Vacation Journal V: Family

I first traveled abroad at the age of 11.  Amazingly, my parents put me on a plane with my older sister for 3 weeks in Sweden with the cousins.  Amazingly, I recall being a mostly uncranky preteen in a country where the only phrases I could conversationally use were Hej! (Hi!) and Kan jag få smör. (Please pass the butter.)

I also recall, at a number of points, being so homesick I cried.

This past week, I am still a fool in Hungarian.  But I can eke out egészségedre (exclaimed when toasting) and am an expert on köszönöm (thank you).

And I haven't at all been homesick.  That's mostly because of my hosts -- who have bunked me at their lovely home in the country (mosquitoes aside), kept me in three square meals a day (with dessert at every one), provided a nightly venue for watching the World Cup matches, and treated me like a second daughter.  

I could say that being unaware of what is being said in 90 percent of all conversations might be disconcerting.  But it's vacation.  I have found it is more enjoyable to eat my home-picked arugula and homemade rice pudding, sausage, and cold cherry soup, sitting on the patio in the morning sunshine overlooking the rose garden and be grateful for good people.

Good family.

Mama.

Papa.

Sister Julia.

Vacation Journal IV: Mosquitoes

The floods of 2010 are receding as we speak; the sun I brought with me, evidently, is helping.

Charting Danube flood levels 
on the ferry landing across from Szentendre.

This is indeed good news.  Although from our vantage in the Danube flood plain, it has been a slow drying-out.  Balint and I biked 10 miles north to Vác Saturday evening, on the back roads adjacent to the river, and the muck and standing water reeks a bit like a musty basement.

Another side-effect has been the mosquitoes. By the hundreds, thousands, and hundreds of thousands.  In short:  by the swarm.  We discovered that if you ride a bike, you can just keep your mouth shut and not swallow any ... and that your relative speed keeps them from landing and biting.

Which was great incentive for us to keep pedaling during the 20 or so miles of our route.  But alas, if you are trying to stand still to capture the visit to the old Serbian town of Szendtendre.

Swat, swat, swat.

Now a pro at posing without flinching.

Interestingly, though, once we got on the ferry and moved off the banks and into the river channel -- the pea soup appearance of the water not to be taken literally -- the breeze blew these suckers away enough that we could enjoy a 5-minute respite.

Crossing the Danube back to Dunakeszi.

We haven't been lucky enough to keep them out of the house at night for such respites during sleep.  But we'll take what we can get.

Vacation Journal III: Running

The degree to which I am no longer observing my diet is stark.  Bread, cheese and sausage at every meal.  Pasta with cream soup.  5L mugs of beer.  Homemade pear cake with post-breakfast coffee ... after eating apple pastries, and only apple pastries with cappuccino, for breakfast.

Oy.  Glad I made some room in my stomach before coming here. 

The upside of this is my host's family has an energetic Golden Labrador puppy, Baucksy, who needs to run, run, run with his adolescent's energy.   And we run about the same tempo.  So for the past 3 mornings we have jogged together along the bike path to the next village and back.  He gets easily hung up on chasing butterflies and drinking from puddles and jumping in the river.

But we keep each other honest.  Baucksy gets to show me the countryside.  And I get to burn a couple hundred calories'-worth of breakfast.

Baucksy on the road south of Göd - June 26

Vacation Journal II: Spa

When I touched down in Budapest on Tuesday afternoon, it was through a cloud cover so thick we didn't see land until the wheels nearly hit the runway.  Which was itself covered in puddles.  Balint drove me back to his parents' house in Göd, in driving rain, explaining that this had been the general condition for most of the spring.  The Danube was at record levels, mosquito swarms at even higher density.

Nice, then, to have the next 2 days be nothing but blue skies for my intro to Budapest and the surrounding countryside.  Balint and his family have officially credited me with "bringing the sun along."  I've been called worse.

Wine with lunch. A must at the spa.

Yesterday, the lunch special at the historic Gellert Baths was in order. Nothing like 1930s Art Deco decadence (and some pork cutlets and fried potatoes) to rest the spirit.

Learning that most meals are meat; veal and rice, pork and potatoes.

Now THAT'S a pool.

Relaxation I.

Relaxation II.

(And thank God for the Bikini Challenge.)

Vacation Journal I: Dessert first

Dupla presszókávé and Krémes 
The Ruszwurm, Budapest
June 23

What I would recommend to anyone
who

a) may have just been on a 6-week diet

or 

b) at that moment, on any other weekday of the year,
would just be sitting down at the office to start the day
or
c) hadn't eaten lunch yet
but could not wait.

