Something (else) that my kid might eventually hate me for is conceiving him in March, causing [...]]]>

The baby’s friend wasn’t actually wearing aviators. I added those to protect his privacy and ensure that I’m exploiting only my child. If that kid’s parents want to exploit him, they’re on their own. I can’t do everything for everyone.

Something (else) that my kid might eventually hate me for is conceiving him in March, causing him to be born in December. He hasn’t yet made it evident if he is at all bitter about this, but I’ve heard from plenty of people that having a birthday in December sucks. Apparently people experience their birthdays getting kind of swallowed up by Christmas, which I think makes Jesus, like, the most annoying first-born sibling ever, getting all of the attention and stuff.

From my perspective, my kid’s birthday falls in the midst of one of the busiest times of the year. There are lots of parties and events to attend, plus the irresistible urge to just DO stuff, like clean and decorate the house and go on baking rampages. When he was born, I ventured out of the house for the first time when he was about two weeks old to go Christmas shopping. I tell you that Hunter S. Thompson, with all of his fear and loathing, would not have been able to handle the experience of a Bed Bath & Beyond in December after popping Percocet for a few weeks and existing in a weird twilight of breast milk and interrupted naps. I nearly had a psychotic break. Also, I got people like the shittiest Christmas gifts ever. I think my mom got a picture frame and my dad got a handkerchief or something. The husband got a Kendrell Bell jersey, which was cool at the time, but quickly became a dud when Bell got injured 830 times and then fell off of the face of the earth.

Anyway…what was I talking about? Oh, yes, my kid’s birthday. If it fell during a less hectic time of year, I would be able to focus more time and energy on it. But as it stands, I’ve outsourced his birthday party almost every year. That way, he gets to have a special day and I don’t collapse in the corner crying. High fives all around. As a result, he’s had some really cool birthday parties at movie theaters, roller rinks, and museums.

This year, we kind of blindly decided on an arcade called Games N’At. We had intended on checking the place out first, but about a month ago I realized that we needed to just go for it, lest we end up with nothing to do. Let me tell you, if you have any kind of party coming up, kid’s birthday, adult birthday, holiday party, whatever, consider going there. It’s fantastic.

It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but inside there are all of these rooms with every kind of video game you could possibly want to play, everything from air hockey and skeeball to XBoxes and old school Pac Man and Dig Dug. I had told my grandparents not to come because they would probably find it too loud and crazy, but the big party room that we were in (one of two) was quiet and relaxing, with a fireplace and a nice big TV to watch if you needed a break. The kids were able to pick what they wanted to eat…basic party fare; pizza, nachos, chicken nuggets…nothing gourmet but on occasions like these I CARE NOT. Parents got to eat, too, which was awesome. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve nearly passed out at a birthday party because the food is only for the kids. The staff also provided candy bags, so all I had to do was bring cake, which was fine because the baby always has me make him cupcakes anyway. The kids each got free tokens for the games that dispense redemption tickets, but we got a few extra because they had double-booked the party room. Another party was slightly overlapping ours, which really wasn’t even an issue, but the owner was so apologetic about it, which was really nice of her. For three hours and all of that service and amenities, the total was about $180. I guess that’s generally kind of expensive, but I felt that it was a total steal.

I also have to talk about the cupcakes that I made. The baby always asks for chocolate mint cupcakes and for the past few years I used a recipe that I didn’t particularly like. Then, one of my favorite food bloggers, Annie’s Eats, posted a recipe for some fancier mint chocolate cupcakes just a few weeks ago. The moist cake with the mint ganache filling and the mint Swiss meringue buttercream was so much better than my previous iterations. But, as my mom pointed out, were kind of wasted on the kids. I had braced myself for this and thought I would be cool with it, but had to bite my tongue when one of the guests promptly scraped off the buttercream. “I don’t really like icing,” he explained. THAT’S NOT “ICING” YOUNG MAN! THAT’S SWISS MERINGUE BUTTERCREAM, GAWD!”

But the baby had an awesome time, which is the most important thing. I’m hoping to go back soon so that I might redeem myself on the air hockey table. The husband doled out a horrible smackdown and I had the added insult of getting laughed at because my gameplay looked like my coach had been our kitten. I got all dizzy following the puck back and forth.

