Seriously, WTF is up with this year?

Well, I got the eating right and working out under control this week. I'm relieved on that front. It's still super hard, and I have to constantly remind myself that "gummy bears are bad for you", but I got through the week intact. Usually it takes me 2-3 weeks before I start feeling comfortable with everything, so I know I have another rough 1-2 weeks ahead of me.

The week itself was *super* boring. Work has gone into a taper period between 2 massive releases, so the pressure was off somewhat this week. 3 of my coworkers and I had a crappy Wednesday so we headed out and took a 2 hour lunch which was nice. But Wednesday still felt like it took forever to get through.

Thursday Blondie let me know that he couldn't launch his game on Friday because he found out late that he needed promotional images for the launch - required by Google. So that was a total bummer on Thursday. We had been planning on super celebrating on Friday, and now we are in a holding pattern until tomorrow (hopefully).

Then, Thursday (and 2012 in general) pulled a fast one on us and made the day even worse. My mom went into the ER on Thursday night with heart problems. The upper chambers of her heart had stopped working. They ended up having to put her under anethesia on Friday, put a scope down her throat to ultrasound her heart for blood clots, and then shock her heart back into starting. Thursday and Friday were horrible days - we were terrified for my mom, and not being close enough to get to Lexington quick was horrifying. Luckily, the shock worked for her, and she is now feeling better than she has in a long time.

The 40-ish minutes it took from the time my sister told me they were taking my mom in for the ultrasound/possible shock until the time she texted back to tell me the shock worked were the longest 40 mins of my life quite honestly. I just laid in a ball on our bed, praying (I'm not religious at all) to whatever being is out there to keep my mom safe.

After the good news, we decided drinks were in order so we headed over to our local pub for many drinks into the evening. I stayed with scotch and Blondie stayed with bourbon in order to keep our low-carb diet on track. We got to catch up with our bartender who is back from his Ireland trip, and see our bar friends for the first time that week. We stayed a lot longer than we had planned as everytime we tried to tab out, our bartender would be like "oh oops, I spilled more scotch/bourbon into your glass!"

Yesterday was a good day. It was beautiful weather out first off (it had been raining all night Friday and into Saturday early morning and then cleared off). And then Blondie and I had tickets to see a play in the NYC Fringe Fest - a friend of mine from work is an actor/singer and he had a role in one of the plays in the Fest. We loved the play! It was a musical about inept pirates, and we were in tears from laughing at points. Plus, only $15 a ticket, and it was in the West Village area which we *love*. So that was pretty good.

We stopped on the way home from the play and did a little grocery shopping to stock up on fresh food. Then we headed home to collapse. Last night, I got to talk to my mom for a long time - she sounds so much better than she had been sounding, and they actually released her from the hospital on Saturday which made Saturday a billion fucking times better than Thursday and Friday. And then we watched American Reunion (it was eh) and Hunger Games (heart!), before crashing out for the night.

Today it's off to Pony but maybe without Blondie - he's working hard to get everything lined up for tomorrow. I hope he can join but understand if he can't.

Workouts this week included:
Monday - none; full from the previous weekend of debauchery.
Tuesday - Insanity Cardio Recovery
Wednesday - 30 Day Shred level 1; Bob's Bootcamp level 1 (only did half of Bob's workout)
Thursday - Wii Fit Island Workout (hard level)
Friday - 30 mins on treadmill; 2 mins walking at 4.1 mph; 2 mins running at 5.5 mph (SUCKED) + 5 min cool down after
Saturday - 28 mins on Precord (weight loss program) + 5 min cool down after; lifted weights
Sunnday - P90X Kenpo

Meals were good this week - Blondie and I are doing low carb for 3 weeks to lose weight for Slick's wedding. Today is my cheat day (which means beers at Pony).

Happy Birthdays! Happy 9 day late birthday to Brother R; Happy 8 day late birthday to sis; Happy 1 day early birthday to Mr Pooh!

Game launch! If all goes well, and you own an Android OS phone, check out Google Play tomorrow for the launch of Apoc 12 (a Savage Road Game production)!!!!! GOOOOOOOOO BLONDIE!

--K

2012 is not our year

I'll be honest - this year has been a bit crappy. Both Blondie and I are in a bit of a funk right now, and I just keep thinking "survive until January, it will be better". Now, nothing horribly bad has happened to us this year - with the exception of losing Max. It just feels like a lot of tiny little shitty things are adding up to a big shitty year.

Our week was definitely low-key. I left work a slight bit early on Monday as I was in dire need of a pedicure - so I headed back to our hood to try and get to my pedi place before it got crazy busy with the after-work crowd. But I was a bit too late - and every woman was busy working on someone already, and there was someone else waiting for her turn. So I just headed on home and finished up work for the day from there.

Tuesday, a coworker and I went for lunch which always makes my day go fast. We ended up just getting caught up with each other's lives and taking a bit longer lunch. It was definitely needed even though I had to stay at work later that night to get caught

Wednesday I left work a bit early again - due to a really bad day at the office. A bunch of stuff happened that day - ending with someone I respect having to leave the office as he was at his breaking point. I looked around my desk late afternoon and thought, "I'd rather be with Blondie right now", so I left to be with Blondie. We went for dinner and some beers at Pony Bar, before I had to head home and finish up work for the day.

Thursday was another late night at work as I was gearing up for our Friday trip to wisc. I was trying to get everything sorted out and ready, so that the person covering for me for weekend work wouldn't be overwhelmed.

And then Friday, oh Friday. I got to work and we're about to go into freeze phase for one of our launches. So everything that we needed to fix bubbled up on Friday. We spent the morning going through everything and figuring out what we truly needed to deal with. While that was going on, my cell phone rang but I ignored it because we were knees deep in work. About 15 mins later, I listend to my voicemail and it was Delta auto-call telling me our flight to Wisc was cancelled. I logged into their site to rebook us, and there were no options whatsoever, so I called them and got into a 2.5 hour wait queue. Long story short - we didn't go to Wisc this weekend. We missed Blondie's cousin's wedding, we missed seeing everyone, I missed meeting the new nieces. Woo. F'ing. Hoo.

To top that off, I had to work a full day on Friday because of the mess coming into freeze. I took home a bunch of beer that night, so that Blondie and I could forgot that shitty Friday happened. Saturday we didn't do anything either - other than having to work Saturday morning and afternoon due to freeze phase. Also, I have some bad allergies going on, so Saturday night, we had to make a trip to CVS to get me allergy meds. But other than that, nothing.

Yesterday I finally got my pedicure - my feet were looking horrendous so the pedi was a very good thing. Afterwards, I met up with my bar friends at Pony for many beers and lunch. Blondie joined us a bit later, but the day was good in general. Minus the text messages asking me to do stuff for work. Those I could live without.

I have something else to say - and my apologies to everyone (I'm having a massive pity party for myself right now). I'm so f'ing tired of being porky. I have yo-yo'ed my way through weight loss for almost 20 years now, and I'm sick and tired of it. I know what to do to lose weight - obviously I've been very successful at it over the past 20 years. I also know what to do to gain weight - obviously I've also been very successful at that too over the past 20 years. What I don't know how to do is maintain. So here I go again - talking about losing weight, working on losing weight - I'm like a broken record. I'm boring myself with the same talk, so I can't even imagine what you guys reading this think. But yeah, I'm back up fatty mcfattbutt again - so be prepared for blog talk to go back somewhat to "healthy eating, working out, non-drinking type activities". Minus Sundays - because there is no way I'll give up my Sunday Fundays.

Thanks for reading. Sorry for being a mega bitch today.

--K

I've got nothing today

I can't remember anything today - serious brain lapse.

Um... OK. So, here's what I do remember. 2 Sundays ago, we met our bar friend's husband out for many drinks at Pony. My bar friend was in California, but her hubby was still around. We hung out there for awhile before deciding we needed beers that weren't so high in ABV so we hit up Rivers bar for a bit. We got into a heated discussion about a topic there, but everyone was polite - because of that, before I knew it, we had been out all day.

The week itself was very lame - we stayed in every night simply because we had been gone 2 weekends in a row before. 2 Thursdays ago, my bar friend texted to come play trivia but I was pretty worn out (from doing nothing all week), so I declined. Work is going so fast right now too, it's like I blink and weeks are done. A nice change from the total drag fest they had been.

2 Fridays ago, it was my boss' 10 year anniversary with the company so 5 of us took her out to celebrate. We left work early (summer Friday) and I left even earlier because I was in charge of the booze pickup (the restaurant we chose had BYOB). We spent a couple of hours at lunch before taking our party to another bar. I showed up at home around 6 pm totally blotto.

That weekend was pretty dang lame, except for 1 thing. And that was "The Blowing Out of the Back". During that week leading up to the weekend, I had tweaked my back working out. I'm not sure what I did, but it was a pain down my left shoulder blade. It got better, worse, better, worse. I stretched out on Saturday and felt okay, but then on that Sunday, I blew it big time. I had gotten my shower in preparation for Pony, and as I reached down to get my towel, my whole back went. It took my breath so bad I thought I was going to pass out. I squeaked for Blondie and somehow he heard me, he helped me get dried off and then he laid me flat on our floor. I was crying a little, not breathing right and in severe pain. Blondie brought me pain killers and an anti-inflammatory, and helped me get them down. It took about 30 mins for the pain killers to kick in, and then I had a few vodkas to help even further. Blondie took off to Pony to pick us up a growler of beer, and to have a few beers with our bar friends, and I stayed home and sucked down vodka.

I can't even explain to you how bad that pain was - I thought I was going to have to go the ER. And then when I woke up on Monday, it was back to the usual shoulder blade pain only. No idea whatsoever how it was so bad for 1 day, and then okay the next. It's still tweaky today and I'm still being careful with it, but I'm so grateful last Sunday was over.

This past week, most of my office was off to the SF office (8 of them). So it was me holding down the fort. There are 5 senior people in my office, spanning 3 depts. 2 of us work across all depts, and the other 3 are specific to each of the depts. I was the only one left who works across all depts, so everything came to me this past week. I was an 11 hour outage call on Tuesday (10 am - 9 pm, sat at my desk with my headset on). And then the rest of the week was a mess too - the whole office is gearing up for something and I had to make sure everything stayed on track.

Friday I took a short day again (woot!) and met Blondie and my bar friends at our poison bar for drinks. While there, I got texted multiple times for work so had to deal with that each time. After poison bar, we headed to Pony Bar for many drinks and then it was to our local pub to end the night. Saturday we took it easy, just did our grocery shopping in the afternoon.

