Happy Mother's Day

I have the greatest wife. Can we talk about low maintenance? Yet incredibly ambitious?

She doesn't want breakfast in bed... and she's made her own brunch plans for Sunday. She's getting up at 6am to go on a long bike ride - part of her training for the mother (pun intended) of all amateur sporting events, an Ironman triathlon. (Don't be in awe, she'd say, she's already done it once!)

In August, she's headed to British Columbia to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and then run a marathon - all in a typical Sunday's workout. Tomorrow, however, will probably be a modest 50 miles on her otherworldly Cervelo bike.
Is that thing cool, or what?

How did I get from our home near the U to Treehouse Gym (Draper?) on Thursday night? My trusted urban mountain bike. (Did I just type that - "urban" mountain bike?) I love this Gary Fisher bike. It's been very good to me - much moreso than it's predecessor, a much more expensive Gary Fisher that lasted 10 days before being stolen in Chicago.

Anyways, she thinks it's very amusing that I didn't take my road bike (I haven't been on it in over a year and it needs some TLC first) to Draper on Thursday night. I rode Foothill to Wasatch, by LaCaille (where I think some dude on a motorcycle asked me if I wanted to buy some pot - I'm serious), to 17th East... but it took me about 30 minutes longer than I anticipated. What's so funny about that?

Oh, back to Mother's Day. Her brunch plans: Gu + PowerBar / Endurox = Still not enough.

So, whenever she does roll back into the driveway on Sunday, I'll have roused the Lil' Hat Racks and we're all going on a picnic in some mountainous nook or meadow surrounding this great valley. She'd asked to visit a certain garden, but lo and behold, it's closed on Sundays.

She already received a "present" thanks to the fact that Utah has the ideal climate for Mother's Day. The timing is perfect to plant annuals for your wife so your house can look charming just in time for your anniversary. Plus, my planting flowers saves her knees in case she has any plans to run 20+ miles in the next week. I will say that taking little ones flower-shopping is quite a trip. "Buy the red ones!" makes the application of patterns and matching (never a strong suit of mine in the first place) a little more difficult, but in the end, I think our front yard sprucing has won Mom's approval. Not to mention we now have herbs growing in the kitchen bay window ... purple basil anyone? Anyways, here's to a happy Mother's Day in the 'Hat Rack clan.

Thinking of out-of-town Moms, I have always been close to my mother (we'll call her Grandma 'Hat Rack). When I see a similar affection from my little ones for their Mom, it makes me proud and hopeful that their love will last a lifetime. After I told my wife about my sudden job security situation (as in, I no longer had any) recently, I made my first phone call to my mom. I think she called five times in the ensuing days to make sure I wasn't suicidal, binge eating or wallowing on the sofa - Moms are great at doing the worrying you don't want to! Mom - I'm STILL doing fine, thanks. Happy Mother's Day!

Nana 'Hat Rack (that would be Mrs. 'Hat Rack's Mom) will be visiting soon with Pop 'Hat Rack. It is always great for the Lil' Hat Racks to get time with their extended family - especially since I moved them away from 70-odd relatives to work for some crazy start-up in wild, woolly Utah. We look forward to your visit - and I have all sorts of spare time so that your grandkids can show you all their favorite dinosaur sites here in the 45th state in the union. Happy Mother's Day to you, too!

In summary, my loyal readers (and hopefully some new ones, too), call your Moms. Even if you're not on a mission. Good night! Happy Sunday!