Burp

If you ever want to have a holiday dinner out, I highly recommend Marie Callender's. That was the best Thanksgiving dinner that I've ever had. It started out with awesome Potato Cheese soup, followed by equally awesome cornbread (warm!). Then we had a full turkey dinner (wonderful stuffing, mashed potatoes, and sweet potatoes). They had pumpkin pie for dessert, but I elected to get Pumpkin Cheesecake separately, and it was as good as it sounds. The price was reasonable. The only problem was that I was doubting my ability to drive afterwards -;)

Definitely need to hit the Y tomorrow!

Objects of desire

platofish said: I think it was Henry Ford that said cars are the only machine that man can truly connect with.
And he was right.

I can think of a couple of other examples. Musical instruments, for one. Bicycles are another example (although maybe they're like a very small car.) My current object of lust is a Breezer Citizen. If I ever get strong enough on a bicycle to run errands with it or bike to work, I'll get one.

First I need to relearn how to ride a bike again after my abortive attempt a couple of years ago. (Yes, I get ahead of myself.) I think that my mountain/road bike hybrid is too much bicycle for me at this point, so I just bought a slow, cheap one-speed to practice with. I also found an e-book about how to teach someone to ride a bike. It recommends practicing in a parking lot with a slight slope, in which you glide down and practice balancing and pedal slowly up. Makes sense. The parking lot at work has a slope, so some weekend I'll be there practicing. (Let's hear it for Northern California, in which learning to ride a bicycle in the dead of winter is practical.)

I'm also considering learning how to run despite my knee problems. The thing that I like about running is that you can do it anywhere, such as when I'm visiting my mom. (I also have dumbbells that inflate with water and resistance bands ready to go to Detroit with me in December.) I'm going to try to run, and if my knees hurt too much, I'll stop. I just found knee braces specifically for patello-femoral syndrome, so maybe they would help.

I also just signed up for swimming lessons. It would be so cool if I can learn to swim and ride a bike again. Hmm, swim, bike, run: roll-your-own triathlon -;) Heh.

Now I have to run and do my Christmas shopping with my mom. I'm actually late because I'm shipping them back East; usually I pride myself on mailing them the day after Thanksgiving. It feels like it's going to rain, or at least that's what my knees and a couple of fingers are saying. (Anyone know why joints ache when it rains?)