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

Part Drag Queen

Last week was good - a lot of fun, a lot of friends, a lot of drinking. You can't beat it. Or you can I guess, but it would be hard to do.

Tuesday was an early start for me - 6 am again. And the release went horrible. I'm not sure what's going on right now with the team that handles these, but whatever they're doing, it's not good. Calls are supposed to be 1 hour long - ours went for 5 hours, disbanded, and then got called again 2 hours later for another 3 hours (b/c of something the team had done wrong).

"So Tuesday sucked for you?" is what I imagine you are asking yourself. And my answer is "no way in hell did it suck". And this is because, after my call *finally* ended on Tuesday (4:30 pm), Blondie joined me and 2 of my coworkers to go out for free bloomin' onion at Outback! That's right - this past Tuesday was free bloomin' onion day, and we partook. We also partook of many margaritas and beers. All in all, a good day.

On Thursday, Blondie's cousin arrived. They spent the day doing various touristy things, before I joined them for Ethiopian for dinner. The weather was so nice that I ended up walking over to the restaurant from my work (2 miles ish), and then we had a couple of beers with dinner. After that, off to our regular bar for drinks and to say hi to everyone, before heading home for a few more beers.

Friday was about a repeat - I walked over after work to meet them for dinner, they did touristy things all day, etc. However, here is where things took a turn. We were at our local bar on Friday night, when my bar friend who does cabaret/burlesque happened to mention that the piano player's (in her shows) boyfriend was in a Disney drag show 2 blocks from where we were. And then she asked if I wanted to go. Uh, hello. Is the sun hot? YES I WANT TO GO.

The night went downhill from there, as we said goodbye to the guys, trotted our already tipsy asses up the street, and then partied for 1.5 hours with the drag queens as they did their show. I swear, I'm part drag queen. Not in terms of makeup, or hair, or how I look - but in terms of "OMG, I would like to be a drag queen". Imagine getting to be someone else entirely - and then really going out and doing that. I like my life just fine, but I still think that being able to transform completely into someone else has got to be so liberating it's not funny.

I stumbled home around 12:30 am to find Blondie and his cousin throwing a party on the patio (those 2, a lot of beer, and a radio). I joined in, and we ended up getting piss drunk. Finally at 3 am, I turned in, followed an hour later by the guys. Saturday morning was painful to say the least. Blondie and his cousin hit up the Guggenheim in the afternoon while I stayed home to die a little bit. Saturday night, we hit up this bar by us that has amazing views of the city, before heading to our favorite mexican place for dinner. Afterwards, it was back home to relax, watch TV, and drink some beers.

Sunday I headed out early and got my toes back in order (pedi), before meeting up with Blondie and Cuz for lunch and beers at another local bar. This bar is the same one we met Veanne Cox in last year, and as soon as I walked in on Sunday, Blondie and Cuz (who had beat me there) pointed out that the woman who plays Hazel (the new Kenneth) on 30 Rock was sitting right behind us. I restrained myself from being like "woot! Hazel! We love you! Is Tina Fey as awesome in real life as I dream she is????" But seriously - Blondie and I think we're going to hit that bar up every Sunday because someone is always in there.

After our Hazel sighting and lunch (chili verde for me, fried oyster and bacon sandwich for Blondie), we walked down to the piers to see the river. We ran into our bar friends and our building friends out walking their dogs, so we chatted with them for a bit. Then we headed home to shoot some pool in our amenity space, before we finally put Cuz in a cab and sent him on his way to the airport. Last night was spent inhaling pizza, and taking it easy.

Today was a kind of crap day. First off, I hit 5 years with my company - 5 different roles, 5 years, 1 company. Kind of a punch in the gut. Then, my old team approached my new boss and asked if they could petition for me back to help through another release in the next 5 months. So now I have to think about that - I don't want to seem "non team-player" but I also don't want anyone questioning why I switched teams if I didn't really switch teams. Then my laptop died, and it took 5 hours to get it going again. And then, I just went into hate mode. I hated my crowded train home, I hated that it's cold again outside when last week was SO NICE, I hated that I have to walk 1 mile a day regardless of what else I do (.5 miles to subway, .5 miles home from subway), I hated the fact that I'm surrounded by people ALL THE TIME (99.9999% of the time, I'm not by myself - I might be by myself, but I never don't have someone by me). All welled up. And here I am now. Pissed off about possibly having to go back into a role I hated, starving, no energy to work out, dreading a half marathon in 3 weeks.

Sometimes I don't have the energy to fake happy - today is one of those days. Tomorrow I'll probably be embarrassed that I was so pissy about things that normally I love. But today, right now, it's how I feel.

