Friday: Swim!!!!

Ivan in his fancy spa bathrobe in route to swim

Pic that Ivan took of me before we left for swim as

I was demanding my camera back

Oh yes friends, last night I had too much fun to blog.  I had a friends get together, and was so sad and bummed to have to leave.  It is a frustrating thing to be expected at home.  The next time I have a friends get together, I may just inform everyone that I am spending the night so that I can stay until the final cup has been put into the dishwasher.  Or, I may just pack Ivan into the car, load up the pack'n'play, the baby monitor and his myriad of stuffed animals and camp out.  Gatherings are not to be missed!!!!

Anyway, I arrived home too late to blog, and yesterday I just ran and painted like a mad man.  I am painting Ivan's bathroom and am finding out the hard way that darker colors sometimes take three coats.  While I would rather be sucked out of an airplane window than paint three coats onto the ceiling, wall and trim, I am getting through my ipod book, Mountains Beyond Mountains.   Paul Farmer is my new hero, and George Soros has risen in my estimation.  Say what you will about "the man who broke the bank of England", he is throwing money at tuberculosis and making a difference.

Also, I am in the midst of book adultery.  When Ivan, my husband and I were in the midst of the terrible pink eye saga, I started Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.  I was plowing through Team of Rivals, and then we went to California and the book was really too large to tote on the plane.

SO, I switched to a paperback book called Mating.  Mating won the National Book Award in 1996, and is masterfully written and a bit odd if I am honest.  It is about a woman in Africa who is finishing her anthropological dissertation and embarks into several odd relationships before traveling across the desert alone with two oxen to get to a man that she is fixated upon.  I must say, the man is not my idea of a catch, but our heroine (who does not have a name, now that I think about it) is consumed.  So, I have been hauling through Mating, with the intent of re-immersing myself in Team of Rivals.


HOWEVER, two days ago, I realized that I had book club in two weeks and had not read the book  It is Rebecca, by Daphne de Maurier. Now let me just tell you, Rebecca is a PAGE TURNER.  I woke up early this morning and decided not to run, but to wallow in bed until 6:30 AM reading Rebecca.  No Joke.  It is totally melodramatic, written in 1938 and about the a young woman, her older husband and the long dark shadow that his first wife casts over them.  They live at a house called Manderlay.  All day long, I have been saying "Maaaannnderrrlaaaay" in sort of the same dramatic way that Dracula would say "I vant to suck your blood".  It is like I can't stop.  When we were swimming today, my friend Jamie caught me saying Manderlay to myself, and I am 99% sure that she thinks I am nuts.  It is great, and I predict that I will finish it, and go back to my dalliance with Mating before returning to my true love Abraham Lincoln.  Book adultery is a seedy life to live, wrought with guilt and shame.  Will some one think I am one of those people who does not finish books?

This morning, after my Rebecca reading in bed, I popped up AND for the second time this week, I got to swim on time.  I was one of the first ones in the water.  Carl, the life guard, clapped for me as I walked in and I swam 4500 meters like a pro.  For my next feat, I am planning to get up early and run on Monday morning, before going to the pool.  Workout as follows:

• 300 swim
• 100 kick/ 100 drill/ 200 swim
• 100 kick/ 100 drill/ 200 swim
• 8 x 50 kick @ 1:05
• 9 x 100 swim @ 2:00
• 8 x 50 kick @ 1:05
• 8 x 100 @ 1:45
• 8 x 50 kick
• 500 cool down kick (where I was able to explain why I was saying "Maaanndeerrrrlaaaay" dramatically to myself)

4500 meters is a huge amount of yardage, and I am a monument of punctuality.  

At home, I dove back into my painting project, which is going badly by the way and then toted Ivan off to practice his swimming.  I ended my day at Yogurt World, which is the best way to end every day.  Running tomorrow!!!