Paddling

On Sunday Paul and I went paddling in Capitola – a small town south of Santa Cruz. Paul took some training classes a couple of weeks ago in Seattle and has a new boat. His form is still pretty bad – he paddles with his arm muscles. Good paddling form uses the torso muscles for propulsion, and the arms to place the paddles in the water. It’s a pretty common mistake for a beginner to make. I decided to try to cure him of it using the same method that worked for me. I raced him 1 kilometer up the shoreline. He kept up with me pretty well. Then we raced back. His arms were dead so he had to use his torso. He went a lot slower, but he’s getting the hang of it.

Paul has to go kayaking with me. His car can’t carry his boat. He has one of those Nissan Z cars. I think you can get a roof rack for those, but I wouldn’t put more than a pair of skis on it. His boat is 17 feet long, I think his car is about 13. I'm sure Kristen will buy him a suitable ride soon, but for now I'm hauling his boat around on my truck

It was overcast, and cool on the water. We paddled about 13 K (8 miles) which is a pretty healthy workout. When working that hard for that long it’s nice to have the cool weather, especially since we are wearing dry tops – which are really good at trapping the heat in. After 2 hours on the water, we packed up and headed back to my place. We cleaned up the equipment and I showered and changed. I grabbed a jar of basil pesto that I made and bottle of Chianti and drove Paul back to Kristen’s house.

I’d throw in a few conversations that Paul and I had, but we seem to only talk about inconsequential things, the weather, paddling, travel. He doesn’t even talk about Kristen much, which is somewhat incongruent with his behavior around her. I would have expected him to gab incessantly about her. I’ve talked to him about Lynn a bit (just because she is always in my thoughts) but I never get more than a “hmm” or a “huh” in response. But most guys don’t talk to guys about relationships much – we are much more apt to discuss sex. But it would be weird to talk about sex with the boyfriend of a VP that I work with.

Once we got back to Kristen’s Paul put his gear in the garage and went to take a shower. I opened the Chianti and chatted with Kristen in the living room. Once Paul was cleaned up he got to work in the kitchen – he made a Caesar, a big pot of linguine, and reheated a good loaf of French bread.

He called out from the kitchen, “man, this pesto is awesome.” He came (almost running) into the living room “Rich, how did you make this?”

“Oh, the usual way.” I said coyly.

He squinted at me. “No, come on. There’s something else in here. This is really good.”

“Quick, serve it while it’s hot. I’ll give you the secret.”

Kristen oh-ed and ah-ed over it as well. Paul became adamant about getting the recipe for it. I eventually gave in and told him how to make it.

After dinner, we sat in the living room. Paul was lying down on the couch and quickly fell asleep. He put in a lot of effort today. Kristen and I finished a bottle of wine. I rehashed the story of Lynn and she told me stories about some of her former lovers, and a few tidbits about Paul.

I went easy on the wine, and switched to club soda long before the end of the evening – it just didn’t feel right to spend the night there.