What’s even worse is that while I was searching for an image of that guy, I came across this:

Why, internet? Why?

It’s not that I don’t love [...]]]> So, I’m on this rosacea medication and that illicit acne cream. And I guess they’re working because, as I mentioned on Twitter yesterday, I feel kind of like this:

What’s even worse is that while I was searching for an image of that guy, I came across this:

Why, internet? Why?

It’s not that I don’t love Richard Simmons. I find him to be endlessly entertaining, especially since he only seems to pop up in the oddest places in my cultural existence.

I’m just unnerved by salad being potentially wasted.

Anyway, I had a somewhat exciting weekend in that I finally got a new phone. My iPhone 3G was 3 years old and not in terrible shape, but it was pretty slow and rickety. I ventured to the Apple Store twice in the space of one week on this quest and I think that place needs to come with some kind of warning. Despite the fact that there’s a recession, there are always 100 customers in there. Though, of course, they’re probably not all buying stuff but are instead there to huff the fumes of pretty shiny things. The, admittedly wonderful and numerous, staff are all so…buddy buddy. All of the Apple Geniuses that I interacted with were so…I think “stoked” is the best word for them. They were so stoked that I was there, they were stoked that I was getting a new phone, they were just really stoked. This is truly the genius of Apple: that gentle hypnosis that convinces that anything you want to buy is totally awesome and you so totally deserve it just for being you.

Speaking of happiness-inducing things, I’m starting to think about the cookies that I’m going to bake for this holiday season. I have a really good cache of recipes, but I always want to find some new ones to try every year. My source for that the past however many years has been Martha Stewart, who used to always put out a special holiday issue. She doesn’t really seem to be doing that anymore. She has a “holiday handbook” but it’s light on recipes and heavy on crafts, which I don’t really get into at all. Martha seems to be on the forefront of the shift to digital media, as her magazines are now available for iPad and iPhone, plus she released a “Cookies” app just in time for the holiday baking season. Iiinteresting.

As Sara noted, he looks very genteel, but looks can be deceiving. He’s either up and running all over the place or passed out, and he doesn’t pass out before going through an elaborate settling in ritual that usually results in [...]]]> I finally managed to snap a picture of the little maniacal furball in our house.

As Sara noted, he looks very genteel, but looks can be deceiving. He’s either up and running all over the place or passed out, and he doesn’t pass out before going through an elaborate settling in ritual that usually results in bodily harm. Or rather, harm to my bodily.

When he snuggles, he’s heavenly. But he’ll attack me via flying leap and I have scratch marks all over me. I’m too embarrassed to admit that I’m getting regular beatings from a 3-pound kitten, so I’ve just been telling everyone that I’ve been in a knife fight.

We had another busy weekend, so I decided to take the day off of work on Friday to hang out with the dudes, since the baby didn’t have school. We mostly chilled out all day but did manage to check out the Alex Ross exhibit at The Warhol, which was just so, so rad. You should go.

However, I realized on Sunday night that I probably should have taken Monday off instead, since the husband and I had to be out really late. The husband and two of his friends started this…musical group? Band? I’ve also seen the term production trio thrown about. I’m not sure what to call them. But it’s the three of them and a bunch of synthesizers and keyboards and doohickeys and whatnot and they make dance music. They call themselves Pittsburgh Track Authority and things have really taken off for them in the past couple of months, with their tracks getting signed for release by dance music labels. Here’s one of their most recent compositions:

They had their debut live performance on Sunday at the Shadow Lounge as part of the VIA festival wrap-up party. They were all pretty nervous about it in the weeks leading up to it, since it was a week after the main festival and on a Sunday night.

As it turned out, a TON of people showed up and I don’t think I’m biased in saying that PTA’s performance was the highlight of an all-around fantastic evening. They were preceded by Smooth Tutors and ELQ and followed by Dam Funk. People were dancing the whole time, but seemed to really get into it for PTA. I was so, so impressed with their music and was so incredibly proud of the husband for getting to experience that after so much hard work and so many setbacks. Plus, you know, it’s always exciting to get a post-performance kiss from the hot guy on stage.

