Drops.

San Francisco is historically a very dry (albeit always overcast) place. So when it was so wet this year that I have not only bought but USED rainboots...you can imagine my disdain. I thought the point of living in a coastal city in California was to soak up the sun and work on my surfing?

The weather has also negatively impacted my mood, because not only am I trapped indoors all day crunching data "line-by-line" as Nolan loves reminding me, but I also have to stare out the windows into the dismalness outside. That and the people on the muni drip all over me and I am sure it's not just water. To ease my pain, I have been swallowing boxes of raisinets whole at work. Okay and by that I just mean eating a lot of them. A LOT. Thank goodness my espresso-fast is still in effect (until Sunday!), or I would be drowning my sorrows in a venti you-know-what.

Seriously.

Thanks to a friend's link on facebook, I've stumbled upon a new favourite website: http://www.wtfjapanseriously.com/
Because the world needs more robo-geishas and ridiculous gameshows. Hours and hours of mindless entertainment designed to show you just how possible it can be to experience "enough" of a country from your own home.

The weekend was delicious, and now I'm facing the gloom of a 4-day week, because we're taking Friday off for Easter. Why is it that 4-day weeks pass slower than 5-day weeks?

Down

Last night we scored tickets to the San Francisco Ballet, so Nolan took me to see The Little Mermaid! To Nolan's disappointment, instead of the Disney version, it turned out to be the Hans Christian Anderson version, and consequentially, a real downer. No joke. The Little Mermaid literally ends up in a wheelchair and watches her Prince fall in love with some skank and then he gets married and she dies alone and almost naked in a bare white room.

But! The dancing was beautiful and it was cool to see our friend do her thing on stage (she's in the ballet). And we felt cultured for a night. And it was a good excuse for a date, so I'll take it! Here's a behind-the-scenes glance at what we saw:

A celebration of birth

Yesterday was my perfect husband's birthday, so we celebrated in style, and he got to eat like a king all day! Seriously, even Ben and Jerry's had free cone day and Starbucks had free pastry day = king. The night before we had a little german chocolate cake to celebrate, since we wouldn't get a chance for cake the next night at dinner.

In the morning, we had eggs benedict (and the eggs were perfectly poached, thank you very much!):

We even stuck a little magic birthday candle in there for effect:

We met up for lunch with Chelsey and her friend, who were randomly in town to see Wicked (great surprise!)...and then after work we headed to Limon to meet up with a bunch of our friends to celebrate his birthday over good food and wine. Seriously, I am a HUGE fan of Peruvian food now, and their Sangria was to die for! After a huge family style meal for 12 people with the best chicken and huge corn I've ever had, we all trekked over to Humphrey Slocombe's for ice cream...and therefore hit 2 of the "Top 100 in SF" places in one night (Limon's chicken made the list!)! Mmm. Other than ridiculous flavours (Pepper-mint = made with mint and actual pepper! Jesus Juice = red wine and coke, Secret Breakfast, and they are developing one called "Fetal Kitten", wtf?!) and a shady location in the outer Mission, it was awesome! Sadly, the only picture I took of the whole night was of Ash U enjoying her cone with the much debated decoration (yes, it's real!):

Nolan, you are wonderful and amazing and my best friend, and I am so lucky to have you! Here's to the next 25 (and more!)!

If I cannot run...

...then I shall walk. I am tired of not having a means of exercise other than being cooped up in the gym, so I've decided to try and walk either to or from work each day. Not only does this mean I get a good workout, since that is several miles of hills, but it also helps me relax...and I get to avoid the Muni! EUREKA.

I know I can't commit to cooking one new thing every day, but my efforts thus far at cooking more in general have been good. See last post if you don't believe me. Tomorrow morning I'm trying my hand at Eggs Benedict with Hollandaise sauce, since Nolan has been hoping for that for awhile, and tomorrow is his birthday! So he gets whatever he wants. Personally I'm just hoping not to fail at poaching those eggs.

Around the world in 4 days

I have been upholding my resolution to cook more this year, instead of just taking the lazy way out (goodbye, easy pasta and frozen meals!). This weekend, I made a Thai peanut-crusted chicken bake yesterday with lime juice, thai sweet rice with coconut and peanuts, and stir-fry veggies. Tonight is a chicken tikka masala recipe that I've been marinating since yesterday and am already drooling over, homemade naan, homemade mango lassi, and basmati rice. MMM. And I know this isn't homemade, but on Tuesday we're going to a Peruvian restaurant for Nolan's bday, and I just feel like I'm getting my cultural food dosage this week. And it's fantastic.

