Quick note about yesterday: one mile recovery run, total 2.11 miles.
Today? AWESOME!
After putting out a little fire (figurative), I got a voice mail from one of the local radio hosts. He thanked me for the interviews I’ve given over the past few years–says he still runs my Columbus Day and Thanksgiving Day interviews every year (since I gave them, I believe that’s been 7 years ago?), so he wanted to help repay me in some way. He wants to interview me about my next two books coming up, and help me raise money for the Alzheimer’s book project as a by-product of the interview! Wow, you just cannot beat that!
As for the rest of the day, let me start off by saying that it’s almost 5:00pm and it’s 51 degrees outside. The sun is nearly down. Yes, it was a beautiful day!
I started off by swimming 1,000 yards. I did 2×100 warmups, then 4×200, stopping to stretch my tennis elbow between each set. I will feel that tomorrow, it still ached when I got home an hour later.
After we ran some errands, I met mom for lunch at our favorite restaurant. We shot the breeze for a while, catching up. She’s an amazing. I’m giving a talk for about 30 of her friends on the first Spanish explorer into the interior of America (1520-1530s) tomorrow evening (and again on Monday night for the retirement home where she lives). Mostly, she was excited about my afternoon appointment to walk around the lake with a local legend.
I ran a few more errands, then headed home to pump up my FX 7.6 WSD. I needed to ride my bike to meet someone to walk around our local lake. A first time chatting one-on-one with a new friend.
You see, I had a “date” to hang out with a legend: Mary Pipher. Look her up. Here, too. I had met her at the celebration for a book award for a friend of mine, Twyla Hansen. When I arrived at Mary’s house, I realized she lived in the house where my boss lived when I was in Junior High and High School. A beautiful house overlooking the local lake. When she found out that I used to babysit kids, feed and milk the goats that lived on that property, she had offered to take me on a tour of the property followed by a walk around the lake. So, today we did. What a wonderful human being. We hit it off, and have much in common. After the 2.4 mile trek around the lake, we hung out chatting over tea/water, looking out over the lake at the geese, the people, the grass and trees swaying in the wind. I told her about my next book about Dad, and our journey with him down the path of Alzheimer’s. She is interested, and wants to walk with me again. She’s a pretty famous psychiatrist, and wrote a book about how to understand and interact with the elderly.
Mostly, I think, we want to talk again. There is so much about her that I aspire to be. She’s older now (60s), but vibrant, active, still goes camping, hiking, loves the outdoors, and lives for nature. We noticed the same things outside, an oriole’s nest, muskrat’s bay, and we both named some of our trees.
Anyway, what an inspirational day for me. I hopped on my bike and headed home again. Smiling.
A huge smile.
Now I must prepare for a date with my hubby. We’re going to celebrate school beginning by going out to eat then seeing Parental Guidance. What a perfect day! 
Sounds like a fantastic day! Let me know what you think about Parental Guidance. I am a huge movie goer (over the holidays I went to the movies 4 times in 4 days and have been to see 8 movies since Skyfall came out). I haven’t yet seen Parental Guidance because I’m not too sure about Billy Crystal but am keen to hear your impressions because maybe it’s worth seeing. And yes, one of the movies I saw was The Hobbit and no, I didn’t enjoy it; I found it a long, drawn-out surface level film with little depth or intelligence.
We both really liked it, some really wonderful moments in the film–but also very typical Billy Crystal, too. I love Bette Midler and Marissa Tome.
The premise is a great one (especially since we are expectant grandparents–the first one) and we’ve been paying attention to child-rearing techniques over the past few years. Good ending overall, enough said.
GO see it. Then tell me what you think.
We hardly ever go see movies, I think that we’ve seen 5 in as many years together (in the theatre). So I’m no great critic. I’ll be curious to hear what you think.
Sounds like an amazing day! Happy to read that
Thanks! Yup, it’s about time
Today it’s already 52 (and not even noon!), so it’ll be perfect for my “long” run–long for me.