"The Senate chamber is an intimate room where men and women go to talk to themselves for the record."
George Packer, The Empty Room, The New Yorker, August 9, 2010.
You take Packer's article, read it in conjunction with Purdum's upcoming Vanity Fair piece http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129090078 and you may as well learn how to stand on one foot well, military press 40kg and snatch 200 in ten, 'cause that's about the only thing you control and the rest is just Rome falling around you.
Friday
10 dolphin to dolphin plank
5+5 sls, 12kg bu
Press,
10+10 double 16 alternating overhead press
3+3 24 kg c to p
1+1 32
20 walking lunges, double 35lb dumbbells
3x, but last circuit three singles on the 32 strict mp, both sides, crushing it.
30/30 20 24kg swings x 10.
Finished by 3:45, walk up to client's office in workout gear to pick up 12k, bag man in running shoes and shorts.
Get back by 4:20, still feel strong so 60 min yoga. Went well.
Saturday, three mile marsh walk with 5 and dogs, Bella gets launched as above. 5 takes pity and feeds me massive quantities of sushi; his heart is huge which is why I have loved and forgiven him since 1968.
Sunday, one more three mile walk, wash and shave Barry, wash Rose, then to Sara's for bbq.
Monday, three miles am, beat the crap out of the day, then
pm
15 pushups, hands on med balls, feet on box
5+5 sls, to 5+5 sls 12kg bu on active side
10 double 16 clean and press
3+3 24kg press
1+1 32kg press, fucked
20 walking lunges with 2 35lb. dumbbells
x3
45/30, 24kg jerks x10. Five sets per side, a bit over 100 jerks total, more work needed.
Tuesday, five miles, late.
Wednesday
am
20/20 10 pushups, slow and hard x 8
3+3 16kg bu squat to press, to 8+8 squat to press, 80lb barbell
10+10 rows, 60lb dumbbell
6+6 single leg deads, 16kg
3x
8+8 16kg windmills top, 12kg bottom
5+5x3 16kg snatches
2+2 24kg tgu
3x
5+5 snatches to get to 100
20 more pushups to get to 100.
Smoking 60 min MH yoga in pm.
We are still so fucked.
Marsh walk with Rose this morning, trying get her to crap out the 1.75 pounds of chateaubriand she stole off the counter last night. Makes me gag to think about it.
A beautiful walk. It's quiet, deserted. Shooting at Harrier on the north levee, sounds like a stealth bomber just above, look up and it's a thousand or so ducks heading in low, webbed feet hanging for landing. Heart stops.
This is about 20% of them after they've landed. Still focused on the Harrier and can't go wide.
Been watching this bird for a couple of weeks now; it is young and not very skittish, foolish youth. It flies up off the north levee and circles 'round cooperatively to my left. I am maybe 30 feet away, now cursing not going to the mid-range zoom, cause I don't need all the glass and sure could use VR. Fuck it, do your best. Snap off 30 or 40 shots while the bird looks at me, head cocking with every click.
I know the real opportunities are gonna come when it flies off. It's foggy as hell and I can't get the shutter speed I need given my slow lens and caffeinated grip, but what the hell.
Bird continues to be cooperative and flies behind a few blades of grass mitigating to some extent my poor technique. But I have been walking this marsh for nearly four years now and have never gotten so close to a Harrier, glad to have started carrying the camera again.
Harrier gone now, but the noise is wild, the ducks are going off, the swallows are clicking at practically arms reach and terns are screeching overhead. Everything is feeding and I can almost forgive Rose her $19.00 steak theft. Almost.
If the demise of our political institutions was followed swiftly by the species' extinction, or at least significant reduction in numbers, what it would be like to see the planet bounce back. This marsh is just a tiny pathetic remnant of habitat but it shines. I wanted to sit in the dirt with my dog and just soak it in. Was able, for a good time though not long enough, to do just that.
We are so fucked and it is so beautiful.
No comments:
Post a Comment