It must be July in the Washington area when its only 9:30 in the morning and the Heat Index is already at 90 and climbing. Luckily that wasn't the case yesterday for our Saturday morning practice. It was a bit muggy, but only in the low 70s. We had a good turn out and the Men took out an 8+ plus three 4+s. I stroked one of the 4+s, moving back to port rowing for at least one practice anyway. We had a substitute Coach for the day as our regular Coach was off taking his Teacher's Certificate test. I use the phrase substitute Coach liberally. He's really one of the rowers, although he does Coach for one of the High Schools. We did a pyramid piece heading up river starting at a 22 strokes per minute for 5 minutes, then 24 for 4 minutes, etc. That lasted 15 minutes and put us up past Ryan's Dam. For some reason he had us paired with the 8+ rather than the other 4+s. Needless to say we fell behind and had to struggle to keep close. Also his wake management sucks. He continually went from boat to boat waking all the other boats in the process. That caused me to cut my thumb on my boat when his wake caused our boat to pitch down to port as I was coming up to the catch. The pitch to port caused my thumb to be smashed between my oar handle and our winged rigger. Bled quite nicely. Coming back we used the 8+ as the rabbit and the 4+s played leap frog with it. We started a bit behind due to the need to fix a loose top nut. Therefore, it took us about 2 miles of racing hard to finally catch the 8+. Tough row that.
After practice we had one of our monthly breakfasts at the boathouse. It was the Competitive Men's turn to provide the goodies. I brought cinnamon buns and others brought fruit, breads, yogurt, doughnuts, water, juice and coffee. We also cooked pancakes - plain and chocolate chip. Its a fun way to mingle and socialize while pigging out.
In some disturbing news, our next door neighbors were robbed on Thursday. Someone kicked in their back door and made off with jewelery and some cash. These neighbors are the nicest people. They were on vacation when it happened so they had to cut that short and return home. This is the third house in the neighborhood that has been burglarized. The MO seems to be that the robber pretends to be going door to door to sell something and when they find a house with no one home, breaking in and grabbing jewelery and cash. Stuff they can get, carry and dispose of quickly. With our neighbors, no attempt was made to loot any electronics for example. We do feel badly for them.
We are going to a wedding today. It's the son of friends of ours. We've known the parents for ages since way back when we were all interns. We've had University of Maryland season tickets with them for over 2o years. Its down in
Williamsburg, which is part resort and part historical tourist destination so that should be nice. And it's inside so we won't wilt in the heat. We're taking Monday off to recover. Party on!
It was a lovely ceremony and we had fun at the reception. I've never seen a bride so excited to be married. She reminded me of a little kid about ready to open her presents on Christmas Day. We were fortunate to be seated at the same table as our friends (parents of the groom) since as it turned out, we didn't know anyone else there. Ann and I are not the best minglers, but the other people there were nice and made us feel welcome. Plus there was an open bar! We spent the night in Williamsburg so we didn't have to worry about partying and then having to drive home. Speaking of driving, the trip to and from was much easier than expected. It took us only two hours each way.