And then today was a madhouse. We met up with 12 of our friends to go play paintball in Staten Island. I don't play paintball (HATE. PASSIONATELY HATE) so I just came along and watched everyone's stuff and read my Kindle. It was like 100 degrees out today so the people that did play were soaked with sweat. We got back to the city around 2 pm and hit up Pony Bar with everyone for a few drinks before heading home so Blondie could shower and nap. And ice his knee. Because in one of the courses they did, there was a hill that was actually a small cliff (about 5 ft tall) and Blondie didn't realize it was a cliff so he went tearing up the hill and fell right off the side. And landed on his knee. Our friends said it was like watching someone jump into a pool - 1 second they are there, the next second they are gone.

Plans for this week - we leave for Wisc on Friday night for Blondie's cousin's wedding. Other than that, nada.

--K

Making a plane full of people clap for you

2 weeks of recapping into 1 glorious blog post. Oh yay. YAY FOR YOU!

The week that we went to KY was pretty lame. That Sunday after we got back from Baltimore, we did exactly nothing. No Pony Bar, no grocery shopping, no pedicure. Nothing but laying on the floor watching TV.

The week before KY went fast b/c it was 3 days long. And that Monday was my boss' first day back in over a week so she was feening to not be there - hence we turned our touchbase into a 2 hour lunch instead. Wonder why the week went so fast eh? But honestly, I'm starting to get super busy again, so it's making time at work fly by. I feel like I blink right now and the week is over.

Thurs we took off for KY. We decided to go out to the airport super early b/c the last time we flew out of JFK together, security was a disaster and we had to get pulled out of line and pushed to the front to make it through in time. So this time we got there 1:45 before our flight.... and got through security over an hour later. Which left no time for the lunch at the airport we had planned.

Our flight to KY was good though - they had just started running this connection the day before, so the flight was pretty dead. Brother R and the Sheriff picked us up in Louisville (or St Louis, KY if you were the flight attendant) and we took the hour ride back to Lex just chatting away. I hadn't seen them (or honestly even really talked to either of them in over a year) so it was really good getting to catch up.

Mr and Mrs Pooh did a cookout for us that night so we headed straight to their house. I got to see TCKITW and TCKITWv4.0 and be completely blown away by how big they are. Well, TCKITWv4.0 is petite, so not necessarily big. But I guess how different they look since I've last seen them. We spent the evening chatting with everyone (mom, sis, and Shugs were also at the Pooh's), eating, drinking and then we dove into a dirty card game - Cards Against Humanity. It made me and everyone else about pee themselves 25 times b/c it was so fucking hysterical.

Friday some of the group took off to tour Wild Turkey Distillery (me, Blondie, Mr and Mrs Pooh, the Sheriff and Brother R). It was a nice tour, free to the public with 2 tastes after. They don't bottle their bourbon on-site so the tour was faster than I was expecting. We spent some time at the gift shop afterwards terrorizing people with turkey calls, and drinking our tastes. Afterwards, it was back to Lexington for some mexican food (and margaritas and shots of tequila) before heading back to the parental units for some quality time.

Note: During the car ride on the way to Wild Turkey, Brother R mentioned that as part of a conf he attended (he has a very prestigious title/role at a start-up and is one of the public faces of the company), he got a swag bag with a bottle of NY bourbon in it. I instantly knew what he was talking about b/c Pony Bar carries this line of bourbons that I've been wanting to try for a long time, but it's $14 a pour. So we also stopped at Brother R's office and got this bourbon (Hudson Baby Bourbon).

Back at the parental units, we started playing board games and drinking heavily. I tried the bourbon that Brother R brought over, and we both agreed it tasted kind of like dirt. Not sure how that equates to $14 a taste at Pony Bar. I like almost all kinds of bourbon but would not go out of my way for this one. We ordered in pizza for dinner and just kept eating, drinking and playing games. And then around 11 pm, the Poohs headed out to go hear some music. Blondie and I were supposed to go with them, but I was completely toe up at that point (and farting) and Blondie had no energy. So we cancelled our plans on them.

Saturday, Brother R, Blondie and I met up with my BFF TT and her hubby for mexican food. Of course, more mexican food meant more shots of tequila. And margaritas and beer. We spent a couple of hours just getting caught up on each other's lives, stuffing ourselves and generally being obnoxious. It's a good thing TT is a regular there and Brother R knows the owner - our tab was ridiculously low for what we consumed.

Brother R dropped me and Blondie off at Mr Pooh's house after, and we stayed the day over there. TCKITW brought down her karaoke machine after I'd had a few more beers, so then I decided to show my singing chops (non-existent) off to the nieces. Blondie did a beautiful thing and video'd the entire experience. The nieces were dying and I thought the rest of the room was going to have a heart attack. Ahem, I SUCK AT SINGING.

The crew headed back to Brother R and Shugs that night for dinner. The rest of the family came and joined, and we again spent the evening playing cards, drinking heavily, and eating non-stop. That night ended around 11 pm, and Blondie and I said goodbye to everyone but the Sheriff and mom as our time rolled around to the end.

Sunday we had our flight out around 1 pm. We took off, and I fell asleep almost immediately, waking up to the captain saying due to traffic at JFK we were in a holding pattern (we were somewhere over the Atlantic at that point) and we would be about 45 minutes late into JFK. Also, the plane we were on had 3 seats per aisle - 1 on 1 side, 2 on the other side. Blondie and I were each in the 1-seater side right in front of each other at the front of the plane.

Okay, so the announcement is made that we were going to be 45 minutes late (we were out of holding and heading towards JFK at that point) and I become aware of a heated argument a few rows behind me. I tried to tune it out, but eventually I couldn't anymore. It's because there was a woman FREAKING THE FUCK OUT that she was going to miss her connecting flight, and she was having a massive spat with the flight attendant. She was trying to push her way to the front of the plane with all her bags and take a seat that was bulkhead (where she couldn't store her bags). The flight attendant (extremely calm - I was truly impressed with her) kept trying to tell the lady why she couldn't sit there, and this lady kept losing her shit.

So now they are standing in the aisle right beside me, and the jackass sitting in the row in front of me (not Blondie) pipes up his giant big fat asshole mouth and starts needling this crazy lady even more (which is EXACTLY what we need - someone butting in where they aren't needed). He keeps telling crazy lady he can guarantee her flight isn't leaving on time (oh really? you can guarantee this?) - she asked to switch seats with him and he said no way, there was no reason and really, what would that buy her?

Flight attendant speaks back up, trying to shut this guy up and tells crazy lady that if she doesn't sit down immediately she's going to get the pilot involved and we will be landing at the closest airport which, ahem, is not JFK. Alarm bells go off in my head, and I leap out of my seat, grab my shit - tell crazy lady to sit where I'm sitting and go flying back to take her seat. And like that, the ENTIRE airplane starts clapping for me (small airplane, it's not like I got a 777 to clap for me). :) We landed at JFK without incident, crazy lady is first off the plane, and I'm relieved that we are in NYC and not somewhere in Canada.

The rest of the week passed uneventfully. Blondie showed me the video he made of me karaoke'ing at the Pooh's and it took my breath away about how much weight I've gained - I'm not stupid, I know I've gained weight but I also work out regularly so I was fooling myself about how bad I actually look. Blondie feels the same way - he's gained a few pounds, so we had a long talk on Monday about what to do. And came up with a plan. WOOT! We will be doing weekly weigh ins at the house on Sunday, and planning our meals and cooking in again. The only thing we aren't giving up is Pony Bar on Sundays, and our local pub another night during the week.

This past week went FAST. I felt like I could barely breathe and it would be 5 pm before I even looked up from my work (it helped with cutting down on my eating so I'm grateful). My boss and I did another 2 hour lunch on Monday, and Blondie and I hit up our local pub on Tuesday. Then on Friday, it was horribly yucky and I had a short day, so we hit up Pony Bar on Friday afternoon around 4 pm for early dinner and a few beers. We kept it short and early, so although we already broke our rules that we set up, we were totally good there (3 beers each, each of us got a meal that was healthy).

Today we weighed in for our first time, and it sucked for both of us. But now we are off to Pony Bar b/c it's Sunday Funday!!! And that's all the plans we have.

Workouts - woot - hardcore again.
Monday: None - still full from all the eating I did over the weekend
Tuesday: Insanity Core Cardio and Balance
Wednesday: Insanity Cardio Power and Resistance
Thursday: 3 miles on treadmill in 39:52 (um, WTF?)
Friday: Insanity Cardio Recovery
Saturday: 3 miles on treadmill in 36:22 (okay, much better)
Sunday: P90X Plyometrics

Ready to eat. FOOD. NOW.

--K

Bi Bim Bop & Bulgoki; Broadway & Bazinga!; BOOM; Baltimore, Boats & Beer

Sometimes I look at my life and wonder how in the world I've gotten to where I'm at. Sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes it's not. Sometimes I come off a week where I just want to curl up in bed and not move for 48 hours. And sometimes I come off a week like this past one... my love for NYC has grown by 1000 (which I didn't think was possible), we fell in love with Baltimore, I got to see old friends and make new ones, and of course, Broadway.

Last Sunday was our typical Pony Bar day - we headed out around noon to go there, followed by one of my bar friends around 1 pm. We thought it would just be us 3, as my bar friend's husband was off to a different bar to watch the Euro game. But it turned out that there were about 5 of us there in the end, drinking beers and watching soccer. After the Euro game, we took off for little tacos for dinner before heading home and crashing.

Monday I met up with some coworkers (old and new) in Koreatown to say goodbye to a good friend. She's off to Florida now with her boyfriend, and we all just wanted to give her a good sendoff. We ordered a shit ton of food - my favs being Bi Bim Bop (fried rice bowl) and Bulgoki (beef you cook over a grill). Many pitchers of soju along with a few martinis completed our dinner. One of our friends brought a big cake so we had that for dessert before we headed out. I took advantage of the city and walked home, as it's only about 12 streets and 5 avenues to get to my apartment. I also hoped to digest the food baby that was hanging out in my stomach but that didn't happen.

