-in and out, and then take my leave. Took all of 25 minutes enter to exit. I'm definitely going there next time I try to hack off a limb.
After Mark brought me home I was faced with a large pile of cut up bread and no bread pudding. On the plus side, such as it is, my injury occurred during the next to last cut of bread. Now all I needed to do was beat the eggs and make the custard. It's in the oven baking and my hand is starting to really hurt. I think I need to take a break. I'll post back after I've tested the new iteration of the bread pudding. Oh, and if I hadn't decided to pass on the race due to my back I'd have to for the sutures. Bummer!
The bread pudding is out of the oven now. It's pretty tasty, not quite what I'd hoped in terms of the raisin factor. Biting into a plump, juicy raisin is just yummy. I think I'll try the soaking again, someone else suggested soaking in boiling water, I'd used hot tap water last time. I'll keep you all posted on the next iteration of the bread pudding test!
As you may recall I initiated a back tweaking on Saturday the 15th by trying to paddle at too high a stroke rate. Saturday's Sound Rower's race didn't help matters any. I was working pretty hard and I should have taken it a bit easier, ok, a lot easier. After the race a few friends were kind enough to help me empty and properly repack my 5'x15' storage unit. I had enough wits about me to realize it was a project better undertaken with assistance and it should be noted that this is a big evolutionary step for me! Anyhoo, the combination of 10 days ago tweaking, working too hard during the race, and repacking a storage unit, my back is feeling rather fried. I spent 1.5 hours on Carmen's massage table this afternoon. She found all the spots that were unhappy. And then she started working on my feet. On the bright side my right foot is feeling better. On the down side, I suspect I should take a pass on this Saturday's race down in Portland. I'm going to gauge the situation day by day and see how the back is doing. I'd really wanted to participate in all 7 of the winter series races. But better to pass on one race than be a whiny, cripple for weeks afterwards, 'cause you know I'll whine about it, in between icing and liberally applying narcotics, of course!
My bedroom and living room windows overlook a sidewalk to an exterior door to my apartment building. It can be troublesome during the warmer months when I have all my windows open, the dogs hear anyone walking past and feel the need to let me know there is someone out there, Gus with a low moof, Llelo with a more assertive and higher pitched WOOF! People will go out there to smoke, eww, or are talking loud and drunkenly coming home from a night out. During the colder months it's much less an issue, until Friday night. Someone was knocking on the door and calling out, it was 5 am and I still had a couple of hours before I needed to get up and ready for the race on Lake Sammamish. I get rather testy when people wake me like that, I generally have trouble falling back asleep. I stuck my head outside and politely asked him to keep his voice down. Turns out it was a kid (both in actions and age), under 25 or so, who used to live in the building. Seems he'd had 'entirely too much fun' that night and couldn't remember where he lived. I can only speculate that he was dropped off by a taxi, thankfully. He claimed he'd moved back into the building and since we were acquainted from when he lived here I tossed keys to him. When he brought them up to me I asked how he was getting into his unit only to discover he was so hammered, still, that he didn't know anything and didn't live here, he was whining about how cold he was, it was so cold outside (dufus was wearing shorts and a t-shirt). Since he was obviously no threat, he couldn't stand upright and steady at the same time, and I did kind of know him and I really wanted to get another couple hours of sleep but didn't want him wandering the halls of the building I brought him into my apartment, pointed to the couch and handed him a blanket. I could smell the stale smell of alcohol wafting off him from the other room, gag, I opened my window so as not to be knocked out by the fumes. The dogs thought this was great fun and Llelo kept jumping off my bed to go jump onto him on the couch. I finally closed the baby gate to keep the dogs in my bedroom and was able to go back to sleep. I got up around 7:30, took care of the dogs, had some breakfast and coffee. Around 8:45 I started trying to wake the kid up. It was more challenging that I anticipated and I didn't think it would be that easy. I finally pulled the blanket off him and told the dogs to jump up on him and give kisses, Gus even got into the act. Finally got him up and out of my apartment, kid was still so drunk he had no idea where he lived. I got him outside the building and headed down to SSP to load the boats for the race. I've done my mitzvah for the day.
