Sunday, February 27, 2011

You DID say it was your birthday!


HAPPY BIRTHDAY MRS POOH AND SLICK! Hope you guys are having great days, and getting tons of great gifts!!!!!!!


Why can't every weekend be a 3 day weekend?


As a matter of fact, I would like some cheese with my whine. Last weekend was so spectacular it makes me want to cry thinking about it. Why you ask? Did you do anything exciting? Not really to be honest. We were mostly lazy, but it was that feeling of going to bed on Sunday night without dread that did it for me.

So last Saturday we really did nothing. We lazed around, watched bad TV, and just took it easy. Sunday I had enough - I declared to Blondie - "We are doing something!" So he said "Well, what do you want to do?" and my answer was my typical answer (eat). We headed up to 8th Ave and hit up Shake Shack! I've heard about Shake Shack for years now, basically that it's the NYC equivalent of In-and-Out. Blondie went last summer with his sis and her family, and he liked it but didn't think it was mind-blowing. But I wanted to try it - so we headed out on Sunday into the freezing cold (65 degrees and sunny on Friday, 25 degrees on Sunday - go NYC), and hit up Shake Shack for lunch.

The burger was *insane*. I don't know what Blondie ate last year, but my burger was so flipping good - hot, greasy, covered in cheese and special sauce ;) Blondie even said that his burger was a lot better than the last time. We split an order of fries, and we each got our own shake (me = chocolate of course; Blondie = caramel). After lunch, we hit up our bakery for a loaf of banana nut bread before heading home to crash for a few hours.

I headed back out about 3 hours later to meet my coworker for "La Cage Aux Folles" starring JEFFREY TAMBOR and HARVERY FIERSTEIN. OMG people - it was like my wet dream. We had "cabaret" seats which were stage-side seats, and the cast LOVED my coworker. They were all over him like white on rice. Jeffrey Tambor acknowledged him at the very start of the play, and then the drag queens were on him, making eyes at him, singling him out - I felt like the fat frumpy friend (well, if the shoe fits ;) I LOVED the play - it was so much fun, and having Harvey Fierstein be in it (the original author) - it's like seeing a piece of history in the making.

After the play, I went skipping back to my hood, and called Blondie for dinner. Justin Timberlake had opened a branch of his restaurant in our hood and I wanted to try it out (Southern Hospitality). It was actually pretty good. I liked the cornbread and the dry rub ribs a lot, the mac-and-cheese was okay, and the fried chicken was really juicy.

Monday was another lazy kind of day. I did yoga, and then went on a salt binge the likes of which I've not had in about 10 years. All day long I was craving salt, I couldn't get it out of my head. We even went bowling to take my mind off of it - the bowling was fun, and the alley is only a block from our house, so that was nice. Finally I gave in to the salt craving and we headed out to buy chips and dip, and then order in massive amounts of sushi for dinner which I doused in soy.

Tuesday, I woke up feeling like I had kept my tongue in a salt lick all night long. I headed down for my run without any high hopes for it, but actually ended up rocking it out (3.5 miles in 38 minutes is super good for me). Wed and Thurs were also runs, with Thurs run being atrocious. I had to walk half of it at least, just could NOT get my breaths and steps aligned. It was torture.

The good news of it all was that my week went super fast - usually after a 3 day weekend, the week d.r.a.g.s but last week was one of the fastest I've had since I've been in NYC.

Friday night, we made some whole wheat pasta and sauce with a ton of veg in it - I had to carb load because my long runs started increasing this week. It was only 5 miles, but it's further than I've run since I did my 13K last October. I was nervous when I went down to the gym about the run, since my Thurs run was the shit (and not in a good way), but I did really well. It took me 57 mins to run it, but I did run it all, and I felt good about it the entire way. And 57 mins is really only 2 mins faster than I would love for my timing to be. So all around a good run.

After my run, and Blondie's workout, we debated about food. We finally decided to hit up this Argentinian restaurant in our hood - it was so good. I had a glass of sangria, and tuna tartar with a side of red beans, and Blondie had their signature chicken and some fried plantains. I ate bites of his chicken and it was the bomb, but I was also ecstatic with my food. Blondie was really sore afterwards (he climbed all 45 flights of steps in our building on Friday before going to the gym for a 1.5 hour long workout), so we headed home afterwards to just relax.