Tuesday was a SHORT day!!!! 1 pm end time, and I was out the door right on time. I met Blondie and we did some grocery shopping, and then we headed home and I took a nap. We met up with our bar friends at House of Brews around 5:30 pm for dinner and some drinks, before we then made our way over to see "Harvey". Our seats were INSANE - we were about 10 rows back from stage, dead center. And the play was amazing. The story for "Harvey" is that the main character Elwood P Dowd (Jim Parsons - aka Sheldon from Big Bang Theory) is an alcoholic and he sees a 6 ft tall white rabbit everywhere - they are best friends. He lives with his sister and her kid and they try to get him committed into an mental hospital (the play is set in the '40s). But by the end, everyone sees the rabbit.

I don't like the Sheldon character on Big Bang Theory so I was a bit hesitant about this play. But holy crap Jim Parsons did an amazing job. His timing was impeccable and he played the role of a jolly alcoholic with gusto. I also loved the fact that they treated the rabbit as a guardian angel type role (a puka). I also loved the fact that you weren't sure if he saw the rabbit because he was deep in the throes of alcoholism; or if he saw the rabbit because he had some mental problems. Okay - but it boils down to LOVE LOVE LOVE this play! We laughed so hard throughout the entire show. They had a line that I loved and still am quoting which is "I've fought long and hard with reality and I've finally won out". Also in the play were Carol Kane (from Scrooged) and Jessica Hecht (from Friends).

After the play we floated back to our local pub and closed down the bar that night. Wednesday I met my bar friend bright and early and we did the last of our grocery shopping followed by a quick breakfast break. Blondie and I had prepared drunken gummies (vodka soaked gummy bears) and jello shots on Tues, so on Wed evening, we just threw together a big batch of guacamole, and then headed up to our building friend's apartment. And had a freaking blast! Their view is amazing - they are 33 stories up and face the Hudson in the right direction for the fireworks show. We made a ton of new friends, drank our asses off, sang along to the radio, and watched the fireworks. Macys does an incredible job with the show, and from the moment we saw the barges start up the river, we got excited.

Thursday we trucked up to the Port Authority and caught a bus to Baltimore. The bus ride down blew chunks. The bus was pretty dead, but we got caught in 2 traffic jams (accidents) and then we had to make a pit stop in Wilmington and they have a drawbridge that was up and also stopped us for 15 more minutes. We rolled into Baltimore in bad moods, 2 hours late.

But the bad moods ended almost immediately, as Blondie's friend was there to pick us up. He's an awesome guy that Blondie was good friend's with in Texas. He stopped and got us a snack, and then we met his roommate, and then all of us headed over to a free concert in one of the parks in Baltimore. The concert ran for about 3.5 hours, and we met so many new (COOL) people. It was blazing hot in Baltimore but when the sun went down, it cooled off some, so it was still pleasant hanging out in the park. After the concert, we hit up a few other bars, before ending the night with some live music and pizza at a local pizza place.

Friday morning was miserable - it was 100+ degrees outside and I was hungover. We finally left the friend's apartment around 1 pm, and headed to the Inner Harbor area of Baltimore. We grabbed some lunch there and then looked around the area some more before we hit up Fort McHenry. This was the fort where Francis Scott Key penned the Star Spangled Banner. We toured the fort (HOT HOT HOT) and spent some time on the top of the fort looking out at the water before heading back on out. I was sweating so bad that it was running into my eyes, making it impossible to see.

After Fort McHenry, we did a driving tour around Baltimore - we saw Fells Point, the National Bohemian beer brewery, Patterson Park, etc. After our driving tour, we met up with some other friends for sushi and beers, before they mentioned they were meeting someone else who had a boat to go out on the water - and did we want to go? Of course we do! We left sushi and bought some beers and then met up with the boat guy. We didn't get to go out for very long as the water cops busted us for not having a light on the front of the boat, but we still got a quick tour of the harbor.

Also, funny note - even water cops bother me. As soon as I saw them, I was like "oh shit, busted!" But the boat guy was pretty awesome with them - he talked his way out of a ticket, and even had them escort us back to our dock. I was impressed with this guy.

After we docked our boat again, all of us decided to head around to this bar on the end of a dock called Tiki Barge. We made our way there and met up with 1 other person who I immediately named Will Ferrell because he kind of looked like him. The bar was really nice - it was open air, but the sun was down and it was getting a breeze. After Tiki Barge closed, we headed over to Little Havana for cubans and more beer. There I met a woman who I totally hit it off with - the next thing I know I'm doing shots with her at the bar. And then we were getting kicked out because it was closing time.

We headed back to our friend's apartment at around 2:30 am, and when we got there, we realized that they were filming a movie with Kevin Spacey in front of our friend's apartment - so we headed down to watch the filming for a bit (very very cool) before crashing out.

Yesterday we headed out around 1 pm to get crabcakes - a friend from Friday had told us about a place that had the best crab cakes in Baltimore so we headed over to see if they were indeed good. They kicked ass, took names, and beat the shit out of any other crab cake I've ever eaten. The place was Faidley's Seafood in Lexington Market, and if you're ever in the area, GO. After our lunch, we stopped at one last beer bar for the afternoon, before heading back to catch our bus at 5:30 pm.

And it was like the gods were making up for our shitty trip down to Baltimore as the bus was exactly on time, there was only 8 people on it, and we hit no accidents. We got back to NYC about 20 minutes earlier than scheduled. We ordered in dinner from our local mexican restaurant as soon as we got back home, and then crashed out after.

Now it's Sunday and I don't know what to do. I should do a workout, but feel like taking 1 more day off. I should get a pedicure, but it's hot out there. I should meet up with my bar friends at Pony Bar, but it's hot out there. Maybe I should just lay here?

Plans - we take off for KY on Thurs afternoon. I'm excited to see everyone, and play cards and drink beers. After KY, we slow down for a bit, before heading back to Wisc in August for a cousin's wedding. I need to start eating right again - all the beer drinking in Baltimore made my jeans tight (yes, it's the beer drinking; no, it's not the 20 lbs of food I consumed daily over the past week ;)

Also, an observation that cats are ridiculous. Our friend has a cat "Cassie" who is this ginormous ball of fluff; and his roommate has a kitten "Charlemagne" who is flat out silly. Cassie would sprawl her enormous body on the coffee table, scooting up so her front paws and face were hanging off the coffee table, while her hind legs were laid out like a dog. It was so effing funny. And Charlemagne was this tiny little thing who loved to show you her teeth. She wasn't growing or angry or anything, but just would do this fake "smile" and you'd see all her teeth. Ridiculous.

Okay, off to enjoy my last day of freedom. Hope everyone came off an awesome week!

--K

TX friend, NY friends, wine

Last Sunday turned out quite well. We hit up our usual spot - Pony Bar - and had one of our favorite bartenders there. This bartender loooves Milwaukee, so in turn, loves Blondie. As soon as he saw us come in, he was excited which made us excited for Sunday. Soon after we arrived, our bar friends showed up followed closely by a friend of Blondie's from TX (he no longer lives there). I forgot how funny this friend of Blondie's is, and we spent the afternoon almost in tears from laughing so hard. Even our bartender was cracking up at this guy, and bought us many rounds on the house. We got home that night, and I crashed out for a few hours, and then was up until almost midnight b/c of my inadvertent nap.

Blondie texted on Monday that he wanted to hit up our normal bar b/c our bartender was back from his almost month long vacation. I headed over to the bar after work, and it was a fun evening just getting caught back up with him (he's the one we spend NYE with in Jersey each year). Some of the regulars were also there, and we spent the evening laughing and talking.

Tuesday and Wednesday were a bust. Work is picking back up speed so at least they went by fast. And then Thursday happened. It was like 95 degrees in the city on Thursday so I wore a skirt to work, which is all fine and dandy. Normally. My subway lline was down on Thurs night, and my train was running on a different line. It's a 45 minute walk home from work for me (2 miles ish) and sometimes I love that - I walk home maybe 2-3 times a month (usually when the thought of cramming into the subway platform 6 stories underground creeps me out). But I almost always know in advance I'm going to walk home. Long story short, very thin soled shoes, skirt and 95 degree weather - I have to strut myself 2 miles home in that. I rolled on home with blisters, burning feet on the soles, and massive chub rub.

Which then of course in my brain makes sense that I can have a glass of wine. Because I had to walk home. Blondie had run 6 miles that day so he saw me getting a glass of wine and decided he wanted one too. 4 bottles of wine later, we went to bed.

And then Friday BLEW. I was a little nauseous but mostly headachy and dehydrated - which is my typical wine hangover. The day felt like it took forever, but finally, finally, I got to leave work. I stopped on the way home for velveeta to make queso (Texas represent!) and gummy bears. And Corona b/c I desperately needed a hair of the dog. I got home, collapsed, had a beer, and then our bar friends called. Blondie and I decided to join them for "just a few" (famous last words). Our bartender was still excited to see us so next thing I know we've got shots of Jameson's in front of us. Other than that though, the night was good.

Yesterday we decided to take it easy. I was very tired anyway and my allergies are kicking my ass right now. So when our bar friends texted that they were out again, I declined the invite. I'm glad I did - Blondie and I ate pretty healthy yesterday and then spent the evening in bed watching movies. Today I've done a 1 hr, 45 min workout already, ordered some groceries and paid our rent. We're (of course) headed to Pony Bar around noon, but it might be an earlier day for me.

Plans coming up are AWESOME. Tomorrow night, I have a dinner for a friend who is moving to Florida - I'm meeting up with her and a bunch of my other friends (former coworkers mostly) in Koreatown for dinner and drinks. Tuesday I'm done at 1 pm, and then Blondie and me and my bar friends have tickets to see "Harvey" on Tuesday night (broken record, but the Broadway play starring Sheldon from Big Bang Theory) - we might even wait outside after to get his autograph. Wednesday we are headed up to our building friend's apartment for the fireworks show. They are on the 33rd floor and face the Hudson opposite of how we do. We'll be able to see the entire show from their place. And Thursday we leave for Baltimore. We'll be spending Thurs-Sat with another friend of Blondie's who used to live in Texas. A week from Thursday we leave for KY so that we can see my family for the first time in over a year (with the exception of Mr Pooh who was here in May). PHEW!

Workouts were good this week:
Sunday: P90X Kenpo
Monday: rest (oops, the bar happened intstead)
Tuesday: Insanity Max Recovery
Wednesday: 3 mile run on treadmill in 34:45 (almost threw up)
Thursday: Insanity Cardio Power and Resistance
Friday: rest (planned)
Saturday: P90X Yoga
Sunday: 3 mile run on treadmill in 34:46 (felt a LOT better than Wed), P90X Stretching

--K

The Blonde One Came Home!

