Swimming to Indonesia

Oh, yeah. I'm going running with you. As soon as you come and get me.

I knew it was a little warmer this morning before I even looked at the outside thermometer. I'd had a decent night's sleep, only up once and then only for about 30 minutes. I woke up for good around 5:15 a.m. because Stink the Border Collie was jumping around on the bed, demanding to be let out before he could stain every corner in the house. I got up, let him and Pepper (the girl border collie) outside. They were back at the door in about 30 seconds.

"We really didn't mean it," Pepper said. She's the agreeable one.

"Run by yourself," Stink said. His name speaks for itself.

"C'mon," Pepper said. "Let's go crap in the basement again."

I didn't mind so much. One of the problems with running with dogs in winter is the plowing. The plow guys around here use all sorts of salt and chemicals that can be extremely unpleasant on paws. Unless there's new snow and unplowed roads, it's not a good idea to take a dog running, even on a dirt road (where I run). So I got the boys ready for school and bundled up like the little brother in "A Christmas Story." Clothing list:

• Running shorts




• Two pairs socks (one running, one hunting)




• Thermal underwear




• Fleece-lined warmup pants




• Sleeveless shirt




• Composite fiber long-sleeve




• Cotton turtleneck running shirt




• Cotton hoodie




• Running jacket shell




• Gloves




• Ear warmer




• Neck roll




• Shoes




• Red Sox baseball cap

You could barely see my eyes. I went out to the car and the 15-year-old started laughing: "It's Abu Daddy! He make jihad upon triathlon!"

Really, I was probably a bit overdressed, even for -10. Warmed up to a fairly toasty degree around the second mile, and the iPod generally cooperated. It kept cutting out at first until I took it out of my pocket and tucked it inside my glove. Seemed to work a bit better. Finished my 5K in about 28 minutes (375 calories, according to the Garmin, although it seemed a bit sluggish), jumped in the car and drove to the gym for my morning swim.

I should probably explain that I come from an ancient line of sea people. Going way back to the early 1500s, our people lived in Genoa and did all sorts of fun things for the business there. We emigrated to England by way of France _ something about Hugenots being burned at the stake for Sunday afternoon entertainment was involved in the hasty departure_ and took some of the first bunches of Puritans to Jamestown in the early 1600s.

I know -- you can thank us later.

Unfortunately, the family tradition of being comfortable with water stopped at the edge of the New World. I blame it on the Native ancestry. We wound up marrying one of the local princesses and took over the tribe. As far as I know, they wound up liking the white man only slightly less than the water.

Fast-forward 470 years. As a child, I used to envy my older brother's swimming lessons until I realized he was coming back from them with a perpetual thousand-yard stare and a refusal to talk to our mother for the following six days. My personal swimming lessons, which commenced around age 7, were worse. They generally involved a neighborhood teen-ager trying to drown me for $10/hour. (After I tried to file several complaints with various law enforcement and child welfare agencies, the rate was upped to $25/hour.)

As bad as my older brother and I were, our younger brother hit a low-water family mark when it came his turn. My parents were so appalled at the total lack of swimming ability in the gene pool that he was frog-marched to the first meeting of an actual swim team. Mom introduced him to the coach, tipped generously, and retired to the club bar to steel herself with a steady stream of vodka and tonics while I inhaled french fries on the porch and cackled at the knowledge that the little brother would soon return -- an older, sadder, wiser, version, but still non-buoyant. After an hour, we returned to the pool, where everyone had emerged and been joyously reunited their parents ... except my 5-year-old brother, who was nowhere to be found.

This was in the late 1970s, so the fuss was considerably less than it might have been today when he failed to reappear after an hour. Still, I seem to recall about 20 squad cars parked at the club with blue lights flashing, a couple of helicopters buzzing about, a TV news crew or two, and a very strong sense of injustice that these people hadn't been around when I was burning up the phone lines to the Houston Police Department and Texas Child Welfare Division.

