It’s good to know I’m not the only silly person at the gym. I was getting cheered on by two women who I know and who are definitely on the silly side. It’s hard enough to do leg raises or squats without getting yelled at (or trying to do then while laughing).
I guess my sister took Megan to Burgerville, the spotty local burger chain. The one on 82nd near her house is one of the better ones, but surely wasn’t as good as the Kobe beef hamburger we had at the Rogue Ale House yesterday. Staying out too late on a school night has kind of fried my brain as well. I’m not really sure what happened today. I did check out a little early to take a nap. I probably shouldn’t admit that. It doesn’t sound nearly as good as my buddy Greg’s health problem yesterday, on his birthday. He told them he had an eye problem: he just couldn’t see going in to work. (Yeah, it sounds like an old dad saying and he pretty much fits that description now.) Happy birthday to him anyway.
I don’t have much to say because my friend Megan from the Bay area (yeah, THAT Megan) was in town and we had a few beers. A couple at a place that had Kobe beef hamburgers, and a couple at the pub her brother should own by now. I also got my golf clubs today for my beginner’s class, and Megan wants her brother to show me how to use them.
I finally got around to fixing the shower today and once again it was easy — after I knew what I was doing. Buying the pieces at the plumbing supply was like going to the dollar store, except everything was closer to $30. I needed two diverters and a shower head. The first diverter makes the water come out of the shower rather than the tub spout, and the second diverter switches water between a regular shower head and a handheld shower head. The old shower head had a massager thing inside of it and that was going bad. Anyway, all the parts cost $144, two trips to the neighborhood plumbing supply, and an eight-mile trip to another plumbing supply. I’ll get to see if it all works tomorrow morning.
I didn’t get to read all that much today. That’s been taking a lot of my time this past few days. I finished a book full of sand that my sister gave me (Case Histories
by Kate Atkinson) and a Japanese mystery from my sister about pyrokinesis. I haven’t had to buy too many books lately and there are others that were given to me years ago that I still haven’t started reading.
I saw my next-door neighbor with his kids today and helped him glue a chair back together. He told me that there was a woman walking around the house, in the yard, taking pictures. I’m not sure what that’s about but it’s enough to make a guy nervous.
My golf-crazy co-workers insist that I would be better off golfing than going to the gym. Perhaps they’re right. I get winded carrying heavy things around and perhaps golf is more aerobic than the gym. I am, however, a creature of habit and, besides, I have a standing appointment with Dave the Trainer. I spent much of the time discussing food with a woman at the gym and now I’m craving barbecue. Not a bad way to spend the evening.
I live in Portland across the river from the North American headquarters of Adidas, walking distance to the headquarters of Keen Footwear, not too far the headquarters of Nike. I should know SOMEONE who can get me a discount on shoes or, barring that, I should be able to find a factory outlet store nearby. In fact, Adidas and Nike both have outlet stores across the river, probably less than four miles away. I even started looking at the Sunday ads for the big sporting goods outlets like Gart and Big Five. But I’m so lazy I bought my new shoes for the gym online. I do feel bad about it, but I needed new shoes. I’ll see what happens to my quest for a new belt.
I went to the acupuncturist today and fell asleep on the table again. He put some pins in my neck ’cause I told him it was stiff. I think he made everything hurt more, but it feels better now, several hours later. Go pins!
Today would have been my dad’s 91st birthday. My sister says I’m too sentimental so I’ll quit talking about that.
Well, honestly, I have very little else to talk about. I go to work, I try to get people to talk about this whole Clemens going back to the Yankees thing, but no one wants to talk about baseball. I went to the gym and while there were more people there than I was expecting, the good weather kept most people away. I did talk barbecue with one of the women there.
I’m not sure my writing is up to snuff lately, not that it was all that special to begin with. I can’t even follow what I wrote last week. I suppose it could be worse. The spelling appears to be correct.