Last Sunday, I eventually got off my butt and did a workout. Afterwards, I shovelled some texas caviar (black eyed peas, black beans, cilantro, jalapeno, garlic, green pepper, cherry tomato) and a veggie burger into my mouth faster than I thought possible (did I mention in my previous post I was STARVING?) Then it was shower time, followed by pedi time - I got a silver sparkle done this time around and it rocks.

Then Sunday Funday started - I met up with my bar friends at Pony Bar around 1 pm. We were joined by our trivia buddy around 2 pm. And we watched the Euro game, after which my SF friend showed up. Then it was off to another bar by our apartment to drink non high ABV beers, and catch up with my SF friend. He had an evening flight out of JFK so it wasn't long before I had to put him in a cab and then I headed home myself. Which gave me as solid 6.5 hours of drinking that day.

Monday I bolted from work early so I could clean the apartment in preparation for Blondie!!! He showed up around 6:45 pm and it was so good having him home. Tigga and I did our happy dance and both of us were going in for many hugs. After Blondie relaxed for a bit, he decided we should go to our local pub for a drink and to say hi to everyone. A few beers at our pub and then we headed off for some mexican food before going home and crashing.

Tuesday we took it easy, but on Wednesday, we headed back to our bar for some chicken wings. But they ended up being out of chicken wings, so after a few beers, we decided to go to Daisy Mae's for some BBQ. I wasn't in the mood for meat as it was almost 100 degrees out, but I got collard greens and mac&cheese.

Thursday it was even hotter than Wednesday, so Blondie called me to meet him at Pony Bar for ice cold beers. We had dinner and a few beers there before heading home. I had a surprise waiting for me that night. My parents had taken my favorite picture of Max and had a friend of theirs do a painting for me from that picture. It's incredible - the woman who did the painting got the fact that even though Max was black, he had some red in his fur that came out in the sun. She also got his little bald spot at the top of his bottom lip. I bawled my head off that night - I haven't stopped missing Max since we lost him; if anything, I miss him more now 6 months on. I still think I see him in the apartment sometimes if I catch a glimpse of a blanket or something wrong. So this picture is something I needed. It reminded me that my buddy is still with me in my heart, even though he's not here physically. But holy fuck do I miss him. And HUGE HUGE THANKS to my mom and dad!

Blondie knew what to do with my on Thursday. While I was still bawling, he poppped a bottle of wine and put in a chick flick (Under the Tuscan Sun) and then sat with me while I drank wine, and cried my way through the movie.

Friday went by pretty quickly. I had a bunch of morning meetings, and then I went to lunch with a friend, and then it was time to go home (we have early Friday leave times). Friday evening, we were getting ready to make spaghetti when Mr Pooh texted a picture of Mrs Pooh enjoying a beer, so then we decided to get into the beer. And then we got into the last of the wine. We also watched Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - which was a crazy good movie. All in all, a good way to spend a Friday.

Saturday - first off, Happy 11 Year Anniversary to the Poohs! Congrats you guys!

Also on Saturday, Blondie and I got tickets to see Potted Potter (off Broadway) - this was a 70 min "recap" of the Potter books - each book in 10 mins. It was definitely aimed at adults; they had lines like "Potter has 99 problems but a snitch isn't one of them" which set Blondie and I to laughing until we almost peed ourselves. It was a great play, cheap b/c it's off Broadway, and highly recommended to anyone Potter fan or not.

Afterwards we went home and got our wine delivery before we hit our local pub to say goodbye to one of our favorite bartenders. He's leaving to travel Europe for awhile and we are JEALOUS! We hung out at the pub into the evening, before going to buy a bunch of junk food and crashing out for the night.

Today we are meeting up with our bar friends and a friend of Blondie's from Texas at Pony Bar. Plans coming up for us include seeing "Harvey", a broadway play starring Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, on 7/3. I'm going to request 7/5 and 7/6 off, and we're going to try to go to Baltimore to visit another friend of Blondie's. If that doesn't work, we're going to visit the New England states (New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine). Then the weekend after that, it's off to KY for a few days. We have Wisc in August for a cousin's wedding, followed by Chicago in Sept for Slick's and PFunk's wedding.

Workouts this week were wooty woot good!
Sunday: P90X Kenpo
Monday: Insanity Cardio Recovery
Tuesday: 3 mile run on treamdill (full run) - 35:29
Wednesday: Insanity Core Cardio and Balance
Thursday: 3 miles on treadmill (2 min walk, 2 min fast run) - 35:35
Friday: R.E.S.T.
Saturday: 60 mins on treadmill (2 min walk, 2 min hill run x 30 mins; 2 min walk, 2 min fast run x 30 mins)
Sunday: ??? P90X Yoga? 30 Day Shred?

--K

Happy Birthday, Happy Father's Day

Sooooo, before I get started, I wanted to say one more time how proud I am for Blondie and his beta launch. The game really is incredible, and I'm amazed that he did all that by himself! If I worked from home by myself, what I would've accomplished is discovering how many gummy bears I could fit into my mouth at one time. So yeah, GO BLONDIE!

Last Sunday I konked out early. I set my DVR to record the Tonys, started an X-files episode, stopped it about 20 minutes in, and was dead asleep by 8:30 pm. My friend wore me out with all the shopping we did - it's amazing how just walking around the city made me so freaking tired!

Monday and Tuesday were pretty lame. Work is slow right now, gearing up to be extremely busy but slow right now. And the weather here in NYC has been atrocious. Pleasant temps, but overcase and/or rainy all day. So I took it easy on Monday and Tuesday.

Wednesday was kind of a weird day. My BFF at work had a really bad day and he IM'd me around 2:15 pm trying to figure out where I was - I had my office door shut b/c I was on a call and he wanted me to hang up my call b/c he needed to talk. I couldn't do that but as soon as my call was done (around 3 pm), I grabbed him and we left the building. He ranted and raved for 20 minutes and then felt calmer to go back inside. Then that night, I went out to dinner with my boss and her other 2 direct reports. We had fun, but we went to a slightly fancier restaurant and then took over one of their tables for almost 3 hours. I hate doing that - the poor guy waiting on us wanted to flip tables, but we just kept sitting there. The conversation was good though, and the drinks were good.

Thursday I was really tired. Wednesday night, while not a late night, had a lot of drinks involved so I was in desperate need of an early bedtime. My bar friend texted that evening to come play trivia, but I just didn't have the energy. And Friday was another lame day - I got off work early and did some errands (grocery shopping, stop at the pet store for cat stuff) and then home to collapse and end the day.

Yesterday was better though. I did a really long gym workout in the morning, and then in the afternoon, walked over to Herald's Square and met my bar friend for a bit. We hit up a restaurant for a late lunch/early dinner, before stopping in a hair supply shop (we spent an hour in there) and making our way back to a new brewery that's opened near us. I fell in love with the bar, simply due to the awesome 80's music they were cranking. Afterwards, back to our local bar to meet up with the hubby and have a shot to celebrate the fact that he quit the job that he loathed (woo hoo!). We got to talking extensively about pizza while at the bar, so I took off around 9:30 pm to go order some pizza. But by the time I got home and booted up my laptop, I realized that putting a bunch of pizza into me at that time of night would not be conducive to my "lose weight before Slick's wedding" plan I've got going on. So I didn't order pizza, and instead just went to bed.

Now today I'm STARVING. I'm going to workout here in a little bit, then eat a big breakfast before I take off to get a pedicure. After the pedi, it's meeting up with my bar friends at Pony Bar for a bit, and then a friend from SF has been in NYC this weekend and I'm supposed to meet up with him for a drink tonight. And tomorrow, Blondie comes home!!!! Tigga and I are excited to get him back.

Happy Father's Day to the Sheriff.

And HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to TCKITW (the original)!!!! I can't believe she is 7 years old already! Love you cutie!

Workouts this week were on spot for once:
Monday - Max Cardio Recovery
Tuesday - P90X Shoulders & Arms; tabata situp interval
Wednesday - 3 miles on treadmill, 2 min walking x 2 min fast running - 35:58
Thursday - Rest day, walked home from work - 2 miles
Friday - Insanity Cardio Power and Resistance
Saturday - 1 hour on treadmill; 2 min walk x 2 min run uphills - 32 mins; 2 min walk x 2 min fast run - 28 mins; lifted weights
Sunday - ??? P90X Kenpo or Yoga; or Insanity Core Cardio and Balance

--K

BETA LAUNCH

Okay, it's been a few weeks, and I'm trying desperately to remember what we've done. It's not going well. Typical.

So anyway, what I do remember. Last Thursday, I met up with an old friend of mine from SF - he was in town for a few days so I headed over to see him at my "work bar". We had a blast. It also worked out as the bartender (we consider him "our bartender") let me know that he had quit and that Friday was his last day. I texted my friends, and they came out also to say goodbye.

Friday was a short Friday, and we decided to give Mike (our bartender) one last sendoff. So we trucked over and for the last hour of shift hung out together. We now have to find a new local "work bar".

Saturday Blondie and I caught a train out to Queens, almost by JFK. My BFF from work lives over there - he rents a room in a house with a huge backyard so he threw a BBQ. It was so much fun - we almost didn't go b/c they thought of going all the way out to Queens was tiring, but I'm so glad we did. His girlfriend had a made a huge batch of sangria, and then his dad (a chef before he retired) did all the meats. We stuffed ourselves silly, made some new friends, and just had a blast.

Last Sunday Blondie had to work all day so I met up with bar friends at Pony Bar. We drank there for awhile before we decided that margaritas were in order. So we headed on down to Chelsea to a bar called "Trailer Park" which (go figure) was red-necky kitschy shit. There was literally a pregnant mannequin holding a bottle of beer and a cigarette. All kinds of awesome. The margs were pretty good, and we split some tater tot nachos. Afterwards, I stopped at Subway and took me and Blondie some dinner home.

Then here comes the good stuff - Monday - Wednesday were pretty lame, but Thurs, OMG Thursday. BLONDIE BETA LAUNCHED HIS GAME!!!! I'm so proud of him - he's worked his ass off on this game, and I can't believe what he's been able to do. The game rocks, so much fun to play! I met Blondie at poison bar around 4 pm to celebrate, and we had a couple of hours of just hanging out, doing shots, etc. Around 6 pm, a friend of ours from Texas showed up - we hadn't seen her in about 7 years, so it was really nice getting caught up with her. After poison bar, it was over to our local bar to have 1 last beer, before heading home.

