Waiting at the airport

This is a painting by my brother Al. He had a major stroke about 13 years ago and lost all use of his left hand, and most of the use of his left leg. At least he still has use of his right hand. Now days, he spends most of his time painting. I'll post some more from time to time. He'll sell them for about $50 - $75.

Last month, I was at the airport waiting for my black friend Angelo to arrive from Iraq. He works as a contractor for Halaburton. He's a brick mason. He's making pretty good money. More about him in a future post.

His plane was delayed for about an hour, so, I waited in the bar and watched the people disembark from their trip to far off places. Sometimes there would be someone waiting for them as they got off, and they might get a little perfuntory peck on the check. Most of the time, there wouldn't be anyone waiting for them at all. One young couple lit up in smiles when the saw each other from the room. They quickly closed the distance and almost knocked each other down in a very sexual embrace. I was pretty sure they didn't make it all the way home before they had sex.

Another plane, the same nameless faces filing off, then, a man immerges from the exit and is immediately body slammed by his wife, who pins him against the wall, squeezing him so tight, I'm afraid she might break some ribs. There's no words spoken, she is overcome with emotion.

Maybe he just returned from a very long trip. Maybe it was a very dangerous place, like Iraq. All I know is, I envied him so much. You see, I don't have anybody waiting for me.

As far as workouts, I did the Monday regular run of 5.6 miles with Damion at 8:00 pace. The next day my hip was still sore. It's been a chronic problem lately. I'm going to have to get it checked out. Hell, it could be arthritis as far as I know. I just know it's a pain in the.. well, hip. So I swam for 25-minutes.

Yesterday, the hip was much better, so I ran 4 X .65 miles at 6:11 mile pace. I'm kind of like a lab rat when I do these VO2 max intervals. I wear my heart rate monitor and do them on a treadmill. I know I've done them at the right pace when I finish with a heart rate of 183 on the last one, 98% of my max heat rate of 186.