Accidental Vacation
Category: Kitchen Sink...
Posted Monday, October 30, 2006 at 10:29 AM [GMT-6]

Gee, where does the time go? Seems like it was only, well, Thursday that I was posting something, however lame. And now we're in a new week, with a whole new way of measuring time and...um...I forget where I was going with this.

Last week was strange. My wife was home all week, recovering from her [quite successful] eye surgery ("recovery" is somewhat misleading; "avoiding most social interaction due to inability to wear makeup" is more correct). Truth is, while she was able and ready to travel, we couldn't get last-minute plans in place, and we both had periodic and unavoidable work-related responsibilities to attend to, so we decided to just hang around the house for the week.

That wreaked havoc on my orderly-if-boring schedule. We slept late (arising anywhere from 6:30 to 8:00 a.m., which is pushing the limit for our ability to stay in bed), which shoved back everything else from dog walks (Abbye was not amused) to workouts and meals. I also felt that it wasn't very sociable of me to go into the other room and blog while she was in the house, and when she was out doing some shopping, I was trying to stay caught up on my work.

It was a productive week in non-blog related ways, however. For one thing, I achieved my annual goal of 2,000 "workout miles," which is a combination of running and cycling. In a normal year, I usually hit this milestone in October (see how predictable my life is?), but the ratio of running to cycling miles varies. This year, the two grand is 21% running; last year it was 24%. *yawn*

I also made some progress on my Red Shred City Bike project. I installed a new chain, rear dérailleur, and swapped out the smaller Biopace chain rings for bigger round ones. I continue to blaze new trails of incompetency when it comes to dérailleur adjustment, so the bike's shifting is no bueno por nada. I also ran a couple of errands on the bike, and the superior feeling I got from doing such an environmentally laudable and physically healthy thing as that was only slightly offset by my near miss at t-boning a plumbing truck in the Home Depot parking lot. At least I know that the Shred's brakes are in good working order.

Saturday night, we attended the gala President's Ball, put on by the local Ballroom Dance Society. It's one of the few dances during the year where we get an actual sit-down meal at the Petroleum Club and dance to the music of a real orchestra (in this case, the Finch Orchestra from Abilene -- and it was excellent, playing everything from Glenn Miller to a tango that sounded more like Los Lonely Boys than True Lies). The downside of this affair is that every member who wasn't at the Tech-Texas game in Lubbock was at the dance, and the bigger bandstand and wider table spacing to accommodate the servers ate up the dance real estate. This was not a dance for the claustrophobic or the timid; only the strong survive such occasions. And we're to the point where we're going to get our foxtrot grapevines in, regardless of how many octogenarian couples get trampled in the process.

[OK. That's not true. In reality, those little old folks were kicking our rears at every turn. And sometimes, even between turns.]

Then, Sunday morning, we confronted the double challenge of the switch away from DST and a new schedule for our church services (along with the introduction of a new worship service, more about which may be forthcoming). We managed to muddle our way through those changes, and now we're back to a regular schedule around our house. Every thing's under control, stress levels are predictable and manageable and you'll be hearing from me on a more regular basis.

And that sound you hear in the distance is God laughing... ;-)