Run, Jump, Swim

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.

Tactics

With Christopher Robin on a plane to London, Hawk Hill's a race again. This morning, almost all the hummingbirds stayed in bed, all except for JayBird, who back before Christopher Robin's arrival was the hummingist of the hummingbirds, now back from a six month sabattical, while the 38 degree temp and perhaps the emotional letdown from last week's KOM climb limited the crowd.

I thought to myself, with JayBird just working his way into shape, if I can leave him soon after the Start, stranding him in the Flats where I've found myself abandoned so many times, then I can solo this mother from bottom to top. A fair plan, but one entirely dependent on JayBird getting stranded in the Flats. So I pedalled hard, started staring at my shoes early, and soloed through the Flats, out of sight of anybody when I finally looked back halfway through, thinking there might be a finish on top with nobody else in the picture, but not out of sight at the first few turns. There was a train of four headed into the stiff headwind about twenty seconds behind me, JayBird riding caboose. A punch in the gut, but I kept on pedalling, even hanging on JayBird's wheel for a minute when he passed me a little after the Circle, but with a minute left, when he stood up for the final push, I had nothing left and I wondered if I shouldn't have been the fifth person in that train.

That left the Sprint as my only chance for a jersey. I've got some work to do to beat the brash arriviste, Johnny Utah. The guy stood up twice in the ride, first at the beginning, when I went like hell to stay on his wheel, thinking there were just three of us in the break and if I could stay on his wheel I'd be fine, then at the end. I had foolishly passed him far too early, thinking that maybe I could get an early jump and put some distance between us, but he hung right on my wheel and when he pulled on out, he had a gear I didn't have. I didn't even come across the line second, Laurent Blanc coming up all the way from the back to remind me that I most definitely hadn't won this one. 0 for 2 this morning. The body's to blame, but tactics might have something to do with it, too. At least I'd like to think so.

Popover

For the last two weeks, Baleen has awoken between 6.30 to 7am, wide awake as usual the moment she opens her eyes, and gone to the kitchen for a mini-breakfast. It's always something small, like a bowl of cereal, grapefruit or toast with butter and vegemite. She'll eat that mid-morning snack, see my off to work, then go back to sleep for an hour. On Sunday morning, when she woke at 7am, we were out of anything she wanted. Panic was near.

But the night before, in the Williams-Sonoma cookbook that gave us a Saturday night dinner of Chicken with Chiles and Limes, I saw a recipe for popovers. The ingredients were basic enough, butter, flour, milk and salt. What it also showed me, unknown up until that moment, was that I had the most important ingredient, the popover tin. Six or seven years ago, when Amanda and Nate lived in the Uncle's house up on the hill, they brought over the muffin pan for some cornbread I intended to make. It wasn't really a muffin tin, they said, it was very deep and there were only six tins with a good bit of space between each one, but it would have to work as it's all they had. 

That muffin tin made the moves with me over six years, four without Baleen and then two with her, until, yesterday morning, it finally found it's true use. Baleen covered her popovers with a little bit of strawberry jam and thick slices of butter while I used apple butter for mine. Fresh bread from your own oven at 8am on a Sunday morning? Nothing beats it. Nate and Amanda, we're holding the popover tin hostage until you find us a job and a house in that city of yours, at which point, we'll return your tin, complete with six right out of the oven popovers. We might even carpool to hockey practice if the timing works. 

Nesting

There's something primal going on in the Mission suburbs. It's one thing to hear and read about it, quite another to see it happen, even if you know the same thing's happening in barnyards, forests, and in certain apartments across the Marina. 

Baleen's nesting like a brooding hen. It sounds sexist to say, like her role in these final few weeks is to prepare the home for our soon to be son while mine is to wear wingtips and call to say I'm coming home late, but it's happening, and there's a name for it that even I would have recognized a few years ago: nesting. 

In the just over a week that Baleen's been off, she's done the kind of things that make you think, damn the convention, my resume should be two pages long. I begin: she's cooked too many healthy dinners to list; bought enough blueberries to fill a crater (and a Thomas Keller cobbler that gave us 4 nights of dessert); kittted out fkaBaxter's room with the things we didn't have and needed, like that giraffe lamp and a few bookshelves; washed every single item of fkaBaxter's clothing and bedding in baby friendly detergent, and, for the first time I've ever seen in our four years together, folded and put away that very same laundry; thrown out most of the junk from my man drawers; organized the changing table and bathroom in such a was as to make Cam from A Modern Family proud (wipes here by my left arm, diaper trash down below on my right, now I'm reaching for the ointment with my right arm while holding the baby with my left arm...); commissioned some cheap Etsy art for the baby's room; pushed a shopping cart through target; dropped our car off at the shop and got a rental car; confirmed our pediatrician, daycare (hopefully) and CHP appointment to install the carseat; lunched at La Boulange while reading Bringing up Bebe; got a suntan swimming at the outdoor Mission Bay pool; and, instituted a second nightly dessert, frrrrrozen hot chocolate, the Serendipity dessert mix sold at Williams-Sonoma.  

