A Day in the Life: Wednesday.

-Rowing a 1x on nice water early in the day is a most excellent way to start Wednesday. And today was not a row hard day (aka, seat racing day, as I'm sure the next, oh, 5 practices will be). Yes, indeedy: It was a technique day! I love long, steady state rows where you just do drills for miles. (Except the feet-out drill, which we've already established as being, well, tricky for me this year.)

-Pico de gallo and chips from El Burrito Mercado: I could live on this stuff for the rest of the summer. (Also, their delicious mango salsa is rather tasty. I could pretty much eat the entire carton at one time by myself.)

-Have almost all of my stuff packed up in boxes. And I'm not sure if I like this or not, but realizing the clothes boxes outnumber the everything-else boxes. Is that pathetically sad, or what? For example: the boxes of shoes equal the boxes of pots/pans/cookie sheets and the few random cooking gadgets I own, in both size (kinda on the large side) and number (2). I think it is a testament to the various aspects of my life that I require completely different and non-interchangeable clothing (really: row in a suit? go to work in spandex? I think not), and also that I don't collect a lot of other useless crap. Or it could mean that whatever useless crap I do have is still floating around my parents' house. I'll confess, there is some of that going on.

-I will not miss crazy drivers in uptown. I am tired of being able to read other drivers' lips when they call me nasty names because I, well, care about not careening my car into parked objects or small children in the middle of the street, or because I would like to parallel park and their most apparent goal in life is to tail me so closely that I cannot. Seriously? What is your problem uptown people? I'm done with you. Begone.

I also like to ease into Tuesdays.

But that didn't happen this morning, either. More seat racing. In the pouring rain. Oooh, fun times! Dare I say this aloud? I actually don't mind the seat racing all that much - the point is to go out every single practice and make the most of your time on the water, right? So how is seat racing different? Well, I suppose I can say that since I've not been switched out of my seat yet - I'm just in a boat that's involved with seat racing. Pretty sure Peter's still watching every stroke we all take.

If you view seat racing kinda sorta like another set of pieces, and row your best, it should pretty much be the same as every other day. Row hard. Work on technique while you're rowing hard. Eyes in the boat. Concentrate.

Every. Single. Time. You're. On. The. Water.

When I'm out there (unless I'm supposed to be paddling - whatever coach says, should go), I row hard. And every single time - including the paddling - I try to concentrate and make the most of every single piece. And I want to win. Call it the competitiveness in me.

But even having said all that, seat racing two days in a row is tough, especially mentally. I mean, it's really early in the morning, I'm not really awake, and I do so like to ease into my day...

I like to ease into Mondays.

Seat racing first thing on a Monday morning is not my idea of "easing into" the week. Whatever happened to "technique Mondays"? I swear it's been two years since we had technique days on a regular basis. But, I guess, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger...or something like that.

In other news: packing up my belongings is not my idea of a good time. And I don't even have that much stuff! Also. How did everything get so dusty? I swear I clean. But apparently open windows in the summertime = dust EVERYWHERE. Everything's dusty, but I just give up. I'll be gone from this place in another week, so then I won't have to care about dust in this old place. I'll just leave the worrying-about-dust thing for the new place. Also. I am happy to report that my new roommate has a neat-freakish thing going on, so I should get along swimmingly with the new K in that department.

July Generalities

Things I like:
-Finding a suitable place to live

Things I dislike:
-MOVING

Like:
-Living closer to work and boat club

Dislike:
-I'm losing my old roommate...but since she's throwing me over for a husband, I suppose I can live with that (plus, he's a good, long-time friend, so we're all good); and now I'll have a new roommate, whose name also conveniently starts with the letter K, so I won't even have to adjust my blogging much

Like:
-Parking in a garage (yes! no more scraping my car in the winter, or questionable sappy residue in the summer)

Dislike:
-Mysterious deciduous tree sap on my car from parking it on the street (no matter which type of tree I park under or where on the street I park it), requiring many, many more car washings than I am accustomed to

Like:
-Season tix to the Guthrie, with a great lineup scheduled (seriously?! Dowling is acting this season, not just artistically directing?! MacBeth? Streetcar? M. Butterfly? She Stoops to Conquer? should be good)

Dislike:
-Realizing summer is half over and it's already time to start thinking about season tix for the fall and getting emails about orchestra starting back up

2009 Duluth Regatta

Lane 1 finishes first, naturally

Rowing on Lake Superior, eating cinnabears and wearing strange hats

Tired, happy

Post-regatta party

More medals for the collection in the closet
Duluth International Regatta, 7.11.2009

The Niece Turned 1

The Niece's 1st Birthday Party

I have too many balls in the air right now. And they are going to crash down on me, soon.