I think I scheduled my flight for my San Francisco trip. I’m using the “free” ticket I got for getting bumped off of a flight last year and I was planning to use it for something interesting like maybe a trip back to Boston. But I’m taking this trip to Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference and the ticket’s about to expire. I went through various phone mazes with United and stood in line to get an envelope postmarked today and I don’t want to do that again.
I went through more of my dad’s stuff today and took a bunch of coins to the Coinstar machine. I had to drive around and find one that didn’t take out the 8.9 cent handling fee and got an Amazon gift certificate instead. This frugality is in contrast to the $200 Il and I spent on Friday at Ringside at my birthday dinner (and that’s with a 15% discount!). Once in a while you have to splurge and Kobe beef tenderloin is a good way to do it.
It’s been three weeks since my dad died and it’s no surprise that I miss the guy. I still haven’t made a dent into going through his stuff. Today we got all his clothes out of his closet and it’s still half-full of “stuff.” The guy liked to collect lots of different things and one of the things was empty boxes. Candy tins, cookie boxes, etc. That’s the easiest of all his stuff, though, because it goes into two recycling piles: metal and paper. I don’t even have to think about it, just sort it.
I spent the weekend noodling around. I think I watched three movies on DVD: Black Sunday, Cronos, and most of The Replacements. Today I also watched Vin Diesel shoot up some stuff, Arnie shoot up some stuff, and read more of the sandy book my sister gave me. I just seem to have found ways to do nothing. I don’t know if it’s any different than any other weekend, it just seems to be to me.
I was looking at two attractive women at the gym and I thought, “Man I wish I was as buff as her,” and, “Man, I wish I had her abs,” when the sane thing would have just been to say, “Woo, she’s hot.” But really the buff one just won in the fitness category at the Emerald Cup up in Washington, so I guess I wasn’t that far off. Dana the trainer told me I need to watch my diet if I want my muscles to be that well defined. I don’t think I’m willing to give up the cheeseburgers and fried chicken. Dave did the monthly measurement of my fat ass and at least I’m not that far off of previous months.
Really, the only other things that happened today was my wanting to walk out of work and never go back (a common occurrence) and having the attractive acupuncture student at the gym actually talk to me and tell me that Us Magazine was filling my head full of eye candy. Well, yeah, I think that was the point. Everyone was catching me check her out and I had to look at something else.
I’m beginning to wonder if my back pain is from my pants and belt that I’m finally admitting are too small for my waist. Megan was giving me grief months ago and she was right. My belt is too tight. I was loath to admit it, and besides, all of the 36″ belts looked like doodie. So for now I’m going to wear my 34″ belt at the end hole.
Recently I’ve been in places with no clocks and without my cell phone so I decided I should start wearing a watch. I stopped wearing a watch after I started carrying my cell phone all the time since the cell phone has a clock in it that is synchronized to Cingular standard time. As I went through my dad’s stuff, I found a watch that was given to him a few years ago. He never wore it and I was going to ask him for it back then. Now it’s mine.
The battery was already dead and my mom took it in to the mall jeweler who scratched it trying to get the back off. Sheesh. I went to Harbor Freight and bought a watch case opener because I’ve needed one to replace the batteries in all the cheap watches I seem to have collected. Two watches had dead batteries and I was able to get the backs off without scratching the watches.I wonder if I can get a job replacing watch batteries?
My back started to hurt on Sunday and today, Tuesday, it got really bad. I wasn’t able to walk without a limp so I called the acupuncturist. The acupuncturist moved my leg around and nothing hurt until he did one thing that told him that it was a tight piriformis muscle, whatever that is. Whatever it is it hurts like hell. He did the whole acupuncture thing and I’m not sure if it’s any better but it made my opposite shoulder hurt where stuck a needle.
So instead of exercising I ate dinner and tried to read a book. I stress the “tried” because I fell asleep instead.
Other than that, there isn’t much new. More and more people at work are asking why I haven’t found a new job yet, but that never is easy for me. I just have to keep looking and keeping my fingers crossed.