Domestique

Christopher Robin is moving to London next week. All winter long he's been chipping away at the Hawk Hill King of the Mountain, taking a few seconds off here and there to go from 7.something to 6.38 as of last week. He needed two more seconds, which he probably could have done on his own, but with just one more shot before the bike and all that spandex crossed the ocean, he had to be sure. 

So just before the Start the hummingbirds spent ten seconds with their feet on the ground organizing the ascent. Johnny Utah volunteered the two of us for the False Flats, three hundred and ninety five pounds of windbreak, and we took off thirty seconds ahead of them. It felt odd to ride casually at the Start, chatting and looking over our shoulder for the hummingbirds. Once they caught us, it took a little work to set the right pace, but we found it, and we escorted them through the Flats and just across the Circle at a record pace. 

Across the Circle, with no chance of a PR and the hummingbirds almost out of sight, it again felt odd. With my goal being somebody else's that morning, and my part being done, it was tough to go all out then for what felt like no reason. So when the Presidio Sprint came around, I hung near the front, wanting it a little more than usual this time. When Merlin's Beard came around the corner, as motivated as I was for the same reasons, I caught the jump, but not early enough. I was fourth wheel, behind the Wizard of Westwood and fatally, Johnny Utah. When Johnny Utah pulled away, I had enough to pass the Wizard, but not Mr Utah. A no jersey day, but with a heck of a consolation, as Strava soon told me that Christopher Robin not only got these three seconds he needed, but twenty-one more. 6.14.  

Weekend Bag

For the last two days I'd peek into the open bag right by our bedroom door, seeing the two bottles of Gatorade and a dozen cliff bars on top of a pile of clothes and think, that looks like a fun bag, I wonder where we're headed. To the hospital, Baleen tells me.

We're almost ready, thanks to Baleen, who's done in seven days of pre-maternal maternity leave what we hadn't been able to do in the 36 weekends before that. The only thing missing besides the baby is the carseat, but so is the car, as it's still in the shop getting that rear bumper fixed from Baleen's rear ending.

That bag just might have to wait awhile, though, as the doctor tells us that fkaBaxter is in no hurry to get on out. He seems to like it in Baleen's belly. That means another week of maternity leave at the tail end of all of this if he's right, but another week of carrying around a watermelon, too.

Morning View

Work's keeping me from Hawk Hill, as it sometimes does, which means that I spent the morning staring at a spreadsheet. What I like to see around 6.59 most Tuesday mornings are my shoes.

If I've found a wheel to follow on the False Flats, then I'm staring at a jersey until the other side of the Circle. Then, for most of the next two and a half minutes (sometimes three), it's my shoes as the pain really begins and the resolve weakens. I dip my head and try to keep pedalling at an even pace, hoping to keep the Garmin at 11mph or if I can, 12mph.

Just short of the top I see the 15 painted in letters larger than I am, then MPH, and feel the paint on the surface as I ride over it, but it's still my shoes that I'm looking at for another twenty or thirty seconds until I poke around that last corner, stand up and stop peadalling, looking to see which hummingbirds have beat me there.

Timex

The digital watch returns. Like my aloha shirts, Baleen banished it years ago, permitting its appearance only on certain runs or hiking trips. Gone was the overwhelming usefullness of alarm clocks and timing the fastest route to Whole Foods on foot, all in favor of fashion. She aided its hibernation, as any goal-oriented person would, by providing a wonderful alternative, a basic, black waterproof Marathon watch with a little bit of a story. The Doughboys wore it back in the war, she said. Actually, she said, US soliders wore it in WWII, but when I remember it, it's Doughboys. I love that watch.

Yet in our preparedness mode, like the packed bags by our door, the digital watch is back. It's ready to do its part in bringing fkaBaxter into the world.

It's first task: time 1 x 5 x 1. That's a sixty second contraction, followed by five minutes of idle chatting about Greece or Lady Mary, then another sixty second contraction. When that 1 x 5 x1 repeats a few times, it's hello hospital. Once we're there there's more measurement, sometimes for posterity, like beginning of labor to the end, but again the contractions. At sixteen hours, according to our doctor (and Timex), if we're not deep into active labor, the epidural enters. But don't worry you sympathizers of mine who think the Timex's moment in time will be brief, limited only to the weeks before fkaBaxter's arrival. There's a whole bunch more to measure in the first few months, like the length of each feeding (right and left), nap time, and that other thing that Baleen and I won't measure, how little sleep we're getting. We'll just tell you about it.

