Happy 55th, Holly

Saturday, November 27, 2010

To many Ohioans, this is one, huge day. Buckeyes verse Michigan…in the horseshoe. Savannah had returned for the game since she had a ticket and had decided not to sell it when she found out that she couldn’t get more than a couple of hundred bucks for it. It would be her first Michigan game and I suppose, if you have the chance, it’s something you ought to experience. I enjoy the game, but not with the rabid fierceness that so many do. I did consider it as an excellent distraction for a potential workout on the trainer, though.

First things first. It was Holly’s birthday and I convinced her that it would be nice to go to Patterson’s Fruit Farm and sit in their snack shop with a nice cup of coffee and some pastry from their bakery while looking out their window at the expansive view over the park and all the way to Lake Erie. We arrived there to discover that the snack shop closes for the season in the beginning of November. I wasn’t done with fun things, though…I took her to the post office so she could wait in a line to mail some junk and to the grocery store so she could pick up some stuff for dinner tomorrow. It was really shaping up as a special day. We did stop at Caribou where she got her free birthday drink, though. I didn’t get anything…it wouldn’t have been a free day if I had and I surely didn’t need the calories. We were having a birthday party later and I’d purchased an ice cream log thing from Dairy Queen for the occasion. I’d be getting plenty of calories before the day was over.

By the time we returned home and I tuned in the game, the Buckeyes had pretty much put it away…having built a lead of 20 points. I watched for a short time, but decided I’d rather go to the park for a hike with the pack than get on the trainer for the final 20 minutes of the game. Dinner was scheduled for 6 p.m. and I allowed myself time to hike an hour and still get home thirty minutes before company arrived. When I returned to my car after hiking, I had three missed calls and a voicemail telling me that they’d decided to push the time up and that company was already there. “We didn’t know that you weren’t here, dad,” Heidi told me when I called.

“How could you not know that I wasn’t there? I’m somewhat conspicuous…wouldn’t you agree?”

“Um…yeah…I suppose I wasn’t thinking too clearly,” she conceded. I mean…you can’t help but notice when I’m not there. I tend towards obnoxious and loud…I’m no wall flower. Oh well…I hurried home.

Dinner was the first non-turkey meal I’d had (other than Tony the Tiger) for three days. Heidi and Ash had prepared a pasta/shrimp/spinach thing…and it was great. I’d gotten Holly a new Garmin GPS to replace the one we’d had stolen on our visit to Playhouse Square over the summer, which thrilled her since she hadn’t been able to find her way anywhere since then. I tried the ice cream log and finished the day with one more day of more calories in than out. Tomorrow was family dinner night, which was scheduled to be turkey stew and little chance of changing the pattern.

Hike duration: 70 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 90 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 550.