Workouts were good - up until Thurs. Friday was an off day, and then Saturday I was way too hungover to run. Sunday we were hanging with Cuz, and then today - no excuses. Just lazy. Tomorrow I WILL go down to the gym - simply b/c I can't be all putzy when I talk to my new boss tomorrow to give her my answer about going back into my old role.

Okay. So good = drag queens, cousin visiting, spotting Hazel. Bad = my bitchy attitude. Hey, at least good > bad!

--K

Slainte

It's starting to get NICE in NYC right now. This past week had some beautiful days. Monday was an anomaly as I'd say 90% of my office had taken a vacation day. I walked into an office of quietness, and it was a pretty nice start to the week.

On Tuesday, I was walking home - it's 3 avenues from my subway to my apartment, and I had just crossed the first avenue when all of a sudden, Blondie was in face. I was like "whoa! what are you doing here?" Blondie had to run an errrand and since the weather was so nice, he thought we'd go eat dinner on a patio. We ran the errand, and then hit up a bar by us that we hardly ever go to. Blondie had fish and chips, and I had steak sandwich and fries. Afterwards, we stopped and got some more beer and headed home to open our patio door and enjoy the weather.

Wednesday, I did lunch with some coworkers, and then called Blondie mid afternoon to see if he wanted to do a repeat of Tuesday night. Because as beautiful as Tuesday was, Wednesday was even better. We hit up our poison bar, and drank the night away. Everytime we thought we'd leave, one of us would be like "wellllllll, one more round!"

Thursday it started to get cooler, so that was the end of our completely nice days. Friday I was at work pretty late, but it was simply b/c coworkers had come in to chat non-work, and then it was 7 pm. I had planned to get a pedicure on the way home from work on Friday, but by then, I was ravenously hungry, so just had to truck on home.

Yesterday it was beautiful again. I "ran" 8 miles, and then Blondie and I were at our bar by 11:30 am. We hung out until around 3:30 pm, and we came home so I could take a nap. Blondie cooked biryani for dinner (it was sooooo good!), and I made a beer run, so we spent the night sitting on patio, coming in periodically to watch b-ball, eating, and drinking beers.

Today it's pretty out now - it was really cloudy this morning. I just got done working out, and am now eating a scrambled egg, veggie (onions, peppers, cilantro, potato) and chorizo combination that Blondie made. I'm probably going to take another nap this afternoon, but other than that, nothing on tap for the day.

Blondie and I cooked in pretty frequently this past week. On Monday, we made shrimp tacos. I like to take a big bed of lettuce, crumble up a taco shell on top, and then dump the shrimps, peppers, onions on top of that. Blondie actually makes a real taco. Tues and Wed we ate out at the bar - not great, but not horrible. Thursday, Blondie made me my indian eggplant again with chicken. And Friday, we made spaghetti so I could carbo-load for my "run" yesterday. Yesterday I declared it a "break from eating right!" and had corned beef on rye for lunch, and biryani for dinner. Along with 10000 beers, and 2 bags of gummy bears. It was all kinds of awesome.

Workouts were good - again. Monday I did my Insanity Cardio Recovery disc, Tuesday was an hour session on the treadmill - the first 30 minutes were 2 minute walk, 2 minute hill run; and the second 30 minutes were 2 minute walk, 2 minute fast flat run. Wednesday was Insanity Core Cardio and Balance. Thursday was supposed to be another hour on the treadmill but I was hungover from Wednesday. I decided to take a break day, but then when I got home on Thursday night, I changed my mind and did Insanity Pure Cardio (suck) intead. Friday was my real rest day (love) and Saturday was an 8 mile jaunt along the Hudson. I'm so slow right now, I hate every moment of every run - it took me 1:51 to do 8 miles, which is 14 minute miles - which is basically a fast walk. Last year, when I was training for my half, I did 10 miles in 1:55 minutes - so last year, in only 4 more minutes, I was doing 2 more miles. Oh well, as Blondie says - "Babe, you're doing it! Who cares how slow it is!" Today I did P90X yoga disc.

This week I have another release on tap on Tuesday which means a 6 am start time (and hopefully an early leave time). And Blondie's cousin arrives on Thursday for a few days. Looking forward to getting to hang out with him - I keep forgetting he's in his 20's as when I first met him, he was 12, and then's what is burned into my brain.

--K

This is my title

My week went from extremely low points to extremely high points - which was good. Starting off shitty on a Monday, left the week nowhere to go but up.

Monday was horrid. My project went live 2 weeks ago, but this past week, we were exposing to the world 1 new piece of it for the first time. All code was in place for it, but then the business head stopped into my office on Monday with some questions that I couldn't answer. I needed my tech lead to assist on it. The business head was very concerned about some aspects of what we were doing, and ended the conversation by letting me know that if things didn't go off stellar on launch day, it could be grounds for dismissal.