Since I knew we were going to be out so late, I had to get lunches ready for me and the baby and decided to bake some cookies while I was at it. I made a batch of Martha Stewart’s pumpkin cookies with brown butter icing (going to write about them for Foodie Parent tomorrow) and toted some of them to the show in my uber-housewife covered pan/container thing that I got from The Cake Pan Lady. Frank, who was in town for the show, cracked up at me bringing treats to the dance music show, like, “Here boys! Brought you some goodies! Have a good electronic music performance! Make sure you use the potty beforehand!” It might have seemed absurd but let me tell you those cookies were gone by the end of the night, devoured by the performers and various attendees with much groaning in delight.

Shearer’s wanted me to know about two things: the measures that they’ve taken to become a “greener” company and some of the [...]]]> Back during the spring, Shearer’s, the snack company, offered to send me a huge box of chips. My response was something resembling language, but was mostly a lot of exclamation points and grunts.

Shearer’s wanted me to know about two things: the measures that they’ve taken to become a “greener” company and some of the new delicious snacks that they’re rolling out. After reading another blogger’s report about their new manufacturing plant, it’s pretty impressive. Shearer’s earned platinum LEED certification from the US Green Building Council for their manufacturing plants, which feature lots of natural light, rainwater collections, and energy recycling. Awesome, right? Right. Now, what of the chips?

The idea was for me to have a party where my friends and I could sample some of the classic and new Shearer’s chips. I scheduled a party and was really looking forward to it…until the husband realized that he had double-booked himself. Argh. I made a couple attempts to reschedule, but then we started getting into the really busy parts of summer and the opportunity to have a party simply slipped away. But! I still had a huge box of chips and several family vacations to take. I had chips in the car on the way to Conneaut Lake, Washington D.C., and the Outer Banks, and plenty to go around for my whole family. It was cool! I became like my family’s own snack caterer. I would bring bags of chips to the lake or to the beach and say, “Please eat these!” Luckily, chips aren’t a hard sell.

I gave everyone free reign over the traditional flavors like barbecue and sour cream and onion. But some of the alternative (?) snacks were so delicious that the husband and I squirreled those away for ourselves. The two bags of whole grain Shapers in cheddar and cinnamon were quickly gone. The cinnamon started out kind of tasting like light churros, but were sweetened with sucralose which was all that I could taste. However, the cheddar flavor…

Yeah.

They also sent me a few bags of their riceworks snacks, which are so, so good. They’re kind of like rice cakes but chips, if that makes sense. I saved the sea salt flavor for the drive to the Outer Banks. It almost lasted a whole five seconds into the 10-hour trip.

Disclosure: Shearer’s provided me with several bags of their snacks and a $250 gift card to Giant Eagle to purchase party supplies. Since I didn’t have a party, I put those funds toward drinks and dips and whatnot during our vacations.

Aside to regular readers: I know product posts like these are considered increasingly gauche, but I like to support businesses and events that are in or near Pittsburgh. Shearer’s is from Brewster, Ohio. And while their likely allegiance to Ohio sports teams is unfortunate, I’ll support them anyway.

Oh, hello. We were in the Outer Banks last week and I’ve spent this week so far “not holding it together” as the husband would say. Crappy life stuff knocked me down so I took a few days off of work to recuperate. My recovery regimen has included sleeping a lot, watching Mad Men on [...]]]>

Oh, hello. We were in the Outer Banks last week and I’ve spent this week so far “not holding it together” as the husband would say. Crappy life stuff knocked me down so I took a few days off of work to recuperate. My recovery regimen has included sleeping a lot, watching Mad Men on Netflix, and doing a juice cleanse.

Yes, god, I’m doing one of those things. A blog that I read did one some time ago. And a few weeks ago, Tracey had expressed her plans for one while she and Charlie were here visiting. However, they were going to be doing the whole shebang with juicing their own produce and whatnot. I was intrigued, but knew that I wouldn’t be a good candidate for the homemade version. Too much work and I’m at the office all day.

