02/20/10: It's the weekend

I'm up early.  For a Saturday.  For me.  I hate to get up early.  But I wanted to today.  I am babysitting "the baby" from across the street, one of my closest friends' youngest.  I say "the baby" because she's already 1.  I remember the first time I saw her, though, and babysitting her as a weeee little one...unlike her brothers and sister, I will know this young lady ALL of her life.  So she, in some ways, will always be "the baby".  It's such a special thing, I think, when you get to say you've known someone since they were 4 hours old.  Anyway, I'm excited. 

I thought I'd share some stories today.  I could pontificate on some of the finer points of eating healthy and treating your body well...but we all know that stuff.  I could articulate some deep seeded thoughts on what this means for me, or how this affects me...but...I'm just not going to.  Not the mood today.  Not the mood, usually, so why start now?  Don't worry...I will.  Once this six months is over and I see this process move forward...the tone of this blog will change.  I'm excited about that, really...but that's not the mood today, either.

Nope...I want to talk stories.

Story number 1.  Why it's on my mind: it's the end of February and spring is beckoning.  I am itching to get back outdoors and I can't wait to start swimming again.  I really want back in the water!  The story...

I learned to swim before I learned to walk.  Yes.  I was six months old when I learned to swim.  I think, more accurately, I was six months old when I showed that I could swim.  But I tell the story as my mom told it...and it was one of her faves as it was so uniquely me.  So here's her story.

I was crawling and moving around on my own quite well when my mom took me to the YMCA for mommy and me classes.  She was not quite in the mindset that I could self-propel and when she saw the other kids sitting together by the side of the pool, she didn't think twice about putting me down with them.  As a newly crawling kid will do, I wandered off to explore what I was most curious about.  And that was the big body of water in my vicinity.  And I put my hand in it.  I'm assuming it felt neato, so I stuck my arm in it.  And that probably felt neato, too.  So I rolled over into it.  My mom saw this and was close enough that she could just jump right in, if needed, but something told her that I was fine.  So she moved closer but let me be.  I dunked under water and then moved my arms and legs and "swam" to the surface to take a breath.  Once at the surface, I "swam" again to the side and reached out to hold onto it.  Once I knew that the side of the pool was real and safe, I let go and dunked myself again.  And I swam up again.  And I grabbed the side of the pool again.  And my mom declared me a swimmer.

All the while, the lifeguard and the "teacher" were standing by the side of the pool freaking out about this baby in the water.  My mom actually had to tell them, look, she's ok, she's taking care of herself, and all I have to do is reach out and I can grab her.  So chill.

Those are my words.  But that's the story.  I learned to swim before I learned to walk.

This, of course, could never happen today.  And that's kind of sad.  It seems to me that there are more kids scared of the water than there ever have been.  But I don't know that for sure, it's just a feeling.  I taught swim lessons over the summer in my pool last year.  I taught six days a week for either 2 hours or 4 hours a day, depending on the day.  The parents of the kids I taught were so scared of their kids learning to swim and, of course, this fear DOES get transferred to the kids.  Once I teach them to be safe and take care of themselves, the rest of it is fun...and then technique can develop. 

Story number 2.  Why it's on my mind: swimming, and the pool, are calling me!


My mom continued with the swim lessons for me every year.  I did those mommy and me classes and had no fear of the water.  Please don't take 'had no fear of the water' for meaning I did not respect the water.  I did, I do, I will always.  Water will win in any fight.  I have learned, over the years, to use it to my advantage, that's all.  I did lessons and learned to swim proficiently by the age of 3.  At the age of 4, I joined my first swim team.  I stayed on a swim team through high school.  I LOVE SWIMMING!  I always have.

I was, and still am, a good swimmer.  When I dove off the block, they'd know whether or not I was swimming for real or not.  If I was swimming for real, no one could keep up with me.  I generally swam against older age groups because of that.  If I wasn't swimming for real, I'd dive in...and then play around.  By the age of 7, I had that out of my system as we put a pool in and I had plenty of play time at home.  I'd swim at practice for 3-4 days a week and then go home and swim some more.  I LOVE SWIMMING!

So there's the stories I'm sharing today.  Other things pertinent to water and swimming that I do...just to share...

I am a certified WSI instructor.  I no longer have a current life guard certification, but I was certified for over 10 years and I was employed as a lifeguard for 3 years in college and 1 year in high school.  That lifeguarding translated into becoming a swimming coach.  I helped every single one of my students that I trained lose weight.  The lowest weight loss, following my program...was 5 pounds.  She was already skinny.  The others lost, on average, 15 pounds.  I am a diver.  I got my open water certification in the Navy once I got to my ship, which was stationed in Pearl Harbor.  After the Navy, I went further with that.  Now...I have my advanced, master diver, nitrox, cave diver, rescue diver, rebreather certified and I am a scientific diver.  I teach swim lessons in my pool, I mentioned this above.  This year...I have people calling me to get on what they have declared I must have...my waitlist.  People actually want me.  Odd!  It's just odd, I tell you, odd!  I wasn't going to teach lessons this summer, I was going to focus on me and my routine that I want to have, and can't do that and teach lessons and work and drive to work and eat dinner and sleep and pay the bills (even if it's only once a week)...you get the point.

Enough about swimming.  Just know that I really want to be swimming right now!

I started this blog this morning but "the baby" had other intentions for use of my time, as babies will do.  So the blog did not get finished nor did it get published, obviously.  So it's late.  Oh well.

I had to go to a baby shower today.  I enjoyed it.  I'm weird. I enjoy showers.  I have a wedding shower to attend in three weeks and I'm looking forward to that.  I'm weird. I enjoy showers.  This shower and the next were/are for family members from my husbands family.  I like these people.  They are funny, nice, smart, just good people.  I like that I belong to this family.  It's all good...except..now I really want a baby!  Between babysitting and the shower...I WANT A BABY!  (my sweet hubby can only laugh at me.)

