Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohabitation: Balletic spasms and pullulating pollens portended vernal explosion! Garbage can escapes thwarted in time for trash day, the (W)right home remained tremulous with eschatology as the four horsemen of roller-screw arrived at Eeeeeiiiiieeeeeiiiiioooooo. Only an abstemious encounter with rhubarb guarana hand-rolled GMO free cocoa curry stout could ease our (W)right treadmill-trekkers, as they arrived at the 2014 Kulshan DINK convergence. Ceramic-glass menagerie reunions hit the office hard with hangover and humidity, but the rain rapidly washed the pain away, only to find a substitute in post-pilates pangs. And the DINK show goes global: a year into their starring stent, the (W)rights readied to hit the road (in six or so months) for far flung lands and lush and languorous layovers.
Coming up: Work it! Work it! The cry of the proletariat drowned out under lumpen kerplunks of demi-debacles and screeching screws. Will our hero complete his opus in overtime or die trying? The steely bonds of marriage constrict against evolving digits. Will knuckles be wrapped? What dexterity may be lost with surgical amputation? The callipygian erosity of Ms. (W)right's stately haunches bear down upon aching arches under the strict scrutiny of physiotherapy, and she is sent a flittering to the tenebrous woods of weighty pulleys. Will the twinkle in her toes fend of the giants and their ghastly grunts?
Charge up the diadems and bring your powertools to plunge deeper into the heart of mysteries...
Whirrrrrrrrrking Away Roller Screw Derby and Temporary Tomoholic DTs!
Yesterday the unthinkable happened: I left my book at work! Oh the pain! Oh the agony! Oh the ten minute drive it would have taken to retrieve it. There were, of course, some serious withdrawal spasms. I have apparently regressed from my methadone internet-addiction back to books in a big way. I'm taking it one evening at a time. Somehow, somehow, I managed to hang in there like a baby kitty on an 80's motivational poster. This was despite Andrew's work schedule finally heating up as promised to the point that his hours actually became relevant to my schedule. Those precious hours I could have spent semi-comatose on the couch while my boyfrianceband toiled away with giant metal machines! Andrew got home around 7:30, which isn't horrible considering the doomsday proclamations attendant to this week. But I think there were some internally waged battles about leaving that "early" when there was still more work to do.
After some intense ructions with our spotty internet and my even spottier HP Pavilion (there are things I love about this laptop for dj-ing and multimedia usage, but I doubt I'd recommend HP computers to anyone after the perpetual picayune irritations of this baby's sporadic inutility), I turned my jivin' jonesin' for story to the LED screen. House of Cards season 2 started off strongly anyways. Then again, anything in which Kevin Spacey speaks to me - the viewer - directly, no matter how menacingly, is going to draw me in like a moth to open flame.
In our little legal corner, "we" settled a case that was slated for trial in May. As this was scheduled to begin a day and a half after my Mother-in-law's blow-out 60th birthday gala in Inverness (and our time-crunched almost-as-much-time-travelling-as-celebrating schedule), I am beyond relieved to hear this. Most of the trial prep happens in the days leading up to the trial, so I would likely have done most of my part before heading out on Friday, but I would have been even less coherent and suitable for human interaction than normal! I tend to do better in big party situations if I've actually rested up a fair bit in the days preceding. And when I get to bring my ear plugs. And have frequent vanishing breaks for solitary recharging. And... maybe a taser. The taser is more of a last resort!
Anyways, I'm feeling 100% less strung out just to have my book in sight (although it didn't get any juice at all last night, so it's probably severely dehydrated, and the charger is at home). I made the bike-and-chain promise not to drop any heavy metal things on anything I cared about. He's allowed to get some light scars that enhance his features, but in a very delineated fashion. Nothing painful either. Hopefully he'll make it home at some point this evening unscathed. I've got to survive my PT appointment (due for some more humiliating and impossible balance exercises!), and then the night is mine.
It's All in the Hips They don't necessarily lie, but perhaps prevaricate...
Going to a PT is a bit like taking the ol' heap to an auto mechanic: oily and loud. No, wait. No, I was going elsewhere with that. Expensive and mysteriously covered by insurance sometimes? Perhaps, but really, what I meant to say is that you often come in for one issue and this leads to the discovery of an entire string of causalities bringing you to an entirely different issue than you ever imagined! Or can.
So far, the arch/ankle area certainly had its own share of weaknesses and whatnot (much of that possibly due to being babied after the injury), but I'd often suspected there was some connection between my latest arch strain and various other quirks. My right hamstring seems to get tight pretty quickly, for instance. My massage assassin has commented on unevenness in my hips at times. So, I was not hugely surprised when my PT decided - after making me do various circus seal tricks and flails - to test those hips a bit. "Testing" largely involves making me do other weird physical motions while pushing or pulling simultaneously against me.
I have noticeably stronger abduction on my left side (i.e. "my butt is uneven!") This is all magically connected to a tendency to rotate my right knee inwards, which in turn may be straining my arch! Anyone who does partner dancer probably is unsurprised at the revelation of an unevenness between right and left sides. We dance in a clamshell, often favoring sides exclusively. My right and left arms, shoulders, lats, have all been a touch askew as well., although I've managed to stretch and strengthen that out with proper advanced warning. My right quads are a lot stronger than my left from being parked in mid-lunge (corte) position while my lead elaborates a bit in an attempt to test my breaking point. When I'm dancing tango a whole lot, I may even be prone to breaking out more on the side of my forehead that makes contact with my partner's.
Of course this inward rotation of the knees (rotation from the hips! I even instruct) is par for the course in standard dance technique, so I'm again not totally surprised. When The Sheep Man told me I had to dance, dance, dance, he might have neglected to remind me that cross-training would also be helpful. But I probably also neglected to remember this obvious truth, myself, when I shrugged off whatever pilates/stretching/weight training I kinda knew I probably should be doing the whole time I was building my dance technique into intractable habit.
