Monday Morning Recap

For those of you short on time, here's the summary:

Racing other treadmill runners at the gym is fun and broken.
More wine = better. And only yellow curry can satisfy my curry cravings.
Oakland Raiders suck (duh!).
I miss the "pre-improved" Nature Park.
Disposable diapers have improved significantly in the last ten years.

Here's the long version:

I should have run outside on Saturday since it was sunny, but our goal was to get in our workout and get on with the rest of our day. Besides, I was cranky with a capital K. I started with a half mile warm up, used the next mile to interval up to a 9:30 pace for my tempo run of 4.5 miles and a quarter mile cool down. I only planned on five miles, but I got caught up in "racing" the other runners. It's not a real race, since it doesn't matter how fast either of us are going, if the other runner stops before I do, I "win". Oh so broken. But I was in a better mood afterwards.

For dinner we had Indian food at Swagat. I was in the mood for wine, so we ordered a bottle of the Robert Mondavi cabernet (the only bottle of cab offered on the menu). What the waitress brought us out was a 1.5L bottle (yep, the BIG one) of Beringer. She said it was all she could find. Whoa! Better wine + more of it + same price = YES! As great as the food was though, the red curry just doesn't kick my curry cravings. Will be on the quest for yellow curry this week.

There was no way we were going to make it to the gym Sunday morning (so. much. wine.), so I made us bacon, egg and cheese muffin sandwiches and we watched the morning football games. Patriots won, Colts won, Panthers lost (oooch.), Chickens won (it was against the 49ers, but still, curse you chickens!!). And the Raiders? Lost. It wasn't even close. Against the Jets. THE JETS! Fer chirssake! Why must they suck! It's so tough being a Raider fan. Aarrgh!

Since we opted out of going to the gym, and it was sunny out, we walked the trails around the perimeter of the Tualatin Hills Nature Park. I used to run this loop once or twice a week (about 4 miles), but stopped after the park shut down major sections of the unpaved trails for improvements – straighter, better marked, more elevated paths. But see, there's the rub. It was fun having isolated, muddy, winding trails to run on. Now there are too many buildings visible from the trails at the back of the park. And they took away that ugly, awkward metal footbridge that was fun to run over. I support them making the park better for everyone, it just took a little of the magic away is all. But I'll run this loop again soon, it's still better than the concrete jungle.

We spent the evening watching the Sunday night Packers-Lions game (aka PityFest 2005) and babysitting a co-worker's son, whom I've nicknamed "Cheeks Mahoney" because 75 percent of his body mass is cheeks. Freakin' cutest baby on the planet.

I couldn't have more babies now, it's just too draining. But babysitting? That's a whole different ballgame. Babies are cute. And they smell good. And I get to kiss their tiny baby feet. He was fussy, and since I just fed him, I checked the next thing on the list - the diapers. They didn't feel wet, but I just couldn't tell. I asked my sweetie if he thought they were wet. He checked and shrugged that he didn't know, which I found difficult to believe since his son just completed potty training like, six months ago. I ended up changing him and he was happy again. And when Cheeks is happy, his whole face lights up. Craaaazy cute. Anyway, the only way I could tell that diaper was wet was because it was much heavier and thicker than the dry diaper I put on him. I'm telling ya, when my kids were babies, the dry diapers were already that thick and heavy, and there was no mistaking whether that diaper was wet. Amazing what they can do these days.