Catch up

Sometimes it's nice to take a break from blogging. I love having my "diary", but it's sometimes hard to make myself sit down every week and fill it in. When I have those weeks where I don't do an entry, I always enjoy it - until I do sit down to recap and realize I remember nothing about what had happened. Yay for me. 3 weeks of recapping, from what I do remember, starts now.

Well, almost now - first off, happy birthday to The Sheriff, my mom, and BFF TT! Love you guys!

I left off last with the week of Sandy hitting. I met my bar friend that Sunday for many drinks at Pony to have 1 last day of celebrating my birthday. We met up with our musician friend there and got to see how he came through the storm. It was a nice way to end the week - and again, so glad everyone I know came through okay.

Monday through Friday it was work - I walked to work on Monday because even though my train was back up and running, Bloomberg had said that transportation would be jammed b/c not all lines were running, and the ones that were running were on limited schedule. But my friends that also ride my line told me at work that day that our train was pretty standard (i.e. not that bad) so I took my train the rest of the week.

Also, Blondie started his new corporate job on that Thursday - Blondie's company that he owns is now moving into contracting, and he's back to a commuting with me daily. Blondie loves his new job, which makes me sooo grateful.

I remember that I worked out every day that week except for Monday which was a rest day. I did a 3.1 mile run on Tues, 30 minutes of hill work on Wed, Insanity Cardio Recovery on Thursday, and 3.1 miles of speed work on Friday.

And then, Saturday morning, bright and early (4:45 am), Blondie and I took off for the airport. We headed to SF for a few days - I had to work that week and Blondie came along b/c we needed a vaction. (Blondie had his trip planned before he got his job, and they okayed him taking off a few days). We got to SF, and landed in beautiful weather - it was sunny and gorgeous out. We took a cab to Shelbs and Bbbb - and the cab went along the Great Highway, so we literally spent most of the ride along the ocean, watching waves crashing and just being like "omg. so f'ing beautiful!"

We spent most of the day being lazy - we toured their house which is all kinds of awesome (and with a killer view of the Pacific). We hung out with their new dog, who took a shining to Blondie and wanted to make out with him pretty much non-stop (I wanted to steal Thunderdog I loved her so much). We went for an outdoor lunch. We pissed around in the Mission. We drank beers in Dolores Park. We hit up Toronado. And finally, we picked up pizza and split it with wine at their house.

Sunday was pretty much the same type of lazy-day activities. We took Thunderdog up to Land's End and strolled all through the park and out until we could see Golden Gate Bridge. We went for tacos and margaritas for lunch, before shopping a bit in the mission. And then we picked up some beers and food to grill out, before stopping to eat a Honey Pot in Outer Richmond. Shelbs had told us about this weird desert thing - which was honey bread covered in gelato - and Blondie had to have some. So we stopped for that. Then we went home, crashed out on their back patio and watched the ocean. And then grilled out for dinner.

Monday we hit up Say Cheese and ate in our old dog park for lunch, before Bbbb drove me and Blondie to our hotel in Union Square. I headed into the office for a meeting, but then met up with an old coworker of mine for many drinks. Blondie and my 2 BFFs from the NY office (who also happened to be in SF for work that week) also joined us. Then Blondie and I headed over to meet up with my old gang for mexican and margaritas into the night.

Tuesday I said goodbye to Blondie who was headed home that day. Off to the office for many meetings, before going to lunch with one of my old teammates (from the first group I was ever on at my company). After work fesitivies involved hanging out with a woman who I work with now quite closely. We went for appetizers and many drinks, and just got caught up on life. I've worked with her on several projects over the past year, but mostly as peripheral teammates - but in the last 6 months we've had to work closely together, so getting to know her better was quite fun. After drinks with my coworker, I hit up Irish Bank for CChu and her bf TDawg. We had dinner, many drinks, and were just generally snarky about people we don't like.

I woke up Wednesday in misery - from when I went to bed on Tuesday night and when I woke up Wednesday morning, I had come down with a massive head cold. I sucked it up, showered, and headed into the office as Wednesday was lot of meetings. I also went to lunch with a part of the team that I work with now - it was a lot of fun, and getting to know people outside the office is always nice. I decided that I needed some booze Wed afternoon to hopefully kill the cold germs, so I took off a tiny bit early and met up with Sweetie J! We drank our way down to the Embarcadero where she met up with a friend, and then I headed back up to Union Sq area to meet up with KT and KevB! We had a blast having many more drinks, before heading to dinner for mexican and margaritas. It was soooo good seeing everyone, but honestly, the drinks just made everything worse with my head cold.

Thursday I packed up, checked out, and stowed my bag at the hotel before heading in for my final day at the office. Lunch was with my BFF from the NY office and his gf (who had flown in that day). Then I was expecting low-key to end my day - but it wasn't; we had our final release of the year and caught something major that stopped us from proceeding. I couldn't stay on the call though b/c I had to meet 1 last group of people for drinks (ran in, had a quick whiskey, ran out), and then it was off to the airport.

