Previously here in the blog, I've mentioned there are cats all over the neighborhood and I get to see them on my walks. Up the street from mom is this sweet little cat, he is missing his right eye. The owner and I talked a year or so ago when I was here, and she told me the cat (I can't remember his name) had some sort of horrible infection years ago and they had to remove the eye.
Poor bean. But. So it goes in the life of pet stewardship.
Several walks now through this neighborhood, I haven't seen him. I was kind of worried that he was gone, had passed away or something, you know, like the lives of many outdoor cats end. But today was the day. He was sitting on his porch, looking out across the land and saw me.
He's one of these cats that likes people a lot, and he meowed, I said hello, he came walking over. I paused my fitbit tracker so we could spend some quality time.
I took a couple different pictures but he was moving around a lot, this one was the best of the batch. The tail was flicking all around, and he was looking regal in his little tuxedo. Oh I love him.
Work today was pretty good, my boss and I are trying to solve for a big problem, so we met at 3 in our check-in. We have a contractor coming on Monday to do some work at the house, and I need to make sure mom's neighbor friend knows what is happening. She said she's going to come to lunch with us tomorrow, so that's fun. I will buy her 100 lunches for all the help she provides.
After work, I decided to go for a walk down at the canal, it was a gorgeous day and I couldn't just justify doing neighborhood walk, so I drove there and hit the trail. I parked by the train bridge and started walking, I figured, eh.... I should walk to the Bourne bridge. She's right there.
About 3/4 of the way there I questioned my sanity. I mean, it's not a big deal. I can do this but uhhhhhggggh this is boring. I didn't bring my earbuds, so I didn't have a podcast to distract me. Eventually I got there, took a small break, took some pictures and went the rest of the way back.
With a headwind! hahhahahha. no. ugh.
But, when you can't do anything about it, and you have to get back to the car, you ... do it. And I did it. A full hour walk, and yeah. worth it.
It took me 60 minutes to do the round trip, and I've said previously that my fitbit may be slightly off with distance measurement, but, 27 min out, 33 min back is accurate.
Voof.
I went to the market to buy a bunch of stuff mom needed. I thought about getting a big greek chicken sub from the pizza place in downtown but I just grabbed some cranberry walnut chicken salad, and ate that for dinner. Having regrets about wanting that good good sub from the shop in town. Damn.
All told, a pretty great day. Minor mom complaints. A long chat with Linz, and a good chat with Work Wife today that really gave me great joy.
Digits below. My computer is not cooperating on downloading pictures so. Here's a pic. Digits below.
I took mom to lunch today at her foodrinkery where her favorite barkeep works on Tues/Thurs/Saturday. The quality of the place has gone downhill since the new owners bought it, but, mom goes because she knows a few of the people that still work there, who didn't run away angry when the new management showed their asses to them.
There are other places we could go if she didn't turn her nose up at them. Suit yourself lady.
Today she surprised us all. Normally she wants a tuna boat or a hamburger off the kids' menu because it is smaller than the adult sized food. She never wants the fries - she gives them to the barkeep.
For lunch today, she wanted scallops. Gasp.
Mom always hated seafood, she grew up on Cape Cod and hates fish, hates everything, won't eat lobster. She may eat clams once in a while but they have to be fried whole belly clams.
Fuck scrod, fuck haddock, fuck shrimp.
And she convinced us growing up that fish was disgusting. I didn't enjoy fish until I was in Florida with Doug long before we got married, and his grandfather went fishing and got lake fish for us.
I wasn't very gracious about it, and Doug let me know that was rude. And yeah - it was and I still sometimes think about what a rude little shit I was at times before I learned to not be a rude little shit.
But mom kind of raised us to voice our negative opinions when we thought something was gross rather than grin and bear it with grace and thankfulness. And who knew, I like fish. I love fish. And boy do I love scallops.
Anyway.
The barkeep asked her if she wanted the scallop boat size/portion and she said no, she didn't want the roll. But the price difference between the scallop boat serving and the full lunch serving was five bucks. Barkeep told me she was ordering the scallop boat and she'd take the roll away and mom would never know it. Also, mom probably wouldn't eat all the scallops anyway.
There were 7 nice sized scallops on her plate and I was instantly filled with envy because I opted for a virtually zero carb lunch. I will have scallops on Thursday.
She ate all her scallops, and she didn't want fries or coleslaw, but barkeep got her mashed potatoes and corn. Which she ate a little bit of.
All told, a surprisingly big meal for the old lady. And then I got take away buffalo fingers to go on top of my left over salad, so I'll have the same thing for dinner as I had for lunch, just so I don't have to go out tonight for anything.