417,600,001 Hits

Well, fkaBaxter is gonna cost us $227,000 just to see him to college, then we'll have to hope that he's one heck of a fencer for the privilege of paying $220,000 for an Ivy League degree. It's not unprecedented, Grizzly and Wood Duck did it for twelve long years, it's just a lot. 

Baleen and I have got some planning to do: a 529 Savings Account, maybe even a real, legal will, and a Victory Garden in back as it'll be beans and rice for the next few years. That's the hard method: twenty two years of saving and scrimping, choosing car seats over designer bags, comfy shoes over uncomfortable ones, and the Sunday Civic Center Market over Saturday's Ferry Building.

Then again, maybe we should take advantage of the medium of our times. It worked for Shrimp Jr's college roommate. When her parents wrote that $220,000 check, they must have said, Aren't we glad we took our little girl to audition for that cereal commercial?  All we have to do is come up with some video of little fkaBaxter that'll get 417 million hits. Apparently, that's enough to put Charlie through college.

Relentless Improvement

There's no standing still here. My 7.13 on Hawk Hill 16 days ago put me in the Top 10 for all of 5 days before somebody named Joe Cackler kicked me out. Damn Joe Cackler, I said a few weeks ago. Now I'd have to damn a few more; he's 13th and I'm 15th.

The number of AM Raiders willing to get up before 6 has grown, adding a few more hummingbirds to the list, but mostly making those who keep showing up a little bit faster each time. Seconds are chipped away like picked up pennies, though St Nick and Subway seem to be finding nickles and dimes out there.

A group like this doesn't wait around. If you miss the jump, because of a truck crossing in front of you or becasue you couldn't keep the pace at the Start, you're done, abandoned on the Flats to do the work yourself, pushing only for pride, which is still enough to keep you well under eight minutes, but not anywhere near those times you dream about the night before.

Linsanity

Most of Baleen and my dinner for two conversations are about fkaBaxter, things like where he'll sleep, what he'll eat, and what he'll wear. Books and friends help guide these decisions while Baleen's opinion on these things is stronger than mine as she's done more of the preparation and thinking about them. That means that most of the time, she's patiently explaining her thoughts to me and how she got there.

But every now and then, there's something that Baleen doesn't know, things like frogs and snails and puppy dogs' tails. A few weeks ago, she was on Facebook while I was listening to the Broncos-Steelers playoff game on the radio in the other room. Seconds after that walk-off 80-yard touchdown pass, she asked, Who's Tee-bow? He's all over Facebook. So I explained the cultural phenomenem that was Tim Tebow, the person who had everybody from Lindsey Vonn to fighter pilots stationed in Kabul, Tebowing.

Last night it was Jeremy Lin, the first unrecruited (by anybody except Harvard) and then undrafted New York Knicks point guard, discarded by Golden State and Houston, picked up by the Knicks only because everybody else was injured, who slept on his graduate student younger brother's couch for a few nights before heading to work at the Garden through the players' entrance. Great, Balen said, now I've got to learn about trucks, trains, Tebow and Jeremy Lin.

Valentine's Day

Conditions were ripe for a scalp on Hawk Hill. Christopher Robin and Merlin's Beard were in bed, St Nick had spent the hour before doing repeats up the Hill, the Big Kenyan was there to do the work, and Baleen had left a Valentine's note in my bike shoe. All I had to do, once I left B.K., was beat John Wooden. Which I did for 1.69 miles of Hawk Hill, just not 1.70. The Wizard of Westwood nipped me at the line, my 7.32 good enough for my second fastest time, but not good enough for a jersey.

My Strava map shows a new route on the way home. The annotated version would have a pin above Courtney's on Castro and 14th, the most sensical place to get tulips on February 14th, and Tartine, the best place to get breakfast on that same day (as long as you arrive before 8am). It was a Valentine's breakfast buffet of croissants: ham and cheese, chocolate, and plain ol' plain.

Tonight it was Baleen's turn. That might seem odd on the surface, Baleen preparing a Valentine's dinner for me and Abigail's mom after a day spent in the aisles at Target for some tp, toothpaste and detergent, along with a visit to the dealership to get the bumper fixed, but only if you don't think about it. After all, Baleen makes almost as much as I do, and more than I did at her age. If you're going to invert that tradition, might as well go all the way.

