Bye Bye Barbaro...

As a KY native (not completely true but seeing as how I don't remember Ohio as a child, I consider it true), and as someone who loves her animals (no, I don't ride horses, but I still think they are beautiful), it broke my heart to see Barbaro was humanely euthanized today (yesterday now). What a trooper. Here's hoping horse heaven is full of good things to eat (carrots, oats, whatever else you want) and hot female horses (mares?) who only have eyes for you.

--K

A fresh start... Or, how I get my life back...

Ahhh, nights - I own you again! Early morning hours - I own you again! Life - you are my own again! Raging headache and cotton mouth - apparently I am owning you right now.

So, yesterday, my company announced the closure of the SF office for the technical teams that are out here. I'm one of those. They've given me a 2 month notice, and I will receive severance after the 2 months are up. In addition, (and this is *so* sweet of them - make sure you read that in a sarcastic manner), they've offered to pay to relocate me back to TX. Hmmm, let me think - okay, NO.

The point is, I've got my life back. I've been skating through this job for a long time, hating it and hating life while I worked it, and this is a really good thing for me. I'm going to start over out here. I'm going to find something I don't hate (if I find something I like, even better, but for now we'll go with something I don't hate). I'm going to get paid like I should be paid for what I do.

Big big thanks to A for getting me out of the house yesterday - you are a rock star!
Big big thanks to B for having the "medical thing" and joining us at Zeitgeist - you are a rock star!
Big big thanks to sweetie J and party C keeping the party going into the night - you guys are both rock stars!
BIG BIG thanks to blondie - yes, I know it was your turn, but sometimes sh*t happens. Thanks for dragging my drunk ass around town last night, and getting me to put some food in my stomach and getting me home and into bed. You are MY rock star.

--K

A sore foot...

I busted my foot last Wednesday on my Pacific Ocean run. Specifically, I pulled a muscle in the arch of my left foot. It hurt. I still was able to go to the gym on Thursday and Friday, but that's because I did non-impact aerobic activity. Saturday morning I woke up and was feeling better, and like the idiot I am, skipped Running 101 (because "it's not a workout right now") and instead did the Pacific Ocean run again. And reinjured it.

I stayed home today to stay off my foot. I decided to do laundry. Instead of waiting for our slow-ass elevator, I thought I could go down the steps with my piled high laundry basket and detergent (and my gimpy foot). Yep, I wiped out. It was glorious.

In better news, I will be off to the land of The Bears in about 1.5 weeks. Chicago baby, here I come. I bought tickets to visit Slick over Super Bowl Weekend, and of course, we now know that Chicago made it to the Super Bowl, so I'm SERIOUSLY looking forward to my weekend. Woo hoo! BEER.

--K

The. Pacific. Ocean.

It's 4.35 miles from our house. I ran out there today on my lunch break. All of a sudden, you come out of the trees in Golden Gate Park, and to your right is a huge windmill, to your left are more trees, and directly in front of you, with nothing to disturb your view, is the Pacific Ocean. That image alone gave me the energy to turn around and make it back to the apartment.

--K

Making myself cringe...

I did Yoga yesterday for the first time ever. It absolutely 100% hurt me. Every muscle in my body aches. From my neck muscles (traps according to blondie) to my stomach muscles (abs according to everyone), I feel it in every part of my body.

I'm cringing because I'm thinking back over the year and a half I've been thinking about trying Yoga and I'm remembering all the times I said (with a straight face): "But Yoga is just stretching. That's not really a workout".

See yesterday's post: I never said I was brilliant.

--K

Movies, beer, and Popeyes... Oh My!

As I found out on Friday, we have a "brew and view" in SF. That, to the non-drinkers reading this, is a movie theater that sells beer. This particular one is a live music venue with FREE movies on Monday nights. They do have a 2-drink minimum (that absolutely nobody enforces), but other than that - free (this includes popcorn). Also, if you don't like popcorn, you can bring outside food in. They don't care.

So, last night, Party C, Crazy Larry, Sweetie J, Blondie and myself headed over (15 min walk) for Super Troopers and BeerFest double feature. We got drunkity drunk. Sweetie J went across the street to the Popeyes and brought back fried chicken for everyone. It was a blast.

Until this morning when the alarm went off at 5:45 am because I had some work to do. Now I'm wondering why it was such a good idea. Beer from 7 pm to midnight? Popeyes at 9 pm? All the night before I have to actually work in the morning?