This weekend has thankfully been lazy and wonderful. And I still have several hours to go! Let's hope that this next week passes just as quickly as it can.

Milo is officially the laziest creature ever. He sleeps with us at night, then gets up to eat, then sprints across the living room and maybe gnaws on someone, then goes back to sleep either on Nolan's chair, or on our bed, or inside the curtain of our bedroom window that he somehow makes into a hammock (our curtain rod is bent in two because of it). Whenever we're feeling overwhelmed with something, he's an easy target for "oh life is just SO HARD, isn't it Milo?". I think we're becoming resentful. In fact, I'm blogging from bed right now, and this is what I see:

Rhapsodizing

Waking up at 5-something to go to work to put in extra hours is a giant B. Especially with daylight savings, and therefore no light outside until 7am. I hate waiting for the muni in the dark.

I have been locked in a tiny room all day shuffling through huge stacks of paper and I think I'm going to stab my eyes out. Needless to say, today was the kind of day that makes me regret giving up espresso for Lent.

Can't wait to get home to my boys, and get some Tuttimelon with Ash U and Jessica (back in town for Spring Break)!

Listening to: Bohemian Rhapsody

Peddling petal pedals

I tried a run today after 2 weeks of nothing and it was a BAD idea. Apparently the knee isn't healed. Then I picked up my (proverbial) fat rolls off the floor and made a commitment to find a new way to exercise. Status: we're still looking at a new bike for me, so if you know of one...other than the fact that biking would make my legs giant with muscle, it seems like a good idea. And then Nolan and I could bike off into the sunset together.

Spring is finally around the corner--there have been daffodils on random city blocks (where the sun penetrates the gloom), and it reminds me that the world isn't ending afterall.

From Pudding to Pacifica

It's been awhile since I posted pics, so here goes some catching up.

This one is from a couple weeks ago, when Ash U and I went to Pacifica to get some r&r on a cliff overlooking the ocean...beautiful!

Last night after group, Nolan decided that he needed to pamper my face/aka put his pudding all over it, and held me down on the lesson couch to do so. We have officially dubbed our little brown loveseat "the lesson couch" because it seems that whenever we have to address something serious, or call out one another on something, we end up sitting on the lesson couch. Apparently smearing with pudding is a very serious lesson.

My father-in-law sent me this picture today, and I simply HAD to post it...isn't he wonderful! Sorry I forgot to rotate it. Heh.

And after work, I went to Samovar (a tea lounge) with my friend Elli, and we marveled over how pretty their teas are, while enjoying the lovely view and nice weather. See for yourself!

Lastly, on my way home, I saw this (defaced) sign in the underground and it made me laugh. So I thought I'd share some of the wisdom from someone with a sharpie that was low-on-ink.

Schnitzel!

Since last night, it's been a whirlwind of faces and things...SpeakEasy last night after work, and then playing games and hanging out at one of N's classmate's houses. Getting up early to do a Safeway run because we were hosting small group breakfast for 2 small groups at our house at 9ish. People stayed 'til about noon, and then I had to work for a few hours (yes, it's Saturday, I KNOW.), and then frantically trying to set up a Warcraft game online between me, N, and my coworker, then topping it off with an authentic German dinner to celebrate my heritage (and to quench my craving, since I had been perusing the "Suppenkuche" website earlier this week). We made Spaetzle (with nutmeg!) with butter, hot Kartoffelnsalat, and my Oma's fantastic recipe for Schnitzel. Smmhh!

Now here I sit at the end of the day, waiting for YET ANOTHER coffeecake to come out of the oven. It's become an obsession, and Nolan just isn't satisfied unless he has some for breakfast. This is where I realize I am going to put on weight if I don't watch it.

Also: today we burned through 18 eggs. YES. EIGHTEEN.

Quote of the day:

Nolan (after dinner): "Okay. I guess I like parts of your culture."

Quoted.

Quote of the day:

Nolan: "I had to do a rectal today. The guy was a jerk...so I used my thumb."

Rainy Days and Mondays...

Usually I hate the rain. But now I have been just DYING for a rainy day, so that I can try out these:

Rainboots eliminate one of the only reasons I hate the rain: soggy socks/pants. Also wind + rain is pretty bad, but generally it's a calming, cleansing thing, rain is.