I headed down to SSP to meet Minnie to load boats for the Lake Sammamish sound rowers race. We were there a little bit late but in plenty of time. This was my first race in the new boat. I made sure to have my protein shake before I left the house as well as my emergen-c drink. They made all the difference. I felt pretty good during the race. It was a little frustrating, they had started the pre-race meeting early so I'd missed the part detailing the course, I knew I'd be far enough behind the race leaders to see where the turns and things were, it just would have been nice to know in advance. Conditions were ideal, sunny, cool, only a hint of breeze, essentially flat water, a perfect day for racing. I started out pretty well, perhaps not as fast as I should have, I did maintain a pace over 5 mph for the entire race except the tight turns. I finished in 1:04:24 and it was 5.8 miles, took first in W OC-1, there were two of us, Minnie was behind me. I crossed the line 38 out of 47. It was neither my best nor my worst race, generally a pretty good race. Sound Rowers races are fun because there are so many different type of boats participating.
Only semi-public because I won't post the name or photos of the person I'm about tell you about. You may recall that I posted a personal ad on Craigslist the end of January. I've gotten a number of nice responses and entirely too many offers to 'frost my cake' (my posting title was cake seeks icing), if you know what I mean. Really now, if I'd been looking for a casual encounter don't you think I'd have posted it there?!? Anyway, there was a fireman, we'll call him 'J', who answered my ad, seemed a little intense, but I was curious. Along with photos in 'normal' situations he included a photo from the neck down completely nekkid and completely, um, at attention! I should have listened to my spidey senses which were tingling in a big way. I replied to his response and he telephoned me, I was caught completely off guard because it was during work hours and days after I'd sent my reply; I figured he'd moved on. I was very busy and asked if we could talk after I got off work, then I never heard from him again. Ok, fine, no problem, moving on with my life, there were other guys who had responded to talk to and have bad first dates with.
Fast forward to last Monday, St Patrick's Day, after work I went to Westlake Center to See's Candies to get myself a Rocky Road Easter Egg, my only homage to Easter. Then I was meeting a friend, Kyle, in the bus tunnel to head home. Down in the tunnel we were chatting about the butter cream eggs I was given every year and the fact that I have NEVER liked butter cream eggs when a guy walks up and asks if my name is Melissa. Yes, I say hesitantly, wondering who the heck this guy is. He says his name is 'J' and hands me a card with his number and email, it was the guy who'd answered my ad. It finally clicked just before he walked away. Kyle was wondering what the heck is going on so, during the bus ride home I filled her in on the details.
That night I sat down and composed an email to 'J' asking how the heck he'd picked me out of a crowd like that, never having met me and only having seen a couple of photos. We exchanged a couple of emails, including another photo of his 'unit', and made plans to meet for lunch on Wednesday. Now along with the regular conversation in the emails he would often proclaim that I was hot. Ok, once is flattering, twice is a little cute, more than that makes me wonder what's your angle, what's going on here. I mean, come on, Heidi Klum is hot, Naomi Campbell is hot, Nicole Kidman is hot; me, not so hot. I'll accept cute, attractive, athletic, there was a guy who wrote that I was adorable, I really liked that one! Not so much hot, though, the wobbly bits rather cancel out any potential hotness, know what I mean? And there were also a fair number of comments made regarding what he'd like to do to/with me in the bedroom. While I'm not necessarily against this type of conversation it seemed a bit premature and again, the spidey senses were tingling.
Wednesday rolls around and we meet for lunch. It was a good lunch, we went to Jimmy's On First, there was conversation and laughter, it was generally a good time. When it was time I got back to the office he drove me back and as he was dropping me off he leaned in for a kiss. That was fine, but the next thing I knew there was a tongue trying to tickle my tonsils and I felt as though my lips had gotten caught in a vacuum cleaner hose! Oh, and two words for you 'J': chap stick! Once I was able to extricate myself from the vacuum I made my way back into the office my mind a whir, what the heck had just happened and did I like it?
A few hours later I left for the day to meet Fran, Lillian, and Robin at Collin's Pub for belated birthday dessert and they wanted the lowdown on my date. On my way to meet them 'J' called and left me a voice mail thanking me for a lovely lunch and I'm such a great kisser and XXX things he wanted to do with/to me and again how hot I am. Fran and Lillian are so in love, it's a delight to see them together. I was able to be there for their wedding last summer, such a wonderful celebration of love and happiness. I aspire to find something like that. Lillian commented that if you have to ask if this is love, it probably isn't. I had lots of fun with the ladies, laughter is cathartic.
When I got home I tapped out a well thought out email to 'J' saying I enjoyed lunch and meeting him, but that I was rather taken aback my his sexual intensity, that I'm looking to get to know someone, develop a solid friendship with them and when sex is the next logical progression in our relationship, then go there. That I understood his need to present the entire 'package', so to speak, for matters of full disclosure, but I felt it's really about more than the size of his penis.