Oh yay. Oh fucking yay. This project that I loathe, and that I've managed to launch by sheer determination only, that the business lead screwed up in every way, shape and form you could possibly screw up on, is now possibly going to get me canned.

I panic'ed in my office for 15 minutes, and then dug down. The next 3 days were spent getting questions answered, finding out what testing was behind, finding out various crappy aspects of the systems we use which stopped us cold from all the testing we needed to do, etc.

On top of that, on Tuesday night, another team came by to say they were having problems getting their program changes tested, so I offered to help, and when I ran a few tests, I realized that everything we had put in for my shitty program launch was missing. Tuesday night was a LATE night getting people rounded up to answer "WTF happened here?"

Wednesday was a late night also - we tried to move mountains to get finalized testing done for the "get you fired" launch on Thursday, and finally at around 8:30, we threw in the towel, walked over to the SVP's office, and let her know what was going on - we are confident with what we've seen that everything will be fine tomorrow, but just in case...

I was on the verge of an anxiety attack on Wed night. I couldn't sleep as I was so worried about what was going to happen on Thurs. It was nice though, because I had to be at work at 7 am to make sure everything had gone okay, so I was awake around 4:45 am, and was able to get a workout in before heading to the office. 5 of us came in on Thurs to run final tests, and to be able to start an emergency call if things didn't work.

And everything worked beautifully. It literally went off without a hitch. I couldn't believe it. It was bliss as I realized everything was okay. We did a celebration lunch, and then I bailed at 4:30 pm to meet Blondie at poison bar to celebrate - it was also 70 degrees in the city, so it was so nice to be off work early and being able to sit on a patio and enjoy the weather. We had a few beers there, before heading over to Southern Hospitality for dinner (JT's BBQ restaurant) and then hitting up our normal bar to round out the night.

I was in a fabulous mood at that point, and while we were sitting at the bar, my phone rang. It was my friend Slick. I have 2 BFF's in this world (outside of Blondie), and Slick is one of them. He's getting married in Sept, and he called just to catch up on how everything was going (he was my apartment mate when I adopted Max, and Max and Slick loved each other, so he wanted to see how I was doing after Max). Then he said he had a question to ask - and he wanted to know if I'd be a "groomsman" in his wedding (I'll be wearing a bridesmaids dress, but standing up on Slick's side with the rest of the guys). I'm so happy - I love his fiancee, and Slick and I have been BFF's for 13+ years now, so I was all like "YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I'm so excited to be able to standup and support them in an official capacity.

And then Friday - the 2nd issue we found on Wed, I was able to drive that to resolution. We got everything wrapped up on that on Friday night - all the code that I wasn't seeing was actually checked in, but there was also a bug that had been introduced which stopped everything from starting up properly. So while we were the "heros" for getting the issue resolved, my office was also the ones that broke it in the first place. Woot.

Friday night we ordered in Mexican for dinner - I had enchiladas and Blondie had chicken in chipotle sauce, and we took it easy for the night. I think I went to bed at like 9 pm as I was so exhausted from the stress of the week. I woke up yesterday, and the 70 degree weather was gone - it was 30 degrees with wind gusts of 20 mph. I debated about running, but finally Blondie talked me into it. I'm behind like crazy on my training (February happened, enough said), so I know I can't miss any days at all right now. I headed out into that freezing cold weather - I was numb within 20 feet of leaving my building. I did 7 very slow miles (1 hour, 36 mins) and then hit the shower for a 30 minute long steaming hot shower.

We lazed around all day yesterday after that, before getting dressed up and heading down the street to a new bar for my bar friend's birthday. She found this place that has crazy beautiful views of the city, and we had several cocktails there before eating in their restaurant. The food was so good, and Blondie and I are going to hopefully take Mr Pooh there (at least to the bar part) when he comes to town. Blondie had salami platter as appetizer, and lamb shank for main; and I had grilled octopus for appetizer, and pork chop for main. After dinner, we hit up another bar down the street and had many beers to end the night.

I was hung over this morning, not enough to be sick, but enough to be "blah". Blondie went and got us Subways for lunch, and then around 11:45 am, I crawled back in bed and didn't wake up until 3 pm. I felt okay then, so I did 2 hours of workout. We had food delivered this week, so dinner for us was mango, pineapple and hummus. We've got a netflix to watch tonight, so that's our evening plans.