Today I headed down to the gym again, this time for cross training on the Precor (I hate Precor and haven't done a Precor in about 2 years). It was okay, but only because Sex and the City was on, so I set the individual TV to that and plugged my headphones in to listen. I'm now worked out, showered, and waiting for our grocery delivery to get here. We had talked about going out today but Blondie is in major pain, so I'm not sure that's going to happen.

A couple of notes. This was week 3 for my half training, and my runs were 3.5 miles on Tues and Thurs, 2 miles on Wed, and 5 miles on Saturday - training is going well, and I'm very excited to see Mr Pooh in April and run the half with him!

My second note is that I've somehow got a fixation on beans right now - black and red. They are all I want to eat. Everywhere we go, I'm scouring menus to see if they've got beans somewhere. And it was so bad on Tuesday night, that I decided to make us dinner by heating up some black beans and dumping in a ton of peppers and onions. Any ideas why I'm craving them so much? I eat meat, so it's not like I need the protein. At least I'm not craving ice cream or something very unhealthy.

Hope everyone is well.

--K

Saturday, February 19, 2011

A case of VD


So last week ended up being kind of dud in terms of doing things. For some reason, this cold weather has zapped any thoughts we've had about getting out of the apartment. I still have to go to work (woot), but the idea of doing anything beyond that about knocks me on my ass.

Having said that, I went with my core group at work last week for drinks one night. My BFF from work had stopped by and mentioned that she'd had a crappy day, so we decided drinks were in order. We hit up a Belgium bar close to our work, where I had meatballs and salad (separately) and a couple of beers, and she had a plate of fries and some wine.

Last weekend, Blondie and I were pretty boring. As a matter of fact, we were just sitting here now trying to remember what we did last weekend, and we couldn't. So Blondie said "It must've been pretty exciting!" which made me laugh. Finally we figured it out - I had my first "long" run of training on Saturday (it's just 4 miles right now), and then we did grocery shopping. The weather was not cooperating, so it was back to our apartment afterwards to watch crappy movies all day.

This week, a coworker of mine from SF came to NY. Last time I was in SF, I decided I didn't want to fly out every month (for various reasons), so I managed to convince my coworker that he wanted to swap months with me. Anyway, he was out here for the week. He shared my office with me and I had a blast actually. The week went by SUPER FAST which was nice. I had a ton of meetings this week, and Tues and Wed were literally back from 11 am to 5 pm and 9:30 am to 3 pm with meetings respectively (no breaks).

Monday was VD! I came home Monday night as we had decided to just order sushi in. I walked into our apartment and Blondie had decided to surprise me with 2 dozen roses (love, love, love roses!) and a bag of gummy bears, a chocolate heart-shaped donut from Dunkin Donuts, a slice of banana-nut bread from my favorite bakery, and 2 bottles of this cheap white wine that I want to marry. It was a fabulous night. We watched "Under the Tuscan Sun", and I about cried as always at the line at the end of the movie when the real-estate agent tells Frances "You got what you wanted. You have a family here. You have a wedding here".

Wednesday, outside of my coworker from SF, another group of people I worked with in SF were also in town for work, but not at my building. I met them for dinner and drinks at a little Ethiopian place in my hood. It was soooo good seeing them, and getting to catch up - one of the women who was part of the group, she was such a good buddy of mine at SF, that I used to hang out in her office, bitching about my boss at the time, and eating her candy every single day.

Thursday, my BFF from work organized a big HH for our entire team. She set them up monthly, so that we can all get to know each other outside of the office. It was so much fun. Everyone was in a good mood, and chatty, and when the night ended it was a bit sad. We did get into a big discussion about office spouses, and then it was a bigger discussion about which of my friends is my office spouse. The answer was never decided. I took a cab home that night, which is a luxury I don't indugle in often. It was so nice.

So yesterday was a half-day because we get Monday off (all days before holidays are half-days for us). AND THE WEATHER WAS GORGEOUS! It was low 60's, and sunny. I met Blondie at 1:30 pm for drinks and lunch on a patio at a bar close to our house. Afterwards, we did our grocery shopping before heading over to our regular bar for a few drinks. We came home early last night as I had some stomach issues, and ended up hitting the sack around 9:30 pm.

