I did that thing this afternoon where you leave the house in order to accomplish a series of goals. I believe this has a name, but it escapes me. Whatever it may be, I bundled up three items together, because they were more-or-less convenient to the route.
First, I drove a short distance to a place that repairs cameras, for I have one in need of repair. You fill out the form and get a standard reply: mail your camera to the address below. Serendipitously, their office was only a half hour away. Cut out the middleman, I say. So I found myself in a nondescript industrial center, you know the type. The map got me close, and a second try got me a bit closer, still. I asked some guys hanging out around their office about the address and they had no idea what I was talking about. This is an area for work, and not personal investment. And most of the work from the many companies leasing space, you imagine, is done off-site. This is a place for morning meetings, day old donuts and misapplied Tony Robbins quotes. And sales reports. You know the sort.
So I dropped off the camera, and then visited a nearby retail store, a giant place named after an object that is used to test accuracy. Granted, it was the middle of a work day, but that place looked and felt dead. Circuit City dead. Open, but unaware of it’s demise. The only thing that wasn’t there was a scent of musty despair. And some items on shelves. And employees. The last three times I’ve been in one of these stores it felt like that, but it could be a question of timing.
I found the thing I wanted, thanks website, but decide it wasn’t what I wanted, so I left.
And then I went to the grocery store. I needed to get some granola and, of course, once I’ve found one I like they seemed to have stopped carrying it. This is the height of first world problems, hilarious in its predictability. There was also a small list of other things we needed, Ketchup, aluminum foil, corn meal and the like. And this probably says as much about our house as possible, grated cheese was on the list twice.
When we consolidated our houses when we married, we had a lot of extra things. Each of us had a house full of stuff, of course, and in some respects we had more than one copy of things. Somehow, our two houses became stocked like three homes. When it came to consolidating refrigerators we had five or six different canisters of the grated cheese. (She brought most of it.) It took ages to use it all, and we still laugh about it. I’m sure that’s why it was on the shopping list at the top and bottom. I only purchased one container, because we don’t need surplus everything.
I got home in time for a bike ride. My lovely bride was off for a ride with a friend and I decided to ride over to the friend’s house with her. I just needed a recovery ride, anyway after several hours in the saddle yesterday.
The science is still up in the air, but the suggestion is that the benefit is minimal, though people do feel better after the effort, which is meant to be short and low-intensity. They are meant to be almost casual, flat. Zone 1 or Zone 2, with a reasonably high cadence. Easy. You’re not stressing yourself.
It should be so, I’ve read, that you wind up feeling almost guilty about how easy you went.
Let me tell you about trying to stay in Zone 1 or Zone 2 when you’re following someone in Zone Infinity over here.
She gets in her aero bars, puts her nose in the wind and will drop you, or me, in a hurry.
Anyway, they went off one way and I doubled back for home. It was a 15-mile recovery ride, one where I found myself sprinting through intersections because it felt good. I blame her for that, somehow.
And so here is one of the views I saw along the way.
Tomorrow, I’ll just go for a swim.
