Summertime...almost

If we want to get all specific, Summer doesn't really begin until June 21, give or take a few hours. Summer solstice- longest day of the year!

Today's hot! Luckily, when you live in a place as small as mine, it takes about 10 min to get the entire place to 70deg. At least coming home to a cool place is comforting, discovering there is no food anywhere and no more Oprah at 4pm (many sad faces!) Always nice to hear the splish-splash of all the retired folk, lounging with their wacky noodles in the pool. I've lived here a while and I despise going to the pool. People are nosy and they are such gawkers! I know most have at least 40yrs on me, but I don't need the stares. It's gross, awkward, and just plain uncomfortable. Plus there's just something about public pools that skeeves me out. Someone's private pool is fine, but I've always felt no amount of chlorine can kill all the nastiness a public pool holds, with 30 people sharing the same water. Ew, I have to stop talking about it now.

Random tip: Don't bother watching Messengers 2: The Scarecrow. Terrible wannabe horror flick. Give me something that's really scary! The only ones that really do it are the psycho-thrillers like Saw. I don't really prefer those, but these haunted cornfield things aren't cutting it (or shall I say harvesting? Okay, bad joke. Not even funny. 2 out of 10)

From Scarecrows to....... scary good tennis! My transitions are horrible today, my God!
Roger put away Monfils, and next it's on to Djokovic! The stakes are high and that will be an incredible match. I can't wait! I'm reallly pullin for Roger. Both should be amped up with confidence, but has been on fire these past few months. Roger has the experience and mental toughness, and anywhere he goes, the crowd loves him. I'll be so sad if he loses... but Wimbledon is just around the corner.

Gym time. Don't feel like it, but if I keep moving and get ready, not allowing myself time to talk myself out of it, I'm halfway there and it's no turning back. Discipline. It's not always easy or fun, but without it, your life is one step away from a hot mess!

French Open

Watching some great French Open tennis, and excited for my upcoming favorite- Wimbledon!

Looking forward to see Roger play fellow Swiss Stan Wawrinka. That's gotta be tough to play a friend, especially someone you've won a gold medal with in doubles! Competition trumps friendship in big tournaments like this. With all their back and forth rivalry, if Roger and Rafa can manage to be friends off the court, anyone can. I can't say how I'd feel, but there has to be some guilt when you lob that sneaky shot right over the net and the other person has zero chance of running up to volley.

If you haven't noticed, I have a slight obsession addiction liking for Roger Federer. I've been following him since 2004ish, seeing him beat Andy Roddick, Rafa, Novak, and countless others. I've commented on his website fan forum lots of times, but haven't actually sent anything to the fan postal address in Switzerland (see, I'm not totally crazy!) That streak of 5 Wimbledon titles in a row was by far my favorite. Definitely remember being late for work because I couldn't miss watching him win! Gotta run. More later... go Roger!

Only he could look this good after hours of high intensity play.