Maternity Leave

Baleen turned to me at 5.48 on Saturday morning, wide awake yet again long before the sun, and said, I don't have to work. I know, I said, it's Saturday. No, she said, I don't have to work until August. She even disabled her iPhone's access to work emails. Hello, maternity leave.

We celebrated in the traditional manner, with three days of feasting and friends, and should have invited along Mark Bittman for how often he appeared. Friday night started with marinated flank steak cooked on our backyard man grill (by this man), some brussel sprouts from an American who spent a year in Paris, cupcakes from Baleen's co-worker, and a beer (for this man) by some 'Radians who long for flat and damp Belgium.

In between, there were breakfasts from Tartine and bacon and eggs on Arizmendi English muffins, lunch at Mission Chinese and a dinner visit to the New York Times' #5 go-to destination for 2011, Oakland (yes, Oakland), for some of the best beets we've ever had at Plum, boudin noir style, which is what you feel comfortable saying when you're dining with the Gaudets, in town from Boston. Sunday night, as Baleen planned how her Monday would start (without an alarm, in fact, without the iPhone near her at all as we slept in fkaBaxter's room out of excitement), we finished it all up with Mark Bittman's steak salad.

Eponymous Eating

Shrimp Jr made a surprise visit to town. She's in business school, which means that she has no income, only accumulating debts, so she naturally arrived from Austin via Park City, which is where she's headed again today.

We had a Thursday night dinner of San Francisco fast food, which is fresh spinach fettucini from Lucca's and shrimp from Whole Foods, followed by some yogurt and strawberries. It was her first visit to our apartment, the last of the old nuclear family to see it, and we definitely spent the most time in fkaBaxter's bedroom to be. 

She was plenty generous and ooohhed and aaaahhed at just the right times; namely, when Baleen brought out the baby outfits from that French store, and agreed wholeheartedly that our baby clothes were the cutest she'd ever seen. We promise not to put you through it the second time around, Shrimp Jr, and when it's your turn, we'll oooohh and aaahhh just like you did. xoxo

Hee Haw

I'm looking for seconds any and everywhere. Last night it was at Newman Hall in Congregation Sherith Israel where Baleen and I listened to Nurse McMoyler heeeeee and hawwww as coping mechanisms for those coming contractions. When she lined me up with Baleen, face to face, and made me squeeze a handful of ice into my fist while Baleen heeeeed and hawwwed just like she'd like me to on or about March 8th, all I could think of was, I'm going to McMoyler Hawk Hill tomorrow. I kept that part to myself.

When the hill pointed up this morning, I forgot about McMoyler and even Baleen for a bit. It hurt early. I tried to hide it when I saw Merlin's Beard, the third hummingest of the hummingbirds, ride on by for the first time in months and I jumped on John Wooden's wheel on the Flats. That's normally a good place to be, but not when Dr Wooden's spent the hour before that doing repeats. My distance to Dr Wooden stayed the same while Dr Wooden's to Merlin's Beard kept increasing. So I left him, but not before MB was long gone, leaving me working harder than I wanted to to the Circle. 7.35, which a few weeks ago would have had me pacing the room looking for another two seconds, now it's just 7.35.

That left the Sprint as my only real chance for a jersey. Ruthlessness comes in handy on the Sprint. You can win without it, but when somebody else is close and is willing to take the risks that you aren't, then you're not going to win. After tailing Packy Bonner for the first half, I did the work in the second half to lose everybody except Walter Iooss. When I pushed that little bit harder and the big metal U-Lock in the back of my jersey flew out (I was going straight to work), I stood up, trying to let Walt know that I wasn't throwing objects in his way like it was Mario Kart, and he sprinted on by. I'm not sure I could have beat him in the end and while I'm glad he got the jersey, I'm especially glad my flying U-Lock didn't hit him.

Mr Bartlett

There's not much better than farm fresh Bartletts at $1.50 a pound. They come from up in Placer County and arrive at the Civic Center every Wednesday in winter, right along my route to work.

They're picked just before they're ripe so they can be stacked on top of each other, like apples, and keep from bruising. Allowed to ripen in a brown bag on my desk, they're good on Thursday, great on Friday and perfect on Saturday.

By Sunday, they've begun their quick decline. If I don't make it to the Sunday market, which I usually don't, then it's a few days without pears again, as I wait for Wednesday and the cycle to start over.

Mystery Buyer

There's a consumer amongst us. One of you bought two books, those below, through an Amazon link on this blog. I think it's the same person. All I know is that both books were bought on the same day. Full disclaimer here: links on this blog that send you to Amazon net me an advertiser fee if you purchase the book, generally 4% of the sales price.