I never said I was brilliant...

--K

Interesting... Very interesting...

How was Kerri's weekend do you ask? Well, let me tell you.
1) I resisted a bagel on Friday. (YaY!)
2) I had a pedicure on Friday with my party friend C while chowing down on free gummy bears that the pedi-place so kindly left beside my chair (YaY!)
3) I had a glass of wine on Friday while watching a hysterically funny movie with C (YaY for movie - Boo for only one glass of wine)
4) Running 101 started Saturday. It was not as fun as I thought it would be. And apparently, the people that enrolled in Running 101 are targets of amusement for the 'real' runners. (YaY for the nice women that I met - Boo for the bitches (you know who you 2 are) that felt the need to make cracks about Running 101).
5) Farmer's Market + Nan + Chipolte Chutney + Pork tamale = yummy yummy goodness (YaY!)
6) Heard from an OLD friend that I haven't talked to in about 13 years. In addition, he told another OLD friend (15 years maybe) that he found me and that OLD friend asked for my email address so we could catch back up (I think this is a YaY! but it feels really really weird to be talking to people I knew when I was in 10th grade - Terri has been the only one to get that 'priviledge' thus far in my life).
7) Early night on Saturday and a bunch of beer (YaY!)
8) Dinner with my sweetie friend J on Sunday night followed by a bit of boozing in North Beach followed by Mario Kart while drunk in front of the TV (YaY!)
9) SD Chargers lost and Chicago Beers won (BOOOOOOOOOO!)

So that's 5 YaYs! - 1 big BOOO + 2 no changes (YaY-Boo) + 1 I'm not real sure. So I guess that evens out to 1 Yay!

--K

Working on my resolve...

Tomorrow is Bagel Friday. Unlike last week, I haven't managed to forget this. Crud.

--K

Random things...

1) I watched Clerks II the other week and now can NOT get "ABC" by Jackson 5 out of my head. Thank you Kevin Smith. "Reading and writing and arithmetic, are the branches of the learning tree". UGH! Make it stop!
2) The Cutest Kid In The World (TCKITW, aka my niece) makes a mean set of muscles.
3) If I had some cajun food in front of me right now, I would slowly smear it all over me. And I would eat it. Razzoos you silly fool. Why don't you exist in SF? (and a thank you to A for getting me on the cajun kick).
4) SF is on the water (REALLY?!?!? Who DIDN'T know that). But our apartment is still located ~475 ft above sea level. Talk about some hills!
5) I have 30 minutes left in my day and they are taking forever. Technically I know they take 60 seconds each, but today they feel like they are taking 5 hours each.
6) Hi blondie!

--K

It was a pretty good weekend. We started it all out with a chill night on Friday catching up on DVRs from the week. Saturday morning we went to the farmers market with A&B and spent $12 on fresh from the farm vegetables that would have cost us about $50 at the store. We reluctantly hit the gym Saturday afternoon and spent the rest of the day watching football (oh darn Dallas lost ;-) and lounging in front of the TV. J came over and we all just watched movies, played Mario Cart and hung out while trying not to think about food and beer. The conversation always came back to food and beer though ;-) Sunday was the day of running hell. J and her boss A took us on a new running route. We ran Golden Gate park from the JFK start near Stanyon all the way to the ocean and back (6.8 mi). The route took us past the Young Museum, a rose garden, countless picnic areas, the buffalo pen, and finished by the Dutch windmill/tulip garden near the ocean. Getting to the ocean was pretty cool. It was a nice reward to get there and see the waves crashing on the beach half way through the run. On the way back all the energy that I had was gone by mile 5 and I was on fumes till the end though. That was the farthest I've run in about 3 months. I thought I was going to pass out and die on the mile walk back home after the run. If it wasn't for that banana and cup of coffee on the way back up the hill to home, I think I'd still be trying to make it up that hill. Once back home, I don't think I moved more than 10 feet for the rest of the day. And that was the weekend...

-S

Blind-sided, and not in a good way...

My work (as I've mentioned before) has "Bagel Friday" which is exactly like what it sounds. They pay some bagel company to stock our kitchen with bagels, cream cheese, and muffins. As a result, my favorite day to come to work is Friday. And my favorite thing to eat is a plain bagel, with cream cheese on 1 side and peanut butter on the other. Oh god. Drool.