Last week, while I was elbow-deep in one of my potato chip lunches, I noticed that I felt really…swollen. I knew exactly what the culprit was: incredibly delicious North Carolina barbeque, wine, chips, wine, chips, candy, chips, fish, wine, chips, wine, and chips. Having been on a similar diet just two weeks earlier while in Conneaut, to say that I felt kind of gross would be an understatement. That’s close to a month of eating like the apocalypse is upon us. So, I busted out my credit card and purchased a three-day Renovation Cleanse.

I had timed my cleanse for when the husband and the baby would be in New York City for the weekend, my reasoning being that I would be less likely to kill them should this whole thing go horribly awry. Also, coming back from vacation our cupboards were pretty bare so I wouldn’t have too much temptation.

My juices arrived yesterday morning and were waiting for me when I came home from a walk. I had planned to start it today but figured since there were already there and I was home, I might as well jump on in.

I find the juices to be just fine. The Pineapple Apple Mint is especially delicious. I have not, however, had the experience of the Serious Eats crew of feeling too full to finish any of them. I wasn’t starving, either, but I’ve definitely been hungry in between juices. I’m mostly dealing with a mild headache which is probably due both to hunger and lack of caffeine. I don’t think I’ve been doing as much extra flushing as I’m supposed to do, as I’m supposed to keep the water and green tea coming in between. Frankly, I’ve been afraid to go into the kitchen, lest I find myself munching on dry cat food.

I can tell you that I’ve noticed just how many food blogs I’m subscribed to, as I can barely stand to look at my Google Reader and all of its delicious things. I’m really excited to eat healthy stuff after this. My mom and I have big plans this Saturday to visit the new Target in East Liberty (it has a cart escalator!) and I’m sure we’ll have to veer over to Whole Foods so that I can stick my face in the salad bar.

By the way, “juice cleanse” is just one of the phrases that’s been falling out of my mouth lately that makes me want to punch myself in the face. Others include, “my therapist says,” “guided imagery,” and “energy.” I fear that I’m a vision quest away from carrying crystals around.

That crumpling sound you hear is my heart. Please [...]]]> Not long after I published my post on Friday noting that I hadn’t uploaded last day of school pictures, I realized that I totally had and just forgot all about it. Dur. So, here is the (not so much) baby on his last day of third grade.

That crumpling sound you hear is my heart. Please ignore.

But anyway, I’m coming off of one of the best weekends I’ve ever had and I have the messy kitchen and piles of dirty laundry to prove it. Friday night I accompanied the husband to Eclipse where he was playing records. That place is decent, though I was a little put off by the Ikea-heavy decor and the odd 1998 look of the place. However, the original glass block bar is so cool-looking. I gawked at it for a good 20 minutes. We took off kind of early because we had a big day on Saturday.

I got myself and the baby up kind of early and my mom took us into Shadyside where I was getting a long-overdue haircut and pedicure. My mom dropped me off at home and she and the baby went to Legofest at the convention center and I made one more stop to the nail shop to get my fingers looking nice. It was, as Truvy from Steel Magnolias would say, “a full day’s beauty.” Then the husband and I got dressed and headed into town.

Aren't we swell?

We ate at Seviche, which we’d been dying to return to since we ate there last year, and had one of the best meals ever. Here’s our obscene list of tasty things:

Strawberry Mimosa Champagne Mojito
Cuban Pomegranate Martini
Trio of Chips and Salsa
Traditional, Curried Tropical Fruit, and Fire & Ice Seviches with Ahi Tuna, Scottish Salmon, and Hamachi
Mojo Criollo Nigiri
Bistec Bocadillos with Filet Mignon
Chorizo Wrapped Diver Scallops

I also made the executive decision to order a really expensive bottle of Malbec and noted to the waiter that we splurged because of the special occasion. As a surprise at the end of the meal, he brought us a piece of Tres Leches cake with fresh strawberries and two glasses of Champagne.

