Every day should start like today. We slept in a little (letting the dogs sleep upstairs = not a good night’s sleep), and then we took the dogs for a nice stroll around the neighborhood together. The weather was perfect, we weren’t in a hurry – if it hadn’t been for work, it could have been the perfect morning.
This is just about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
Last week was the week from hell. There wasn’t a single day I didn’t come home later than usual and thoroughly exhausted. And for three of those days, I had long commutes (either to DC or to Baltimore). I’m desperately in need of rest. Today was a good start, but I could use another week.
I just got back from yoga. It was good, but… Heh. More like, it was good, butt… My yoga instructor had us put our mats up against the wall. Most of the room is mirrored, so my back was up against the mirror, facing her in the middle of the room. Then we went into down dog. Hands and feet on the mat, butt high up in the air, head hanging down. Because my head was down and my neck was relaxed, I was looking at my legs. More specifically, I was looking through my legs, between my thighs. At the mirror. Where I had a fantastic view of my butt. And it looked eNORmous. I’m telling myself it was an optical illusion. My butt’s not THAT big, right? Anyone?
On second thought, don’t answer that.
You probably know lots of things that are awesome, but I have a nostalgic (for me, anyway) addition to my list of Things That Are Awesome. (Note to self: post list of Things That Are Awesome. Everyone should have a list of Things That Are Awesome.) In college, I went to Au Bon Pain for lunch fairly regularly (it was just off campus – probably still there), and I always got a turkey sandwich on a croissant with lettuce and honey mustard. GREAT sandwich. But it was the honey mustard I kept going back for. It had the consistency of honey instead of mustard, and it had more of a horseradish-like kick. I loved it. But then we moved away, to places that don’t have Au Bon Pain, and I was left without this fantastic honey mustard. I found a bagel shop in Newport that used it (or something very similar), but that was 11 years ago. Au Bon Pain doesn’t have many (or any, in some cases) restaurants in the places we’ve lived since Newport, and I have tried many different honey mustard dressings. (I’m not obsessive dedicated enough to try to make my own, but you probably already knew that. I hope.) Today, for the first time in, yeah, about 11 years, I found my way back to an Au Bon Pain (they just opened one in the building I work in when I’m in DC), and I ordered my sandwich. Same honey mustard, same kick-ass sandwich. Awesome!
What? You think it’s weird that my list of Things That Are Awesome includes a sandwich? It includes more than one sandwich, so there.
I need to start running again. The weather is warming up (not that it ever got that cold, but it was still cold enough for me to want to stay inside), and even though the mornings are dark again, that won’t last long. I ran a couple miles with Roxy last week, and my legs were a little surprised. Impact? Hills? What is this? The gym doesn’t have such things. Jess is training for a 5K, and I promised to run with her, and if I don’t get my ass back outside, she’s going to leave me in her dust. We can’t have that. (This is not about being competitive – it’s about running together.)
The other day, someone asked me if I planned to run the Army Ten-Miler again. I hadn’t thought about it at all, and now that I have, I’m really not sure if I want to. I do want to be able to run that far (or farther) again, and I can see how it helps to have an actual goal to shoot for, a race you HAVE to finish, but the logistics of getting there to pick up our packets the day before and then getting there again that morning and leaving our stuff and parking and the (oh-so-painful) trek back to the car when it was over were such a pain in the ass… I like races, I like the crowds (of runners and spectators), and if there’s a 10-mile race closer to me, I’d be more inclined to do it, I think. It’s cool to run on the streets of DC, but I wasn’t exactly enjoying it. I was barely aware of it, so maybe it’s lost on me.
I’ll have to think about it.
Yesterday was a weird day. It started fine. I got a ton of stuff done at work in the morning and I left to take my statistics midterm with plenty of time to finish it. Except it wasn’t enough time. I got about halfway done in TWO HOURS and then the testing center closed (it’s Spring Break) and I had to leave it unfinished. (I emailed my professor. We’ll see.) Then I had a ridiculously strange conversation with the checkout lady at Wegmans when I ran in to pick up dinner (I was talking about knee highs. She was talking about tampons. She must have thought I was insane.), and when I got home I wasn’t in the mood to do ANYthing. It was such a huge contrast to the day before. When I got home from the gym Wednesday night, I felt like I could climb mountains. You know why? I’ll tell you why. But wait – I need some space. This is big and needs its own paragraph.
For the first time in my life – this is no exaggeration – I touched my toes. Even when I was little, even when I was in high school and so skinny I could hurt people with my hip bones (those days are long gone), I couldn’t do that. I faked it in the Navy – we were sitting down and I could lunge for my toes twice a year. But this, this was real. (I’m a purist.) This was standing up, folding forward, and reaching. And I. Touched. My. Toes.