Normally I love the red-eye back to NY as I sleep well on planes anyway. But this time, with this head cold, it was horrid. I got maybe 45 mins of sleep and was then just awake, with a snotty achy head, the rest of the time. Got home on Friday, and went straight to sleep - but woke up 2 hours later just miserable. I spent the day with the cat, weepy, and finally showered which helped break up some of the snot. Blondie got home that night, and lo and behold, he had the same cold I had. And then we noticed the cat was sneezing like crazy too.

The weekend was spent hunkered down trying to get better. Finally on Sunday, I met my bar friends at Pony simply because I was tired of hanging out in the apartment. Getting out felt pretty good - I think I just needed to move. It was pretty cool because our bartender overheard me talking about the SF trip, and she mentioned that the other bartender who was coming into work in a few mins used to work at Toronado (my fav beer bar from SF). When the other bartender came in, we talked for a long time about SF, and she bought us a shot Fernet. All in all, a good day.

This past week was of course, a short week. But a weird one. I'm on a project that is not going well - our lead developer quit, and now it's up to 2 new developers (both are good but they were brought in last minute) to finish this job. I wanted to move our timelines some, and take a bit longer to finish this project, but their boss didn't agree with me. And we got into it on Tues. Their boss also happens to be 1 of my 2 BFFs in the office. We had to actually say "5 minute break! We are getting nowhere" and walk away from each other at one point.

The day ended okay though, because at around 6 pm, their boss walked back into my office and was apologetic as hell. But it was hard to hear him because I was so busy trying to apologize to him also. He also told me to swing by his office before I left, so I did, and he had a bottle of scotch out. So once everyone was gone, him and me and my boss, had a few drinks and crackers and cheese to end the night.

Wednesday was a short day - my boss and I walked up to Momofuku Milk Bar and got some thanksgiving croissants - which was basically a hot pocked stuff with turkey, stuffing and cranberries. I bought that and a compost cookie (my fav cookie - loaded with chocolate chips, coffee grounds, pretzels and potato chip crumbs) and then headed over and met Blondie to see "A Christmas Story: The Musical" on Broadway! While waiting in line to get in, we had our snack of croissant and cookie, and then I got a whiskey in a sippy cup once inside.

The play was pretty funny - they even had dogs (real dogs) play the part of the dogs from the movie. They chased the actors across the stage and even stole the turky in the end scene! And the kid who played Randy (Ralphie's brother) was spot-on. And they had this cute little kid (a boy) in one of the scenes who had on a hat, and I was all "OMG! It's TCKITWv4.0" - not that the boy looked like my little niece, but he had the same type of grin - all teeth - that my niece has, and it really showed up when he had his hat on. We came out of the play just laughing hysterically - seriously, the dogs alone made it worth seeing.

Afterwards, it was off to poison bar to meet up with my bar friend. 3 shots and about 5 beers later, we headed off to our local to meet up with everyone. Blondie headed home early but I stayed and just got trashed. So awesome on my part. Thursday we were lazy - I felt fine when I woke up (surprisingly so), so around noon we headed out to buy a pie and do some grocery shopping. Everybody and their brother was out, and since the parade had ended, traffic was a bitch. After shopping, we met up with my bar friends again at Landsdowne for lunch and beers - we hung out for a few hours watching football, and then headed our own way for the rest of the day. Blondie and I ordered in food from our diner for dinner that night, and then spent the night watching movies.

Friday I woke up and felt completely exhausted. I was supposed to go with my bar friend to shop, but I couldn't get myself moving. Finally around 3 pm, Blondie and I headed out for some food. I felt a tiny bit better afterwards, so met up with my bar friends again at our local for a few beers. While I was on my way to our local bar, Mr Pooh texted, and he happened to mention that of his 3 favorite bars in the world, 2 were in NYC. And if he had 4 favorite bars, 3 would be in NYC (poison, Landsdowne and our local). I got to laughing b/c I realized in the last 3 days, I had been in all those bars.

Saturday we didn't do anything - we finally got some real grocery shopping done and then I crashed out watching Freaks and Geeks on Netflix while Blondie worked. And today, well, I'm up and showered at least. I have to go get a pedicure and hopefully meet my bar friends at Pony, but that's it.

Workouts - well, the head cold took me down and out for about 2 weeks. But I started up again yesterday:
Saturday: 3.1 miles on treadmill - 2 mins walking at 4.1 mph, 2 mins running at 6.0 mph - 37:25 mins
Sunday: 3.1 miles flat out running - 36:04 mins*; weights

* Completely shocked about this time - way faster than I expected; and I felt great the entire time. Normally if I hadn't tried to flat out run in 2.5 weeks, I'd be a heaving mess within 3 minutes, but not today.

--K