I didn't hear anything from him on Thursday, no emails, no phone calls. Hmm, perhaps he didn't like my email. Oh well, decision made. Then as I'm loading the car from a Costco trip he calls; I let it go to voice mail, it was cold and I wanted to get into the car. Once in the car I listen to the message he left. Holy crap, what a pretentious, entirely too full of himself ass! He told me that I needed to get off my high horse and ride the wave, the tsunami, and if I am cap-a-ble of enjoying myself we should get together. Ya right! Insulting me is really the way to bring me around! Well, decision made, not that I wasn't already leaning towards giving him the boot anyway. For some misguided reason I was thinking about sending him a final email telling him off, but Kyle, after listening to the message, pointed out he didn't even deserve that much.
Sigh. Dating is hard, not that I ever expected it to be easy, but dang! What ever happened to decency and civility? Am I that old fashioned? Thankfully I've had some nice dates and met a few pleasant guys so I'm not ready to give up entirely. But 'J' makes me really glad that I have my dog boys. Everyone should have *some* unconditional love in their lives.
There is an organization called Sound Rowers, they sponsor races of human powered craft. I did the Mercer-Medina Sausage Pull last October on OC2 with Ed. The conditions were aggressive, windy and got more windy during over the course of the race and there was some chop, too. It was my first small boat race and I was pleased to be able to do it with Ed, who has quite a lot of experience. Since then I've done most of the PNW-ORCA winter series, I've purchased my own OC1, and I have gained a tremendous amount of experience in the small boats.
I just found out they have a race scheduled this Saturday in Lake Sammamish. Guess who's racing this weekend! How could I pass up a race so nearby? And with such a reasonable start time? The short course (6 miles) starts at 11 am, with a pre-race meeting at 10:30 am. I am so there. If you'd like to come out and see what small boat racing is like the weather sounds like it will be cooperative, too.
Then the following weekend is another race in Portland, the next to last winter series race.
I'd hoped to post Tuesday night but never quite got to it. We ended up having seven people plan to come down, a little challenging in a six person boat. I used it as a weak excuse to take out my spiffy new boat. I'd planned to take it easy, my back was still acting twingey from last Saturday, it's not always an easy thing to do, either. I still need to get the technique down for assembling the boat, Tuesday was the first time I'd done it completely myself. Soon it will be easier, quicker, and more smooth. I got down to the water just as the OC6 was being put in. I figured I'd have to work to try and keep up with them, but they took their time figuring out what they wanted to do for their workout. I decided not to wait and headed off to the north, thinking they would catch me in fairly short order. I was trying to settle into a nice pace, kept it around 5 mph. Looking at my gps I could see I'd made it about 1.7 miles when the gps pooped out, I think it needs new batteries. I looked back and the OC6 was a bit north of Matthew's Beach. I continued north until I passed around a no wake bouy and headed back towards SSP. I paused for a moment to try hitting the power button on the gps, it came back to life and seemed to work properly the rest of the way back to the beach. Round trip I went about 3.5 miles, maybe a bit further and maintained that 5 mph pace for the bulk of my paddling time. It was good without over taxing my back. I was able to take apart the boat more easily than it went together and came back home for a quick supper and a bit more work I had to finish up. In all a good afternoon/evening.
Tomorrow should be a good paddle. We've got 6 already lined up for practice. I'll go in the OC6 this time. We have gotten some workouts from Kristen so we will have some good training exercises to work on. I'm looking forward to it.
I got up earlier than people should have to on a Sunday morning, but thankfully later than I'd have to get up to travel to a race. The dogs and I were on the road before 8:30 and made good travel time up to the border. Going to the race the weekend before we'd gone through the Peace Arch and it was a slow go so I decided to go for the truck crossing, a bit east of the Peace Arch crossing. There was no waiting, hurrah! I made it up to Jericho Sailing Center a little before 11. Ross was still out paddling for his club practice, they'd gone 10 miles on OC1s. He was looking like he'd had a good long workout when he came in. He went to shower and change and I went to change into paddling gear for another test drive.