I actually managed to forget today that it is Bagel Friday. I ate my breakfast at home, and am feeling pretty full. I go strolling down to the kitchen this morning to get my usual liter of water and strong black coffee, and BAM. In my face. Bagels.

The hardest thing I've done in the past month or so, is walk out of the kitchen without a bagel. This was about 30 minutes ago. I've done nothing in the past 30 minutes but think about bagels. Now I'm writing about bagels. I hope lunch comes quick so I can go to the gym where there is NO CHANCE I will lose my willpower to eat a bagel (simply because there aren't bagels in the gym).

If there was lox in the kitchen, it would've been over.

--K

Happy 2007 to everyone! I haven't gotten many posts up in the past, but I'll try to change that this year. 2006 ended with a few beerful nights drinking, a good movie (despite what K said, The Good Shepherd was a good movie) , some excellent food (I miss Burgermiester already) , an entertaining concert (Gnarles Barkley / The Flaming Lips), and kick-ass football (Packers whooped up on the Bears / Badgers just eeked out the Capital One Bowl). So now it's back to work, back to the diet, back to the gym, back to running and back to getting in shape. Ouch, I hurt.

--S

Oh my god, what did I do...

I went running. I did it badly. Very badly. Today was my first day back to the gym, and now all of me aches. Because I'm an idiot and jumped right back in and pretended I haven't gained weight back and that, hey, I'm a runner.

Why am I telling you this? I'm joining the SF Road Runner's club. I'm enrolling in Running 101 - for beginners obviously. I'm going to have someone actually watch me run, get me to a comfortable pace, help me maintain that pace, help me hydrate properly, help me stretch properly... It starts next Saturday.

So what does that have to do with my run today? Even though it's a BEGINNER'S class, obviously I couldn't show up actually a beginner! Oh my goodness - NO. I mean, a beginner going to a beginner's class? Ha. That would be like going to the gym because you need to lose weight - everyone knows you lose weight first, and then show up at the gym all healthy.

My body hurts.

--K

And it all got wrecked...

Thank you food poisoning (or stomach flu or whatever the hell you were). I heart you for making the last 2 days of 2006 and the first 2 days of 2007 a living hell. Thank you for ruining my concert plans. Thank you for ruining my drinking skills. Thank you for wrecking my NYE. Sigh.

HAPPY 2007 EVERYONE!

The past week in review... well, to be honest, technically the past 9 days in review.

I can't stress enough how happy we are to have stuff again. It's made my life so much better being able to get out of BED (yay!) and stumble out to the COUCH (yay!) and watch TV (yay!) In addition to having stuff, we also have our own internet connection again (my upstairs neighbors, or whoever's internet I was 'borrowing', thank Comcast) and cable! Hooray for cable!

What has happened... Well, a whole of drinking and eating and partying, followed by periods of doing absolutely nothing.

Last Friday, me and S met my sweetie friend J out at the bar. We got our drink on and then proceeded to dinner where we ate honestly the best crab I've ever eaten along with the best soup I've ever eaten. oh god. I'm drooling thinking about it. From there, we went out dancing. Do you know how long it's been since I've been dancing? Yes, it's been a long long time. Long time. And it showed. Give it up for a white girl dancing - that sounds bad and believe me I dance worse than that sounds. HOWEVER, I've never seen anyone move like J does. I might have to alter my opinion that she's innocent, because she sure doesn't look like that on the dance floor.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday saw me and S holed up in our apartment in front of our TV. Here is a step by step guide to recreating our last weekend (for those who want to give it a try):
1) Put movie in DVD player and press start.
2) Pause movie about 20 minutes in to refresh alcoholic beverage.
3) Repeat step 2 for remainder of movie (sometimes including snacks).
4) Repeat steps 1-3 for 3 days.

We did take a break to open Xmas gifts from the KY-side of the family on Xmas eve. Thanks mom! We LOVED our gifts! I now have a fluffy new bathrobe so that I don't flash my neighbors anymore. And we took a break on Xmas day to do a web conf with WI-side of the family. Hi guys! It was good seeing you over the computer!

We finally got out of the house on Tues. We took the train to Union Square to look at the giant Xmas tree and the giant menorah. Then it was a trip down to Embarcadero to check out the ferry building (opening scene of So I Married an Axe Murderer - "Port of San Francisco"), with a BART ride back to Mission for much-needed mexican food fix. J called on Tues - she had too much family time over the weekend and needed booze and cigs.

