Friday, June 29, 2012

Ft. Baker

I can't catch Asprilla up Hawk Hill. On the way across the Bridge I told myself to hang on to his wheel as long as I could. Deciding that early gives the mind a break, but not the legs. It's all determination and effort from there. So just before the tunnel that leads to the Start, when Asprilla went down to Ft. Baker and sea level, I did, too.

Great, I thought, the mind already getting in the way, you'll fall off a lot earlier on the Hill than you thought you would. It almost happened on the 300 vertical feet from Ft. Baker to the Start, a short, steep half mile that felt steeper than the Hill itself, later confirmed at the comfort of my desk by Strava over a cup of coffee. I lasted to the Start, telling Asprilla that I was on his wheel and I was hoping to stay there, remembering that people who say things out loud are more likely to accomplish them, and even lasted through the Start. Just as we were getting into the False Flats, as Asprilla pushed into higher gear asking if we'd ever get a tailwind instead of the usual headwind, I lost him.

I pedalled through the Flats alone, as did Asprilla, and kept the gap about where it was through the Circle to the top, crossing fourteen seconds after his 12:49. That's enough to give me hope for next week. On the Sprint, I said I'd lead the group out, which I did after Joe Louis dropped off, and when you say you're going to do that, that's what you end up doing, even if you stand up and sprint at the end, it's unlikely you'll cross the line first, not just because you've done the work for the others behind you, but because you've made up your mind that the day's for leading others out, not winning.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Bachelor

The manliness sadness begins. I dropped The Dragon Boss and Baleen off at the airport this morning for their flight to Boston. Gigi must be estactic. Mother and son will be in mother's hometown for two weeks of show and tell - and two weeks without dad. I'm trying to hold it together.

To get by, I'll be doing the things that I haven't the last 14 weeks, like ride Hawk Hill more than once a month, eat pasta from the pan, swim in the Bay, read books that don't have pictures showing how to insert a thermometer into a baby's rectum and most luxioursly, sleep.

It might start tomorrow with an early morning Hawk Hill raid. Then again, I might choose to sleep through the night. But for any of these, I'll only do it in between calls and Face Time with Baleen and TDB. Because if I could hang out with my family for these two weeks, sleeping, reading and exercising be damned, I most defnitely would.

Monday, June 25, 2012

28.997

Baleen turned 28 and 364/365ths today. The Dragon Boss, who's 3 months and 9 days old, has us measuring our age like we do his, though I haven't let Baleen transition to TDB's 3-hour cycle of eat, activity, sleep.

We're celebrating Baleen's birthday like we do most things in the Mission suburbs, by feasting. It started on Sunday night at Locanda. Shrimp Jr. babysit TBD, allowing Baleen and me to saddle up to the bar while they cleared our table, and when we didn't like the table, we went back to the bar and the bartender who truly liked us. He benevolently rewarded our loyalty with a complimentary stout from Green Flash Brewing and after dinner apertifs, but what we really liked was the homemade pasta. Even with that wedding registry pasta maker addition to the KitchenAid mixer, we just can't duplicate that at home.

On Tuesday, Baleen's actual birthday, it's sushi for lunch with Rowan and Cooper's mom, and linguini with clams for dinner. And after that, this just about to be baked cake with 29 candles, probably one or two more than she can blow out in one go.

Friday, June 22, 2012

La Petite Baleen

There's another Baleen out there. It's a swim school in the Presidio and it's more crowded than a petting zoo with free feed. The Dragon Boss and I threw on our swim trunks (speedo for the little guy, board shorts for his dad) and tested it out.

The Dragon Boss liked it a whole lot better than Lake Anza last week as the water was much closer to bath temperature than Bay temperature. He shivered a little bit when half his body was exposed, but when you put him in up to his neck, he liked it just fine.

His temperament was steady throughout. Not once did he cry, nor did he laugh. He just stared at me like he did when he got his first baths, as if to say, Okay, you can surround me with water but I'm watching you, don't let go. This time, he let us dunk his mouth and eyes underwater and he came up kicking without a tear in sight.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

The Treehouse


Baleen and I shed a tear at our level-headedness yesterday. In the circuitous way that the internet allows, a search to see how much the apartments two doors down from us were selling for led to a 3-bedroom, 2 bathroom house just off the Dipsea Steps listed at $699,000. Our kids can grow up in a treehouse, she said.   

