Bonfires . . .

"Each little snail here
Know how to wail here
That’s why it’s hotter under the water
Ya' we in luck here
Down in the muck here under the sea"
Ashman/Menken,  Under The Sea


Monday long good day and in for gentle EH at 5:30.  Good class.

Tuesday
Email comes in from client 4:50 am; it is a six page suicide note in which I figure prominently as the savior.  Estranged family members have already called pd. Get in car not knowing where to go.  Pull over at ferry terminal numb, should not be driving.  Have an opposition due Wednesday but will be in mediation all that day and I need to focus.  Learn at 10:00 she is still alive and in hospital.  Try to squeeze one week continuance.  No dice.  Day spent spinning, but got opposition out and and started to  get mischief managed.  Training out of the question.  There are some really evil people in the world.

Wednesday
Good result at long mediation.  Tired and fried but gotta go do something.  It's late, so quick snatches
15/15 16kg seven rep pace x 60.  It is hot, humid and sticky which leads to bad callous rip on right hand, very late in the training so can finish.  Calls re family snarling as I'm pulling in, Brigid almost in tears.  Do not take sides; just take care and do not really settle in until 9:15.

Thursday
Working from home cause B is sick which means dog gets good early morning walk.  Busy, almost frantic day that does not calm down until, after 5:00, collect Brigid at 6:45 from cross-country meet, she'd done very well, fourth on her team, quite good for someone who has been doing this for three weeks.  Ongoing re distressed client.  Talk to family law counsel who confirms serious evil.  Back myself off the ledge and start getting focused; plan starts to emerge and this can start to be dealt with.  Nothing but the dog walk.

Friday
Calls starting up early but break for good but ridiculously expensive breakfast.  Pretty light day which is fine.  I need it.  4:30 Pradeep and stay for additional 50 min of 5:30 class.  He is running it slow but really hard and drenched at end.  Leave to catch 7:20 to pick Brigid up from parkour.
She is not there.  Texts and voicemails reveal a very distressed Brigid fighting with her mom, pretty ,uch constant from Tuesday.  She is at friend's house, post yoga glow evaporates.  Go home, collect her, and take her down to grandma's.  C explains how she feels and she is right in a few respects but way off imho on others.  Rose senses unhappiness and tries to curl up in my lap, 80 pounds of Labrador love. 

Saturday
Up early to pick up Brigid and get her to school for tech.  Pick her up from tech at 1:00 and try to glue her together.  She is very clear, not interested in gray areas.  Shop: costco, blockbuster (for Bridesmaids), wf, and TJ's.  Four stops in 150 minutes, get home and jam in dog walk.  Emotionally spent, do not skip.
Find @giryagirl double complex for inspiration:

60 16 kg swing warmup
10 double 20kg swings
5 double 20kg clean to press
5 double 20 front squats
5+5 20kg snatch
x4.  Gotta rest between presses and squats, sorry Adrienne.

3+3-1+1 sls, 16 kg.  Cause I can't do a pistol.

5 renegade rows, 1 pushup 20kg
10 36kg swings/10 32kg
x5
Watch Bridesmaids, tense.

Sunday
Yoga with B squared, 90 min.  EH rocks.
Good Thai and office for 90 min.  Up for kbells with CT, Brigid and Barry thick as thieves.

Peel off for Sing along Little Mermaid.  Best fun ever.  Folsom Street fair has dumped into Castro.  Disney on the inside and leather out.  Big big fun; Barry and Brigid ecstatic and there so am moi.

Monday.  Rest day.  Just do it.  Pounding Pradeep Friday, doubles workout Sat, yoga and kettlebells Sunday.  Yeah, just do it.  Just figure out how you'll testify at the competency hearing tomorrow for your client who tried to off herself a week ago, with all the rest of it in tow.

Down in the muck here, but it's my muck.   

Out In the Woods

"Can't tell the bad from the good, I'm out in the woods."
Leon Russell, from Carney

Monday. Planned rest day and frankly needed after heavy work sat and 90 min with B Sunday.

Tuesday
Up and there are a bunch of shots from Ian's group and he looks good, a bit off to the side and aloof but good.
Up to CT for late goodness and it's a boatload of push press work topped off with 60 swings straight at end and gassed. Ooze out into the night and pick up Patxi's for the masses.

Wednesday
Busier and busier as the day goes on and just can't get to it.

Thursday
Noon yoga, client meeting and 60 min with JWB. He has me swinging the 32 for warm up and I should have called foul. I need at least 60 with the 16 to get it going, 100 is better. After a couple of rounds of full wheel earlier and then sitting for three hours and up again; it ain't good. I stop bell work after 40 and watch and listen to John talk finer points which is quite good.

Friday
Sit down at 9:16 and do not stop talking on the phone until 12:35. Constant barrage but staying up. Bolt to Sushi It's Ok. Comment on the morning to the beautiful Korean woman who smiles a lot and she brings me salad, miso and smiles and a warm press gratis. She is dressed in silk, smells awesome and disappears with a faint rustle. Finish out the day pretty damn well. I'll be working all weekend anyway so bolt to 4:30 Pradeep. He starts off real slow. It stays slow but gets harder and harder JB is in back of me and can't help but notice those shoulders in downward canine. She looks like she weighs nothing standing up but in that position she looks like a linebacker.
Gonna be a long, hard, busy weekend.