Bikini Challenge BV: Dénouement

May 4 Poundage: CXXXVII

June 16 Poundage: CXXVII

June 20 Goal Poundage: CXXV

June 21 Actual Poundage:  CXXVI

Corner of Clarendon & Stuart, Boston - June 21

So .... a pound short.  

Complete uneven runner's tan.  

Remnants of the Reeses Pieces binge apparent at the waist.

Nonetheless ...  the bikini fits.  

And I'm getting on the plane to Budapest, regardless.

So long .... farewell ... auf wiedersehen ...

Notes from 2 days and 2 nights

Friday begins....

..... one of the longer Fridays of my life.

Work is 2 parts drama, 4 parts aggravation, 1 part determination to not leave the 28th floor without reducing the pile of new-account folders with pending issues to less than 2 feet high. Which means work goes until 8:15 p.m. Note to self: when co-workers seem more enthusiastic to see me leave on vacation than I am to go on vacation .... it must really be time to go on vacation.

First things first, though: a flying run around the MIT-Longfellow loop at dusk. Flying. It rocks; negative energy, begone. Note to self:  4 parts aggravation provides first-rate fuel for marathon training; get aggravated more often.

Home to the kitchen and the mound of produce the size of a lesser peak in the Appalaichans: time to prep the 5 batches of salsa and many more batches of sangria for the party I'm hosting the next day. If you haven't spent a Friday night dicing tomatoes, green onions, red onions and mangos (and limes and lemons and avocados and peaches and oranges) while the BBC's non-stop analysis of the BP oil spill drones in the background, you have not lived. Note to self: next party, pick both food and drink not requiring 6 hours of chopping with a dull knife. Also: buy knife sharpener, soon.

And Saturday rolls in during the chopfest ....

.... it was almost a relief at 1:32 a.m., when the phone buzzed with a text from long-lost C-2 (last seen on opening night), wondering if I had a last call and a beer in my bones. "Just one, I'm making salsa," I shot back. In truth, Guinness never sounded so sweet; jump in the car, destination Foley's, in the doors just before they shut. Note to self: if you even ever think a night will bring a chance to join a man out for a beer, don't mince garlic first. It does not wash off the palms on first scrubbing.

Soon, 5:28 a.m., still out. One Guinness turned into a raucous conversation turned into C-2 smelling the garlic on my palms into my driving him back to Somerville when, enticed by the 75 degrees and the stars through my open moon roof, turned into, instead, a detour over to Spy Pond in Arlington. A lengthy detour. Note to self: must plan all-nighter every year on third-longest day of the year, when it gets light about 4. Lying on the damp grass at sunrise with someone you want to lie on damp grass with at sunrise isn't a bad gig. To his credit,C-2 mentioned several times: "tell me again why we don't hang out more often?" I had been thinking same.

Meanwhile, sunrise or no, there was a party beginning in 12 hours and a Key Lime cheesecake that needed to be first baked, then chilled for 12 hours. Which meant party prep resumed pronto. Which meant another detour, this time to Dunkin' Donuts for fuel ... and then back to the kitchen (and the BBC) to grate lime zest and whip cream cheese into vanilla yogurt and lick glaze off the beaters and then begin chopping more lemons and squeezing them into the Sangria wine and wonder how it suddenly got to be 11 a.m. and I hadn't yet slept. At all. And how I could be, surprisingly, lucid. And not that tired. Note to self: Guinness and solstice sunrises can replace sleep every so often. And 6:30 on a Saturday morning is an excellent time to bake.

Fast forward to 6 p.m. .... following a 2-hour cat nap, a top-to-bottom clean of the apartment, a couple loads of laundry and some serious last-minute set-up help from friends .... the Salsa and Sangria party began.Just as Saturday's sunrise had cooperated, Saturday's sunset did the same. Guests came and went and drank and ate and we talked on the patio for hours and hours and hours and the neighbors never called to complain about the noise and the kitchen floor grew sticky from sloshing glasses of the new best summer drink in the world, Peach Citrus sangria, drunk by old friends and new friends who all became new friends. Note to self: if ever feeling low and aggravated like I did Friday at the office, must remember nights like this and that my friends are cooler than any other friend's friends I know.