After dinner, we walked over to the Consol Energy Center for the Sade concert. It was a happy coincidence that it came around the time of our anniversary, because it was the no-brainer special event. And the concert was so, so amazing. Sade the singer and Sade the band are all so beautiful and talented and smooth and wonderful and sexy. Sade didn’t speak much, but when she did her soft British accent made things like, “Pittsburgh, you’ve built a lot of bridges and they all lead directly to my heart,” and “He charms the birds out of the sky because they want to bask in his light,” sound beautiful and poetic instead of kinda cheesy. The stage was gently lit and adorned with sheer white curtains that would dramatically fly away or drop into the recesses of the floor.

The music, of course, was beautiful. The highlight for me was “By Your Side.” I’ve always liked that song just fine, but never really regarded it as one of their greatest. But for that song the stage was lit in this warm, sunset color and at the end confetti was shot out over the audience. The husband and I were literally by each other’s sides and I knew that we would remain that way for many more years to come.

Edited to add: Can’t believe I forgot to mention Father’s Day, which we spent at my mom’s house with my dad, grandparents, aunt, and uncle. After a slight panic early in the afternoon, we had a rad cookout and then went to see Super 8 at the drive-in. Yeah. This weekend ruled.

Over the long weekend, we made our annual pilgrimage to Detroit. After carefully considering the lineup and cost for this year’s festival, we decided to not attend the festival proper, and instead save our time, money, and energy for the after parties and the city at large.

It felt a little weird to not be [...]]]>

Over the long weekend, we made our annual pilgrimage to Detroit. After carefully considering the lineup and cost for this year’s festival, we decided to not attend the festival proper, and instead save our time, money, and energy for the after parties and the city at large.

It felt a little weird to not be marching down Jefferson toward Hart Plaza every day. But, as I explained to someone who asked, I just don’t feel like it’s for me anymore. The promoters are catering to a different crowd (read: wealthier and, I’m sorry, not at all sophisticated in musical taste or public behavior). The lineup is just not as worthwhile for me to endure the discomfort of sharing a space with people who are either too young or too old to act the way that they do…not that there’s a good age to wake up and say, “Today I think I’ll experiment with wearing just underpants.” Although, from what I understand, the behavior of festival attendees in general was extremely subdued compared to that of people in town a few weeks ago for a country music festival. Apparently, nightmares came to life and rode into town on John Deere tractors.

Anyway, our loose plan was to do some touristy things that had been on our list for awhile, take it day by day as far as the festival goes and set aside money for daily admission if there was someone who we really wanted to see and didn’t think we would have another opportunity. We would eat well, check out the sights, head back to the hotel for disco naps, and then enjoy the nightlife.

This worked out wonderfully.

My Twitter and Facebook remained virtually silent throughout the weekend, until finally I stopped laughing long enough to report:

By that point, I had spent nearly every minute since Friday afternoon with the husband, the sister-in-law, the sister-in-law’s boyfriend, Frank, and Noleian, plus other groups of Pittsburghers like Jwan, Liz, Adam, Preslav, Shawn, Kristine, Curt, Amanda, Tony, Sarah, and Arnie. We had been all over the city, exploring eateries and neighborhoods that we’d never seen before. Then we would go out and dance ourselves silly before returning to the hotel and waking the birds up with our slumber party antics. We had so much fun.

There was a decent amount of cutting loose, including an ill-advised plan on Friday to sample Four Loko and Blast by Colt 45. As I heaved the cans down from their shelves at the party store, I explained, “We’re all going to try a little bit of each. It’ll be like a wine flight!”

I took some tasting notes from the assembled imbibers:

“It smells like…something I’ve smelled before.”

“It looks like…something I’ve seen before.”

“Hmm…It’s like you soaked a urinal cake in beer and drank it.”

“Gives you corpse tongue.”

“Tastes like they had a bum swish this around in his mouth and then spit it in a can.”

The Strawberry Watermelon was terrible. The Blueberry Pomegranate was okay, but we were alarmed when a small amount spilled on the nightstand and stained it immediately, as we suddenly became aware of what this concoction might be doing to our insides. The Lemonade Four Loko was almost pleasant, but it’s worth remembering that we were probably irrevocably brain-damaged by the time we cracked that bad boy open.

With that milestone behind us, we headed out to see Suburban Knight and Juan Atkins. Suburban Knight was awesome. Juan was apparently hiding a wet blanket in his leather pants because he immediately made things weird and not fun, so we left.

