A Bit Of Energetic Ballyhoo

Morning Workout
BIKE
2 hours (hill repeats, in case you were wondering. And I know you were.)

Heart Rate Zone: 4 x 10 minutes at Steady State Threshold (Zone 4).

Random Comments: Did I mention these were hill repeats? I love hill repeats. Uh… most of the time. This morning was one of those times when, in fact, I did have the love feeling with them. I think it’s because Cat gave me a set of feet warmer thingies for Valentine’s Day last night. They strap over the front part of my biking shoes and keep my toes warm. And, woooooeeee, my toes were so warm. It was like a little fireplace was in each shoe, the logs were a-burnin and a-cracklin. It was a cup o’ hot chocolate short of a toe party. My toes were so warm and comfy, I swear to the lord of hill repeats that it made me go faster. Honest Injun. It’s amazing what a warm toe can do these days.
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Yes, we had a wonderful Valentine’s Day, thank you very much. That was nice of you to ask. I cooked Cat a Valentine’s dinner of parmesan stuffed dates wrapped in bacon, salad with a vanilla balsamic dressing, crunchy shrimp in a ginger orange sauce and a rhubarb crumble with vanilla ice cream. (Yeah, it sounds almost impressive but the fact is it's so easy a one-armed monkey can probably make it as well.) Mmm, mmm. I just needed to write that down because I’m really hungry right now and…. well, I was thinking about food. And, honestly, I was thinking that it’s too bad I don’t have any of that shrimp left over cause I sure could go for one right now.

But the truth is that you’re probably bored reading that. And, frankly, I’m already bored writing about it. Even more importantly, it’s not what I was going to talk about anyway. So why don’t we just drop the subject before I start chewing on this keyboard. Let’s discuss something a bit more fascinating, like the fact that my girlfriend is a walking electric power plant.

I swear she has the strongest electro-magnetic field known to mankind. It hasn’t been fully measured, but I think I want to get one of those magnetic radiation detector things to really determine the wattage and amperes and ohms and whatever other energetic ballyhoo is emitting from my girlfriend. I’d like the device that looks like the apparition finding thing-a-mabob they used in Ghostbusters. If I’m going to get a radiation detecting toy, I want to make sure it’s got all sorts of levers, monitors and cool moving parts. (Ummm, my birthday is rapidly approaching… nudge nudge hint hint wink wink)

Cat has this mysterious effect on electronics that I’ve only seen in movies about nuclear weaponry. I don’t know if she’s ever walked by anybody wearing a pacemaker, but I’d be weary. When her computer completely crashed for little-to-no apparent reason about six months ago and she lost all of her information, I didn’t think twice. That stuff happens. It’s unavoidable. Then, as it turns out, her Palm Pilot ceased its existence at just about the same time. Coincidence? Perhaps. She bought a new Palm Pilot and got a new computer. Guess what, she had trouble getting that Palm Pilot working as well. Interesting.

The fact that her heart rate monitor hadn’t been working properly since I’ve known her had me flummoxed. I figured it was an old heart rate monitor. Perhaps her heart beat is too light and tender for the monitor to monitor. It’s possible. So for Christmas, I bought her a brand new heart rate monitor to better guide her training. Yep, you guessed it, didn’t work. In the past 6 weeks, she’s gone through three of those monitors. Each and every one of them mysteriously and randomly stop working in ways mankind has never seen before. I’ve had four different heart rate monitors over the past 10 years. I haven’t had a problem with any of them. Cat has had four heart rate monitors over the past two months and they’ve all fallen off the deep end of electronic sanity. Could it be purely coincidence? Luck of the draw? Perhaps. Perhaps.

So riddle me this one, Batman. This morning Cat and I were heading out for our early morning bike ride. It was 6am and the sun had yet to rise. Being dark, Cat reached to turn on her headlight and, lo and behold, it didn’t work. New batteries, new light. The damn thing worked five days ago. Today, nothing. Nada. Zippo. Things that make you go, hmmmm… But that’s not it. We’re out on the bike ride (doing hill repeats, if I didn’t tell you that already) and suddenly her heart rate monitor stopped functioning. Why did it stop functioning? It stopped for absolutely no reason whatsoever, if you really need to know. It’s questionable if it was ever functioning in the first place. It’s crazy I tell you.

Another crazy thing I just realized is that my bedroom clock is ten minutes slow. My bedroom clock is one of those digital jobbies that plugs into the wall. No batteries, no winding up. I didn’t realize that digital clocks that plug into walls slow down. I mean, isn’t that the point of the whole plugging in the wall stuff, so it keeps accurate time? Yet, for some silly reason, the battery powered clocks in other parts of my place keep immaculate time. I mean, the folks over there in the Greenwich Mean area call me to check the time, that’s how accurate I like to think they are. Coincidentally, Cat stays closer to that clock in my bedroom than she does any other clock in my place.

I’m not saying she’s a walking electro magnetic conduction field. I’m not saying magnets randomly stick to her face. I’m not saying that she sets off detectors just by walking by them. And I’m definitely not saying that electric garage doors mysteriously open when she passes by. I’m just sayin..

Then again, I guess it’s just another reason to explain our magnetic attraction.


[You like how I brought that around to a happy, loving ending, don’t you? Oh, I know you do…]