Friday was a mess - I had a massive hangover, so the day felt like it took forever to finish. And then Blondie also had a super early flight Saturday morning so once I got home, it was just taking it easy. We woke up around 3:30 am Saturday morning to get Blondie out the door, and then I crashed out again until around 8 am. I did the P90X yoga DVD around 10 am, and then I cooked. I made a ropa vieja in our slowcooker, and then when that was ready that night, I threw together a quinoa and black bean side dish. I spent all day watching really crappy TV, and finally around 9 pm last night, caught up with eps of X-Files (Netflix) while spooning the cat.

Today was really awesome - but it started weird. We live right by where the cruise lines dock, and that includes the Disney cruise ship. They have a musical horn that plays the Disney theme song, and normally they only play it while they are leaving the docks. This morning though, they played it around 12 times between 9 and 10 am. It's REALLY loud. I wanted to go over and kick the shit out of that cruise ship. So I took my frustration out on my Insanity Core Cardio and Balance disc (and almost puked). But then the day got better, as I met up with my bar friend at Pony Bar for a bit. After a few drinks, we headed down to Union Square and shopped the day away before meeting up with her husband for many drinks and food. (They also told me that Mr Pooh is embedded in their hearts, they loved him so much when he was here).

Now I'm home, and NPH is hosting the Tony Awards. I've got some gummy bears, and might enjoy a whiskey in a bit. I might also DVR the rest of the Tonys and chill out in bed again watching some more X-Files.

No plans this week. Blondie is gone until next week, so it's going to be pretty low-key. I feel like I got in some good workouts over the past few weeks, so hoping to dive full-force back into eating right (whiskey, gummy bears - that's "eating right", right?) and working out hard-core.

--K

Party in NOLA, party in NYC

New Orleans... OMG. So much fun! The trip started out well as Blondie and I had an excellent flight on the way down to NOLA. The Delta terminal at LaGuardia simply rocks, and then we had gotten exit row seating which gave us a bunch of extra leg room. We landed in New Orleans, caught a cab to our hotel, and 5 minutes later headed out into the evening. We met up with the initial group of guys for the bachelor party at Pat O'Briens and enjoyed many hurricanes before heading back to the hotel to meet up with Slick's group. After that, back out for many more libations, a stop at Cat's Meow to hear some horrid karaoke before finally heading back to our hotel around 3:30 am.

Friday morning started out bad - due to massive hangovers on both of our parts. We finally worked up the energy to meet up with Slick and group for breakfast, but they had stopped for beignets and I needed "real food". So we only went into the restaurant to say hi to them before taking off for massive plates of red beans & rice, and crawfish etouffee. And bloodies. Several bloodies. Breakfast made me feel a bunch better so we headed back over to Slick's group and hit up Laffite's Blacksmith Shop (the oldest bar in America). We spent about 3 hours just lazing around there, chatting, drinking, listening to music. By then, the beignet group was starving so back up Bourbon St to get some po' boys, before making our way over to Harrah's.

We finally left the casino around 8 pm, and headed to our hotel to get showers before meeting back up with the group and Pauly P for dinner at Emeril's NOLA restaurant - it was really good, and I only expected to partially like it. I had shrimps and grits, as well as smoked salmon salad. Along with girlie drinking it up with mojitos as my liver was fried on beer. After dinner, we headed back down Bourbon Street (where we saw an episode of True Blood being filmed - FYI, Alexander Saarsgaard is ginomorously tall in person) and grabbed some Hand Grenades before making our way over to Frenchmen's Street to hear a brass band play. I called it quits early-ish, around 1:30 am, and we headed back to the hotel to crash out.

Saturday hurt - We started at Mother's restaurant for mass quantities of po' boys and red beans & rice (and bloodies yet again) before hitting up the casino. I went up pretty big time playing video poker while watching the Rangers win, while Blondie tried his luck at Pai Gow. Eventually all the guys ended up in the video poker room with me, watching sports, drinking for "free", etc. Finally we decided to walk our drunk butts down to Bourbon St, where we hit up a bar that had a backyard patio. It ended up getting too late to go back and get showers (stink central), so we all just drug ourselves to Acme Oyster House after the bar. It ended up being nice b/c the adult establishment across the street from Acme had $1 entry, so we took the opportunity to go back and forth to see the dancers while we waited in line for dinner.

After dinner, we headed back down Bourbon to the "main event" of the weekend - a trip to the drag club to celebrate with Slick. It was a blast - the bouncer was an older lady who walked with a cane, and there was this young kid who glammed onto our group - at 1 point, I walked past him and he smacked me in the back (not sure why there) and this woman threw her cane down, grabbed him by his shirt and tossed him out of the bar. It was all kinds of awesome. The night pretty much ended after this club - we danced around the club for awhile after the show, and then went back to Bourbon, but Slick was pretty much done in by this point, so we ended the evening around 2 am.

Sunday we said goodbye to everyone throughout the day - leaving just me and Blondie crashed out in our bed that night watching HBO as a treat. And then Monday happened - we went down around 4 am to check out of the hotel, and the lady mentioned that we had "checked out on Sunday". So I was all "uh, no we didn't". Apparently Marriott's reservations were screwed up - all of my paperwork (emails, confirmation printouts) had us staying until Monday, all of their systems (even though their systems sent us the emails) had us checking out on Sunday. Still not sure why our keys still worked, etc. That was 20 mins of the receptionist on hold with Marriott main office, but they ended up comping us our last night so that worked out well.

Then we headed to the airport, got on the plane, and had the most awesome announcement ever. Basically security was backed up so they were waiting on 1 person to get through the line, but the captain was all "You see folks. They have to push the bags to the left. But they can't. Because they have to get people through the line. And then the bags back up. And then the people back up because the bags are backed up". Blondie and I were all "uh, what the fuck?" It took us about 20 seconds to decipher what was going on.

Then we took off - and hit weather in NYC. So we circled for 1.5 hours over Richmond, VA, before they announced we were out of circling fuel and we were then going to touchdown in Allentown, PA, to refuel. Ah well, nothing we could do about it - and then they came across again and announced LaGuardia had just re-opened so we were going there instead. But if we had to circle at all, we would have to go back to Allentown. So we flew having no idea what was going on, until about 10 mins before we landed when the flight attendant told us we were cleared to land in NYC. PHEW. The pilot was super funny too - we landed and he said "Folks. We're late. But we're here. Unlike a lot of people".

So you'd think we had a low-key week after our NOLA madness, but we didn't. Monday and Tuesday were very low-key, but then on Wednesday, good shit happened. It started with my walk back to my hood after work - normally I take a subway but the weather was beautiful and I was meeting Blondie for dinner anyway, so thought I'd walk. I started talking to my mom a bit, but then the traffic was loud, so about 3 secs after I hung up the phone with her (and about halfway home on my walk), I noticed the ginormous crowd I was going to have to pass - they were hanging out on the sidewalk in front of a movie theater, and all of a sudden, just as I got to them, they started screaming. To me it sounded like "Leo" or "Liam" so I stopped for a sec to see who it was. And then Will Smith was 10 feet in front of me. "Will", when screamed loudly, sounds like "Liam". It was the NYC premiere of MIB 3. I'm not a Will Smith fan, but I almost screamed too.

I met up with Blondie for dinner after that, and then we decided to hit up our normal bar to watch the Rangers game. It also happened to be the start of Fleet Week. We got latched onto by a young lady (I think she was very lonely) - who did nothing but rag on people. It was soooo funny. She had mean things to say about everyone - her half-brother's mother, a woman in her unit, one of the guys in her unit, etc. We ended up hanging out at the bar way beyond when we meant to, buying drinks for the navy people and just catching up with everyone else.

Thursday was trivia night - I met up with my bar friend and one of her friend's to try our hand at it again. This time, "Freak Gasoline Fight Accident" (5 pts if you caught the Zoolander reference) came in 3rd place earning us a $10 g/c to the bar. Afterwards, back to our normal bar to meet up with my bar friend's husband. I missed my "Fleet Week friends" by just a few minutes, but they apparently were doing Blowjob shots when they were there, so my group decided to have a round in honor of them.

And then Friday - the start of my summer Fridays. I met up with Blondie and my bar friend at our poison bar for lunch and drinks. And then like 2 shots and 7 beers later, we stumbled over to do our grocery shopping. Our grocery store just redid part of the store, and they have a lot bigger selection now, so I had a blast in there. Prosciutto, canadian bacon and mixed nuts make an awesome dinner by the way. After the shop, we headed home to crash for a bit before meeting back up with our bar friends at our normal bar. The night ended early - I'm all about day drinking, but only if it's beer - day drinking shots does a number on me.

Saturday was recovery day - we didn't do crap all day (as I slept until noon) and then we met up with our bar friends around 5:30 pm ish to go see Avengers. LOVE LOVE LOVE. That movie ROCKED. Afterwards, we headed home to order in tacos and drink a beer, while watching Ironman. And then Sunday was crazy - I got a pedicure Sunday morning before meeting up with everyone at Pony Bar. 4 hours later, I headed off with my bar friends to go to our normal bar while Blondie headed home. We only lasted a few beers at our normal bar before we all were done.

And Monday - omg. No Sunday dread!!!! Monday was nice - we were supposed to have our bar friends over for dinner, so we did a massive clean on our apartment. It turned out they couldn't make it, but it was nice having everything sparkling. We mixed up a pitcher of hurricanes (brought some mix back from NOLA) around 3 pm, then we made dinner, and then we drank everything else in our apartment.

Today came too soon. Back to the grind. I need to get back on working out - I hope to start that tonight; but it might wait until tomorrow morning. Plans coming up include seeing an old SF friend on Thurs for drinks, seeing an old Dallas friend next Thurs for dinner, Blondie to WI in 2 weeks for family camp, and then we're free until mid July when it's time to hit up KY. I'm tired today.

--K

Invasion of the Pooh

I'm getting old. I've been sitting here trying to remember what I did last week before Mr Pooh arrived, and all I could remember was "trivia". So let's start with that.

And then, as soon as I typed that line, I remembered. Woo. Freaking. Hoo.

Okay, so last Monday was quite excellent as I met up with one of my BFF's from SF. She and I worked together for many years, before I took off for NYC and she took off for south bay. We still meet up every single time I go back to SF, but it was cool that she was in NYC. I met up with her and her boyfriend for lunch, we headed up the street to a cuban restaurant and had a blast. Got all caught up on each other's lives, wasn't at the office, etc. I think it was the longest break I've ever taken midday (coming from someone who thought nothing of 2 hour coffee breaks when I lived in SF).

