In which my abs turn out the power in Nashville

First of all, I've never gotten a chance to talk about last weekend's Flugtag event. OMG, the people and the HEAT. I heard someone say 90,000 people were there. I don't know, but it was a TON. People everywhere, even some people floating in the river to stay cool! We met up with friends S &L to go to the event. First we stopped at the brand new weenie truck in the neighborhood - I Dream of Weanie. Yum. I had turkey dogs and they were SO good. I'm loving this new neighborhood hot spot and from the crowd there last Saturday they are not going to have any trouble staying busy!

So, from there we drove near the Stadium and parked at the edge of our neighborhood and walked over, avoiding the massive mess of traffic of cars trying to get into the Stadium lots. We were absolutely amazed at the crowds. The Riverfront and East Bank were shoulder to shoulder, and the pedestrian bridge was several spectators deep. People were lined all the way up the streets and on the bridges at both ends of the Flugtag area. We sort of made our way down to the bank and ended up sitting in the rocks in ant nests. Seriously. We'd smack our feet every few minutes when they would swarm us and I had a rock wegded up my ass. And it was hot. Mid 90's full on sun. We were pouring sweat. It was so hot that people were leaving after a while so we'd make our way to better and better spots to sit until we eventually got a great spot sans ants and were able to set our camping chairs up. They had said you couldn't bring any outside water/food in, so we hadn't and we were DYING. L and I went on a water hunt and the massive turnout meant a super long line at the only tent left that still had cold beverages. So, we decided to walk down to the nearby convenient store. The lines there looked like an evacuation scene! It wrapped all around inside the store and everyone had huge jugs of water. We LOADED UP. She stood in line while I shopped for us and we left there with Icees, waters, and Gatorade! I sucked ice from the beer cooler while we waited, and everyone was filling their bags with the ice as they left, so we did too! By the time we made it back a storm was brewing and we had missed half the "planes". Not a big deal, because once you've seen one strange thing pushed off a ramp you've sort of seen it all. We were back in time to see the Tennesee Banjo plane double the US record, but Brent was too preoccupied with the Icee to take a pic! Some dark storm clouds rolled in and we were all hot and tired enough that we decided to call it a day and clean up for some insanely delicious shepherd's pie at Family Wash.

The great thing about nearing the finish of the kitchen is that we've had more time to go out and do things with friends. We got out to the Rosepepper Tuesday night with another friend we haven't seen in ages and we even got to curl up on the couch one night and watch a movie. I've been trying to work out twice a day but I haven't been as successful this week. Monday night I had some things to do around the house and was about to do my Perfect Abs DVD. I put the DVD in and it seemed to get stuck in Loading mode. I punched every stinking button on the DVD player and it wouldn't open or close or do anything at all. I called Brent in and just as I held down Power and he reached to unplug the thing - Woosh. Lights out. Crap. Since we had had so many electrical issues lately the first thing out of our months was "Crap. We're going to have to have the electrician back." Oddly enough Brent had his headlamp on (he had been under the house running gas to our island) so he left me in the middle of the living room floor and went to get a flashlight. That's when we realized that the whole neighborhood was dark. All the streetlights, everything. Pretty eerie. He found me a flashlight and we went outside to see what was going on. It was pretty crazy to see neighbors filing out with flashlights. We ended up talking to our next door neighbor for a half an hour until the lights came on. We still don't know what happened, but I think it was an overload of abs.

Last night we went swimming at the Y after dinner. For a little while we had to share a lane but the pool really cleared out by 7:30 and we spread out. I worked Drill #1 a little more and then Drill #2, and Brent did the same. It took forever to get the hang of the slanty thing you do in Drill #2 but once I got it, it made a lot of sense. Brent did great and tried to "race" me on each length. I can definitely feel it in my shoulders and arm this morning. Or maybe that's the furniture we bought last night and moved, who knows! I have found a few different swim caps that claim dry hair, so I'm going to order a few and I'll let you know how it works. I also found this website pretty informative on the various types of swimcaps and their purposes. And it made me want one of the crazy floral ones. Or one with an Australian flag or something.

So, that's it for now! Have a great weekend and good luck to everyone running, racing and training!