This Pahoa felt really good, much more responsive than Steve's Kaimanathat I've been paddling all winter. The more I tooled around the more I was feeling like this was a very good decision for me. Ross was very indulgent, took some snapshots with my cell phone and digital camera for me. It took a few tries to get the correct fit on the seat. This model doesn't have an adjustable seat, it's a foam block cut with a butt print with a varied span behind the seat, the broader the span the closer you sit to the steering pedals. We brought the boat back up to take it apart and bag it up. It came with sturdy bags for the hull and for the ama. We loaded the boat on top of the car and tucked the ama inside, much to Gus' dismay. An OC1 ama will fit inside my car but it extends from the dashboard all the way back to the rear window and as far as Gus is concerned that's no ok, not the way it's supposed to be. I asked Ross about where I could grab a bite to eat before driving home. We went to Milestone's on 4th. It was rather crowded but nothing too bad. We placed our order and chatted while we waited for our meal to arrive. After 45 minutes or so I asked a staff member, our waiter couldn't be found, when our food might be arriving. Turns our our waiter never placed our order with the kitchen! D'oh! She put a rush on the food and then comped our entire meal. Not a bad deal.
I was finally on my way around 3:30, I think. I got a little turned around trying to get back to 99 south, I missed Oak St, good thing I've got that AAA map, I had gone a few blocks beyond and there is a big construction project that made going back the way I came not an option. I often use 'the force' when driving in an unfamiliar region. It took half an hour or so to get back to where I wanted to be and I was on my way towards the border. I went back to the truck crossing only this time there was a line, it took me 50 minutes to get up to the agent's window. It took me less than two minutes to get through and continue back to Seattle. I got down to Sail Sand Point around 6-6:30 and then needed to rinse the salt water off the boat before I could put it away. I walked the hull down to the lake and dunked it in the water to clean the salt residue off and then tucked it into it's storage rack inside the container. Then back home for some supper for the dogs and me, and a little relaxation from the long drive. Time to wrap my brain around the idea that I now have my own OC1!
This morning I went down for another team practice for the Rusty Iron, the first OC6 race we plan to do down in Portland on April 26. Our crew will be, in seating order, Minnie, Rives, Nancy, me, Lise, and Kristen steering. We had a nice ten minute warm up, gradually ramping up our intensity and pace, a quick break to adjust clothing and get water before we were off for the big part of the workout. We headed south towards the 520 bridge keeping pretty close to a race pace. Minnie is really coming along as a good stroke person. She is setting a good pace and keeping it very steady. We got all the way to the western high rise, passed under, went along the bridge to the eastern high rise, and back under again in about 45-50 minutes. The water on the south side of the bridge was messy and slowed our pace somewhat. The wind was blowing the water towards the bridge and then it bounced back towards us creating a little bit of chaos.
Once we were back on the north side of the bridge we took another short break and got ready for 3-10 minute pieces, the first was to be at a higher stroke rate, around 62+ per minute, then back down to 58-60, and the final piece back up to 62+ again. Well, 2-3 minutes into the first piece my back up and rebelled. The message was clear, you want to race on 3/29, 4/12, and/or 4/26 you better stop this nonsense right quick! I pulled up and told Kristen that I couldn't do the fast pace so we backed down to the slower pace and my back was still rather pissed off. I asked Kristen if I could steer back. You know things aren't going well if I want to steer, my hind parts don't fit in those seats, I have to sit up on one hip to be back there. Kristen moved up to seat 3 and Nancy moved to 4. I discovered there is enough space behind seat 6 for my legs and feet so I could sit on the tail section of the boat! I didn't have to wedge myself in, huzzah!!! They kept a decent pace and I tried to keep a straight line, I think they did better than I did, but I didn't do too badly. I tried to paddle a couple of times, bad idea on two counts, our course became rather erratic and my back said no. So, I just poked and sat, sat and poked, poked and sat, and got cold, I'd worked up a decent sweat during the first half of the workout and now wasn't really working so hard. I thought I did bring us in rather nicely, right up along the shore followed by a quick turn and a couple of back paddles and there we were.
My neighbor, a nice young woman named Kyle, came down for her first time paddling. She went out with John, Meilee, Marth, Neil, and Judy. Sounds like she really enjoyed it and plans to come out again. Her boyfriend has expressed interest as well. Since her boat came in earlier she was able to let the dog boyz out of the car. By the way, Gus is feeling much better, he started perking up last night. Gus could recognize me in the boat coming in and raced over to the ramp to meet us, or rather me. Llelo followed in short order and I could tell he'd been rolling in goose poop. Dumb dog! I dragged him into the water for a rinse and somehow he managed to roll in more between the rinse and time to go home, got another rinse and then into the car. During the ride home I could make out 'ew de goose poop and made the snap decision to give the both baths! I have a friend with 2 corgis down in California and her boy dog, Redd, has made the connection that if he gets skunked he gets a bath, he HATES baths, he takes pains to not get skunked, the girl dog, Cosmo, ya, not so much. I can only hope that Llelo will make the connection that when he rolls in goose poop he gets a bath, but I think he's going to be more like Cosmo, sigh.
