Up at 7:30, then in the car by 8:00 to meet my walking buddy A at Memorial Park only to find the park was closed due to a professional golf tournament. Parking on the other side of Memorial Drive was $35, so our planned walk there was moved to Rice University.
I raced there and we walked two laps at a good pace through some muddy areas, with some drama when A got a call from a client asking for advice about a federal raid on his rent house. The door had been forced open and some of the windows had been broken. A business card from the U.S. Marshal’s office had been left in the broken door frame. The homeowner landlord asked A what to do, and I warned her that he should prepare for the worst case scenario and consult with a lawyer. It will be interesting to hear what this ended up being all about.
Then I raced to the gym for an early workout with my buddy A (lots of people named A in my life). He and I worked on arms, and it wasn’t easy - I did something called a shrug row with a barbell holding over 300 pounds, plus farmers carries, incline presses, and other horrors too esoteric to describe.
Then I had a quick lunch at a seafood place, bought some comfortable shoes at SAS for tomorrow’s gala (the saleslady measured my feet and showed me that I was a size 13, contrary to my longstanding belief that I was a 14, but their size 13 shoes did not fit, so I ended up buying some size 14 shoes anyway), then I raced home for a quick shower and picked up my mother for our weekly guitar lesson.
The lesson went well. We started practicing The Battle Hymn of the Republic, one of my mother’s favorite songs, which happens to be another song in the key of D. I worked on a blues shuffle, learning some interesting new techniques. Mr. Cory again reassured my mother that she was doing well, and it seemed like she actually believed it this time.
After the lesson, we went to the post office to pick up my copy of this year’s edition of my ethics book. I had updated my Acknowledgments page to express my appreciation to some of my personal friends, so I snapped a picture of that page and sent it to them. There’s something nice about seeing your name in a real book - I’m acknowledged in about five true crime books for my help with the author - so I was happy to do that for them.
After the post office, I took my mother to a cafe for boba tea, which she had never had before. To be honest. I’m not sure I’d ever had it before either and I’m not sure I get the appeal. The tapioca was kind of gummy and flavorless and got in the way of an otherwise nice glass of iced tea. My mother was not a fan either. Next week, we will go back to the smoothie place.
Then we returned to my mother’s house where I did some IT work for her. I’ve installed a password manager on her computer, but she insists on using random slips of paper to manage her various passwords. I think she’s pretty safe from being hacked because the paper is not exactly intelligible. Her handwriting is fine, but there are no clues what the words belong to. The NSA would have to assign a team of cryptographers to break her codes.
We parted ways and I returned home, collapsing on the sweet, sweet couch. I eventually had to get up to go fetch dinner for me and my son, and then I watched the NFL draft until it was time for bed.
Now…tell me I could have done all of that if I worked a normal business day! Nope. No chance.
Tomorrow, another workday, then off to a black tie gala in my new SAS shoes.
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