Bruising and Boozing

"I want to hold a cold beer against my sore foot and then drink it."
This from my husband, who went to karate fight class today despite a bad blow to his left foot a few weeks ago that has not yet healed, and came home with a matching bruise on the instep of his other foot (not quite as severe as the initial injury, he told me, but it hurts more since it's fresh). So I took the cue and we walked--or hobbled, in his case--to "Beverage World," a warehouse-sized beer store about six blocks away that sells everything from Budweiser kegs to magnum-sized bottles of imported Belgian beers. Even with his injuries, Victor insisted on carrying home a 12-pack of one-liter club soda bottles and a 12-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans (we like to stock up our fridge for a couple weeks at a time). I was amazed at how easy he made it look, even holding them up as he dug for his key then opened the front door. I'm not sure I could have carried much more than the magnum of Maredsous , four-pack of Ommegang Abbey Ale, and six-pack of special edition Brooklyn Pennant (Go Yankees!) Ale that he also generously bought. (Did I mention we like to stock up?)
When we got home, I tried to figure out how much he'd carried exactly. And, according to my sources (someone please correct me if I'm wrong), one liter of seltzer water weighs 1 kilogram, which is the equivalent of 2.2 pounds. So, by my calculations, Victor lugged home 26.4 pounds worth of seltzer alone--and that's not including the 12 cans of Pabst. Between his beverage runs, laundry pick-ups, and grocery shopping, he'll never need to lift weights in a gym.
After we'd unloaded the beer and seltzer water, Victor ran out to pick up some chicken pizza (my favorite) from Sal's, which is about six blocks in the opposite direction from our apartment. Of course, even the most mundane errands can sometimes seem impossibly hard in NYC (and it is at times like this that I sometimes envy you all in Texas and Arizona, with your cars and drive-thru windows).
Less than a minute after he'd left, it started pouring rain. By the time he got back, his shirt and shorts were soaked through and his sneakers were squeaking. But the pizza box--though sagging from the water it had soaked up--was still surprisingly intact, and the slices within were still hot. Delicious.
I felt a tad guilty that while he ran through the rain umbrella-less, I was sitting at home comfortable and dry in my tank top and shorts and slippers typing away. But Victor swore he didn't mind the rain.
I'm really amazed sometimes at how he's able to maintain such a positive attitude when he's lugging a 40-pound laundry bag home in the rain (as he's done on more than one occasion) or carrying bags of groceries along with a backpack full of karate and fight gear home on the subway. He told me that he got his training when he backpacked through Europe and the Middle East in the early 1990s, when he was living and working as a journalist in Riga, Latvia. He traveled mostly alone, with all his belongings in his pockets and backpack. He said he used to make it a "physical challenge" or "mission" to get to the train or the hostel or the bus on time because he figured if the train or bus had left or the hostel was full or closed by the time he got there, he'd be stuck. And, as he put it, "Plan B, if there was one, wasn't very good."
After watching him in action today, I'll bet my beer that he never had to revert to Plan B.