Rainy Day

So, even though it was cold and pouring rain, like a good little yogi I didn't skip class this morning.

I did, however, leave the house without an umbrella and got totally soaked walking to the shala. To top it off, I discovered (the hard way) that my shoes HAVE HOLES IN THE BOTTOM and by the time I got to class my shoes, socks, and feet were cold and soaking wet.

And then, after a particularly brutal class, I got to put cold wet socks and shoes on and walk another mile home in the rain.

Now all I want is a mug (hahah!! I mistyped "hug" for "mug" there... Freudian slip, hm?) anyway, a mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows and a kitten in my lap for the rest of the afternoon.

Back to the Routine

Last week was pretty laid-back at work, but tomorrow everything should be back to normal. It was nice to have a little break from the grind... but, being the control freak that I am, I look forward to being back in my routine.

In other exciting news, my favorite runner, Catherine Ndereba, "easily won" the Great Australian 15k. News article is here (but it mostly focuses on the male winner, Haile Gebrselassie).

Menu

Thanksgiving 2008

Appetizer - warm brie with brown sugar and walnuts, crackers, fresh apple
Soup course - hot pumpkin puree topped with sage and pumpkin seeds
Salad course - spinach and arugula with walnuts, fresh pear, and goat cheese in a spicy mustard vinaigrette
Main course - salmon baked in tin foil with tomatoes, shallot, lemon juice, rosemary, and thyme. Quinoa with feta cheese and pumpkin seeds
Dessert - pumpkin pie
For satiation - three bottles of organic Malbec

Lezlie, Mary, and I had a wonderful, mellow, food-filled afternoon. We caught up, got to know each other better, gossipped about boys, and talked at length about those things for which we are thankful.

Thank God for good friends.

Thanksgiving

Should be a nice day. I slept in and am about to go out for seven miles - hills first, then I'll finish up mostly flat and with a nice downhill stretch of sidewalk home. I alreay made the first course (pumpkin soup) and should easily finish the rest of the prep work for the salad and main course in about half an hour. Then I need to do some light cleaning and ambience... and then... wait on my two lovely girlfriends to arrive!

DGR

Every day, Matt and I send each other our food intake for critique and commiseration. Mine today is a little erratic:

5:45am - oatmeal
8:30am - apple
10am - low-fat cottage cheese
(so far so good!)
Noon - handful pretzels (was waiting for my colleague to come back so we could go eat lunch together
1pm - TWO CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES AND A SCOOP OF CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM. One of my colleague's onion rings.

Yeah... I fell off the wagon a little. But at least I knew what I was craving and just ATE it, instead of eating a several-hundred-calorie meal and THEN ordering dessert. If I have a light salad or soup for dinner, I will probably still be at or maybe even under my target caloric intake for the day.

Heh. A girl's gotta indulge every now and then, right?

Totally Shameless Post

I love Asian films.

I love long hair.

I love Tony Leung Chiu-Wai in all ways and with all haircuts (especially his steamy scenes in Lust, Caution).

I love his intense, knowing smile and gentle eyes.

DAMN.

Dream

Last night I dreamt that I was running the National Half marathon and it all kinda went to shit. I couldn't see the road markers very well and was never sure if I was on the right course. At one point I looked down and realized that I was wearing regular shoes - ballet flats and socks - instead of running shoes. And then at one water stop, which was inside (?) I tried to change into running shoes but they were two different brands, and I knew I couldn't wear those because I would get injured or something.

Then, at one point, after mile 4 I was at home and I checked my watch and realized that I had been running for six hours but had only gone four miles. So I just decided to quit because I knew I would never make it 13.1 miles... and was faced with my first DNF* and so dejected. I was wondering how I was going to explain that even though I had set an early fast pace it was still taking me hours and hours to run what I should have been able to cover in forty minutes.

Weird. And really, it's waaay too early for me to already be getting anxious about a March 2009 race.


