Tuesday 9/3/24
I had nightmares last night that had me truly shaken up upon awaking. Unsettled and disturbed.
I stayed up watching the BC/Florida State game. Convincing Eagles win. Dictated the play from the start. Had not seen a BC team play like that in a long time. Is that because of the coach? I'll be at Alumni Stadium next Saturday. Something that stuck out to me early in the broadcast: the announcers commenting on the difficult training camp that Bill O'Brien put the team through. I like stuff like than and believe in it, as one would expect with me. Made me feel like Jeff Hafley, the previous coach, didn't push his team that much and this was part of his loose operation/approach. Then you had that Florida heat. It's not been very hot here for a while now. So for a Boston team to go down to Florida in early September and not have any conditioning issues tells me something.
A text:
Tell Amelia that her buddy wishes her a super duper great big girl first day of school!!!!!
Doesn't need much explanation. Second year of preschool starts today.
My mom went to an art show on Saturday morning and then to dinner with some friends at night. She's babysitting for the kids on Friday night. Going out twice with people in the interim. I like to see her active and out of the house, and encourage this. I had called her on Saturday morning as I was coming back from the Monument. No answer. Then I called her several hours later. No answer. I didn't know about the art show so I tried her cell just to make sure she was okay. Yesterday she told me the women she was with were impressed that I was checking in on her. What else are you going to do?
I saw a post online from a woman who said she had no confidence at all. She had lost thirty pounds but still viewed herself as ugly. This was sad, so I sent a little note, which is something I do. Again, just small things from afar, but they don't cost anything and maybe they can help a tiny bit.
Hey. Saw your post, so just sending along a few friendly words from a stranger. Thirty pounds is great! Hold your head up. Keep doing what you were doing. Are doing. I had to change a number of things for my health and then today I was thinking how that really just came down to three very simple things, but I hadn't looked at it that way when I was where I was. Your courage will serve you well. You deserve to feel good about yourself.
I went to CVS yesterday to try and get a flu shot and the latest COVID vaccine. I didn't get a flu shot last year and I don't think I've gotten any of the COVID boosters for a couple years or more, but as I've said, though I'm ambivalent about such things, I'll take what is available. I really have no qualms or concerns either way, so might as well get them when convenient, and it's easy enough to stop in. I could only get the flu shot yesterday. My insurance doesn't cover the COVID until tomorrow so I'll go back then. I had come straight from the stairs and sweated all over the forms. My bad.
Red Sox. Two more losses. Will they finish above .500? They're at 70-68 now. The thing is, if they hadn't played like horse shit after the All-Star break and were just kind of not so good, they'd be sitting pretty for a Wild Card spot. Alex Cora doesn't manage well. On Saturday, I'm watching his starter cruise through four perfect innings on 52 pitches. So Cora takes him out, puts in a forty-three-year-old, who immediately gives it up. What reason was there for this move? Cora makes moves to try and show how smart he is and I don't think he's that smart as a baseball manager.
I guess I should update fitness matters. It's been a while. Last Monday and Tuesday I ran 3000 stairs at City Hall and did 100 push-ups as well as three planks on Tuesday. I need to do better with these planks. Then on Wednesday through yesterday, I completed five circuits of stairs in the Monument each day and did 100 push-ups. Walked three miles every one of those days, save yesterday, when I walked five, and mixed in three planks. The Monument is normally closed on Mondays (and Tuesdays), but it was open for Labor Day, so I took advantage of that. Since the kids were here, I've done eighty Monument circuits.
A friend's wife saw my before and now photos from the other day and said to her husband that she'd never seen anyone change that much in twelve years. A friend from college--the one I'd listen to Sam Cooke with--texted last night to ask if I was Benjamin Button and to say that he couldn't believe how different I looked.
Sunday marked 2975 days, or 425 weeks, without a drink.
The images and stories and anecdotes I'm seeing pertaining to the Gaudreau brothers are heartbreaking. Photos of children and loved ones. Precious family moments. So awful. A couple posts from Johnny Gaudreau's wife. The staggering pain. That never should have existed. That's made to be felt for such a stupid, avoidable reason. These lives and hearts ripped open and ripped apart.
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