Of course this revelation comes with a whole new slew of impossible exercises. These involve the weighted pulleys at the gym, and guarantee optimal public humiliation. A blend of strength, balance, and stabilization that will inevitably lead to flailing failure right in the parturiently constipated testosterone junkie section of the YMCA (where it is fun to visit, but I'm not sure I'd want to stay too long). Since today is gym day anyways, it's my first run (har har) at this. Thinking I'll try it before the running to give extra time for the paramedics to make it on the scene.
The other additional exercise was a gimme, though: since I want to start dancing again, she told me just to start walking around the house on my tippee toes.
How timely!
Happy Tippee Toe Thursday!!
Fairy Princess in the Brobdignagian's Birthing ChamberA quick chorus line rehearsal in the not-so-free weight section, and other musical outbursts.
As I had determined to do, I set off to the gym with physio-dreams and cavorting ambitions. Unfortunately, my wand was at home and the tiara was charging (low battery capacity, these spritely diadems), but I still managed with the twinkle-toe socks and the looby-lurgy grinmace of a girl erumpent with artificial estrogens in her system (magical, sparkly pink estrogens, of course). Turns out that balancing on one leg, using the other one to move a weighted pulley and trying to keep the knee on the first leg in proper alignment all the while ignoring Nacissus' plangent palaver from an adjoining mirror: hard. And we needn't go on too much about all the people who needed to use the exact same space (albeit different adjunct apparati) associated with the universal trainer. Regardless, concussions were forestalled (not sure anyone would tell the difference in cognitive functioning this late in the game).
And I'm back up to running four minute intervals at a time. This was about where I got overly ambitious last time and started accidentally programming the treadmill to run faster, with shorter and fewer intervals until a concerted cavil of my sore lower body required a break and reset. So I'm taking great pains (har har, but better the mental pains of restraint than the physical pains of overreach) to gradually graduate back upwards from this point on. Of course, I give lip-service to such level-headedness frequently before abandoning it as soon as the first try at restrained hair goes by the wayside (some day I will have enough heavy equipment to keep my hair out of my face when I'm running... it will probably involve saran wrap and duct tape).
In uxorial news, my bike-and-chain continues to survive his very busy week of minor debacles inherent in the "final build" portion of a project long overdue. Having given up on his training schedule for the week (working on the shop floor all day hefting gargantuan objects for ten hours at a time apparently tires one out), he's actually home most nights around the same time he would be getting back from a ride. But it does make me very grateful that neither of us follows this kind of schedule or work-life-imbalance perpetually. It's just nicer when he gets in his recreational time, breaks, and less stressful uncertainty about the next day's disaster. For him and for us. But sacrifices must be made from time to time. Especially when gigantic satellite fixtures are involved! And so far, nothing huge has fallen on him, so I'm happy.
Cobalt Finger Traps of Connubial Rapture and other hazards of DINK derring-do-be-do-be-doo
There are several obvious upsides to being employed and having a husband who is also employed. I shan't torment exanimate equines by enumerating these virtues; nor shall I attempt to overly burden you with flipsides to the positives. I will raise only one downside of having a career: sometimes things get very busy very quickly, requiring the ever-ambivalent overtime and related crunch-time stressors. And, having tapped out our available trials here in Ms. (W)rightlandia, it has been Andrew's turn for the proverbial waste matter to hit the flapping flabellum.
The insanity began this week and has continued into the weekend. Andrew was out quite late last night and left again this morning to put together a rather monstrous little beauty that looks like public art to me, but apparently also serves some kind of complicated engineering function. Or should, anyways. It isn't entirely assembled, and has yet to be thoroughly tested. Knock on wood and/or stainless steel.
Since the thing is roughly the size of small house, even simple tasks require herculean might, ulyssean cunning, and the favor of at least four out of five greek gods. Naturally there have been "little" glitches that take hours to fix, as a result. I'm somewhat glad that Andrew didn't foresee yesterday's glitch before going into work, as he may not have indulged in a full weekend-morning with me before heading out the door; and missing a Saturday morning would have been thoroughly disappointing (it is all about me!)
Since no hint of the late night ahead had been lain, Andrew did stay at home until about ten yesterday, plenty of time for a Saturnine stirring, a desultory coffee, and a maunder through one of the various catalogs of hideous clothing that I steal from my mother's mailbox. It was also sufficient time for us to touch on the subject of ring-sizes.
Andrew has moved ahead in the race towards our mutual "ideal goal weight." Mostly because I got lazy and decided I felt fine where I was, and could let myself drift upwards instead of slamming the requisite thousands of calories to surge upwards. But also because Andrew has been losing weight at a pretty steady clip these last six months. This is an effect of both his increasing training schedule and my having taken command of his meals (by which I mean that I seize all of his food and devour it myself in front of him as he goes hungry, and/or I use him as my human guinea pig for latent culinary impulses I had never anticipated). At any rate, while I have stayed roughly in weight-stasis, the concomitant artificially induced hormonal vicissitudes of late have their own side effects. Apparently one of these is occasionally finding my fingers tumid enough to chafe and bulge over once-large rings.
That particular morning, I had remarked to Andrew that - as a result of this latest tumescence - I had removed my engagement ring to my pinkie finger and was relieved to have gotten our cobalt wedding bands a half-size up in anticipation of gaining weight. He - feeling quite cocky at 1 pound away from his ultimate goal weight - demonstrated that his ring had become quite loose recently. So loose, he thought, that it would likely fit even on his middle finger (wedding ring on the middle finger bears symbolism I daren't plow too closely).