Go me. Go yoga.
Who’s having the best day ever? Would you mind sharing? Just a bit? No, my day wasn’t horrible. I made a small decision I wish I hadn’t (although it’s not really that big a deal), and yes, my commute was not what I’d hoped for, but I’m home now (makes up for a lot), and the weather is perfect (makes up for even more), and the week is over half done. I’m kinda halfway between wanting to just go to bed now and looking forward to going to the gym. I’ll probably be leaning more towards the gym once I get out of these #&$%%# tights.
(from The Daily What)
You know something? I’m pretty good at babbling. Sometimes it’s entertaining (I hope. It is to me, anyway.). More often, it’s not. And sometimes it’s surprising just how long I can go on about something (like school, for instance) before I realize it’s boring. To you, to me, to the dogs. Flat out not interesting to anyone at all. I TRY to delete (deletedeletedeletedeletedeletedeletedelete) that stuff. Like I just did. Blah blah boringcakes.
Unfortunately, there are some times (like, oh, I don’t know…now?) when I don’t have anything rattling around in my head to replace the long-ass rant I just deleted about the waste of time and money my statistics class has turned into (because a full half of this course is a repeat of the last two chapters of the previous statistics course, a course that was a pre-req to this one – I get review chapters, but these two review chapters are the only subjects on the @*&$%&*^ midterm – that was a much more concise way of putting it). Do you think that’s going to stop me from posting? Hmm?
Maybe. It depends on a number of things. Like, what time is it? How tired am I? Is my book particularly engrossing? If the answers are a) late, b) very, and/or c) ohmygodyes, then no post is forthcoming. Sorry. If it’s today, however, and the answers are a) midday, b) not particularly, and c) have you looked at the time? What do you think I do all day that I could be reading my book right now?, then the fact that you’ve read this far should tell you something. (Psst. Come here. Closer. Just you. You’re my favorite.)
It was cold today. Like wintry cold. And it flurried. So why not have a fire? John is working on his thesis, but he can do that on his laptop, and I can curl up in a chair by the fire with my book. My book that looks eerily like a laptop. A laptop that does magic tricks and will transform into a real book in just a few minutes. As soon as I’m done catching up on the internet. Yes, the whole internet. I’m that good.
I feel SO far behind in my reading. The last few books I’ve read have taken me weeks to get through, and not because I haven’t been enjoying them. Just because there have been 5 million other things that need to get done (and that stress me out WAY more than not getting through a book). Where did my reading time go?
Every so often we get a flyer in the mail from Purple Heart that lets us know when they’ll be in our neighborhood picking up donations. We try to always have something, but not as hard as we used to. They used to call ahead to see if we had anything to donate, and if we did, they’d come to the neighborhood. I always said yes and then made sure I had something ready that morning. I certainly don’t want to have them come all the way to our house only to find we forgot. That would suck. Now that they’re mailing us a flyer that says they’re coming no matter what, we’re not as diligent. But still, we do try. Anyway, AmVets still calls ahead, and they called us the day before we got a Purple Heart flyer, so I figured that this month, our donation would go to AmVets instead (and we didn’t have enough to get rid of this time to give to both). Both places have the same process: put your stuff in a bag or a box or whatever and LABEL it very CLEARLY with LARGE letters. It has to say AMVETS (or PURPLE HEART) or they won’t pick it up. You can leave it on the curb or on the front porch – anywhere that’s clearly visible from the street. I always leave mine on the edge of the front porch with LABEL facing the STREET. (Got a little carried away there.) Which is what I did the other morning. I was working from home that day, and I made sure that my big bag of clothes was out on the front porch by 8am with AMVETS written across it on two sides in really big letters. Around lunchtime, the dogs started barking, and when I looked out the front window, I saw a guy walking back to his big truck (like a small moving van, white sides) with the bag. Pickup completed. EXCEPT. A couple of hours later, the dogs started to go nuts again. I went to the door this time and saw a guy walking back to HIS big white truck. There was a “sorry we missed you” AmVets receipt in the door, and I realized what had happened. I ran back outside to catch the guy and apologize. He was really nice about it, but STILL. Purple Heart stole my donation! And he came all the way out here, and I didn’t have anything else ready to give away. I’m sorry, AmVets. I’ll have twice as much next time.
Wouldn’t it be great if someone at Purple Heart noticed the AmVets label on the bag and donated it to them anyway? I wonder if they do that.
I know, it’s one thing to keep saying I want to post more and a totally other thing to actually do it. I’m working on it. But not tonight. Tonight I’m studying. Actually, tonight I just finished studying and I’m going to bed. Going to work early tomorrow, leaving work early to take my final for data modeling.
