One Of Those Days

Ever have one of those days? You know the ones. Where the days starts out bad and just goes down hill from there. Today was one of those days. My first chore of most days is walking the dogs. The devious twins, aka Amy and Emily, go first. I try to get them out in that time between when the middle school bus has picked up its charges and when the elementary school kids begin their walk to their school. I do this to minimize the chance of actually running into anyone. The twins tend to go ballistic if they see any one (as terriers are want to do) and who needs that racket at 7:30 in the morning? Upon opening the garage door there at the end of our driveway walking passed our house was another person walking their dog. Clue in the barking, the yelping, the carrying on. As the Grinch noted: "The noise...noise...noise...noise..." I dragged the twins back in the house to wait a few minutes and tried again. This time with success. After walking all the dogs, I showered and was getting ready to leave the house when I got a phone call from Ann. She had gone to Mass and was calling to report she had a flat tire. Great. Luckily a few kind men offered to help her change the tire so I was off the hook for that one. Dodged one bullet. Then I was off for an appointment with my eye doctor. I'm having continuing problems with my eyes due to the fact that some of my lower eye lashes grow back toward my eye and scratch my eye. Today was a scheduled treatment where the offending lashes are literally burned out of existence. Sounds painful doesn't it? Actually that part isn't bad at all because your lower eye lid is numb. Now getting the shot in your eye lids to numb them - that's the painful part. That and they bleed like crazy. While waiting for the doctor, Ann calls and informs me that they tire has been changed. Great news! Except the spare is also flat or just about. Crap. The kindly gentlemen that help change the tire direct her to the nearest service station to get both tires fixed. I hang up and I'm then directed into an exam room and given three injections in each of my lower eyelids. It's as painful as I remembered. I'm left alone to give the shots a chance to work. And alone and alone. The doctor finally returns with an apologetic "Oh I forgot all about you!" Oh how nice. Three eyelashes from each eye meet their end and I'm released. Thank goodness. I now get another call from Ann who is sitting at Starbucks while the tires are being taken care of. Someone or something has tripped the alarm at our house and the police are on their way to investigate. She thinks she may have forgot to cancel our dog walker or maybe not. I finally arrive home and no police and no note. I assume that they found no forced entry and no one home and figured it was a false alarm. A bill should arrive from the county in a few days for that. Merry Christmas. Driving into the garage, I notice the door into the kitchen has blown open and thats what tripped the alarm. Not to self - make sure the door is securely shut before running off to appointments. The rest of the day in uneventful. The quiet before the storm. Just as we are about to sit down to dinner, The Son calls. A phone call from The Son is almost always bad news. Its just a matter of degree on how bad. Turns out his car battery is dead. He wants me to come take care of it. What? He wants to use our car (flat tires now having been fixed) to go to work in the morning. I tell him to call AAA and they will install a new battery for him. Grumbling ensues, but he agrees to do it. 30 minutes later he calls back. AAA has arrived, but they don't have the right battery for his car and will have to return to the shop and pick one up. Oh and by the way, they're showing 2 different types of batteries called out for his car and would I know which one is the right one? Of course I don't so they leave to get the one they do have and we're all praying it's the right one. AAA returns and all seems to be ok. We'll see come morning. The car will be sitting out all night during the coldest night so far. The wind chill is already down to 3 with 25 mph winds. We finish dinner and Ann and I immediately fall asleep in front of the TV. We're old. Its what old people do. We wake up and face the dreaded job of taking the dogs out for the final time before bed. Its cold. Its windy. We whine a lot about it, but we walk the dogs. Scruffy's business looks terrible. We get home and unleash the dogs. We notice an unsettling smell coming from the dining room. Apparently Scruffy isn't feeling well and the dining room has borne the brunt of his intestinal distress. I watch the dogs while Ann does the clean up. We are keeping our fingers crossed that he isn't all up night having problems. After all who needs another day like today?

Long Distance Romance

Daughter#1's husband Matt was here for the weekend visiting his bride and trying to make the most of their time together. Daughter#1 is living with us for the moment here in Virginia. Her husband is still living in Connecticut while trying to find a job in the Washington DC area so he can rejoin his bride. Watching them reminds me of my own long distance romance I did with my now bride, Ann.