We cooked in every night this week, except for Thurs and Fri (a record for us!). Last Sunday, Blondie made salmon and I made spinach. Monday it was chicken, asparagus and stuffing. Tuesday we made homemade tortilla soup and used the leftover chicken from Monday. And Wed, omg Wed, Blondie made me a killer indian eggplant recipe and we combined that with some baked tilapia. The eggplant was soooooo good that I bought another one this week to make again.

Workouts were good - Monday I did my Insanity Cardio Recovery disc. Tuesday was 1 hour on the treadmill - doing 2 minutes walking, 2 minutes running up a 3.0 grade hilll, followed by a ton of weights. Wednesday was Insanity Core Cardio and Balance disc. Thursday was 3 miles - 2 minutes walking, 4 minutes running (at 5 am - I even got to the gym before they opened it). Friday was rest day (knocked this one out of the park). Saturday was 7 miles in 30 degree weather with a windchill that dropped it into the teens. And today was P90X Kenpo and P90X Shoulders & Arms discs.

Weather is starting to get nice here in NY - this week is supposed to be all 60+ degrees. St Patrick's day is Saturday - I have 8 miles scheduled for that day, and then maybe we'll just drink beer all day. :) Blondie's cousin shows up next week for a few days, I have my half marathon in April which will bring my PA friends to town, Mr Pooh is here beginning of May for Blondie's birthday, and then it's off to NOLA for Slick's bachelor party. Blondie is headed back to Wisc for 1.5 weeks in June, and I have to figure out when we are hitting up KY. Mr Pooh has his kid text me every so often, and she laid the guilt trip on me this week "When are you coming back to Kentucky?" What a cutie she is.

--K

From bad to eh with some good tossed in

Monday started off with a bang. My "not looking forward to it" project went live. It actually went pretty smoothly, the launch of it. I was surprised. I was expecting 25-30 medium sized issues, and we instead dealt with 3 major issues. The call took 4 hours, which was 3 hours longer than SLA, but about 9 hours less than what I was steeled for. And it's live. My loathesome project is live.

I got off work around 5 pm and met Blondie at our poison bar to have a few drinks to celebrate. We had a good time, just relaxing and enjoying the music. Note: we've been to our poison bar about 50 times since we've lived here, and it's just in the last few visits that we've noticed how good their music is. I don't know if it's Pandora or someone's iPad that they blast, but lurrrrrve it. Monday was overcast all day, and a little chilly, and it was getting dark, and then Creep came on. Just suited the mood.

After poison bar, we hit up Pony Bar. We actually managed to get seats at the bar (7 pm on a Monday and we got seats - I couldn't believe it). We each had a few pints and dinner. Blondie got the sandwich I ordered last time - so good - fried oyster and bacon; and I got sausage and sauerkrat covered with crispy bacon. After stuffing our faces, we hit up our normal bar for 1 last drink to finish celebrating.

Then the day went downhill. We got home around 8:30, and as Blondie is about to open the apartment he asked me "You had a good day right? Your celebration was nice?" and I was all "yeah, of course". And then he said "Ok, because something happened today that's probably going to ruin it". And I immediately knew we had gotten Max's remains back. I lost it. Still in the hall, in the space of about .5 seconds, I was full on crying. The box is just so small - I look at it and I think how much fur Max had and I can't figure out how that burnt down into that small of a box. Monday ended horribly. I couldn't get a grip, and I cried all night long.

Tuesday was back to work with horribly swollen eyes. The adrenaline from fearing the launch on Monday wore off, and as the day went on, I felt worse and worse. I ended up bailing early on work, and had to call in sick on Wed. Finally on Wed night, as I couldn't get my coughing to stop, I decided to try and workout to break up my congestion. I did an Insanity disc (the recovery disc) and felt like I was breathing through a cocktail straw the entire time. Thurs I drug myself to the gym and did a 3 mile interval (2 mins walk, 2 mins run) - and did it in 36:49. Which for those keeping track (me), meant it was about 1.5 mins faster than if I just ran the whole thing.

On Thurs night, a friend of mine from work came over. He knew Blondie and I had a rough couple of weeks, and he thinks Blondie is awesome, so he offered to cook dinner for us. My friend is Indian, grew up in Africa, so he made us homemade chicken biryani. It was so freaking good - we couldn't stop eating it. I inhaled my plate. We had several bottles of wine, and played some cards also that night. It was a super super incredible gesture on my friend's part, and I'm glad to have him as a friend.

Friday sucked. It was a long day, and I was excited to have it done as I had to work all last weekend. But around 3 pm, we had a sev1 called in for something with my program. I didn't think it was a sev1, but the people who called it in thought that. So we had to fix it. Which meant an 8 pm end time. Now, that's not so bad. In general. But I was just so done with this week - the stress of the launch call, getting Max back, relapsing with my sickness, and I just was fed up. I came home in a filthy mood.

