Pleasant Surprises

Happy Halloween!

Hmm. Why don't parents name their little boys "Linus" anymore? Or for that matter, "Schroeder"?

I don't suppose it matters. I'd imagine that the next generation will include thousands and thousands of youngsters named "Barack" and/or "Mitt." Or perhaps "P. Diddy" or "Ochocinco". I'm sure our futures are in good hands.

In the meantime, I just wanted to report a couple of things that pleased me today. We'll take them in chronological order:

I had a pretty good run this morning. Well...not "good" in the sense of "running fast" or "being mistaken for Paavo Nurmi" or anything. But good in that I went to bed feeling extremely sore and stiff from running at Red Rocks on Sunday and was expecting to wake up incapable of putting one foot in front of the other, but ended up cranking out a decent 3.5-mile run and feeling good at the end. Thanks to the inspiration from my buddy Rich, I started off at a pretty good pace, and then loosened up to hold it throughout the distance. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was "fun"...but when you're expecting pain, and instead experience a reasonably smooth stride, well, it is somewhat of a treat.

Second, the people on the swim team all worked pretty hard this morning. I probably shouldn't categorize that as a "surprise", really, since they usually do work pretty hard. But it was still fun for me to stand on the deck and watch the intensity level in the pool remain high throughout the practice. Oh sure, there were still a few gawd-awful turns, some lane etiquette anomalies, and a whole lot more breathing inside the flags than I'd like to see. But overall, it was a nice effort across the board. I hope I can absorb some of that enthusiasm and energy for when I start swimming again.

And that's the third pleasant revelation of my morning: I think my ear is actually healing better than I thought. I was looking at the raw-looking red splotch and interpreting it as "open wound", but upon closer inspection this morning, I learned that much of that red area is actually just bright new skin. In other words, what I thought was a large unhealed area may actually be in pretty good shape, and nearly ready to handle submersion. It's still going to look red and angry for a while, but as long as the wound is totally closed up, who cares about its appearance? Right?

I'll do a thorough exam on Saturday and might possibly be ready to jump in the pool on Sunday. I won't risk it unless I'm certain it's completely healed over...but I'm cautiously optimistic at this point. That gets me excited!

At the moment, though, my "Halloween costume" continues to include a bunch of tape and gauze on the side of my head. How about you? Did you dress up for work today? Are you attending a costume party tonight? Are you going to pull out your VHS tapes of "Thriller" and do the zombie dance in your living room?

Whatever you do, I hope that everyone has a safe and enjoyable Halloween, and gets their fill of candy and other goodies. (If you do wind up with leftover Mr. Goodbars or 3 Musketeers and are looking to dispose of them, give me a call; I might be able to find a good home for them. Heath bars and dum-dum suckers, though, you can just toss.)

Have a great day!