I wanted to extend a big public (as big an audience I my blog has, anyway) mahalo to Steve E for letting me use his Kaimana OC1 this winter! It has been wonderful to have a boat to use for training (wish I'd done more!) and to take to races! I still think he should have sold it to me, but since I actually saw him down at the club going out for a paddle this morning perhaps he really does intend to get back into paddling! ;-) And since I'm getting my own boat tomorrow maybe we can go for paddles together on our OC1s. So, Steve "Mahalo ā nui loa (thanks very, very, very much)". And now it's time to go ice my back.
Improv Everywhere, I love this site. People get together and perform 'spontaneous' acts of improv. I can get sucked in for hours reading about different things they've done like No Pants 2k8 (people riding the subway with no pants), Suicide Jumper (he was on a ledge 3 feet off the ground), Frozen Grand Central (207 people freezing in place for 5 min in Grand Central Station), Best Buy (loads of people dressed like Best Buy staff hanging out in Best Buy), and MP3 Experiment Four (hundreds of people downloaded an MP3 and followed the directions together in unison!). I was avoiding work for a few minutes and got sucked in briefly this afternoon. The reactions of the innocent bystanders are hilarious!
It's been a pretty good week. Late Monday night I received an email from Ross at Open Ocean Outriggers wishing me happy birthday. Once I moved beyond being a little weirded out (how did he know it was my birthday? ah, from a form I filled out on a demo day in December) we started chatting about the race last weekend, he'd raced OC2 and done much better than I did, for that matter everybody did much better than I did except for that one person behind me! Then I mentioned to him I was on the verge of getting and OC1, a dealer was willing to work out a payment deal for me. I decided to ask if he would consider such a deal, never hurts to ask, the worst they can do is say no, which is totally ok. You just never know how often they might say yes if you never ask. And from personal experience yes happens a whole lot more often than you'd expect! Anyway, Ross and I chatted, he spoke with his business partner, and came back with terms we were both happy with and much better than the other deal. I'm getting my new boat this Sunday, it's a Hypr Pahoa. I could wait until mid-April when Ross is planning to come down for a race and pick up a boat he's buying, but I am totally down with immediate gratification! I think it may have something to do with being an inaugural member of the MTV/80's generation! Anybody want to drive to Vancouver Canada with me Sunday?
Gus is having a bit of a rough time, though. Last May he got a slab fracture on an upper premolar from chewing on a cow knee cap bone. It took a few months for it be be painful to him. Last October it was effecting his chewing so in we go for extraction and while he was under had the remaining teeth cleaned. The crater left by the tooth removal took a good long while to heal up. This began our weekly vet visits because shortly thereafter Llelo had his infamous goose poop incident. Around New Year's both guys were finally feeling pretty fit. Then in mid-February I noticed Gus wasn't eating his chewy things I left for him when I went to work. Open up and sure enough there is another chipped tooth, same tooth other side. He went in for that extraction yesterday. It was otherwise a very healthy tooth because it took Dr Reeves 45 minutes to remove it and I hear he was sweating up a storm because he was working so hard. When I went to pick Gus up last night as soon as he saw me he started whining, really pathetic, prolonged whines, too. It was truly heartbreaking. The technician said while back in the kennel he was perfectly fine and this could just be a special for mom performance. Probably true, but still pulls at the heartstrings.
The whole ride home, whiiiiine, whiiiiinnnnne, wwwwhhhinnne! And he was still a bit woozy from the drugs, too. We get home, more whining. Llelo is thrilled to have his big bruddah home again, let's play now, ok, let's play! To his credit Gus didn't even snap at him, I did that! Supper was tough, I had soaked some kibble in hot water to soften it and added extra canned, not interested. Had to go to straight canned food and even that was hard. I got him up on the bed and he made all kinds of cute wookie sounds mixed with the occasional whine. This morning we skipped the softened dry food and went straight to canned only, gave him his pain meds and antibiotics. Watching him eat the canned food was so sad, even that was painful. Fran, misery loves company, when is your next dental appointment? Gus certainly can feel your pain. Llelo was hovering in the background, waiting for his turn to lick out the dish. Gus seems to be napping right now. Hopefully he will heal more quickly this time. We started the antibiotics straight away this time rather than waiting a week like last time. Poor Gus.
I cracked an eyelid open and saw 7:30 on the clock, then closed the eye again until the snooze alarm went off 10 minutes later. Llelo came up for some snuggles and settled in to wait until I showed true signs of life. Ultimately got up around 8, let the dogs out, fed the dogs, prepared my coffee, and settled in to get some work done. I got through quite a bit of work, more than I expected, even. I guess 42 really is the ultimate answer.
