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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.
Next week I'm off to Portland for another PNW-ORCA winter series race.
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.
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.
