Sunday, January 12 2020

Dear Journal,

Good morning, everyone! Hope you're doing well today. There's not much going on at our house today. Marissa and the dogs are at an agility trial, so at the moment it's just me and Rodney hanging around. Rodney woke up upset about something - like he had a bad dream, but he may have accidentally rolled out of bed and hurt it back. So I let him take his breakfast on the couch today. He's currently sitting there with some cheerios, a peeled orange, and an empty Capri Sun. I sat with him while I drank my first cup of coffee. These days, Rodney is into watching videos about waterslides. We found a YouTube channel comprised of POV GOPRO footage of rides put to relaxing new age music. That's a nice, low key alternative to our usual kid friendly programming.

Sip. I'm having trouble waking up today. The plan was to wake up at 7:30 so I could help Marissa get out the door, but I guess that didn't happen. I don't even remember my alarm going off. That's always sort of troubling, isn't it? Honestly, the fact that I can so easily oversleep on the weekends makes me wonder how I ever wake up on time for work. But somehow, as if my body knows it's a work week, it happens reliably.

Yesterday was a pretty great day. After yesterday's breakfast, Rodney and I spent the rest of the morning outside. There wasn't much shoveling to do, so I stretched it out and took plenty of time take breaks to play with Rodney. We through snowballs at each other, and I pushed him down the driveway while he sat in a big empty Tupperware bin.

At one point, Rodney threw a piece of ice that hit me square in the face, leaving a little bloody pinpoint between my eyes. It hurt, but it was a nice shot, and I couldn't be mad. We wrapped up work outside by piling some garbage into the car, planning on taking it to the dump before lunch. But after jumping in the car, we found out that the dump was closed. Marissa groaned from the front seat of the car - "I'm sorry - would you mind taking it all out when we get home?"

We grabbed a big lunch at Portillo's, swung by Home Depot, then returned home. Rodney went down for a nap, and I hung around the living room and worked on code while Marissa painted. We played the Vikings game on the TV in the background.

I had a chance to organize my blog a bit. At this point, I have so many entries, if I change my mind about how I want to structure them, it takes a whole afternoon just to go back and update everything. Keeping that much data around feels like tending to a garden.

Just an update of how things look now. I keep all my entries in one file, which is currently 20,089 lines of text, 201,189 words, and 1,095,731 characters. The file is currently 1.1MB in size. I think it will be fun to watch that file continue to grow over time.

So I spent the rest of the afternoon just fixing up old entries, chatting with Marissa, and absentmindedly watching the Vikings game. It's become clear to me that the 49ers are probably in the best shape to win the Superbowl. Their offense and defense is equally terrifying. Currently, my ideal superbowl match up would be the Titans and the 49ers. The Titans are on a pretty wild winning streak now, eliminating the Baltimore Ravens last night. I was sure they were going to lose that game.

I took a quick nap on the couch, then we jumped in the car and headed to the bowling alley. We bowled two games, taking a break to eat some pizza. Marissa decided to use the bumpers this time, and the funny thing was it seemed to really improve her score, even though she didn't need them. "I think my problem with bowling is just mental," she said coming back from picking up a spare. "It's like I like knowing the bumpers are there so I don't have to worry about gutter balls."

We took our time through the second game. Lately, I enjoy watching other people bowl at the alley. My favorite kind of bowler is the macho dad who knows how to throw a curve ball, but only picks up three pins every time he does it. It's almost as if this type of bowler is so proud of his form, that it doesn't matter how many pins he hits. There's also the pure speed guy, who seems to get more satisfaction from making the whole alley shake with a thirty mile per hour howitzer than he does from getting a good score. There's the sixteen year old girl who inexplicably gets two strikes in a row, then on the next frame when a turkey is on the line, she starts to overthink her form, wondering if she has been a gifted bowler all this time, and bowls a gutter ball. There's the classic midwestern mom - who can never seem to get a strike, but always picks up the spare with gentle disposition and surgical accuracy. There's the guy who bowls with two hands - partly because he watched a YouTube video about that's a superior way to introduce spin and control, but also because he's not strong enough to throw the ball with one hand.

And then there's us. We celebrate every pin that Rod knocks down as if he just won a state title. We encourage his bizarre pre throw ritual of running on his tip toes, throwing the ball with just his finger tips, and laying on his belly while he watches it roll down the alley. We're considering buying matching custom family bowling shirts.

After bowling, we put Rodney to bed, and it was just me and Marissa. I started to gear up for some chores, but Marissa stopped me in my tracks. "Nope. No work. We are doing nothing." It didn't take much convincing for me to hang up my apron and flop on the couch.

Today, Rodney and I are hanging around the house. I hope to do some IT work today as well as find something new to cook for dinner. Until then, two of three Recker boys will be holding down the fort, watching relaxing water slide videos and thinking about the next time we get to go bowling. Hope you have a wonderful day everyone.