First 5K!

I slowly jogged all but a teeny bit of a 5k today with much encouragement from a friend who was visiting from out of town, but decided to spend 40 minutes of the day sweating with me. :) The weather page says it was only 85 degrees, but it sure felt hotter. I think I've almost never been that sweaty before.

Dinner was tasty sushi, and I'm excited to have a new place to recommend.

good day, now i'm tired.

What's your daemon?

I got my hair chopped off yesterday. I've been having some angst so I tried ridding myself of it by losing 12 inches of hair. It didn't quite work, but at least I will spend less of my near-term life with wet hair now.

I saw Stardust yesterday and found it sappy, beautiful and charming. Not as far out there on the beautiful scale as Mirrormask, but that would be hard to do.

My parents are coming to visit this week so I've finally called the plumber to deal with the fact that my bathtub has water under it (slosh slosh) and am looking forward to being able to freely bathe in my own house, though it may mean that I will go to the gym less compulsively now.

The jogging went super well on Saturday, especially since the weather was unnaturally perfect for summer.

Zozo got goopy eye over the weekend, and spent Saturday evening and Sunday following me around being snuffly and sad, but was completely recovered by like 4am this morning when he and Jaxby decided to play endless amounts of chase. awww, kitties :)

I also bought the His Dark Materials trilogy and plan to read those obsessively for a while. I want a daemon.

'No one belongs here more than you'

I heard a great short story on a podcast of Public Radio International's Studio 360. There's an excerpt here.

Besides that, life is sort of busy. With the new kitten, I have a lot more incentive to come home promptly at night, but I'm also greatly enjoying my current jogging and generic exercise fit. Yesterday and today it finally stopped being disgustingly hot which was super. I discovered that if I'm not out running on the hottest day of the year (which was Weds) I can in fact meet my goals for minutes of jogging/walking. Today was (10 min jog + 1 min walk) x3.

Jaxby and Zozo are getting along great. Cutesy photos will be on flickr tomorrow.

CSA adventures continue

Yesterday was awesome. I went out for week 3 of the jogging slowly group. One of the many running groups in DC is doing a beginner's series culminating in a 5K in September. It's going a lot better than when I'd tried on my own, but then again, I'm still only on week 3 of 10. It's been great to meet new people though, and it's good to have a reason to get up and get going Saturday mornings.

Then I went out to the farm with some friends. We picked blackberries (and ate a lot) and peaches. The peaches weren't as good to eat fresh off the tree, but will ripen quickly.

After two outdoor in the sunshine activities, I discovered that I'd only missed a small rectangle on my arm with the sunscreen, which was a third good thing for Saturday.

The fourth was going out to mexican tapas with a different couple. The restaurant used to be located near work and near where I used to live, but it relocated into DC to be fancier (and a pricier) but at least not less tasty, and in some cases tastier. So we won't go there as often now, but it's good to know it's still out there.

Then the fifth good part of the day was staying up late reading a book that I borrowed from a co-worker. Not Harry Potter, but the 6th book in a series that I'd been looking forward to borrowing from her for a while, so I'm having a little bit of sympathy Harry-Potter-ism.

Today was more frustrating, but ended ok in the end. I really wanted to make apricot preserves, but had a terribly hard time finding a store that carried pectin and then an even more awful time finding jars to put the preserves in. It was even hard to find a spray bottle to use to deter the cat from being curious about my boiled and sanitized (hopefully, if it worked) jars and lids. I think there is a chance that the stuff worked ok. At least all the lids popped down, so that's one important thing. I guess the next test will be whether they solidify at all, and finally we'll have to see how it tastes. There were only a couple small problems. Like I boiled the empty jars for a while, and then set them on a cookie sheet in a warm oven to dry them out and keep them warm until the fruit mixture was ready. But then once I'd filled the jars and put the lids on, I put them back in the same water which (duh, archimedes had figured out what would happen) I over flowed the pan and spilled boiling water onto my stove top. Thankfully I had a whole bunch of towels at hand just in case I did something that needed a lot of cleaning up. Then I got quite a bit of fruit goo burned onto my stovetop while stirring frantically for the minute of pectin-ing. I think I'll make the fruit in a larger sauce pan next time.

