Susie's Meanderings

Conquering Witham Hill

As long as I can remember, the "Witham Hill Run" has loomed mythic in my consciousness. It's about a 4 mile run , and you can choose to run a gentle uphill the whole way, ending with a steep and glorious downhill, or you can attack the steeps at the beginning (3/4 of a mile of cliff-like slog) and have gentle and glorious downhill the rest of the way home. This is the run my mother did at the peak of her fitness when training for marathons. I always regarded it with horror - and in my mind it grew to a 15 mile loop uphill all the way. But today I was looking for a nice little 4 miler that was different from my usual. I figured if I got the uphill out of the way at the beginning the rest would be doable, and I could always peel out early and take the short loop home. What I did going up the hill barely qualifies as running, but once I got to the top (and then, the second heartbreaking little rise at the top of the top), the rest was, indeed, cake, complimented by the only sun we'd seen all day. (I seem to have come to an arrangement with the weather gods - they provide a little sun in the afternoon, and I go run in it). Now I'm wondering why I never did that run before (never mind that the times in my life that I could actually run 4 miles, much less uphill, have been few).

Family Boot Camp II

Despite the fact that my father is recovering from pnuemonia, and my mother from babysitting last weekend, they still seem to have time and energy to drag me out to their respective classes - today was Circuit Weights with Dad - I'm not sure if much compares with the experience of being in a run down old gym at the university surrounded by frail 60 year olds, all of whom can bench press about double what I can. Follow this with an icy shower (there's a sign indicating that maintenance is aware of the problem and working on it) - and a very nice lunch - then coffee - where I run into parents of friends I haven't seen since high school (of course, said friend is now a highly successful pediatrician and I'm ... playing for a living?) - then a nice walk home (for which the sun kindly appeared) to struggle with my taxes. Ugh. Self employment is expensive.

Living the High Life

I love having the run of my mother's kitchen. Lots of space, most any gadget I need, and my own personal sous chef (Mom) to run out to the garden and cut fresh herbs for me at a moment's notice. This week has been such fun - Shrimp Scampi, Steak au Poivre. Pork Dijionaise, it's a good thing my mother makes me go running every day. (4 miles yesterday - it felt great, until the shin splints caught up with me today). The best part is, it's inspiring my mother to make desserts again - where it used to be ice cream every night, this week it's been brownies (and I'm pretty sure my mom makes the best in the world), jelly roll (with blackcurrant jelly, which brings it to an entirely new plane of existence), and zuchinni bread ( a cooperative effort). Best of all, she's promising to make pie soon.

Fun with Red Eye

Here's what Picture It does to squirrels with red eye:

He's a greedy piglet that visits every afternoon and devours all the sunflower seeds.

But - here's why I like my new camera. These flowers are actually about the size of pinheads. I took this on the daily forced march with my parents. Next to that is some of the sculpture that's cropping up in town these days.
    

Bagpipes on the Pig Farm Road

I went for my run today on the pig farm road, which, though fragrant, is scenic , relatively flat, and has the advantage of being just over 2 miles. (I'm pretty sure it's not really called the pig farm road - and in fact, it would more reasonably be called Llama farm road, but 30 years ago, when we first moved here, it was aptly named). So anyway, there I am, running along with my handy MP3 player, and something keeps intruding on my rythym, and at first I thought it was all the children around me yelling, but as I ran along, I came upon a piper (not, sadly, in his kilt), marching along with his bagpipes. Only in Corvallis, I thought (or possibly Scotland), but it was a nice accompaniment to my run, the more so because I got to see him again on my way back.

Spring is Here!

     I love flowers....

The Tragedy of Poor Engineering

For those of you who have been wondering how I really spend my carefree days, here's a little pictorial history:

For those of you who think it's time I got back to the ship - you're right. But actually, I built this with my niece, and she wanted photographic evidence before her brother destroyed it, because "I've never built a track that looks like that before". And I have a new camera I wanted to play with.

Ikea

What is a stay in Seattle without a trip to Ikea? Somehow, I managed to convince my sister not to bring her three children along for the trip (I think they were having a play date, or something) and it was a remarkably calm experience. I'm so used to controlling the cart with one hand while removing my nephew from the pillow bin with another that I hardly knew what to do with myself. In the end, I don't really need anything at Ikea - being as I don't have a house to fill right now, but I did get some great magnets for sticking things to the wall on my next ship. So I think I managed the impossible - getting out of Ikea for under $10.

Too stupid for lipstick.

Apparently I look dumber than I am. Today I was shopping for lip gloss at the Lancome counter, and I got momentarily distracted by some lipstick that had similar packaging. It was very clearly a different product, being as it was a completely different color, and said very clearly "cheek and lip tint" as opposed to "lip gloss", but I was curious about it, so I asked the salesman "and what about this?" and he said "Oh no, honey, don't look at that, it will just confuse you.". The day I get confused by lipstick is the day I need to stop shopping, so I persisted, and he impatiently said "That's a DIFFERENT product, you don't want to look at that!" So evidently, I'm not to be trusted with lipstick.

