Year 2, Day 118: Torrential Downpour

Got up early in the AM, and played a set of tennis against my brother in law. After a bruising (6-1,6-2) loss on Friday, I set my sites on getting three games off of him. I actually got 4, but he beat me (6-4). However, as opposed to the games on Friday, where I felt like I was holding a frying pan instead of a tennis racket, I remembered how to do some things out there. I remembered how 'swing through' the ball and lots of other stuff. To say I was a recalcitrant student of tennis when I younger is an understatement. But I did always love the game. And now, with a year of ellipse work behind me, I feel I can really cover the court in a way I was never able to do, even at my best, maybe 10 years ago, when emily and I played two or three times a weekend (and several times during the week). Of course the best part is that is that for every set of tennis, there's more balthazar and bread and peanut butter to eat.

Breakfast
2 Soft-Boiled Eggs
1 Large Slice Balthazar Multi-Grain Bread
2 oz 50% Jalapeno Cheddar
Green Tea

Snack
1 cup coffee
Another 1/2 slice of Balthazar Multi-Grain Bread
About 6 Stalks celery,
4 Tablespoons Peanut Butter

Lunch:
Turkey Sandwich—Balthazar Multi-Grain bread, Mustard, 50% Jalapeno Cheddar, Chinese Cabbage Salad, Assorted Greens. (I split it with Emily)

Packing the House Anxiety Eat:
Balthazar Chocolate Bread with Peanut Butter (Three Bites)

On the road snack:
2 Cheese Sticks

Dinner
70% of 1 Fresh City "Great Caesar" Wrap with Chicken
1 Bite of a McDonald's Hamburger (awful).

I must say that the anxiety related to moving and packing a house nearly always drives me to nearest unhealthy yet delicious snack. This can account for me inhaling a vat of peanut butter as we all ran around like chickens trying to put a life in boxes. On the way home, a light rain gave way to a torrential downpour and nearly every vital junction we got to was jam-packed with twice the volume of cars that could easily pass through it. By the time we got to the last 15 miles of route 84 you could only see headlights through the dense, cold fog and sheets of rain that made the top of the car sound like the bottom of a jiffy-pop popcorn in progress. The mood in the car was surprisingly upbeat, which I attribute to being in the roomy new minivan instead of the cramped old station wagon. But, we had left at 4:23 and by late in the 7:00s we had just got to the Mass Pike so we pulled over and all went in to go to the bathroom, and to get Ruby "Bratz Magic", theoretically the toy at McDonalad's (I believe now it's at Burger King. Ruby doesn't understand the distinction, and why should I explain it, really?). She's not that disappointed when it turns out to be "Cars" but she doesn't really eat her hamburger (she ordered two) and you know she won't eat french fries. In a moment of weakness, I allowed her to get the apple juice as a drink, but she really didn't want that either. Emily and I got 'wraps' from Fresh City, but neither of us finished them. They were, in my analysis, poorly constructed, badly drenched excuses for salads made by people without a concern for the quality of a salad. And really what can you expect? The woman expediting orders was more concerned with letting me know how frustrated she was with the customer on the phone; the woman making the wraps was probably at her second job, and the place was PACKED with people waiting on line to get previously described poor salad wraps.

Out of both frustration that the hamburgers went untouched, and desperation for something to eat, I took a bite of Ruby's hamburger. It wasn't awful in the traditonal sense of the word—something you would spit out—but it was something I probably don't need to do again for a long time. As Emily said about Ruby's refusal to eat McDonald's— "She knows what a hamburger tastes like." Amen.

By the time we got home, we were all car sick, home sick, and sick and tired. But mostly, as my mother would say "glad to be home in one piece."