But because of that, I was up early on Saturday - stress from work jacks up my sleeping patterns something fierce. So at around 8 am, I headed out for 6 miles along the Hudson. I'm very slow and took some walking breaks, and came in around 1:26. Slow. Slow. Slow. It was nice though, b/c it was chilly and misting, so hardly anyone was out. The fog was in horrible, and you couldn't even see across the Hudson to Jersey. So it was just me and my thoughts - I didn't even use my MP3 player. For 6 miles, I got to let my mind wander. I thought about Max, I thought about my life, I thought about NYC, and I'll be honest, I thought about how much I hate running.

I got home and was showered and back in bed before Blondie even woke up for the day. After he got up, we ended up doing a massive grocery shop, so we can make meals in everyday this week. And then I took a nap in the afternoon. Around 5 pm, our bar friends texted and we met them for a few beers and to hang out with their new puppy. They brought the dog into the bar, and we had a great time taking silly pictures of him. Afterwards, we headed home to grill up burgers, onions and mushrooms, before popping in Rum Diary to end our night. It was the first day since Max died that I felt generally eh and not on the verge of a breakdown.

Today I hit the gym and did 45 minutes on Precor before about 45 minutes of weight lifting. We grilled more burgers for lunch, and Blondie is going to make salmon and spinach for dinner.

The good thing about the week is that we got our tickets bought to New Orleans for Slick's bachelor party. He's having a non-traditional bachelor party, so I'm invited. Blondie and I are excited about this trip, and we're staying an extra night so that we can have a night in NOLA by ourselves.

The great thing about the week is that Mr Pooh bought his tickets into NYC in May. The weekend before we go to NOLA, Mr Pooh will be here. It's also Blondie's birthday, so we are going to have a celebration weekend. Truly looking forward to that! We had such a blast with Mr Pooh last year, let's hope we have the same amount of fun (or more) this year!

--K

Not Redeeming Itself

Last Monday, we spent the day mostly doing nothing. Around 3:45 pm, we decided to go get drunk as I was in a bad headspace about Max. We headed out to a bar we've been to once but one that I love. It's almost impossible to get into, as it's super popular ($5 pints of hand crafted beer), but we figured that the bar didn't open until 3 pm, we would be there by 4pm, we should be fine. We weren't - it was already standing room only.

Instead we headed up to our poison bar, and drank the afternoon away there. We enjoyed the music, not being in the apartment, and had some snacks. Afterwards, we headed back to our normal bar for 1 drink before going home and ordering in tacos.

The rest of the week was a wash because 2012 sucks. I went into work on Tuesday and it was a very long day getting caught up from being unexpectedly out. On Wednesday, a friend stopped into my office and said she wasn't feeling good, and par for the course, something blew up with my project. We got the project under control, but the sick part was passed onto me.

Thursday was a 16 hour workday, as I was in the office at 5:45 am to be part of one of the worst launches - we launched everything turned off, and various teams still managed to screw things up. I worked all day long, trying to get our weekend plans lined up, get testing for our Monday release finalized, etc. Because I was still there, I joined the 2nd half of the launch, which as hard as it was to believe, went worse than the first half. And finally, at 10 pm that night, I drug myself out of a building, hopped into a cab and headed home. The good news was this was the first day I didn't cry about Max. The bad news is it was because I was so exhausted I had no energy to cry.

Friday was a long day as the sick had fully caught on. I have a massive sore throat, I can't stop coughing, my head throbs, I'm hot and then cold, and my nose is on full on run mode. I worked all day, dealt with several last minute issues on Friday, and got home around 8 pm. And then yesterday, I left the apartment at 10:15 am and headed to work. 8 of us came into the office to finish up testing, and we all worked until 6 pm. And now we are signed off. We launch tomorrow. I'm not excited about this at all, and that is not sarcasm. Last year when we launched my big project, I was a bundle of nerves. This year, I simply do not care. 2012 has taken my beloved cat, killed my ankle (it's still not fully healed), given me a massive head cold, and is now making me launch this project.

Tomorrow it's back to the office at 5:45 am to turn this project on. If things go okay tomorrow, I'm going to meet Blondie to celebrate. However, if they don't, Blondie and I will have to wait to celebrate until next weekend.

Today was spent sleeping as I'm still sicker than a dog. My voice is obliterated, my nose is raw, and my throat hurts so much that even breathing makes it worse. I'm hoping things get better and get better fast. I feel completely beat down right, and the year is only 2 months old.

In better news, a big happy 1 day early birthday to Mrs Pooh! Hope you have a great day tomorrow!