We both, of course, knew exactly what would happen when he scrunched the ring past his middle knuck. We even chuckled it and the familiar rom-com/sit-com trope evolving in front of us. Despite this knowledge, the runes had been cast and there was no turning back. We understood this. The ring sat comfortably about Andrew's middle digit for a triumphant showcase of slenderness. It remained there, proudly athrone the beleaguered middle finger, despite any efforts to deport it to its finger of origin. Several tugs later, the knuckle began to swell in protest, exacerbating the misfit. Andrew attempted to soap the ring off. I mentioned something I'd read about string on Lifehacker, but neither of us had any of that. Andrew continued tugging with ice reserves, while I contemplated that the indestructibility of cobalt could perhaps pose a problem, should the finger continue swelling and pondered surgical extraction and/or a starvation diet a la Winnie the Pooh as our only options. A good ten minutes later, the knuckle was quite cherry and mounting an increasingly effective resistance. Given the obscene entendres inherent in Andrew's ring-removing gestures and his various (always entendre filled) allusions to machine parts sticking, I suggested in earnest that we apply a bit of lube. Which eventually did work. The errant cobalt band roosted comfortably on Andrew's proper finger, and his middle knuckle let out a plangent sigh and throb.
The "minor issues" at work turned out to also have something to do with incompatibilities between holes and the objects intended to fill those holes. In that case, they took a slightly more aggressive approach involving power tools. I'm relieved that it did not come to this at home.
No knuckles were harmed in the making of this morning's abbreviated weekend rising. Andrew left around 8 with hardly sufficient time to fall into such temptation. I have no sure idea when/if my husband will return home, although it could be a simple morning if nothing goes wrong (which is kind of like saying "if a magical unicorn flies down from the sky, touches its pure sparkling horn of fire to the tip of BTAP and croons Perry Como).
The whole overtime week and weekend has again reminded me how lucky I am to have a stable job that allows me plenty of breathing room, and to have a husband who manages mostly to enjoy the same. Both Andrew and I are having flashbacks to our more erratic employments of factories and stage sets past. I recall working a few very murderous weeks at Hot Mama's (where things went wrong always at the busiest seasons) of ten to twelve hours for fourteen consecutive days. There was an apocalyptic camaraderie about the situation I do fondly recall, but I cannot say I ever regret losing the possibility of a repeat. It also reminds me that several relationships routinely involve one partner with a perpetually workaholic schedule, and I am doubly pleased that this is an abnormality in our marital life.
In other words I hope the mechanical bacchanal will die down before it takes Andrew with it, because I'm kind of digging having him around. Wish us luck!
Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohabitation: Twinkletoes Longshanks spreads her wings and flies (well, hovers a spell before crashing to the ground, but what a rush)! Tricks are treated and treats are tricked, with swarms of adorable imps and goblins hugging bears and giggling at in-jokes swapped with the dead. Sammy G-3 gets a snazzy new jacket and prepares for a watery grave. And Milla Jovovich drops by the office to clean out some zombie cases lurking in the kitchen. Man can that girl kick!
Coming up: What the Tango (festival in Whidbey Island)! Our hero and heroine part ways in the midst of a raging tempest. While Andrew runs forward into the breach of mud with bike in hand (or on shoulder), Adella runs kia-first into the looming gales and torrents guarding Coupeville's secret tango temptations. Will Andrew survive his first cross race intact? Will he bring home enough soil to start that shower-garden? Will Adella defeat the jitters and quivers of her tiny car and tense heart to find tango bliss? Thrown into the wormhole of the past, will she find her answers to questions long beyond her? Will she break any of her students once and for all? On the run, again, the couple separates once more. Will they ever meet again at the pathfinder or will Adella be caught in an endless loop of five minute turn-arounds. And trial beckons! Does this mean the end of the world is nigh?? Will anyone survive??
What the Tango?? -
I'm off (in oh so many ways) into the wet and wilds of Whidbey Island. I haven't been to Whidbey since my Grandmother's funeral, and what a day to go. All signs are pointing to a torrid tempest or two on the drive over. But tango calls. More specifically, I was drafted to teach and dj at the newly minted Whidbey Island Tango Fest, which is quite beautifully referred to as the WiTF. The official organizers are Whidbey folk with whom I've only had peripheral contact so I don't know their fluency in the argot of lolcats and textspeak, but I like to believe they are as entertained by this as I am. I'm guessing it is not entirely tin-earred, but I hate to speculate. That's a lie. I love to speculate. I hate getting caught in egregious speculation down the road. I'm also uncertain if my co-teacher (the one who drafted me and the man generally behind the Tango Popolare - TP ha ha - curtain) finds this funny either. Life is full of mysteries. At least I am amused. Because that's such a challenge, amusing me. I never drift off into my own little world and start smirking at the swerving of atoms.
I am doing - as always - a technique workshop. Ladies love my pretty feets and think it's skill instead of socks. I won't disenchant them of that notion since I do bring a background and insight from other disciplines which appears to be helpful to tango dancers. Because I'm me, I have dubbed my class Heels, Shoulders, Knees and Toes: Technique-al Support for Tangueras . This never made it onto the website, which makes me a sad panda. But that's what it is in my head still. Being insane, I've actually printed out a written outline for students to take with them.
I'm also dj-ing a practica later in the afternoon. For some reason - despite the fact that I may have cultivated an early reputation and fixation with non-traditional tango music - I am manning the traditional practica while others handle the "nuevo" and "alternative" ones. I'm happy with that, as I also love traditional tango music. But if I can't play several bizarre tango covers of pop songs, I will at least have my day in the cortinas (little pieces of music between sets), which definitely includes a swing version of Smells Like Teen Spirit, a charleston version of Crazy in Love, and a spicy salsa version of Fever.
And yes, this is the first outing for THE BAG! Laptop is all packed up and ready to go with a few snacks to boot. I stopped the effort at the socks today, wearing workout capris and a small t-shirt (hey this technique shnizzle is serious ). I am so not the part today. But will I remember to bring my shoes? Now that's a question only time can answer.
