Dichroic Reflections

out of the Chuck

I think boredom has finally hit. I'm getting tired of staying home -- someone
please offer me a great job. Unfortunately, this still hasn't driven me to be much
more diligent about all the things I really should be doing, from writing to
housecleaning.

We had some bad news yesterday: Rudder and his
doubles partner T2 Hatfield did not get into the Head of the Charles regatta. It's
a random draw rather than a qualification, so this is just pure bad luck. We had
thought they would definitely be in, since the HOTC rules state that "no event
shall be made to fall below 60 entries", and they don't get quite that many people
wanting to enter in the Men's Championship Doubles, but apparently those 60
entries include both men's and women's events.

They have been
training so hard, and rowing so well -- on Friday, they beat two eight-person
boats in a 5 mile race -- that this is a strong blow. In the course of several
beers last night, I learned something that makes it even sadder. Apparently T2 had
ordered their racing jerseys specially; he rows bow, so is more visible, and on
the back of his shirt, he'd had printed, "Egret, will you marry me?" It turns out
that Rudder has known this for a month and not told me, the swine.

After finding they were out of the race, T2 apparently couldn't wait
any longer and told Egret about the shirt. They've lived together for several
months now, so I don't think it was a great surprise to her, or that her answer
was in doubt, but still, what a great way to propose, and what a shame not to be
able to carry it out.

They ordered Rudder a matching shirt with no
words on it. We were joking that it should have said, "Egret, marry
him....please!" T2's butt has a tendency to fall asleep after long rows, making
his legs numb. Egret has to stay around, because certainly nobody else wants to
massage it for him!

I was proud of the boys, though. I thought last
night's beers would have been intended to drown their sorrows, but instead, each
of them showed with a schedule of upcoming races, and they immediately began
making alternate plans. The most insane possibility is that they would row that
Head of the Colorado (aka the Pumpkinhead), in Austin, on October 27, then do two
back-to-back races in San Diego on the next weekend, then one in L.A. the weekend
after that. After that, presumably, they would collapse into exhaustion and spend
the rest of the year trying to recuperate.

I will miss seeing href="http://mechaieh.diaryland.com">Mechaieh in Boston, too, just to make my
disappointment more severe. She has been kind enough to suggest that we try again
next year though, and hope to have better luck talking D and href="http://www.eilatan.net">Natalie into joining us there. (D?
Natalie?)

Much as I was looking forward to Boston, though, I can't
complain, if Rudder and T2 aren't. With luck, we'll end up doing the PumpkinHead,
which will not only let us spend Halloween on 6th Street in Austin, but would let
us see Rudder's brother and lots of our old friends from Houston. Egret and I may
race, too, which we hadn't planned on doing in Boston. That would be
fun.

Sigh. Replan. Life's like that.