There are some things in life I just know to be true. Things like, I know how to make a good sandwich. While the majority of my culinary skills may not be what one would call advanced, I can make a sandwich that rocks.
Last night, I stopped by my sister's apartment to go to a party. Lynn had made hummus, and bought a bottle of wine to bring, and just when I thought I couldn't be more impressed with her adult-ness, I mention I'm hungry, and she immediately responds with, would you like a sandwich?
Heck yes, I want a sandwich!
So she pulls out a sandwich wrapped in paper and some cheese, and says, this is from Panera, and here's some cheese if you want to add it. (This should have been the first warning sign, any good sandwich already has cheese on it. duh.)
I unwrap and open the sandwich to add the cheese and stared at it. Sitting on the 2 pieces of bread was a slice of tomato, a piece of lettuce, and some green spread, that I assume was a guacamole type substance. I blinked and looked again, but nothing had changed.
"Lynn!!" I yelled.
"What?"
"There's nothing on this sandwich!!"
laughs, "It's vegetarian!"
Which, I mean, come on! Vegetarian sandwiches are great, but they usually involve some mushrooms, or eggplant, or I don't know, anything more than a piece of lettuce and a tomato. I mean really Panera, what do you even call that sandwich? It's an insult to call that thing a sandwich.
Lynn grabbed some turkey out of her fridge, so between that and the added cheese, I actually was able to eat a proper sandwich. And it was good. Just be wary of the vegetarian selection at Panera...
My real life.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Should be
Yesterday, I was a productive, happy member of society. I was up early, and worked hard. I ate a lot of fruits and veggies. I went for a run, caught up with friends, attempted a Pirates game, and enjoyed a torrential summer thunderstorm instead. It was a good day.
Today. Work was alright, and after an evening event was canceled, I found myself with a free night. A rarity in the middle of the week.
And instead of being productive, or doing anything fun, I find myself completely at a lack of what to do with this time, and have ended up curled up on the couch with a book, angsty over the fact that:
I should be going for a run.
I should be doing more work/research.
I should at the very least be reading something substantial, and not a murder mystery.
I should be out somewhere, socializing, meeting new people, maybe even finding myself a date for this weekend.
I should be doing something summery, summer's almost over!
I should be painting my toes, playing the piano, sewing that dress I've been thinking about, making my own crackers, doing something, anything, with this free time.
And while it's important to stay motivated, and important to grow, and to be challenged and do things. Sometimes, what you need is nothing.
So what I'll be doing now is closing up my laptop, and going back to my murder mystery. I'll get back to all those things tomorrow.
Today. Work was alright, and after an evening event was canceled, I found myself with a free night. A rarity in the middle of the week.
And instead of being productive, or doing anything fun, I find myself completely at a lack of what to do with this time, and have ended up curled up on the couch with a book, angsty over the fact that:
I should be going for a run.
I should be doing more work/research.
I should at the very least be reading something substantial, and not a murder mystery.
I should be out somewhere, socializing, meeting new people, maybe even finding myself a date for this weekend.
I should be doing something summery, summer's almost over!
I should be painting my toes, playing the piano, sewing that dress I've been thinking about, making my own crackers, doing something, anything, with this free time.
And while it's important to stay motivated, and important to grow, and to be challenged and do things. Sometimes, what you need is nothing.
So what I'll be doing now is closing up my laptop, and going back to my murder mystery. I'll get back to all those things tomorrow.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Apples not falling far from trees...
Yesterday I drove across the state with my running buddy, Frank and Tassy. They were going out to the Jersey Shore to celebrate the long weekend and fourth of July. I joined them for the a ride across the turnpike to visit my folks over the weekend.
For those of you who don't know Tassy's story, or how he's become connected to my life, you can read about it here. The shorter version is that Tassy is 18, comes from Haiti, and has quickly become one of my favorite people.