Wednesday Randoms

It's Wednesday, and I'm gettin random

• The END of my beloved Oprah show was today. Mama O was on her pulpit preachin her heart out. Everything from Jesus, to fufilling your destiny, to the impact we as the audience had on her and helped to define her life, I loved it. I'll miss it. And no one can ever, ever replace her. I was tweeting up a storm while watching. I'm Twittering waaay too much lately, but then I look at the likes of @ochocinco and his 50 tweets an hour, and I realize I'm aight. 
• Someone was wearing slippers at the gym tonight. Yes, those fuzzy slippers you slide on when it's 5 degrees out and you're decked out head-to-toe in your best sweats because it's too freakin cold to do anything else. Did I mention it was 87 degrees today and it's almost June? She was riding the stationary bike while wearing these. Come on! (a la Job from Arrested Development)
• Had a little talk with a coworker today about some random topics- conspiracy theories! There's this group called HARPP http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/ and glancing at the site, it looks like a government op that might be tinkering with the weather and atmosphere (cloud seeding and chem trails anyone?)  Crazy stuff. I never bought into that too much, so maybe I'll stick with the whole 'ignorance is bliss' theory when it comes to the government conducting population control right under our noses. I really wish I could be a fly on the wall in the Situation Room some days.
• You ever have to spell out a website for someone over the phone, and do the whole 'A as in apple' explanation? (Sorta rhetorical, cause no one's answered any of my questions yet... hmmm!)  Today I had a real piece of work on the phone. This guy was from somewhere (not the US), and he spoke English pretty well, but for some reason he wasn't getting the site I was trying to give him. It was 4 gdamn letters. How can you possibly not understand 'M as in mouse'? (Give me a break, it was the first word I could think of).  I've concluded, next time around, I'm giving the most ridiculous examples EVER so there is no confusion. 
  "Oh, you need the website for Google?"
  "It's G as in Galapagos, O as in Octomom, O as in Onomatopoeia..."  You get the picture.
• These hour long bodyworks classes at the gym are a killer! All these reps and moves with 3lb and 5lb weights have me hurtin the next day! I'm pretty certain I'm seeing better results from this than the free weight routine I was doing myself back in the winter (with much heavier weights). I've shifted the focus now to an even 50/50 of cardio and strength training. I'll keep doing different things until nothing is challenging anymore. I've read about a pure barre workout http://www.purebarre.com/ that sounds really amazing, but at $225/mo and locations only in Philly- no dice on that one.
• The "i" key on my laptop is acting up. Suuuuuper annoying.
• My west coast trip is looking like mid-July. Should Will be a blast. Might even get a flight for less than $500! I've made absolutely zero progress on any other vacaton plans. I'm taking this as a sign. Like Oprah said today, "listen to the voice and let it guide you."  Well, I'm not hearing any voice, but if I haven't been able to come up with a plan in the past 3 months I've been talking about this, maybe that's a sign that I'm going to win a really big trip, and I should save my time off for that! OK, far fetched and pathetic, but I'm not going to push it any longer. I'm rollin with whatever happens and if that means I take ten 3-day weekends, so be it. I'll save the $$ for my Africa trip which I will go on before I'm 35.

I'm getting waaay too predictable, aren't I? Yes, so here it is. The random pic to go along with the random-themed blog. Anatomy of a crochet hook? Don't say you didn't learn something new today. (You're welcome)

 

A Great View

My porch is alive again! After 7 months of empty, ice-covered, snow and wind-battered planters, color has returned to my life. Although space is limited and my creativity stifled, for now, I'll deal with the lack of options (and lawn) which leaves me with no option but container gardening. Some day though... you better watch out future lawn, I will make you my landscaping masterpiece!

Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Monday Randoms

Randoms and it isn't even Wednesday. Guess when you're the author of the blog you can really take the power and run with it! Here goes-

• As we ALL suspected, Judgement Day was a bust on Saturday. And the movement's whacko ringleader is supposedly "flabbergasted". Someone's got some 'splainin to do!
• Bath Fitter, the award-winning (not really) company whose entire premise is based on covering up a ghetto bathtub/shower instead of replacing it, has a competitor. ReBath! So if you're too lazy to properly remodel your bathroom, you can pay someone to glue a pseudo-bath veneer right on top! I've only known one family who's used Bath Fitter, and getting in the shower was equivalent to jumping a hurdle.
• Chase Utley back in the Phils line up. Holla
• That commercial for those Oreo Fudge Cremes sold me, and I bought a package yesterday. I have to admit- original Oreos are waaay better. Stick with the originals Nabisco.
• Speaking of food, picked up a pint of Ben & Jerry's Boston Cream Pie. I still like the donut better, but this pretty good. How could I resist a description like this?
  "Boston Cream Pie Ice Cream with Yellow Cake Pieces, Fudge Flakes, & Swirls of Pastry Cream" Oh yeah. This filling-colored font was completely intentional.
  
  
• Roger won pretty easily today at Roland Garros. Keep it goin!


• Ran a decent 5K on Saturday. I'm going to try and do 1 a month to keep me on track. I'm happy I'm to the point where I can just go out and run 3.1 with no problem, and without feeling tired or sore the rest of the day. That's how it should be. We'd be better off as a country if everyone could drop everything and run 3.1 on a moment's notice. Even if it takes them 45min. Too many lazy peeps in this world.


• Next up on the Kindle is Andre Agassi's autobiography "Open". Should be good.


• I'm feelin that class I did at the gym yesterday. I must have done about 100 squats and lunges. What was completely ridiculous was the "Spiderman push-ups" and the super planks. Never, ever assume you're in shape just because you can run for a couple hours. I never made this assumption, but if I did, yesterday would've had me eating an entire serving of humble pie. Super planks are so ridic!! You start in the standard plank position and then alternate between and plank and a push-up, all in one fluid movement, for a minute straight. I made it about 15 seconds and there was NO WAY I could have done any more. Just when my cardio is at its best, now it's upper body strength that's lacking. I think the yoga class tonight might be just what I need.