I met Ann back in January of 1975. We were both just out of college and trying to make our way in the world. We both worked for the Government, but at different locations. I was living in Charleston, SC. Ann was living here in northern Virginia. We were both in an intern program and required to take a lot of classes as part of the program. The first was a 4 week course usually taken at Ft Lee, but occasionally offered elsewhere. Where Ann was working had a large number of interns and, therefore, it made sense to being instructors to her workplace rather then send a lot of interns off on travel for 4 weeks. They still had some open spaces in her class and I managed to get one of them. It made sense for me to take the class in northern Virginia as my family (Mom and Dad) lived in suburban Maryland at the time and I could stay with them while I took the class. I made a great first impression on the class as I was over an hour late the first day due to traffic. Nothing like getting off on the right foot. The days were long - 8 hours of classroom lectures. By the second week, during one of our breaks, Ann came up and introduced herself to me. Not that I hadn't noticed her before. She and her two friends were hard to miss. But being the shy clod that I was, it was well she made the first introduction. She invited me to join her and some of her friends at the hotel bar next to where the class was being held. The rest as they say is history. We got together everyday after class for drinks or dinner or a movie or just going to her apartment and watching TV. On weekends I would drive from my parents house to take her out. All to soon the class was over and I was back in South Carolina. We would talk on the phone during work hours as I was too poor to have my own phone in my apartment (remember this is way before cell phones). We planned our next class so we could take it together. This time a 3 week course in April. This one was also as her workplace and this time I stayed at a hotel close by rather then stay with my parents. Seeing her everyday first for 4 weeks and then for 3 weeks was like speed dating someone. You got to know them well pretty quickly. After the 3 week course, we decided we were a pretty solid boyfriend/girlfriend and made weekend plans to see each other when we could. Back in those days, the trip from Charleston, SC to Alexandria took 9 hours. The speed limit was only 55 and their were portions of I-95 that were not yet completed in North Carolina. It helped that I got let out early on Fridays if I gave blood. So every 6 weeks I would. That would get me to Ann's place by 10:00PM. Otherwise I'd roll in at 2:00AM Saturday morning. We'd have Saturday together and part of Sunday. I was usually back on the road between 1 and 3 PM. The drive back to South Carolina always seemed a lot longer then the drive up. We did the long distance dating for over a year. Most of the time I would make the drive up to see her, but occasionally she would make the drive down to see me. Rather she found a Navy CDR with his family still living in Charleston and the two of them would drive down using her car. I was finally able to arrange a job working where Ann worked and moved up in July on 1976. We were married that September. It's an anniversary hard to forget these days. We were married on September 11.

Holidailies 2010

Wow. I can't believe I haven't written anything here since the twins birthday in July. That is down right embarrassing. I'm glad December has rolled around and the chance to participate in Holidailies once again to get me writing. This is my fourth year to participate in Holidailes where bloggers are asked to update their blog every day for a month. As I stated last year at this time, I'm looking forward to joining in for two reasons: I usually find some new blogs every year that I didn't know existed and look forward to following as we start the new year. The second is a bit more selfish in that it exposes my blog to a much larger audience then I could ever hope to drum up on my own. I typically get a big jump in readers in December over the rest of the year.

I don't have a Cast of Characters listed on my blog so let me introduce everyone that you might run across on these pages. I'm Frank, author and creator of Ready.....Row. I'm a 50ish Federal Worker who resides in Virginia and works in southern Maryland. I have been reading blogs for quite a while and it seemed like having one was fun so with a little encouragement, mostly from Beth of So the Fish Said, I set up this blog. This is my fourth year of writing in this blog. As the title of my blog might indicate, my main hobby is rowing. I belong to two rowing clubs in the northern Virginia area. I've been rowing since 1995. I got into rowing via my oldest daughter, who was a coxswain on her high school and college teams and now coaches for one of the rowing clubs I belong to. I row in 8+s and 4+s primarily when racing in Masters events and I also row a single for fun and exercise. When not rowing, I also like to bike and I have been know to brew my own beer from time to time.

Others you will run into here:

Ann - Wife of 34 years who puts up with me.

Daughter#1 - Our oldest child and who is currently living with us. She is working for a University Medical Hospital in Washington, DC while pursuing a Masters degree from Boston University online. She graduated from Ohio University with a degree in Journalism, which to date hasn't quite produced a paying job, hence the work on the Masters degree. Her husband Matt is still residing in CT and trying to get a job down this way. He visits as often as he can.

The Twins:

The Son - Twenty something IT Geek. Graduate of Radford University. Only one still living close to home. Video gamer obsessed.