I got to the spa around 6:30, flashed my id and got free admittance. I did have to pay for the body scrub and body moisturizing, though. I got my robe, cap, and towels and headed back to the locker room. After I changed I went down to the little restaurant they have. I got the chicken bimbimbap (I know that's spelled incorrectly) and it was quite tasty. I avoided those things that looked like they had spicy sauce added, and the ginger tea was awesome.
After dinner I headed into the tub room, took my shower and hit the 97 degree tub. You have to soak for at least 30 minutes before your body scrub, softens things up. When they called my number I went behind the bamboo curtain to the brightly white tiled area where they have rows of massage style tables with heavy white vinyl covers, easier to keep clean. My technician was a petite Korean woman who's name tag read Angie. You start out face down and they pull on the scrubby gloves. I quickly realized she was putting a bit more umph into the scrub than the previous time I went, either that or I'd forgotten how scrubby it was last time. It was not unlike being gone over with a sanding block, not the 60 grit, more like the 200 or a little bit finer even. They sluice you down with hot water and then start scrubbing at one foot, working their way up the leg, up the back, the first arm, across the shoulders, the second arm, down the back and down the other leg. And repeat about 3-4 times. Then on to the right side, repeat 4-5 times, then to the left side, repeat 4-5 times, then onto the back and repeat 4-5 times. Having my tummy massaged like a blob of bread dough feels really good. After you have been completely exfoliated they use those odd scrunchy balls of mesh weave stuff and soap all over to wash away all the skin bits they've rubbed off. It all feels so good and relaxing. When Angie was finished she sent me to sit in the dry sauna for a few minutes while she prepped the table for the moisturizing phase.
Angie came and got me and took me over to the mugwort pool. She then poured mugwort water all over me, it feels and smells so good. Then back to the table. The moisturizing involves having honey, olive oil, and milk rubbed all over your body. Having these ingredients massaged into your body is just delightful. Again I started face down and Angie started the same pattern as with the scrub. Then I flipped over and repeated it all on the front side. When she got to my face it was then best thing ever. There was a part of it that reminded me of the brushes when you take your car through the car wash, fwappeta, fwappeta, fwappeta starting at one side and moving around to the other. When she was finished I had been transported to a nirvana-like place. I remember thinking that was totally worth what they charged, just for the face thing! Then she placed cucumber slices over my eyes and shredded cucumber over the rest of my face and neck. It was startlingly cool and dripped down the sides of my neck. It was very hard not to giggle when she did that. She also laid warm towels over the rest of me and left me to steep for a bit. Then she came back and wiped off all the honey and milk and olive oil, cleaned me all up, wished me happy birthday, and sent me on my way.
I made my way home in a warm fog, feeling relaxed with smooth and supple skin. I finished that last package of data and packed my bag for tomorrow. In all it's been a pretty good birthday. The only down side, didn't get any chocolate cake! I'd thought about going down to Whole Foods to get a single serving one, but never quite made it that far. Guess I'll have to get it Wednesday after work.
So, it's going to be a great year then, right! I'll be 42 on Tuesday. I don't have any huge plans for the day. I'll work validating data for most of the day, all those hours I have on my projections, you know. But I do plan to sleep a little late, 7:30 or so, and I'll knock off a little early and head up to Olympus Spa in Lynnwood. It's free on your birthday! In addition to the quality time in the various tubs and hot rooms I'm going to go for the Korean Body Scrub and follow that with the Korean Body Moisturizing.
We'll just see if 42 really is the ultimate answer to life the universe and everything! Here's hoping for a great year.
I was up in Vancouver, BC at False Creek for the 5th in the winter race series. Diane and I loaded the boats Friday night, an OC1 for me and the OC2 for her and Minnie. She arrived a few minutes late to my place Saturday morning, then we were off to collect Ed who would paddle on an OC2 with Clem. When we were north of Bellingham we passed Minnie and Ernie. We took a chance and went through the Peace Arch crossing, bad idea. The last time we'd gone that way we crossed pretty quickly, figured our luck would hold, ya, not so much actually. Thankfully there was another racer who kindly let us pull in front of him, his line was moving considerably faster. As it turns out that was a saving grace in more ways than one, seems Diane had forgotten her passport, d'oh! The Canadian customs agent was a kindly fellow and accepted Ed and me saying we knew her well and could vouch for her! Off we go, with the fellow who let us in hot on our tail, I guess he was hoping I had good directions and would get us all there in a timely manner. I did and we did.