*Did Not Finish

This Day Was MO

At work we have an abbreviation that we use very prolifically: MO. It stands for Mental Observation, and is traditionally used to describe a subject who is a little off and needs to be held for psychiatric evaluation. So, we will say, "This person is MO" and it's more polite than annoucing that he's totally fucking nuts.

But really, it means that the person is totally fucking nuts. It can also be used affectionately, or to describe situations. My whole day so far has been totally MO, whacked out of it's gourd. Unfortunately, I can only post one aspect of the day here as two others are work-related and one is a little too personal to post (i.e., could really hurt a person's feelings if they stumbled across the blog).

So, there was this older couple stalking me on the bus this morning. I kept catching the husband staring at me, and then they not only got off at my stop but followed me the two blocks I walk to work before turning down 17th St as I entered the office parking garage.

Then, this afternoon at 3pm as I was again waiting for the bus, just after having deflected an aggressive and high homeless person who cornered me and totally invaded my personal space to ask for change, I saw the husband walking up the street. He walked straight up to me and said, "I was on your bus this morning. My wife has been watching you go to work for two weeks!"

UH. Okay. So it turns out he is in town visiting his daughter and has had to go to my place of work for various reasons... including one time when he apparently crashed his car in Dupont Circle! "I just conked out at the wheel!" he said matter-of-factly.

Wow. Then he tried to find out where I live, that series of questions I expertly dodged. Weird. It occurs to me that yesterday morning the wife DID sort of cross the street in front of me in the morning, after departing the bus, and say, "Have a great day!" but I assumed it was just a nicety. I did not assume that they had been studying my routine for a significant amount of time!

Now I'm home and hanging out with my feline unit, catching some downtime before yoga class. Hopefully AVE will show up and we'll dine on our usual sushi and wine, if not, I have a whole bottle here at home... which won't be nearly enough...

What the heck?

It is seriously cold in DC right now. In fact, this morning, it was TWENTY DEGREES warmer in Iceland. That is just wrong.

It occurs to me, as I contemplate my upcoming excursion to the Arctic Circle, that I have absolutely no idea how to dress for those conditions. What do you wear to an ice bar? What do you wear 4-wheeling on a glacier?

Hopefully my dear friend who I'll be traveling with, and who has already visited Iceland, can shed some light.

Speaking of lights... I can't wait to gaze at the Aurora Borealis. Over and over again. What a way to ring in the New Year.

Empty Me

Empty me
Of the selfishness inside
Every vain ambition
And the poison of my pride
And any foolish thing my heart holds to
Lord empty me of me
So I can be
Filled with you
-- Chris Sligh

I am always terrified that I don't know my motives, and that they're darker and more selfish than I can acknowledge. And then I fear that the things I desire will either not be given to me or they will be given and taken away as punishment for my selfishness.

It's a very infantile view of God and consequences, but I'm a spiritual infant, so there.

A real world example of this is my fear of being offered a job that pays me better than I am paid currently. Even if the job was an incredible opportunity to do good in the world, I have this fear that I'll be given the job and then fired because, deep down, somehow the dominant motive for taking the job is the money I would be making. And since the love of money is a sin, it only makes sense that I would be denied that which I sinfully desire.

This sort of thinking really freezes me up. I just want to naturally want to be selfless, loving, and pure of heart, and yet I'm never sure that I really want those thing or if I'm really chasing selfishness and possessiveness and control and all those things that make people ugly. The scary thing is, it can be difficult to tell the difference.

I would give up every material thing to know God.

More Racing

Well, I didn't think I'd have another half-marathon on the calendar so quickly. My fault, however, for chiding some co-workers about short distance running... one came right back at me with a challenge to run the National Half-Marathon in March. So I think I will - and follow it up with the Cherry Blossom 10-miler in April.

T'will be a nice cool down, I suppose.

I think I might even dust off my watch after the first of the year and train for a time goal. Ambitious!