Which leads us into Wed. After viewing an extremely boring movie with J, we started drinking - martinis at Metreon lead to the Sutter Gutter where we met Suz and her sis (the random girl I met with my partner in crime - see posting from about a month back) which led to a random Chinatown restaurant where J ordered in Mandarin (I sure as heck couldn't read the menu) and I ended up eating a chicken heart (TASTY!)

Plans for the rest of the week:
1) Hog Island tonight for beer and oysters (honestly, is anyone shocked that all my plans involve booze and food?)
2) Gnarls and The Flaming Lips on 12/30
3) Boozing in North Beach tomorrow night (if I get the energy)
4) Wisconsin bowl game and GB Packer game on 12/31.
5) Drinking non-stop on 12/31.
6) Puking non-stop on 1/1.
7) Back on my diet to lose all my weight again on 1/2. Boo.

Hope everyone had a very good Xmas and are going to have a very booze NYE!
--K

And in 2 hours...

The truck will be in our possession again. Ah, wheels. I've missed you too.

We got stuff...

WE GOT STUFF. We GOT stuff! We got STUFF!

Bed, I missed you. TV, I missed you. Couch, I missed you. Clothes, I missed you. Bar, I missed you. Books, I missed you.

You get the picture.

A weekend to remember...

Friday night - a nice lame night at my party friend C's house. After our "date" with tequila the night before, we decided pizza and a chick flick were in order. My liver thanked me for only putting 2 beers in it. My body thanked me for going to bed sober and early.

Saturday - Met up with my party friend C early and we headed downtown to meet our sweetie friend J for another chick flick. "The Holiday" was a great movie, made even better by the fact that C and J both gasp at the same time during movies. I was rolling, in tears laughing. I discovered that both C and I call J "honey" all the time - I think it's b/c she's just so darn sweet, she's my innocent friend. It's been a long time since I've bonded with someone I think is innocent. Then C and J and I headed back to North Beach for some seafood dinner at J's house. J's friend CaryElwes (not really but I nicknamed him) whom I met the VERY FIRST TIME I met J came out - it was good seeing him again.

Saturday night - C and J: "When does S get in tonight?"
K: "He's leaving Phoenix at 8:26, so like 10 pm?"
C and J: "8:26 Phoenix time, or 8:26 our time?"
K: "Doesn't matter, they are the same time zones"
C and J: "No girl, Phoenix is an hour behind" (thanks for answering your phone to verify this fact Slick - much appreciated ;)
K: "Uh. Shit."

I was late getting S at the airport. I'm a rock star wife to say the least.

Saturday night continued - A certain airline lost all of S's luggage.

Sunday - a call from my party friend C. She had helped a friend out big time on Saturday night after I left and it backfired in her face (and on her mattress). I'm still laughing about it. Anyway, we went and picked up tics to hear a jam band in Feb, and then I went to her apt to help "fix" her mattress. Then it was a lovely day spent waiting on luggage to get to our apt! Thanks to A&B for keeping us company for many hours in our still-bare living space!!!!

Today - it's as clear as can be. I'm taking breaks from working at home to stare at the Pacific Ocean. Ah. Life is good right now.

--K

A bit of a sad day...

We no longer own a house. My part of the closing happened yesterday, and as of about an hour ago, S's closing was over. It's a little sad. I love my new life in SF, but I did have a great run in DFW.

A bit of a happy day...

S gets here tomorrow! Yay! See you soon baby!

A bit of a hurting day...

Thanks to my party friend C, I rocked it out with my other good friend "Tequila" last night. Even my hair hurts today.

The Night Before Closing...

It's the night before closing
in this big barren house,
all by myself
I'm missing my spouse.
The house is so empty
it's almost time to go.
The movers took our stuff,
the truck is in tow.
Ten years spent in Texas
the time flew by so fast.
It's hard to think it's over,
this chapter closed and passed.
The path that I have taken
and have been on through the years
has brought me very good friends
with whom shared many beers!
The good friends I made
and meeting my beautiful wife
were all done right here
enriching my life.
Off to California
that's the place where I will go
to start a new chapter
starting in San Francisco.
New friends will be made
and new memories found,
but I'll never forget the good times
spent on this ground.
Goodbye y'all in Texas,
you'll surely be missed.
It's time for a change
so we're heading out West.

--S