I guess not much transpired this week in the Howe House. I went for a ride yesterday with the same group I went with last week. Same crap, different day -- I was totally left behind again. I am getting very frustrated with this, you know. I work and work, and I cannot seem to gain any speed. Endurance I have, speed and endurance together? Just isn't working out.

In a way, I am really glad that I am not going for a ride next Saturday at all. Brigid, her friend Meagan, and I are all going up to Phoenix to see Body World 3 at the Phoenix Science Museum. If you haven't heard about this, it is an exhibit of bodies -- real human cadavers, that have been "plasticized" and the skin is removed. When the plasticization takes place, you can take away parts and see how other things connect and are used together. For example, they have a body on display that has only the circulatory system present -- everything else has been removed. I have been looking forward to seeing this for years.

After seeing the exhibit, we are going shopping. REAL shopping. Tucson isn't exactly the mecca of good shopping, but Phoenix has all kinds of stores that we don't have here, like Nordstrom. Here in Tucson, we only get second tier stuff and I am just tired of looking less than great. I decided when I moved here that I was never going to wear sweatpants or sweatshirts ever again. I have expanded that to include t-shirts. Except for going to the gym, I haven't worn a t-shirt since moving here. I threw out all my sweatshirts and sweatpants before I moved and I haven't replaced any of them. The next thing I did was get rid of the fanny pack -- now that the guys are old enough so that I don't have to hold their hands every single moment (except James, of course), I can actually carry a purse. I have started buying vintage purses on Ebay, and I have 5 or 6 now. The next thing to go is the sneakers. But I haven't found an alternative yet that I can walk in all day.

I started taking swimming lessons this week from a great guy who was a professional swimmer. Actually, I think he might still swim in meets and do some distance events. He has swum the English Channel. I would love to sit down and talk to him about that! So, we started meeting on Thursday nights -- I am splitting the lesson with another friend of mine to keep costs down. We learned how to push off the wall with maximum efficiency and then he picked one thing from me and one from my friend for us to work on this week (homework!). My thing to work on was to keep my hips on the same level as my shoulders while swimming. Usually, the farther I go, the more my hips sag down and so I end up sort of diagonal in the water -- so I slow down. I hope I can fix this problem fairly quickly since to fix it, you push your head and chest farther down into the water (and then your hips come up). I feel like I am going to drown since my head is so far under the water it is hard to breathe. I might book the guys in for lessons too.

In other news, the swim team board and the pool board are at an impasse on fees. The pool board is insisting on $5000 more to rent the pool to our swim team. This would mean that instead of paying about $600 for the summer for the three guys to swim, I would have to pay $1200. This makes me very unhappy. It is hard enough to scrape up the $600 -- I don't know how I am going to scrape up $1200, if it comes to that! The pool board is refusing to negotiate. The worse case scenario would be that we don't have swim team this summer because we don't have a pool. I would be extremely upset about that. The guys have been asking when swim team starts since November.

Ron's birthday is on Tuesday. He wants a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. He made a point of telling me this after Andy's birthday. Andy chose a yellow cake with vanilla frosting. I think Ron was questioning whether or not Andy was really related to us.

We went to church yesterday afternoon and I let the guys choose where we sat. Well, they chose the seats directly behind Fr. Richard's chair. Elias fell asleep during Mass; he was in his chair with his legs crossed, his arms crossed and his head all the way back. His mouth was hanging open all the way. (I was just grateful he was quiet.) At the sign of peace, Fr. Richard turned around, saw Elias in all his glory, and said "Boy, he is really gone!" After Mass, a little old lady from across the church said that she had been waiting for Elias to fall off the chair for the entire Mass (Elias was doing the bobbing thing for a few minutes). We are going back to church this morning for the pancake breakfast. This is a huge plus for me and the guys -- I don't have to make breakfast or clean up from anything, and the guys get sausage for breakfast (which I never buy). If we are lucky, one of the Knights will bring his home-made tortillas and cook them there over the fire. The Knights have a huge outside griddle that they make the pancakes and scrambled eggs on for these events. It is run on propane. The Knights run a pancake breakfast every second Sunday of the month.