Greg McElhatton

I do find it funny that when it snows an awful lot, my gut reaction (no pun intended) is to cook. I have actually run out of one size of plastic container, between all the leftover cream of cauliflower soup, chicken and oregano chili, and sun-dried tomato chicken that I’ve been making. (The latter two in my trusty crock pot, which I love to death this time of year.)

Meanwhile, they’re calling for more snow today and tomorrow. We’ll see what happens. I’m hoping at this point they’re over-predicting and it will just be five inches. (Just five inches, he says. An attitude normally shared by people who live much further north than me.) I suspect the 25″ is some wild-overshooting. Or is that just a nervous whimper in my voice?

At the rate we’re going, I won’t see my office all week. I am still working, though; the government may close but our deadlines don’t change as a result. So I’ve got the laptop set up and I’m plugging away. I did have a nice lunch with Karon today though; we couldn’t take being in our homes any longer and needed a change of scenery. It’s always nice to see something different even for a few hours. (I ate way too much, though. I’d say it would be salad-for-dinner time except that salad ingredients were apparently the first to get wiped out locally. Oh well.)

I’ve also decided that if I ruled the world I’d get all of the major highways heated. Or perhaps twenty feet tall hairdryers at strategic locations to melt all the snow. Seriously, where the hell are we going to put it all? I have mental fantasies of the snow getting airlifted into the Potomac River, but it usually then ends with the Potomac overflowing and sweeping Old Town Alexandria away. Oops.

Fingers crossed for no more snow. Please, please, please no more snow.

They’re predicting snow again for the DC area, and a lot of it. After our mid-December snowpocalypse, I’ve noticed that there’s been a distinct shift in attitude when it comes to snow in this area. Normally those who hate snow curse bitterly at the mention of it, and others jump up and down with varying degrees of excitement. When we had snow last weekend, though, I didn’t spy anyone outside frolicing in the snow. No one trying to sled, or build snowmen, or even just walk around and enjoy it. The only people I saw outside were firmly heading towards a destination, usually to or from the Whole Foods down the street.

I can’t say I blame them, to be honest. I hated snow with a white hot passion (no pun intended) for many years, thanks to working at a grocery store. Snow meant everyone would rush into the store and buy up all the milk, eggs, bread, and toilet paper. (I believe I’ve mentioned this phenomenon before as “french toast and diarrhea season.”) And whenever people would start to finally get normal about the weather and their reactions, we’d have something crazy like the blizzard of 1996 where two feet of snow dumped onto the area.

Mind you, that was fairly nuts. Our trucks were immobilized for several days and all the stores actually did start running out of products (thanks in part to people coming in and buying 12 gallons of milk all at once; no lie, I saw it on far too many occasions) and we had lines going all the way to the end of the store. Once the trucks were able to finally get out again, mid-week, they could only stop at one store in each region. So I’d take the seats out of my parents’ mini-van and drive it to the drop-off store and fill it up with boxes of eggs and bring them back to our store. (By Wednesday I started to wonder if the only actual food we had left in the store was butter-flavored cooking spray.) It was, easily, the most memorable part of working at Giant Food after graduation from college.

Anyway, the madness has begun here once again. They’re predicting a snownami for Friday and Saturday, and people are freaking out. I’d actually forgotten about it while on the way to work this morning, and thought I’d stop by Trader Joe’s and get something for lunch. Eek. Well, at least it was only 9:30 when I got there, so while it was busy for that time of day, it wasn’t totally-insane levels of people. Yet. (A co-worker went to the grocery store an hour ago and said it is running out of food. Oh come on people, how can you not have food for several days in your home already?)

So, here’s my hopes for the snow, in order of my hopes.

1. Psych! Only a couple of inches of snow.
2. It’s not so bad that the movie theatre up the hill closes, as I’d like to see Invictus this weekend.
3. Entire Eastern Seaboard gets so much snow that it snaps off and plunges into the ocean, thus meaning that everyone who bet that sort of thing would happen to California first looks awfully surprised.

Really, #1 or 2 would be fine. Too much to ask for? Oh well, maybe I’ll finally get to re-arrange the contents of my kitchen cabinets.

*blows dust off of the website*

Er, yeah. It’s been a busy month. But I suppose I should at least briefly mention my trip to Florida two weeks ago, to run the Goofy Race and a Half Challenge at Walt Disney World. It probably would have been an unremarkable trip (aside from running 39.3 miles over the course of a weekend), except for one little problem… that horrible cold front that ripped through a lot of the country, including Florida.

