Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

Winter, spring, summer, fall

I used to get really excited by the first blooming crocus.

Today, when I got in my car, Charlie and Dave were calling the 6th inning of a Nats-Marlins game. Oh glorious happy day. Spring will follow winter.

Then summer will turn to fall, and so on.

Check out the last question in Tarik El-Bashir's Capitals chat today.

I see Yvon Labre at games now and then. A few people stop and shake his hand, but to most, he's just a middle-aged guy in an aisle seat. "Heart and Soul" is not a permanent position, except perhaps in the minds of a few old fans.

Better living through chemistry

Guaifenesin. Fluticasone propionate. Licorice tea.

Stupid emotional investments

Being sick and all, I pretty much forgot that today was the NHL trade deadline. Besides, unlike the Great Fire Sale of 2004, I had no reason to suspect that the Caps were going to make any big moves.

Victor just called to disabuse me of that notion.

See, I just don't see the Capitals making the playoffs*, so I don't see the point of a springtime rental like Federov...but it's Ted's money.

And Pettinger, he's been in a heck of an unlucky slump. At least in Vancouver, he won't be coming back to make life hell for us eight games a season for the next ten years when he snaps out of the slump.

Which brings us to...

In my most logical, left-brainy moments, I think, in regards to Kolzig...it hurts me to actually type it...perhaps the time has past. I could say dispassionately about Hanlon, not the coach for this team. So in the same vein, maybe this team...young, offensive, with no fucking defense**...needs a different goalie.

Sentimentally, Kolzig is the last guy on the team in whom I have an emotional investment. I do think he still has skill left to offer a team, but it would need to be a team with a fucking blueline**, and I have been concerned all year that I might not see him retire on Olie Kolzig Day on F Street.

And now, with Cristobal Huet, we have three goalies.

I suppose there are several scenarios that might play out here.

(In one scenario, I go answer the door to find the UPS guy with my Nationals tickets, and I turn my attention to worrying about what's going to happen with first base, given that I love Nick Johnson and Dmitri Young. When will I ever learn?)

*I've been meaning to write about this...they seem to tighten up too much under pressure, is my 5-cent analysis. But hey, I thought they weren't gonna make any deals today, so what do I know?

**I have a hard time staying dispassionate about that part.

It's that hubris thing, isn't it?

I've been around a lot of sick people the last few weeks. Victor had the flu, half my office had the flu, most of the other half of the office had a cold. I've been downing snake oil and sleeping ten hours a night and eating spinach and broccoli, determined to avoid getting sick.

And it was working.

Then my ex got the flu. He gives me a hard time about my mostly-vegetarian diet (vegetables are what food eats, he likes to tell me). so I started bragging about how, being all healthy and mostly-vegetarian, viruses were bouncing off me like bullets off Superman's chest, ha HA!

I left the office about an hour ago, sore throat, headache, sneezing, shivering.

I'm not going to tell him.

To the locals

When we get not a flake of snow or pellet of ice tomorrow, you can thank me. I sent all of my staff home tonight with work and my home phone number, and I personally brought home about four day's worth of stuff to do.

And I have 48 rolls of toilet paper.

If I'm this prepared, it must go bust.

Melting pot

I got a menu from a local Chinese restaurant in today's mail. This cracked me up:

Does "foo" not translate, or does it just mean the same in all languages?

More Music

I've been in a funk. Part of it, I expect, is that I haven't been getting outside, because the rest is just the usual crap...work, sick pets, that sort of thing. Because of the incipient flu last week I didn't go to the gym. (Although with the herbal teas, Airborne, and Sambucol, I never got sicker than a sore throat, while all around me people dropped like flies.)

I heard today that it was 70 degrees at lunchtime, so I went outside. It was 70 degrees in DC. I think I'm 25 miles from the Capitol; it was 50 degrees. So much for sunbathing.

So I went to the gym. I cranked up my iPod and the incline on the treadmill. I was not loving the treadmill, but I am starting to understand why people walk around with iPods on all the time. I love music. (Sweet sweet music, I love music, as long as it's groovy...)

No, really. It helped.

My favorite cut of the afternoon: End of the Line, by the Traveling Wilburys.

I was going to type of some lyrics, but through the magic of YouTube:

Hearts & Chocolate

This has nothing to do with Valentine's Day.

It has to do with my blood pressure, which (despite my diet, exercise, and zen-like serenity) is stubbornly parked on the hypertension borderline.

I remembered seeing a study in JAMA that suggested that chocolate might lower blood pressure, so I went back and looked it up:
Effects of Low Habitual Cocoa Intake on Blood Pressure and Bioactive Nitric Oxide

There are some intriguing aspects to this, like the fact that the participants ate what Victor called "otc" chocolate...Ritter Sport Halbbitter, in this case, instead of some 80% cocoa powder weighed out in a lab. (Halbbitter is 50% cocoa. I've seen lots of articles that suggest you need at least 70% cocoa to get the health benefits from the phenolic compounds. That reminds me of baking chocolate. I have a baking chocolate story; I'll tell it sometime.)

