Heat Wave
2007-03-07, 3:06 p.m.

Day 927

Locally we had the dubious distinction of setting a record. Yesterday, March 6, 2K7, we set a record for the lowest daily high temperature recorded for the month of March in Rottenchester since 1901. Eight, count them, you don�t even need your toes, 8 whole degrees. As you can well imagine, we are thrilled beyond words.

Today, things will be much better. We get to use 2 digits to describe our temperature. True, one of them is a zero, but it�s in a good place. 20 today folks. Wow. Of course, it was still only 7 as I headed to the gym this morning. Makes you appreciate the heat you generate while working out.

No pic today. The one I want is still stuffed in my camera. I tried a phone camera pic of this shot, but it comes a little (ok, a lot) short of conveying the attitude I was looking for. So I went and got out the big guns and grabbed a shot that communicates better. Ought to grab a shot of the freakin deer tracks, not 6 feet from the house too. Munching on my Arborvitae (white cedar). Everything else is still buried in snow, so those are the only things the Arborvitae have available to browse on. It�s just too bad for me that I used so many in our landscaping. I may have to start switching them over to junipers, or Alberta spruce. Kinda tough to maintain highlights of green in the winter landscape when the deer keep nipping them down to bare branches. Little buggers. Too bad the seasons over and I live in the burbs and they only visit at night. Otherwise I�d stick an arrow through their lungs. Venison chili anyone?

Could not get up this morning. Finally heard my clock radio at 5:11. It goes off at 5:00. Not good. Figured since I wasn�t going to make the spinning class, I might as well snooze a bit. Ended up snoozing for a lot of bits. Finally dragged my carcass out of bed 6:15ish. Not good. Very modified (i.e. shortened) work out this morning as a result. Only ran for 30 minutes, then had to call it quits. No weights again this morning. Did manage to better Monday�s new record distance for 30 minutes of trotting along, by a whole 0.04 miles (that�s 211.2 feet or 6 seconds/mile faster). Now I�m a little unsure of what to do tomorrow. Maybe a quick 2 mile sprint. That�s almost funny, 2 mile sprint indeed! Anyhow � a quick 2 miler followed by that pesky upper body weight session I keep avoiding. Then bowling in the evening. Sounds like a good time, right? Right. That�s the plan then.

Rough meeting last night. Don�t know if it was the mix of people or just folks moods in general, but it was difficult to keep a topic of discussion going. Didn�t help that one of the girls (younger than me even!!) went through a really rough time earlier in the day. Can�t go into details, but she just had a really bad, bad day. Felt horrible for her, but there is nothing in my past that compares to her experience. There was nothing I could offer, nothing any of us could offer except lame condolences and trite little sayings. She did seem to perk up a bit after relating her story, so maybe just the act of sharing it helped to relieve some of the burden.

Didn�t help that the one person that is usually really good at pulling comments out of people was out on vacation. To Dallas of all places. I SO wanted to go with them. Ah well.

Three more weeks of bowling then I may consider adding my original Al Anon meeting back into the mix. Better chance that I�ll line up a sponsor there since the only two males I know that attend regularly go to that meeting. Folks in the Tuesday night group are all in the same gender sponsor boat, and there are no guys in that group that attend regularly. The one guy I�d seen a few times has moved away to try and get support for his son. Not sure I could have dealt with him as a sponsor. My first impression of him was that he was possibly gay. Not generally an issue for me, but not something I�d want in a sponsor. Learned later (from him no less) that he definitely wasn�t gay, but had been physically abused (i.e. gotten the shit kicked out of him) by his wife!!

Now, I�ve been known to take my �no hitting girls� rule to extremes, (I tolerate Cindy hitting me sometimes when she�s really riled up. She swings like a girl. It pisses her off worse when her hitting doesn�t even phase me.) but when it gets to the point where she�s trying to cave in your ribs? I�m thinking it�s ok to take a swing or four. Now, this guy wasn�t all that big, maybe 5�8�, maybe 150lbs, so it�s conceivable that his wife was bigger & stronger (or just all hepped up on vitamin beer), but dude!!! Don�t go spreading it around that your wife regularly beat the crap outta you. (heh. Like I�m doing for him)

So the search for a sponsor continues. I think I will have it resolved in 4 weeks. Maybe. I�ll keep you posted.

Gotta think about dinner tonight. Have chicken out, considering doing chicken parmesan. Baked variety, rather than fried. Lower fat content. Cindy is still on a lower carb diet, so I may opt to get some spaghetti squash for her. Works out really well. Take your squash, remove the stem, cut it in half. (Takes some effort. These things are tougher than they look!) Put a half in a microwave safe dish, cover it tight with cellophane and nuke it for 10 � 11 minutes (for a 1000W oven. Adjust accordingly) When done, the squash should separate from the shell with a fork and come out in spaghetti like strings. You can either put sauce on them (mmm, putanesca sauce!) or just do a little olive oil, basil & parmesan; butter, thyme & asiago � basically treat it like pasta, but it�s lower carb.

So that�s where we�re headed. Chicken parm, spaghetti squash, pasta and a huge salad. I�ll have to see if the Secretary of Antagonism is kosher with those plans, but I�m willing to bet that all I get is a �What ever�.

I�m betting that because of the condition of the house when I got home at 9:30 last night. All the garage doors closed & locked. (I have no door opener, because I�m being a nice guy and letting Jill park in the garage for the winter. People door is unusable because the snow blower is parked there.) That leaves the front door, which is no biggie, as I do have keys. But all the exterior front lights were off and the entire main floor of the house was dark.

The other night, when Zach was out at hockey practice, she made sure one of the overhead garage doors was open, the front lights were all on and even an interior garage light was lit. Zach didn�t LEAVE till 9:00, wouldn�t be home till 11:00. On a Sunday night. I plan to get home 9:30 on a Tuesday minutes later and she closes up the house all nice & tight like that? This was not an isolated incident either. It�s like this every Tuesday. Might also point out that on any other night, I�m usually the last one to go upstairs and I�m left to get all the lights, lock up � including the garage that SOMEONE goes to for smoking � and generally close up the house for the evening. Except Tuesdays.

Now � it�s no big deal having to use the front door. But the stark contrast in her attitude is a big deal. It speaks volumes. Maybe this is something we can explore a bit.

Hey � got a response back on dinner plans already. Looks like we have a winner. She did explain part of why she was upset last night, and I even apologized for my part in it. She�d gotten chicken out for dinner. Left it to thaw in the sink. Never left a note as to her whereabouts, when she�d be home, or what she thought we were doing for dinner.

Kids opted to go out to eat, I had leftovers. She got pissed that no one (me) had dinner ready when she got home. If she thinks she can be uncommunicative and still have things turn out the way she planned (or hoped or assumed), I can only hope she learned a little lesson. Doubt it though.

Did find out from Zach that he watched her mix a super-sized cocktail and take it with her. Don�t think he expected her to go to the gym with it though. I�d like to see her get tossed for it some day. Maybe that�s why she doesn�t like to go to the gym with me. I�ll blow her in for TUI � Tread milling Under the Influence. Like I care. As long as she doesn�t do something stupid and trash our family membership. Where would I go to burn off all that angst? Besides here?

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