When we signed up for these races a year ago, I honestly didn’t imagine us bundled up with three layers of clothing, winter hats, gloves, and still being cold. Which is, of course, exactly how we felt.

Yeah. Cold. Very cold. So cold that on Sunday we bought additional pairs of gloves, rain parkas, and towels for additional insulation for before the race started. (Once you’re running, it doesn’t so matter that it’s 25 degrees out. And sleeting. No really, it sleeted on us on Saturday for the half marathon.)

On the bright side, we did get to pose for all sorts of silly photographs with various Disney characters; for the full marathon we stopped at literally every single one we saw. We figured it would be a good way to combat having run the half marathon the morning before.

I mean, hello, it’s Stitch! Only from my favorite (non-Pixar) Disney animated movie Lilo and Stitch, after all. As the race went on, we got a little sillier and punchier, too. So we ended up with photos like this:

So yeah, we froze during the races. But it was a ton of fun. And the other days were nice, too. We went to all four parks over the course of three days, which was a blast. We ate at two of the nice restaurants in Epcot (Le Cellier and Teppan Edo), something I’d never done before and quite enjoyed. And thanks to an iPhone app that tells you wait times for rides, we went on a lot of rides.

Oh yeah, even when it wasn’t 6am, we still froze. Oh well. It would have been nice to wear t-shirts instead of coats, but it was none the less a great trip. But now I need to go back sometime when the weather is a little more cooperative, right?

Huh. We actually got one for a change. Well, at least some people are excited about it.

Uh oh.

I’m always surprised when we get crazy warm temperature in the winter here in DC, and this weekend was no exception. 55 degrees on Saturday! 62 degrees on Sunday! When I’m opening up the windows and turning off the heat, well, you know it’s working out well.

Ironically, of course, I’m going to be in southern California for part of next week and I think it will actually be slightly colder there. What’s up with that? Oh well, I’m enjoying this weather while I can.

Even despite a bad ending to an otherwise good 14-miler on Saturday, it felt great to run outside and move in the weather. It just makes me that much more eager for spring. But until then, I’ll settle for a good meal on Saturday night at La Ferme in Chevy Chase, outdoor seating at Sunday brunch, having the windows open while writing this afternoon, and now sitting down for Friday’s Battlestar Galactica. I had a ton of stuff to get accomplished this weekend, but it’s nice to have them all done.

It was unseasonably warm in the DC area today—I believe the high hit 60 degrees—which was perfect for my 12-mile run today.

Not so perfect was that with all the snow we had last week, I ended up having to regularly slow down and dodge huge sheets of ice. All that speeding up and slowing down gets old, and it’s hard to really find yourself in a good rhythm. Ah well.

Afterwards, though, I was doing a calf stretch and staring up at the sky and thought to myself, “My run may have been rather bleah, but it sure is a beautiful day.” And that it certainly was. It made all the frustration almost worth it.

(Meanwhile, we should in theory be getting more snow in about 28 hours. Yeesh.)

I do not understand why I am so tired lately. I’ve been going to bed at a reasonable hour and then… bam. Sacking out hard. As someone who normally wakes up every two hours or so (and then usually falls right back asleep) it is very odd to wake up once, at most, the entire evening.

Now this may sound like a great thing, but the problem is really that it’s a symptom of something else. I’ve been finding it almost impossible to wake up in the mornings; I ended up having to scratch my Tuesday morning run for that reason, and this morning I actually hit the snooze button for a solid two hours before I was able to get up. Maybe I can squeeze the run between work and tonight’s book club, but we will see. At least I’ve done some non-running-exercise since my last run on Sunday; rowing and elliptical for an hour on Monday, and 50 minutes of my spinning class on Wednesday. But yeah, something is seriously kicking my butt this week.

So far, the best idea I’ve come up with is that I am somehow channeling all the woodland animals and trying to hibernate until spring. It would be sad to miss Thanksgiving and Christmas, but on the other hand, there is a certain appeal to it all. Hmmm. (Stupid autumn weather.)

