KaiserTales

What crazy fun. Tonight, my Gung-Gung (Grandfather-in-law) brought out a ringer to play tennis. My Uncle-in-law Byron, who plays regularly on a team, joined Gung-Gung to play against my Father-in-law, Michael, and I. Needless to say, I wanted to win. WIN I say!

It is not that I am overly competitive, but I do love to compete, play well and win. That being said, I am always rooting for Gung-Gung. He is in his late 70′s and still plays three times a week. He loves to compete as well and actually puts up quite a battle.

Oh, I think I skipped ahead a little too far. I play tennis with my Gung-Gung and Michael nearly every-other week and enjoy it immensely. We play hard, and Gung-Gung and I like to prepare for each match with a bit of verbal encouragement. Just yesterday as I was chatting with Gung-Gung over the phone, he was trash talking about the impending play date. I simply responded, “You better bring your A-Game!”

That is why, when I saw Byron, I was a bit worried. Byron is a strong competitor and has a good game (or so I have heard, never having played him). As the game kicked off this evening, I could sense that Michael and I weren’t playing our best; we were indecisive and not as consistent as we need to be. Gung-Gung gets most everything back. He will out hit anyone until they make a mistake… Or until he thinks its out, but that’s another story. Having Byron as his partner definitely upped the ante.

The first set got off to a bad start with Michael and I down 2 to 5. We were not used to Byron’s serve, and Gung-Gung was playing well as always. However, Michael and I were able to rally and came back, but still lost the set 5 to 7.

I very much enjoy playing with my Father-in-law. He is a good hitter, fun, supportive and a good sport. However, he isn’t as aggressive at times as I would like. You could tell that I wanted to win when I began saying to Michael “Hungry like the beast, hungry like the beast!” He looked at me funny and simply smiled. It was this “hunger” that, on both our parts, led to our comeback and to our winning the second set 6 to 2. The “hunger” is key!

Enough about the beast…

Winning is fun, the competition is great and continually trying to outplay myself is awesome, but the best thing is simply seeing the excitement in Gung-Gungs face, body language and giggles. Yes giggles. HE ABSOLUTELY LOVES IT WHEN HE’S WINNING. Early in the match, he was so excited that he could barely contain himself. What made it all the better is that my Po-Po (Grandmother-in-law) had joined us as well. She giggled the whole time too!

Quality family moments with my in-laws. I look forward to the next time.

Marissa and I have taken it upon ourselves to get back into shape…  This whole experiment with “exercise” began late this past Spring when I took to playing tennis after a short ten-12 year hiatus.  I noticed that I have been getting faster and more nimble on the court, but not as much as when I was in my late teens.  (this won’t be a surprise to anyone, but it certainly is to me!).

It has been a lot of fun getting back into shape, but man, I certainly forgot about the aches and pains.  Also, I don’t in any way remember having these same level of aches and pains 10+ years ago.  Is it just me, or does this happen to everyone?

Denial, denial, denial… Yes, it is a comfortable and warm place in which I reside much of the time (about health matters).  Age doesn’t matter!  I should be able to pick up a tennis racket, snap into some skis and not experience any lag or slowness in either my responses nor my recuperation!  Needless to say, that hasn’t worked out too well.

As part of our NEW routine, Marissa and I are going to be running 2-3 miles four times per week.  This morning, we even rolled out of bed at 6:30am and ran around Green Lake. I was quite proud of Marissa as she led the charge the whole way and set the pace around the lake.  She is a great natural athlete.  Hopefully the running, the tennis, and a healthier (or at least smaller calorie intake) can get me to my happy place that I so relished as a 19 year old.

Now, where is the aspirin and when is that massage again?

PS – Sorry, no photos as I am too embarrassed.

Marissa and I were invited to attend the “Friends of Children” charity auction this afternoon. We had a great time and even won a few items in the silent auction. As we were sitting down to get ready for dinner, Marissa leaned over and mentioned, “Hey doesn’t that guy look familiar?” As I looked over, I saw that she was pointing out someone who looked similar to Ken Charm, an old sailing buddy.

I decided to walk by and pulled the say “insert first name here” as I passed. Being that it was Ken, he did respond. Seeing Ken and I chatting, Marissa had walked over as well. As we were chatting I thought I recognized Ken’s date, but couldn’t place the face. She introduced herself as Nicole, and it was at that point that I recognized her as the older sister of my Prom date from High School.