--K

FUCK YOU 2012

Our absolutely beloved, adored cat left this planet on Thurs, Feb 16, 2012. He was the best of the best, a sweet, loving, social kitty, without a bad bone in his body. While we knew he was older, we thought we still had 3-4 more years with him, and it hurts so fucking much that we didn't.

I had taken Max into the vet in December, and he had been cleared for everything except possibly something wrong with his brain. We didn't run the tests at that time, because I didn't want to know about it if he did have something wrong with his brain, and also, he had gone blind so I contributed a lot of what he was going through to that. Well folks, guess what? He had something wrong with his brain.

I came home from work on Wednesday, and noticed that he was lying in bed, but kind of propped up on 1 leg. He's not normally an in-bed cat (unless we were all in bed together) so I immediately knew something was up. I started to pet on him and he just looked really out of it - his head wouldn't turn to follow my voice, etc. I got changed out of my work clothes and went out to ask Blondie how long Max had been acting funny. When I turned around, Max was at my feet, so I picked him.

Max let me hold him all night. We tried to get him to drink some water out of my water glass, which he normally loves to do, but he wouldn't. He put his head in the glass, but didn't drink - I don't know if he forgot what to do, or was just too tired to drink. We put some soft food out, and while normally he would go to town on it, he just drug himself in a circle in front of his food plate. I think I knew then, it would be his last night.

We also happened to notice that one of his pupils was back to normal sized. Normally both were fully dilated as he's blind. But one had shrunk back down to a normal cat sized pupil. I called my mom and she mentioned stroke, so Blondie looked up stroke, and sure as shit, we knew immediately Max had stroked. We decided to keep him comfortable (it was late at this point) and call our in-house vet in the morning as soon as she started her office hours (she works from the building and comes to your unit).

At 2:30 am, Max seized. He was still in my arms and it woke me up. It was minor, about 30 secs long, but his breathing was rapid for 5-10 minutes after. He seized again at 4 am. And at 5:50 am, he managed to pull himself out of my arms, and seized against my feet. Blondie came out early and I started crying as soon as I saw him b/c I knew in my heart that Max was going to have to be put down. Blondie held him while I showered (around 7 am) and Max seized while I was in the shower. We made the decision at that point just to go to the vet's office as we knew our in-house vet wouldn't be able to do the proper diagnostic care. We called at 9 am, the vet could see us at 10 am, and at 9:10 am Max seized one last time - it was the worst one. Every seizure was worst than the last, and at that point, we don't know when he ate/drank last. He was completely out of it, I just kept hugging on him and telling him I loved him.

We got to the vet, gave him our papers that had the seizures tracked, and the look on his face was on one of "guys, this is BAD". He sad that a cluster of seizures, getting worse in intensity, meant his brain (see the December visit) was the problem. There was nothing they could do - they could try to get the seizures to stop (no guarantee on anything), if they could get the seizures to stop they could run MRIs to see what was the problem (no guarantee on anything), and if the MRI run was successful, there was no guarantee that his problem would be curable.

Blondie and I made the agonizing decision to give our Max a peaceful send off. We stayed with him and loved on him until it was done. He had no idea what was being done to him, the only time he lifted his head from 5:50 am seizure until he died was when the put the needle into his leg to sedate him - he pulled his head up at that point and tried to look down his body and then immediately put his head back down. He died around 10:10 am.

The pain that I feel is intense. I'm absolutely heart broken. My fuzzy buddy, with his mean mother fucker face (persian cat, he always looked angry even though he wasn't), isn't here to get his loves and pets. He's not here to talk with me (he was the chatterbox of the 2 cats), or snuggle with me in bed at night. I keep thinking he's going to walk on up, and when he doesn't, it makes the heart ache even worse.

Tigga knew something was going on. He knew since December when he started keeping his distance from Max, and by default, anyone that loved on Max. On Max's last day, around 6:30 am, he sat down about 5 feet from us, and stared at Max until we left. He didn't hiss or growl (his normal thing to do to Max) but just watched. And since we came back without Max, he's been a loving caring cat, he's the one who wants the loves now (he gets them) and he's the one that constantly has to be on someone. He knows Max is gone, and he knows that Blondie and I miss him terribly. I predict Tigga is going to rapidly become the most spoiled cat in the world.

