I've never been a fan of New Year's Eve. I am a morning person, and 9pm is fairly late for me. Midnight is terribly late. Over the Christmas holiday I was wondering where on earth I could run off to where I could have a quiet, peaceful New Year's Eve without fireworks and guns waking me up at midnight. I had the perfect plan: drive up to Gold Bluffs Beach and camp overnight, wake up to the ocean and a cup of coffee. Gold Bluffs Beach is closed until further notice due to a land slide.
Having just gotten back from Arizona, and leaving for Belize in a week, I decided maybe I should just suck it up and deal with it like I always do. Watching "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", it made me think about how I see New Year's. I am pretty un-fond of New Year's. Like I pretty much dislike it. If there was a "dislike" button on New Year's, I'd hit it a few times. I don't understand why a holiday would require having to stay up until midnight- watching seconds tick by on a clock. Morning comes and you're tired and hung over. And that's how you start your new year.
Why not start your new year the best way possible? Wake up feeling refreshed and ready to take on another year. Exercise, eat right, feel good! I don't know what it is about me that doesn't like to feel like crap, but I just don't. I don't enjoy headaches or nausea or feeling super tired. It's just not my thing.
So New Year's Day I wake up early and go run or do some other sort of workout, have coffee and a good breakfast, and just enjoy the day.
It is hard though with all the noise that happens at midnight.
I love the response I've always gotten when asked to stay up late for whatever reason. "You can just sleep in tomorrow!"
This morning I woke up at 4 am. I went back to bed and closed my eyes. Nothing happened. Namely, I did not fall back to sleep. At about 4:30 I got up and turned on the coffee pot that was set for 5:45. Around 4:45, I got my first cup of coffee and brought it back to bed with me and sipped it in the dark.
I do not control what time I wake up, and usually I can't fall back to sleep.
So New Year's Eve rolls around and I am the Grinch. The Grinch of New Year's.
Watching the movie reminded me that I really should not steal New Year's from anyone. There's this sorta-mean thing I tend to do on New Year's Eve that I think I've decided not to do this year. I turn off my phone (which I AM doing) and then first thing when I wake up in the morning, I text everyone back who texted me at midnight. Say 4 or 5am. And I secretly hope it disturbs their sleep.
Right? Grinch.
In other news, as I was heading out to yoga today, my car decided to go completely powerless. The neighbor jumped it, but as soon as I disconnected the jumper cables, it died. Tried again, let it go longer, disconnected them and it died again. I rode my bike to the auto parts store to get a battery charger and a voltmeter. The battery is fully charged. The mechanic says it's probably the alternator. Which I replaced two years ago. And no longer have the receipt for.
So I'll have to have it towed to the mechanic and leave it there while I head out to Belize. Fortunately for me, the mechanic has decided that he needs the parking while I'm gone, so when they're done, they'll leave my vehicle at my apartment. How cool is that?! These guys are keepers.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Bagging Groceries
Bagging groceries should not require an advanced science degree. I think it's a fairly simple concept to grasp: heavy stuff on bottom, breakables or light things on top. Simple. However, I am actually considering changing shopping locations due to the severely incompetent bagging going on at my local Sprouts store.
A little background may be appropriate here in order to give you a clear picture of what's been happening. I shop at Sprouts because their store is filled with fresh meats and produce. There are not a lot of packaged choices which is fine with me being as I don't eat a lot of packaged foods. I love Trader Joe's and shop there on occasion since it's close to my apartment and they sell a lot of convenience foods (read "packaged" and "microwavable"). I also love their coffee selection. And their eggs are cheaper. They also are incredible pros at bagging groceries.
At Sprouts, they do not like to place in bags: eggs, melons, and potatoes. I like for all of my groceries to go in bags. That's why we have bags. I do not have proper pockets to stuff all my groceries in to get them from my vehicle to my upstairs apartment. That's why some genius invented bags.
Last summer, I brought in 5 bags to Sprouts. I bought my groceries and watched while the young kid bagging used 4/5 of the bags, put one unused bag into another bag, placed the carton of eggs on the seat of the cart, looked at me and said "Sorry, I don't know where else to put them."
