 Pasta, Paddles, and Plans |
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Phew. Holiday weekends are exhausting. One of my projects for the weekend was performing major surgery on the Dyson. I vaguely remembered reading when I bought it that a filter inside is supposed to be cleaned every six months. I bought it more than a year ago and nary a cleaning has taken place. It was starting to smell like burnt dust every time I used it, so I took it apart, cleaned the filter, and spent about an hour clipping from the little spinny brush underneath about ten pounds of my hair. I had no idea it was all wrapped around it like that. It was a huge pain, but it seems to be working much better now. I woke up early on Saturday morning and did week 6, day 3. By the last song of the 25-minute run, I could no longer feel my limbs. But I made it through and headed to the big city. I walked to the grocery store and brought my camera, taking some pictures in my boyfriend's neighborhood that focused on signs of life. There are lots of trash piles and blue tarps around there that could also have been captured, but I wasn't in the mood to dwell on the despair that day. 
We ate lunch at Juan's and went here for the first time to celebrate its reopening. We waited in line for at least thirty minutes, but it was worth it. My lemonade and his cream of peach were perfect. The owner slapped a handful of ice into my palm and said, "See, it's like snow," and it was. It really was. It was great to visit a landmark and to see the line out the door. Wonderful, wonderful. (I love this picture of the couple that was taken before they both passed away after Katrina.) I cooked this for dinner that night, using pine nuts instead of capers, sundried instead of plum tomatoes, and no olives. It was tasty but not at all saucy. I should have used regular tomatoes as well so their juices could moisten things up a bit. I also made these, which were easy and fun.  I spent most of my spare time this weekend reading King Dork, thanks to Colleen, who sent it to me. It is fabulous and I have loved every page so far. It makes me laugh out loud. On Sunday, we went out to the Greek festival, where we ate some Loukoumades (Greek beignets topped with honey and cinnamon) and Greek salad, went on a canoe ride and saw some huge houses that looked fine from the front but were flooded in the back, and launched a plan to possibly go backpacking this summer. 
I have some serious reservations about my physical limitations when it comes to spending a week carrying a heavy backpack and charging through the Rockies and wonder how I could live a week without my hand sanitizer, but I think it would be good for me mentally to Embrace The Dirt. Some of the best memories I have in life are of summers spent either in the Rocky or Blue Ridge Mountains, but I've never done anything super hardcore in the mountains like a week in the wilderness. We'll see. We're still mulling it over. I'd really have to get into some seriously good shape by then. My sister suggested walking on the treadmill regularly at a steep incline as well as finding some hills to hike in while wearing a weighted backpack and generally building body strength and endurance. I'm more fit than I was before I started the running program, but I'm still way less fit than anyone who'd sign up to spend a week backpacking. My sister was training for the Chicago Marathon when she went on Outward Bound so was used to running like a dog, and she said it was still very difficult because running does not exactly prepare you for the kind of work you do hiking through the mountains. Anyway. I don't have any illusions that it would be easy. I went to a class using this machine, and I really liked it. I mean, my "muscles" shook and I was the only person who showed up at the crack of dawn so the teacher (who happened to be my brother's girlfriend) took her time with me, but I think doing something like that regularly would definitely help to build my strength. Yesterday was week 7, day 1. Week 7 is 25-minute runs. I survived by listening to Rufus King's "Just What I Need" and visualizing myself as Torrence dancing on the bed with her pom-poms. About this time in ...
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