Random Pensées

A strong finish

It can not matter how you start your day, how you conducted yourself or your affairs during the course of the day, how overwhelmed you may have felt as the day ran on, if, and this is a big if, if you finish strong. For some, that may mean pushing through the pain at the end of a run. That would not be me, that person.

No, yesterday was a day of quiet. Not solitude, not happy quiet, not peaceful reflection. It was a day of feeling the desperate quiet, the stillness that comes from paralysis, not meditation. The frozen feeling of not wanting to take another step because you don't know what's going to reach out, grab your ankle, and send you sprawling all over the mess you are trying to avoid. One of those days. We all have them. I had it almost all day. I left the office to go home a beaten and downtrodden man. I went to bed a happy and rejuvenated guy. How come? Strong finish.

First, I reconnected with someone on the train ride home who is coming in to my office tonight after work to make a presentation to me and another one or two lawyers about a new case. I love, just flat out love, new cases. They are all shiny and fresh and smell like opportunity. I can't yet see all the hard work involved or if I do, I discount it a little in my excitement. She's decided to come in and talk to us because I am the only lawyer who has understood what she was talking about and she has tried to describe this to six or seven others. She's a lawyer too, for that matter. So, that put a spring in my step on the way home.

Then, home to a quick happy summer dinner. The temperature was in the 90's yesterday (and will be even hotter today). It was a day for a cold dinner. I had made, the day before, a salad of white beans, Italian tuna packed in olive oil, fresh pepper, and chopped roasted red peppers. A very simple thing. And then I applied some wine therapy -- the Vino Verde. Instant mood elevation. Vino Verde is from Portugal. It is a young wine, described as a"crisp fruity white, with lemon and green peach flavors". It is also slightly effervescent. A slight but happy fizz. It is a bit dry but very fruity. Not sweet. It is, at around $6 a bottle, the greatest thing to happen to summer wine since beer was sold at baseball parks. It is that good. It is particularly good with things piscine. Or with nothing at all. It is a young wine and meant to be drunk young. Go buy some. You will come back and thank me for it, I guarantee (channeling a little Justin Wilson there, remember him?).

Then, I tumbled on the floor with my children. The kids were like a litter of puppies. It was of no moment that I took a knee to the chin or my son's thumb somehow ended up in my nose. Didn't hurt a bit. They growled and climbed all over me and it was lovely, sublime even. Then stories were read, cuddles and kisses were given, and they were deposited in their beds a good 40 minutes later than usual.

To cap it off, what do I find on the idiot box? Grosse Pointe Blank. I really like this movie. First, I like John Cusack and like just about every movie of his I've ever seen. Second, it's the 1986 high school reunion! That was my graduation year. Third, the music. Finally, what can I say? I like a nice satire now and again. Besides, it has some other great actors in it. I couldn't stay up to watch the whole thing, but what I saw of it made me happy.

Yes indeed, it isn't where you start, it's where you finish.