Tonight I'm going to have my usual yoga/sushi with AVE ritual... and then tomorrow I'm going to try to run a significant distance (7 miles), my first since the Detroit race in October. But I'm not gonna push it. Then, a friend from Baltimore is going to come visit and hopefully we'll have a nice time... I'm gonna try to find something for us to do in town, but haven't started thinking about what just yet.

Misc.

I'm home from South Bend and the fifth (and final!) wedding of the year. It was flawless. The bride looked gorgeous, and so did her bridesmaids (if I do say so myself). I'll post pictures when I get them.

I'm still trying to get back into the swing of a regular running and yoga routine. My goal is to average an easy 20-25 miles per week while practicing yoga 2-3 times per week with one or two days off. I want to leave some flexibility, but I also don't want to start from scratch when it's time to start training for my spring race.

This afternoon I twisted my ankle just about 2 miles out from the finish. Last time something like this happened, I played it macho and ran home anyway. Two hours later my ankle was twice it's normal size and I couldn't flex it or my toes. A trip to the emergency room resulting in three days on crutches was required. I had to take two weeks off running. I learned that lesson, and this afternoon just hobbled home, gently, and will ice it a bit later. I should be okay.

It'll be nice to have the day off tomorrow. I have nothing planned except some reading and an evening yoga class. Maybe I'll take a walk downtown or something. But really, I'm so worn out from travelling and weddings and family and half-marathons that I really need some down time.

Flying

I'm leaving town for a long weekend. No blog posts until Sunday night/Monday.

Be good while I'm gone... don't do anything I wouldn't do!

Katfotos

Natasha loves boxes. Best if they're just a teeny bit too small for her, but any enclosed space will do, really.

















And... a gratuitous pic of the girls as itty bitty kittens...

Eggs!

"Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg until it is broken."

MFK Fisher, The Art of Eating

I love eggs. And I happen to be very good at cooking them. Creamy, fluffy omelets require a creamy, fluffy attitude on the part of the chef. Fisher says elsewhere that, "[An omelet is] never to be attempted by a nervous, harried woman, one anxious to slap something on the table and get it over with."

She's right. The secret to cooking great eggs is low heat and lots of patience. This is how I make an omelet. I crack three eggs and use one whole one and the whites from the other two. I add a shot of whole milk and whip with a fork until frothy. Meanwhile, a skillet is warming (not heating!) on the stove. I always use butter for eggs and not oil.

To the side I have my filling completely prepared. This is crucial, as eggs take constant watching in order to avoid over-cooking them (a common mistake) and you don't want to become distracted with chopping and shredding. (I can thank Rob for instilling in me the understanding of the mise en place)This morning, I had sauteed spinach, garlic, and shallot in butter and set it aside.

The skillet warm and butter melted, I pour in my egg mixture. The eggs SHOULD NOT SIZZLE when they hit the pan. I sncrease the heat ever-so-slightly, and wait. And wait. I resist the urge to touch my cooking eggs. Eggs are very fragile and do not hold up well under a lot of handling.

When I can see the edges begin to firm, I gently pull them away from the side with my spatula, letting the uncooked egg-soup on top fill in the space I created. This continues, working my way around the skillet, until the eggs are mostly cooked but for a thin layer on top.

I carefully flip them ONE TIME. This will be the only time I flip my omelet. I then decrease the heat, and pile my filling on one half of the eggs. To my spinach, shallot, and garlic I added cheddar cheese and smoked salmon.

I carefully fold the omelet so the filling is covered. The skillet is removed from the heat and covered, letting the residual heat melt the cheese.

I slide my omelet directly from skillet to plate. Do not try to lift your omelet with a spatula to transfer it to your plate - this may compromise the structural integrity of your meal.

Finally, I garnish with parsley or pepper as desired, and eat along with a glass of milk or juice, tea, coffee, or hot chocolate.