When I was in 7th grade, we got a new puppy, and we brought it over to my gramma's house to meet her mini schnauzer, Fritz. My mom took our sweet little golden retriever puppy and sat on the living room floor with it in her lap while Fritz sniffed around her furiously. We knew the relationship was doomed when Fritz lifted his leg on her skirt. Which I guess was an odd way of Fritz expressing love and ownership over her. At our house, Nolan generally claims to hate Milo's guts, but on a few occasions, I have found proof of his love, in them cuddling together on the couch and Nolan whispering "I love you, buddy" when he thinks I can't hear, or when they play together in the mornings. This seems to be further proof, as it has happened on more than 1 occasion, and generally Milo is pretty angry afterwards (as you can see in the picture--sorry for the quality, it's an action shot), which is how he expresses love back:

A prime example that humans do indeed mark their territory; we just don't use urine.

Integration migration

The challenge when one has little time and a lot to do, is finding time for switching up routines. I do laundry on the weekends, but recently switched to doing it weeknights. It's been a challenge. I had a firm running schedule and now am not running at all so I have to find another activity and work it in. It's been impossible this week. Meanwhile, I am flooded at work and think about it while at home. I am just now on my way home from a women's networking event, where one of the speakers said that today "it is no longer about work-life balance, but about work-life integration." I have found this to be increasingly true, especially when you let the two merge in some areas.

Something I value in life is having a life. This is why Nolan and I find ways to travel and experience worlds outside of our own. We are currently finding a suitable gap in our schedules this summer to try and take another trip (and check off 1 of the 3 continents I haven't visited...guess which one!). Milo is making plans also, as he takes a honeymoon of his own each year while we are off exploring.

Roulette!

Apparently there is a new craze getting started called "Chatroulette". We watched a Daily Show special on it this morning, and then thinking they were exaggerating, tried it this evening. Jon Stewart does not exaggerate, my friends. So unless you want to burn your eyes out watching random perverts on a chat roulette system (which is exactly what it sounds like it is), or see black screens and know they are watching you, or just see random weirdos, I'd recommend sitting this trend out. Though the thrill of knowing you are about to see and be seen by who-knows-who is exciting, heh. We ended up showing a close-up of the crook of my arm (fake buttcrack) and watching peoples' reactions. Excellent.

Also I got to test my new rainboots today...no more soggy socks!

Another week, another coffeecake

Since we quickly polished off the last blueberry sour cream coffeecake, and Nolan basically wakes up drooling for more, I made another one on Friday night. I had a friend over baking a pear tart anyway, so I thought I'd just whip up another coffeecake with this amazing recipe, while I had the flour out. Turns out that you can't eat sugary delicious fatty foods every day without paying the price. I'm already feeling the effects on my figure.

Speaking of which...I have to really watch what I eat for the next few weeks, because my appetite from running is still huge, but actual activity is next to nothing, so I don't want to overdo it. With that said, I guess it is not surprising that I have to announce in here the demise of my half-marathon training. After Nolan's exam of my knee and his opinion, and after trying to run 4 miles again after letting it "heal" for a good many days, and having to stop before I even got to 2 miles...this all proved to me that it truly isn't a good idea for me to do long distances. I even told Nolan that maybe I could switch the half-marathon to the 10k on the same day, but he looked at me icing after failing to even go 2 miles and said, "Uh huh. I don't think so." My feelings on this have ranged from sadness and feeling depressed about it, to frustration and mild anger (at nothing or nobody in particular). In short, I am MAJORLY bummed, because it feels like what happened with swimming all over again (in fact, it is the SAME joint issue--as if I didn't already know I have joint problems in all major joints in my body). When that happened, I went to see a Sports Medicine doctor, and he told me almost exactly what Nolan told me this time--that physically he supposed I COULD run, but it would result in trashing that joint and maybe requiring surgery in a few years, along with being extremely painful. Basically, my cartilage gets very inflamed upon impact (this happened with my shoulders too while swimming long distance and butterfly races, so I wonder if it is actually impact or just pressure during intense movements), and the bone begins to erode away at it. Eventually in some places, the bones begin to grind against each other, which is very painful. I tried the knee brace on that last run, and it helped for a few minutes until I realized that the reason it helped was because my leg was numb. It had swollen inside the brace so that I couldn't feel anything! Anyway, all this is to say that despite my hopes, I won't be able to do this race or very long distances anymore (though secretly I am hoping to let me knee heal and be able to do a 10k again at least someday!). But I will still be in Santa Cruz on that day, cheering on Sarah as she runs an ungodly distance and feasts on sport beans while sweat is pouring down her back. Woo!

Last night we went to PF Chang's for a dinner date, and since the wait was over an hour, we put our names in and walked around the Bay Street (Emeryville) shopping village, which is pretty much like its own little town, but complete with every shop you could want. Everything from designer boutiques to Old Navy and Sephora. I'll tell you, we hadn't had lunch, and when we got in and our food arrived, it was the most amazing food ever. And it was great to go out to a nice dinner out of the city and enjoy some quality time together! So THANKS, Senior Caldwells, for a night out on the town; it was fantastic!

