I’ve scheduled vacation days in any number of different ways these past few years, but this year was a little more challenging because I had to use so many of my days early due to my mother’s hospitalization and passing in the spring. I nevertheless managed to squirrel away enough time for a week’s outing on Green Lake in Maine, but after that I was pretty much done. But then we had Hurricane Irene, and my company obliged me by calling me in on a crappy Sunday afternoon and keeping me around for three days straight. So I wound up with an unexpected bonus-day in lieu of a day spent housebound during a hurricane. I took that day on Friday, making this past weekend a four-day weekend.
If you’re wondering, I’d thought about waiting to take that last day around Christmas but decided to go ahead and take it now because, bottom line, the weather in Connecticut is usually crappy at Christmas time, and more to the point, Christmas is a fine time to be in the office. No one else is around. It’s usually quite and relatively peaceful. So I’ll have to work on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, but I got to take off on a day when the weather was good, and we didn’t have anything in particular that we needed to do. To me, that trade will be worth it nearly every time.
The main reason that I took Friday off was that Sally and I needed to get in one more long training run before the Hartford Half-Marathon. The Half is this coming Saturday, so Friday was our scheduled rehearsal. By taking an actual vacation day for it, I not only ensured that we had enough time to fully recover, I also made it so that Sally and I could run together.
We got up around regular time, got the kids fed, dressed, and off to school, and then we stretched and headed out around 9:30 or so. We ended up running not quite eleven and a half miles, and it took us just over 1:45 to do it. I was pleased with the overall effort. Running with Sally kept me well below any kind of working pace, so that I still felt pretty good, even at the end of an hour’s effort. With about four miles left to go, I was legitimately ready to start picking up the pace and bring it home hard. Unfortunately, Sally was getting tired by then, so I just sort of kept on keeping on—probably not a bad thing, all things considered. The whole thing was quite a confidence booster, especially given that Sally is actually good at the half-marathon distance. Unfortunately, my left ankle started getting a little gimpy at about the one hour and fifteen minute mark, but though I was able to push through it, it remained a bit tender all the way through mid-week this week. Still, this is why you give yourself plenty of recovery time after the rehearsal. I ran on it a bit yesterday and don’t seem to be suffering any ill effects.
After the run, Sally and I came home, showered, changed, grabbed some snacks, and headed back out. The rest of the afternoon kind of felt like a date. We only went to the chiropractor and then to the Whole Foods deli, but it was a beautiful day, the kids were stuck in school, and we weren’t on any particular schedule. That kind of freedom is an absolutely unknown thing in our marriage any more. By the time we got home, it was early afternoon. I got the kids, and we eventually ordered some food from the local Chinese/Japanese take-out place. I can’t say it was the best dinner I’ve ever had, but it was easy, and that sort of set the tone for the rest of the weekend.
Saturday was more of a typical weekend-type day. We got up around regular time, got the kids some breakfast, and I took them to swim lessons while Sally worked around the house. After that, I think we spent most of the afternoon working around the house while the kids played outside. I ironed and watched a couple of episodes of Alphas on Hulu.
Sunday was similar with the caveat that I was really fired up about the Titans/Steelers game and made sure we were home from our errands in time to catch it. We started the day by heading out to Sleepys where we bought a new mattress and then Sears where Sally bought a new dryer. Exciting! Heh. Seriously, it was kind of fun looking at mattresses, and we let them use their new-fangled computer analysis machine to tell us what our optimum mattress would be. How many different ways are there to say, “Firm, but not too firm”? I don’t know, but we must have heard fifty. The mattress industry has definitely done some work on up-selling the average consumer. Still and all, I’ve gotta admit that the sales pitch was both logical and somewhat entertaining, and I left Sleepys feeling like we’d done okay. There’s something to say for that.
Of course, the Titans game was a debacle of the worst sort, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t watch the whole thing. I did. And when I got disgusted with it, I flipped over to the Giants/Seahawks game, but that game was, if anything, even worse than the Titans game. Fortunately, my friends Jeff came over for the 4pm Jets/Patriots game, and while I can’t say that that game was great, I can at least tell you that we drank a lot of beer and laughed a lot. And that was great.
By the way, with all the weird-ass beers we’ve been drinking lately, I’ve been considering a beer-review post. Anybody interested in seeing that?
Monday was by far my favorite day of the weekend. I made pancakes, and after we finished cleaning up the kitchen, we packed up the bikes and headed out to Hammonasset State Park. We rode for maybe two hours, had a picnic lunch, read about some of the local wildlife, and then drove out to an orchard for apple picking. By that time, though, both Sally and the kids were absolutely smoked, and worse, the apples were pretty much all picked! The weather here has been so beautiful lately that everyone in the area had already been out to get apples. There were barely any left, and those we found were so high that we had to climb for them! Work!!!
Eh. We did finally manage to get a little bag full of apples, but I was happy when we eventually got home. Sally and I cracked open the dry Riesling I’d been saving since last month—it’s incredibly hard to find a dryRiesling, if you’re wondering—and I watched TV with the girls while Sally worked on dinner. And boy, that Riesling was worth it.
Overall, it was an awesome weekend. But then again, that’s true of pretty much any weekend that ends with a day spend on the bikes with Sally and the girls. Those day are, by far, my favorites.
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