On Saturday, the sister-in-law and her boyfriend and I went to Hamtramck, which is a city within Detroit, and met up with the husband, Frank, and Noleian at Detroit Threads. It was a cool record store but is also a vintage clothing store. This was a huge bonus for me. When I go on record shopping trips with the husband, I usually poke around for a little bit and keep an eye out for stuff that I know he’s looking for, but I can’t help but get bored after awhile. The selection of clothing that they had was really impressive and well-organized. The sister-in-law and I both actually found a number of items that were a) cute, b) decently priced, and c) fit us. It’s pretty hard to find all three of these qualities in many vintage stores, in my experience. I bought two dresses and a totally badass coat that I’ll have to take pictures of and show you. So excited about them.

We were going to go to Slows BBQ for dinner but they had a two-hour wait and we were getting murderously hungry. We ended up at Mexican Village, which was decent but not outstanding. I was pretty proud of us for going through multiple pitchers of salsa (yes, pitchers of salsa) and margaritas.

That night, we went to a cafe/performance venue to see Kai Alce and Omar S, which was so, so great. The venue is notoriously hot and within minutes we were all sweating. This did not deter us from going crazy the rest of the night, especially since Omar S’ set was completely bananas. I kept looking at the husband and saying, “What is this track?” and was frankly disturbed when he didn’t know any of them, because that dude is a veritable walking encyclopedia of dance music. I then said out loud, “I think maybe Omar S was abducted by aliens and they gave him a stack of records to play. I’m concerned.”

We finally got to a point where we had to step outside, and the husband and I bumped into Scott Grooves. He and the husband needed to exchange records, so we walked with him to his car. It was a unique kind of delight to come upon Scott’s mid-80s Pontiac Parisienne and to watch him open the trunk to reveal a meticulous collection of plastic bags. What an odd fellow.

On Sunday, we went to a Detroit Tigers/Boston Red Sox game at Comerica Park. It was slightly miserable for the first inning or so as it was in the mid 90s and sunny. But it eventually cooled down. It was cool to see a Major League baseball game somewhere other than PNC Park and we got to see Big Papi hit a home run. Comerica Park is very…busy. It seems like when it came time to decorate it, anything that was standing still was outfitted with a tiger, a baseball, a bat, a Chevy, a fountain, a bridge, or sometimes all six.

Also, this happened:

Which only bolstered my suspicions that aliens were present and indicated to me that CLEARLY I need to drink and get little sleep more often since it does so much for my critical thinking capabilities.

For dinner, we went to Buddy’s Pizza, which was ridiculously tasty. I’ve not done extensive pizza taste tests over the country, but I feel like, objectively, Buddy’s has some of the best.

The after party that we had planned on attending was shut down and without a real back-up plan we ended up just staying in for the night, which was kind of dumb. We should have just gone out, but oh well.

Monday we finally made it to Slows which was OHMYHOLYGOD delicious. Let me blow your mind here for a second (vegetarians, look away).

Green beans, pulled pork, chicken, and brisket. The brisket literally melted in my mouth.

An unfortunately too dark picture of our ribs, macaroni and cheese, black eyed peas, and baked beans. I wish I could have documented the meal better but my hands were shaking in anticipation from the meat fumes.

Banana pudding with banana slices and Nilla wafers. Swoon!

Then we were all kinda meat-drunk.

Since we were right by the iconic Michigan Central Station, we decided to walk off a little bit of our meal and check it out like good yuppie wannabes post-industrial ruin tourists urban explorers I-can-see-this-becoming-some-really-wonderful-loft-apartments-starting-in-the-low-300s!

It’s just…stunning. It’s huge and smells kinda weird but is still really, really beautiful.

Someone who used to work there just happened to drive past and told us how gorgeous and busy it used to be. He didn’t sound sad. Just matter-of-fact.

I felt kind of bad about the pictures that I took this year, since so many of them capture what people would see as negatives. But it’s hard to capture stuff like this:

…a grown man and his friends, laughing, for a few precious days not caring about whatever has them down, genuinely having a wonderful time with people who truly understand each other. Or this:

…the beauty of a renaissance center shrouded in fog late at night. If you’ve been there, then maybe you understand what I’m talking about.

