Biking, Lowe’s, tattoo.

Jeremy bought himself this bike “rocker plate”. It’s suppose to add a bit of real-life tilting motion to a trainer ride. Jeremy and I both try to “train” as exercise. In other words, we both try to get faster at our respective exercise choice – biking for him, running for me. In reality (at least for me), I try and I usually can put together a good six week block of training, but I often get hurt (hamstrings usually, but the toes and knees and ankles have also contributed), busy, or exhausted and don’t forget also older and menopausal, and then it stops for a bit and I have to regroup and try again. This cycle has gone on for years, so really, in trying to get faster, I’m usually pleased that even if I’ll never be as fast as I once was, I have not lost too much ground. (Note: fast is a relative term. I’m slow, lol. but it’s still way faster than I thought I’d ever be able to run.) Jeremy still wants his best performances ahead of him. I think he’s overthinking things. He collects all this data – not only the exercise data, but now all this weird recovery data – mostly heart rate variability which supposedly measures the quality of one’s recovery and I think it psyches him out. Like you wake up, you think you had a great night of sleep and the body battery says – nope, you are really not well rested. Or it says the other way around, you had a lousy night of sleep and the body battery says – you are 100%, it’s a great day to do a hard workout. Then it messes with him. Honestly, for years, I’d marvel at Jeremy’s ability to do weeks/years/seasons of hard workouts. But now it’s more uneven and he can’t quite decide then what workout to do that day. Paul is still coaching me and one of the best parts of having workouts sent to you is that I never waver on what workout I’m doing that day. It almost doesn’t matter how I feel, I just keep trying to hit the workout. Many times, I fail at the workout – I’ve had whole blocks of training where I can’t do the prescribed workout. But sometimes (many times), I surprise myself and do something I thought I couldn’t do – and it doesn’t really seem to correlate to how rested/ready/recovered I am or feel.

Jeremy made dinner for my parents and us and neighbors and caregivers. We had dinner with my parents via zoom last night. They picked up their baked ziti that Jeremy made. Usually, Lee family dinner is Friday night, but my parents asked Jeremy to make a meal so in order to have time to cook, we moved it to a non-work day. My dad will be fully vaccinated on Friday and then his gig at Lowe’s will start two weeks after that. I asked him about the interview process if he first had to submit an application online and he said that he tried to but the place where you entered your birthday stopped in the 1950s so he couldn’t apply online! He just went to the store and asked for a job. On his phone, he showed the interviewer all the renovations he’s done to numerous houses and that he knows the store like the back of his hand. He also mentioned that in the past year, he’s spent tens of thousands of dollars on materials at the shop. (It literally is his favorite store). The person who did the drug screening looked at him and said – you must be really bored at home. My dad really likes meeting people and talking to them. I have the same itch which is why I like being a nurse. We both like the initial meeting, though I think my dad is better at parties and likes telling stories about himself and I like “forced” encounters – like both volunteering for the same boy scout camping trip or I’m your nurse today (I’m not very good at parties) – and I prefer listening to your stories rather than telling you mine. I’m curious to see how they will schedule him, he said he could work anytime, anydays. Is the 6am slot most popular for workers? Or the least popular? Will he work weekends only?

We’ve spoken to a happy Vince. Things are picking up in college. Birthday parties, outings to In ‘n Out, people sleeping in each others’ beds (?!), talk about getting tattoos. (I don’t need to know about the group tattoo trip, please don’t tell me about it until much, much later. Just spend $ and get a nice tattoo if you are going to get a tattoo.) I don’t want Vince to retract from telling me these things so I refrain from asking every three minutes – so you masking? outside? distancing? Fingers crossed he doesn’t get sick. I think he’s got to make it until May or June for his vaccine. I’m not entirely sure he’s going to make it without getting sick, apparently the entire 2nd floor of his dorm rented at house at Lake Tahoe for President’s day weekend and decamped from campus for presumably a weekend of college-age debauchery which somehow doesn’t conjure up images of keeping one’s own body fluids (all of them, every last aerosolized or non-aerosolized bit) to oneself. Also, he some questions about whether he can change his engineering major to a philosophy major (don’t ask, though I think the philosophy dept (and perhaps his grandfather) would be thrilled).

We were going to take Edda to Philly for an appointment Thursday, but that didn’t happen because of the snow. Today we got the notification of her bus schedule (which is wrong, but we’ll fix it) which starts March 1st. School is starting to feel real. The teacher’s union says it has “no confidence” in the reopening of schools. Edda is in the first group of 700 students coming back – less than 1%. We’ll see.

One thought on “Biking, Lowe’s, tattoo.”

  1. Wow I have missed so much!!! First Vince if you read this make sure the tattoo artist is 1)a good artist and 2)the place is CLEAN. As in sanitary.

    Cool new bike stuff Jeremy.

    OMG I would love to go into Lowe’s and it be your dad who helped me! Now every time I talk to a person at Lowe’s I’m gonna think, “Are you a nuclear scientist?” That is intimidating.

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