It will come, I hope, it will come.  I hope.

When I got home from the shower, my sweet hubby was holding "the baby".  She acted so happy to see me.  It just melted my heart.  I want my own baby to come home to.  I WANT A BABY!  And I WANT TO SWIM!

Sorry.  I'm yelling.  But I want these "things".

So we were going out to dinner with our friend/neighbor who had the stroke this week.  I don't want to post all her info on my blog...so just so you know, she had a stroke, kinda.  She has a very rare condition that creates extra vessels in her brain.  One of those extra vessels burst which caused the stroke-like symptoms.  She has to have the rest of those vessels removed.  She will schedule the surgery as soon as possible, but it's not scheduled yet.  She makes the call to get things started on Monday.  In the meantime, she is fine.  You wouldn't know she'd just been through anything as she has no impairments or residual issues.  It's an odd condition that affects 1% of the world's population and only 1% of the affected people will ever have issues because of it.  The risk of the issue happening again will only continue to compound each year.

We'd made these dinner reservations last weekend when everything was fine.  When everything happened. we canceled the reservations.  When she got home, on Thurs, she said "we're still going to dinner, right?"  Ummm...yeah.  So we quickly called back and remade the reservations, although the time ended up being half an hour later.

So now it's today and we are going to dinner.  The restaurant is Killen's Steakhouse which is located in Pearland Texas.  Pearland is a little suburb on the southwest side of Houston.  You could call it the south side or the southwest side...it's in the southwest quadrant but is considered the south side of town.  Anywho...I got home, my sweet hubby was dressed and ready so we took "the baby" home.  She's so cute.  Her brothers and sisters are so cute.  They were so happy to see her!

On our way to the restaurant we made a stop to visit some friends.  And we thought we'd be there longer than we were so we ended up getting to the restaurant about half an hour early. 

This restaurant is TINY!  There's a sign that says they can have 160 people in there...but if they have tables for 50, I'd be surprised.  It ended up being reservations only tonight so I'm glad we were able to get our reservation remade this week.

And now I'll cut to the chase.  That was by far, the best steak I have ever eaten.  My sweet hubby said the same thing.  My neighbor said the same thing.  She's 63...so probably a few more steaks consumed in her life...therefore, probably a more creditable statement.  Her mother said the same thing.  She's 84.  So even more creditability.

My neighbor and sweet hubby both had Kobe beef rib eyes.  My neighbor's mom had a wet aged center cut, aka a filet mignon.  I had a dry aged rib eye.  We ordered family style sides of haricot verts, potatoes au gratin and onion rings.  And the table split a "bread pudding creme brulee" for desert.  I don't like sweet things and I don't like sweet heavy things for desert so I tried a smidge of a taste...proved I didn't like it, and drank my coffee.  I just don't like desert.  There are some things...a true creme brulee, for example, or French silk pie (my homemade pie... not a box or store bought pie)...but I am finicky at best...and it's got to feel light to me...and not overly sweet. 

Ok...so the Kobe beef rib eyes.  Self-explanatory.  I will say these are wet-aged.  See the next item for a brief description of that process.

The wet aged center cut...so they take the meat, a half a head of cattle, for example, and vacuum seal that which will contain all the juices.  Aging takes just a few days and you end up with as much meat as you started with.  It's the typical way to get a piece of meat at the grocery store, the butcher, and most steakhouses.

The dry aged rib eye...so they take the meat, same half a head of cattle, for example, and hang it to dry in a freezer or refrigerator that is almost freezing.  This takes 15-28 days and you end up losing about 1/3 of the meat you started with.  It's the old-fashioned way of aging steaks and you will not find this at the grocery store, at the average butcher, or at the average steakhouse.

This restaurant does their own dry aging.  They start with the best quality meat and then let them sit for x-amount of days to come up with the most amazing steak I've ever had.

We all agreed at that table that my dry aged steak was the best steak on the table.  It beat the Kobe beef hands down.  And everything beat the wet aged center cut steak.  The Kobe beef did have a buttery taste that was phenomenal.  But as far as tenderness, that dry aged steak was the most tender.  And for beef flavor?  Yep.  Dry aged.  Check out wikipedia for some more specific information on dry aging vs. wet aging.  But what I will say is OMG, dude!

I do not like the idea of never being able to eat steak.  Don't know that it will be a reality, but it's a sad thought.  I don't eat much steak and I'd be happy to say I'll only eat one a year...but I don't like the idea of never again.  I don't eat much steak.  But I can see now, how to go about trying to do this.  The steaks in this restaurant ranged from $35-$92.  Yeah.  $92 for a steak.  It was a 32oz bone in dry-aged Kobe beef rib eye.  I think, now, I'd love to try it.  Before we ate...I thought it was just ridiculous.  But say my sweet hubby and I only go in there once a year, say on our anniversary.  I will get a sliver of his steak.  We generally like the same cuts and the same done-ness.  So I'll take what would be 4 bites normally of his steak.  And I'll make those 4 bites into like 20, or something ridiculous like that.  TINY bites.

You can't reheat a steak anyway!  So why would you get a $92 steak...and take leftovers home?  So we should split, ANYWAY!  Although, between the two of us, even right now, we couldn't finish a 32oz steak...

And that's the story of the best steak ever and how I'll try to eat it after the band.

And before I forget, this restaurant is one of the 10 best steakhouses in Texas.  And that bread pudding creme brulee?  It's won awards since it was created by the chef/owner of this restaurant and is considered one of the 5 best deserts in the nation.  And this inky dink looking restaurant is in my backyard, figuratively speaking, of course.  WOW!