And Sunday rolls in ....:

.... cue ahead to 2:30 a.m., on the heels of the party teardown and a last beer slugged while sitting on the couch, cat at hip, feet on a chair, hands finally registering a soreness from the salsa-making, brain still trying to register life's idiosyncracies and joys and how a body can sometimes function on those things alone.

Note to self: the sleep of the dead that comes after a full 2 days without sleep is also the sleep of purest pleasure.

Bikini Challenge BV: Inching

So you know that yoga and me are pretty tight.  So are running and me, at  least (knock on wood) for the this brief and unusual period in which nothing on my body hurts when I do it.

I'm grateful for these solid relationships, which allowed  last night's weigh-in to continue inching in the right direction.

May 4 Poundage: CXXXVII
June 9 Poundage: CXXIX
June 16 Poundage: CXXVII
June 20 Goal Poundage: CXXV
(Poundage to go:  II ..... in addition to the pound of candy I may very well inhale.)

Alright.  Let me explain ... which means I must reintroduce you to my dear sister Kristin.  A caring girl who is the queen of Complimentary Vacation Care Packages.  Usually including snacks for the road. A fun t-shirt.  Book of crossword puzzles.

Last night I got home -- feeling all buff from yoga and the hill-climbing machine and grocery shopping --  to discover a padded envelope in the mail pile. Suspiciously lumpy. When lifted, shape of crossword puzzle book apparent.  Telltale sound of smooth candy coatings clacking against one another.

Yes.  On the last 4 days of diet and work before vacation and just getting ready for vacation, period,  I let a pounder bag of Reeses Pieces into the apartment.

I tried to forestall the inevitable by putting it in the freezer behind a bag of chicken breasts and unloading my other frozen groceries in front of that.  This helped for 5 minutes.  After which I moved the chicken breasts out of the way, broke the seal, and helped myself to 4 man-sized handfuls.

Oh well.  Either I need to a) see a counselor for impulsive and compulsive eating habits; b) admit that willpower is one of my weaker traits;  c) hope that the bikini I ordered from Victoria's Secret gets lost in the mail before Sunday; or d) need to just be OK weighing 127 pounds.

Kristin:  I love you and thank you ... you evil chick ...

I wish ....

.... that I could marry Power Yoga.

(The end.)

Vacation, schmacation...

Today I'm much better.

Yesterday, not so much.

A week from today, I'll be in Hungary.

I won't be back for 2 weeks.  Which means 14 days away from the cats.  2 Sundays away from church. 2 more away from my Tuesday weightlifting class. 1 Independence Day not celebrated in the US. 9 business days away from the office.  The longest vacation I've taken in 16 years.

Yesterday, as if I hadn't been thinking about it regularly for the last 3 months, it hit me that I had to figure out how to be gone.

I'm not very good at this. Most of the day I sat at my desk, staring at a stack of account folders, contemplating the details therein that should be communicated to my coworkers. I thought about the shopping I should do after work to get a get a present for my hosts and the walking shoes and the comfortable traveling skirt I've always wanted..  I thought about the cat-sitting schedule only marginally done.  I thought about the party I -- yes, why not -- thought would be a fine idea to host on Saturday night and the attendant 58-item grocery-and-liquor list just waiting for my attention.  I realized I don't even know how to say "hello" in Hungarian. Or thank you.

It was a lot of thinking.  No doing.  Another instant of the sheer number of details rendering me powerless to deal with even one of them.

Oy.

My unlikely savior was Doug, the IT dude. By 4 p.m., requiring roasted almonds from the lobby snack bar in order to soldier on without a panic attack, I happened to encounter Doug in the down elevator.   When he asked, "how are you," I told him my exact level of anxiety about the 9 days of client crisis that I wouldn't be around to help solve.

Doug is one of the cooler characters I know.  He just chuckled.

"You know, you gotta let it go," he said. "It'll all be here when you get back."

That's both good and bad.  But also true.  My co-workers will also be here the entire time I'm gone, doing my job.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Something about Doug's casual confidence snapped my trance open.  Reminded me that I will have 12 hours on a plane to learn how to say "hello!" in Hungarian. That I know exactly what walking shoes I need to buy and where I'm going to buy them and that I'll buy them tomorrow.   That I actually made a recipe list and drinks list and grocery list for my party. That I have a passport and a plane ticket and a friend meeting me at the airport in Budapest who will take care of me.

It's great.  32 hours later, I'm still breathing.