Tassy has a terrific voice, and loves music, but it became quickly apparent to Frank and I that he has not had a lot of experience with classic rock. As he will be attending high school in the fall here in the states, we decided it was only necessary to use these couple hours to introduce him to Zeppelin, Hendrix, the Stones, etc. We set up a Pandora station and were having a great time singing along, drumming on the steering wheel, and generally waxing nostalgic about music, that while certainly not from our time, was what we were raised on nonetheless.
At one point, we turned around to ask Tassy whether or not he liked a particular song, also mentioning that is was great and famous, and therefor implying obviously that he should be loving this, when I realized.
"Oh my god," I said to Frank. "Do you know who we are right now?"
"Who?"
"Our parents!"
And there we were forcing this poor kid to listen to classic rock while we sang along and talked about how great it is on a road trip in the summer.
For those of you who don't know Tassy's story, or how he's become connected to my life, you can read about it here. The shorter version is that Tassy is 18, comes from Haiti, and has quickly become one of my favorite people.
Tassy has a terrific voice, and loves music, but it became quickly apparent to Frank and I that he has not had a lot of experience with classic rock. As he will be attending high school in the fall here in the states, we decided it was only necessary to use these couple hours to introduce him to Zeppelin, Hendrix, the Stones, etc. We set up a Pandora station and were having a great time singing along, drumming on the steering wheel, and generally waxing nostalgic about music, that while certainly not from our time, was what we were raised on nonetheless.
At one point, we turned around to ask Tassy whether or not he liked a particular song, also mentioning that is was great and famous, and therefor implying obviously that he should be loving this, when I realized.
"Oh my god," I said to Frank. "Do you know who we are right now?"
"Who?"
"Our parents!"
And there we were forcing this poor kid to listen to classic rock while we sang along and talked about how great it is on a road trip in the summer.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Music, shameless self-promotion, Katy Perry, n'at.
The boys over at the awesome music blog Draw Us Lines, were looking for chicks to offer some female perspective to their line-up, and I ::blushes:: was one of the chicks they asked. I guess because I like music and have opinions.
So, for my first piece, I wrote about Katy Perry. Or more accurately how a hipster named Darwin Deez made me really start liking her song Teenage Dream.
You can read it here.
Also, next weekend Draw Us Lines is celebrating their first anniversary with a birthday party that is basically putting all 24 of my birthday parties to shame. Meaning, it's going to be really fun, and you should buy a ticket.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
The bet.
I do not have a good track record with bets. In fact, I can't outright think of a time I've ever actually won a bet, which I suspect may have something to do with my disbelief in the theory of probability. The point is however, that this doesn't stop me from participating when the offer of a bet comes up. Oh god, that's the definition of insanity isn't it?
I have a lot of friends that are runners. This is great. It means I am consistently encouraged to get out of bed, leave the couch, stop working for an hour to meet someone to go for a run. You also form a special bond with your running buddies. It's nice.
After the Pittsburgh marathon, of which several of us ran the full, half, or a relay, we caught the racing bug, and began scheduling races through out the summer. It was determined that the group would run the Race for Roch in Mount Washington in July.
It was all fun and games and witty email chains until Regina threw out the question "Wait, should we make this a bit of a...race?"
To which I, who can never turn down a dose of competition responded with "Oh, I don't know should a group of ambitious relatively type A people make a race a race? Heck yes, we should make this a race! We should make this a race with a cash prize!"
We've decided that rather than cash, the winner gets to assign karaoke songs to the losers while the losers buy the winner their drinks of choice.
This has inevitably lead to emails full of tough talk and threats to pick songs exclusively from Cats, make everyone sing the same Jimmy Buffet song, orders of expensive aged scotch, and the hill work we are all doing in preparation for July 30.
I don't know what I was thinking. I am not a fast runner. Especially not in Pittsburgh July heat, uphill, in the morning. However, I'm hoping that my gut-wrenching fear of karaoke will cause an endorphin induced miracle that allows me to win.
We'll see. In the meantime, I've got hill repeats to sprint.
I have a lot of friends that are runners. This is great. It means I am consistently encouraged to get out of bed, leave the couch, stop working for an hour to meet someone to go for a run. You also form a special bond with your running buddies. It's nice.