Oh yeah, it's Saturday. I weighed in - apparently I'm in the mid-weight change slump where I'm keeping on keeping on but feeling less ebullient or nervous about the process. But I will continue my trusty reporting for at least another week. This morning. I'm at 134.somethingorother. More than 134 but less than 135. So that's good I think. I'm planning a shopping excursion once I break 135. So far, again, no need for new clothes yet, but why not celebrate? Besides since I default to dressing like a very sporty bag lady when I'm not going to costume events, it's probably time again to reinvigorate my wardrobe choices.
And, I don't have enough toe socks to pull this off for a month, but to celebrate the passing of a month, HAPPY #Toevember !!!
What the Tango-Pic?
When people ask how long I've been dancing I get kind of confused. I do this for several reasons. First off, any one who's seen me wandering around a local grocery store (or heaven forbid, sat next to me during a musical performance) knows I've been "dancing" in one way or another probably before I ever took a step or a breath of open air. And of course, I studied some form of dance since I was about four. And naturally I always loved me a good dance party from teen years to college and back again. In highschool, people jokingly referred to my compulsion to spend high school dances actually dancing (usually the only one while every one else milled awkwardly in other rooms waiting for the chaperones to leave so the awkward flirting could commence) by calling me the dancing queen. I was never one to pass up '80's night. And the noise musicians HNTIW (I think that's how you spell it) knew me as the Dance Master and got excited whenever I came to one of their events, baby. But, somehow, I don't think that totally counts. Except it can. Except that's probably not what's being asked.
Of course there is always the urge to temper any impressive sounding durational measure with plenty of peppered "sporadically" "on and off" "not as much as I'd like these days" so that I do not raise the bar of expectations far beyond my abilities.
Duration of dance experience is not patently indicative of ability. I'd say that the majority of dancers peak out after about two to three years. The true-believers who are willing to go the extra step can become significantly better with hard work, but the marginal returns are lower after that point; most people merely sediment their own habits and acclimate to their familiar partners. There may even be a fairly common drop off of ability at around the two and a half to three year mark, as habits set in and novelty is replaced by rote.
The other reason I hem and haw is that - as indicated in the stuttered quotes above - I don't necessarily dance with that much frequency all the time. In fact, over the course of my dance timeline, I've got months at a time hardly dancing at all.
I've expressed my surprise before at how little difference time can make either way - I have lost far less of my flourish during those times off than I'd have expected. Once there's a certain base of technique, if you are still building strength and flexibility somewhere, then you can get away with long vacations free of significant desuetude or attrition. Not perfectly by any means, but it reminds me of pacing in running. Most people have a huge problem learning pace when they first start running, but once they've got it they've got it for life.
Not to say my dancing is nearly as good as it has been at my most serious (there was a time when I danced several hours a day and much of that was drilling and other unpleasant deliberately practiced sorts of dancing), and certainly not as good as it could be. I'm patently aware of all my shortcomings in a way only somebody who has once been serious enough to learn oneself can really be. It's not always comforting to foster that awareness in lapse of the associated dedication to make use of such awareness. But, I digress.
The other reason I have a hard time answering the "how long" query is because, well, wow, I have a hard time answering that. It's been a long time now. Years blend together over time. When you first start, there's an infatuated rush that lasts into about the three year mark. You struggle the first year, but things start to click. Things start to click rapidly in the second. Somewhere in between two and four is the peak time of obsession. I know because I see these little cycles of core community members ebb and flow according to reliable timelines. At two years, I started travelling to Seattle frequently. At two and a bit more, I pulled my first Buenos Aires trip. At three, I pulled another one. I taught, I performed, I did the full festival passes and squeezed every conceivable drop of dance time from any milonga, all travels came with tango shoes in-bag, and I had an absolutely epic tango wardrobe.
Four through seven was law school. I still practiced drills intermittently. I had two practice partners that filled out my calendar to about once a week. I tried to get out for a class or workshop every quarter. I'd show up to a practica or milonga if it were near my house, I wasn't too slammed, and the boyfriend was doing something else. And I still taught a bit in Seattle and a bit in Bellingham.
Eight through ten is about where I am now, I think. I teach at times. I go to milongas sometimes and rarely stay the full time. I still have my brief encounters of sheer obsessive finger-on-the-pulse-of-life-bliss here and with my tango fanatic friend in San Francisco (who is insanely devoted enough after ten years to be improving with duration), and I supplement of course with all my other dances, as always.
So yes, I think it's ten now? Or maybe eleven. Perhaps going on eleven since I started tango in earnest.
Anyways, what I was going to say is that this photo was taken by a woman I knew from my first tango class however many years ago that was. It's not the most shining example of technical style on my part, but I like to think the socks make up for it a bit!
November Showers Bring December... Showers?
I mixed my weekend days up with a blender and some ice, but it appears that my head is still prepared to understand that this is Monday. That it is also the first Monday of November, and thus a day for board meetings and other unspeakable commitments, is something that may take a few more days to hit home... but Monday, at least I've got sorted out ok.
Saturday
was quite the excursion through wind, rain and various island trappings. The tango festival that I was helping out with was in Coupe(d-up-on-a-small-touristy-island)ville, a nice little town on some corner of Whidbey Island. I feel that festival may have been a bit of an exaggeration, having experienced my small corner of it. It was more like a series of workshops featuring Tony and Ilana from Seattle, with a few extra trappings to fluff the weekend up a bit.
The workshops and practicas that I manned were mostly sort of a "see we've got variety for every taste!" figurehead statement than anything hugely official. I don't mind. I had a small smattering of brave follows for my technique-al support workshop. And I ran them appropriately to the ground. Or just short of neurophysio-explosion with a series of drills and practice points that have been handily summarized on a three page outline I also brought to the class. Despite many unsmiling facial contortions during the workshop, each of the follows subsequently approached me and thanked me deeply for the lesson, noting some revelation that had been had during that grueling hour. One even wants to set up an encore in Bellingham. We are masochists, we are dancers! While I hurt them, I also hurt myself: boy am I sore.