After a three-hour absence, my brother was discovered. Hiding. In a bathroom. With his feet on top of the toilet seat. And refusing to unlatch the door and leave until my mother promised (a) no reprisals, (b) an immediate end to the swim team experiment, and (c) a moratorium on squash, for at least a week. The cops, while having a few qualms about the lack of reprisals, had a brief caucus and announced that there was a reasonable demand or two. They urged Mom to agree. She wanted to wait for Dad, who was en route from a hastily interrupted business trip. I wanted to wait for Dad, since it would be very exciting for a 16-year-old to see his little brother executed on camera and might even get me a date if I pretended that it was a terrible tragedy. It was getting late, though, and the TV crews had deadlines, we had dinner to prepare, and the cops had a city full of donut stores that had now been abandoned for several hours, so Mom reluctantly gave in.

Technically, my 30-year-old brother is still grounded.

I digress a bit, no? I was at the gym pool around 7:45 a.m. and did 1/4 mile in about 15 minutes without drowning, mostly due to a sidestroke (I'd call it an "Australian crawl," but that would be like calling a pit bull a "Staffordshire Terrier." Technically correct, but a bit pretentious).

The first 20 or so laps went, well, swimmingly. The last 15 ... not so much. Part of this was due to my complete lack of buoyancy and pervasive goggle-fogging, but the other problem came from a couple of women who had apparently just gone on a Twinkie and coffee binge, and hoped to work it out in the pool. At least, I'd assume Twinkies and coffee, since these women didn't quite fit the body image associated with most meth addicts.

Understand: This is a large pool. Then again, these were large women, and they were quite, um, jolly. They jumped in the water together, and I was immediately displaced a good two feet. If they had cannon-balled, it's quite possible that entire Indonesian villages would have been consumed by a killer wall of water. So I finished the last half or so of my swim alternately bobbing with and against the tides.

I figured 0.25 miles in 15 minutes with about 125 calories burned. Not too bad for a morning's work -- about a half-dozen KFC boneless barbecue wings. Still, could have been better. Used the low calorie-burn to guilt myself into eating just a bit better:

Pre-run: 1/2 whole wheat bagel
1 tbsp peanut butter
Breakfast: Banana
1 cup fruit yogurt
Lunch: Cheese omelet with salsa
1/2 whole wheat bagel
Afternoon snack: 2 c raw carrots

6 wheat thins

3 oz cheddar
Dinner: 4 oz canned salmon
1 cup green beans and new potatoes, mustard vinaigrette

Yeah. I need to cut down on the cheese. It's tough.

Speaking of brothers, it's my older brother's 49th birthday. He's a (rather well-known) writer who lives in a remote part of the Rockies. How remote? The family Christmas joke with his wife used to be, "What do you get the girl who has everything except electricity?" I wouldn't say it's rural, but "Hee Haw" comes on their television through the local PBS affiliate.

(Rim shot. Take my blog. Please.)

Anyway, I called last night to see what was up, ask him how he was going to manage one last year without AARP membership, let him know that his birthday present from Cafe Press would be a few days late, etc. Since much of his writing centers around the environment, we began chatting about climate change and how nearly every state in the country had been affected, and whether or not it would make a decent story. We went through a few states, covering most of the West and most of New England. White pines in Maine, cranberries in Massachusetts, the Old Man of the Mountain in New Hampshire, birch trees everywhere. Potatoes in Idaho, storms in Washington, early warm weather in Wyoming.

"I know the maple syrup industry in Vermont has gone to hell," I said, "but what about Montana?"

"Um, the glaciers?"

I suppose he had a point:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13363560/

Worked hard, too -- lots of telephone interviews and some light manual labor, although I was dogged by the proverbial slow start. Wife and stepdaughter spent most of the day in College Town, where stepdaughter's taking a weight-lifting class to get into shape before shipping out for basic training. I'm told with a straight face that she'll have to run a mile and a half before graduating. Oh, my.

Again, I think I'll sleep well tonight. And it's supposed to warm up tomorrow to a tolerable zero around 6 a.m. Even a 30 percent chance of snow. Somewhere, Stink is cowering ...