I do need to go to the market for her, for a few things. I have procrastinated, but will probably do that tomorrow. Again, I was lectured about locking the car again today.
This time she said that thieves are stealing hangers from the cars.
I looked at her funny.
"What .... hangers?" I asked, picturing pants and shirts on hangers.
"HANGERS! HANGERS!" she yelled pointing at her handicapped placard attached to her rear view mirror.
I wondered the other day if I was not hearing her right but for sure yesterday she was saying cameras. I didn't correct her. Sometimes she forgets the words she wants, and sometimes she insists the words that are coming out of her mouth are the right words. Then the next day, they are different words.
This case, for sure, it was different words and now she's got the right word (sort of). No one is stealing cameras. They're stealing handicap permits. I wouldn't even call them hangers.
She went to bed at 8pm last night, came down and locked everything up even though I told her I was probably going to do my last steps outside. I let her lock things, and then I went out and locked up after myself again when I got back.
Around 11pm she came down to the bathroom. I was watching Law & Order SVU for some reason and working on some things for work. She waved and went back toward her room, but she turned on all the lights, weirdly.
She keeps all the lights off most of the time. I like to keep the oven hood light on in the kitchen, especially at night, and she turns it off every time she comes to the kitchen, which turns into a quiet battle of me turning it on, her turning it off.
When I noticed she had the dining table light, the light above the inside of the door, and the living room light on, I could not figure out what she was up to, so I went to check.
She was walking around the living room and I asked what was up.
"I am looking for the screen," she said.
What screen?
"The screen that goes in there," and she pointed at the intake vent for her furnace, which weirdly is in the corner on the floor.
Oh!
"I found it. Shirley (her neighbor) bought them for me and put them here," she gestured between the couch and the end table, "so I found them."
Great. I'm glad you found them. Why are you looking for something like tat at 11pm?
She shrugged, "I just thought of it just now. And then I couldn't find them. But I already moved them."
And she always says, "Ta-daaa!" at the end of some weird thing like that.
Okay great, Ta-daaa!
She started to shuffle back to her room and I made some music noises, like a little tune, like she's some sort of video game. Which made he laugh. She told me I am a whackadoodle. I said I was guilty as charged and asked if she liked my song.
I asked her, do you like my song or do you like.... And I started doing Yakety Sax. Which do you like better?
She told me Yakety Sax, so. I'll sing that to her when she is puttering around.
Back to lunch.
We had a nice fun lunch. The barkeep brought me cucumbers from her garden and I'm super excited because I will add those to my salad dinner tonight. I wish I had a bunch of extra cherry tomatoes to go with, but. Mostly greens and my new fresh cukes.
Her friend Sue was there, and another lady named Sandy. They were pounding down beers and I was thinking to myself jeeez I wish I didn't have to go back to work!
Our visit was fun and nice, I'm looking forward to lunch on Thursday and I am ordering the full boatload ton and a half of scallops for lunch because heck. You have to when you are here.
When we got back, I had a bunch of complicated work things to work on. My boss and I met for an hour to filter through what seems to be a rather enormous bug that someone brought to our attention which made him say "oh my lord," and I wanted to add "a-rama." which only Linda would know and understand.
I took a walk after a right proper head explosion with the boss where we both just had to shake our heads and plan on getting with the devs tomorrow.
There is a road that has a bunch of cats that live on it, and sometimes the cats come out and say hello. Tonight only one of them did, and it came over and rubbed all over me and purred like a boss. Hell yeah, cat. You just lifted my heart 20 stories high.
Thank you, cat.
Digits below. Cat was doing winky face at me, and also let me take a picture of it with its beautiful eyes!
digits exercise: 12/12 hours; walk 25 min/1.23. mi; another walk, 20 min/.93 mi. 10k+ steps by bedtime
blood glucose:
8am: 116 5pm: 116 11pm: 94
food & meds:
8am: jardiance, new meds 11am: atkins peanut bar 1:30pm: buffalo chicken on salad; met+glip 5pm: half of new meds (almost out of one of them so pacing that); the last dunkin donuts donut that mom had that she has been ignoring for 2 days. white wine 8pm: the rest of the salad and buffalo fingers and a whole giant cucumber, bleu cheese dressing; met+glip
I treated myself to a waffle this morning. When I stay here, I try to do it only once during the time. And today was the day. Check-out day. Let's do this.
Love me a hotel waffle, I tell ya.
Lin was working this morning, she has had crazy thing after crazy frustrating thing after crazy you've got to be shitting me thing happen on this trip. And of course, she's the only one who can fix it. Truly an invaluable and also severely undervalued human with this company.