The other news from the week is that my PA friends and their 2 kids came into the city on Friday. We went out with them all day long, which helped my head a little as I couldn't cry in front of them. We saw the Intrepid Air and Space Museum - a huge aircraft carrier that has been turned into a museum. The boys loved it (the boys = the 2 kids and Shaun). Afterwards, we walked up to Times Square for ice cream, before catching the subway to FAO Schwarz. We saw the giant piano from Big (only $250,000), I got my picture taken with a full-sized replica of Johnny Depp from Pirates done as legos, and then I saw an old-timey Play-Doh Barber Shop set! My mom hated that set b/c you had to poke out the hair holes with a toothpick when you were done playing, and us kids always managed to "be busy" when it was time for that. After FAO Schwarz, it was back to Times Square to see M&M World, before hitting up our fav mexican joint for dinner. Then it was home to bawl my head off as I had held everything in all day. Saturday, I refused to leave our house, and then yesterday, we went to see "Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark" on Broadway - 70 million dollars worth of suck. Blondie and I can't figure out how they needed 70 million to make the play, but I will say the flying scenes with Spidey and Green Goblin were pretty cool. Afterwards, we went for cajun before coming home to watch TV in bed.

I have today off, and I'm going to spend the day drinking, missing Max, and crying. If you have a pet you love, give them extra special hugs and kisses from us today. If you don't have a pet, then give someone you love extra special hugs and kisses from us today. And if everyone can just tell 2012 to go fuck itself, I would be really grateful.

To my buddy Max - wherever you are - I miss you so fucking much. I hope that you have no breathing problems where you are, that it's full of milk and tuna juice, and that you've found Murphy, Bianca, Bad Cat, Baby, Geechy Toes, Bee, Harry, Sassy, Bella and all the other pets that have gone before you to play with. I love you.

--K

The good and the bad

Super Bowl Sunday ended up being a good day. After Blondie took off for his guy meet-up prior to the SB, my bar friends texted. They had gotten a new puppy and were up in my building friends apartment, so I went upstairs to meet the puppy. I hung out there for a bit, before going back to my apartment to get ready for SB. I ended up at the bar first out of everybody, and just relaxed until my friends started to get there.

The Giants won, which was nice. Go NY team! But the best part was that Blondie and I bought into a pool before the game started, and ended up walking away with a 32" flat screen TV! I've been wanting to get a TV in the bedroom for months now, so this was perfect for us.

That was the good. The bad happened on Monday. I was waiting to cross the street to head into my office bldg on Monday morning. Stepped down off the curb, straight into a pothole (the same pothole that's been there the entire 2 years I've gone to work), and twisted my ankle something fierce. If it wasn't for the van parked along the curb that I fell into the back of, I might have broken my ankle. As it was, I hit the back of the van so hard that 5 people stopped to make sure I was okay.

I caught my breath, the entire time thinking "oh shit you dumbass, now you've done it". I tried to put some weight on it, and it just f'ing hurt. I hobbled into my bldg, got to my desk, and peeled my sock off to find absolutely nothing. It wasn't swollen, it wasn't black and blue. It just HURT. All day long I was in misery, and finally I took my sock off again around 3:30 pm, and sure as shit, it had puffed up BIG TIME. I went home early, and the 7 minute walk from the subway took over 20 minutes as it was shuffling steps. Blondie helped me get it iced, but it was too late - the next day when I woke up, I could hardly walk and the ankle was swollen and completely bruised.

Because of that, the week was definitely low key. It started feeling better around Thurs timeframe, but it's still swollen today. I took the week off from working out (Mon-Wed, I couldn't have done anything anyway, and Thurs-Sun, I was scared to do anything b/c of how swollen it is). I felt like I could've worked out today, but woke up really tired and the last thing I want is to step wrong on this again. So I'm going to work out tonight when I get home from work, when I'm awake and alert.

Blondie and I really didn't do much of anything this week. We mostly took it easy, watched TV, and stayed in. We did a massive grocery shop online on Saturday, before going out for perishables. We watched it snow Saturday morning for a little bit - I like to watch the snow as long as I don't have to go out in it. And that's it. Lame. Everything's lame man.

Keep your fingers crossed that this workout tonight goes okay. And that I can start running again tomorrow morning. A week off of my half-marathon training program is a bummer for me, especially as my runs the week before I did this were so good.

--K

Good One

Isn't it a pleasant surprise when I have a good week? As opposed to my typical "shitty", "bad", "craptacular", "any other adjective that is the opposite of good". It was a good week - a long week, but a good one.

Blondie's sis came back to stay the night last Sunday. She got in, and we putzed around for a bit, but then headed out to our favorite mexican restaurant - I love this place. It's a tiny little place, you walk by it and don't even know it's there. She and I both had some sangria, and we all ate the hell out of our food. BTW, you can add cactus to any meal there - we tried it one night when we were both a little blotto - and so good. We add it to everything. "Carnitas in red sauce with cactus please", and "Chicken in chipotle sauce with cactus please" - those are the orders we always give.