Anyway, our last night was going to be at a house party featuring Andres and Malik Pittman, both of whom I adore. I was especially excited about Andres since he’s responsible for one of my personal anthems.

Unfortunately, the barbecue turned on me and I spent an ungodly amount of time in the bathroom. I resigned myself to the fact that I was too sick to go out. I crumbled into bed and turned on TV while everyone else went out. I was in the middle of a really depressing program about Gettysburg (the average time of a limb amputation in field hospitals was 12 minutes) when Frank texted me and asked if I felt like I could possibly make it out. “Maybe,” I replied. Then I decided that there was no way that I was spending our last night there in bed. The husband drove back to the hotel to get me and I shuffled to the car, ginger ale in hand. When we got to the venue, the bouncer let me in for free because I was wearing my Northland Roller Rink shirt. I was pretty proud of myself for rallying, even though I had to elbow some people out of the way to get some choice real estate near a window, as it was too hot for me in my, er, sensitive condition.

I came home to Pittsburgh feeling tired and kind of gross, but my spirits were totally rejuvenated. I love my friends. I love my husband. I love that we do this together every year.

* * *

I’m ordering new checks and have the option of [...]]]> I’m trying to not think about earthquakes because they scare the shit out of me and aside from donating money for relief there’s not a whole hell of a lot anyone can do about stuff like that. Earth got a wedgie. Then everything went boom.

I’m ordering new checks and have the option of adding a pithy expression to them. I’m so tempted to add something ridiculous and untrue, like, “Horses are my life.”

After writing it out, it seemed so deranged and wonderful that I went ahead and ordered them as such. So now, at least in my checking existence, horses are my life.

I’m still jogging, as you can see from the widget over there on the left. I’m working on building up my speed because I have this somewhat arbitrary goal of being able to run 5K in 30 minutes. I decided to accomplish this by redoing the Couch to 5K program but using it to incrementally increase how fast I can go. It’s pretty cool, because I can remember getting on the treadmill around this time last year and barely being able to survive going 4.0 miles an hour for longer than a few seconds but eventually, after weeks and weeks, getting to 4.7 miles an hour and thinking, “Wow! I hope my face doesn’t peel off from going so fast!” Now, 4.0 mph is my warmup/cooldown walking speed and I’m pushing past 6.0 miles an hour.

One of the students where I work checks in on my progress occasionally. He did the Couch to 5K about two years ago and now regularly competes in triathlons and stuff. He’s obviously more hardcore about the whole thing, as I don’t think I’m really interested in working toward that big of a goal. He did encourage me to sign up for a 5K race, though. I told him that I had been hesitant to do so because I didn’t want to be embarrassed by how slow I am or how many walking breaks I might have to take, but quickly gobbled up my self-doubt with, “But, I KNOW that that doesn’t really matter. It’s far more badass to go out there and just do it than to stand on the sidelines and pout about how much better everyone else is.” He paused and said, “No, it matters.” To which I replied, “Oh…oh.”

A few days later he emailed me about the Race for the Cure, encouraging me again to go for it, adding, “There are lots of old people, so you know you won’t be the slowest person there.” Thanks, man! Now I’m thinking about making a point of running past old people at this breast cancer shindig and saying stuff like, “OOOOHHHH in your FACE, coffin-dodger! How does my ass look jogging further and further away from you? What was Prohibition like?” But I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if an 80-year-old elbowed me out of her way. We’ll see.

And in stark contrast to all of that health and exercise talk…

Since it’s the first Friday of Lent and we’re celebrating my mother-in-law’s birthday today, we’re going over to her house for fish sandwiches. I am far too excited about this. And I agreed to make her a birthday cake. So, knowing that she really likes Oreos, I made her a Chocolate Oreo Cake, the recipe for which I found at Sing for Your Supper.

The hardest part was actually cutting Oreos in half. They’re such brittle cookies. Even still, I didn’t finish up with this until nearly 1 a.m. because I had a horrific stomachache that kept me confined to the couch for a few hours.