Daughter#2 - Twenty something VA Tech grad living out in the Shenandoah valley with her husband also named Matt and their dog Gracie, known as the Black Demon. She is an environmental planner and current University of Florida grad student. Former soccer player extraordinarie.

Rosie - Our 16 year old mini schnauzer mix. Obtained through a schnauzer rescue organization when she was 9. Bottomless pit when it comes to eating.

Scruffy - Wheaton terrier. A rescue from the Homeless Animal Rescue Team (HART). A truly lay back dog in a house of chaos.

Amy and Emily - Affectionally referred to as "The Twins". 2 year old Miniature Schnauzers. Sources of endless energy. As mischievous a pair of dogs you will ever meet. Rescued from a West Virginia shelter in the middle of last year's record snowfalls.

If you're reading this, I hope you take the opportunity to come back over the next month and see what this crew is up to.

Happy Birthday!

Today is the 28th birthday for The Son and Daughter#2. Twenty-Eight years ago they were born about 7:30 AM at Alexandria Hospital. The Son was born first followed about 6 minutes later by his twin sister. Here is wishing both have a great day.

Speaking of Daughter#2, she and her husband stayed with us last night after they attended the Iron Maiden concert at Jiffy Lube Live (formerly Nissan Pavilion). After weathering a thunder storm it all apparently went well. Jiffy Lube Live? What a name.

We're having work done on the house. We've had the basement area, including the bathroom, repainted. Now we're having the wallpaper stripped off the dining room walls, prepped and painted. Next on the agenda is our bedroom. That's if Ann and I don't kill each other over what color it should be.

Practice continues for Sunday's Diamond States Regatta. I have practice tonight in both the Mixed 2X and the Quad (4X). I'm sure I'll be one tired camper come tonight.

Race Results and Mistaken Identity

So Daughter#2 wants to know how the races went on Sunday. Well good and bad. My boat came in 2nd out of two. Not surprising as we were racing a boat whose average age was 20 years younger. The margin of defeat was somewhat embarrassing though. The Son's 4+ also came in last, but a lot closer then my boat. The good? The weather was gorgeous. Sunny, not overly hot and a light breeze. Water conditions were wonderful. Who wouldn't want to row under those conditions? Also good? The club as a whole did really well. The Mens 8+ came in 3rd in a race where only 2 seconds separated the top 4 boats. The Womens 8+s came in 1st and 3rd. The Womens 4+s came in 1-2-3. The Women's Lightweight Quad came in 1st and our Mixed 8+ came in 1st. Quite a good showing. They served some ice cream after the racing was over, which The Son got to enjoy. Since my race was next to last, we chose to just return to the boathouse and not stop at Sandy Run. The Regatta was run out of Sandy Run. It was a good time for all, I think.

In other rowing related news, my Coach has asked me to row in a mixed Double (2X) with her at our next Regatta, which is Diamonds State in Middleton, DE. That takes place next Sunday. I've never entered a sprint race in a boat that small. We practiced this morning to see how thing might go. It wasn't hot, but Lord the humidity. I was soaked by the end. We did four 1,000 meter pieces. I was just exhausted by the end. I had also did the same thing the evening before, also in a Double. I don't think I was fully recovered or more likely, properly hydrated to do back to back practices like that. We have another practice in the Double scheduled for Sunday morning.

In a weird happening on Tuesday I was confused for the base taxi driver. Most of the guys that do the bulk of the driving for my van pool were out on Tuesday. Another driver took us to his office building just outside the base gates and then I had to drive the van onto the base. After dropping off the two remaining riders before proceeding to my building, this women hops in the van and asks to be taken to the base medical clinic. I was sort of taken aback and stunned and not quite sure what to do. I figured she must have had an appointment there and since she was walking with a limp, I figured it wouldn't hurt to take her considering the clinic is on the way to my building. As we drove along she was asking all these questions on where she could and couldn't be picked up by the taxi. It finally dawned on me that this women thought our van was the Base Taxi (they do use the same white 14 person vans although they are clearly marked with signs that say "Base Taxi" on them). I dropped her off without incident never really telling her that my van wasn't the Base Taxi. Weird.

First Race and Other Topics

It appears that I've been absent for some time now. Nothing posted at all for June. That's embarrassing. I'd like to say I've been super busy and couldn't get around to it, but that's so not the case. Just a case of laziness. With this post hopefully I can get back on the wagon.