What the realtor told us is what we expected, that it's a unique place requring unique owners who aren't afraid of a tough resell. There's no guaranteed parking, just three usually available public spots at the end of Cascade Way, then 35 public steps up the Dipsea Trail and 35 more private ones to your house. Which means that with our current rate on deliveries from Amazon Prime, we'd have to buy our UPS man a keg of Fat Tire each Christmas, forgetting for a moment all the groceries, furniture and strollers that we'd have to lug up and down those stairs.

He also told us something we didn't expect, that it was redone beautfilly on the inside with a brand new kitchen, hardwood floors throughout and updated bathrooms. That, and that it was currently in escrow in a $650k short sale, 3 years after it last turned over for a cool million. We talked about offering $660k and renting it out for a year or two, forgetting again what it would be like to haul a few toddlers and groceriers up those stairs, or what we'd do about a 90 minute commute for Baleen or if we'd even want it then, which led to the level-headed conclusion that we're staying exactly where we are for now.



Monday, June 18, 2012

Father's Day

The Dragon Boss started Father's Day off right, sleeping soundly through the night, so soundly that at 5.50am, when Baleen and I awoke wondering how we hadn't been awoken when we had multiple times the night before, she made me open his creaking bedroom door to make sure he was alright.

The monitor showed that he startled, but stayed asleep, and when he finally woke up around 6.30, he did so with a big smile on his face for the first person he saw, his dad. Quite a Father's Day gift from the little guy.

But that wasn't it. Baleen came through strong, as she does, with a Father's Day theme of paternal experiences. First, there was Whit's adorable little blue speedo to match the one his father wears in the Bay, in addition to a swim lesson next Saturday at La Petite Baleen in the Presidio, followed by a couple of books, Bay Area Hikes for Kids and the Boy Scout handbook for new dads. If you want to know how to construct an emergency diaper out of a towel, a sock and that ever present man gear, duct tape, just let me know.



Friday, June 15, 2012

Another Hawk Hill Return

Baleen took the night shift yesterday so I could be in spandex at 5.55am and the start of Hawk Hill at 6.45am. I was a little less exuberant at the Start, my second time back since the arrival of The Dragon Boss, and hung on Asprilla's wheel when I found it, knowing that if I could follow him for every inch of the climb, I'd be just fine.

It took a little work to stay on his wheel in the False Flats where I was fourth of five, and then the third of four when Packy Bonner stepped aside and waved us forward. That gave me a little boost, pedalling hard when Packy wasn't, as he had just nipped me at the line my first time back, but the boost only lasted a moment as I fell off the pace at the Circle, about 3 minutes short of the top. In fourth at the time, but with a large group about fifty yards back, I knew it would be a painful three minutes, which was made a little more painful by Packy and another passing me at the top, leaving me sixth in 8:03.

There was a fast crowd in the sprint, albeit without Johnny Utah, and things were looking good for me up to the final hundred yards. I was in fourth when the leader and Packy in #2 took off too fast for #3 to follow, meaning a gap was opening up just before the finish. I left #3 and passed Packy, but fifty yards too soon, because with thirty yards left, Walter Iooss came from just over my shoulder to beat my by a bike length. A little more patience and I might have had what Walter has, a sprint jersey. Maybe.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Tennis

Baleen and Shrimp Jr aren't quite on their way to Spartak Tennis Akademy, but they are enjoying themselves in the sunny San Francisco (not yet a false) summer. Shrimp Jr gets to work early as she doesn't have a young son to feed and burp, which means that she can sometimes meet Baleen at the 29th St tennis courts at 5.45pm.

I get there right around 6pm, depending on my schedule, and protect The Dragon Boss from the attack birds plaguing the Missions sururbs by taking him for a walk in the stroller, hoping he goes down for a twenty minute catnap.

Though he's a generally self-sufficent son when it comes to entertainment, he's happy to see me, and doesn't mind a bit if I wheel him on home to finish preparing the dinner that Baleen has started, especially knowing that his own dinner is just about an hour away.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Return

I got an earlier flight back from Seattle - six months left of Premier Gold before my year with almost no travel relegates me to the back of the United bus again - and just missed the nightly routine of bath, bottle and bedtime story, but Baleen and Shrimp Jr saved dinner for me. Over some flank steak and greens I got  hear about the weekend.