How about in the empty bag you just stuffed into another one? Really??!!!
On multiple occasions at Sprouts (well this particular store anyway), I have had items just set into the cart when they could've easily been placed in the bags that had only a few items.
If you ever have the opportunity to shop at Trader Joe's, you know that they are amazing baggers. I have never seen grocery bag Tetris go so quickly, smoothly, and efficiently in my entire life. They usually get everything into bags with one or two empty bags left over. They are amazing. I have told them this. Their response? "It's because we actually care if your groceries make it home in one piece or not."
Today as I pulled my bags out of my vehicle at Sprouts, I actually groaned from anticipating the bagging that was about to happen. Mainly because I needed eggs. And buying eggs at this particular Sprouts store is a good way to guarantee that things will go badly. Shortly, I will address my plans to prevent this from ever happening again, but let me tell the story first.
To set the stage: it's finals week, I ran a marathon a couple days ago, have since stayed up late finishing presentations every night, and my left ovary has been stabbing itself since early this morning. I'm tired. I'm irritable. I'm a total jerk.
I brought 4 bags.
I placed the eggs on the belt first, to give the checker plenty of lead-way to figure out what she was going to do with them. Like a heads-up. Hey, eggs! Start thinking. I also know that baggers (Trader Joe's anyway) have a process with eggs and bananas. They get bagged last.
She ignored the eggs and began pulling food from further back. So the belt didn't move. Mind you, there was plenty of counter space to her left to put the eggs. If she had placed stuff on the counter, I could've bagged everything. But she was bagging as she went. Meanwhile, I could not get the little separator stick onto the belt because she wouldn't move the eggs so that the belt would move. Instead, she started talking to me about other flavors of the immunity drink I had bought. I decided to just breathe and be patient.
Finally she moved some stuff so the belt would move. My bags were all out of my reach and I was helpless to watch as she very slowly bagged my groceries. She handed me a half full (see that optimism there?) bag to place in my cart. As I placed it in the cart I thought "At this rate, I will definitely run out of bags".
She handed me the 5 pound bag of potatoes to place in my cart. Ok, that's fair. You're probably not going to put a ton of other stuff with a 5 pound bag of potatoes.
"Do you want the melon in a bag?"
"Yes please". This was a small "personal size" watermelon.
"Okaaay....." she said as she lined up the open bag and literally bowled the melon into the bag.
Ok. Whatever. Breathe.
The store heater kicked on and begin blowing right on me. My left ovary continued stabbing in pain (yes, I had taken something for it, no it was not helping).
"How about this one?" Cantaloupe.
"Yes please."
"Weee....pshew....". Sound effects while bowling the second melon into the bag. "Sorry, I've got to entertain" she said.
I forced a chuckled. She handed me the bag. With two small melons in it. I was very close to losing my shit. The heat was stifling, I was tired and miserable, and this lady was on my very last nerve. Very last nerve.
I'm trying to practice kindness, patience, and compassion these days. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. What can you do?
She managed to get the eggs in a bag which was a little surprising. She put them on top of stuff, which is good. As she let the belt bring food toward her, he pulled my bananas off some other item and tossed them further down the belt, where they landed on the other side of my separator stick. (OMG!!!) It was at this point I noticed the large line had completely shifted over to the other checkstand and there was absolutely no one putting their groceries on the empty belt behind my stuff. No one wanted to be in her line. As a matter of fact, they had all decided that they would rather wait an extra ten minutes in a longer line, than use the line I was in. My checker looked up at the situation as well, seemed to assess it for a second, then continued with my stuff.
She tossed the spinach to the side. I took the opportunity to place it in the half empty (not so optimistic now) bag in my cart.
"I was going to place that on top of the stuff here", she said.
"Oh that's ok, I got it here. It won't squish anything".
Finally, as the forced heat was beginning to make me nauseated and I felt I could no longer contain my agitation, she handed me my receipt and I was free to go.
As I stepped out into the cool air, I took a few deep breaths and decided I was never shopping there again.
I may try another Sprouts that's only a little further away.
