Past:

• This week exhausted me.  Really long hours thanks to always exciting usability testing, which included a fun-filled trip to Boise, where the highlight of the city is the sign you see leaving the airport.  (Warning: this is only really entertaining when you say “Boi” with a Flava Flav affectation- “Boiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.”)

• Yesterday Mike and I slept until 11 and then went on what we intended to be a leisurely bike ride.  We ended up going 23 miles round trip.  I was thinking that I could handle a 100 mile ride by the end of summer, but now I think I should stick to something much shorter.  We forgot a memory card with the camera (kharmic revenge for me stealing my dad’s memory card and not mailing it back to him in time), so the only good picture I got was this, taken with my phone while laying on top of a picnic bench post our dinner at the bourgoise grocery store conveniently located just off the bike trail when we realized that we were both starving to death:

• This afternoon I sat in Olympic Sculpture Park with two of my favorite knitters, Brooke and Ange, and we knit.  I reapplied sunscreen 3 times in 2 hours and still ended up with a wicked sunburn.  Thank god for aloe vera.

Present:

• Sitting on the couch, resizing images for Handicrafte Cafe, writing this blog post, trying to figure out how to watch the season finale of “Bones” on our television because our stupid faux-tivo ate it.  Oh well, thank god for Hulu.

Future:

• Tomorrow: going with the knitters to help find an elopement dress for somebody sane enough to NOT plan a wedding.  Then coming home to get cooking prepped for the week- turkey pesto meatballs, grilled vegetable and pesto salad (me), pasta salad with some grilled vegetables thrown in for kicks (Mike), Chicken and Spring Vegetable Gratin, and a bastardized version of Banana Blueberry muffins that use oatmeal and quinoa instead of flour.  I am very well aware that this last item may taste like total crap- it’s an experiment.
• Next week: Promises to be grueling, but at least it’s only 4 days long.  Happy dance!
• Next weekend: Kate‘s getting married!  Super happy dance!  Now I just have to find something to wear.
• Next next weekend: Our two year anniversary is June 2!  Mike told me to take Thursday and Friday off, but he won’t tell me what we’re actually doing.  Much like the quinoa-hippie muffins, this could be great (like the surprise trip to NYC for my 25th birthday) or it could be a disaster (like our trip to Monterrey in 1999 when we ended up sleeping in a motel in Salinas that came complete with bars on the window).

I was so excited about posting about the race that I went out of order and forgot to share our Saturday adventure with Mary.  So here it goes.

What do YOU do the day before a race?  Rest your legs a bit and take it easy?  We did half of that.  We started the day off with a yummy breakfast at Portage Bay Cafe with Mary’s college friend Kerrie (whom I love because we made plans to go to Tilth with her and her husband sometime soon) and then headed to Husky Stadium to pick up our bibs for the race and knock another thing off of my master Seattle to-do list: go kayaking.

Since there were 3 of us, we ended up canoeing rather than kayaking, which was actually (I think) better, because the canoe seems a wee bit more stable.  Once we got in, we set out to explore Montlake, which is pretty freaking gorgeous.  Going under the bridges makes you feel like you’re back at the boat ride at Disneyland (if you grew up in SoCal and went to Disneyland every other weekend like I did), except you actually have to row and you aren’t stuck to some mechanical track.

See?  It does look like the boat ride.

Mike navigated…

And only got us stuck a couple of times.

Mary looked all kinds of sexy.

We saw geese and goslings.

And turtles!  I named them Michael, Tony, Amy and Jimmy.  There was another one looking in the wrong direction on another log nearby, but I didn’t get a picture of him.  I named him Derek.

The only problem with kayaking/canoeing in Montlake is that after you’ve lazily drifted past a certain point and are ready to head back, the only way to get to the dock is to navigate through choppy open water and get attacked by speedboats and huge yachts.  This results in a rather strenuous workout.  After 2 hours of canoeing, I was ready for a nap.

So we napped.  Then Mary and I walked to the seafood market down the street and got some amazing Copper River Salmon and made a kickass dinner to help fuel our bodies for the race.  Obviously, paying almost $30 a pound for salmon paid off.

Sunday morning we woke up at 6:30 am with one singular goal:

Beat the Bridge is the main reason Mary even flew up this weekend.  It’s an 8k race that circles around Husky Stadium at UW.  You have 20 minutes to cross the University Bridge, which falls exactly at the 2 mile mark.  At the 20 minute mark the drawbridge raises and everybody behind the bridge has to wait for it to come back down.  It’s not really that terrible- the whole thing basically gives you a six minute break before you go run the rest of the race, and they give away prizes while a live band plays.  But beating the bridge is still a matter of pride.

