Sub 31, Bday
On Friday after work we went to Carraba’s. There was an hour wait so I drank 3 beers and then drank a woman’s gin and tonic. She got 2 for happy hour but only drank half of one so I didn’t want it the other to go to waste. However the prospect of having to leave a vehicle there and the whole having Mom along thing, made me shut it down before we sat down for dinner. The alcohol did help dull the sting of being firmly entrenched in my late 30’s, if only temporarily.
On Saturday morning I went out to run errands and try to wrap up my Xmas shopping. Going out into the shopping areas the week before Christmas is asking for misery but I went for it anyway. As expected, each place was jammed with people circling parking lots, people filling the stores and just basic madness at every turn. As I was waiting in a long line at Sam’s Club, I took a moment to just look around and saw that basically every nook and cranny of the store had someone in it, doing something. There are just too many people. Unfortunately all my effort didn’t result in my wrapping up Xmas shopping for Ali. I need to snag her something this week yet, sometime, somehow.
Saturday afternoon we had another 5k. This was a Christmas run, complete with little bells that the runners wore on their sneakers. It was the smallest field of any race we ran so far, maybe 130 people. This race we basically ran by ourselves from the get go. A pack went ahead of us, a pack was behind us and we had at least 100 yards in either direction for most of the race. Again we had a fast pace and I tried to keep it that way. Ali struggled but managed to battle through it to another personal best, breaking the 31 minute and 10 minute mile mark at 30:50. She was totally spent. I was very proud of her effort. We stuck around for the award ceremony in case Ali managed to place but she didn’t get one. Originally we had planned to watch the Marco Island Christmas parade right after the run and we went up to the parade route and sat down in a ditch, for about 5 minutes, after which we both agreed that we would rather just get home, so we left. Finding our way out of Marco, avoiding the parade route was a challenge but thanks to the GPS we managed to get out. On the way home we stopped at Pizza Hut, a place I haven’t stepped foot in for at least 2 years, to grab dinner. My bad knee was hurting enough that I iced it when we got home, however it felt better the next day.
On Sunday I watched the dreadfully bad Eagles game. I can’t remember being less excited about an Eagles victory. Both teams played uninspired ball and it was sloppy as hell. I could not believe how many false start penalties the Rams had, I bet it was close to 10. Mike McMahon is just terrible, he threw another 3 picks. He needs to be moved to a different position like wide receiver.
After the game I was complaining to Ali how I was basically devoid of Christmas spirit. We sat down and watched Charlie Brown Christmas and the Grinch movie. It helped a little bit but my holiday needle is still pointing at 1/4 tank or less. I have a 4 day week then took off additional days so I won’t be back to work till next Thursday.