Since I really can't say I'm never shopping there again, here's my plan. Next time I have to go there, I will keep my bags to myself so that I can bag my own groceries. When the checker says they can get it, I will insist and say no, no, I like bagging my groceries. Maybe even say how fun it is. I don't know.
Why is this so difficult? After doing a quick analysis of what was in my cart, I had already made a plan for the best way to bag the groceries. Five seconds max. What's heavy? What can be squished? People, please, I urge you: stick the damn melons in a bag. We only have so many hands. I am not going to carry two melons, a bag of potatoes, and a carton of eggs separately into my apartment. Heavy things on the bottom, squish-ables and breakables on top. There is no more science involved than that.
A little background may be appropriate here in order to give you a clear picture of what's been happening. I shop at Sprouts because their store is filled with fresh meats and produce. There are not a lot of packaged choices which is fine with me being as I don't eat a lot of packaged foods. I love Trader Joe's and shop there on occasion since it's close to my apartment and they sell a lot of convenience foods (read "packaged" and "microwavable"). I also love their coffee selection. And their eggs are cheaper. They also are incredible pros at bagging groceries.
At Sprouts, they do not like to place in bags: eggs, melons, and potatoes. I like for all of my groceries to go in bags. That's why we have bags. I do not have proper pockets to stuff all my groceries in to get them from my vehicle to my upstairs apartment. That's why some genius invented bags.
Last summer, I brought in 5 bags to Sprouts. I bought my groceries and watched while the young kid bagging used 4/5 of the bags, put one unused bag into another bag, placed the carton of eggs on the seat of the cart, looked at me and said "Sorry, I don't know where else to put them."
How about in the empty bag you just stuffed into another one? Really??!!!
On multiple occasions at Sprouts (well this particular store anyway), I have had items just set into the cart when they could've easily been placed in the bags that had only a few items.
If you ever have the opportunity to shop at Trader Joe's, you know that they are amazing baggers. I have never seen grocery bag Tetris go so quickly, smoothly, and efficiently in my entire life. They usually get everything into bags with one or two empty bags left over. They are amazing. I have told them this. Their response? "It's because we actually care if your groceries make it home in one piece or not."
Today as I pulled my bags out of my vehicle at Sprouts, I actually groaned from anticipating the bagging that was about to happen. Mainly because I needed eggs. And buying eggs at this particular Sprouts store is a good way to guarantee that things will go badly. Shortly, I will address my plans to prevent this from ever happening again, but let me tell the story first.
To set the stage: it's finals week, I ran a marathon a couple days ago, have since stayed up late finishing presentations every night, and my left ovary has been stabbing itself since early this morning. I'm tired. I'm irritable. I'm a total jerk.
I brought 4 bags.
I placed the eggs on the belt first, to give the checker plenty of lead-way to figure out what she was going to do with them. Like a heads-up. Hey, eggs! Start thinking. I also know that baggers (Trader Joe's anyway) have a process with eggs and bananas. They get bagged last.
She ignored the eggs and began pulling food from further back. So the belt didn't move. Mind you, there was plenty of counter space to her left to put the eggs. If she had placed stuff on the counter, I could've bagged everything. But she was bagging as she went. Meanwhile, I could not get the little separator stick onto the belt because she wouldn't move the eggs so that the belt would move. Instead, she started talking to me about other flavors of the immunity drink I had bought. I decided to just breathe and be patient.
Finally she moved some stuff so the belt would move. My bags were all out of my reach and I was helpless to watch as she very slowly bagged my groceries. She handed me a half full (see that optimism there?) bag to place in my cart. As I placed it in the cart I thought "At this rate, I will definitely run out of bags".
She handed me the 5 pound bag of potatoes to place in my cart. Ok, that's fair. You're probably not going to put a ton of other stuff with a 5 pound bag of potatoes.
"Do you want the melon in a bag?"
"Yes please". This was a small "personal size" watermelon.
"Okaaay....." she said as she lined up the open bag and literally bowled the melon into the bag.
Ok. Whatever. Breathe.
The store heater kicked on and begin blowing right on me. My left ovary continued stabbing in pain (yes, I had taken something for it, no it was not helping).
