West Coast Relay

Cookin' Music...

After last night's fiasco, I was determined to have a much more enjoyable time in the kitchen today. I had promised to bring a dish to the Christmas party and I was finally getting around to doing it. Never mind that it was slated to start about an hour and 8 minutes after I started cooking. I was busy today. I had several errands to run (which I completed) but was delayed by somebody else's tardiness (they shall remain nameless) and needed a minute to regroup before going about the business of cookin' on this fine Saturday afternoon. Since I had not done so already, I decided to

When Auto-pilot goes wrong...

Tired and hungry is never a good combination for me, but this predicament is precisely where I found myself tonight. I don't know why. I didn't work particularly hard today except maybe at the gym. I hadn't sat in any traffic and my kids and I had been home for a couple of hours. I had cooked dinner the previous evening so I wouldn't have to worry about slaving over the stove. I was just in the zone, but not in the good way. Here's how it went down.

I had a load of laundry in the washing machine, and one in the dryer. I had another stack of clothes on my bed waiting to be folded. The dishwasher hadn't done a very thorough job on the last load of dishes, so I was taking those out and stacking them on the counter to be washed by hand. Meanwhile, I was reheating the food so that my kids could eat right away while I continued to clean. Once again, I cooked some delicious spaghetti but somehow there wasn't enough for me after I made plates for the kids. No worries. I boiled some more water and threw some more noodles in there.

"By the time I'm finished with these dishes, the noodles will be done and I can relax and eat," I thought to myself.

The kids finished their food and I proceeded to grab their plates and wash them as well. It sure was going to be great to have a clean kitchen immediately after dinner. I had to change the channel to something they didn't want to watch (I think it was THursday night football) so that they would actually concentrate on their plates and eat their food in under an hour. When I set their salad in front of them, The Suite Life of Zach and Cody was playing for the 13th time today and even though they had already seen that episode, they couldn't tear their eyes away from it.

Things were coming together almost exactly according to plan. I had washed the strainer and set it to the side of the sink and was washing the last couple of bowls and then their plates when it was time for the noodles to be done. Like the finely tuned domestic machine that I was on this evening, I set the bowls and plates in the dishwasher to dry, dried my hands with a towel, picked up the oven mitts so that I could pick up the large pot of boiling water containing my noodles, made a quarter turn to face the sink and poured the boiling water and noodles into the sink.

Recall that I had previously mentioned that I had set the strainer to the side of the sink. Yeah, this minor detail didn't set in with me either until a second or two later when I looked at the empty strainer to the left of the sink. My noodles went down the drain without a trace just as my hunger intensified exponentially. I stood there frozen for a moment, totally defeated. I couldn't remember if that was the last of the noodles or not, but I hoped that it was not. It wasn't. Now, however, I'd have to fill the pot with more water and wait until it started to boil and then wait another 11 minutes after that for the noodles to cook. I finally sat down to enjoy my pasta (I had half a package of penne in the cupboard) at about 1015pm.

No way, Dad...for real?

"I played for coaches that weren't satisfied with the conditioning workout until somebody threw up!" I said to my son when we were walking away from the field. It was 655am and we were walking away from the field after one of his less spirited workouts. He had complained about being tired and a little out of breath. Ordinarily, I would've said something to the effect that he was 9 years old and that 9 year-olds aren't supposed to get tired and should be able to run all day and that when I was 9...well, you get the picture. But today, I went for this tactic. I think the sensationalism worked on him.

"For real?!" he said with eyes as wide as saucers. "Why???"

"Oh yeah! That's right!" I said very matter of factly, giving it that higher pitched inflection for emphasis. "He was crazy. Most coaches are...especially the high school and college ones." I tried to keep my smile concealed as we walked up the hill. I caught myself though, thinking that if I overdo it, he might react in just the opposite way than I had intended and never want to play at all. "That's why we're working out right now...so you'll be ready when you get to high school. It'll be easy for you." I'm not sure if you if he was buying it, but he seemed to be mulling it over in his head for a minute.

"One time our coach came into the gym and said 'put those balls away...we won't be needing those today' and we then proceeded to run 35 suicides...," I explained to my daughter as we walked out the gym after her basketball practice. Her eyes widened too, but she didn't say anything. This is yet another mannerism that she gets from me.

"We blew a 9 point lead late in the game and he wanted to make sure we were focused and we remembered a thing or two about keeping our intensity until the final horn sounds." All she could say was "Wow!"

"When we were done with that, he took the balls back out of the equipment closet and we ran the fast break drill for an hour straight!"

My motives were a little different in this conversation, as we had just been discussing conditioning at her practice and how her coach chooses to take care of that facet of the game. Unfazed, she had the appearance of someone that would gladly walk back in the gym and play for another 2 hours.

I stopped short of making up any stories about walking 6 miles to school, uphill both ways.

Seizing the opportunity

I got inspired today by a blog reader. I don't know why that I'm finding that so noteworthy today, or why it hasn't happened before, but it made me write immediately so I'm not complaining. I was reading the comments that I got back from some readers on the metaphorically laden Sexually Frustrated piece that I wrote and one of the readers suggested that I had a sequel in the works.

Actually, I did not, but one came to mind awfully quickly. I had momentarily forgotten that people don't always "get" me and my novice writing may not adequately voice what I think I'm trying to convey. The piece made perfect sense to me, but apparently some of the other folks had allowed themselves to get swept up in the provocative metaphor and failed to catch the subtlety of what I was describing. Again, it must've been my fault. I just must not be a good enough writer to make it plain for everybody yet. I had a little fun with the sequel though, drawing on the inspiration that made me enjoy writing way back when (perhaps I'll have to try to re-create my maiden voyage in one of these posts) and endeavoring to play professor in an amusing sort of way. Well, I think I amused myself at least.