We arrived, got registered, got rigged, got changed, and went to the pre-race meeting to learn the course. Then into the water for a bit of a warm up and get to the start. We're off, I tried to sprint at the start hoping to stick with the back of the pack, and I did, sort of. Minnie and Diane were even to slightly behind me. Darcy, my main competition was a ways ahead of me. I tried to settle into a good pace, but I wasn't feeling quite right. It was about 2 miles to the first turn, turn right down to the flag bouy, back to the first bouy, and then back in. The total distance was 6.2 miles. There was very little wind, but there was a fair amount of ground swell which gave me some difficulty. I was able to pull in front of Minnie and Diane, but not as far as I would have liked. I could here Diane calling the changes and giving Minnie steering advice, helping alter their course so the swells wouldn't cause them to huli. There were a number of instances where I was certain I was going over, hand waving, heart pounding moments. Afterwards Diane told me she saw a few of those moments and was on the ready to help me back onto my OC1. I guess they had some of those moments, too. After the second turn I saw there was another paddler behind Minnie and Diane! After the third turn I just didn't have much left in me, Minnie and Diane were able to pull ahead of me. Those last two miles were so hard, the swells, my feet were cramping up, sweat kept dripping into my eyes and burning, and I just didn't have the energy to keep up the pace. As I neared the finish I realized that other woman was gaining some ground on me, f@&k that, I'm not finishing last! I dug in a paddled for all I was worth, I was on the verge of vomiting, I was working so hard. They didn't have a horn so I couldn't be certain that I'd actually stayed in front of her. As I coasted along I could just feel my toes/feet cramping, I felt like I'd been put through the wringer.
Very slowly I carried the OC1 up to the car, I felt just nasty. Hungry, thirsty, crampy, sweaty, damp, generally not so good. First thing I did back at the car was change out of my nasty wet clothes and then started to take apart the boat and load up the car. Rather a bad idea, I was feeling yucky and not able to explain to the others how I wanted things loaded and tied down. I should have found some food before we loaded up. Once we got everything loaded we all wandered over to the registration to see how everyone finished and get some prizes. I took third in Master Women, Darcy took second. I was six seconds away from dfl (dead f@&king last) at 1:09:02, but I wasn't last! They had some nice, hot split pea soup in desperate need of some salt, with crusty rolls. It was good to get something into my tummy, the sodium from the salt would have helped my cramping issues, though.
Loaded up and ready to go Diane, Ed, and I headed out to Costco to get some antihistamines for me on our way home. Even though Zyrtec is now sold over the counter here, it's much cheaper in Canada, they have generic. Ed and I have an on-going banter regarding when we should stop for gas. I start getting nervous when it dips below 1/4 tank, Ed says, 'ah, we'll be fine!' We aim for the Costco at Smokey Point (exit 206). It goes below 1/4 mark and I poke him and point, he gives a p'shaw face, and we keep going. Yesterday we actually began to dip below the E line as we were on the exit ramp. I've never actually run this car out of gas before, so I don't really know how low I can go. If we ever do run out of gas Ed will have a load of ribbing to live down! I have AAA so I'm not too worried if we actually did run out of gas, it would just keep us from our showers and naps that much longer!
In all I had a not so good race. I realized I never had my protein shake in the morning and I didn't have quite enough to eat. I think I need to do a better electrolyte loading before a race as well. I'd run out of my Emergen-C packets, guess I'm off to go buy some today! However, I had excellent company for the travel, loads of laughter and good conversation. In all a good day!
I was on my way home today, listening to NPRs All Things Considered where they reviewed the debut album by Vampire Weekend. They've tagged themselves as 'Upper West Side Soweto'. I bought the album from iTunes shortly after I got home. It's fun, infectious, happy sounding music, makes your feet tap. Check them out.
It's been a crazy busy week at work, few weeks actually. I've got something like 230 hours worth of work that I need to complete by the end of the month. Crazy talk, you say, ya well, me too! Just going to try and do the best I can.
Had a great paddle last night. We went out with 5, Minnie, Nancy, me, Judy, and Neil steering. We did a couple of pyramids, one minute fast, one minute easy, 2 fast, 1 easy, and on up to 5 fast and worked our way back to one. Then we did a second one up to 4 fast. We could feel a huge surge whenever Neil started paddling, it was pretty cool. We only went 6 miles, but they were hard miles. We all felt like we'd had an excellent workout.
Saturday I'm heading up to Vancouver, BC for the 5th race in the winter series. It should be pretty fun. I'm hoping it will be less harsh than the last race I paddled in Vancouver. Be sure I'll let you know about it soon.
