Butterfly

I have enough introverted tendencies to know how important alone time can be, but I still don't think I'd mind if the vast majority of my weekends were like this past one, full of friends, cultural activities, and shared food!

On Thursday, after spending the day running errands with my neighbor and her mom, I met a friend downtown for Spring Awakening at the Orpheum. It was an excellent production, with strong acting and enjoyable music, though a bit dark and full of an almost dizzying array of teen issues. Friday, I had dinner with my neighbor and her fiance at Pancho Villa before heading into Saint Paul for another friend's CD release party. Two of the three bands that went on before them were great, and of course my friend's band rocked (the less great band just made my ears hurt). Saturday, a friend and I spent the morning pursuing bargains (I scored a $150 dress for 90% off and a pair of Anne Klein shoes for $10!). Later, I joined another friend for dinner at her place before we headed to the Russian National Ballet's Sleeping Beauty and met up later with more friends for pizza. Finally, today, I cooked for and attended a Superbowl party I had convinced friends to host (lacking a telly puts me at a disadvantage for these things). I made seven-layer dip, cream cheese caramel dip, and a huge vegetable tray, and brought lots of chips, tzatziki dip, apples, and cherry cider. I was disappointed with the outcome of the game (the last time I watched a Superbowl was when the refs won for the Steelers against Seattle,* and although I didn't think this year's calls were quite as egregious, they didn't seem entirely fair, either), but it was engaging, nonetheless. What made it priceless was watching the halftime show with an entire room full of Springsteen fans my age. In the early 80s, I knew the Boss as a sort of deity (watching him sing Glory Days with Steve brought back memories I'd forgotten I had!), but I was far from the biggest fan in the crowd of art historians. Oh, and the look on his face alone when he slid into the camera was worth the entire Superbowl!

So. My to-do list for today only made it as far as two items ("Dishes" and "Clean kitchen") but I accomplished both (multiple times, in fact, as things in my tidy kitchen quickly devolved into disaster once again as I made guacamole, assembled the dips, and chopped vegetables), which is probably about right for a Sunday. Soon enough, I'm going to have to get really serious about producing some writing--summoning those introverted tendencies to the charge!--but for the moment, I'm totally slacking and absolutely loving it.

*Thanks to Chelfea for the link--although from the post, I'm not sure she shared my sentiments about the officiating!

Things That Are Awesome III

If you're tired of the awesome, you should check out Seth's new blog, The Daily Who Be Trippin' Countdown

Things That Are Awesome (the slightly accessory-heavy edition):

The necklace I bought today at the open house held by the professor for whom I TA. Her main home business is selling ridiculously expensive (though beautiful) designer handbags, but she also does some cute jewelery pieces and paper products. I love the little bird on this one (and it was... cheep!). You can't tell in my pictures (the flash seems to have gone out on my camera, which is making things more challenging), but the bird charm is resting on a delicate, metal-edged enameled disc (that totally looks like a tasty lozenge).

The J. Crew shopping trip (accompanying my neighbor) that yielded a hand-painted enamel bracelet for $6.99 (originally $35 and ridiculously difficult to photograph) and heavy, fully-lined, charcoal wool slacks for $48.99 (originally $118, and not pictured... maybe later).

The fact that Minnesota doesn't have sales tax on clothing (or, for that matter, shoes). Isn't that brilliant?

Yesterday's black beans and rice with asiago, today with avocado and salsa. People. There are few words to describe the wonder. I almost swooned. (Though that could, admittedly, have also been related to how hungry I was).

Winter running (still). Today was viciously cold (when I got home, the radio said it was "six above"), but we still had a pretty awesome run. We both got icy eyelashes, which I didn't quite manage to photograph before they started to melt. My neighbor said of our frosty mascara, "We're disco queens!" In this photo, you can also see ice not only on my balaclava, but around my eyebrows.

Today's Miscalculations

Good Idea: Wearing long underwear while running in the winter.
Bad Idea: Wearing long underwear while running indoors in the winter. Oops. I got so hot on the treadmill that I totally kicked my own butt.

Good Idea: Changing out of down booties, and into easily-removable shoes, for a quick trash run.
Bad Idea: Changing out of down booties into flip flops for the trash run. To be fair, this works remarkably well down to about 30 degrees, or colder if there isn't snow, but works remarkably poorly when it is 20 degrees out and there are five inches of snow on the ground. I didn't realize it was possible for my feet to hurt that much, that fast.

Things That Are Awesome

Things that are awesome:

• The sparrow convention outside my window this morning (I think someone put out donuts).
• Three-Cup Tofu at Evergreen Chinese. Oh my goodness. I thought this would be tonight's dinner and tomorrow's lunch, but it turns out I had to eat all of it tonight.
  
• Homemade pitas. Along with my homemade hummus, these rocked last night's party. The impressiveness to actual difficulty ratio on these is hard to beat.
• The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. I accompanied my neighbor, who's taking her class there on Tuesday, on a stroll through the 19th century paintings this afternoon. It was great.
• My heat machine. It was seven degrees when I woke up this morning, and my heat machine hardly even noticed.
• Capilene long underwear. WOW.

Things that are halfway or probably awesome:

• My Christmas cards. The photos turned out a bit over-saturated, and I sort of got rubber cement all over the place. Still, they're going out tomorrow, and I hope you enjoy! If you haven't yet, see this post on how you can receive one.
• My new Saucony Triumph 6s. After three pairs of (essentially the same) Asics, in which I've run four marathons, I am trying some new shoes, on the advice of the Running Room consultant. These are apparently a bit less supportive, but have more cushioning and higher arches--? I have such a hard time keeping this all straight. He told me my knees align well over my ankles, and although I roll in very slightly (pronate), I also don't need to have a ton of support. This should hopefully help the foot fatigue I've been feeling recently.
• Winter running. Seriously. You wouldn't think so, but it's great once you warm up. You do have to work a little harder if it's snowy (it's like running in sand), but it's also invigorating and thrilling. Yesterday it was sunny, and although the temps were in the teens and they had let me down by not plowing the Greenway, I had a fabulous run. My favorite thing is that if I dress properly, I think I actually work up more of a sweat than I do when it's warm out.
• Treadmill running. Okay, usually this isn't my favorite thing at all, but tomorrow my neighbor is going to take me to the Y so that we can try out our new shoes (she got a pair of Nikes!) on the treadmill. If we don't like them, we can take them back to the Running Room.