Long road to recovery
I am SLOWLY getting better. At this point I have some coughing issues in the morning but I am sleeping fine. My energy level is still low, maybe 3/4 of what it normally is. It’s been almost two full weeks of illness now.
Saturday morning we got up bright and early to go time another race. We decided to leave the dogs home this time since it was a small race and we would be home before 10 am. The race had around 200 runners. As usual we had a few chips that did not register as they crossed the timing lines. Out of those only one was confirmed as being dead. Other than that the operation went rather smooth. I am familiar enough with the process that most things are starting to feel more or less routine. We were all packed up and ready to leave by 9am.
When we got home we opened the door and were greeted by an immediate mess. Sadie has continued her destructive behavior that started last week. Not only has she continued it, she seems to be trying to set the bar higher on the destructo-meter each time she does it. First she somehow managed to get into the pantry where she pulled out a number of items from the recycling bin. In the middle of the living room was a ripped up pack of UNO cards that she stole from the game basket in the dining room. In the dining room she not only stole the cards but chewed on the basket that the games sit in. Then for the grand finale she chewed on the legs of one of the dining room chairs.
Of course we were PISSED. We scolded her loudly and repeatedly. The problem is that in a dogs mind she doesn’t know what she is being scolded for since the bad behavior occurred when we weren’t there. They say that if you don’t correct the dog when they are in the act of the bad behavior they don’t really know what they did. So I took the dogs out while Ali picked up the mess. Ali had already started removing things of value from low areas around the house based on Sadie’s antics earlier in the week. If it continues we will have to further restrict her access to the house when we are gone. Unfortunately doing that also means restricting Nicki’s access which is not fair. If the bullshit doesn’t stop we may be forced to crate Sadie when we are gone. I’m not going to allow her to destroy the house.
I kept busy for a good portion of Saturday doing various things around the house like hanging another solar light on the back of the shed and flushing out the water equipment and treating it with pool chlorine. Ali took a nap in the afternoon for a little while to compensate for the early wake up call. We spent a lot of time over the weekend catching up on a backlog of Tivo programming.
Sunday morning Ali went to spinning while I started on more chore work. Later in the afternoon I thought we would do a “fun” thing. I thought we would pile the dogs in the van and go for a drive. The party van has been problematic again lately. I think the starter which I had replaced two or three years ago is going bad again. When you turn the key sometimes you just get a CLICK. You turn it the next time and you may get another click or it may start normally. I think I could handle replacing the starter on the party van myself. There should be plenty of room to work under the big beast. Well it only took two tries to get it started so we loaded up and took off for a short 20 minute drive. Nicki went right back to the bed in the back and stayed there the entire time. Sadie started back in the bed with Nicki but soon decided to join us up front. She hopped up in Ali’s lap and hung out there for the rest of the drive. She looked quite content just laying there looking out over the dash.
The van was low on gas so we stopped to grab some on the way home. Ali was paranoid that the party van would not start up again after I turned it off. After dumping 20 bucks worth of gas in it I hopped back in and held my breath as I turned the key. VRoom, it started right up, first time, good boy party van, good boy!
Sunday night I got an unexpected call from my brother-in-law in Arizona. He asked if I wanted to hop on the Wii and play some Super Smash Brothers online. We both bought the game a few months ago with the intention of playing online but we never have been able to coordinate anything. My sister is just about ready to pop out their second kid in a few days and Damon has been under a ton of stress. I got the feeling he just wanted to escape from it for a bit. I told him I would call him back after dinner and we could hook it up.
I called him back and we set ourselves up in the game as friends. We kept our cell phone on as we played to act as our poor man’s voice ventrillo server. Super Smash Brothers is a frantic fighting game that I absolutely suck at. Damon was consistently kicking my ass round after round. I was trying different characters each time to see if I had better luck. Finally I found one that seemed to lend itself to people that basically didn’t know how to play the game. I won a couple fights towards the end even though I think Damon was taking it easy on me. After about 45 minutes of head bashing we called it a game. It was a fun little break.
I was talking with Randall about maybe participating in a 150 mile ride down in the Keys to benefit MS. 
However in order to do it I needed a road bike. The only bike I own is a 20 year old Huffy mountain bike that is on it’s last legs. I realized this weekend that I couldn’t do the event because I have to time a race that weekend. However I still wanted to get an entry level road bike.
When I was a kid I loved to ride my bike. I rode it everywhere. As an adult I have drifted away from much bike riding for some reason. Riding bike is much more agreeable with cranky knees than running is. I have visions in my head of actually riding to and from work once in awhile just to say that I did it. (a nearly 50 mile round trip) So anyway I pulled the trigger and bought this bike off Ebay from a dealer that has a perfect feedback score. It has good reviews and for the money it’s hard to beat. I am looking forward to getting out on the road. Yes I will even buy a nerdy helmet and bike pants.