Over all good though. All 8 jars' lids popped down so it might be ok, and the fruit tasted great naturally, so hopefully it will taste good.

Unsuccessful but surprisingly good

I lost my keys Thursday. Chaos ensued. It is turning out to be an expensive error.

As part of trying to remedy it, I rode the Metro out to near a key shop this morning that said they could do the secure key for the building. Turns out he couldn't (grr!) It was a beautiful day though, and I enjoyed my 6ish mile bike ride back home, especially because I took a break for a great hamburger in the middle.

Then I got on the Metro again and rode off in the complete opposite direction to try to register for the 5k for tomorrow, which I should've registered for ages ago. oh well. I got to that shop about half an hour after the race people had left. Grr again.

It was still beautiful though, and I'd packed some water bottles in my bag, so after stopping for a morale boosting milkshake about 3 miles into this route I continued on, riding through this huge protected foresty area (where Chandra Levy's remains were found a few years ago) that goes from Maryland into DC. It was by far the biggest bike ride of my life, and if I hadn't cleverly picked about the only way to go 20 miles essentially all down hill, I'd be dead now. As it is, I'm a little worn out and my butt is mad at me for sitting on the bike for that long, but it could've been Much Worse.

For a day where none of my errands worked at all, it turned out surprisingly good.

"Life Soundtrack" meme

The rules:

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every prompt, type the song that's playing
5. To fill in the next prompt, press the next button (or stop and groove to the song before going to the next prompt, whatever). Keep going like this till they're all filled in.
6. Don't lie.

opening credits: Death Cab for Cutie - The New Year
From the Transatlanticism album -- imagine my mom lying about how pregnant she is in order to fly home from Switzerland

birth: The Decemberists - A Cautionary Tale
uhhh. This is just distressing. "She's standing in the harbour and waiting for the sailors in the jolly boat"

first day at school: Hem - Not California
No, really, it was California!

falling in love: Mike Doughty - Unsingable Name
"I want to be your absolute ultimate, I want to be your only one now" is perhaps a leeeetle extreme.

fight song: Aqua - Turn Back Time
What a lame fight song.

breaking up: The Decemberists - The Chimbley Sweep
oh my, "'O lonely urchin!' the widow cried,
'I've not been swept since the day my husband died.'
Her cheeks are blushing, her legs laid bare
And shipwrecked there, I'll shake you from your sleep "

school dance: They Might Be Giants - I've Got a Fang
Having a fang would be a good way to be unpopular in high school.

life: Track 9 - 5 year reunion mix from Taryn
aka Lisa Loeb - Do you sleep
My songs are all lonely. how sad.

mental breakdown: Sufjan Stevens - The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us!
I guess imagining (knowing?) that there is a predatory wasp out to get you could be some sort of indicator of a mental breakdown

driving: They Might Be Giants - Your Own Worst Enemy
Seriously now, I am not the best driver ever, but I am not my own worst enemy

flashback: Blues Traveler - Run Around
"once upon a midnight dreary, I woke with something in my head. I couldn't escape the memory of a phone call and what you said." I think that counts as a great flashback lead in.

wedding: Blues Traveler - Just Wait
This is more of a song about the concept of a wedding than a song to be played at a wedding. A coworker got "F your sister" for this category. That was funnier.

birth of child: Sufjan Stevens - The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders
OK, so far my movie is a lot of loneliness, and now apparently the worst child-birth scenario in the history of the world.

final battle: Belle & Sebastian - The Rollercoaster Ride
"The rollercoaster ride of all the trouble kept her inside" -- yeah, I'll be sitting out that final battle.

death scene: Death Cab for Cutie - Death of an Interior Decorator
well, at least it's not my own death. Since I am totally not an interior decorator. But, "Can you tell me why you have been so sad?"

funeral: They Might Be Giants - Experimental Film
"I already know the ending. It's the part that makes your face implode"

ending credits: I'm From Barcelona - We're From Barcelona
I think the opening credits and ending credits were the most cheery of all of these.

Bike Commute!

I got new inner tubes for my bike yesterday and today I rode my bike to work! It was pretty easy, even though I haven't been on a bike in more than a year. I think it was also faster than the lazy bus/metro/walk route that I would usually take. yay bike!

If I ride it a lot this year, then next year, I might get a cooler bike.