BBC 6: Game 5 Victory

At 10:40 tonight I left my abode for the same reason anyone would at that hour .... for a run.

Chill.  Damp.  Foggy.  Streets beyond bare.  I jogged the length of East 3rd to Farragut Road, nearly a mile, without seeing a car or pedestrian.  Turned onto Columbia Road at the water ... and still, the only sound was the mild roar of jet engine, approaching touchdown at Logan.

That much silence gives much room for noticing that, quite sincerely, every ground-level home I passed with a TV in the window had a TV showing the waning minutes of the Celtics/Lakers match.

A few minutes later, at the intersection with L Street, without warning, a car horn blared.  Then again. And again.  Someone playing their car horn like it was a bugle blowing Reveille.

Deafening joy.

As if on cue, first one door on Columbia Road, then another, and then another opened, letting out the winning team's fans, headed to their own cars, on their ways home.

As for me?  Rounded the projects and went back up Dorchester.  Landed at Tom English's Cottage. The time was 11:25.   In the already emptied bar, bathed in sweat, I enjoyed a Bud Light way more than one should, watching the highlights.

Satisfaction, indeed.

Open-minded

It's not been a good "focused" week in my world.

I've struggled to not eat peanut butter. Struggled to want to run when it's humid. Struggled to get to bed before 1. Struggled to practice the piano.  Struggled to plan for my vacation that starts a week from Monday.  Struggled to remember my house keys when I leave the apartment and have to call my landlord at 9:30 p.m. on a Thursday, pulling him from the Celtics game.

(That was yesterday.)

On the flip side, the lack of relative focus has been a boon on my dating life.  Because when I'm not focused, I'm more likely to browse OKCupid.  The more I browse OKC, the more IM chats I get in.  Because of this ... I'm meeting more interesting people who seem to be able to talk me into dates that I would normally turn left from.

(Either I'm sincerely unfocused.  Or sincerely open-minded.  Like to think the latter.)

For example, last night: I ended up at Stella (ultra-swank, ultra kiss-kiss, ultra SoWa) with a 30-y-old marketing representative .... from San Francisco.  With the brain of a salesman and the body of a competitive soccer player. In town for an overnight.  Wanted to meet someone.  He met me, bought me a Bloody Mary. And we talked our respective shops.

Never see him again, most likely  .... but, it was a night out, and I got a free drink and some (seriously) free career advice.

Then, take this morning.  I'm rising from bed about 5 hours from now to drive out to Logan and pick up a person who lives here, just returning from a business trip on the red-eye.  We just started chatting this morning. Dynamism central.  By the end of an hour, he had offered to buy me breakfast tomorrow if I would save him from having to take a cab home.  So I'm doing it.  At 6:30 on my Saturday (now non-) sleep-in.

But I'm looking forward to it.  Because who asks that?  It was so out there I had to say yes.  (And who says yes?)  And I get, yet again, something out of it --  not including the possibility that if we hit it off in person .....

Remind me to be more open-minded more often.

Expected and unexpected

Since I already told you I was a bad girl on the diet this week, you won't be surprised to hear that (even with a sauna on top of the cardio and sweaty yoga yesterday before weigh-in) the scale did not go down this week.  In fact:

May 4 Poundage: CXXXVII
June 2 Poundage: CXXVIII
June 9 Poundage: CXXIX
June 20 Goal Poundage: CXXI
(Poundage to go: what the hell...but it's more than what it was this time last week....)

Eh.  Why is it always this point in a routine -- the point of good progress but not quite the desired progress --  that the desire to stick with it is so ..... elusive? 

So:  losing 8 pounds in 2 weeks when I've rediscovered the joys of heavy cream in my coffee is ... (Not necessary? Probably? Definitely?  Back me up on this? Please?)  But I would like to lose 4 more pounds in 2 weeks to get to the nice, even 125.  And I think I can if I re-choose to track Weight Watchers food and exercise points for the next week.  Going up instead of down is what happens when I don't.

So, then:

June 20 Revised Goal Poundage: CV
(Poundage to go: now officially less than last week. Hooray!)

And enough of that navel-gazing (literally).

Last night I received an IM request from a man I've seen tooling around OKC -- occasionally on my profile -- for most of my 16-month affiliation.  We e-mailed each other sometime in 2009 but it didn't pan out.  He viewed my profile enough that his photo was familiar; upon checking his, I recalled too that his profile had salient details regarding music and running and being clever.