She introduces herself to Marissa and says something like, “Your husband has the worst memory. He didn’t remember me two years ago either.” Interestingly, according to my recollection, we had last seen each other twelve years ago.  Chalk that up to another mistake on my part… The first BIG mistake was about 10 years ago.

… About two years after graduating from high school, I was an R.A. for one of the dorms on my college campus. One day, as I got onto the dorm elevator, a girl in the elevator greeted me by saying, “Nathan, it is so good to see you again, how have you been?”

I wracked my brain to try and remember her, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure her from Eve. I ended up saying something along the lines of “I am sorry, but I can’t remember knowing you”. She stared at me with eyes ablaze and said curtly “We went to Prom together!”

Fortunately, the elevator doors opened, and I was able to escape (none too soon). I have been telling this story since that day, more to make fun of myself than anything else. What I never suspected is that she would be telling the story as well.

Nicole told Marissa how I am a living legend in her family of four sisters.  After we departed and sat down at our table Marissa aptly pointed out to me “Their whole family hates you” and immediately started giggling.

As a little background, Nicole and her sister went on a double date with my friend Jason and I for Prom. I don’t think Jason and Nicole dated for that much longer. Today Nicole informed me that Jason has since been married and divorced, while Jessica (my date for Prom) has three kids with another on the way! This all amazes me, simply from the fact that we all took extremely different paths in life.

For the record, I couldn’t be happier with the path that I chose.

To the City Light trucks outside our house: Good luck guys!

Tonight, coming home after work, we turned the corner to our block and realized something was odd: There were no lights!

We walked in the house, flicked a few switches and confirmed what we already knew: The power is out! And dammit, I was planning to cook a good dinner tonight! Our lucky neighbor, kitty-corner and across the street from us must be on a different power line, cuz she’s got lights.

In the six years that I’ve lived in my house, I’ve never been completely without power. Power has flickered and I’ve had to reset my clocks every once in awhile, but I’ve never experienced a power outage that interrupts my life. Someone who’s lived on my block for the over 50 years told me that we’re situated at a perfect intersection within the grid. In all his years, he can only remember a handful of times without electricity. So you can imagine my surprise at seeing our block as the only one without lights. Plus, when we pulled up to the house, I was thinking of one thing: FOOD! Oh man, I was hungry!

Nate was preparing to knock on our neighbors door (the one with the lights), but I was anxious to find a restaurant and get some food in my tummy. Plus, it started to rain… again. So we headed off to find dinner, heat and light.

Now we’re back at home, tummies full and sitting next to a burning fire, surrounded by candles. How am I online? We’re working off the battery and the Internet phone card. I love being wired. The iPhone is charging as I type, and [THANK GOD] the work crews have arrived. I looked up our neighborhood on the city light website. Lightning struck and we’ve been without power since 12:30 this afternoon. I’m glad this didn’t happen on a Saturday.

Instead, I’ll sit here and tell my tale of a Friday evening in front of the fire. It’s quite nice. But I hope to have power again very soon.

Description: Lightning storms typically cause scattered outages by striking poles and tripping the protective relay (“fuse”) to pole-top transformers and sectionalizers. The typical pattern for a lightning storm is small outage pockets of between 1 and 50 customers. However, severe lightning storms have caused widespread feeder-level outages affecting tens of thousands of customers.

Approximately customers affected: 73

Cause: LIGHTNING

Ga! It’s been 13 days now that I’ve been sick. This has got to be some kind of record!

I’m not talking a little bit sick with a lingering cough either. I’m talking doubling over with coughing fits that come from deep in my gut necessitating naps in the middle of the day, and codeine cough syrup with Nyquil to even get to sleep at night kind of sick. My mother-in-law thinks I have walking pneumonia , but my doctor’s assured me that it’s just a viral infection that will soon pass.

To his credit, I am getting better. No longer do by bones or muscles ache. That was week one. No longer is my throat closed up to the size of a dime, making it painful to swallow or drink. That was week one as well. No longer do my fervent coughs wake me up 3-4 times in the middle of the night, driving out such quantities of phlegm that I feel the need to take a bath at 2:00 in the morning to loosen up my insides. That was last weekend. (Sorry if I’m grossing you out… this is the saga of my sickness.) Now, I’m struggling to get my energy back while battling fits of deep, unproductive coughs. I stole that term from my doctor’s office: unproductive cough — It perfectly describes my current state of hacking.

