1. Scott and Ed were sure happy at breakfast. We've had mild weather here in the Silver Valley for the last ten days or so -- by mild, I mean, no snowfall. For Scott and Ed, that means no pain in the neck plowing or shoveling, whether it's at the local post offices or clearing the way to the Sudden Link towers above Wardner. But, as if the snow gods were taunting them, we awoke this morning to snow falling, but the Silver Valley's asphalt is warm enough that it didn't stick to the roads -- or to parking lots, so Ed, Scott, and I had a good breakfast together. We missed Buff and Jerry. Buff is out of town on a ski trip and Jerry had grandpa duties.
2. I got in a good workout late this morning. I programmed the recumbent bicycle machine to give me a random ride and so it took me, by steps, up an increasingly steeper imaginary hill. It was so steep at some points that I could barely pedal, but I persisted and knew that before too long the ride would head back downhill and, at the end of my twenty minutes of cycling, I'd get to cool down on a long stretch of an even bike trail. Today was my day to work on the upper body and, like the last time I did this, I reached a point where I felt nauseous. I took a brief time out, found a place to sit in the nearby lobby, recovered quickly, and got back at it, and, by the end of my workout, I felt refreshed and invigorated. I'm wondering if the nausea is caused by dehydration. I'm not pushing myself very hard. I mean I'm not like a guy preparing to summit Mt. Everest, ha!, so I'm going to be more mindful of drinking water and see if I can make it through my next session without feeling temporarily sick.
3. I was starting to make plans to brown the round eye roast I salted last night and to get the braising underway. But, then, a text message came shooting into my afternoon from Christy. She invited me to join her and Everett and Carol and Paul for dinner out. It turns out that Christy put in a several hours of work sorting and organizing things in their basement and helped motivate herself to do this tiresome work with the promise of going out to eat dinner.
I decided the round eye roast could wait. In fact, I salted it some more and returned it to the ziplock bag for another night of rest. I'll braise it on Saturday.
Our impromptu family dinner took place at the Hilltop Inn in Kingston. It was really fun to see the place bustling. It was pretty much a full house and people were in high spirits, enjoying one another's company and the cozy comfort of the Hilltop's renovation. At our table, we launched into all kinds of conversation, including a discussion of Paul's work history at Kellogg Transfer and the Lucky Friday mine and a review of Dad's work history, including when he left his salaried position as a foreman in maintenance at the Zinc Plant and went to the bottom of the barrel and hired out on the bull gang. Eventually, he bid himself into a job at the company warehouse. Dad showed us a lot about how it looks to surrender a job that made him miserable to do less prestigious work that made him much happier.
Back in 2006, I wrote about this time in Dad's life, here.
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