We checked out and headed to mom's. I had misplaced my power cord for my phone, and we needed to reorganize all Linda's things before she left, so we tided up, moved things into bags, unpacked things, looked in things, and never did find my cord. It has to be in her car. She'll find it someday.
I had a call with a client at 11:30am, so I set to doing that and she popped in to let me know she was leaving, she got a ferry reservation and if she didn't go, she wouldn't make it. I asked the guy to hold on a bit, and I went to hug her goodbye.
I miss her already.
I missed her when she was still on the porch.
After my call, my mom told me she was mad because I put a Tidy Bowl tablet into her toilet tank.
I asked if she could please just get over it, what does it matter? You don't like a clean toilet?
"I like to see what my poop looks like sometimes."
Sigh.
So it begins. The weird, very weird, and sometimes horribly annoying mom things that I'll put up with for the next 4 days.
"Well, you get to see your poop in about 3 weeks I guess," I replied.
There are some things she needs, like dawn dish soap, new Q-tips and cotton balls, laundry detergent, so I told her I was going to head out today or tomorrow and get those.
I got a full lecture on making sure I lock her car.
Mom. I always lock your car.
"Well. They're breaking into cars and stealing their cameras!"
Okay, well, I always lock your car, mom.
"They will steal my camera so you make sure you lock it!"
For spite, you know how I feel but for goodness sake, I always lock your car.
"and BE CAREFUL." God, how I want my sister to come back right now. Also, my mom has no idea the cameras in cars are actually outside of the car so. I won't tell her that. I'll just leave things be.
Geoff called tonight to check up on me. "I realized I hadn't heard from you in a long time so I thought I'd check in," which really is the sweetest thing. I appreciate a check in from home once in a while!
Mom went to bed at 8. Told me she was turning off the internet and we had an argument about it. I asked her not to, because if she does, I can't work, surf, or watch TV. She got huffy and told me she doesn't want her computer running all night.
Well, those are two different things friend. Turn your computer off, not the internet.
I went down to her room and we talked about it, and I showed her how to keep it on, turn the computer off, and leave it that way.
Day one down, three to go. I'm sure we will have this same discussion tomorrow. I think that us being here upsets her routine and apple cart. I'm trying to approach all of this with grace, but there is no waffle machine here in the morning, ya know?
Anyway.
Here's a pic I stole from Linda, of Linda and Me, and the other person in the picture is our friend V. He's the best. We love him. He is sunshine in human form. The eyepatch is because he's had some surgery for a detached retina (oh no!) and has to keep his eye protected. Poor bean!
Digits below!
digits exercise: 12/12 hours; walk around the neighborhood, 27 min, 1.27 mi; 10k+ steps by bedtime
blood glucose:
8am: 120 4:45pm: 108 11pm: 94
food & meds:
8am: jardiance, new meds 9am: hotel waffle, bacon 1:30pm: pb&sugar free j on butter bread; met+glip 4:45pm: new meds 5:45pm: an obscene amount of trail mix 7pm: met+glip; some ritz crackers white wine
Oh - Yesterday, I asked Lin to text me the picture of us with the cousins and she sent it after I published last night's entry. So here' it is - Cousinfest part 2. We cute.
Anyway.
This entire trip we have stayed at hotels and places with awesome opportunities for bathing suit time. And each place, something has prevented us from putting suits on and getting in the pool or ocean.
Today, we spent time at mom's. Linda crashed in the bedroom (a much needed crash, I must say) and mom was down in her room playing her video games. She has had an issue with mice recently, so, Lin wanted to clean out her bathroom vanity.
I beat her to it, not that is is a competition or anything, but, she was resting and I had flip flops on, and couldn't take a right proper walk around the neighborhood. No fun doing a big walk in flip flops.
I got into the bathroom and started pulling everything out from under her vanity.
The mice. They have been busy.
She had SEVERAL bars of soap that these little jerks ATE. They ATE DIAL SOAP. Why, mice? Why? Soap is not food!
They pulled the cotton ends off of hundreds of Q-tips, and ruined two entire boxes of them. Thanks, mice. They pulled apart dozens of cotton balls. Two giant bags, mostly destroyed and filled with poop.
Ugh, thank you again, mice. You little fuckers.
I always say it is a hard world for small things but fuck you, you fucking fucks for fucking making a fucking mess out of everything in my mom's house, you little shits.
