Lemonade

Ava has been wanting to have a lemonade stand all summer. And all summer I've been a bad parent and have come up with excuse after excuse to not have one....it's too early/late/hot, we don't have any cups/sugar/lemonade/ice/water. Today I just ran out of excuses and decided to quit being a shitty parent and just have a lemonade stand already. Mom was going to handle baby patrol so Ava and I were free to exercise cool-drink-based capitalism. I had anticipated this somewhat, so we already had makings for the actual lemonade on hand. We lacked cups and ice, so we sprinted to the store and dropped $7 on supplies, returned home and scrawled some signage together, then pitched the foldup table and lawn chairs out front and waited for the masses. And waited. And waited. It was probably an hour before we had our first customer, and he was a cool older dude driving his handyman truck around. We were selling cups of lemonade for $0.25 and he hooked Ava up with a cool dollar bill....keep the change. Thanks man. You've made the last hour sitting in 102 degree heat worth it to make my little girl smile. After that we had a nice steady stream of the same. I still truly believe that people generally suck at heart, but who can project their suckitude on the world when you have a five-year-old girl and sweet cold lemonade on a hot day. The only thing missing was a bottle of gin and nothing to do for the rest of the day. Most people that stopped by just dropped a buck into the cup, or at least threw an extra quarter her way. At the end of the day, we actually recovered my initial investment of $7 for cups and ice, plus the lemonade and sugar we already had. Ava made about $16 total, which I suppose I'll let her keep. Even I am not such a prick that I would take my venture capital out of her day's wages. Call it an investment.

Lately

Lately I've been trying to HTFU (see Rule #5) and it's been catching up with me. I've been getting up at 4:30-5am and running 5-6 miles or riding 25-30 miles before work every other day or so. At the same time it feels great as I have the exercise endorphines going for a day of work, but then at the same time I'm also wearing myself out for the post-work routine of getting home / make dinner / do laundry / clean house / hang out with kids / do dishes / get ready for tomorrow / repeat. It's exhausting. I keep trying to refer back to the HTFU rule, but I suppose some days that's just beyond me. HTFU is great when it applies to pro cyclists that don't have to take care of their house, watch their kids and otherwise keep a household running. I don't think Jens Voigt has to worry about doing laundry in between stage races or keeping groceries in the house so his kids can eat. Regardless of how I'm feeling, at least I feel like I've been eating healthier, limiting portion sizes and trying to cut back on bad stuff. That said, a man still has to have a vice or two. They've started up Thursday night cyclocross rides at a park nearby, so hopefully I can hook up with the locals and knock out some miles on the CX bike aside from getting groceries...and not get my ass handed to me at the same time. HTFU.

The best 2:48 of your life

I can't ever explain it. This will always be the best song ever written by the best band to ever exist. Just accept it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmlZD7ZksaY