• And finally, Oprah is ending this week! Done! 25yrs, and I'll no longer have anything worthy to watch at 4pm. I can't wait to see the final episode.

End of the world as we know it? (and I feel fine)

I'm back. Done with my blog tantrum from Wednesday, and pumped for Saturday May 21, 2011 at 6pm- Judgement Day!  So happy I'm spending the last day on Earth working 2 promos and running a 5K.

Who really believes this stuff? Like really believes it so much they quit their job, empty their bank account, and reach bonafide nut job status? My guess is the uneducated, undereducated, those with little guidance or conviction, and those who ride the wave of controversial hot button issues, desperate to get caught up in the madness. Maybe it's me, but I thought logic trumped everything. Then again, I'm logical. And not... crazy! This supposed "end of world" has been called dozens of times; and every time- nothing. Like so many events that cycle in history (elections, wars, deaths of leaders), every one that happens now is right in the center of the social media storm. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube- every site has endless thoughts, opinions, pics, whatiwoulddoiftheworldendedtomorrow statements, and just how many of us have spent 5-10 minutes reading about this nonsense? Multiply that by a few million and that is one gigantic waste of time and energy. 

Oh.

Count me in that list. Just spent 10min blogging about it. (At least I call myself on it!)

Wednesday Randoms (and a Bonus Rant!)

I JUST ERASED MY ENTIRE BLOG ENTRY!!!!

Yes, this program autosaves it every minute, but I somehow hit a keyboard shortcut and deleted the entire thing and THEN it saved. My saved draft was blank! UGH!

So, guess what? I'm going to be like a 5yr old, get pissed, and NOT write it again! I had so many good randoms and I was almost at the end of my rant! SO MAD

%$*&*&&$%%$#%!$!^%&*()*&*

Insanely Good Italian Dinner

The last time I had some really delish Italian food, I was in.... Italy. Yeah. Big act to follow. (See Feb 2011 Italy blog post). I'm not the biggest fan of the usual chicken parm or other meat-based dishes, but give me some homemade pasta or any type of seafood dish, and I am in heaven!!

DiPaolo's is where we went last night, and wow did he hit a home run with the restaurant selection. I always thought I was a food lover, but he really makes me reevaluate my claim. My pickiness used to make eating out slightly difficult. You will never catch me ordering steak, pork, lamb, or veal. I only like chicken if it's sliced up in a salad. There are so many restaurants anymore, and the menus are so expansive, if it has a seafood page, I'm most likely ordering off that. I'm a huge seafood/shellfish fan.

I sit here and claim not to like meat, but throw some Antipasto in front of me and I'm grabbin all the greasy, salty capacola and salami I can. Add some cheese and olives in there and you have to take the plate away for me to stop eating. So we had that and then the calamari for the app. These squid rings were pretty big, and just slightly fried. I've had calamari more times than I can count and these absolutely ranked as legit. This sounds weird, but there's a firm, slightly springy feel good calamari has when you bite into it. For people with food "texture" issues, this is probably an item you avoid, but eating that calamari last night has reactivated my snob meter for squid done right!

I also love crab cakes. Real crab cakes shouldn't be bursting with flavors of peppers or spices. They should be lump backfin crab meat and whatever invisible magic stuff they use to bind it together- and that's it. I only usually order them at places like McCormick & Schmick's in Philly or any place near the shore with fresh seafood. Last night was the real deal though. The ones at DiPaolo's are the size of a large orange and all you see is a giant snowball of crab meat- no filler! I could only eat half of mine after all the other stuff. (Annnnnd I just finished eating the other half now. There was no way I could wait until dinner!)

So so good! Service and ambiance were great. I will definitely be going back there again.

It's time for... Wednesday Randoms!