Two trash bags full of stuff later, I had just about everything cleared out of the bathroom vanity. The entire vanity floor is trashed, and the stupid vanity needs to be replaced and all that. But. We are reluctant to do it because in replacing the vanity, we may as well replace the flooring, and if we replace the flooring, it runs to the hall and kitchen and all that would need to be replaced, and then there is the carpeting in the living room and her bedroom, both of which suck and need replaced.
Oh My Lord-a-rama. Projects! This is a total project. An absolute project. Not to be done today.
But for right now, friends, the vanity is cleaned out, and we are going to do some Mouse Remediation work.
In cleaning out the vanity, it was an archeological dig back through time. Mom has several different brands of sink decloggers, several containers of CLR, about 9 curling irons, a giant hair dryer. There were boxes of Dial and Dove soap, which the mice ate! They ATE SOAP. (I know I freaked at that earlier but still jebus, they ate soap).
So many things went straight to the trash, a bunch of things are out on the porch and I'll sort through anything that can be salvaged (ie: Drano bottles and boxes of Clorox toilet tablets).
Linda and I came back to the hotel and I told her that she better put her bathing suit on, because there is no way we are on vacation and we didn't get in a pool once. I'll be damned if we do not get in a pool.
So we did.
And the pool was FREEZING.
Indoor pool, absolutely fucking freezing. Oh my god so cold. I got in, for SPITE and swam around and made the best of it. I told her not to. She'd die. She does this thing in pools where she pulls her arms up and we call it "T-Rex Arms" because it is impossible to get in and you suffer and struggle the entire time you're trying to get used to it.
But I got in and I made it happen and I wanted it, and I got what I wanted, I got pool time. Fuckeveryoneelseontheplanet, I got pool time.
We needed some dinner and there is a nice hibachi/asian fusion restaurant near our hotel, so we walked over. We thought about getting take out but got blue drinks (which, you know, you can't take out!) and a lot of appetizers. It was very very nice. And I'm glad we ate there instead of bringing back. Sometimes take-out food can make your hotel room smell of the funkies.
Digits below.
digits exercise: 12/12 hours; 45 min treadmill, 3.1 miles (hey, that's 5k motherfukkahhhhhhs); 14k+ steps by bedtime.
blood glucose:
8:45am: 115 5pm: 121 9:30pm: 166
food & meds:
8:45am: jardiance, new meds; last of the cookies I baked 11am: dunkin' donuts glazed donut 1pm: met+glip 4pm: new meds 6pm: trail mix; white wine 7pm: gyoza, edamame; tempura, tom kha soup; blue drink; met+glip
This morning, Lin warned me the hotel coffee was no more than brown water. She said something to the lady who runs the brekkie, and the lady said she made it the same way she always does and can't explain why it was super gross.
I volunteered to go to Starbucks.
One cannot begin the day on little or no caffeine, right? You with me on that?
Starbucks is doing some weird unicorn drink thing, and everyone in the place was all about pimping out the unicorn drink thing. Note, I went inside because the drive through was 20 cars deep.
I saw them put this on the counter and I had to get a picture of it just for the message.
"Oh look," I said, "she is so cute!"
The kids behind the counter turned around and all said some variation of "oh yes! She really IS so cute!"
Heh. She. Using She instead of It is something "the kids" do anymore so it is something I find adorable and have adopted for my own.
Back to the hotel, I ended up on the treadmill for a while. I have not done any sort of running since that 5k thing, where what I was doing was not running, it was surviving and finishing. It felt good to get going a bit and listen to some music and ignore how many minutes were going by.
I wanted to get a shower and get ready to head to mom's so I did 20 minutes for an easy peasy trip.
We had a nice visit. We took her to her favorite foodrinkery. Lin and I knew we were going to be having dinner with our cousin and his wife later on, so we didn't want The Big Lunch.
Mom ordered chicken fingers, and she usually gets the kids' size portion. I told her to get the full size and I'd eat some. Linda said the same. So between the 3 of us, we polished that off quick. I was the driver so minimal wine, and when I say 2 glasses, you know how restaurants pour wine. Cute little wee carafes and about 1/3 of a glass.
I pour wine to the full glass because yes. That's the way to do it.
We headed back to mom's and she was super ready for a nap. We had put laundry in the wash but didn't put it in the dryer, so I moved it over. We headed back and changed to look cute for dinner.
B&L live in a planned community in Plymouth with single family homes, townhouses, apartments/condos. There is a restaurant and bakery, a big fire pit spot, places for games and fun. They're rly happy there. They sold their house on the cape and moved up when my aunt had to move nursing homeeals.