So last night without preclude, we messaged about the difficulty of dating in such a technological age.  After about 10 minutes of this, I called the spade a spade:

Karin:   So we've not been introduced.
Mr. Relatively Elusive:  I think we may have chatted once before
Karin:  Yes. Or at least e-mailed.  You look familiar. Why so philosophical this evening?
Mr. RE:  I'm having one of those nights. and I often see you online when I'm online
K:  One of those nights?
Mr. RE:  I feel an unrequited camaraderie with you
K:  Well, in all my time on this website you are the first to use that phrase. "unrequited camaraderie"
Mr. RE:  that has a nice ring
Mr. RE:  and I'm sure you've heard quite a bit on here
K:  why is it unrequited?
Mr. RE:  Oh. 
Mr. RE:  In full disclosure, and at the risk of making this weird.
K:  Oh?
Mr. RE:  (wait for it)
K:  You're my lost long brother?
Mr. RE:  I know of your blog too.  and love it.
K:  No kidding. Which came first?
Mr. RE:  I forget. yeah. i can't remember.

Unexpected, both that he wrote, and that he knows the blog.  Which means he will probably read this entry also. Which means he should know I will probably write about him and won't, resultingly, go running, screaming.  Especially since we went on to talk about how we should meet each other after our respective upcoming vacations, which makes sense based on our shared proclivities, relative proximity, relative age range, etc., etc., etc.

Interesting.

Deep Thought: Ditch the diet(s)

I have sinned.

This afternoon, under a crisp midday sun, tempted, I took the elevator down to Stuart Street, walked into Starbucks, and ordered an iced black-eye.  And drank it.  Not my first Starbucks, but my official first workday-purchased coffee since April 11.  Since I had vowed not to purchase coffee during the workdays until next April 11.

Oy.

This evening -- albeit after a day that included a walk, weights class, running and about 12 miles on the bike -- I ate enough baked fish, curry and naan bread (plus most of a bag of BBQ-style potato chips, french vanilla ice cream, fresh blueberries and strawberries and pineapple and mangoes, after drinking several pints of Berkshire Steel Rail Extra Pale Ale) to fulfill the daily nutritional needs of several grown adults.   Despite tomorrow being the weekly Bikini weigh-in and only 2 weeks to D-Day.

Eh.

I try to make myself feel better by hoping that no one cares about either of these sins except me.  That I'm only writing about them because, at arbitrary points in the last 2 months, I was overwhelmed by self-improvement urges.  Which aren't bad in and of themselves .... and I've been about 95% faithful to both.

But for which I'm obviously feeling enough guilt tonight that I have to confess.  To you.  Who do not (and need not) care.

Well.  Some days -- like picture-perfect Tuesdays, at the end of which folks offer to construct masterful skillets full of Indian hotdish and offer their home and company, for which I needed a mini-caffeine boost to stay awake for enough to survive the bike ride home through an ensuing food coma ....

(Got all that logic?)

Damn.  I've just got to admit that it was worth ditching the diet(s) today.  Totally.

Fidelis usque ad mortem

Seems if you say to God, in so many words, "Bring it on!" -- as I did Saturday in mocking the weather forecast -- he complies.

No explanation otherwise for why he chose to knock down this 75-year-old willow tree (and several nearby neighbors on the Storrow Lagoon) from the Charles River Esplanade in the fast, wicked storm that came through Sunday afternoon:

(Photo Credit: Claudia)

Boundless sadness. 

This tree was a companion my entire 11 years in Boston.  Many a Sunday afternoon during grad school, I went out with my assigned novels to lean against its trunk and read. Alan and I played frisbee next to it during his first visit in 2001. Of course, I've walked and run under its shade several hundred times; it's a prime path intersection between 2 tidal pools, one of the loveliest respites in the park.

In fact, on my 7-miler yesterday afternoon at 2:30, I ran under it twice -- fidelis usque ad mortem.

I biked over before work this morning to capture the scene before chainsaws could get to it.  Sadness was universal --the walkers -- runners -- bikers -- nearly all who stopped to gape at the exposed roots, taller than a tall man standing on another tall man's shoulders. I think we were all trying to envision the bare loneliness and uninterrupted vista of MIT after its remnants are cut away, since most of the trees in the center of this picture all fell on their ends -- 75 years standing, gone in a few minutes.

Boundless sadness.

Update:  Here's a Boston.com story with more details. The area is called Otis Grove, and they confirmed 3 of the 5 trees are beyond repair. Giant loss.

