In a few weeks we are leaving on a jet plane (my first one since Covid hit) to visit my family in UP. I consider that my "real" vacation. But before that, on Sunday, we are driving to the Outer Banks for a few days at the beach. It's our warm-up vacation. I've used hardly any personal leave the past few years (that'll happen when you're quarantined with nothing else to do but work from home), so I've got a decent amount accrued, and I could definitely use the R&R. It should be good. The beach is always nice, and we are meeting another family there, whom we get along with pretty well and haven't seen in a few years.
We actually have a house reserved starting Saturday night, but we are going to a wedding of a friend of mine that night, so we aren't going to the beach until the next morning. Not surprisingly, S didn't check the calendar carefully before booking our trip. It's just how she does things -- she charges ahead with abandon and so mistakes are not uncommon. Like when she buys garlic pretzels instead of regular pretzels (and still tries to make dessert with them). Or the one that really blew my mind. A few years ago, when she was looking for a new job, we were watching TV, and she was casually browsing listings on her laptop, and she said, "Ooh, this one looks perfect!" And then she just filled out the application on the spot, even the parts requiring you to write actual sentences, not just fill-in-the-blank, and attached her c.v. and submitted it, just like that -- between challenges on Project Runway or whatever. I couldn't believe it. If that was me, applying for a "perfect" job, I would have locked myself in a quiet room and spent a solid half-hour checking and double-checking every last thing.
But she's a pretty successful person, career-wise, so it seems to work for her. It drives me crazy sometimes (like when she, say, books a beach house for the same night as a wedding), but I just let it go now. You gotta take the bad with good with people, especially spouses. Also, if I complain, I'll get an earful about how she does all the planning, and that's basically true.*
*The big stipulating factor here is that she often plans things because she doesn't like the way I do it. So it sometimes becomes a game of "you plan this thing this time... but do it exactly the way I would."
Like I said, the beach will be a welcome get-away. My anxiety levels have been manageable, but they have definitely crept up over the past few weeks. Reading the news is basically just doom-scrolling these days. Delta variant! Global warming! Inflation! I'm still employing my "mullet strategy" -- news in the morning, entertainment at night -- to stay informed but also sane. But the latter takes a little more effort right now.
The Olympics are still a big part of my nightly routine. As I mentioned in my last post, it's surprising how much I've been enjoying them. Pure comfort-watching. I wish the USWNT (soccer) had won the gold, but anybody can slip up in a knockout tournament. They lost to Canada in the semis but took out Australia to salvage the bronze. Megan Rapinoe scored two goals, in what was possibly the last Olympics game she will ever play, and now she gets to kick back and cheer on her wife, Sue Bird, in the women's basketball gold-medal game. Not a bad consolation prize, huh?
There have been a lot of great moments, but I think my favorite so far is Gable Steveson, a 250-pound freestyle wrestler, scoring two take-downs in 13 seconds (!) to win the gold-medal match in buzzer-beating fashion, and then celebrating by doing a back-flip. Beautiful.
As I write this, the US men's basketball team is about to tip-off against France in the gold-medal game. France actually beat them in the group round, but I think the US will win. They're not really the "Dream Team" anymore -- the rest of the world has made up a lot of ground in the last 30 years and many of the top Americans sit international tournaments for one reason or another (LeBron James and Steph Curry are notable absences this Olympics) -- but they are still the heavy favorites to take gold when guys like Kevin Durant agree to play.
I'm going to watch the game, but before I do, I want to brag on Lil' S2's latest mathematical achievement. He won the bottle of snacks seen below in a "Guess How Many" competition at his camp. He guessed 600 and there are 610. Now, this could be total dumb luck. But I suspect it's not, I suspect he looked at it and sized it up and came up with a reasonable guess. I mean, I would think your typical five-year-old would be just as likely to guess 100 or 100 million as they would to get the correct answer. Getting within 10 takes some numerical acuity, I have to think.
Until next time...
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