Not much else going on, really. Last night’s dinner was fantastic; I’d marinated some chicken and put so much chipotle on it that even I found it really hot. Sooo good. Plus some chopped up eggplant that I fried for a minute or two, and then some pumpkin muffins to go with it all. (Most of the muffins will in theory go with me to book club tonight, but we’ll see if anyone eats them or not. I might be living on these for a while.)

Oh, and now my neck is mysteriously aching. I think it is bored and wants some attention. Hmph.

On the bright side, I am starting to get excited about the idea of adding some swimming and biking into my routine after the marathon. Hopefully that excitement will continue long enough into making it an actual routine, and not merely an, “It’s exciting because it’s not actually happening yet” sort of thing. We shall see! Those laps don’t swim themselves, after all.

The definitive moment for me, these past few years, is when I’ve come back from an early morning run and instead of a cool shower, I want a hot one. Yep, the temperature seems to have finally done the big drop; skipping past September and October weather entirely and plunging into late November.

Of course, the other big definitive moment for me is going to the farmer’s market in Arlington Courthouse and seeing how everything is turned over. Now instead of the big items being asparagus and tomatoes and corn, we’re seeing a plethora winter squash, apples, potatoes, cider… definitely a different sort of pickings available, but all still looking delicious.

In the latest shocking news, operation “get rid of stuff” is going pretty well. Two bags of books went to the library this morning, and two more bags will get evaluated by the local comic store to see if there’s anything they want/need before I either sell off and/or donate the rest. Next up, those two paper ream boxes in the corner of the living room that have review materials that I am clearly never, ever, ever going to get to.

Before then, though, it’s time for another glass of apple cider (so, so good) and maybe fry up one of the little eggplants that I picked up at the farmer’s market. Or alternately the maytag blue cheese and potato tart. Decisions, decisions.

It’s pretty bad when someone asks what the most exciting thing you did last weekend and your response is, “Cleaned my apartment.” It’s doubly bad when you’re not even done, yet. But it’s actually at the top of the list for me. That’s probably because when things slide in my home, it’s not a build-up of trash or dirt, but rather piles of stuff everywhere. At first it’s just a small stack of books next to the desk, and the next thing I know half of my home is infested with piles of things.

So, I’m folding in the “clean this stuff up” path with a “get rid of things you don’t need any more” mission, and so far it’s a success. I have three bags of books and videos to go to the library; I’m especially excited about having sorted through the two comic book “long boxes” that housed my Doctor Who VHS tapes and pared them down to just two “short boxes” instead, thanks to weeding out the ones that have been released on DVD. Suddenly I have a lot more room in my closet, hurrah! That whole section of my bedroom is now a thousand times better; the stacks of books and unsorted CDs are all put away, I’ve rearranged some of the shelves, and I no longer cringe when I look at my room.

I’m not sure why I ever let it get to this level when I look at what a relief it always is to take care of it—I mean, we’re talking about an end result where I walk into my room and just stop and beam at how much better it looks. You’d think I’d be going crazy to keep it that way. The strange dichotomy of my head, I suppose. And until then I have to just keep excavating my room like some sort of bizarre archaeological dig.

It was a good weekend in addition to that, though. Charlie’s good friend Devo is visiting from Boston, and she’s super-sweet and nice to be around. We hit the Jim Henson exhibit at the Smithsonian, and while I’ve heard complaints that there aren’t that many actual Muppets on display, I really love the behind-the-scenes sketches and drawings that he created. They’re both beautiful and a creative inspiration to look at. We also hit my favorite Smithsonian museum, the Sackler Gallery; the new Yellow Mountains exhibit on that region in China was simply breathtaking.

I also finally caught The Dark Knight, which I thought was very good, although not the nerdgasm that so many others seemed to be claiming. A really cheesy ending, but so many small and individual good scenes that I’m willing to forgive. I’d be happy to see a third Nolan Bat-movie down the line.

(And last but not least, while I did not miss going to Comic-Con in the slightest, seeing everyone’s pictures makes me miss seeing my friends there. Maybe I could just go to San Diego and not enter the show? Ha ha.)

Today my throat is a little sore from running in the bad air quality. I suppose I should be thankful it’s just Code Orange and not Code Red or Purple (aka, “Don’t even think about breathing” levels of badness). By the time I was done with my run it was too late to take the bus into work, but I might just leave my car here and take the bus home, then bus it back in tomorrow. I’m enjoying my extra reading time that I get from my once-a-week public transportation.