Tuesday I left work early again, this time to get my roots re-done. I had like 3 inches of dark brown hair, and then 1.5 feet of blonde hair - can I tell you, this doesn't look good on anyone. I walked into my salon, and my hair dresser was all "oh honey. No." So now I'm full-on blonde again, and loving it.

Wednesday was an all-morning offsite, which I about slept all the way through. Then a coworker and mine went to a late lunch, putting us back to the office around 2 pm. Got caught up on email, and then the day was basically over.

As I'm typing this, I realize how much last week rocked.

And Thursday was my last day for the week - I started it off by going to lunch with another coworker, and then heading out for a goodbye drink at the end of the day for yet another coworker. And then I trotted my way back over to my hood, and met up with my friends for some T.R.I.V.I.A. I'm pleased to report that team "Yo Momma's Tan" took 2nd place, earning us a $20 gift certificate to the pub.

After the trivia, I stopped off at Baskin Robbins and picked up an ice cream cake for the Blonde One and then my friends and I headed over to our local bar for many drinks to end the evening.

Then it was Friday - and it was time for Mr Pooh to get here! A solid hour of cleaning on Friday morning led to a pretty nice looking apartment, and then Blondie and I sat on our patio (beautiful weather) waiting for Mr Pooh to arrive. He showed up around 10:30 am, and we sat and talked for awhile, before heading out for food.

We hit up a cajun restaurant (1 hurricane, 1 beer) before taking our party to the land of the bulldog (frozen pink vodka lemonade topped with baby corona). Then it was back down the street to Poison Bar, where we were joined by my bar friend. 30 beers later, it was over to our local pub to end the night (many beers, 3 shots).

Then it was Saturday - AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BLONDE ONE!!!!!

Saturday morning was "the suck". I threw up all morning long (37! I'm 37! I'm NOT 21!), whereas Blondie and Mr Pooh were doing a little better than me. We met up with our bar friends around 1 pm, for (ugh) another round of partying. We hit up Pony Bar for beers and food, and then to Landsdowne Road for more beers and food, and then to our local for a last round of beer, and then finally home, to order in a ton of pizza and stuff ourselves silly.

Sunday, Blondie was having stomach problems, so Mr Pooh and I took off to do some exploring. We went down to the tip of the island to see Freedom Tower (and to talk about how terrified of heights we are), and then wandered over to Zuccotti Park. Afterwards, a trip past Trinity Church, a stop for soft serve ice cream, a meander past the bull on Wall Street, before ending up in Battery Park - we watched a group of guys do dance/gymnastics type moves for awhile, and then headed back to Freedom Tower to tour the 911 Memorial.

The 911 Memorial was very moving and very powerful. The pools were beautiful, and it was a little breathtaking to realize how big the base of the towers were. I'm glad we got to go do it (apparently the memorial sells out very quickly and we got our tickets last minute), but I think it would be hard to go back again.

After the memorial, Mr Pooh and I were sweating like it was our jobs, so we headed back to the subway (air conditioning biznitches!) and caught a ride back up to our hood. We stopped at poison bar one more time to meet up with Blondie who was finally feeling better. Then it was over to JT's restaurant "Southern Hospitality" for an early dinner. After dinner, we headed back to our hood to one last bar, and met up with my bar friends (who BTW, LOVE LOVE LOVE Mr Pooh - one of my friends said that his sides killed him all weekend from how hard he laughed around Mr Pooh).

Then it was time to say goodbye as we put Mr Pooh in a cab back to the airport. Le sigh. I met back up with bar friends after saying goodbye and we drank into the evening. I get emotional when I leave family, and since I hadn't seen anyone in my family for a year, it was especially hard this time - so I did what I do best and drank my feelings away.

Monday started awful, but ended well - the day was long, but then I met up with my bar friends at the end of the day - one of my bar friends does cabaret/burlesque, and the piano player in her show's was doing his own show. So we headed up to see that - but it turned out they were sold out (awesome for him!). So instead we just hung out at our local pub for the evening.

Tonight we'll be packing up to get ready for some NOLA action this weekend! I'm so excited to see Slick and PIII, and drink some hurricanes, and eat crawfish until I turn into a crawfish. We leave tomorrow evening, and I'm already counting down minutes.

--K

Last 5 day work week for awhile

Last Sunday ended up being just what the doctor ordered. I got our groceries and then did a nice workout. Picked up a bunch of our packages from the concierge desk. Picked up a prescription. Picked up some stuff for our cat. Got a much needed pedicure. I felt like a rock-star at that point. I had done a ton of shit and it wasn't even noon.

Pony Bar was also a lot of fun last weekend. Blondie and my bar friends came out, and we had a blast. Blondie was super sleepy though and him and one of my bar friends took off about midway through the afternoon to get naps. My other bar friend and I stayed out until around 7:30 pm ish, and had a nice girl's afternoon to end the day.

The week was blah. I have no other word to describe it. It felt like every day took 3 days to get through. On Tuesday, we had a happy hour to celebrate a promotion of a friend of mine. I was so exhausted by the time Tuesday ended I could barely drag myself to the bar. I had a single glass of champagne and then trucked on home to go straight to bed.

Thursday was another happy hour - this time for someone's send off. I didn't have the energy to even think about going. Instead I headed back to my hood, stopped off at our local to say hi to Blondie and my bar friends, had 2 beers, went home and went to bed at 8 pm. Totally pathetic.

When 6 pm on Friday hit, I almost cried in relief. I now have 4 weeks of 4 days or less of work in them coming at me. My relief is intense. I headed home on Friday almost giddy. Met up with Blondie at our apartment and had many beers to end our evening. Saturday was a repeat of Friday night - we ended up having beers on our patio for awhile, before Blondie went to bed early. I was up until after midnight though - couldn't get to sleep.

Yesterday was Sunday Funday. Met up with our bar friends at Pony Bar, spent the afternoon there and rounded out the evening by stopping at our biergarten for a couple of pitchers and a sausage platter. Then we hit up CVS to buy 5 tons of junk food. Then we came home and passed out. At 7:30 pm. We RULE!

Plans for the week include meeting up with an SF friend today for lunch. Then we're laying low this week as Friday morning Mr Pooh lands for a weekend of debauchery! We'll be celebrating the Blonde One's birthday on Saturday so we'll need to be rested up and ready to go.

Workouts were AOK this week:
Sunday: P90X Kenpo
Monday: Insanity Max Recovery
Tuesday: 30 Day Shred Level 2, Bob's Bootcamp Level 1
Wednesday: Ran 3 miles in 36:49
Thursday: Insanity Core Cardio and Balance
Friday: rest
Saturday: Ran 3 miles in 35:12, P90X Stretching
Sunday: Insanity Max Plyo

--K

Space shuttles, scotch tastings, 33:29, TCKITWv9.0

The title is actually the highlights from the week. Let's get this recap started shall we?

The front part of the week was all out lame. It was go to work, come home on Monday, Tues and Wed. Work is kind of up in the air right now - since the "go back to the old project" idea got shot down, it's been kind of weird at work. I was so geared up for making the switch, getting my mind back into my old role, quickly bringing myself up to speed for P2, that all of a sudden, I feel like I've got nothing to do (which isn't true). Just weird.

On Thursday, the Blonde One called me at work and mentioned he made "ghost pepper rice" for lunch and it was almost too hot for him to eat. Then he said we could eat the leftovers for dinner or go to the bar. I was like BAR. As I get older, I have a harder time eating really spicy food. As Blondie gets older, he can eat napalm and not have a problem. So when he said the rice was almost too hot for him, I knew I couldn't eat it. So off to the bar.

We met up with our bar friends for about an hour before they had to take off, but had a great evening at the bar. They had run out of Miller Lite (my standard drink) but had Bud Light Platinum. For those who haven't tried it, BLP has a 6.0 ABV which is really high for a light beer. I bought a 6 pack of this a few weeks ago, and downed it after a few beers at Pony Bar without realizing it was 6.0 ABV. And went to bed at like 5 pm that night.

Friday I got to work and was surfing the web, when I realized they were about a minute from flying the Space Shuttle Enterprise over the Hudson (Intrepid). I called Blondie and hollered at him to get out onto our patio and watch for the shuttle. He called back about 20 mins later - he had gotten to see the shuttle fly by! I think that is so exciting, and I'm seething with jealousy about it all. Stupid UES job location.

Then on Friday night, Blondie and I and my BFF from work headed down to Tribeca for the evening. My work BFF (WBFF from now on) has a girlfriend that I've heard about for awhile. So we were going to meet her for the first time. We went to Tribeca to this place called the Brandy Library for the meet up. Meeting the girlfriend was nice because it turns out she used to work with us and they just kept it under wraps at the office. So I already knew her. It was so funny b/c she walked in after us and I was all like "OMG! How are you?!?!?" and she plopped down next to WBFF. And it took me a minute but then it clicked - "ohhhhh I get it. You're the girlfriend!"

Anyhow, she's majorly into scotch, and I like scotch (and whiskey and bourbon) but I'm definitely not a connoisseur. I had a glass of bourbon to start and Blondie got a Singapore Sling. Then between the 4 of us, we had 18 tastings of various bourbon, scotch, etc. The bar was amazing. It's Brandy Library and it's set up like a library - leather seats, etc. The walls of the place are lined in bookshelves, and are filled with bottles. You give your order to your waiter, and then the waiter actually goes to the shelves and pulls out what they need to make your order. They don't give the order to a bartender, they do it themselves. There is a bar, and that bartender makes orders only for people who sit at the bar. Also, one of their appetizers were deviled eggs. Blondie was in heaven b/c of that. I was in heaven b/c it was brown liquor!

After drinks, at around 9:30 pm, we headed out of Brandy Library on the hunt for BBQ. We wandered around Tribeca for awhile - Tribeca film festival is going on right now so it was cool to see everything set up for it. But then made it to BBQ. The BBQ place was awesome. I had ribs and Blondie had fried chicken. We split sides with everyone. And then we headed back outside. It was freezing cold and we eagerly threw ourselves into a cab and came home.

Yesterday I had that weird kind of hangover. Where I wasn't nauseous or headachy, but I was exhausted. Blondie got up to go to the gym around 10:30 am, and I decided to go with him instead of doing a workout video in the house. On the elevator down, I was all "I'm just going to walk on the treadmill for 30 mins. I'm just going to lazy pedal a bike for 30 mins". The gym was pretty dead when we walked in, so I got onto a Precor and was putzing around with my headset, and then decided "fuck it, I'm just going to try and run today".

