We worship Wednesday

What’s up with the middle of the week? It’s the farthest away you can get from the weekend. Just the right day for an evening run and dinner with friends. We run on Wednesdays from Fall to Spring, when Nite Moves isn’t going on. We swim when we have to, bike when we can, and groove the rest of the time!

Sunday, the 16th of November

And here’s an overdue item that continues the thread of birthdays we had going. After all sorts of activity (no pictures) Mark and Jen came up with a Race Plan that came to fruition with the birth of Lila and Natalie. We hope and wish them all the best on the really Long Run they have embarked on.

Thursday, the 13th of November

Well the 13th definitely turned out to be an unlucky day for some people in Santa Barbara or Montecito. Groovers turned out for the SB Tri Club’s meeting, hosted at the SB Athletic Club (thanks to John Herzog), ready to hear about awards and extol the achievements of the year. He and Stewart had a great slide show going. But soon after the fun began, the power went out. The cause: serious fires breaking out not very far away. We almost adjourned to Joe Sullivan’s place, thanks to a half-serious suggestion by Liz, but Dave rescued things by just relocating to the parking lot and carrying on. We recognized Craig for cleaning up, Rosie for her first season, Sarah for a truly awesome season, and various others we can’t even remember. Kudos to Dave Groom for holding things together and showing leadership.

Wednesday, the 12th of November

The crew was considerate, and waited just a little past 6:10 for Andrew this time, but then rolled into gear. Lots to discuss and we seemed like a moving classroom as we swept along Carrillo to the Bird Refuge and back. Peter and Ty ran the whole way, that’s six legs in all. (Does that make an insect? And how many gaits are possible with six legs?) Another Andrea joined us, a friend of Michael’s, and Kyle was pacing the pack.

The good old reliable Back o’ Brewhouse hosted the post. Stacy G joined us, (is she related to Kenny G or Ali G?) and told Desa about seeing the real Globe Theatre, where all the world is staged. She also reported seeing one of Andrew’s Z-Boards being played by a band called Pendulum. They definitely rock; here is one of their videos, where they use an older version called the Z-Tar.

Politics is still in the air, with recounts underway. Dave says that as long as Al Franken is in the race, nobody can carp about Sarah Palin. Fair enough. There is definitely enough BS to go around. Lately it’s been occurring to all of us what a long strange trip it’s been, especially for Brian who explained what happens when you mix branches of the Kingdom of Life, namely people and fungi. Apparently he had a wild ride recently, but he looks just the same on the outside.

Wednesday, the 5th of November

The birthday trend continued, but the baton, on its way from Sarah to Andrea, didn’t make it to Shawna, who couldn’t make it up here to celebrate. But we kept the flame going anyway. A strong headwind on the run, which for once didn’t turn around with us at the turnaround, so we had a helpful tailwind running back. Lots to talk about on the run and off. Liz is still running like a girl, recovered from the Nike Women’s Marathon that she ran with Jayna. Would she advise her clients to run a half-marathon the next week? Do as she says, not as she did... but she did it. She must have only seen the back of Amy in that race, who came in second in her age group! Is all that swimming making her faster? Ricky was fourth in his cutthroat group too; those guys barely touch the ground when they run.

Showing that she too could do a crazy double, Desa ran the half, and then the next day teamed up with Woody to win the women’s trophy at the Muddy Buddy race. We are waiting for pictures from that one!

Now a parent, Desa is watching other ones, and is amazed at the junk they feed their kids. You are what you eat. We made ourselves better with some excellent food at Deano’s, the obscure Mesa pizzeria where we had our first post-election caucus. Some predictions came out, others didn’t. Stacy Georgilas is back from the Old World, to what some think is a whole new world. No, everything is exactly the same, but people see it differently. However, some people’s vision is better — check out this satirical headline from eight years ago. Josh can’t believe that Michelle Bachman is still in Congress. We still need something to laugh about. However, it's a stretch to think that we are really becoming socialists. More likely, with less partisan bickering, we will wind up discussing really important issues, like this.

Wednesday, the 29th of October

Birthdays: everybody has one. What are the odds that they are on a Wednesday? This time the stars lined up exactly and our favorite A-Teamer Andrea celebrated hers today. Seems like just yester-Wednesday that we had a birthday. When’s the next one? Look out Larry!

All of Andrea’s friends (there are no enemies) turned out at Sharkeez, who were very cooperative in helping us show the world why we are so groovy. The Queen herself looked like she had just come from a salon, not a run. The King was delayed on the 101, which was not the Calle Real (Royal Road) it should have been, but made it for the cake. All these years she has managed not to live up to the image of the “other Andrea” made famous (infamous?) by Frank Zappa. But she was spelled and pronounced “Ondrea”.

And proving that Groovers links are thicker than the 101, in the midst of all the excitement they made a call to Andrew, who was at that moment visting yet another spelling: Andria, née Freeland, now McGhee, that some may remember as a UCSB triathlete and now mom... and still playing water polo. Dad Steve is also a former Gaucho triathlete, shown here at a race in Mexico. Now he’s at Google, and Andrew, whose quest was to consult with Apple on the future of the world as we know it (aka the iPhone) enjoyed this connection (on his iPhone) with the rest of our shrinking world. Can you identify that other Groover on the right? Her birthday is two off from Andrew’s.

Wednesday, the 22nd of October

Energy is in the air.. if we could tap it we could power the world! Is it the Fall atmosphere? The election excitement? Everybody jumps off at a 5k pace and it seems like sparks are flying as we start running. Maybe because of the dry heat. This time Sarah is a walker, exercising her judgment more than her muscles. We should all have such good sense. But we have a bigger contingent than ever, so there are several different packs of pace, and the speedsters aren’t the only ones on the course.