5 year old Karate

A day of total sloth today, aside from the inevitable laundry and dishes. Afternoon was spent huddled under a quilt reading and trying to keep my hands from freezing, then evening saw me watching my niece and nephews' Karate class. The youngest has a hard time keeping his obi tied, but he's very cute when he's concentrating - and when he couldn't figure out what he was supposed to do, he'd just pirouette until someone called him back in line.
Now it's just me and the parrots again, at the computer. Fred is developing a Pavlovian response to me and my laptop. Now he bounds across the cage every time he sees me, but his affection is purely material. If no peanuts are forthcoming he huffs away in disgust and watches me with a beady I, lest I make any moves toward the peanut bag.

Tis Better to have Dined and Lost

I am bereft - the Grouchy Chef has closed his doors, after I had eaten only two glorious meals there, with the intent to work my way through the entire menu (incidentally, his shrimp mashed potatoes will be the stuff of my dreams for years to come). The pale light beaming out of his little storefront taunts me as I drive past on my way to work out, saying "you're not eating here sister." My niece's little friend tried to console me by pointing out that there was a Subway in the same strip mall, and I couldn't begin to find the words to explain to her that there was no comparison.

Quiet Weekend

I was planning on a nice quiet weekend, with lots of time for quiet contemplation, picking up toys (without having them reappear mysteriously on the floor when I turn my back), uninterrupted tv watching, and perhaps a couple quiet runs, but, as it happens, my sister's family didn't make it to their cabin in the woods, due to a missing pair of snow boots. So instead my weekend involved "Open Swim" at the Y with family and assorted friends, play dates, homework dates, cooking endless pancake breakfasts (and yes, I did make cinnamon apples, for those of you who have sampled my pancake breakfasts). Somehow, we also found ourselves at Costco both Saturday and Sunday - which is a bad and dangerous place. We were actually on our way out the door today without having bought anything, when my sister made the mistake of calling home, and it turned out we needed milk. Once the milk was in the cart, the floodgates opened, and next thing we know, jumbo bags of shrimp, books, flats of croissants are all leaping into the cart. Has anyone ever walked out of Costco empty handed?

Storage

Things I discovered while sorting through my storage unit today:
1) I have too many books
2) Everything I need is in the unlabelled box at the bottom of the stack in the far corner of the unit.
3) I don't have as much stuff as I thought I did. Or it's all at my parents' house. My parents are convinced they ARE my storage unit. (Mom- you'll be pleased to know, I have a little extra room and I'll be taking some of my stuff out of your garage soon.)
4) Even though I labelled all my boxes on three sides (except for the above mentioned), my movers apparently mastered the art of turning them all so that the unlabelled side faces out.
5) Bring WD-40 for your lock

The Grouchy Chef

If any of you ever get up to Mukilteo....my sister and I just ate at the most amazing restaurant (and yes, it is called The Grouchy Chef ) . It's the most unprepossessing place, in a strip mall, and it's filled with hand lettered signs that say "keep your children under control" (needless to say, we had left the kids behind) and "no insulting substitutions to the menu" - and it's run by one man (the grouchy chef) who seems to take the orders, cook the meal, and bus the tables all by himself - so it's definitely no frills - but the food.... I had the special which was a chef salad, with gorgonzola, pear, house smoked salmon, roasted red peppers, and some honeydew, followed by some little strips of sirloin steak with horseradish cream - all for $6.99. My sister had something more Asian influenced - again with the house smoked salmon - and we ended it with a mango sorbet (well, who am I kidding, we also got the double chocolate mousse torte with rasperry sauce) that was to die for. It was without doubt some of the best food I've had in a really long time. Despite the strip mall atmosphere, it seemed like an expensive meal out, only it wasn't.

This is for Katie

So see Katie - I'm thinking of you, bored out of your mind in your training. I wish I had something significant and witty to relay, but I'm afraid I spent the morning helping my sister jump start her car, then went to the U district, had some coffee and a newspaper at Starbucks (I know, I know, I should be supporting the local coffee shops), then over to Bellevue mall, where I surprised myself by being quite restrained. I only bought shampoo. (well, and assorted other Aveda products). So I'm afraid my life is quite unblogworthy at the moment. My apologies to all. Does anyone know any "interesting adjectives"? My niece is bogged down in her homework.

PS Happy Birthday KT

Mountains of Laundry

It's funny how the busier I am, the less I actually have to write about. I've spent my weekend doing mountains of laundry (it's amazing what a pile of clothes three children go through), piles of dishes , and I seem to be caught in a never ending hell of train track (I pick it up, it reappears, I pick it up again, it reappears again) scattered across the basement floor.
Having said that, my niece and I found time this afternoon to do girly manicures (she was more delighted with the homemade sugar scrub I concoted than anything else, she kept announcing to everyone who walked in the room "I put sugar on my arms!") and now she's sporting very striking blood red sparkle nails. At any rate, I'm not bored here.