Also, the "dose" was only 6.3 grams a day, which is one little square. In one way, I wouldn't mind eating an entire Ritter Sport a day (I'm particularly fond of the hazelnut & raisin), but I'd have to spend more time on the treadmill. 6.3 grams is only 30 calories; I'm not going to worry about that.

And in the end

From baseline to 18 weeks, dark chocolate intake reduced mean (SD) systolic BP by –2.9 (1.6) mm Hg (P < .001) and diastolic BP by –1.9 (1.0) mm Hg (P < .001) without changes in body weight, plasma levels of lipids, glucose, and 8-isoprostane.

If I can stop eating cheeseburgers and start eating broccoli, if I can stop drinking Dr. Pepper and start drinking tea, I think I can find a way to train myself to eat a square of chocolate every night.

I just had a thought

Because of the awful weather and the awful traffic, Maryland is keeping the polls open til 9:30 tonight. That's good, but...

At my polling place, all of the election judges are 100 years old. Well, maybe not quite, and even if they were 22, driving home tonight is not going to be a picnic. And first they'll have to chisel the ice off of their cars. I sure hope all those folks get home safely.

On the other hand

I'd rather have the flu than have to drive to work on ice yet again.

I left the office early today (I worked late last night and was in early this morning, and was determined to go vote this afternoon before the lines got long.) It was a little icy...I saw a few cars stuck at odd angles in median strips...but dare I say, I've been driving on ice so much this winter, I'm almost getting used to it?

(Not that I like it, mind you. My car handling may be improving, but I'm still afraid some jackass in a monster truck is going to slide into me and my little Focus will be a pancake.)

Anyway, I was home by 4 and I've been ignoring the news because frankly, I'm bored with the elections already. But that nifty emergency weather radio that Victor got me for Christmas just cut on to broadcast the ice warning. Apparently...and this is what, the third time this season?...the cold air moved farther south than predicted, and there's a hell of a mess out on the roads tonight. And instead of warming to rain overnight, we could have 1/4 inch of ice by 7 a.m.

I know there was something I hated about living in Florida, but right now I'm not sure what it was.

Force.Of.Will.

Beat it, influenza B Yamagata, or H3N2, or whoever is lurking around my home and office. I don't have time for you.

Don't mind me, I'm just grumpy

I really don't know why I bother looking forward to weekends. They are no less stressful and no more relaxing than the work week, and I don't have the consolation of saying "At least I'm getting paid for this."

Lent for an atheist

If you don't buy in to the miraculous resurrection and the get-out-of-Hell-free card, it's pretty much about betrayal, torture, indifference, and death.

Good sale on tuna fish at grocery store, though.

Sure it's a big overblown spectacle and all

Just before the football game started, I heard this question in a player interview:

How do you handle the enormity of the Super Bowl?

(I'm not sure who asked; I was in the kitchen fulfilling my patriotic duty of preparing a dinner with a week's worth of empty calories, so I could hear but not see the tv.)

Now that I think about it, maybe the interviewer did mean to question how one handled the outrageous evilness of the thing.

I'm sort of reconsidering the enormity of the chili quesadillas about now.

I started early-took my dog

Back in the fall, when we started hiking, we took the dog. That lasted a few months, then I got home from work on Halloween to find the dog whimpering at the top of the stairs, unable to put weight on her hind legs.

The diagnosis was arthritis, not really a shock in a 15 year old dog.

Except for occasional bad days when it's particularly cold or damp, she seems to be doing ok, but we haven't been hiking.

Today it was so spring-like (oh please oh please, six more weeks of this!), I took the dog to the trail. We didn't go for a long walk by my standards (about an hour) but she splashed in the mud, scrambled over rocks, and jumped logs, tail wagging.

And now she's fast asleep on the sofa, snoring so loudly that even from upstairs I can hear her. She sounds like my dad before he got his apnea machine.

Groundhog Day

If it's six more weeks of 50-degree, mostly sunny winter, I'll be happy.

(I think Groundhog Day might make my list, if I were to make a 50-favorite movie list like Ted did. It might even be top 25, even though I have an unreasonably strong dislike for Andie MacDowell. Maybe I like Bill Murray that much more.)

Heart

How could a band that did Barracuda sink so low as do that walked through the garden, planted a seed crap?

Barracuda makes me turn up the radio; the other one gives me hives.

(I bet you thought this entry was going to be some American Heart Month PSA about cardiovascular disease, didn't you?)