To keep you busy (ish) until I’m back (which should be tomorrow, since I have most of a post written), you can visit Jess’s new blog tumblr! Go, see, laugh. She’s got a new link over there on the on the right, too. ——> Right there. Ish.
Do you get the Uncommon Goods catalog? You should. Because it’s got some cute stuff in it. A few weeks ago, I bought myself a sugar bowl and little pitcher set. I couldn’t resist. I mean, look at them.
They’re just the cutest things. Then John noticed that the feet look a lot like the Monty Python foot. I knew there was a reason they called out to me. It was fate! And THEN I noticed that when you look at the pitcher from the other side, the placement of the handle makes the little pitcher look like it has a butt. The cutest butt.
So, no, I don’t work for Uncommon Goods or know anyone who does (in case you were wondering). I’ve just ordered a few things from them and I really like their catalogs. 🙂 And they sell pitchers with butts.
I mean, really. They don’t deliver (most of their locations don’t, anyway) and the pizza isn’t very good. And have you SEEN the new Pizza Hut commercial? It’s terrible. And stupid. And you are SO lucky that I just struck out looking for it on YouTube.
I have it on good authority that I leave bad voicemails. The kind you never want to listen to. The kind that go on and on. And on and on. And on and – They don’t have any redeeming qualities, unless you really enjoy the sound of my voice. I don’t do it on purpose, I really don’t. In fact, most of the time I don’t leave a message at all. I figure you’ll notice you missed my call, and you’ll call me back when you feel like it. That’s how I handle missed calls. And when you leave me a voicemail, if I can see who it’s from, I usually call you without listening to it anyway. Sometimes, though, I can’t resist the siren song of the beeeeeeeeeeep. I go in with the best of intentions – short and sweet. “Just calling to say hi, call me when you can. Nothing urgent. Bye.” But somehow I get off track. Like as soon as I start talking. “Just calling to say hi, call me when you can. Nothing urgent. But it’s been a while since we talked. Not that I have anything in particular to talk about. Huh – sounds like I don’t want to talk to you. But I do! Still not urgent, though. I know you’re busy. I’ll stop rambling now, I know you hate that. You’re probably not listening to this anyway. Who listens to voicemails anymore, now that every phone ever has caller ID? Right, no rambling. I don’t know why I have this problem. [long pause] Great, now you have dead air in the middle of this message. That wasn’t important in the first place. Gah! Hanging up now. Jesus, what a terrible message. Why can’t I hang up?” Seriously, I’ve probably left that exact message on someone’s voicemail. Hopefully, no one listened to it. Delete, delete!
This week was a bad week for driving. I didn’t have any trouble myself, but I was WAY too close to one actual accident and one almost-accident in the space of 15 minutes. (Why is it called a near miss? It was a miss. It’d be more accurate to call it a near hit.) I was on my way to DC for a middle of the day meeting on Wednesday, and traffic was terrible. Lanes were closed for construction and everyone was inching along the access road where three lanes were merging into one. While we still had two lanes, I watched a guy rear end another car. They weren’t going fast, but the one guy hit the other hard enough to buckle his hood. Not pretty. Not 15 minutes later, I was on a three-lane highway and I watched a car in the left lane and a car in the right lane both try to merge into the middle lane ON TOP OF a car in between them who was already in the middle lane. There was much honking and swerving. I was about four car-lengths behind the guy in the middle lane, and I kept my eyes peeled the whole rest of the trip. No more incidents. Today, though, there were a bunch of idiots in a huge hurry on the way home from Baltimore. I was going about 80 most of the time, in the rain, and these guys were flying by me. In the rain. Why do people drive like morons? Why was I going 80 (speaking of morons…)?
I’m still here, I swear, but it’s been a busy week and I have to run out the door to work on my project for class. I have stories, stories about accidents and dishware and voicemails and donations. But they’ll have to wait, and so will you. Trust me – I’d rather be writing here than working all day. Silly work.
Late because it was yesterday, not late because it was forgotten. I had a great birthday weekend. A long birthday weekend. (Those are the best kind.) Mom and Dad came to visit, and we had delicious dinners out, walked all over DC, hung out at home, stayed up late, drank some wine, and talked and talked and talked. I am thoroughly exhausted, but very happy. And I have LOTS of flowers in the house. John came home from work yesterday (I had the day off and spent it working on homework) with sushi and two bouquets of flowers. He said he was trying to decide between them and then realized he didn’t have to choose. Then, right after he got home and gave them to me, the doorbell rang. More flowers! Mom and Dad sent some from the road. I love it.
Work today tried to undo my wonderful weekend, but it won’t succeed. Work stays at work, and I’m going home. Where I have homework to do. You know what will make me feel better? Indian food for dinner! Because you can’t have too many birthday dinners.
We will now return to our regular programming.