The practica that I was supposed to be (whooooooa)manning was merged into the practica that David was supposed to be (ooooooh)manning in some kind of sparsely attended traditional-alternative souffle The one the Tony was dj-ing happened to be where the free wine "tasting" was simultaneously on tap (or on oak barrel or whatever the oenophile's equivalent is) so by all reports, most people were there and not dancing. Ours was a nice intimate affair atop a nice intimate Italian bakery, though. I have half an unused playlist to whip out the next time insta-dj is called upon. I cut some mad cortinas, gosh darnit, and I am not afraid to use them!
Andrew was tentatively going to go as far as driving down with me, possibly to mountain bike in the area (my creative suggestion), but such plans were stymied by the Tempest in a Whidbey Commemorative Teapot we had for ourselves on Saturday. I was a bit nervous when I realized I'd be going all by myself (my car probably weighs about as much as a medium sized Great Dane and doesn't handle wind well), but somewhere along the drive I remembered - as I usually do - that I have several years of crazy adventuring under my (thoroughly knotched out) belt.
As a cautious person, I've often found myself taking advantage of a social/emotional crutch to avoid several manifestations of risk. Sure, driving in a safer car makes sense, but I also have used social surrogates or dance partners as a way of shielding myself from too much novelty or uncertainty. Perhaps I bring my handsome husband along and then spend the entire evening dancing with him instead of asking new people to dance. Perhaps, I notice he looks "a bit tired" and allow myself the excuse that he'd like to go home soon. Perhaps.
This isn't a bad thing, but it's worth investigating my more daring tendencies as well. I'm the girl who would randomly drive down to an alien event in Seattle at a second's whim and dance myself into a reverie of sheer bliss without batting an eye. I'd get nervous before heading into the dancehall. I'd remember the inconvenience of parking and driving and getting home late, and the horror of potential rejection or an unfamiliar unsafe partner pushing me straight onto my tango-tush, but I didn't let it stop me. Hell, I'm the girl who'd plan trips to Argentina by herself on the same "well, what hell" heel and a prayer. I have that in me and I usually end up enjoying letting that side of me out. I know it's natural to hedge my odds (because I don't always end up finding those perfect new experiences), but going off on my own is something I'm more than talented at, and it was good to remember this.
Released from driving and dancing obligations, Andrew went off and thoroughly muddied himself at his premier (and finale, perhaps) cyclocross event of the season. He brought several pounds of dirt and mud back with him as a trophy. Thank goodness, we have a cleaning service! Not that I haven't always wanted to plant kale and cabbage in our shower stall... Sounds like he had fun, but reaffirmed that 'cross is not his discipline. And we were both appropriate sore and tired by day's end.
Sunday:
For those of you who observe Daylight Savings Time, you may be aware that it ended (for now) sometime between Saturday night and this morning. With some very calculated planning ahead, I managed not to let this throw me into waking up at 4 a.m. on an ever expanding trajectory towards earlier and earlier birding (I really have enough worms, thank you very much) and spent the remainder of my still-early Sunday morning time battling various clocks around the house. By far, the oven was the least amenable and - after several skirmishes, we compromised. It spent most of Sunday running 10 minutes slow . This morning I managed to brave the buttons and unspoken voodoo rituals required in setting the clock, and all is well with the world. While it lasted, it added a nice surreal quality to my day to lose ten minutes every time I switched my gaze from the oven to the microwave.
Sunday was a more localized and familiar DINKscursion, and quite a typical Saturday aside from it actually being Sunday. Andrew and I whittled our morning into a nice pointy stick of connubial amity and relaxation before donning our spandex and hitting the carefully groomed "trails." I have a new jacket that will be perfect in about two or three weeks.
There were plenty of people out and I was energetic enough to bound off fairly early in the run mid-conversation with my handsome hubby. He sanely decided to continue running at his own pace, so we didn't quite finish that conversation yet.
Our route is a little equivocal at this point, since+Andrew Wright is off his pace-training (nagging beepy watch) and running a bit faster as a result. This means the original turn around point is somewhat less conveniently in the middle. The new plan has been to run out and turn around at "the 30 minute mark," but Andrew's watch starts somewhere between the warm up and the actual run, while I start mine on the run, so our clocks don't always sync up. Apparently this time he kept running until he'd hit three miles out and then turned around.
Figuring half-and-half for the run made as much sense as anything (and really, I tend to run faster on the way back than the way out since part of that is warm up), I decided to just wing it and choose a bit of a circuitous route past the theoretical halfway mark.
Since the route I took was a loop up through Fairhaven instead of just turning around, I didn't run into (har har - pun) Andrew on the way back like I might usually. Which was kind of entertainingly mysterious because I didn't know when he might have turned around and whether he was in front of me or behind me. As such, I ran all the way almost to the car, back onto the trail for about five minutes, back all the way to the car, and then finally back to the trail to run into him. Whatever else, it kept me bounding and bobbing. And the people I barreled past several times were only moderately traumatized by the experience. No baby carts were overturned in the making of this run.
I also did another spat of running on the YMCA treadmill. I think it's increasingly impossible for me to run on the treadmill and not do some kind of intervals. The tedium corrodes my morale, otherwise. But I find that that little extra time on the treadmill evens out Andrew's strength routine to mine rather well and minimizes me idle-milling-about phase of the work out. Or discourages me from stretching as thoroughly as I ought to, something I usually will only do if bored and trying to kill time or far after it's too late to avoid some serious stiffness (so, last night, after sitting in a movie theater for two and a half hours).
By all promises, Andrew is set to get THE REALLY BIG PART that will change everything on his project and likely consume all of his heart, mind, and schedule. We shall see, but I'm glad we got part of the weekend together.