The patio chronicles (cont.)

It feels sinful to enjoy something 

as much as I enjoy this moment,

out on the patio 

(where else)

reclining on the molded plastic Adirondack

with feet bare 

and legs bare

and arms bare,

wearing jean cutoffs from 1997

and a cotton yellow Target tee (gift of sister)

printed with a big yellow apple

(which shouldn't make it necessarily more comfortable, but does?),

an empty Stella Artois chalice on the ground

(recently full of Sam Adams Cranberry Lambic),

and a belly full of sauteed chicken and mushrooms and balsamic vinegar and green lettuce and strawberries from the Copley Farmers Market,

legs satisfyingly sore from sprinting the tallest hill in Southie not long ago,

WGBH jazz tinny through the screen,

boston.com saying it's still 77 degrees at 1:21 a.m.

(and the thunderstorms they mentioned 3 times in tonight's forecast

nowhere to be found, funny),

and I'm not sad to be here alone, quite frankly,  

with a brain full of anticipation for tomorrow because

it's a Sunday in June

and maybe the storms will hold off and

and there's a bike to be ridden all afternoon

and friends to see and eat and drink with

and concerts to attend .... 

... and the body feels nourished and fatigued 

and as sunny as the yellow apple on my t-shirt

and, sometimes,

life is just good,

for no one special reason.

Bikini Challenge BV: Whew

On Memorial Day afternoon I biked over to the Savin Hill hood of Dorchester for a picnic at the home of my friends Eric & LaToya.

I know several superb chefs in Boston and have eaten many platefuls of their superb grub in my time here.  And maybe I was just super hungry on Monday, but Eric & LaToya's BBQ spread wins my heart:

Chicken legs fired up crusty with tangy sauce and char residue.  Back ribs even tangier and crustier.  Corn cobs done just enough al dente that they don't stick in the teeth.  One potato salad done South Carolina and the second potato salad done Trinidadian, with peas and carrots.  Tiramisu (yes, tiramisu).  Chocolate cake.  A second helping of chicken, slathered with sauce.

Weight Watchers, be damned.

So you understand my justifiable fear of stepping on the scale yesterday.  Fear enough that I succumbed to the old tactic, just prior to weigh-in, of running several miles in humid temperatures to sweat out every ounce of excess water.

Which is why I was relieved to see another 3 pounds gone, the magic 130 barrier hurdled.

May 4 Poundage: CXXXVII
May 26 Poundage: CXXXI
June 2 Poundage: CXXVIII
June 20 Goal Poundage: CXXI
(Poundage to go: VII)

Whew.

Upon reflection, I shouldn't be as surprised as I am.   For the purposes of this blog, I just tallied this week's physical activity.   (OK, Weight Watchers, you do not be damned, since you help me track these things.)

Admittedly substantial:

Running:  6 runs totalling 30 miles
Biking:   2x everyday, totalling 100 miles
Walking:  5 jaunts totalling 10.6 miles
Elliptical machine:  90 minutes
Yoga: 1 Vinyasa Power Class
Weightlifting/core strength:  4 sessions totalling 120 minutes

So it figures that if I can maintain this routine for the next 2 weeks and don't have to contend with the food baby that comes via Eric & LaToya's BBQ skills ....

.... time to order the bikini?

Seven random words of Wednesday

1) My most recent status update on Facebook, still up to date: 

"Karin would like to invent the button that will take her back to 7 a.m. and allow the day to start over."

2) My last 3 visitors on OKCupid were named as follows: Devilboston, Chuckydestructo (from Kokomo, sorry, local ladies), and ChrisRiot. Last night at 12:16 a.m., a guy named SexyBamBam wrote as follows: "Hey, wad up brat! =D"

3) Today's random primary moment of happy: realization that I haven't earned a  parking ticket in 2010. Yet.

4) Today's not-so-random fun fact:   Wednesday, June 2 is National Running Day? Did you know?  Coincidental that it is 70 degrees, cool breeze, blue skies? Doubtful.

5) Today's second moment of happy: coherent OKC e-mail from a 33-y-old runner who wanted to discuss Reach the Beach Relay, lives locally, advocates for social justice causes, said he is in the process of "putting behind me the stupidity that is a man in his 20s" and who was cheeky, but only just enough.  He might not be real, but we'll see.

6) Today's indulgence: salon pedicure refresher.

7) And you know what?  I realized I don't really have a 7th.  Hope that's OK.