Thumbs down on new Vanilla Coke. It's got a taste that makes me wonder if anyone
actually added a bit of vanilla extract to Coke to see what the real thing tasted
like before starting to fiddle with the natural (so the label says)
flavorings.
The new piercing gave me no trouble on the erg,
fortunately, but does hurt a bit if I stretch way back. I started to do sit-ups on
a close cousin to Marn's Purple Ball of
Death, but switched to a mat instead because laying all the way back on the ball
made me feel like the barbell was trying to push out through the band of skin it
pierces. It seems to go through a longer bit of flesh than I had expected, or
maybe that's just the angle.
Incidentally, the ball I started out on
was blue. I would think leaving giant blue balls scattered around a gym would tend
to make male members uneasy from reasons they can't quite finger (oops, bad choice
of words) but apparently not. Or maybe they're just not admitting
it.
Getting back to the piercing, I would love to hear from anyone
with a navel piercing who's very athletic, especially anyone into something like
yoga or Pilates, which would stretch it a bit, or rock climbers. We haven't been
climbing much lately, but I can remember times when I had full frontal contact
with a rock face. Ouch. Has the piercing been a problem for you, and if so, how
did you deal I do think the barbell is less likely to get caught on a rock than a
hoop would.
Last night we wanted to discuss training with Hardcore
and She-Hulk, so we went over to Hardcore's for her weekly neighborhood potluck.
It was great -- they have a big backyard with sunflowers and corn growing and a
chicken coop, and a cool older house with gorgeous hardwood floors. There were
kids and dogs wandering everywhere -- the former ranged from 3 months on up to
Hardcore's 17-year-old daughter, also a rower. (Don't know what to call her --
Softcore is definitely out.) She-Hulk spent a long time blissfully rocking
someone's baby to sleep and various moppets kept asking us (more or less
intelligibly) for help in important endeavors like shredding a ball of foil or
getting an ice cube out of the cooler. Their parents were also very cool, and the
whole thing left me wishing we lived in that neighborhood. Our neighbors aren't
nearly that friendly, or that much fun. Of course, we also don't have kids to
serve as introductions. Still, one neighbor, the one who's also a rower, turned
out to have been at the Philly Folk Fest back in one of the years I worked there.
How cool is that? I don't have neighbors like that.