Food, Football, Fighting Nausea: The New Sunday Routine is 67% Good

I learned an important lesson on Friday morning, at the horrid hour of 7 in the morning--not horrid on its face, but in the context of "at the gym," 7 sucks hard--and that would be that a month of zero physical activity means that Workout #1 is going to be near-lethal. I made it through half an hour of lunges, presses, crunches, and leg curls before collapsing onto the floor in a cold clammy puddle of defeated-person-trying-to-stay-conscious-and-not-puke.

A complicated cold clammy puddle, to be sure.

Thank god the trainer was a good sport about the whole thing, even running downstairs to fetch me a cup of Powerade on ice, and the other middle-aged old farts in the weight room wandered over to look down at me and cluck sympathetically. The rest of Friday and Saturday were devoted to trying to think about anything but the workout in order to avoid the resulting wave of nausea and cold sweat that accompanied the flashbacks. It was really a great experience.

Anyway. Today only brought a mild headache and queasy stomach--amateur shit at this point in the game--so the boy and I headed out on an expedition to find breakfast. Since our previous pacts to Do Something Together have fizzled due to uncooperative fish and inclement weather, we settled on keeping the adventure-seeking focused on new places to eat. This morning we hit on Shot in the Dark Cafe, located on Broadway just east of 6th in downtown Tucson. It's a typical downtown space, brick walls and exposed ceiling beams in a building that probably dates to the 1930s at the latest, soothingly worn down around the edges, mismatched sofas by the front window, flies circling languidly but never quite to the point of annoyance. I had something called the Cornucopia, which involves three eggs making intimate friends with several different vegetables while snuggling up against a pile of seasoned homefries and toast. Quite delightful. The boy got a bagel with smoked salmon, which is thoughtfully served with separate ramekins of cream cheese and capers, as well as thinly sliced tomatoes and onions and a lemon wedge. He inhaled it in roughly 45 seconds, so I assume it tasted good. The coffee is quality, and the Italian sodas are served in giant Imperial pint mugs. I would go back. It is homey, the people are friendly, and the menu is promising, so you should probably go too.

The rest of the day was spent watching football and listening to Fox color man Brian Billick offer new twists on the English language such as "put an explanation point on it." Tomorrow, back to the gym. What, me quit? Who do you think I am, Abdullah Abdullah or something?