Warmth! Warmth!

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.

Opening the Windows! [365portraits: 039]

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.

After the Run [365portraits: 032]

After the Run [365portraits: 032]

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.)

Hibernation

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.

$5.00 a BasketSo 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.

Autumn Has Arrived

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.

Winter Squash

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.

Excavating Sanity

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.

Good Morning

Ever had one of those mornings where everything seemed to just click?

This one unfolded perfectly. Got up and went to the gym early, snagging the last rowing machine. The woman next to me, Kathy, was chatty but in a good way. She said she didn’t recognize me and I’d mentioned that I was coming earlier these days, and a little more often while I took a week or so off of running. So we chatted about marathons (she agreed that Marine Corps is too crowded these days) and how she used to run them until her doctor made her stop, but how her husband runs ultra-marathons. She also laughed that I was “rowing too fast” her her to keep up and that she was competitive.

Now, I was thinking she was in her mid-to-late 50s. Turns out I was off by about, oh, 15 years. I want to be as in-shape and generally cool as Kathy in my 70s. And rowing next to her did wonders for my performance; a 30-minute set for me normally racks up the calorie counter in the 360-375 range, and around 6500 meters. Today’s set ended with it being at 404 calories and somewhere around 6750m. Clearly I will need to schedule my exercise around her schedule.

Bento Lunch -- 2008-04-11After a set on the elliptical and a nice chat over there with Roger (who had come in to hit the Friday morning spinning class, much to my surprise; turns out he had the morning off) it was back home, where after a shower (using a free sample from LUSH of their Buffy soap, which is great stuff) I took the brown rice out of the steamer, cooked some sausage and added it in, then seasoned the whole thing with coriander, chipotle pepper powder, cayenne pepper, and a few other spices and turned it into part of a bento lunch.

From there, it was off to work and the GW Parkway was just beautiful. I rolled the windows down, put the B-52s song “Hot Corner” on auto-repeat (and for those wondering how long the commute is, it was almost done with its fifth play when I got to work) and sang along while the warm breeze blew into the car and flowering trees gently dropped their petals. It’s just the right temperature out; no jacket needed, just a short-sleeve shirt and jeans and off we go.

There’s no big event in all of this. No “and then I found a million dollars” moment, no sudden turning point. Just a really good morning where you feel awake, and alert, and aware of everything around you, and alive. It was just about perfect, really. I wish all mornings were like this, but I’ll take them when they appear.

I hope everyone else is having their own version of a good morning.

One Brief Weather-Related Grumble

For my running program this winter, I was supposed to run five miles today. For anyone who’s in the DC area, you will know that there’s that whole strange phenomenon known as snow covering the area. (Just a couple of inches, nothing to freak out about, even though people are somehow unsurprisingly doing just that.) So running outside seems like a good idea only ifI am desperate to break a leg. And with book club tonight (I’m leading the discussion, no less), I can’t wait until this evening to pick up the distance.

I got up early so I could head to the community center, where I could run around and around and around their indoor track 40 times. And riiiiight before I left, I decided to check Arlington County’s weather closing website. Good thing I did; due to the weather, the facility wasn’t opening until 10am. Argh!

Still, it’s all (mostly) good. I ended up working at home for a few hours (waiting for all rush hour traffic to go away), and then came in. Which means that in an hour or so, I can leave (having worked a full day), go home and change, and go over to the no-doubt-empty community center and get my run in. So, in theory, it’s working out in the end. But I kind of wish I’d gotten to sleep in today. Oh well.