AND BUSTED IT OUT. I have no idea where that came from. My run. But I did 3 miles in 33:29!!! I'm almost back down to my ideal running speed. I'm so flipping excited about it. I'm starting to like running again, and I think it's because I know I'm not going any further than 3 miles right now. And also, I'm not training so if I want to go slow as shit, nobody cares. My run felt really good - it was hard, and I was exerting myself for certain, but my breathing felt on pace with my legs. So while I was breathing hard, it was controlled hard breathing.

Afterwards, Blondie and I showered up and then talked ourselves out of actually going to the grocery store. Instead we ordered in groceries to be delivered today, and then ordered sandwiches for lunch. We got up around 3 pm and headed out to meet our bar friends for many drinks. Blondie is going to work with 1 of my bar friends on his project, so they discussed the project for a couple of hours while my other bar friend and I got drunk.

And then we rolled home last night to get the exciting news that TCKITWv9.0 was born yesterday afternoon! Another niece, making it 8 nieces, 1 nephew between Blondie's siblings and my sibling. She had to come early as there was something they were concerned about with her, but she's here and she's ok. Blondie is excited - he's headed back to the Land of Cheese in 6 weeks, so he gets to meet her and TCKITWv8.0 for the first time.

Today I'm waiting for groceries. And then I'm going to workout, pick up a prescription, pick up cat treats, get a pedicure, and then meet up with Blondie and my bar friends at Pony Bar for the afternoon. It's a nice day today so we might hit up our biergarden also.

Workouts were good this week:
Monday - Insanity Cardio Recovery disc
Tuesday - 30 Day Shred Level 1 disc, Bob's Bootcamp Level 1 disc
Wednesday - 3 mile run in 35:49
Thursday - P90X Legs&Back disc
Friday - rest
Saturday - 3 mile run in 33:29!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sunday - ??? Maybe P90X Kenpo or Insanity Max Cardio

--K

Recovery Week

Last Monday was a full-on recovery day. I laid in bed all day with ice on my ankle, and periodically had Blondie bring me some food. That night, we decided to head out to dinner so that I could see how walking felt. We slowly (I'm talking 15 minutes to go 1 block) made our way up to one of our local bars, and got a bite to eat along with a beer. And then slowly made our way back. It felt okay. I was moving very very slowly, but I'm glad I got some movement in as opposed to being a slug all day.

Monday night, I got called for work - even though I took the day off. They are upgrading one of our systems, and had scheduled a mini release (without telling anyone from my division). So when it went bad, I got called. As soon as I heard the issue, I knew it was a showstopper, but still had to call some people in to hear the problem so nobody would be shocked on Tuesday. That was 45 minutes of no fun.

Tuesday was the final launch of my project. I took a cab into work, which I would've had to do anyway b/c steps weren't something I was about to try. I got into work at 5:45 am, and was just gearing up to dial into the 6 am call when my boss came by. Apparently, the release got rescheduled until 8 am, and since I wasn't at work, I missed the reschedule. She missed b/c she gets a ton of email each day. We chatted for a bit, before heading out to grab breakfast around 7 am. The call went suprisingly well - and I cheered around 10 am as that's IT. FINITO. I took off at 2 pm as I was very tired and my ankle was still giving me problems. I tackled the subyway stairs - got lapped by a guy with a cane (no joke). It took me 5 minutes to get down 20 steps. Step 1 foot. Breathe for a sec. Bring 2nd foot very slowly to meet first foot. Try to put first foot down without bending leg. Breathe for a sec. Repeat x 20. Blondie met me at our poison bar that afternoon - I needed to celebrate the release/project being done. We had many frosties to celebrate before heading over to our regular bar to end the night. Both of us were toasty, and Blondie made me some pizza for dinner, which I had to "get rid of" before I even went to bed that night. Go us.

Thursday was a pain in the butt for various reasons. I won't go into work details, but let me say, sometimes working for the type of company I work for in the city I work in can be a ginormous ball of suck. Still though, I'm grateful to have a job. Very grateful. So I sucked it up, but the day started off weird, and didn't show any signs of improvement. My boss finally came by around 4:30 and we left early to get ready for a going-away party for a good friend of ours. I was out until 8:30 pm ish helping my friend celebrate, and then cabbed home that night. 2 cabs in 1 week! That never happens.

And Friday was blah. Got told about an issue on Friday morning, so filed all appropriate "oh halp!" tickets I needed to. Tried to ping my boss who was tied up in a meeting with no idea how long it would go, so left to take a lunch with my friends. Got back an hour later, and the place was in uproar about the issue. I calmed everyone down, filled everyone in on the details, and then locked myself in my office until it was time to go home. But it was nice then, as when I was walking up to my building that night, I noticed Blondie hanging over our balcony drinking a beer. So Blondie and I shared many drinks on our balcony that night, got caught up on our week, and then went to bed early.

 Saturday we both did a workout - my first since the half marathon. Then we went and got some mexican food. Our little restaurant is so good, but this time, there was a couple with 2 kids they couldn't control so we ate fast and bolted. We decided to hit up another bar we don't normally go to on the way home - they have massive windows at the front that roll up, so we snagged a seat there and started people watching and having a beer. Then some guy brought his kid in, and the kid just wasn't having any of it (this kid must've only been about 12-14 months old). First off, the guy kept talking to the kid like he was a dog ("Who's a good boy? That's my good boy!"), and then he made the kid take off his cap, and the kid just went beserk. So then he pulled the kid out of the bar, right in front of the windows Blondie and I were in front of and let him have his tantrum there. We decided our luck was over, and just left.

That night my bar friends called, and they were out at the local biergarten, so we headed over there for several pitchers of beer and apps, before hitting up our regular bar to watch part of the Rangers game (no kids in either place. Blondie and Yours Truly - FTW!  As a note - I don't mind kids AT ALL.  My brother, and my siblings-in-law have kids and I truly adore the shit out of them.  It just felt weird on Saturday as our neighborhood - especially our avenue - is not the traditional family neighborhood in NYC.  But pinky swear - I'm not anti-kid by any means.  And also, asshole, don't treat your kid like he's a dog.) Afterwards, a trip to Dunkin and CVS for junk before heading home to watch some eps of Breaking Bad.

Sunday, it was pouring down rain, so we met up with our bar friends again at Pony Bar - there was a group of 6 of us, drinking beers, eating awesome food, and just enjoying the weather from inside. It made me realize I have "family" in NYC and it made me truly grateful for yesterday. I was very sore from my workout on Saturday so decided to skip working out on Sunday and just recover (again). Plans for this week including NOTHING. I need some downtime, some good workouts, and some great sleep. Blondie is in agreement.

--K

The 4th 1/2

So my planned sick day last Monday didn't happen - I called in, but then had to work on a left-over issue with a coworker. So we were on the phone about 30 minutes on Monday morning, and I realized that the issue was going to take all day to resolve so I headed on into work anyway. I felt better once I got about 3 cups of coffee in me, but man, I was exhausted. All day Monday was spent getting the issue resolved, and I was so happy when the day finally ended.

We didn't do much on Mon or Tues nights. Then on Wed, I was hurrying down the steps into the subway after work to get home, and pulled the same calf muscle I had pulled a few weeks ago. I limped the entire way home, and then Blondie suggested a bar night - I agreed as I wasn't going to try and work out on Thurs, and also, WTF. When did I get old? When did my body start falling apart on me? So we headed over to our local bar and had a few drinks with everyone. We ended up doing a junk-food night for dinner that night, so after the bar, we headed up to the store and bought a ton of junk-food.

On Friday I got the news that my boss' boss officially shot down me going back to my old program. She was pretty "not happy" about it all - them approaching me, me saying yes, and just nipped it all in the bud. I'm relieved to be honest, glad I didn't say no but also glad someone else did. Friday night, I joined Blondie on our patio for more beers while relaxing the night away.

Saturday it was up and at 'em early - Blondie and I took the train down to Chelsea area, and got the race packets for Sunday. Afterwards we tooled around Chelsea for a bit, before heading back and getting lunch in our hood. We cleaned the apartment on Saturday afternoon, and then headed back to Penn Station to pick up my PA friend on Saturday night. It was bedtime early because...

I ran my 4th 1/2 marathon on Sunday. And by run, I mean "I'm going to run for a bit. Now I'm going to stop and walk for a long bit". My PA friend and I did the More Magazine/Fitness Half Marathon - it was all done in Central Park which was very cool. The race was 2.5 loops of the park, so I got to see a bunch of stuff I hadn't seen before, the most noticeable being "Cat Hill". Cat Hill is this hill on the east side of the park which has a statue of a cougar getting ready to pounce on one of the rocks to the side. If you aren't paying attention and catch it out of the corner of your eye, it almost looks lifelike.

So the race recap - SUCK BALLS. My leg felt okay when we started and I got over a mile into the race thinking "all right, feeling good". My breathing was good, my legs felt strong. And then we hit the hills - Central Park is rolling hills, and that's what the entire race was. Toss into that only training on the treadmill for the last 4 weeks, and not really doing a lot of hill training, and bam. I died. The worst part was as you were doing these hills, realizing you had to do them all again because of the 2.5 loops of the park. OMG. By mile 9, I was ready to DNF myself. My leg, which had felt great when I started, was in full on agony. My feet were killing me. I was coated (and I mean COATED) in sweat. But I managed to pull through, and finish. My time was 3:03 (28 minutes more than last year's half).

The half was notable for one reason - it killed any dreams I had about being a distance runner. I'll stick to my 5K distances, and that's it.

After the race, my friend and I cabbed it back to the apartment and got showered, before heading out for beers and lunch. We put her into a cab after lunch so that she could get to Penn Station and back home, and Blondie and I escaped onto our patio for more beers. My bar friends called late afternoon to come celebrate, so we joined them at another bar for more beers, before finally heading home late last night.

I feel okay today - it takes me awhile to get moving, but once I do, I'm moving okay. However, my ankle (the one I sprained at the beginning of February) is puffed up like you wouldn't believe, so I am going to call in today. It doesn't hurt but it's about 4 times the size of my normal ankle, so I'm going to elevate and ice it today.

This week will hopefully go fast. Tomorrow is my final launch of P1 of my program, so after tomorrow, it's over. A friend from work quit and her going away party is on Thurs. And then it's the weekend, and I'm going to relax and do nada.

