Bits and Pieces

I am alone in the office today and have to admit that it is just delightful.

There's something so nice about having a space all to yourself, though I have to admit, since the departure of our swine flu coworker, the reconfiguration of the office, and the desk shift of my one remaining coworker, things have been quite lovely. My coworker E is so quiet, I might as well be in here alone. I do not think she enjoyed swine flu coworker either, as since she left, E has been more talkative and social than ever. We have even designated a shared space for a fish tank! Hurrah!

Here's a view of my desk:

Here's the corner (note the colorectal poster!) where the fish tank will go:

Anyways, so I'm alone here and I got a bit distracted by movie reviews. I saw (500) Days of Summer last night and have to admit that I didn't love it. It was ok. I found Summer insipid. Actually the best character in the whole damn movie was Rachel, one of the main character's middle school-aged sister. She was hilarious! Everyone else. Eh. We went on $5 movie night though, so I can't really complain as it was a cheap enough night out!

I then went on to read more reviews on E!'s website and noticed they gave Julie & Julia a "C." 500 Days got a B- and they give Julie & Julia a "C"? WTF?! It was 10 times more entertaining and hilarious and heartfelt and lovely. I get that it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but the critic wrote how it was boring, how Julia Child was boring, how Julie Powell didn't really achieve anything by cooking all those recipes. Agh! Of course this was just one reviewer and I never pay attention to reviews because I usually like movies that get C's and D's anyway. Seriously though - how could you find Julia Child boring? She was fascinating. On commenter wrote "Thanks E!, now I know to see you C-rated movies instead of your A ones, as I Love You, Beth Cooper was a disaster and Julie & Julia delightful." Wow. Special.

My sister and I decided to have omelettes in Julia's honor on Saturday. We saw her cooking some on PBS and were fascinated by the speed of the whole process. Also, when she put the filling in the middle of the eggs, she shook the pan maybe three times and then Voila! She had an omelette that just slid off the pan. We were determined to emulate this pan shaking style, but the results were not quite the same. I ended up surrendering and simply used a rubber spatula to flip one side of the omelette on top of the other. I have to admit though that I would love to learn her technique. Not only is faster, but it looks impressive.

Actually, I have some rare free time this weekend and think cooking would be an excellent way to fill the time (as long as it's not too hot). There's such a bounty of locally grown fruits and vegetables available out there that I should really capitalize on the nearness of Boston's farmer's markets and get out there and buy some stuff. I am overrun with mason jars (yes they are supposed to be used for the wedding!) and would love to try my hand at canning or making some jam. Hmmm....though these are the projects that I always think will take a neat 2 hour block I've set aside and then 8 hours later when I've been on my feet all day on the ceramic tiled kitchen floor and my back hurts and my sciatica hurts I question my sanity at undertaking these ridiculous endeavors. Maybe I should just make a pie.

Speaking of weekend and free time, this weekend must have some time dedicated to wedding junk. You see that little time ticker up there? In a mere EIGHT weeks it's going to start ticking down. The little lovebirds are going to begin their rightward migration. We'll officially be working off our to do list. WOW. That however makes it necessary to have certain things established before the ticker starts a-movin'. For example, I say I'm making save the dates, but I have to be sure that I can actually do that before I sit down in 6 months and realize that I just should've paid someone. Plus it's good to buy any DIY supplies over time. This makes it much less likely that I have to dip into the wedding fund to buy stuff - Jamaal insists that I do take from our wedding cash to buy ANYTHING wedding related, but honestly, I'm not going to take out some random sh*t like $11.78 to cover glue, tape and a rubber stamp. Bwahahah. I actually have JUST the wedding project in mind. More later.

I also have to run this weekend - have I mentioned that I have a screw loose in my head and am training for the Portland ME half marathon? And that this is hopefully a prelude to my Boston Marathon debut? Yeah. Insane. I used to be a legit runner. I wasn't great and it didn't come naturally or even easily, but in high school I ran miles in the 7's and was what you would probably call "average." What I did not realize then was that about a decade later I would KILL to run miles in the 7's. Seriously! When I ran the half marathon in '06 (random aside: it is so funny when people ask how long a half marathon or a full marathon is if it's in a different city. I want to be like "well marathons and halfs are standard: 26.2, 13.1. But people don't seem to get this). Anyway, when I ran in '06 I did about 11 minute miles - 10.9 minute miles to be exact. Trust me, I was FINE with this. I was running for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, but had trained on my own given the fact that training runs were held at like, 7pm on weeknights. Sorry, but I head home around 4pm people. I noticed (very SMUGLY) while running that I was ahead of most of the L&L Society people, so that was good enough for me. This year I won't have a charity shirt to hide behind - 'cause when you run for a charity people are like 'oh look at that girl, running so hard for pediatric cancer/parkinson's research/to save the whales/to save darfur/to feed starving ethiopian children.' When you take the charity bit away, you just become the slow girl. I don't want to be the slow girl! I don't need to be the fast girl, but I would love to be the fantastically average girl. This has led me to purchase a new girly timex (pink - who would have guessed that I would suddenly like pink and that this like would be almost exclusively based in the sports world - pink watch, pink sneakers, pink kayak - weird) and time my runs. I fully admit - I have never pushed myself when running on my own. Never. But therein lies the problem. No one has ever given me a reason to go faster - there's no one around to do that anyway. My motivation had to come from within, which was going to be a big hill to climb as usually around mile 1 I am ready to call it quits and walk home. The girly timex has proved to be just the thing. Every run is a battle against the watch. I am to run my runs around 11 minute miles in hopes that my speed improves and I can run sub 10's in October. I life weights and exercise my core, hoping to build strength throughout my body that will help carry me the 13 miles. I take glucosamine and chondritin for my aging knees. I feel H-A-R-D-C-O-R-E.

Of course, this hardcoreness has only been happening for about a week. There's always room for me to slip up, LOL.

Finally, knitting. I totally started Lizard Ridge and am smitten. I've had to limit myself to train knitting only because the squares knit up so fast - I totally see myself become so involved that the infamous bridesmaid shawls get pushed by the wayside and don't get finished in time. Though I've self-limited to train knitting, I've already finished one square and am halfway done with the second. My next task is to figure out whether I want to do a bunch of different yarns or pick just 5 or 6 colors and keep the entire afghan in the same color family. I thought I wanted a wacky one with about 15 or 18 different colors but I am starting to lean towards the color family idea, as Noro Kureyon is such a colorful yarn already. Here's a little preview:Since tomorrow is pay day and student loans aren't due for two weeks, I might be a bit self-indulgent and order the rest of the yarn I need for the afghan. We'll have to see :)

Well that wasn't too spicy, but I'm working on some spice (more pics would help I think). That's all for now!