The rowing season is off and running. I've been sculling a single since early April and my other rowing club began practice in early June. Our first race is this Sunday on the Occoquan. The Occoquan Boat Club (OBC) is sponsoring the Occoquan Masters Sprints. I'll be racing in a Quad in the "E" age category. "E" = Avg age is 55-59. My main rowing club is primarily a sweep rowing club. We race in 8+s and 4+s. We only dabble in sculling boats like the Quad. So of course, I'm in the Quad. I'm in the bow seat and responsible for steering the boat while I row. Fun times that. We haven't had much practice time in the Quad(see statement about the club being a sweep rowing club). So far there is only one other boat in the Quad category. They're from Pittsburgh and Three Rivers Rowing. They are an "A" age category boat. I have no illusion of keeping up with guys 20 years my junior. I would just like to keep close enough that the race is respectable once the time handicap is taken into account. (The younger the average, the less time handicap you are awarded). Racing against us old guys, Three Rivers will have to give us a significant handicap. I just have no idea how much - 15 or 20 seconds? We'll see.

On to other topics. Daughter#1 has moved back in. The family got together and painted the basement room for her. Less you think she is living in some small, dank, dark basement be advised that the room is huge, fully carpeted, has its own full bath, a fireplace and sliding glass doors to the backyard. The room has 4 windows in addition to the glass doors. She's hooked up with cable and Internet so she's all set. She is also coaching the women in my rowing club who are in the competitive category. Its neat having her out on the water with me. In other even better news, she has landed a job with Georgetown University. Things are looking up. We just need to get her husband a decent job down here.

In other news, hell must have frozen over here because The Son has also joined our rowing club. Something I thought I would never see. I've been asking him for years and he's always said "No". I think the combination of his sister now being involved with the club, his old high school coach also joining this year and his utter boredom with running and using his Elliptical for exercise finally got to him. We've already rowed several times together in the same boat. It helps that he rows starboard and I row port. He rowed in high school so its not a new endeavor for him. I actually think he's getting excited about racing tomorrow. It will be his first race in over 10 years. I hope his boat does well.

So as not to make this overly long and use up all the news in one post (plus it's time for lunch - priorities people!), I'll get this posted. Hopefully it won't be another month and a half before the next post.

Boomerang Child

Like a fair number of adults my age. Ann and I have have been empty nesters for about 2 or so years now. Ever since The Son moved into his condo back in 2007. Being an empty nester has its good and bad points, but we have made the adjustment and have pretty much settled into our own routine. That has all changed as of yesterday. We've now joined another select group - parents of a boomerang child. As Wiki defines it, a boomerang child is one that has moved back in with their parents after a stint of living out on their own for a period of time. Our boomerang child is Daughter#1. She has been living in Connecticut with her husband for several years now. During that time she has obtained work and been subsequently laid off several times. She has worked part time gigs when available. The economy has hurt her and her husband pretty hard. He works in sales and a large part of his income is based on commission. The economy has taken a bite out of his commission income due to lower sales. With Daughter#1 out of work and with his lower salary, they have had a hard time making ends meet. Daughter#1 decided that she needed to go back to school as her Journalism degree wasn't bringing her much in the way of job offers. She has decided she wants to get into nursing. An honorable profession. Unfortunately, a degree in Journalism doesn't get you much in terms of prerequisites to get you into nursing school. In addition, Connecticut doesn't seem to offer as many alternatives in terms of getting into an accelerated nursing program. Virginia offers several alternatives for such a program. Therefore she decided to return home to work on her degree program. Her husband will be joining her shortly, we hope. He has been applying for jobs here in the Washington area and we're hopeful he'll land one soon.

It will be strange for a while having a kid back in the house full time. On one hand it will be nice having help with the dogs and she will also be joining my rowing club. She will be one of the coaches for the Women's competitive team. I know its something she enjoys doing. I just hope the women, who have been known to run off a coach or two in the past with their antics, treat her with some respect. On the other hand, Daughter#1 is notorious with using excessive amounts of hot water and wanting food items not usually on our shopping list. I'm sure it will all work out for the best in the long run. She's already had her first class at the local Community College (Chemistry) as she continues to work on those nasty preregs. I'll give her this, once she has an idea in her head she'll stay focused on it until it's complete. She's the most anal child I've ever known. She has a lot of work ahead of her, but I have confidence she'll manage it.