Workouts were good last week:
Monday - Cardio Recovery disc
Tuesday - 1 hour on treadmill; 2 min walk, 2 min hill run x 30 mins; 2 min walk, 2 min fast run x 30 mins.
Wed - Core Cardio and Balance
Thurs/Fri - off days, my calf was a wreck both days
Saturday - P90X stretching disc
Sunday - 13.1 mile run/walk

--K

Happy Chocolate Bunny Day

It was, once again, a very slow/low-key week. I don't know what's going on right now - but I'm loaded up with snot (again) and moving at the speed of molasses. The weather has been nice, so we've got that going for us. But my allergies have been going nuts. I sneeze my face off all day long. And it wears me out.

So I still don't have news on the work front. It's all still up in the air. As expected, my boss didn't like that they want me around for another 2 years. It's not my role anymore, and to ask me to commit to it for that long really did not go over well. But even for short-term, they don't have an answer about whether I'm approved to go back yet or not. And honestly, the longer they take to make a decision, the more I'm tempted to tell them no.

Other than that, I like my new role. So far, it's less stress. Learning the role isn't going to be fun, but at least it won't be massive pressure like my old role was (give me a new person in the business role, a new role for myself, and a hard launch date - and then not understand why things aren't going smoothly?) I like my new boss a lot. She's going to be a hard ass, but she's also really good at what she does.

I went out to lunch on Tuesday with a coworker, which I always like. For some reason, even if we're only gone for 45 minutes, it makes the day feel so much faster. If I stay out on my own for 45 minutes for lunch, it doesn't make a bit of difference. But when I go with coworkers, it's like the day is done before it starts.

On Wednesday, I did "family lunch" with my bestie from work. His dad was a chef and had made collard greens and chicken, and Blondie had made biryani and I had those left overs. So we split our lunch and ate at my desk. It was so good. Blondie's biryani was mind-blowingly hot, and the collard greens were a good complement to cool everything down.

On Thursday, I got my raise for the year. I don't want to rag on my company, but holy crap. It was atrocious. It made me angry. I've launched 2 massive projects for the company in the past 6 months (to stress - MASSIVE), and this is how much they think of me. I locked myself in my office until I got calmed down, and then tore out of there. Blondie met me for many drinks at the bar so I could blow off some steam.

But Friday was better - most of the office was out, and my new boss sent us all home around 4 pm. It was a gorgeous day also, so I met Blondie at our local german restaurant to sit on their back patio. We split a ton of beers, and were joined by our bar friend about halfway through the evening. When we were done at the restaurant, we headed over to our bar and partied the rest of the night there.

Saturday we took it easy, but ended up doing some grocery shopping before picking up some 6ers and relaxing the rest of the day away. And Sunday became Sunday Funday in the most major sense. We headed out to Pony Bar at noon and ran into the celebrity we met there last year. She remembered us (without us saying anything to her), and we spent all afternoon laughing and drinking. Our bar friends joined us, and they all hit it off - the celebrity got a Tony nomination for her role in a Sondheim musical, and my bar friend is a huge musical person, so they spent the afternoon singing to each other. Just a ton of fun.

Today my allergies have flared up, so I'm taking the day off. I can't stop sneezing. It's kind of lame to call in with allergies, but without a work from home policy, that's all I can do. I'm going to head back to bed soon, and pop some cold meds, and hopefully feel better.

Workouts were good this past week:
Monday - Cardio Recovery disc
Tuesday - 1 hour on treadmill - 30 minutes at 2 min walk, 2 min uphill run; 30 minutes at 2 min walk, 2 min fast run.
Wednesday - Core Cardio and Balance disc
Thursday - Max Cardio disc
Friday - rest day
Saturday - P90X plyometrics disc, Cardio Abs disc, P90X Shoulders & Arms disc, P90X stretching disc (yes, 3.25 hours of workout)
Sunday - 1 hour on treadmill - solid running. First time just flat out running for an hour in a long time. Sadly, when I do my Tuesday workouts, I go further than I did on Sunday, but I did run for an hour.

--K

Treadmill 0, Kerri 2

Okay, okay, okay. I'll start with this - I pulled my head out of my ass last Monday after my "woe is me" post. Or rather, I tried to pull my head out of my ass. After I published my post, I was lying there still in bed, still starving and angry. And then I thought "OMG, Fuck this. Get your ass up and do a workout". So I did. Blondie was nice enough to wait for me to do a 30 minute workout, before we ordered dinner.

The workout was sorely needed, as I felt a million times better when I was done. Still in full-on "hate mode", but not nearly what it was before I worked out. For dinner, we ordered in Argentinean food (roasted chicken, red beans, rice) and then crashing out to end our evening.

Tuesday and Wednesday were uneventful. On Tuesday, we headed over to our bar for dinner and a few drinks. We kept it very low-key, just met up with our bartender and bar friends and got caught up. We split a sampler platter (if you can fry it, it goes on the platter) and we each had 2 beers before the day caught up with me and I insisted we go home (I had gotten up at 5:15 am so I was beat).

Thursday and Friday became "special days". First up, on Thursday I gave my new boss my official "I will go back and do my old role for the team" speech. That's right - assuming everything goes through in the SF office, I'm back in my old role through August. It was a hard decision to make, but I have to know was I a shitty PM or were the circumstances surrounding this project shitty? I hope it was the circumstances, as I don't think they would ask me to come back if I had been shitty at what I do. But who knows.

Then on Thursday afternoon, we took 2 hours to celebrate our VP's birthday. We had a little party and some cake, and just got to hang out and chill. It was a nice break to a Thursday - and it made the day go really fast.

Friday, Blondie came over and met me and 2 of my work friends (1 was the biryani guy) for some spicy Indian food for lunch. We hit up a curry place by us that the star of Man V Food went to for spicy curry - none of us got the spicy curry but the food was good, and getting to see Blondie during the day was nice.

And then on Friday afternoon, the program mgr for my old project called (the one I'm going to go back and help on). He told me that they needed me to commit to the project not through August, but through the entire program. So if this thing goes 2 more years, I'm the PM for 2 more years (or until I quit). I okay'd it (ugh), but now it's back to my boss for her to decide fully. This is ridic.

To sound like a narcissist, and probably to jinx everything - here is what is going on in my head. Utter relief that they liked me enough to go to my boss and ask for me back, utter relief that I couldn't had been as shitty at that role as I felt like (otherwise, they would be ecstatic that I was gone), and utter relief that not only do they want me back through the August release but that they think highly enough of me to commit to me through the remainder of the program. And then sheer terror that I'm jumping back into this program, sheer terror that the tech lead left last weekend for 6 weeks of vacation, sheer terror that I haven't been a part of anything that has gone on so far for August, and sheer terror that my boss is going to be angry that I said yes to this.

So there you go. Utter relief combining with sheer terror. Woot.

Friday night was spent taking it easy as I was supposed to have a 9 mile run on Saturday. But then Saturday happened. I headed out into the rain (why is it always sunny Sunday-Friday, and then raining on Saturdays?) to start my 9 mile run. To backtrack a little, on Wednesday while working out, I did something to the calf on my right leg. I thought it was a charley horse but I couldn't get it stretched out so had been hobbled a little by this. Anyway, I started out for my run, and my leg was very stiff and tight - and by .2 miles into the run, I knew I couldn't do the run. I was in severe pain, limping, and didn't want to make anything worse by doing 8.8 more miles. I headed/limped back to our apartment and just went to the gym. I did some Precor followed by a very slow walk on the treadmill going up a steep hill.

After the gym, we headed out to do our grocery shopping for the week - it was nice b/c the weather was crappy so the stores were almost dead. Then on Saturday afternoon, still raining, Blondie and I decided margaritas sounded good, so we had our local liquor store deliver us some tequila and margarita mix. We got caught up on our DVRs while having a few margaritas.

Sunday I woke up and my leg felt better, so I headed down to the treadmill, and BAM. I conquered that bitch. After the fantastic run, Blondie and I headed out to Pony Bar for lunch and a few beers. We split the oyster and bacon sandwich, and a roast beef sandwich, and I ended up having a stout which was the tastiest stout I've ever had (also 9.0% ABV). Afterwards, we stopped at our local bodega and got a few 6'ers which we drank while watching TV all afternoon.

Blondie made us biryani for dinner last night, and then the beers caught up with me and I went to bed at like 7:30 pm. I think. Blondie stayed up for awhile, but when I woke up at 1 am, I made him go to bed then.

Workouts were good this past week:
Monday - pulled head out of my ass and did Cardio Recovery disc.
Tuesday - 1 hour on treadmill - 2 minutes walk, 2 minutes hill running x 30 mins; 2 minutes walk, 2 minutes fast running x 30 mins
Wednesday - Core Cardio and Balance Insanity disc (and pulled calf muscle)
Thursday - 3 miles on treadmill, in 37:12 (Treadmill 0, Kerri 1) - ran it all - first full out run in 6 weeks and it felt good
Friday - rest day
Saturday - 35 minutes Precor, 10 minutes slow walking up a 6.0 incline while holding 5 lb handweights (should've been 9 miles)
Sunday - 3 miles on treadmill in 34:39 (WOOO - I'm back! I'm giddy about this time and chalk it up to the hour I'm doing weekly on the treadmill with hills and fast running - also, Thurs and Sunday runs were the first time in about a year that I've not actively hated every step I took while running)
Today - Cardio Recovery disc.

Dinners were good for us this week also:
Monday - Argentinean food
Tuesday - our bar
Wednesday - Pio (peruvian)
Thursday - scrambled eggs with a potato, chorizo, and a ton of veg
Friday - spaghetti
Saturday - grilled chicken sandwiches for lunch, spicy rice and chicken for dinner
Sunday - bar for lunch, chicken biryani for dinner.

Things coming up for me - less than 2 weeks until my half marathon in Central Park. This is going to suck. I'm going to guess that I'm at 3 hours again for this half. Not. Looking. Forward. To. It.

Mr Pooh shows up in 40 days to party with me and Blondie for Blondie's birthday! We're looking into several things to do while he's in town, but will spend a large portion of our time at the bar.

New Orleans in 6 weeks for Slick's bachelor party - a weekend of drinking in the streets, and getting to see one of my favorite people of all time.

Blondie is off to Wisc for 1.5 weeks in June, and then we are off to KY for 5 days in July.

And finally, tonight - KY in the final game of the NCAA tournament.

--K