The best thing that I can do for Baleen right now, after massages and healthy food and drilling the occasional hole in the wall to hang a picture on, is to not upset her. So I'll just tell you about the return of my favorite shirt. It's not the one shirt I'd grab if our apartment were on fire, but it is the one that brings the biggest smile to my face when I wear it (under a sweatshirt on the commute to work).
Walker and my swim club, the South End Rowing Club, has a twice a year event called Run, Jump, Swim. The rules are simple. Line up in front of the club in your Speedos at 9am on the announced day. At the gun, run the half mile or so to the end of the Muni Pier, jump into the Bay, then swim the quarter mile to the Club. Repeat as many times as you can for one hour. This is my kind of swim event. In all club swims, I'm definitely in the bottom half and sometimes the bottom quarter. But throw some running in there and I've got a chance, at least against this aquatic audience.
The $20 entry fee gets you an event shirt, breakfast, and pays the gas for the Zodiac ferrying your shoes from Pier to Club. If you're in the Top 12, then your shirt has a number on the sleeve. In the spring of 2011, I came in 7th. I loved that shirt with the 7 on the right sleeve. Baleen hated it. When I put it on, she saw some cheap imitation of a Pac Sun t-shirt, made all the worse as it was on the back of this thirty-three year old, not some high school kid. But not me. Just as Baleen may soon look at our son to be and think what others' might not, that he's the cutest little baby the world has ever seen, all I saw in that shirt was the 7 on the sleeve. When we went to Greece this past summer with W&C, that shirt didn't make it back. It was last seen somewhere on the goat trail between Mylopotas and Klima. So when this winter's RJS came around, and we decided to invite our partner club, the Dolphin Club, to join us, I got a little worried. All of a sudden, the audience doubled, while my chances of getting in the Top 12 halved. But not to fear all you fans of fashion. At 10am, when they counted the swimmers coming in from their fourth lap, I was the twelfth one out. I just picked up my #12 shirt yesterday. It's the ugliest, most wonderful shirt I've seen since the last one.
Walker and my swim club, the South End Rowing Club, has a twice a year event called Run, Jump, Swim. The rules are simple. Line up in front of the club in your Speedos at 9am on the announced day. At the gun, run the half mile or so to the end of the Muni Pier, jump into the Bay, then swim the quarter mile to the Club. Repeat as many times as you can for one hour. This is my kind of swim event. In all club swims, I'm definitely in the bottom half and sometimes the bottom quarter. But throw some running in there and I've got a chance, at least against this aquatic audience.
The $20 entry fee gets you an event shirt, breakfast, and pays the gas for the Zodiac ferrying your shoes from Pier to Club. If you're in the Top 12, then your shirt has a number on the sleeve. In the spring of 2011, I came in 7th. I loved that shirt with the 7 on the right sleeve. Baleen hated it. When I put it on, she saw some cheap imitation of a Pac Sun t-shirt, made all the worse as it was on the back of this thirty-three year old, not some high school kid. But not me. Just as Baleen may soon look at our son to be and think what others' might not, that he's the cutest little baby the world has ever seen, all I saw in that shirt was the 7 on the sleeve. When we went to Greece this past summer with W&C, that shirt didn't make it back. It was last seen somewhere on the goat trail between Mylopotas and Klima. So when this winter's RJS came around, and we decided to invite our partner club, the Dolphin Club, to join us, I got a little worried. All of a sudden, the audience doubled, while my chances of getting in the Top 12 halved. But not to fear all you fans of fashion. At 10am, when they counted the swimmers coming in from their fourth lap, I was the twelfth one out. I just picked up my #12 shirt yesterday. It's the ugliest, most wonderful shirt I've seen since the last one.
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