Old is ok, Big 10

Yesterday I was showered with lots of virtual birthday wishes via Facebook as well as a few old school phone calls from my brother, sister and Dad.  After work I drove straight to Carrabbas to meet Cindy and Katie.  Getting there so early met we didn’t have to deal with big crowds. It also meant that we were 20-25 years younger than 90% of the patrons there at that time of day, in Katie’s case, double that.

I got there maybe 10-15 minutes ahead of Cindy and Katie.  I spent the time at the bar knocking back one happy hour Bud Light draft and had just started on my second.  We were immediately seated and enjoyed a very tasty dinner.  All three of us cleaned our plates.

During dinner I got to catch up on some of Katie’s world.  She has been making some positive changes recently which I am happy to see.  She is a very smart and personable kid with a lot of potential.  When you are her age it’s very easy to not care about a lot of things and not really know what you want to do with your life.  When I was her age my life direction was on a constant weather vane.  At that age most people really don’t know what the hell they want to do.  There is a lot of trial and error you have to go through.  It’s how you learn and grow as a person.

Cindy still was in the throes of her illness but put on her best game face as she always does.  I felt badly that she was feeling so shitty.  After dinner we drove both vehicles back to the house to enjoy desert.  I had not said anything about my traditional chocolate cake and I didn’t have time to make it myself.  I just sort of assumed we would skip it this year which was not a huge deal to me.  Well Cindy surprised me and actually made the cake yesterday afternoon.

The cake has been a source of conflict in our household over the last few years.  Cindy has been frustrated that it was the one item that I seemed to prepare better than she did.  Well yesterday she stuck to my gameplan where you do absolutely no ingredient substitutions and you make sure the butter that is used in the icing is not too hard and not too soft.  The end result was the best chocolate cake Cindy made to date.  I enjoyed every calorically dense bite. Cindy bought me a bunch of stuff that will be perfect to wear on our upcoming trip which was appreciated.

So despite my normal amounts of whining and complaining about getting old the bottom line is if I do have to get old at least I am in a pretty good spot to do so, surrounded by a loving environment as we go down that long and winding path together.

This will be my last conventional entry for a looong time as after today I am off until December 28th.  I am hoping to be able to peck out some interim entries during the NYC trip as I do during road trips.  It’s the only way I can get a thorough recollection of events.  On Saturday morning we time a small 5 mile race down in Marco and then have to haul ass home, get things in order and then head to the airport for a mid afternoon flight up to JFK.

Our schedule up in NYC is still being formed.  We have a list of things we want to see/do but have not designated when or what order they are going to all occur.  One thing that is solid is a trip on Sunday out of the city to  Stonepark, where my calisthenics buddy Lou trains regularly.

I have known Lou for years via our shared interest in calisthenics.  Originally Lou was almost exclusively about calisthenics but in recent years he has taken a big interest in powerlifiting and unconventional workouts using things like massive tires, atlas stones, and farmer carry handles to build huge amounts of functional strength.  Lou has put on over 50 pounds of body weight over that time and is literally twice as strong as me in most movements.

I have never met Lou in person or even talked to him on the phone but we have had pretty extensive communication through other electronic means over the years.  Meeting up at Stonepark where I will get to experience the brutal style of workouts Lou does everyday will be a very memorable and likely painful experience.  I have no doubt there will be a lot of video footage shot that day.

The rest of the trip is going to be filled with never ending sights and sounds that the endless energy of NYC provides.  Having that much humanity in a concentrated area is just such a foreign thing to people like us, it literally is like traveling to another world in some ways.  Being able to share all of these experiences with someone like Cindy multiplies my enjoyment 10x over.