Well. The weekend went reasonably well. I didn't race at all, because Mission Bay
is generally to rough for singles, though it actually ended up being fairly smooth
this year. udder had a practice row on Saturday, so we couldn't go out and do
much, but we did get to sleep in, go for breakfast, and take a nice long walk
along the beach in the morning. Once we got to the boathouse, the bus with most of
the rowers and the trailer with the boats were late, not unpredictably. They'd
left that morning instead of the night before, and due to some perverse whim of
AussieCoach's, had only scheduled (pronounced, "sheduled", 'cause that's how
Aussies say it) half an hour to load all the boats on the trailer -- two eights
and two fours, respectively 60 and 40 feet long. Yeah, right. Eventually they got
there and rowed, after which we relaxed in the hotel a bit, drove to their hotel,
and rode the bus to Old Town for dinner.
Note: Speaking of
AussieCoach and his kangaroo fixation, the unisuits he'd ordered from Australia
finally came in in time for this race. The obnoxiously and unexpectedly bright
green and gold do have their advantage in being very visible out on the water, but
that's not quite enough to redeem the lack of breathability in the fabric,
uncomfortable cut, and complete transparency of the yellow.
Back to
the weekend. We had debated whether to eat alone, because large groups descending
on restaurants without prior notice can often result in extreme cluster-fuckitude.
However, this grop was at least smart enough to let them seat us in small groups
and we ended up with a wonderful meal. We'd picked Zocalo's more or less by random
chance -- we hadn't wanted to eat Mexican food pre-race, but the proponderance of
restaurants did have SPanish names. Zocalo's turned out not to be Mexican at all
though -- maybe a slight Spanish influence, since they served tapas, but otherwise
purely creative. There were so many wonderful soundin foods on the menu that She-
Hulk and I decided to order four of the appetizers and split them. We ended up
ordering lobster bisque (her), warm aspargus and wild mushroom salad (me), salmon
summer rolls (us), and shrimp kebab with mango salsa (us again). Yum, yum, yum,
and yum.
On the downside, while getting packed up and waiting for me
to come home on Frdiay, Rudder heard a drip behind one of the walls by the
downstairs bath. We didn't have time to do much about it so we turned off the
water main, left, and hoped for the best. We left right after his race, drove home
listening to Harry Potter IV (does Barty Crouch, Sr., remind anyone else of John
Ashcroft, or is itjust me?)got home, and attacked the plumbing. After cutting a
12" by 18" hole in the back of a closet and somehow squirming through, Rudder was
able to find the leak. It was a tiny one, at the end of a small pipe L that stuck
up 8" into the air and ended there, with no apparent rainson d'etre. We turned the
water on just long enough to brush teeth that night and shower the next
morning.
This morning, while I headed off for yet more training, he
called a plumber and me tthe guy back home. He told Rudder that the pipe just
needed to be capped off and offered grudgingly to do it for a mere $200. So
guess what we just finished doing?