words i'm learning to listen to

Decide what to be, and go be it.

yerba

While researching NYC food blogs today, I stumbled across this post about yerba-mate flavored ice cream. Yum. Mate isn't for everyone, but I loved drinking it in Argentina (and Uruguay! especially in Uruguay) and am not sure why I haven't busted out my mate gourd here in the States... maybe I'll bring my gourd and thermos in tomorrow and start sipping away on my little bombilla. I'm headed to NYC on Sunday for a few days and might have to see if I can make a stop at this ice cream shop for a little taste trip back to South America. Man, I'd move to NYC for the food alone...

holy crap

After nearly six months of training, I'm less than two days away from the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon. I woke up today with a nervous stomach -- I wouldn't say I'm nervous, per se, but it's just that feeling in my gut of something really big coming up. I also get goosebumps on the backs of my legs every time I think about it, which I always have before big races (though I suppose I wouldn't call filling in for the 4x4 team on our mediocre high school track team a big race... nor would that title go to my last two marathons, for which my goal was simply to finish... which means, this is my first big race??).

Anyway, this is a BFD. A Big F*ing Deal. So many miles, so many early mornings, so many entries in my running log. So much energy gu, body glide, and gatorade. New shorts, new socks, my first pair of racing flats. One hell of a coach. One hell of a support team. I'm getting all teary eyed just thinking about it.

And on Sunday, as I'm pounding through mile after mile, I will be chanting, "Go legs go! Go legs go! Boston here we come! Boston here we come!" I'm confident I can do it, but I also know I've done all I could have done, and however it turns out, I'm one lucky girl. I'm in the best running shape I've ever been in, my legs are made of steel, my mind is clear, and I had the privilege of spending so many beautiful mornings running around lakes and along rivers and breathing in my beautiful city. Running has given me so many gifts... hopefully it will throw one more (big one) my way.

So, my faithful readers, if you're awake at 8am on Sunday, send fast thoughts my way. So far the forecast is perfect -- high 40s, partly sunny, a slight wind out of the north -- and as Mr. S recently told a friend, I'm "fit and ready."

I told you once
Now I told you twice
We gon' light it up
Like it's dynamite

I came to move move move move
Get out the way me and my crew, crew, crew, crew

I throw my hands up in the air sometimes
Sayin' AYO
Baby let's go

eleven

I've been in a wonderfully blissful state the last eleven days... no work, no work emails, little online activity or thinking at all. Just enjoying California and Mr. S's company, celebrating my brother's wedding with my entire family, eating good food, taking lots of photos, lounging in the sun and waking up without an alarm. It was everything I dreamed it would be. Sigh. But now it's back to reality. Back to 263 emails, back to alarm clocks and schedules, back to spreadsheets and using my brain. But I suppose without all of that, an eleven-day vacation wouldn't be as sweet...

Photos yet to come, but for now, highlights for each day I was gone:

Day 1: Running around Lake Merritt. Family dinner with my and my brother's (now) wife's immediate families -- the first time we'd all met. Eating Korean BBQ together as one big family.

Day 2: Enormous burritos. Seeing my mom's cousins for the first time in 15 years. Lots and lots of laughing.

Day 3: My brother's wedding. Chinese tea ceremony, rose garden commitment ceremony, rockin' 10-course dinner followed by lots of dancing. So much happiness. Too little time.

Day 4: Wandering through the hilly neighborhoods of San Francisco. Clam chowder, sea lions, boutiques, wine. Rehashing the wedding with my parents over dinner.

Day 5: Big Sur. Oh Big Sur, you stole my heart immediately. What a beautiful drive down the coast, what a great training run along the cliffs, what a cozy dinner in a little restaurant in the redwoods on a cold, clear night. What a treat to fall asleep to crashing waves, snuggled in our tiny tent.

Day 6: A slow breakfast, a windy beach, a peaceful run. Drinks overlooking the coast at sunset. Dinner in a lodge. A campfire, s'mores, a cozy tent. Waking at midnight to drive back down the coast and sit in hot springs overlooking the ocean lit by the full moon. Crawling back into our sleeping bags under the redwoods, warmed to our cores.

Day 7: The most beautiful beach. Jumping photos in the surf. Another sunset, delicious burritos, again falling asleep to the sound of waves.

Day 8: Running in Golden Gate Park. Walking through Berkeley. Dinner with good friends.

Day 9: More walking through Berkeley. Lots more. Greek food, coffee, fresh squeezed orange juice. Used book stores, record shops, reading in the sun on the grassy campus. Thai food. Band of Horses at the Greek Theater. Frozen yogurt. Beer. So much happiness.

Day 10: Coffee and crepes. A farmers market -- oh the produce! Saying goodbye to California. Sadly, oh so sadly, packing our bags and traveling home.

Day 11: Sleeping until noon, back in our own bed. Cereal for breakfast. A run around the track on a crisp fall afternoon. Four episodes of Breaking Bad. Velveeta Shells and Cheese and root beer floats. Staying up late just to hold on to the last sweet moments of One Of Our Best Trips Ever.

csa champions

This year Mr. S and I joined our first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). We're lucky enough that my place of employment serves as a drop-point for our weekly fruits and veggies (though we've seen very few of the former), so all I need to do is bag up our goods and carry them home every Thursday. Easy enough.