Anomie in the Courtroom - Waiting for The Bald Birthday Party Soprano to Take us to a Zoo Where We Can Have Happy Days: The Musical Returns -
Oh yes, we are going to trial today! No bumpety bump! As astounding as this sounds, a family law case of ours may somehow and rather implausibly make it in front of an actual judge. I remain skeptical. There's a lot that can happen between now and nine a.m. The courthouse will likely implode. I'm guessing that in a few minutes, we'll be hit be a raging blizzard and perhaps a swarm of mutated ice-wolf-sharks - damn you Washington voters, don't you see what you've done with this GMO bill??
However, barring apocalypse: trial! The exclamation point is a half-hearted one. See, we have been set up so many times that at this point we can't even work ourselves into a good froth. If it goes, meh. If it doesn't go, meh. Which is why I suspect it is going at all. I think the trick is definitely playing hard to get.Trials like to be the initiator. They want to think you've got plenty of other trials sniffing around you waiting to initiate.
While the trial is the exciting part, my day will actually be far afield and watched mostly via the odd panicked chat message asking where the hell some random legal document from 2008 is, and can I retrieve it immediately! I'm looking forward to those. In the meantime, I'll be ballasting the fort with my sanguine smile and total avoidance of all client-related interactions. Of course, now that there's blood in the water, several other little trials are swarming, so I'll still have plenty to do (hiding in a closet, rocking back and forth singing soothing children's songs, most likely).
For now, I shall focus all my energy on keeping the courthouse open and the streets clear of wolf-sharks. Wish me luck!! To get into the spirit, I am listening to a songza station called Code Your Face Off. I'm not sure why, as I'd like to keep my face and am not coding, but I somehow couldn't resist the name.
Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohabigorgitation: How many athlons and Andrew athlon? The answer was revealed atop a mountain and with the crack of samsung screen! Workation? Not exactly, but possibly future chapters of globetrotting (and cycling) simmered to the surface. Attack of the raging hormones! Except instead of raging, they're more withdrawn and sullen. Either way, Adella feels their presence in her mind and atop her body. Is the weigh in correct? Did she exceed her dreams and goals on the rickshaw journey to a healthy weight? She eyes those hormones skeptically.
Coming up: A good droid is mourned. Just like husbands, phones prove to be replaceable, and new hope arrives in the mail. Anchors aweigh as boats are laden with ginger and numbers tricke in on the week's gorgin progress. A weekly weigh-in challenges a prior reading to a duel. Who will rein supreme and what will it all mean?? Dates are celebrated with rampant running and special hombrage of the clandestine training calendar. Will the YMCA gym members quake in their addidas to see the DINK return?? And Adella goes orange in her hormonal regimen. Will her tango stand up to concentrated femininity or will she flee in a bout of exhaustion??
All this and more:
Socktober Victory - Paraphone Regained -
My brief spell of cellular liberation officially draws to an end. After only a day of withdrawal, Asurion has ensured my addiction can continue unabated. It took about an hour to reset things the way I like it, but I should be back to mindless droid-zombie in no time at all. In the future, I'll try to remember to exercise caution while taking photos with gloves, but I make no guarantees.
It was a good day, the day sans phone. Granted, I spent most of it at work and online, so the absence was limited mostly to group text messages that my mother forwarded to me. I admit, there were times when I did not necessarily know what time it was due to not owning a watch. And I do get a little antsy meeting somebody somewhere when I don't have an immediate means of (1) telling if it's time to meet them, (2) contacting them if something comes up.
Despite two such "meeting somebody somewhere" occasions, things went off without a hitch. I met Azita at the YMCA without any difficulties and we alit the sweaty stairs to workout domination.She's working her way up to more consistent running, so we are doing warm ups on the treadmill. It's only ten minutes of running plus the extra ten running there and back, but it's nice to add some of my impala-style hipping and hopping (have yet to leap into a car, but it's a matter of time) to the middle of the week. And, forcing myself to do a relentlessly steady pace from time to time is good for my character, despite my character generally being irredeemable at this stage in my professional "development" (lawyer joke, badumbum!). I'm starting to feel a bit big fish on steroids in medium sized goldfish bowl using the silver sneaker machines, since I am mostly at the top resistance bands there. It's cool to get to that point, but I may be getting askance glances from the other nice ladies (mostly ladies) who cycle through them.
Just like our workouts, gym friendships are so cyclical. We made a gym-friend in the locker room last month. She was a nice lady who sat around in the nude often as not, making polite conversation with us about the weather. I suspect the schedule for her water aerobics class changed, since I haven't seen her all month. We also have a friend who does the silver sneaker machines and whom Azita rapidly took into the cordiality fold. I don't know much about her except that her dog died on the 4th of July and she also likes the water aerobics class. Perhaps all of our old friends have been stolen from us by the blight that is water aerobics! Yesterday we made a new friend. I say "we" because I continue to be Azita's plus-one in conversational interactions at times like these. The woman is a very cheery lady named something like Salwanah.
She liked that Azita and Adella sound so much alike and said no wonder we were friends. Since human beings really are fairly. narcissistic little parakeets seeking out mirrors, I can't say that similarity in names wasn't a factor (hell, I am part of an A&A marriage). She also asked Azita if she was a western student, so I suspect we'll be happy to see her again in the future. I continue to be mostly too focused to make conversation during my actual work out, but I try to smile politely and make comments as appropriate between sets.
My other appointment was - we're on a Simler theme here - with Nate for a lesson. He showed me his closed silver routine and kept going on about how I shouldn't let his other students know that I'd picked the whole thing up in one day (bet he says that to all the students, blush blush). I should add that I managed to mostly functionally get through it once by the end and as of now have completely forgotten the hard parts, but I enjoy his irrationally convincing optimism. He said it felt performance ready by the end, and I suggested he had not been paying attention to my funny faces if he thought that.
