The Aerie
Oy. Even my fingers are tired. I'm typing this, my digits feel like lead.
With the help of my bicycling-buddy R, I've been at least getting some regular exercise in this summer. If I haven't been blogging and I haven't been working, at least I've been pedaling my bike about four one-hour sessions a week.
Yesterday my wife and I went to the State Fair... BY OURSELVES. The last time we went to the State Fair by ourselves, our twins were in the Neonatal Intesive Care Unit incubators. She had missed the entire summer on hospitalized bed-rest, started on June 21st, gave birth on August 3rd. She'd missed her sister's wedding and one of the hottest summers ever. So when the State Fair rolled around I assured her that the babies were in the best possible care and that they would not mind us spending a day at the Fair.
As for me, I'd been having a rough one. We had moved into our house on June 1st of that year (yeah, I've lived in this house 16 years, far longer than any other place I ever lived) and on June 21st my wife went into the hospital. So I was living out of unpacked moving boxes, driving (without air conditioning through blazing, blazing heat) up to Robbinsdale and back on a daily basis, and working on my feet at the U of M helpline. Additionally this was immediately after Internet Gopher had come out, so on top of my other responsibilities I had Gopher code to write on a daily basis.
Somewhere in the middle of all that I got horribly sick and spent a day on my mother-in-law's basement couch recovering from what was undoubtedly exhaustion.
So I was up for a trip to the Fair myself by that time.
Sixteen years later we had a wonderful time wandering the Fair by ourselves. No photos, sorry - you want to see any photos of the MN State Fair you can look here, here, here or here. It looked pretty much like that...
So we spent a lot of time at the Fair, about 8 hours, and left about 3:30 when the crowds started getting stupidly huge. We had a wonderful time looking at all the exhibits that would just BORE our kids to tears. It was also delightful being able to buy a snack for under $50. One fun thing was when we went to the art building, there was a portrait of our friend A and her father. Also while in the art building I ran into a woman painting a portrait who told me about a great little art school in Minneapolis, so I've got to get my daughter over there to see it next week.
After the fair I was bushed, so naturally my friend R phoned up and wanted to bike. I thought it would be a short ride, but we got into such an interesting conversation that I ended up doing the whole route and got home ninety minutes later. Upon getting home I had to grill dinner.
So this morning I get up, already tired, and remember that I'm due to take my son on a hike - well, I'm not going to pass THAT up, so off we go, hiking along the Mississippi bluffs. Then home, to take a shower, after which I passed out on the living room couch. I wake up to find my wife asking me to mow the lawn, borrowing for a change the neighbor's power mower. So we move all the lawn furniture, mow the front and back lawn, put the lawn furniture back... Then I realize that our driveway needs mowing. Yes, over the years the driveway has degenerated into a crumbled pile of weed-infested asphalt.
So I take the lawnmower to the driveway, along with some shears to clip down the volunteer trees, and end by yanking the wild grapevine out of the neighbor's tree for the second year in a row.
Then the wheel fell off their lawnmower. Oy. So I offered to fix it (it just needs a cotter pin), and they said they'd get back to me if they don't have one.
A second shower later, and dinner... and that's more exercise in a bit more than 24 hours than I've gotten all summer!
Now it's time to go to a movie! Ah will this whirlwind lifestyle never end?
Posted by Albatross at September 1, 2007 7:05 PM | TrackBack