Not as easy, however, has been making it through our weekly load before the next one arrives. A bag of green beans, some squash, a bunch of cabbage and the occasional cucumber have ended up in the trash. I hate, hate, hate throwing away food -- especially fresh, organic, delicious veggies. But, considering the Veggie Wasting Tales I've heard from CSA veterans, we've been first-time CSA champions.

We plowed through stir-fry after stir-fry early on in the season (I don't ever want to see cabbage or summer squash again), made it through bowl after bowl of green beans, and managed not to waste a single bit of a vat of cabbage-cucumber-dill salad. We've tried new recipes (that even used the tops of the carrots and that Mr. S actually liked!) and have fallen into a weekly routine of eating the most delicious caprese salads I've ever had straight out of our big yellow mixing bowls. It's been a delicious summer indeed.

The low point was near the end of Cabbage Mania, when I found myself saying out loud "I don't want to do the CSA again next year." But, now that we've moved on to sweet corn (oh heavenly sweet corn, I've never tasted any corn so ripe or delicious as you), basil and six kinds of tomatoes (and started baking the zucchini into bread instead of eating it raw), I'm thinking I want to sign us up again next year.

I mean, when else am I going to eat rainbow chard and kale and discover that the inside of a purple cabbage, when cut just right, looks like a Christmas tree???

the things runners do

Look what running's done to my toe. Have you ever seen anything like it? I haven't. I'm obsessed. Nearly every day I examine it and exclaim about how it's morphed into an even more horrendous iteration of the Most Disgusting Toe Ever. I mean, a month ago, it looked like this:

And a couple weeks ago it looked like this:

Not bad at all, but I was equally obsessed. How naive I was! At least then it still resembled a toe -- now it's just a blackened stub of unidentifiable tissues.

But you know what? I think I'm obsessed because secretly (well, not so secretly anymore) I'm really proud of that toe. It's one of the few outward signs I have of all the miles I've been putting in. A battle scar of the 6am alarms, the 95-degree-heat-index workouts, the sore muscles, the chaffing in places where you least want chaffing, the hours of pounding the pavement.

I've truly enjoyed training for this marathon, and I love running now more than I ever have before. I'm proud of my long runs, my faster times, my hill workouts, and my determination to run every run, even if it means pushing through shin splints and tight quads and sleep deprivation to do it.

I just apologize to all of you who have been, and who will become, victims of this pride as I show off my rotting toe to friends, family and coworkers alike. Thanks for humoring me, thanks for your support, and thanks for not threatening to vomit on my feet if I make you examine The Toe one more time.

You're the best.

friday favorites

Oh Friday Favorites, I've neglected you. And not for lack of favorites, because I have many. Life is good indeed.

- Cruising through the countryside of southern Minnesota with the windows down, Mr. S. in the passenger seat and Wagon Wheel blaring out of the speakers
- Training so hard that I find myself eating lunch at 10am... and again at 2pm... with snacks in between.
- Researching readings and poems and lyrics and sayings, and brainstorming how they'll work themselves into our marriage ceremony (which will take place just ten months from yesterday, by the way).
- Hearing Nathaniel Rateliff at the Turf Club, after Juicy Lucy's at The Nook.
- Having my brother and future sister-in-law in town and sitting around the dinner table with my entire family.
- Knowing that in SIX SHORT DAYS I'll be standing front and center at First Ave as my mind is blown

cactus emergency plan

In my parents' house lives a very large cactus. Seven feet tall and so girthy I can't get my arms around it. My dad drove it home from California about thirty years ago when it was just a wee cactus, not the monstrosity it is today. At Christmas my mom puts red velvet bows all over its prickly branches. It's a special plant.

It also tends to fall over once and while, when it gets too fat and sassy to hold itself up. Then commences a laborious, well-practiced ordeal of wrapping it in a sheet, rolling it outside, trimming it down, re-potting it, rolling it back in and admiring its slimmer self. The best part about the trimming? Lots of baby cacti, all given away to friends and family. Oddly enough, at the ripe age of 25, I've never been on the receiving end of one of these special plants. Until now.

My parents came home from vacation a couple weeks ago to a toppled cactus, and when I went to visit last weekend I brought one of its unruly offspring home with me. It's a wee version indeed, but still required a cart to haul it upstairs, and was met by an inquisitive look from Mr. S. But now it sits in our living room, soaking up the sun, awaiting the day when it will follow in its mothers' footsteps and require us to invent our own Cactus Emergency Plan.

I can't wait to decorate it with little bows come Christmastime.

undercover

Covert grilled cheese delivery? Why can't Minneapolis have something like this? Or, undercover pie delivery? I love food.

double rainbow

Apparently this is old news in the world of internet phenomenons, but it's new to me, so that makes it post-worthy (well, that and the fact that work has been all-consuming and therefore using up all of my writing brainpower before I can get to my beloved little blog).

So if you haven't seen this video, enjoy. I think it's quite amusing. And if you have, well, watch it again.