Shrimp Jr., as my replacement at the end of her week of homestay in these Mission suburbs before her sublet begins, was a huge help. She even got in The Dragon Boss' last ever dream feed on Friday night, his final few 11pm ounces to last him until morning.

I was told that I wasn't the only one sleeping through the night at the Residence Inn in Tukwila. At least for two nights, after a very disagreeable Thursday night, The Dragon Boss slept from 7.45pm to at just after 5am on Friday and Saturday. In this new world era, hearing that makes up for losing in the finals of the Over 30 tournament to the San Diego Surf.

Old Rainier Beer Factory in SoDo Seattle, now HQs for Tully's Coffee

Friday, June 8, 2012

Seattle

I left The Dragon Boss for the first time on Thursday night. Baleen had spent a night away already, that Saturday a few weeks ago up in Napa for the bachelorette - her one weekend away when instead of sleeping in 'til noon, the sun through the living room windows woke her up at six as the late arrival got the couch - but not me. Every morning that The Dragon Boss had opened his eyes (and half the times during the night - "a quarter of the times" according to Baleen), I'd been there for him.

But on Thursday I flew up to Seattle to play in the old man's soccer tournament and eat in Olive Garden with thirty other twenty and thirty somethings pretending they're fifteen again when their bodies  know they're not.

Baleen told me that The Dragon Boss threw a fit without me, that he painted Baleen's white pants orange in the FroYo shop on Fillmore and that he woke her up 7 times during the night. We'd later find that those 7 times weren't cries of attention from a suddenly awake Dragon Boss, but a baby monitor set way too loud for a baby that talks in his sleep. But for now, it's better to think that my son missed me.




Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Hausfrau

Baleen's Hausfrauing it up in the Mission suburbs. She spent an unusually rainy Monday with The Dragon Boss in Target buying things she didn't know we needed until she got there, and turned tail when The Dragon Boss had a chance to make a friend in the produce section.

Baleen, earlier on that rainy Monday morning, had chosen running shoes over her stylish rain boots, thinking she'd need the grip New Balance provided for those slick surfaces with such precious cargo in her care, but the mom of this potential friend hadn't, choosing a nice pair of boots according to Baleen. So instead of saying hi and bonding over shopping at Target on a Monday, Baleen ran for cover.

For The Dragon Boss, it meant he didn't get the chance to spit up on somebody new; for me, this new burst of Hausfrau'ism means two days in a row of wonderful lunchtime sandwiches at my desk. I just might enjoy today's sandwich outside somewhere as there's a San Francisco summer heat wave rolling through town. 72 degrees today.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Caving

Baleen and I decided on Thursday that we were going cold turkey on the pacifier. On Saturday morning, a long 48 hours after our initial ban, we reintroduced it. He took it like a hungry marlin offered a small tuna, asking us, Why the heck did you keep this from me the last few days?

We wondered the same thing. It made The Dragon Boss grumpy which made his parents a little grumpy as we had to spend our hours soothing him instead of going about our business. But since then, he's back to spitting it out a couple times a night.

We've distracted ourselves from the interrupted sleep by redesinging the back of the kitchen, the old man cave with wicker chairs and the bookshelf, to a more family friendly environment. Baleen's been doing the desinging, The Dragon Boss and I the procuring, including a 99c soft serve ice cream cone from IKEA.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Stink Eye

Our sweet, clever little boy didn't smile for Baleen yesterday. Not even once. When I walked up the stairs just before 6pm, he was in mom's arms, grumpy, and looking to his left, well away from mom and out to anything that wasn't her. Then, to show her what she'd been missing, he gave me a big'ol smile meant to melt his mom's heart. 

It did, but not completely, because Baleen, the occasional two marshmallower, had spent a day breaking an early dependence: the pacifier. The Dragon Boss has taken to the pacifier, as some of his friends hadn't, which has served mom and dad well during the day and the occasional night. But the last few nights he's been spitting it up every hour or so, meaning mom and dad don't get more than an hour of sleep before he cries for us to reinsert it.

Internet opinion was divided, as it almost always is, with strong opinions telling us to get over ourselves and just put it back in every hour, others telling us to go cold turkey and let him cry it out (CIO in baby care blogging as I'm learning), and others offering half solutions like poke a hole in the pacifier and only use it during the night. We went cold turkey. 36 hours in, the first 24 had some rough patches, but with a great, full sleep on Thursday night, the last 12 have been great. Fingers crossed.