I might just make this Wednesday Randoms a regular thing. Judging by the overwhelming positive feedback (imaginary voices in my head), it's been quite the hit. Let's get started

• I'm fortunate to have a really great work environment. My own office, ample parking, peace and quiet, and a bathroom that maybe 3 other people use.  Every so often someone brings in a fruity smelling  liquid hand soap because the white foam stuff in the wall dispenser is just so boring. That being said, when this soap gets near the bottom, instead of throwing it out, someone adds water to it (?!?!)  Who does this? (Not me, so if you're quick at math, that leaves the other 3 people who use the bathroom). Throw it away people! Dang.
• Got some more tennis time in last night and I lovelovelove it! I wish I could work 11-7 so I could spend 2hrs each morning practicing. If I could go back in time, I wish I would have dedicated more time to a sport and see how far I could have gone.
• The strawberries I bought this week were bangin. Peak season is coming up!
• The past 3 mornings worth of news have been nothing but children and young adults being kidnapped, raped, murdered, etc. Literally. There are 5 active stories now of people from this area and it's sick.
• My birds must be making friends while I'm at work. There have been some sparrows hanging near my porch in the morning before I leave for work. Chirping away, I know they're all talking about something!
• I'm about to declare war on the stink bugs who keep sneaking in my place and buzzing around my room at night! I can't go to sleep knowing one could land on my head or in my bed, so I'm on a freakin hunt every single night until I find them and get them out.
• Read a pretty good book about shrimp and the history of the shrimping industry this week. <3 my Kindle!
• Sprung for the deluxe wash yesterday. Rain-X, wax, foam wheel shine... Nothing prettier than a sparkling clean black car.
• I would have the biggest Dr Evil 'mwwaaahhaha' laugh if I were the one sifting through Osama bin Laden's hard drive. Not sure how much they'll get from it, but it's gotta be fun for those tech forensic teams to crack it open. 
• I get pretty awesome afternoon sun in my place this time of year. This ethereal glow captures the entire room and it's magnified even more by the warm tone of my paint (White Pine). My favorite color, which my kitchen and hallway are painted, is called Willow Wind. Both are from Lowe's and the pale green of this green shade is just perfect.
• Ooh those birds I wrote about earlier just fly up to the door! Couldn't grab the camera fast enough, but they chirped enough to get my birds all amped up.
• I am so so thankful I grew out of the horrible allergies I had when I was younger. The only remaining one is the cat allergy. Kitties are cute, but not when they cause unbearable hives and swollen eyes that look like someone hit me in the face.
• Had a little sandwich after work. Let's say pancakes took the place of bread and Nutella was the filling. An 11 on the 1-10 delish meter.
• SVU is on tonight. Yes!

 

 

Road Ragin!

Little bit of a rant for this one. As if the title wasn't telling enough.

I was never a Seinfeld watcher. I know, roll your eyes in disbelief, but I never got into it and because I'm not a big TV watcher to begin with, I'm in the 1% of the population who never gets the million Seinfeld references that continue long after the show went off air.

Given what I've heard, I'm having my own Seinfeld moment of sorts on the ride home from work. No puffy shirts or close talkers- this one involves a really junky station wagon, some white trash hillbillies a couple of straight up country bumpkins, and the clock striking 4 o'clock.

I have two options on my ride home. 76 and the back roads on 23. I usually opt for 23, the windy but faster option.  Starting this past winter, inevitably, twice a week this maroon hoopdi (sp?) Toyota station wagon has found its way in front of me and managed to go 25mph all 6 miles on 23 through Gladwyne!  It's hard to express this via blogging, but today- it happened again.  After a crazy busy day, all I wanted to to was get in the car and go home.  I drive up to the intersection to turn on 23, the clock says 4:00, and who do I see?? Ma and Pa slowpoke!  As soon as I saw they had the green and turned right in front of me, there was an instant "Noooooooo!"(in super slo-mo sound) echoing through my head.

So here we go again, me stuck behind these riding-the-brake-the-entire-time-and-sticking-their-hands-out-the-window-in-that-wavy-motion-so-you-can-feel-the-wind and all the while I'm gripping the wheel with two hands, knuckles turning white, and looking for ANY CHANCE I CAN GET to pass them- double line be damned! I successfully managed the pass once this winter. If you know the hills of Gladwyne, this is not a recommended move. Not worth passing anyone in my new-ish car. I'm not that stupid. Instead, I get to watch their tripled up air fresheners dangling from the rear view (Yankee Candle, a Sponge Bob, and another unidentified one) and I wonder if they even look at the speedometer, or notice there's a line of cars 10 deeps backing up train-style behind them every day??