Their community is full of neighbors who are all fun and very exuberant. I felt a little weird mixing in for dinner with all their neighbors but everyone was super nice. I thought of how Doug would either be super into this or recoil a little and be introverted.
We had a great catch up. Never enough time with the cousins, I tell ya.
Tomorrow my cousin's daughter is hosting a clam bake, and we're invited. Lin and I didn't do anything at mom's today, so we're feeling like we should both stick around and help her out with what she needs. Also, I do not see well at night for driving, and in order to not get stuck in traffic for 9 hours to go 10 miles, we would probably have to stay until after sunset.
Hmm.
Jury is still out on our plans.
In the meantime, enjoy this picture of how Lin spelled "Emergency" on the little white board at mom's... 2 years ago and I just realized it. And please note, we are not correcting this. It is perfect. No notes.
I was bummed to have to leave our hotel. We didn't do pool, indoor or outdoor, I wanted to go down and walk the beach or something, we didn't.
Someone remind me that ya know, Chris... you don't have to work while you are on vacation. You can take a day off.
Part of me just felt like I'll get so much done just quietly sitting working. To some extent yes, I did. That was good. But I didn't get as much done as I planned. My boss and I had our 1:1 check in and he talked to me about how we both need to go back through our old tickets and clean house. Trust me, dear sir, that was my plan.
Maybe during this week.
I will be working from mom's starting Monday, and I have one meeting set up Monday. I bet I can get down and dirty with old tickets and clean things up.
Not for nothing but this week I discovered 2 bugs in the new product, and a possible third. So yeah, I did things.
Lin and I cleared from the hotel around 11:30 and headed to mom's with a stop for coffee along the way. Mom was happy we were there, in fact she called Lin at about 10 to ask where we were.
Lady, we're coming.
Part of me felt like we both should just put our bathing suits on, jump in the pool and have fun before driving over but.
We have a pool in our new hotel. Friends, we'll make use of that. Off to mom's! We got there, settled in, Lin had to work, I had two meetings on Zoom and my last meeting of the day was with my work son/bestie/partner in crime. He traded off on some tickets to me and we talked about his huge family vacation they're going on, four generations and some cabins, fly fishing and him hanging out reading books and watching his nephews.
I am still technically on vacation and I am jealous of his week ahead.
Mom was in good spirits and happy to see us. We stayed there until about 5 and headed over to the hotel. Our friend Rosie is also staying here, and she's delightful. I'll miss her when she heads back home tomorrow.
Speaking of tomorrow, we're meeting with the mason that we met with in May that I never got things buttoned up with. But we'll get that all buttoned up. We will button. I believe we're going to take mom to lunch tomorrow, and we'll see how much cleaning or whatever we will get done.
Digits below. Cheers.
digits exercise: 12/12 hours; did a quick run on the treadmill, 10 min/.62 mi; 11k+ steps by bedtime
blood glucose:
9am: 136 4:30pm: 104 10pm: 193
food & meds:
9am: jardiance, new meds. 1pm: met+glip 4pm: pbj sammitch; new meds 6pm: met+glip ( i... think?) 7pm: 2 slices of pizza and some chicken fingers; white wine
Last night we hung out with our friend Rosie until about 11:30, and got to bed a little after midnight. I was fast asleep in no time. The AC in the room is rather loud, but consistent, no rattle or vibration. So it was a good white noise maker when it was running.
I woke up at 7:50, went to pee, and put myself back in bed. Just wanted some more sleep. I was surprised when Linda was also still asleep, but she got up shortly thereafter, and drove to the quickie mart for coffee. The coffee at the hotel here is just not good, and, they give you the world's tiniest cups. Useless.
I could have used 4 more of those coffees, thank you. But. Not to be. I set to work.
Got a lot of tickets taken care of quickly and did good steps each hour. A nice big loop around the property. It was utterly tempting to just get in the pool, get in the hot tub, walk down the steps and into the ocean. But I knew I would not get back to work. I'd end up all "Beach Hair Don't Care" and be insufferable to all my colleagues who were not at beach.
Through the day I nibbled a lot, not a real lunch or anything. I did eat the 2 left over steak tip bits from Linda's dinner.
Off the coast there was a giant thunderstorm with amazing clouds and pouring rain. It was kind of cool to be sitting here working and just taking a break to gaze out there on the sea and sky while they were doing their dance. My friend D back home will say "the clouds are showing off tonight," or "the moon demands our attention." It was the same
We always have a dinner date with our friend Alex who lives in Rhode Island, so that was on the agenda tonight. I realized I didn't bring anything nice to wear except for the super nice dress I wore to the symphony. But I did have something passable at the bottom of the bag.
