Rarely does an activity come along that unites Mike and I.  We occasionally bike together, but he spends half his time chiding me for being too slow.  He won’t run with me because he thinks running is inefficient and kind of insulting to whoever invented the wheel.  And he’s not the only guilty party- you don’t see me exactly jumping up and down to spend a Saturday at a car meet-up or begging to spend the afternoon window-shopping for Ducatis.  But yesterday, we finally found something that we could do together.

Well, kind of.

Yesterday we competed in the Great Urban Race, a giant scavenger hunt where teams traverse the entire city, only using foot and bus transportation, to complete 12 tasks as quickly as possible.  Of course, as you can see by our bibs (and our not-so-identical outfits), we competed on opposite teams.

Barrie and I teamed up and set out to wear matching retro aerobics outfits, but because we’re cheap, just ended up wearing really bright, semi-slutty outfits instead.  Eh, you could still tell we were a team.

Mike teamed up with our friend Miles.  They eschewed the matching outfits and just wore the race T-shirts instead.  But, as Mike pointed out, they still matched better than us.  Bite me.

Our friend Rita came and hung out with us before the race started and took good pictures.

One day, Rita will have a photo blog and make me happy because she’s so freaking talented.

While we were waiting around, Rita noticed that Mike had stolen a pair of my socks and quickly became enthralled.

Occasionally I am reminded of why I love my husband.

As soon as there were hints of looming physical activity, Rita took off and the race began.

While we had talked a lot of trash pre-race, the four of us decided to primarily work together once we set off.  Barrie immediately started running, and Mike immediately started regretting that decision.

Several of the clues required photo evidence.  Here are some of my favorites.

We had to take a picture with a street performer where everybody was flashing a peace sign.  This guy was a TOTAL crackhead, but we did have to give him props for being smart enough to stand right at a bus stop that lots of racers were using.  Yay smart crackhead!

We were running toward another landmark when we saw a bunch of other teams taking pictures in front of this sculpture.  We had no idea what clue it related to, but we figured we should stop and take a picture anyway.  2 hours later I figured out a clue that was in cryptogram form and it turned out that it was talking about this sculpture.  Score!

One of the clues required you to find a cookie store and take a picture feeding each other a cookie.  Mike called this “the most uncomfortable experience of [his] life.”  I think that is obvious in the picture.

Another clue made you find the Maximus/Minimus truck (a pig-shaped trailer that travels the city selling pulled pork sandwiches) and take a picture with both team members jumping in front of it.  I really don’t know what part of this picture I like the best- Mike’s face, the fact that he is using the sign to help him up, or the guy in the background.  All in all, it’s a total WIN in a the sense that it’s a total FAIL.

So who won?  Well, at the heart of the matter, it was a tie.  The four of us worked together to solve clues and help each other along the way- we finished in 2 hours, 25 minutes.  TECHNICALLY, the boys won because they were total bastards and sprinted ahead at the very last moment.  I had pictured that the four of us would finish together, holding hands in unison, but obviously not everybody is as good a person as me.  Oh well, when they are both sizzling in hell and I’m looking down on them playing the harp and looking smug, they’ll be sorry.

All in all, it was a very good day.

That is all for now.

Um, yeah, it’s been 2 weeks since my last actual blog post.

This is not good.

Ironically, that last post I did garnered 7 comments, and none of them were actually from me.

So while I don’t have the energy to do a real post, here are some updates-

• I totally dug the positive response on the scallops!  The recipe came from my the beloved epicurious iphone app.  I riffed on it a bit, throwing some coconut milk into the sauce and playing with the flavor as I tasted it, but you can get the base recipe on epicurious.com.  (If you like to cook at ALL and you have an iphone, get the app now- seriously, i adore it.)  I also made a ridiculously yummy cucumber pineapple salad that I don’t have good pictures of, but will be making again for a barbecue next week.  I love food.  A little too much.
• Ever wondered what over 1,000 knitters in one room looks like?  I found out 2 weeks ago at Sock Summit, where I got to get some serious yarn lust in and hang out with Anne again.  I miss my SoCal knitters!

• I’m running a 10k on Saturday.  I don’t know why I do this to myself.  I’m not fast- as Taline taught me before our triathalon last year, “I’m a completer, not a competer.”  At least I’m running for a good cause- Barrie, who is also running but is actually fast and athletic, is joining me for mimosas and foot massages post race.  I think it’s perfectly healthy to run for the sake of champagne.
• We’re heading back to California for a wedding the last weekend of September- yay!  Weddings and old friends- two of my favorite things in the world.

Ok, that’s it for my super lame semi-post.  I’ll get back to real posting tomorrow, with pictures from Sock Summit and other super fun news.

Some days are just cursed from the beginning.

This morning, I dropped my phone in the toilet.  No, I wasn’t talking while pooping- I do do that, but this was at 7:00 am and that is way too early for me to be on the phone.  Even though we did all the stuff the internet tells you to do, the screen started to fog up immediately.  I was planning on going shopping on Friday and buying some yarn this weekend at Sock Summit in Portland, but now something tells me that none of that will be happening.

Fail.

At work, I spent the day circling around the same video script all freaking day.  Love writer’s block. And did I have any of my podcasts or audiobooks to distract me?  No, because they all live on my corpse of a phone.

Fail.

At lunch, while I did remember to bring my lunch, I realized that I had forgotten to bring salad dressing for my salad and Siracha for my chili (I made it Mike-friendly, and therefore not nearly spicy enough for my taste.)

Fail.

Mike had a crappy day at work as well, and that just made me feel worse.

Fail.

When I went to the gym after work (because the commotion associated with destroying my phone cut into my morning workout time), I realized that I had somehow managed to leave my headphones on my desk at work, so I had to work out in SILENCE.  In case you haven’t met me, I’m totally neurotic and 45 minutes of silence is basically my idea of hell.

Fail.

Now I’m home, trying to figure out what to do about the whole phone debacle, and wanting nothing more than to finish off a bottle of wine I opened the other day and crawl into bed and wait for tomorrow to come.  And maybe eat a cookie.

Since it’s bad form to leave you with such a depressing post, I’ll at least share a picture of my culinary triumph from this past Sunday.

Seared scallops in a Red Curry sauce.  Not only yummy, but also the prettiest thing I’ve ever cooked.  Yum.