Running 2 miles in 20 minutes shouldn’t be that hard, but the race is so popular that it takes you a good 3 or 4 minutes to really break through the crowd and get running.  Plus, I’m not exactly a great runner- more like a good plodder.  Real runners leap through the air like graceful gazelles- my movement is little more like a baby giraffe just learning to walk.  There is a great deal of teetering involved, hence my rather frequent falls and injuries.  (Thankfully, this race was catastrophe-free.)

Anyway, with a final time of 48:37, I DID in fact beat the bridge!  I just barely made it- I literally heard the drawbridge buzzer go of as I took my last step off the bridge.  I even had my own personal photographer to document my crossing the finish line:

Yeah, Mike did an awesome job as support staff.  He woke up just as early as Mary and I, drove us to the event, let us jump out of the car in the middle of the street while he searched for parking so we had time to pee before the race started and took fabulous pictures while he waited for us to run.

Team Michael FTW.

Post-run, we grabbed for food and I grubbed for free samples (which were sadly lacking by the way- a diabetic energy bar and a bottle of smart water were the best things I could get my hands on.  Boo.).  However, by noon total exhaustion had kicked in and I knew I could barely keep myself from falling asleep in a plate of pineapple chicken.  I even had to call and cancel on my friend Kate’s bridal shower, which was a total bummer.  Thankfully, her wedding is less than 2 weeks away, and I’m not planning on running my ass off the morning before that big event.

At home, we all immediately fell asleep.  Even Mike, who didn’t run, but is always willing to get a sympathy nap in.  We eventually roused ourselves to get Mary to the airport, with one quick detour to the market to meet up with our favorite baby in all of Seattle, Derrick’s niece Bella:

Yeah, she’s already a total ham.  But if you know Derrick, you understand where it comes from.

After dropping off Mary, Mike and I ate leftovers from Salumi for dinner and I was asleep by 9:30 pm.  Total Rockstar style.

Mary’s here!

Mary’s flight got in yesterday morning.  After a ridiculously busy week, I took a much-needed day off to get some bonding time in with Mary.  After all, we had some really important things to get done that day, like driving an hour to the Lululemon outlet in Burlington.  In order to properly fuel up for the day’s events, and because we really miss our pork-loving friend Scott, we started the day off with lunch at Salumi.

Salumi is a Seattle institution, so I was prepared for a long line.  We ended up waiting 45 minutes, but the time went quickly because we had plenty of people to keep us entertained.  The owners walking out with salami samples didn’t hurt either.  I do have to say, ever since I started eating pork in December, it has really really grown on me.

When we finally ordered our lunch, Mary mentioned that we were celebrating a belated version of her birthday.  The staff decided to mark it in a very, very appropriate way:

It’s a salami cake!

Seriously, there is nothing better than a great meal and some fantastic wine in the middle of the afternoon.

Everybody should eat at Salumi.  Get the olive oil bread.  Sit at the communal table- we ended up sitting next to a retired Mariners player and some 30 year old hipster wearing mirrored glasses indoors- and split a sandwhich with your favorite person in the world.  It starts the weekend off right.  The line is definitely a commitment, but a couple of mouthfuls of the magic meat is worth it.

After lunch, we wandered around, got some coffee, and set out for an uber-successful outlet shopping trip, where I got a gold gym bag at Lululemon for $40 and convinced the salesgirl at Banana Republic to give me an extra 40% off two shirts that were obviously not on sale.  That, plus some spring rolls and ban xeo at Greenleaf for dinner made me a very very happy camper.  Friday was good times.

This week has seriously kicked my ass.  I’m actually working right now from home at 9 pm because I’m so overwhelmed with crap to do.  But it’s ok.  Everything will be turn out for the best, because Mary’s coming tomorrow!

There is nothing better than knowing that I get to spend a weekend dedicated to full Mary and Aubrey super lame glory.  Our weekend plans include:

• lunch at Salumi, mostly to make Scott jealous.
• driving an hour each way to visit the lululemon outlet.
• having whey too much fun at the Cheese festival.  (Shut up, my pun is awesome.)
• canoeing, kayaking or doing some other boat-related activity.
• running an 8k Sunday morning even though we both suck at running- it’s an adventure!  And we’ll have an excuse to buy cute new workout clothes before hand (see item 1).

Doesn’t that sound like YOUR dream weekend?  Don’t you wish that YOU were my best friend?

I’m totally behind on blogging- total failure.  The past week (and the upcoming one) have just been WAY too freaking busy.  I need a nap.