Rosie came down and we headed out to the restaurant by Uber. The Uber driver was cranking the Dead and we talked about music for the ride. Alex was late getting to us, so we got seated and ordered wine.
Alex and Rosie had never met but it felt already like old friends spending time. We had a blast and a great meal. And more wine.
The Uber ride home was hilarious too. What a good night!
Lin had to do a work call and was tied up with that for a long time so I got some solo time with Rosie. Somehow we meandered through many topics, knee replacement surgery, and the Appalachian Trail. Rosie asked a question about who did the Appalachian Trail first, and I told her I knew about the first woman to do it. We pulled up the internet and I told her all about Grandma Gatewood and her hikes around America.
She seemed genuinely impressed that I know shit like this.
We hung out for a while and R had to go to bed. Linda came back around 11, and we are headed to bed.
More activity tomorrow as we have to check out, go over to Mom Land. We can't check into next hotel until 3 so we'll hang out over there. I have a 1pm meeting and a 3pm. Then I'm done for the day.
Still have not gotten in a pool or the ocean. Pool tomorrow, for sure.
Pictures and digits! A lobster the size of Rosie. And the crew!
digits exercise: 12/12 hours, Fitbit measured two walks for 12 minutes each, approx .3 miles each time. 10k+ steps by bedtime
blood glucose:
9:15am: 106 4:30pm: 126 10:30pm: 154
food & meds:
9:15am: jardiance, new meds. the last 2 entenmann's chocolate donuts 11am: 2 chunks of steak tips left over from dinner (linda's) 1:30pm: met+glip; handful of candied nuts 5pm: new meds 7pm: wine, bread dipped in olive oil, meatball, salmon on asparagus w/ some coconut jasmine rice; met+glip
C left on a business trip very early this morning, and I woke up at 8am and missed her already. I may take next Friday off, or at least the second half of the day, to just not be working. Like. Do a vacation day or something.
Lin and I both worked and worked a lot. Like all the work. I had several meetings, and she had a boulder to push up a hill and it keeps rolling down upon her.
At 4pm we were meeting our cousin Dave at a pub in the area. He lives about 20 minutes away and told us we shouldn't come to him, because it is the beach. Beach is busy.
We enjoyed a great fellowship. I love Dave, I think honestly he's my fave of all the cousins. Always has been. Lin and I hit the road around 6, stopped at the NH state liquor store for wine, and headed down to Plymouth.
I was surprised but the GPS took us down 95 and Rte 1, and we passed all my favorite places like Kowloon and the giant orange dinosaur on the side of the highway. We went over the Tobin, and over the Zakim, and Oh Boston. I miss you. Traffic was easy wonderful (ha) and we got to Plymouth at about 8pm.
Our friend Rosie always tells us to tell her when we are here. She lives in Connecticut, so she came out and booked a room in the hotel where we are staying. Hilariously, she is on the 2nd floor at the exact opposite end of the hotel from us, down the first floor so getting steps was easy tonight. I wish she was right next door.
We had a sweet catch up and hang out once we got to the hotel, and it was super late when she left to her room and Linda walked her back.
Tomorrow we both have to work but honestly my plan is pool? walk? a couple meetings? And a ton of Rosie time. We have a dinner date tomorrow, our annual dinner post-OTO with our friend Alex and Rosie will come too.
I'm looking forward to it.
Digits below this picture of us and Dave, and note that we are back on track with steps!
digits exercise: 12/12 hours, no measurable walk but almost 11k steps (45 steps shy!) for the day
blood glucose:
8:45am: 125 n/a: x 11pm: 126
food & meds:
8:45am: jardiance, new meds 1pm: met+glip and 2 pbj sandwiches 4:30pm: pear and goat cheese salad w/grilled salmon. 2 beers 6pm: met and glip and new meds white wine
The second day of OTO was great. Linda made bookmarks so after the best shower I've had in years, we went to the brewery next to the venue to have lunch (best cheeseburger I've had in my life) and friends came and sat at the table with us. We had an assembly line of friends building the bookmarks. I was trimming the edges, Rich and Brian were putting tassels together, Heather was hole punching.
Then we went into the festival. We got to our spot and I continued making arts and crafts while Linda went around passing them out to people. I chatted with friends who came by. I spilled an entire can of wine into my crotch (great job). My left ankle started to bother me so I iced it and elevated it.
I think my body is super extra mad at me!
Lin and I took a walkabout, and the sunset was spectacular. We always seem to get at least one day at Thompson's Point when the sky puts on a show.