As I frequently say, I love Nate's ability to see a person's unvarnished potential and to weigh that against their ambition. Somebody is vastly talented, but only wants to learn social dancing: he's on it. Somebody maybe has coordination issues but wants to get into competitions, he'll put them exactly in the right level and work them at exactly the right amount of pressure. I won't comment on his assessment of my ultimate potential/ability. I suspect it's pretty elevated, but I'm known for my lack of confidence.
We fortunately fall far afield of any weird "but you have so much potential if you'd only apply yourself!" conversations that lead me to go pout in the bathroom and tell him he's not my real dad. And yet, he gets that point across in a subtle enough way to perhaps reach "you could go far if that was what you wanted, but that's work and it's your priorities." Anyways, I never know what I want, except to have hips that move half as beautifully as his. But I bet that's a lot of work! In the meantime, I'll polish as I can. And yes, I've totally forgotten the entire routine from yesterday.
Today, I have a consult, so I'm trying to look slightly less free-spirited (euphemism for "slept in a large dumpster last night"). Fortunately I have a pair of pants that were way too large for me on standby. They're still a bit baggy, but not egregiously so at this point. Now to clean up the detritus littering my office before she comes... Ok, maybe I'll wait for another hour or two and panic right before she arrives. That's generally my preferred modus operandi. Boy is she in for a treat!
A very eerie Socktober date night -
We may be an old married couple, but we still adhere to our weekly date night policies (most of the time). Yesterday was the convenient niche in Mr. (W)right's recondite training calendar (naturally, we consulted the oracles with runes and some chicken gizzards to find the most propitious day), and thus plans were made. Plans being code for "an entry was made on our google calendars" to denote the temporal reservation.
Andrew spent the day driving around popping in on vendors to see why on earth various parts he'd ordered with a deadline of, oh, early August were not in fact assembled just yet. I hear that there are words of "plan B" percolating in his little project blue prints. This does not involve any kind of pill, but does seem to result from regrets over jumping into bed with a company that maybe looked better on a cursory glance than objective reality might warrant. We'll blame the employee that Andrew replaced, since it seems to have been his original choice. Anyways, I can assertively aver that this project has something to do with screws - roller screws, ball screws, quick and dirty screws... plates and shafts inevitably will make an appearance with a side of drilling. I love it when my husband talks dirty to me like that. We keep the passion alive, I tell ya.
Anyways, despite the (nestle brand) crunch associated with reinvisioning an entire component for Mr. (W)right's giant machine, he seemed in good enough sorts. Anyday that he is capable of driving and stringing together sentences in a semi-coherent - if abstruse - chain of declarations is a day he stands fit for date night. And I am glad to report that - despite an earlier bout of merrily mordant malice and swirling eyes - the hormonal roller coaster was steady at a lull for our grand connubial escapades.
Feeling "adventurous" I decided I might try a tofu teriyaki at a place called the Ginger Boat. I used to go there years ago with my mom and her boytoy. It was generally a pretty straightforward teriyaki joint that served their meal combos in plates that looked like little boats (I imagine some of the dishes always featured ginger, but that was less noticeable). It's been upscaled since then. They've got high class Christmas lights on the walls, a real paint job, and several laquered tables and chairs; oh and stumps (I'm not sure if the stumps are purely decorative or optional seating devices). They've also revamped their menu to include some fun frisky fusions in roll and "tapas" form. Feeling more adventurous than perhaps advised, I ordered the "veggie stick" which turned out to be a single passable kebab with soy sauce on the side. Not bad, but definitely appetizer sized.
Fortunately I had eaten not long before. Note to the world: sorghum cooks in the rice cooker quite well. Sorghum also can be microwaved to make miniature popcorn, but I think I prefer it cooked. The miniature popcorn is novel, and does make me feel like a gian in some erstwhile Super Mario level, but the yield is low enough that it feels like a waste and popcorn does the job just as easily with more efficient results.
The service at Ginger Boat was not quite upscaled, although our waitress did have us sit down to place our orders (used to be an order at the counter joint) and was sporting a fancy t-shirt advertising their new ROLLZ. Ok they didn't spell it that way, but something clever was afoot in presenting their roll combos. They were quite rapidly inundated by college students, and it was definitely a struggle for the cook and single waitress to keep up. So, I guess the wait times were upscaled a bit. Oh and the water glasses were quite fancy.
Despite still wanting to eat upon returning home, I did enjoy the ambience and found the excursion worth experimentation. And we still got home with plenty of time to play and impromptu game of hide and seek (hey it may be date night, but we never said we're quite grown ups) and settle into the couch for Spaced, which is a very strange show.
For whatever reason, the whole experience made it feel like a weekend and I am not sure I understand that today is Thursday. I'm glad it's Thursday, because that's trash day and boy do our recycling bins overfloweth. But I have yet another consult this morning so once again I have to look and act presentably. I'm really looking forward to real-Friday when I can return to "fashion police crime scene" and full file explosion I like a clean office an all, but it's impossible to work in such an environment!
Until then, I'll eke out what I can in my little treadmill corner of muss and fuss and wait for the weekend to truly arrive!
Socktober 18 - Finally Friday
After several false starts and false hopes, the weekend is nearly full baked and tickling my nostrils with the sweet redolence of succulent sloth. There's a final sprint through this crazy little thing called work (i.e. "being an adult"), and several half-baked ideas about what "ought" to be accomplished this week are nipping at my heels in pesky fashion. But once the weekend hits, who cares? Somebody more diligent and/or mentally coalesced than myself. I will continue to blame hormones, despite no particular evidence that this is anything out of the ordinary after a strange week and a turn towards fall.