This afternoon I was meeting a friend at Magnuson dog park so we could let our dogs have a nice run around. It was a nice spring feeling afternoon, clear and sunny. I arrived a little early so the boys and I went into the small and shy dog area, I know they aren't shy, by any means, but they are on the smaller side. Llelo has a ball in there, it doesn't take long for him to start racing around and having half the dogs in there racing after him, he loves it.
After my friend and his border collie/lab mix arrived we started walking towards the beach for some swimming and fetching action. Along the way to the beach there was plenty of sniffing and peeing. Down at the beach Gus was doing his happy dance, you'd know it if you've seen it, eagerfor me to throw the toy into the water. Arm back and off it goes, with a huge hulking yellow lab racing after it rather than his own ball. Gus has never challenged any dog for his toys; he veered off as soon as the lab nearly trampled him and refused to go back out for the toy. Nothing I did would convince him to go out after the toy. Now this toy has particularly high value, it's an Air Kong stick, the tennis ball material but in the shape of a stick. It's even higher value since the only kind you can buy now include the stupid squeaker, they fill up with water and sink. I'd tried getting other dogs to bring the toy back in to no avail. Grr. I began to unload my pockets, extra poop bags, cell phone, digital camera, chapstick, and car keys, everything goes into my jacket pockets. Jacket handed to friend, fleece handed off, and I had to start psyching myself up for the cold water. My friend very generously did offer to go get the toy, but since I live only 10 minutes from the park and was wearing my Crocs, I couldn't let him do it. I did appreciate the offer, though. Bhoo ya! Here we go! I stepped into the water, it remained quite shallow for a long time, mid-calf, knee deep, I might be able to pull this off with only a little bit of suffering. Ya right! The water is now mid-thigh and creeping higher, thankfully we've had those spring-like warm days, the water wasn't nearly as cold as years past. Now I'm in crotch deep water, waist deep, belly button, I'm holding my hands up out of the water. For some reason keeping my hands dry gives the illusion of being warm and/or dry. The water is now chest deep and getting a little deeper, finally I can reach that damn toy. The whole way out I'm hearing the people on the beach laughing in disbelief that someone would be crazy enough to walk out into high chest deep water to retrieve a stupid dog toy. I grabbed the damn toy and hollered "I love my dogs!" as I started the long trek back in to the beach. The tops of my shoulders were still dry! Back on the beach I pulled on my dry fleece and jacket. My feet felt cold but the rest of me wasn't as cold as I expected. Time to head back to the car where I have plenty of towels, ostensibly for drying dogs off. A couple of large beach towels around my waist and the soaking, cold jeans were off and into the plastic tub in the back of the car. Hop into the car, crank up the heat and make haste for home, dry clothes and hot tea.
The saddest part of this sorry tale is the fact that this isn't the first time I've done such a thing. A few years ago, when Gus was much younger, it was about this time of year, first weekend in March, Gus had been fetching for quite a while. It was very early morning, a cold and rainy day, and we were the only ones on the beach. I knew he was getting tired so I tossed it out with the intention of one last time. Gus took three steps towards the toy and stopped, absolutely refused to go get it. This was an even higher value toy, I could not let it float away. I took my shoes off, emptied my pockets and headed out. The water was so cold I had an ice cream head-ache when I was only in ankle deep water and I had to go deep enough that I had to swim to get the toy. I spent the next month being really sick with a subsequent sinus infection. If I had to choose between a day like today and that Sunday morning those years ago, I would totally go out again today, in a heartbeat. My dogs love their toys and I love my dogs, there's nothing I wouldn't do for them. Stoopid dawgs!
I love to paddle outrigger canoes. I feel like a postal worker, neither rain nor snow, nor sleet will keep this paddler from her practice!
I have two corgi dogs, they are the best dogs ever. Gus and Llelo love long walks, fetching, going to the dog park and swimming.
feels that anyone sitting on the couch has extended him an open invitation to jump into their laps and cover them with hugs and kisses. One of the friends was a boy of 21 months, fun, active, curious, and having a good time with the toy VW Beetle I have. Gus was feeling some anxiety having J in his house and spent the entire visit sucking on his ducky, his equivalent of a security blanket. They tend to get rather nasty, I have a few in backup so they can go through the wash as needed. Aside from Gus, a good time was had by all. After the friends left the dog boys were overcome by naps, they were out cold almost immediately. I parked myself on the couch to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail and woke up a few hours later. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than napping on the couch with a dog curled up in your lap.