4% of these two books is $0.92. Baleen wants to cash out and take a taxi to her next doctor's appointment. Doh. You shouldn't keep too many secrets in a marriage, but I already regret telling her about this windfall. Had I kept it to myself, I would have plowed the proceeds directly into the 529 education fund for our son-to-be. That initial investment of $0.92 would be $3.00 by the time he was a freshman, assuming an annual return of 6%. Just enough for a slice of pizza.

Alpine Dam

I bonked around 2.30pm on Saturday's club ride. It was 62 miles and 5,500 feet into the ride, 8 miles and 500 feet short of where I wanted to be. Not being pregnant, it's been months since I've felt anything more painful than bonking. Maybe years. When it happens, gone are the fantastical thoughts that sometimes carry me up the hills, that maybe, just maybe, had I grown up here or in Ghent, and gotten a few breaks, I could have been a journeyman pro, maybe even being the bottom domestique for one of the Grand Tours. But as people in tennis shoes and baggy shorts pass me, all I can think about is getting off the bike. But even those thoughts can't last forever.  When I get sick of thinking about that, I think about Baleen.

In the summer of 2009, two days before we got engaged, Baleen and I and a few hundred other bikers were in a parking lot at the University of Washington. The good Dr Ladra had dropped us off there early that Friday morning and a sag wagon took our bags to a dorm in Bellingham, 102 miles away. It was less than a year since Baleen had thrown her leg over a real bike for the first time in Sports Basement and she'd definitely ridden less than a thousand miles in that time.

Our last training ride had been 75 miles up near Point Reyes. I figured the adrenaline, the group and the rest stops every twenty miles would be enough to carry her through those final 27 miles. And while I was right, technically, in that she pedaled through those extra miles, I didn't realize how painful they would be. So about 2.45 on Saturday, when I was sick of thinking that I needed to get off the bike when I'd still be on it for at least another 45 minutes, I thought of Baleen pushing up that last hill into Bellingham. It didn't make my legs feel any better, but it made me a whole lot happier.

fka Baxter

Well, Baxter2B isn't going to be Baxter. Too many people had seen Anchorman, a movie I'll never now see, and told us we couldn't name our son Baxter. While we'd be willing to swim against the flow of a few opinions, dozens were too many.

That means we've got a baby book on the iPad and a standing discussion every night between 8.30 to 9.30 pm to review names. Margarine and Shrimp Jr tell us we've got to do the hard thinking now because when it comes to the second or even third child, creativity ebbs. At least that's their experience in the sample of one, Grizzly and Wood Duck, as they both have Top 200 names.

Baleen and I are A-Okay with Top 200 names. It works for Margarine and Shrimp Jr. They're easy to pronounce, spelling rarely requires confirmation (important when paired with his last name), and there's a good chance you can find a backpack with your name on it in Freeport, Maine for half price. We don't need to be trendy. Besides, the trend is swinging in distinct names' favor, meaning that if we want to bestow some uniqueness on fka Baxter, we just might have to go Top 200.

Source: The Economist, 1.14.12



Flour and Water

If you can't get in to Flour and Water, which you can't unless you're addicted to OpenTable or can wait outside the restaurant for two hours, then you might wonder how they do it. Which just might send you (or Baleen) to the depths of the internet looking for the best homemade dough. You'd be lucky to find this, from a man who started his career as a minister.

If you follow Pastor Reinhart's recipe, you'll learn what any Artic explorer knows, don't expose your skin. In the warmth of your kitchen it's, cover every inch of your hands in flour. If you don't, your hands will look like a potter's, covered with sticky bits of the turned over dough as you roll it into individual mounds.

I mean it. Dip them in the pile of white stuff like you're LeBron just before tipoff. If you do, then all that good stuff, the flour and water and yeast and the olive oil will make it where it should, and not where it shouldn't, which is the space between your fingers or underneath your ring.

Happy Pho

Baleen succumbed to the marketing savvy of a rice noodle saleswoman. Cheers to her for passing out free samples by the register on a Sunday afternoon in Whole Foods, the time when the crowd far surpasses one's patience in dealing with it. Just before the clerk announced my grand total, a box of Happy Pho appeared.

Add two bundles of fresh bok choy, cilantro, and a hunk of ginger from the Wednesday morning market for $2.10, along with another visit to Whole Foods for a pound of chicken, and you're got a midweek meal for $13. Hot bananas.

Eat it on a week night, right in the middle of a busy week for Baleen and me, and talk about how there's only seven more days or work for Baleen, then you've got one happy mom-to-be.