It was kind of neat to try and dissect my own writing as if it were a famous literary text or a mysterious biblical verse. I actually pictured myself standing at the head of the class and challenging the class like Denzel's Professor Melvin Tolson from the Great Debaters. I was pacing, I was double underlining words with a piece of chalk, and I made it plain for the masses. Yes, I'm aware that masses is severely overstating things.

And the beat goes on...

"Man! Those red lights are coming up in my rearview mirror FAST!" I thought to myself as I strolled down the MacArthur Freeway on my way to work this morning. "There must be a situation that they have to get to in a hurry...I'd better get out of their way."

But they weren't heading to a situation. They were, however, in hot pursuit of somebody. Unfortunately, that somebody was me. It was actually kind of comical how I put my blinker on and got out of the fast lane to let them pass. Imagine what they thought of my audacity. How presumptuous I must've looked.

"Hey, wait, why are they getting behind me? I'll let them pass again...."

"Oh...no...wait. They are pulling me over."

Only sail powered water crafts that dare venture into the seas around the equator ever have the wind taken from said sails as fast as it was taken from mine today. I haven't felt so defeated since those fast breaking dynamos from Judge Memorial High School in Utah ran us out of a South Tahoe gymnasium one summer day back in 1988. "I can't believe they are pulling me over."

Believe it, big boy. You can't run from the long arm of the law. Well, you can run, but you can't hide. I never even saw those cats. I was thinking of all of the lame excuses that usually come to mind.

"I was going with the flow of traffic."

"I only sped up so that I could change lanes..."

"I have a meeting to get to at work..."

"I'm late to pick up my kids..."

"I was trying to get out of the way of the car that rolled up on me so fast in my rear view..."

I tried to look on the bright side. "At least it's broad daylight, specially in this remote, tucked away spot where I'm being forced to pull over. At least I'm dressed like I have a job and am going to it. (My usual get-up of sweats/hat/sneakers might very well have got me profiled)." It's not like any of these things would do anything to help my situation, but at least they gave me some level of comfort. I really did think that I went to sleep and woke up and that yesterday's early morning misfortunes were ancient history. I guess not. Clearly, this saga shall continue for another day. I hope it stops there.

On the wrong foot...

I should've known that today was going to be one of those days when I woke up at 4:05am. Ordinarily, waking up at such an hour wouldn't present much of a problem as it would just mean that I was going to roll over onto my other shoulder and then continue my slumber. Today, however, when my alarm was set for 435am I immediately groaned my distaste. There's nothing worse than waking up just before your alarm clock. I always feel as though I have cheated myself out of that last segment of sleep. Somehow, that 30 minutes seems like a huge amount. I think its just the principle of knowing that you've undershot the boundary of your allotted sleeping time and somehow feel like that amount will set the wheels in motion for a day where you will be tired and not at your best. You feel like you will be at a disadvantage all day because you were deprived of this crucial last 30 minutes of sleep. I would much rather have awakened at 2am or even 1am when I could have nestled back in for a few more solid hours of good sleep than deal with the nerve racking notion that I want to sleep more but can't dare get into the good deep sleep for fear of sleeping through the alarm.

Just as I had feared, 435am came in an instant and I was still tired (somehow much more tired than I had been at 405am) so I played that game of "okay, i'm going to get out of bed in just a second after I sit here and reflect on the day ahead of me for a moment". That started out as a prayer as it often does, asking for strength and safety and wisdom and creativity and continued good health but it ended up with me drifting back into sea of Z's for another 12 minutes. I had to hurry if I were going to be the first person in the pool this morning. I arrived to find the steam coming off the water and the middle lane wide open, which didn't quite move me to do the Tiger Woods fist pump, but I cracked a slight smile. I quickly changed into my suit and headed out for the water. It was about 50 degrees outside so I was very eager to submerse myself in the water before steam started to come off of me. I lowered myself into the water and while adjusting my goggles they snapped off. Now, my body was warm, but my head and neck had not yet been in the water so I was getting cold.

I cinched the strap back on the left eye to an appropriate setting and then re-adjusted them to my face once again. Perfect, or at least it seemed so for the next lap and a half until they popped off again. I felt like Michael Phelps in his Olympic race when he had the eye wear malfunction and he started to take in massive amounts of water, only I was not swimming very fast and millions of people were not watching. Really, those were the only differences. It was at this moment when I decided that I might be on to a theme for today's blog entry. Right there at 520am in middle lane of the outdoor lap pool at Club One on 12th Street in City Center, I had the epiphany that this might be the harbinger for the rest of my day.

I finished my quarter mile without any further incident, got dressed and went upstairs to lift weights. It was here that I would let a 45 pound weight slip from my fingers in slow motion. I watched in disbelief as it hit the floor...and not my foot. So shocked was I, having braced for the impact and held my breath in anticipation, that I neglected to get out of the way before it fell from its side edge down to the floor, or what would've been the floor had my left foot not been there. I didn't even scream or make a face, choosing instead to ball up my right fist and ferociously punch into my left palm while telling myself to shake it off. All of this excitement and its not even 6am yet. My boss is jetting off to London and I'm here having a Happy Monday/Welcome to December party and fielding phone calls from customers in Idaho and getting an earful about the formatting of my expense report. It looks like I ought to get the lemonade machine ready today.