But the coughing fits are growing fewer and further between, my energy levels are improving and I’m on the mend. I wish it didn’t take so long, but at least I’m on the mend. Here’s the casualty count for my illness:

• 1 box of Theraflu
• 3.5 packets of cough drops (and counting)
• 2 boxes of Kleenex
• 1 box of Nyquil
• 1 bottle of codeine cough syrup (I wonder if my doc will give me another prescription…)
• And the kicker… 6.5 full days of work

Being sick sucks. Being sick for this long sucks even more. I can’t wait for this illness to be a bad memory.

Marissa and I had the opportunity to spend the weekend with her parents, Michael and Arlene, this past weekend at my parent’s cabin in Eastern Washington. The photo below is from the shore of Lake Wanapum. We had a great time with Mars’ parents. There was golfing, tennis, walks, bicycling and amazing steaks (which I cooked [surprisingly]).

It was a wonderful weekend, with lots of sun and temps in the high 60s to low 70s. While 140 miles to the West was was pouring down rain!

As you can see, the lake is a bit low, but the natural beauty of area is unquestionable.

This is another photo from Cheetah, and I am trimming the spinaker.  What a beautiful thing!

If you have any pointers for how to optimize it, please let me know!

PS – This if for Saturday’s PotD

MeeeArrrggg, where did we park the Carrrr? Thankfully, we didn’t partake in said drink, but we obviously had a bit of the pirate inside each of us!

If you can’t tell Marissa and I like to sail. Now we aren’t the best, nor the brightest (well, she is), but we are able and willing and hop on a boat whenever we can. We even show up with our own pirate gear and certain spiced liquids…

This photo was taken back in August or September when Elliott Bay Marina was celebrating Pirate Night. We had just finished racing with our friends, Marty and Deborah on their Island Freeport. We sailed the series bounding between Camelot (Marty and Deb’s boat) and Danielle (Rex and Sharon’s 42′ Catalina). Not a bad life!

Send me your best Pirate Jokes and I will post them here!

Marissa and I are very fortunate to have the friends that we do! This photo is of Matt Cassarino and Brianna and Dave Albano. Matt runs CoolToors and Brianna and Dave work for Accenture. Matt and I have become friends through the startups we run, and interestingly enough Brianna and I went to Junior High and High School together (Go Mustangs!). She and I reconnected when I moved back from NYC and we have enjoyed skiing, sailing and many a dinner with both of them.

I had the honor of being the officiant at Dave and Brianna’s recent wedding a few months ago. It was an awesome experience. Marissa said I looked more nervous than the groom, which I believe 100%.

A fun photo of Marissa as were racing in the South Sound Series.  See the sunny skies?  These may be the last we see for quite some time…   This picture was taken somewhere between Pt Defiance Zoo (in Tacoma) and Vashon Island.  Doesn’t she have a great smile!

Someone on the boat asked if Marissa and I had recently been to a Couples Positive Affirmation Class…  Yes, we are one of those couples.  Every five minutes as if on cue one of us will say “Honey, you are absolutely AMAZING!”  I am sure it is annoying to everyone around us, but hey that isn’t my problem.

No, not a spider or some other creepy crawler. I curse the bug that made us sick! Sick!

We’ve succumbed to one of the bugs going around. First me, then Nate. We suspect it has something to do with the all those kids at the Best’s dinner gathering on Saturday night, but it could be from anything. A number of my co-workers have missed days of work. The weather has been cold and wet and generally crappy for two days now. (Welcome Seattle fall!) And being around a dozen kids from half-a-dozen families certainly increases your odds of picking up a bug. Curse you, bug!

So here we lay, Nate on one couch, me on another. Both in our PJ’s. Both drinking teas, soups and other hot concoctions to soothe our throats, relieve the aches in our bones and rest our ill bodies. (Has Nate ever told you that I can be a drama queen? If not, I think I’ve just proven my capabilities.)

Maybe it will be a 24-hour thing. I have hopes of feeling better tomorrow. In the mean time, I’ll digest Vitamin C, Echinacea and anything else that offers a hope to make me better. Ugh.