We go to the back-door Brew Co, an homage to the Grooms, even though they aren’t even there. We get some cred for that, right? There is a World Series game in its ninth inning going on, but we have more important things to pay attention to. Sam is making generalizations about men & women to Desa, who appreciates that things and people are (generally) particularly special and you can’t generalize. Irresistible force, meet immovable object! Sarah is on to Ms. Palin’s wardrobe budget, which just goes to show how many orders of magnitude there are between Alaska and Washington.

Andrew and Amy think the election is going to have the bandwagon effect, where people jump onto the winning team. The alternative would be the thermostat dynamic, where the strength of one side gets the other riled up, so the gap always stays close. It’s a dynamical system (aka chaotic), and we take a snapshot of it on November 4th and call it an election. And even that simplification is over when you allow early voting — Mark “2Daddy” Warren exercised that option. (He will be busy enough pretty soon with his new constituents.)

If voting is not simultaneous, what exactly does the election measure? Could it be like this marathon, with multiple winners? Desa’s students are reading Macbeth, and Shakespeare is always relevant to politics. In any case, when all else fails, we will be able to prevail upon our Mercedes-driving Groover to push her “panic” button.

Wednesday, the 15th of October

Who needs to save the drama for our mama, Obama, or even the Dalai Lama? We have enough of our own to go around! Andrew returns from the remote North with a job offer from Mark/Space and a new stepmother (but no glass slipper), and Sarah returns from a trip she wasn’t expecting to take. Who knew that duathlons involved flying?

The ocean is getting pretty cold, as James Joyce more colorfully observed. Amy was brave enough to test this but she reported on the ice cream headache. Looks like the winter of our discontent will be starting soon. Back to the pool!

The pack started out fast and stayed that way, perhaps sped by the cool autumn air. Pretty soon we will be needing our headlamps to negotiate the return trip from the Bird Refuge. And at the turnaround, who did we see but Sarah, totally in character catching up with (and passing) the pack.

Afterward we celebrated her birthday in style at Joe’s Famous Café, which lived up to its name with good service and ambience. The whole place knew we were special and that we had a birthday girl. The conversation was as lively as ever, with Sterling and Andrew agreeing that all money is really a bet on the future. As long as the trash gets collected tomorrow.

We will continue to celebrate Sarah’s birthday and life Friday evening at Dargan’s Irish Pub. 8 PM. C’mon down!

Wednesday, the 8th of October

The year is on the wane but the Groove is waxing. We welcomed back Peter from the ancestral land of Scotland (and his post-travel cold) where the word for “mother’s milk” is “whisky”. He prefers the Santa Barbara pub fare, actually. Which reminds us of the classic joke that heaven is where the Brits are the police, Italians are the lovers, French are the cooks, Germans are the mechanics, the Swiss are the bankers; and hell is.. well you can figure out how that goes!

And Jody is returned from the equally remote Alaska, where the word for “Ironman” is “Iditarod” and they swim with polar bears. (See our note of 16 September.) She works with energy and still has a lot. Massage therapist to the stars (that’s all one word) Kelly Knowles showed up, reminding us of the classic puzzle: if she massages everyone who doesn’t massage themselves, who massages her? Probably the whole Brew Co was listening in to the discussion of the escapades that went down at Josh's bachelor party at the Spearmint Rhino. Our lips are sealed. Sam and Craig told us how much we missed out on the great weekend surfing. And we had a great work story from Greg about the crazy boss. Who hasn’t had one of those? The goal is to become one.

Not present were some stalwarts: Lizzie had to work, but Dave held up his end (no, not like that!) by showing up and sharing brews & burgers. Andrew was up north talking to Apple about iPhone programming and attending the wedding of his 83-year old father. Is that where he gets his stamina? And Desa and Billy were celebrating their 14th wedding anniversary. What were you doing fourteen years ago?

Special thanks to correspondents Amy and Sarah for this installation.

Wednesday, the 1st of October

The weather has us all singing “Heat Wave”, and that makes swimming all the more attractive. Even though the Carp Tri is over, we had a great contingent swimming today. And even though Drea has two wetsuits, she left them both behind today. How did she maintain buoyancy? We’re sure she didn’t hold her breath for the whole swim.

But those runners who started out with shades were left in the shade by the time they finished: no sunlight left by 7. The pack had plenty of energy today — geez, didn’t they race hard enough on Sunday? But as Amy learned, it doesn’t beat you up like a straight run does, even if it takes the same energy. Maybe people were just still buzzed from the fun weekend... and the rest got a contact high. Ann Marie ran her farthest yet — even farther if you scale by body size! How many paces was that?

Back to the Neighborhood for dinner... we were worried that they missed us. We worked on the fourth leg of triathlon: ping pong! (Or is it beer? How many parts does this race have?) After we left the tables some serious pros came around to show us how it was done. The girls had a discussion about dating and synchronization... how long do you wait to make or break? Suffice it to say that we think Amy is always right. Desa is still blissed out from her post-race massage from Kelly. Another satisfied customer. ☺ Andrew was debriefed about last week’s lecture by Mark Juergensmeyer, which he squeezed in between Carpinteria packet pickup and camping. Brian suggested that the $700 billion (you know which $700 billion we’re talking about) might be better spent bailing out the bereft mortgage-holders. If that be socialism, make the most of it. People contemplated going up to Lake Lopez and entering Tinley’s Adventures at the last minute. Apparently it’s still possible.