A Day In the Life

The question I most often get in my email box is "What is it like to be Greg Lange?". This is impossible to answer (for various reasons). So, instead of trying to give an answer, I'll give readers of my blog a little glimpse of my life by describing my day. (Times are estimates.)

7:45 am: I wake up. I don't know why. It's the weekend and I'd like to sleep late but I don't. I suspect I wake up this early because it's my turn to wake up with Tess. However, it isn't Tess crying that wakes me.

8:30 am: Tess wakes up. I hear her "talking" to herself. She usually cries when she wakes to let us know she's up. I run up stairs to get her before she wakes up Gina. I make Tess a bottle, lay her on her little "bed" on the floor in the living room, and turn on "The Backyardigans".

10:00 am: I leave to go play disc golf. Gina watches Tess from 10am till Lisa gets to the house at 11am. Gina works tonight from 7pm till 7am the next morning. So, once she hands Tess off to Lisa, Gina goes to sleep.

10:25 am: I somehow lose yet another disc while warming up. It flies into the trees over the path from hole 1 to hole 2 and I can't find it anywhere. I've learned not to become attached to discs. I estimate that I'll lose 6 to 10 discs this summer. At $11 a pop, that's not too much to pay to play disc golf all summer.

10:30 am: We tee off. I have a great front nine. I par 7 holes. On hole 5 (one of the harder holes on the course), I throw 2 really bad shots to begin the hole. I'm in the deep woods to the right of the fairway. I throw a "Hail Mary" type shot through the trees in a effort to save a stroke (get a 5 instead of a 6 on the hole). Somehow it flies through all the trees and lands in the fairway below the hole. I manage to get my 5.

11:15 am: My dreams of beating Cory during this round of disc golf start to unravel. Somehow, Cory birdies hole 9. It's a hole that I've birdied maybe 2 times ever in all the times I've played it. So, after about the best front 9 that I've ever had, I'm up on Cory by one shot. Great.

11:50: On hole 15, Cory "blows up". He gets a 6. I don't ever remember him getting a 6 on a par 3 before. I think I might actually win.

12:30 pm: I'm up 2 shots with 2 holes to play. I get a 4 and a 5 on 17 and 18. Cory gets two pars. Cory wins again. On 17, I almost step on a 5 foot long bull snake. Our scorecard looks like this:



12:45 pm: I shower and go get something to eat at Chuy's. I have the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom enchiladas with an extra crunchy taco. It's my favorite thing at Chuy's. I read a book while I eat. Right now I'm reading Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It. I'm only about 30 pages in.

2:30 pm: I go to Costco with a shopping list that Gina made me. I see a very sad thing. One of the Costco employees is giving samples of gum. Pieces of gum are arrayed on a tray in their wrappers in a perfect grid. It seems like overkill. Too much effort.

4:55 pm: Gina wakes up. She comes down stairs. She eats, showers, gets dressed, plays with Tess, and heads off to work.

5:30 pm: I go to Lowes and buy a toilet seat. Then I stop by HEB and get some things I couldn't buy at Costco. I come home and install the toilet seat.

5:45 pm: I shower and dress for basketball. Our new league starts this weekend. We've remade our team since the last league. We've subtracted some players and added a big man and two smaller, quicker guards. This is about the 20th time I've played in the league (3 leagues a year for about the last 7 years).

6:00 pm: I play Civilization IV while waiting to leave for the game. I play the Indian civilization like usual (their special unit is awesome). I try a different strategy. I build a ton of cities as quickly as I can near resource groups all over the map. The strategy works ok and the game was a good way to kill a little time.

7:15 pm: I leave for basketball. I get a text message from Ryan warning people on the team not to take the normal route to the game because of the Fiesta night parade.

7:50 pm: I arrive at the gym. Games are running late like usual. Our game isn't going to start at 8pm. Some guy I don't know starts talking to me about the game that is going on before our game. Turns out his 6' 5" cousin is playing in the game. He's a big guy. I have a lot of trouble understanding the guy. He's really into the game. I don't understand how his cousin's team is only winning by a few points when they are way larger than the other team. Plus, they have one player that looks like he could play varsity at any of the big high schools in town.

8:15 pm: We warm up for the game. The new guys get introduced. James is the big guy. "J" or "Jay" is the quicker of the two little guards. I think the other guy's name is Darnel. James has a strained abdominal muscle and he shouldn't be playing (but we all know he's going to play some anyway).

9:20 pm: The game ends. The other team isn't very good. We win 101 to about 57. I have 25 points. I made 12 shots and missed only 4 or 5. I had three layups, one NBA 3-pointer, and made eight jump shots from 10 to 15 feet. I outscore Mike (we always have a personal contest to see who scores more). We go to Sonic for a drink.

10:00 pm: I get home. Lisa and Kim are bathing Tess (the first step in putting her to bed). Lisa dresses Tess and Lisa and Kim head home. I let Tess climb the stairs. We read books for 10 minutes or so and then I put her in her crib. I rub her and pat her back for a while.

10:45 pm: Tess goes to sleep.

10:50 pm: I start this blog post and I start cooking a hamburger.

11:10 pm: I eat the hamburger.

12:06 am: I finish this blog post.