After the Pittsburgh marathon, of which several of us ran the full, half, or a relay, we caught the racing bug, and began scheduling races through out the summer. It was determined that the group would run the Race for Roch in Mount Washington in July.
It was all fun and games and witty email chains until Regina threw out the question "Wait, should we make this a bit of a...race?"
To which I, who can never turn down a dose of competition responded with "Oh, I don't know should a group of ambitious relatively type A people make a race a race? Heck yes, we should make this a race! We should make this a race with a cash prize!"
We've decided that rather than cash, the winner gets to assign karaoke songs to the losers while the losers buy the winner their drinks of choice.
This has inevitably lead to emails full of tough talk and threats to pick songs exclusively from Cats, make everyone sing the same Jimmy Buffet song, orders of expensive aged scotch, and the hill work we are all doing in preparation for July 30.
I don't know what I was thinking. I am not a fast runner. Especially not in Pittsburgh July heat, uphill, in the morning. However, I'm hoping that my gut-wrenching fear of karaoke will cause an endorphin induced miracle that allows me to win.
We'll see. In the meantime, I've got hill repeats to sprint.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Hallucinations > Malaria...I guess
One of the common side effects of most malaria medications is weird dreams. Sometimes anxiety, paranoia, and hallucinations can occur. On the other hand, without it, you know, you risk malaria. And then they just give you the same meds at a much higher dosage.
I was just in Haiti, where it is now the rainy season, and full of mosquitos, and therefor we were all taking malaria medications. I was the only one in the group on chloroquine, which is taken once a week for 6 weeks as opposed to every day for the week you're there. I hadn't thrown-up, or experienced blurred vision, and my dreams are always vivid and weird, so I was under the smug impression that I was avoiding all the possible unpleasant side effects. Until someone in my group told me that by week 4, I'd be swatting at things that weren't there.
On the plane back to Pittsburgh, as we were about to land, I noticed that the woman sitting in front of me had a dog in the bag under her seat. The plane was dark, and the dog was poking his head through the top of the bag, so that was all I could see. He had also been silent the whole flight, so I was surprised that I was just now seeing him. Or was I? I started questioning myself, staring at the dog wondering, "Are you real?" I kept looking away, then looking back to see if he was still there. Eventually, his owner leaned over to pet him, and I relaxed, relieved that I wasn't hallucinating dogs on planes.
I mentioned this to my fellow threadheads as we got off the plane, and we all laughed about it. 10 minutes later in baggage claim, I saw the woman with her dog again.
"That was the dog,"I pointed out to Lee.
"What dog?" he immediately responded.
"Don't. Don't event start with me." I said.
So far, still no side effects, however, I will probably blame any weird behavior on my part for the next 4 weeks on the chloroquine.
I was just in Haiti, where it is now the rainy season, and full of mosquitos, and therefor we were all taking malaria medications. I was the only one in the group on chloroquine, which is taken once a week for 6 weeks as opposed to every day for the week you're there. I hadn't thrown-up, or experienced blurred vision, and my dreams are always vivid and weird, so I was under the smug impression that I was avoiding all the possible unpleasant side effects. Until someone in my group told me that by week 4, I'd be swatting at things that weren't there.
On the plane back to Pittsburgh, as we were about to land, I noticed that the woman sitting in front of me had a dog in the bag under her seat. The plane was dark, and the dog was poking his head through the top of the bag, so that was all I could see. He had also been silent the whole flight, so I was surprised that I was just now seeing him. Or was I? I started questioning myself, staring at the dog wondering, "Are you real?" I kept looking away, then looking back to see if he was still there. Eventually, his owner leaned over to pet him, and I relaxed, relieved that I wasn't hallucinating dogs on planes.
I mentioned this to my fellow threadheads as we got off the plane, and we all laughed about it. 10 minutes later in baggage claim, I saw the woman with her dog again.
"That was the dog,"I pointed out to Lee.
"What dog?" he immediately responded.
"Don't. Don't event start with me." I said.
So far, still no side effects, however, I will probably blame any weird behavior on my part for the next 4 weeks on the chloroquine.
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