I also got to hike up a bluff near Rockaway Beach in Pacifica yesterday with Ash U, and seriously - along with the uncharacteristically beautiful sunny weather (Pacifica is one of the foggiest cities in the nation), and the big surf under the cliffs, it was absolutely gorgeous! And nice to feel totally removed from busy SF.

Goal of the day: fix my bike so I can still get good exercise...OR find another way to stay in shape (outdoors) during the weekends when I don't want to go back downtown to my gym.

11pm

I love that my tutee is now as entwined in Bella and Edward's lives as I was once. I say "once" because GIRLFRIEND, it just gets worse. She came in today and threw her bags down on the chair and started griping about something Bella and Edward were doing in the book, as if they were sitting in the chair next to me, and I just looked at her like, I KNOW.

Last night I had a dream that a Tsunami hit SF, and I was in a building downtown, and started scaling the walls of that highrise like I was Spiderman, watching the waves come higher. And then I waited for the water to go down, went to high ground, and found Nolan taking pictures of the whole mess, and he was like "OH, HEEEYYY!" and then we high-fived and watched the sunset together. Let's hope that if all these earthquakes do turn up to have a surprise in store for SF, it ends up like that dream. Maybe minus the Spiderman part. Because I don't think I could climb these walls, and I certainly couldn't do it with Milo tucked screeching and flailing underneath one arm.

These nights that Nolan works the late shift and I am home alone are some of the most unproductive ever. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Book Recommendation - The Liar's Club by Mary Karr. Okay so it's a bit intense and not a happy read. But it's painfully funny and heart-wrenching. It's like a solid mix between Catcher In The Rye and The Pillars of the Earth...which is one of my favourite all-time books. So if you can handle those, you'd like this one.

Quote(s) of the Day:

Pop (via text): "Can ya believe it? Mom and I are at a karaoke bar in Diamond Springs! Ha!"

Pop: "You guys are already helping us out. You're just a few steps from changing our diapers."

Happy Anniversary to my sweet parents--26 years today!!!

Tree People

While adding some pics for ylehsa, I found these, that apparently I had forgotten about since Sunday. Nolan was a very dutiful husband and cheered me on as I ran, and even took pictures of us to prove it! Most of them just look like I'm scowling, but in all fairness, we were running up a hill in this picture, and had been for the last 2 miles. The whole first 3 miles were uphill. With Sarah's faux-cheery face in this pic, I know it's hard to tell that we were working hard...but check out the face of the girl behind us:

I felt a little cheerier on the way back...running downhill, even though I'm sure that's what killed my knees.

Speaking of which...I took today off to heal, following my personal Doctor's sound advice after he examined the knee. I have discovered that when I don't get to run, I feel a little bit angry and really bummed. So to cheer myself up, I had a glass of wine with dinner and baked a blueberry and sour cream coffee cake. Heh. And I'm going to eat it while stretching my muscles out on the rug and trying to keep Milo from stealing pieces. He already stole several artichoke leaves from my dinner plate, ripped them to shreds, and then came back for more before I put my foot down.

We're very blessed in a lot of regards, and although I've been feeling very contemplative and even a little down sometimes lately, overall it all brings me back to feeling thankful. Thankful for our families, thankful for our church and small group, thankful for our friends, thankful for my job and Nolan's schooling, thankful for having lots of time together, and of course thankful for my wonderful partner in life. Even thankful for our car, which sounds like death as it rattles along Lincoln in the morning, getting us to work. One of these days it's going to just blow us to bits, and you can remember that I wrote this.

My high school English teacher once called my class a bunch of "tree people". Meaning, we were interested in the grades, but not what we were actually learning. We were examining the trees but had no idea we were in a forest. Lately I have felt like a tree person. I get very focused on living in the present...which is typically sold as a good thing, but in reality I hone in on what I am doing so much that I can't step back and breathe, and then it makes me feel frustrated and stifled. Sometimes I feel stifled just being in this city, but then I have to step back and realize what an amazing opportunity it is to be here, doing what we're doing, right now. And I have to drop the details and appreciate my life on a larger scale. I guess I'm a tree-hugger in the worst possible sense. Time to check out the forest.

I've decided that I need to keep working on my book. Maybe someday I'll post bits and pieces in here, but for now it's one of my only creative outlets, and I've felt a little withered without one. So for now, bonne nuit!