I met up with one of my colleagues at one of our clients, and this is the third year we've connected at On the Ocean. Such a fun thing to meet up and enjoy a band both of us love.
I wore my medal to the show, so did a few others.
Guster's set, after Neal Francis and Watchhouse, was amazing. They were hilarious and so much fun. As part of this fest, they did the whole Ganging up on the Sun album for the 20th anniversary of its release. They had put out an expanded version a few years later, and a song called Emily Ivory is a huge fan favorite. It is actually Hen's favorite song.
They've never played it live.
But they did on Sunday. Much to everyone's delight. Hen and I turned to each other and screamed "IT'S HAPPENING!!!!!"
I don't want to steal anyone's pictures, and I personally didn't take any, but they had cue cards on the side of the stage so Ryan could read along. He always said "there are too many words in this song (yes there are) but also, it's a great little song. So glad they did it. Ryan said they'll do it again in 20 years.
After the show we got back to the hotel, S&S and Hen came down to hang out. We yapped until about 1am, and then crashed out. I slept like I was dead. No leg cramps.
Monday morning came, Linda worked because she had to do her payroll. We had to check out by 1, so we started our mad dash and scramble at 12:30. Made it out the door without incident, a little late, and loaded up her car.
S&S and Hen were staying until Tuesday, and we usually all go out to lunch on Monday together. Lin couldn't join us due to her mad crazy bad work emergency so I went with the team and we had lunch. Hen wanted to have fried lobster, which I'd never heard of, but this place had it.
Here's henry getting ready to eat a lobster claw bit, fried and wonderful.
We had a great time at lunch, and headed back to the hotel where they were continuing on with their stay and Lin and I left for C's house.
We got to C's around 7, I didn't do all my steps for the day and that's alright. I also didn't do them all today either. It got dark earlier than I thought it would. Oh well. I think I made up for it for a total week-wise step count with an 18,000+ day on Sunday.
I'll try to take a walk tomorrow before we leave here.
Work was good, I love working from the porch here, and got a ton done. Lots of catching up on tickets, and a meeting with a client which was fun.
Don't tell anyone but sometimes I miss my job when I'm away sometimes. Don't spread that around.
After work, I went down to Massachusetts to have some time with one of the kids from back in the day, Catie. She just became an NP, and she's always been a wonderful friend to Jess and to us. I love her, and we haven't seen each other since we moved to Maryland, so it was super nice to go be with her and catch up on all the things.
Back to C's and hangout on the porch for porch life. C went to bed super early, because she has to go to the airport stupid early. I miss her already.
A picture of me and Catie. Digits below. Oh, I didn't record/track the digits for the other days so here we are, back on track recording the numbahs.
Gotta say numbahs here in New England!
digits exercise: 12/12 hours, no walk, no run, no nothing. 6300k+ steps by bedtime. Meh.
blood glucose:
8am: 97 4pm: 190 11:30pm: 146
food & meds:
8am: jardiance, new meds 12:30pm: buffalo chicken wrap, met+glip 4pm: new meds 7pm: met+glip 8pm: chips & dips white wine & regular sugar cranberry juice (a splash, for color) big sugar cookie split with lin
Another OTO in the books. Tons of friends and family and memories. Not a full wrap up of events but. Here's a bulleted list of the highlights.
The Portland Symphony show with the Gusters was probably the GREATEST performance I have ever seen. Hands down. The band was at next-level, the conductor is a Guster fan so he was absolutely into it. Fully packed house. Outstanding energy. Great night and performance.
Portland has a crappy after 10pm scene. I'll just say that it sucks when a concert gets out, it is 10:30pm, and you have nowhere to go within reasonable distance to have a late night snacky snack and cocktail. And the one place that we found is open late, that some people rave about, has shitty slow service and costs an arm and a leg. Meh.
Lin and I did a service project Saturday morning EARLY. I've always wanted to do this as part of the fest but we never signed up or if we did, we didn't get picked. This year we went to the Preble Street Food Security Hub and helped prep basil for pesto. Their mission and ministry is so bad ass. I want to do this again, and if I find myself in Portland I will give them my time. For sure.
Adam from Guster came and helped, so we had kind of a good mini Q&A session with him, Won't share any possible secrets but they're feeling bold and optimistic about future shows with amazing destinations. Let's see what happens.
Both Saturday and Sunday shows were spectacular. Cannot complain at all.
Sunday I ran a 5k and almost died. More about that later because. You need the saga.
I feel like I didn't get to see enough people, spend enough time with some individuals, and that is kind of a bummer. Looking at Facebook has been a lovely experience, seeing what people took away from this time, in their perspectives. And it then feels like I got to spend time with them.