Monday was off to work again - things are starting to slow down with my sucky project, but it's still suckity suck. Just like last week. Blondie and I cooked an excellent meal at home that night - chicken, brussel sprouts, and rice. We eat out so much, that I crave home cooked food - and that meal did it for me. Hit the spot.

Tuesday, work again, but then we headed out to the bar on Tuesday night. They had drawn the Super Bowl squares and we wanted to see what numbers we had gotten - 1 and 6 (I can't remember what team has what number). But keep your fingers crossed that we see that at some point. We ate dinner there, had many drinks, and caught up with our bar friends and our bartender. A really good night.

Wednesday was low key. We cooked in again - made fajitas/tacos, and beans with chorizo. We shoveled it all in record time. When we left TX, we swore we'd never eat at chain restaurants again. Then we moved to SF, and there were no chain restaurants, so all we craved was, you guessed it, chain restaurant food. And now in NY, what I find myself truly craving is food cooked by us. I never thought I'd get tired of eating out, but it happened.

Thursday was a bad/good day (only 1 of these in a week is a good thing). Things blew up for my project on Thursday night, but it turned out some of my coworkers were around late, and we were able to talk through what happened and come up with a pretty good solution to the problem we were having. Also, I work with teams cross country for this project, and I've been feeling pretty shitty about how I'm doing in this role - my boss ended up forwarding me an email on Thurs night that the SF team had sent to her telling her how much they appreciate my work, and how hard of a worker I am.

Friday was a long day - I didn't feel right when I woke up, and couldn't shake the feeling all day. I felt like my eyes were swollen to little slits (they weren't), and I couldn't stop sneezing/yawning. I must've had 5 cups of coffee on Friday to no avail. I drug my ass home on Friday night, we ordered food in, and then we somehow found the strength to rally. We headed over to our bar and met up with our bar friend, before catching a cab to the West Village to see my other bar friend in her cabaret/burlesque V-Day show! My friend is such a good singer and performer. And I love seeing her troupe come together for these shows - these guys have a dream, and they are actively pursuing it. It makes me so happy to see them fighting to do what they love.

Saturday was a blah day - I felt pretty hung over. As tired as I was on Friday, I still managed to put down a Manhattan and 6 beers. And Blondie and I are trying to eat right again, so our meal on Friday was small and healthy. I made the decision to move my long run to today, and just did a regular workout on Saturday. We ordered in a late breakfast (egg whites, turkey, brocoli, and tomato omelet; fruit salad) and then made a very healthy dinner (pork chops, sauteed spinach, potatos) while watching Fast Five. I like the Fast and the Furious series pretty well, but Fast Five sucked. The "pulling a safe" scene at the end had me rolling my eyes so hard I'm sure people in Jersey could see me.

Today I woke up, felt uber tired (I can't seem to shake this) but made myself go down to the gym anyway. I made it the entire 4 mile run without stopping to walk (SQUEEEE!), and then headed out to run errands (cashing checks, pedicure). Blondie met me after my pedi, and we headed to a local argentinean restaurant for lunch. We split a roasted chicken, and beans, and I had tuna ceviche and Blondie had empanadas for appetizers. We're home now, relaxing before we head over to our bar to watch the Super Bowl tonight. I'm rooting Giants, just so I can go to a ticker tape parade. But honestly, I don't care who wins - which means I will really enjoy the game as I'm not freaking out like last year that the Packers wouldn't pull it off.

Everything else is good. Blondie is actively working out again since his neck is healed - which is awesome news. Max is blind as a bat, and follows me around like he's a dog always wanting attention. He gets it. He rides with me everywhere when I'm in the apartment - I pretty much carry him around at all times. Tigger is an ass - I don't know what crawled up his butt, but he pretty much hates everyone and everything. I like making him mad by resting my head on him (not full force, just putting my head lightly on his belly) - he hates when I do this, and just lays there rumbling and growling. It makes me laugh.

Workouts this week were GOOD - 14 days down, 70 days to go. It's still a pain in the ass to get myself out of bed in the morning, but know I feel better when I do workout, so I've been trying to just remember that when the alarm goes off.

Monday - Strength Day - P90X Shoulders & Arms
Tuesday - Run Day - 3 miles in 39:16 (shamefully slow - walked part of it)
Wednesday - Run Day - 2 miles in 23:52 (ran it all, 11:xx min miles!!!! Below 12 min miles is awesome for me right now) + weights
Thursday - Run Day - 3 miles in 38:15 (walked only 2 mins of it) + weights
Friday - Rest Day (knocked this one out of the park)
Saturday - Cross Training Day - Insanity Pure Cardio disc
Sunday - Run Day - 4 miles in 49:32 (RAN IT ALL!!!!!!!!! Still very slow though) + weights

--K