Saturday was beautiful.  All I wanted to do was lie in the grass somewhere and soak up the sun for the entire day.  Unfortunately, we had 10,000 errands to run, and spent most of the day checking off our to-do list.  Somehow though we ended up in downtown Kirkland around lunchtime and grabbed some really fan-freaking-tastic Greek food at a little cash-only hole in the wall place called Santorini’s.  So yum!  So cute!  So virile:

We did have time to enjoy some sunshine so we got the food to go and wandered to a waterfront park nearby to eat.  It was only about 65 degrees outside, but it sure looked like summer:

Now, if you look closely at this picture, you may find what was one of the highlights of Mike’s day- somebody was wearing the Kanye sneakers:

He was so happy that I even got him to agree to a self-portrait.  My heart soared:

Of course, he only agreed to one, so that’s why you get the slightly emo, windswept hair and terrible contrast picture.  But I still kind of like it.

The highlight of MY day was the fact that there was a Ce Fiore down the street:

Yay yogurt!

The rest of the day was filled with a trip to Uwajimaya, the greatest Asian grocery store ever, and a screening of Notorious to celebrate our friends Barrie and Dominic moving into their new place.  I almost stayed awake through the whole movie!

Sunday was slightly less awesome.  I went on my last long run before Beat the Bridge next week, and I totally sucked it up.  I am kind of chalking it up to the fact that I didn’t drink nearly enough water the day before and I kind of feel like I’m coming down with something, but neither excuse is boosting my confidence for the actual race.  Eh, at least Mary will be there to comisserate with me.

The day was improved a bit by the fact that I made a really awesome Vietnamese curry for dinner tonight- Mike actually said that it tasted exactly like the kind his mom made.  That may be the nicest thing he’s ever said about my cooking.  Victory!

Oh, and if you’re curious, none of the plants I got last weekend have died yet!

I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting old or if I’m just seriously aching for warm weather, but I have become obsessed with the idea of gardening lately.  This weekend, after weeks of bitching to Mike that all I want in the whole world is a vegetable garden, I finally got something accomplished in the gardening arena this weekend.

My friend Ange joined me Sunday morning to see what we could pick up at the Seattle Tilth Society’s Edible Plant Sale.  Ange is lucky enough to have an actual backyard where she can plant things in the ground!  I am still kind of iffy on whether or not our landlord would be ok with that in our shared yard, so I decided to stick to container gardening this year.  We’ll see if I can keep anything alive.

As you can see, Sunday was a freaking gorgeous day, which was good for our aspiring green thumb moods.  We thought we would be ahead of the game by getting to the sale at 10:30 am, a full 30 minutes before it opened.  We were wrong.

That was just the END of the line.  People take their gardening seriously in Seattle.  Thankfully, we were armed with coffee and only got verbally attacked by an especially eager old woman once when we had trouble figuring where the end of the line was.

At 11:00, the gate opened and we were off.  It was kind of a mad house.

Even with the crowd, things went quickly and we got plenty of help choosing the best plants for our abilities from Tilth members.  Seriously, what a cool organization- they offer free classes on sustainable urban living- they even offer classes on raising chickens in the city.  Considering we used to live in an equestrian community and I would make fun of the goats, chickens and ducks living in our backyard (not to mention our emu-raising neighbors), I can’t help but notice the irony in the fact that now, only a few years later, I spent an afternoon trying to convince Mike that our own chicken coop would be a great idea.

In the end, I went with a collection of fairly safe and easy herbs and veggies- tomatoes, crookneck squash, strawberries, basil, sage, oregano and chives.  I also got a stevia plant (because I’m obsessed) and some lemongrass (I have no idea if that will grow well up here, but I LOVE lemongrass). Ange picked up some tomatoes, onions, an assortment of herbs and a hops rhizome for her home-brewing obsessed fiance.

Wish me luck on my gardening endeavor- lord knows I’ll need it.  I don’t exactly have a best track record in this department.  However, I definitely think it’s a good sign of my evolving maturity that I resisted the urge to buy this groundcover plant just because I thought it had a funny name:

I’m totally growing up.

Too many errands and chores ate up my Sunday and made me a lazy blogger.  In lieu of updating you with anything that happened this weekend, I’ll talk about something far more important: hot dogs.

Ever since he had his first hot dog with cream cheese from Dante’s Inferno Dogs at the Ballard Farmer’s Market last month, Mike has been obsessed with them.  Obsessed.  We now have hot dogs and cream cheese sitting in our refrigerator in bulk in case a craving strikes when he’s at home.  So last weekend when Ben was in town, we obviously had to share the joy.

Ben, who is not a fan of cream cheese in general, was suspicious of Mike’s enthusiasm, but he bravely agreed to try it out.  I think he just wanted to see the cream cheese gun in action.

Yeah, they use a caulk gun for cream cheese delivery.  It’s pretty awesome.

You see how excited Mike is about the stupid hot dog?

Ben gives good face.

Chicken sausage + carmelized onions + ketchup + cream cheese = Mike’s moment of food bliss.

Ben wasn’t as enthusiastic as Mike, but he did admit it was a lot better than he expected.  For a cream cheese hater that’s pretty good.  Maybe one day I’ll get over my hot dog phobia and try one…  but probably not.