If you're one of the many people who have called me to leave me a vm in the last week, and I have not yet responded to you, my apologies. (Although whoever you were leaving me a vm at 11pm last night, waking me up, wondering where I was and why I was not out partying with you and all of our (apparently) mutual friends? Yeah, you. I'm going to ignore you.) Ditto for email. I'll get back to normal soon, and then hope to catch up.

Shopping for a place to live marches on, although the search has been narrowed down, and I doubt new roomie K & I will be slogging through 100-degree apartments too much longer, viewing potential locales and comparing amenities.

While talking to a fellow teammate this morning at practice, I realized that one of the reasons I like rowing is because it's a sport that you use a lot of energy doing and you get a great workout, but you get to sit down while you do it. See? It appeals to the lazy person inside me. (Thanks, Abby, for that insight into my strange mind.)

Assorted Thoughts

Things that I like:
-Lunch on the patio at W.A. Frost (this was last week, when it wasn't quite so hot)
-60-minute facials (so relaxing!)
-Air conditioning (but not so cold that I need to wear a jacket...like I'm doing right now at work)
-Changeling
-My niece - who will be 1 tomorrow!

Things I'm not so into:
-Moving (including the stage where I'm at now: finding the new place that's just right)
-Humidity (pretty much all of it is awful)
-Ripping off a callous during rowing practice (and thereafter bleeding all over the oar, the boat and the river - it's hard to get a good grip when it's so humid out...)

Critter Wars, or Things to Entertain You in Your Retirement

The mental image given to me by my father this afternoon will have me entertained for days, I believe. He said that a woodchuck has returned to their neighborhood, and my dad caught sight of the critter dragging around a Cub Foods plastic grocery bag in the back yard. The mental image I have is of a woodchuck dragging a half-full bag of perishables across my parents' lawn, no doubt pinched from some poor neighbor who turned his back on the groceries as he was moving them from car to house.

I believe my father is planning a war against the woodchuck. What a life retirement can be.

My next mental picture is this:

And that is why I'll be amused for a while yet to come.

It's June, you say?

Coulda fooled me. It's cold out. Like 50-degrees-during-the-day cold. I could do with about 20 more degrees each afternoon...but the rain was good this weekend. Not for wandering around or rowing in, but good for the greening effect.

Places to take cousins in town for the weekend: Tum Rup Thai and Muffuletta. I must be in a rut - I just keep going back to the same restaurants. But they're so good! Although now that I've run into this man at Muffuletta (happened last night), maybe my quiet little neighborhood dining spot isn't so quiet if random quasi-famous people are showing up there...I thought he'd left and gone to live in NY permanently now, but apparently not. Bother. A person good at storytelling does not necessarily a nice person make...

Is it just me, or are the vast majority of movies made these days 1) psycho-slasher-insane-horror flicks, 2) abhorently depressing films, or 3) so brainless as to be trite images pasted together without any decent storyline? I tried renting a movie with my cousin on Friday, and she and I agreed: most everything available and relatively new sounded awful.

A random collection of today's likes and dislikes.

Like:
T-Paw (and will miss him as gov)
Dislike:
A few random policies of his

Like:
Eating Lunch at 9a, right after breakfast
Dislike:
Wondering what I'm going to eat when it's actually lunchtime

Like:
Savoy Pizza and Chipotle
Dislike:
Red apples that are pretty and shiny but taste disgusting

Like:
Sleeping in
Dislike:
Erg Tests (especially when they're to be taken before the sun rises)

Like:
Seeing cousins from out of town
Dislike:
Cramming too many things into one weekend

It's June? What happened to the last two weeks?

Oh, right. I was sleeping.

Things I like:
Sleep
Things I dislike:
Birds chirping at 4:30 in the morning, waking me up

Like:
Rowing
Dislike:
WIND!

Like:
Rowing my single
Dislike:
Ejecting myself from it while doing drills

Like:
Hot showers
Dislike:
Mississippi River water

Like:
Homemade rhubarb crisp, strawberry rhubarb pie
Dislike:
The nauseated feeling I get when I eat three servings of dessert at once

Like:
Watching Soderling beat Nadal in the French Open
Dislike:
Realizing I just spent three hours of a Sunday afternoon watching TV

Like:
Working four-day work weeks
Dislike:
There's nothing to dislike about three-day weekends