Take the 7:20 and pick up Brigid who is at Parkour.  She is having a ball.  At least two of my kids are exactly where they should be, and those are two very different places.

Saturday
Short dog walk, and four hours of shopping with Brigid.  Long day, want to get bells in but no way.

Sunday
Client meeting at 2:00 that I know will be rough.  Too late for yoga but it needs to be iron anyway.

60 16kg swing warmup
Long cycle double press
5 20
4 24
3 28
1+1 32x2
10 front squats, double 20
8 assisted pull-ups, 16 lb
20 tactical lunges 20kg
x3
20 28 kg swings to oly bar tgu
x5
100 24 kg swings

Brutal client meeting.

Hustler's all around me.

Listen to more Leon Russell at Wolfgang's Vault.

9/11

"It's beefsteak when I'm working, whiskey when I'm dry, and sweet heaven when I die."
Gillian Welch, Tennessee

Yeah, it's a great shot, Brigid and IST in the foreground, big sand in back . . . they were smaller then but'd make no difference now . . .

Sunday
Up late texting IST. Morning arrives with screwdriver through the skull type headache. Snooze and burn away most of the day. Force it in for Sunday with ct. Its just two of us so she has us on reformer and some good reverse pushups on the tables. Not too much kettlebell work which is great given my state.  There are times at my advanced age when I do not need that compressed sphere of iron fighting me; they don't last long.

Monday
Into office and up for 90 minutes with Pradeep. Drenching hard hard class leaves me feeling seriously strong, just focus on breath, what it feels like, and bring it. As usual, 90 stretches to 105, but there is nothing better for you to do.  Very hard, very strong, all good.

Tuesday
In early for Buckley type work. Run through multiple-level swings, insertion drills, cleans, 9/9 swing snatch combo with 24kg, 30/30 snatch drills three minute straight. 40 minutes of focused work.
Pm. MH stiff guy class, 60 minutes on hamstrings. Yup, there they are.

Wednesday
Working from home cause B's iep is at 2.
Leave at 7:30 for marsh walk, dog cannot believe her good fortune. It's as beautiful in the marsh as a place can be; deer in that cattails and birds everywhere; geese, ducks, multiple species of egrets and herons, white pelicans. Whole scene just unfolds it is quiet and could stay here for a long time.
There is mischief to be managed though. Work and then go for B's iep where receive the incredible good news that he has two years left rather than 1. Joy. That is it.

Thursday
Good billing day and in for training late. Goes like:
10+10 x 3 16kg swing warm up
10 spider pushups
10+10 24kg snatches
2 24kg tgu
24, 28, 32 swing hill, ten reps each.
x5
Good training.

Friday
Rare noon mh class.  Good, hard, lay it down.

Saturday
Wake up to IST texts from the jungle.  He is himself, what did you expect ?  Busy day but not gonna skip and late head out for this:

100 16kg swing warm up
Presses
5+5 20-1+1 x 2 32.  Hard, better as it went by, but hard.
3+3 36kg push press.  Not too bad but that is one heavy fucking bell.
10 deads, 32/36 doubles
8+8 32kg rows
10 24kg gs
x3
thinking swings, but Buckley series seems more civilized and its hot, so 9 + 9 swing to snatch 24kg,
 then 30/30 16kg snatch, 60 in 2:45 x 2.

Sunday, 90 minutes EH class with B.  Yes.

Gray areas

"There ain't no time, for lengthy speeches . . . "
Rodney Crowell, Leaving Louisiana

"Are we strangers now, like the Ziegfield gals, and the vaudville shows, are we strangers now, like rock n' roll, and radio . . . "
Ray LaMontagne, Rock n' Roll and Radio. 

And there ain't nothing like morning sun on peaches . . .

8/29, turn 52.  Go for nothing less than 52 workout
After swing warm up.
52 pushups
52 24kg gs
156 24kg military press
52 swings each, 24, 28, 32
Smoked, delightfully so.

Older folk can still do work. Make it so; make it so . . .

pm, good easy class with Alley Ramon.  Taught me to shoot to plank from crow, good day for an old dog to learn a new trick.

8/30
Up to CT for dense 40 minutes
5-1 swing ladder, single snatch each rung, 28 first two then 24.
8 deck squats
6 double snatches, 16's.
6x

8/31
Good hard slow MH class

9/1
JWB session.  Good work.  32kg swings.  insertion drills.  cleans.  swing/snatch drill with 24, and then 30x2 twice with 16.  Good workout.

9/2
100 minutes of Pradeep late. Very very very hard.  Pretty damn strong.

9/3 get around, run around.  Barbque ribs and dinner at Anne's, sitting on the deck.  IST text comes in.

Thank you for being there; thank you for writing home . . .