It was worth it though - I slept through until 8:15 am today, and then headed down for my 2nd "long" run of training (another 4 miles today). I'm now showered, worked out, eaten breakfast, and it's only 11 am. Now it's time to decide what to do to today! Do we stay in? Do we hit up a museum? Do we go for lunch? Do we....

Tomorrow I'm meeting my coworker from SF to see La Cage Aux Folles on Broadway, and Monday I want to get a pedicure. But other than that, the weekend is free. Alas though, the weather was only nice for yesterday - it's in the low 40's, temps dropping and windy like crazy right now.

One last thing - this was my 2nd week of training for my half. I did 3 miles on Tues and Thurs, 2 miles hill work on Wed, 4 miles today, my 30-day-shred level 3 program on Fri, and yoga last Sunday. Monday was my off day. I'm super excited about the half coming up, and want to really be able to run it all - I'm back in my head about running though (where I'm aware of every step I take - which SUCKS), and it always takes a few weeks before I can distance myself from that, so until that happens, it's been torture.

Hope everyone is well, and enjoy the weekend!

--K

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Lunar New Year, a fabulous Super Bowl, and a 2 day hangover


Last week was pretty low key. I found myself battling the sleeps a lot, so we kept things pretty much on the DL. It was kind of nice - the weather is so cold here, and being able to just come home at night and crash has been f'ing f.a.b.u.l.o.u.s.

The only thing I had on my radar last week was Lunar New Year - my core group at work and I headed out on Wednesday night to the Koreatown area of Manhattan to celebrate. We hit up a restaurant that was literally called "Kum Gang Sak" - which of course, led us to call ourselves the Kum Gang. And led to many dirty Kum Gang jokes. We split a ton of soju, had a lot of beers, and in general stuffed ourselves silly. I came home in such a good mood, that I tried to wake Blondie up so I could, um, have some fun with him. He was not going for it though - smart move on his part! ;)

Friday I called Blondie and he came and met me for a drink after work. We were debating on what to eat for dinner, when he suggested doing an old thing of ours that we haven't done since we started on our healthiness program last March - that was hit the grocery store for a shitty food night! It was awesome - we had rice-a-roni, buffalo strips, chips and dip, and licorice for dessert. I was so tired that night that I konked out early - with a belly full of bad food.

Saturday I was up at 5:23 am for the day - work has gotten crazy/bad right now, and when I woke up to pee, my mind immediately went to work and that was it for the morning. I watched a movie, and messed around on my computer - and when Blondie got up, we headed to the gym for long workouts. We were supposed to grocery shop afterwards, but it was pouring rain, so we ordered our groceries online, and then stayed in to watch movies all day while staring out the window.

Sunday was an awesome day - I drug Blondie for another run, and then we got ready to head to our bar at 3:30 pm. It was time to cheer on the Packers! Blondie's been a die-hard Packer fan his entire life (growing up an hour south of Green Bay was a big catalyst for this), and it was with much enthusiasm that we cheered them onto a victory. We were joined by a ton of our friends - both coworkers and bar friends - and generally made giant jackasses of ourselves as soon as we realized they were going to win.

Instead of just heading home after the Superbowl, we headed on out to celebrate with 2 of our bar friends. I ended up getting home around 2:30 am, while Blondie strolled on in around 4 am. Um, Monday - was the SUCK. I went to work still drunk I believe, and it was the longest day in the history of the world. I got home Monday night and Blondie still hadn't showered. What a hangover.

Today was note-worthy because of 2 things - it was my 1 year anniversary with my company, leaving 1 year left on my contact before I can leave without having to pay back my relo. And 2, today officially started my half-marathon training. My times for running have been decreasing pretty dramatically thanks to getting hill work in, but today, they were crapalicious - it always happens when I go on a bender, and I know the times will be fine with my run tomorrow, but it still was disheartening to see a 4 min, 58 sec increase for my run from Saturday. Le sigh.

Well, it's off to pet a cat - he's pawing at my legs and wants some attention. Keep warm everyone.

--K