nightswimming of the indoor variety

Abbey is home from her surgery. Mom has called dutifully with updates. Abbey seems to be having a bit of a tough time, but I am really hoping that she starts to feel better over the next week. I think what bothers me most is that we can't explain to her what is happening. She probably thinks we took her to the vet and that's why her leg hurts now. It's so odd that Ali's dog, Paige's dog and Abbey have all had ACL tears over the last couple years. Could this somehow be getting more common? I don't remember this happening when I was younger.

A big congrats to Ambush for winning the Easterns division at the Boston Invite. Way to start the season with a trophy! I miss you guys.

Things here have been pretty slow. This week involved some work. (Thrilling, I know.) Some making dinner. Some going out to dinner and a happy hour. You may suspect I am trying to lull you to sleep. Stay with me.

I went to the Melbourne public baths after work on Wednesday. It's 5 dollars in and another $2 for a locker. It's open until 10 PM so I can go after work. There is a nice 50 meter pool with 4 lanes: 2 slow, a medium and a fast. I am slow. It was never too crowded at the pool and there were never more than 3 to a lane. I was pretty scared about the whole ordeal, but I did okay. I'd never tried to work out in a pool before by swimming. I think I was last in a pool for deep water running. I last had swimming lessons at the age of 6 or so. I didn't know pool protocol. When do you put your swim cap on? How do you keep your goggles from fogging up? Is a flip turn mandatory? (My guesses: After you get in your lane and get you hair wet, no idea! and no, you can just turn around).

I was in the pool for about an hour. I can swim breast stoke without attracting too much attention. I swam 6 300s, which is about as far as I can swim in one go without getting quite tired. Freestyle is a much bigger problem. I cannot really do it. I flail around a lot and splash much more than the other humans. Do you kick on top of the water or just below? I cannot get the arms right. I cannot get enough air. I could only swim a 100 free at a time. I tried to do 3 laps four or five times, and always had to quit for fear of drowning. To recover I did some laps with the kick board. Swimming is so different than running because I don't know how to swim slowly enough to recover. I will just sink. I have to go to the edge and hang on.

On the upside, my plan of working out w/o hurting my knees seems to have been a guarded success. I'll go back. (I may need a lesson.)

I am watching the Wimbledon on TV in the evenings after work. They pretty much only show Lleyton Hewitt, but I get a general sense of the goings on from that.

Saturday, I went to Geelong to see the Footy at tiny local Skilled stadium. It's about an hour train ride from Melbourne. It was rockin'. Geelong city has a cute little waterfront harbor area with lots of cafes. We had some good pancakes. The stadium was packed with Cats supporters. We stood in the general admission area with the real fans. It rained on us a bit but that only made the experience seem more authentic. The Cats won definitively and we had a great time. I think it would have been a lot less fun if the Cats had lost.

Saturday night after my day trip to Geelong, I went back to the G, this time for a huge Rugby match between the national rugby team, the Wallabies and the dreaded rivals, the New Zealand All Blacks. New Zealand is just abut the only less relevant country than Australia for Australians to pick on so there is a lot of picking on the Kiwi here. The G was packed with 80,000 people or so. There were more New Zealand fans than Australian fans. The game didn't make a ton of sense to me and I don't really know the rules, but I had a good time. Australia narrowly prevailed, which was a major upset. The best thing about the game was the haka before, which is something I had never seen before. The traditional Maori war chant seemed to add a level of menace and severity to the already violent game.

Sunday was practice for the National Ultimate Frisbee League, where each state selects a team and sends the state squad to a small national tourney. I'm playing for VOS (Victoria One Squad). It is good to be playing again. I missed practice the last couple months. We played from 1 to 5 in Albert Park, and despite it being "winter" here it was about 60 degrees out and a gorgeous day. Practice was fun. I learned some new drills and we scrimmaged for several hours. I am working on my long game and got to put it long quite a bit so it was a lot of fun.

Next week could be a lot like this past one: work, Frisbee, swimming. Maybe we can make the blog a little more participatory and choose your own adventure style. I'm open to suggestions. If you want something to turn up in the blog just let me know.