So I guess what's Seinfeld-esque about this is the fact it drives me absolutely nuts, but I can never confront them. And the fact they're just strange, oblivious people, and the same infuriating situation keeps repeating itself. If cameras were filming, the moment I see their car in front of me or 5 ahead of me jamming up the road- one look at me, and you'd know how ticked I was. It literally adds 5 minutes to my ride home. 5 minutes I could be home catching the 2nd half of Oprah (It's her last season, have they no respect??).

The culprit. Imagine this in maroon. The RAAAAGGGEEE!

Nice weather = Lazy blogging

Ahh, I'm startin to slip! This blogging thing is easy when the weather's bad, but once it starts getting nicer, it's easier to put it off another day... and another...and another... until months go by and I'm off the wagon again.

Won't let it happen!

So I missed the live news of the Osama hit. Slept right through that one due to thorough exhaustion from the run last Sunday. I took 5 full days off to allow my legs to return to normal... annnnd ate everything in site the days following! So gratifying! I have a 5K in 2 weeks, so I should be good for that. I had a nice leisurely jog today. Crazy how your mind knows you can slack when the big event is over. I do much better with pressure or some sort of goal I have to meet. I kept up my workouts last summer, even in the 95+ degree heat. I was conditioned to handle desert temps by August. Guess I'll just keep on runnin...

Worked a fun event on Cindo de Mayo. Tequila is a really great drink- for those who don't have the 'spring break horror stories' or the 'tequila makes me crazy' excuse. Drink some of the really good stuff- Cuervo Platino or the Reserva de la Familia and one might change their tune.

I'm looking to get on the water soon. I really like canoeing, even though a lot of people find it boring. There's a few lakes near here, within an hour. Getting on the water once it's warm is the best. This type of boating doesn't activate my motion sickness, thankfully. Still have to get to the amusement park too, and do the rest of the things on my list. I have a feeling this could be a really great summer. Just need one thing to come together, which I'm really hoping it does. If not, I have no one to blame but myself.    

Living on the top floor does have its perks sometimes

Run=Done Yay!

I'm happy to report the Broad Street run is over. Now I can stop training ease up on the long runs, relax, and eat an entire Franzones pizza tonight!

Final time was 01:31:11. Definitely better than I expected. I think I'm better at the longer distances than the 5Ks. Not sure why that is, but I might step it up to 10Ks in the future.

I went to bed early last night- well, I was laying in bed at 9:30, but didn't actually get to sleep until 11pm or so. Typical. No thanks to the yappy little dog barking it's &#%$ head off for an hour straight either. The one night I try to get to bed early and this dog (who I've never heard before) decides to pull this. Now I don't blame the dog, I blame the owners for not training it properly. I wanted to pull the old 'head-out-the-window-screaming-STFU!' like we used to do at the apts senior year at SJU. The U-shape of that building created some fantastic echo effects at 3am.

But anyway, a nice 4:30am alarm woke me and I felt blah. I need my shower and full morning routine to properly wake up, so that helped. I had to get to Jess' house by 6am, which I did, and we got the subway and made it there with plenty of time to spare. Special thanks to Nike and Under Armour. I looked kinda like a ninja in all black, but that dri fit stuff by Nike is something else. It absorbs all the sweat, and I like running in really form fitting clothes when I run. So my outfit choice was perfect.

Jess gave me some Gu for the run. For those not in the know, Gu is an energy gel that you're supposed to use near the end of the race when your glycogen levels are low. It has carbs and caffeine and comes in this foil pouch. This one was vanilla flavored and basically tasted like vanilla pudding, which is delish, but not when I'm running, sweating and trying to focus on my breathing. Swallowing a thing of pudding is... kinda weird. Who knows, maybe it gave me the extra mental push I needed to finish out strong.

One thing that was extra annoying are the girls/women who would stop at mile 3/4ish, and instead of moving to the side, they'd start texting friends in the middle of the street! I accidentally gave a few elbows trying to avoid running straight into these people, but really, how stupid can you be? For the amount of people in the race, I didn't feel claustrophobic at all. Everyone spread out right away, and with the exception of the turn around city hall, I don't feel like I lost too much time getting jammed up behind other people. No cramps or pains of any sort. My feet were feeling a little numb by mile 9, and my legs were sorta jell-o like, but I was so close to the finish, I didn't care.

Exhausted as I am, I'm very pleased. I trained just enough to get the job done. And we all got medals! Ooohh! So special that 30,000 other people have the same one. It's cool though. I will definitely remember the day. Great time, lots of fun. Preparation resulting in success. I like it.