I have added progesterone for the next two weeks to my lady-on-the-beach-in-white cocktail. Aside from raising my core body temperature a smidgen (is is hot in here or am I just taking funny orange tablets?), there seem to be no traceable ill-effects from the addition (knock on wood). Sure I'm spacey, and merrily mordant to an occasionally severe level of sneering impatience, but that was kind of already happening with just the estradiol. Who can say? I've still got a week to let the darned orange built up in my system. In the meantime, I remain occasionally moody and occasionally ... SQUIRREL! Wait what were we talking about? I got distracted by a speck of wall and spent the last ten minutes staring at it. Don't see it anymore, ah well. I'm sure it's there, since the building is still intact.
Despite the phasing in and out mentally, I've managed to mostly keep it together (I think, but we are awfully poor judges of our own present and future mental states). I continue to eat a boatload of food with regularity. Despite occasionally wanting to just let my legs go a saturnine spaghetti, I've managed to exert fealty to my Tuesday and Thursday workouts with Azita.She occasionally remarks on the fact that I set the treadmill to 8 for our warm ups, while she is at 5.5, but I think that we actually have an almost identical cadence at these respective speeds due to the discrepancies in height and leg length.
And while my head is more muddled than a mojito lime, I've managed to slog through two consults this week without too much sobbing or hysteria (on my part). I'd call that a win.
But enough with all this winning. Forget "the final sprint." This is a hobble across the finish line kind of day. I'm ready to tuck my head and free fall into freedom about now toward Friday afternoon!
Happy almost weekend everyone! CANNONBALL! WHEEEEE!
Socktober Romance and Return of the DINK-Gym-Day
A1: (slightly wired from a longish run and weights session, and even more so from the JUICE rush ensuing in the car ride home). So I realized that ... well, tonight I'm not dj-ing and I think it's really interesting because it was the perfect picture of total ambivalence in the classical sense of the word. Because I was like "oh man, I'm not dj-ing" and that made me really sad, but then at the exact same time I was thinking "holy crap I'm not dj-ing, so we can go home early! That rocks!!" and these contrary emotions were coexisting oblivious the fact that they should be engaged in a zero sum game of emotional supremacy.
A2:... yep, that does sound pretty ambivalent.
A1: Ok, so I've decided I'm going to hop in the shower really quickly while you upload yourself. We can reconnoiter around lunch.
A2: I may be a horrible boyfrianceband and just make myself lunch when we get back.
A1: Oh... ok... But if you do that, then you'll probably be done with lunch by the time I'm out of the shower and you'll be upstairs while I'm eating lunch and'we'll totally miss each other, and then we'll never talk or see each other again... and we'll drift apart... and... and we'll be divorced in like two months.
A2: ...
A1: Oh I'm just kidding. Nobody can get a divorce finalized in two months!!
A2: ...
A1: I'm hilarious.
A2: I love you (to rhyme with, "that's nice dear")
A1: you have no idea. But I really am hilarious.
As may be inferred from the above dialog, it was return to Yuppie-DINK run-gym day after an Andrew-hiatus. Also, it's our monthaversary. To clarify, it's our dating monthaversary, not wedding monthaversary, which we seem to acknowledge a little less rigidly. That's probably because the latter didn't make it onto the google calendar with the same alacrity that our dating one did. Somehow in those first months of dating, well, each month seems like a high-fivable accomplishment worth entering on eternal repeating entries. It's also conveniently always the same weekend as Tango Experience, so we kind of have a built in celebratory date/relentless reminder. But, more than that, it's our Yuppie-DINK run-gym day.
Yes, the almighty training calendar finally relented after many prayers. It has, in its goodwill, allowed us this special time of looking horrifyingly serious and coordinated with our respective beeping watches and other hardware. Actually, our watches were a touch taciturn this trip. Andrew is in "transition" and has thus doffed his pace guides. I enjoy this, because I personally think his watch was a big fat chirping nag, but also it's cool that he's really learned his body well enough to pace himself for a run without that help. He's coming to find a pretty consistent pace for himself. It's faster than his guided pace effort, so I took a few fewer detours and extra circles today, and we finished about seven minutes sooner than usual. I'm guessing that our turn-around point will be pushed back a bit. In the meantime, I made up the difference (and a little extra) on the treadmill at the Y. Since Andrew takes more time to do strength training than I do, the extra fifteen actually had us wrapping up at the same time.
And speaking of "days" that today is, it was weigh-in day at the (W)right household. The news was mixed. As suspected previously, the rapid gain of last week was likely influenced by water weight and not entirely accurate or indicative of ongoing trends. This week's is far more in line with what I'd have anticipated over the course of the last two weeks. I say this instead of "oh crap I lost a pound and a half!" Because really I don't think it was a useful pound and a half of anything relevant to my ultimate she-hulking-white-pants-on-beach-wearing goal. And bright side: because the water was apparently not inundating my pores today, the actual body fat percentage read out was back to 19% with a little extra percentage point encouragement to spare.
But it does remind me to keep paying attention. After the quick gains of last week and the uncomfortable sensation of actually fitting in most of my clothes (I am entirely unaccustomed to such sensations and immediately went into sweat pants withdrawal upon the third day of wearing fitted professional pants) I was starting to think I could cut back a little on the food. Instead, I'm keeping on keeping on. Especially after this morning's DINKathalon and in anticipation of my future tangoing this evening.
As an addendum, the tangoing went well. I was a little horrible and left far before Cinderella had her chance to make a grand entrance let alone exit. I blame the ORANGE barracuda (oooooh Barracuda), but I just was feeling somewhat off-balance and easily dazed. There were several unfamiliar dancers present, and few "old glove" leads to coddle me into an appropriate tango trance. I feel a touch guilty, as apparently some of these leads expressed a desire to dance with me to my darling husband around the time that I'd already donned my boots and hit the stairs in flight mode.
But before my wash-out, I did see Margi and Pam (whom I have not seen since the wedding) and taught a surprisingly decent lesson considering we started late and it was a somewhat difficult move.