Wrapping up on Monday with a late checkout felt good but I am also exhausted and would have loved to not check out of the hotel and just be a sloth in there all day. But move along, we must. And we did.
We left Portland after 4pm on Monday, Linda had a massive work emergency that she is still fighting with today. We got to C's at about 7 and she had snacks and wine for us. We hung out with her and her cousin. I collapsed into bed at 10. Slept the whole way through the night until C came to wake me up.
"Come have coffee," she said. "Since I have to leave at 4 in the morning tomorrow for the airport."
Yes. Yes let's have this time together.
Bless bless yes indeed.
About the 5k
Alright, so. Let's talk about the 5k.
This was not fun. And not the fault of the 5k itself but so many other factors. Around 4am on Sunday morning, I woke up with a horrible leg cramp in my right shin. Not my calf, but my shin. Muscles, in the shin, what are you doing? My big toe was pointed basically almost the whole way up, and everything hurt like hell.
I managed to rub that down, get my toe back next to all its friends. Biofreeze, and water. Tons of water.
At 6am, my left leg realized it had missed the party and did the same thing. Damn. Wash, rinse, repeat... more water, more rubbing, walking, stretching.
I was incredibly relieved that Linda and I had our own rooms in the suite, because if we were just in a basic hotel room, it would have been so hard to deal with this.
Back to sleep, I don't have to get up until 8:15, so, grab a little more rest, Chris. You will need it.
We got to the race site, It was over 90 degrees, dead calm barely any breeze. The two or three times there was a breeze, it was rare and lovely. I almost wish it had rained.
There was a group photo (this is borrowed from the photographer).
And then we went to the starting line. They let the very serious runners go first and then everyone else, at your pace. Go. When I expressed a little anxiousness to him, Luke (from the band) told me I had all day to finish, and not to worry. Thank you for the salve for my heart, Luke.
I jogged quite a bit during the first part. It was brutal and hot. I deliberately didn't bring my water bottle with me because it didn't have a handle and I didn't want to deal with holding it the entire time.
People were running back the other way, including Luke, who gave me a high 5. Obviously they made it to the water station turn around point successfully and quickly. I lost track of the people I had been hanging out with. My friend H, this other girl R, and our friend V. They were all way ahead of me.
At some point, with the heat and the discomfort, the top of my head and right side of my face felt tingly.
My thoughts: Am I having a stroke?
Is this what a stroke feels like?
Body I am so sorry I am doing this to you. But we trained for this, we did. We can do this.
Please to try and kill me.
Then, the cramp came back in my right leg. You sonofabitch. No. Do not do this.
I kept looking for the water station at the turn around point. It felt like it was never going to arrive. When it finally did, I took a seat. The guy monitoring the station pressed a cold gallon of water against my shin when I told him about the cramp, and it felt very nice. We had a good chat. My intention was to wait 5 minutes and go.
She did not wait 5 minutes and go.
A guy walked over to the table and asked "Guster... so that's the band right? I haven't listened to them since college. What are they up to these days?"
Oh, here is my chance to shine and tell you all about the band and extend my rest. He said he had a long drive home that night, and he'd listen to the new albums. I told him to come to the fest next year and have a blast.
I also realized that I wasn't seeing any bibs on runners anymore because all the 5k participants were already heading back the other way.
Ope.
"Jim," I said, "I'm officially going to be last now. Gotta go, bye."
It was brutally hot. Hotter than before. Again, tingly head, dust everywhere. I texted Lin to tell her I was probably about a half mile out. On my way. I'm coming. I'll get there. Jim had come to the finish line to tell them that I was on the way, don't go yet.
No runner left behind!
Four friends came out to meet me. My friends V and R, and a couple I don't know. They walked the last quarter mile with me and when I got to the finish line, several people stuck around to welcome me and cheer.
I finished 1:26+, and if I hadn't sat there yapping with some guy about Guster I probably would have still finished at like 1:10 or so... but. I finished and that's all that counts.
Right?
If you look at that full squad picture up above, like 10 of those people stuck around to meet me. Linda was there, and the race organizers were there. I could tell they wanted to pack up their shit and go. Linda and Jim made sure they didn't. And I'm thankful for that.
They went to put my medal on me, but my friend H had to be the one to do it. She took the medal away from the person who was gonna put it on me, she hung it around my neck, and we had big hugs and cheers.
I also think my fitbit needs recalibrated, because it told me I went over 4 miles for the 3.1 mile journey. Hmmmm. So I've been actually shorting myself distance when I think I'm going 5k, I'm actually ... not.