"How about this one?" Cantaloupe.
"Yes please."
"Weee....pshew....". Sound effects while bowling the second melon into the bag. "Sorry, I've got to entertain" she said.
I forced a chuckled. She handed me the bag. With two small melons in it. I was very close to losing my shit. The heat was stifling, I was tired and miserable, and this lady was on my very last nerve. Very last nerve.
I'm trying to practice kindness, patience, and compassion these days. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. What can you do?
She managed to get the eggs in a bag which was a little surprising. She put them on top of stuff, which is good. As she let the belt bring food toward her, he pulled my bananas off some other item and tossed them further down the belt, where they landed on the other side of my separator stick. (OMG!!!) It was at this point I noticed the large line had completely shifted over to the other checkstand and there was absolutely no one putting their groceries on the empty belt behind my stuff. No one wanted to be in her line. As a matter of fact, they had all decided that they would rather wait an extra ten minutes in a longer line, than use the line I was in. My checker looked up at the situation as well, seemed to assess it for a second, then continued with my stuff.
She tossed the spinach to the side. I took the opportunity to place it in the half empty (not so optimistic now) bag in my cart.
"I was going to place that on top of the stuff here", she said.
"Oh that's ok, I got it here. It won't squish anything".
Finally, as the forced heat was beginning to make me nauseated and I felt I could no longer contain my agitation, she handed me my receipt and I was free to go.
As I stepped out into the cool air, I took a few deep breaths and decided I was never shopping there again.
I may try another Sprouts that's only a little further away.
Since I really can't say I'm never shopping there again, here's my plan. Next time I have to go there, I will keep my bags to myself so that I can bag my own groceries. When the checker says they can get it, I will insist and say no, no, I like bagging my groceries. Maybe even say how fun it is. I don't know.
Why is this so difficult? After doing a quick analysis of what was in my cart, I had already made a plan for the best way to bag the groceries. Five seconds max. What's heavy? What can be squished? People, please, I urge you: stick the damn melons in a bag. We only have so many hands. I am not going to carry two melons, a bag of potatoes, and a carton of eggs separately into my apartment. Heavy things on the bottom, squish-ables and breakables on top. There is no more science involved than that.
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Socks
I have a sock problem. You would know it by taking a look at my sock drawer. I have a problem getting rid of them too. My favorite running socks have now all got holes in them, but when I tried to replace them, the replacements sucked. The last few weeks my big toe has been getting blisters from rubbing against the toe next to it (this is new, and weird) so I've moved back over to toe socks. So now I need to invest in toe socks.
But today my mission was arm warmers and steak. I'm running a marathon in Sacramento on Sunday and it'll be around 41 at the starting line...probably around 50 by the time I finish. I will be running in shorts and most likely a tank top. This is why I can't live anywhere cold. I'm slower in pants (for real) and I can't stand material in my armpits when I work out. Of course for a lot of cold weather training runs (and on rare occasions, a race) I do wear long sleeves. I get cold easily, I have Raynaud's, I really do need to keep myself warm. But everything warm is uncomfortable to work out in. A mile or two into a run, I wish I wasn't wearing sleeves. And it's too cold to take my shirt off (sometimes my belly is red from the cold when I get home, even though I had a shirt on).
Anyway, so I decided I need to get arm warmers for this race... and I've been craving steak for days.
Let me just say, I've worn arm warmers for cycling and I hate them and love them. I love them because they work: they're warm, easy to take off, and easy to stow in a pocket. You can take them off with your teeth while riding (I still can't ride with no hands). I hate them because of my left arm that is usually very sensitive to having something wrapped around it. You'll have to look back to 2009 in this blog for the whole story, but for a short recap- my collar bone and first rib crushed the vein in my arm and caused a blood clot from my elbow to my collarbone. The rib was removed and a portion of the vein was grafted from my leg to my shoulder. The problem is, veins harden after having a big huge clot in them for months (most likely years) at a time. I don't think it was practical for the surgeons to replace 12-14 inches of vein.
It's completely functional now but minor swelling does occur on occasion and then just passes. But sleeves...sleeves will most likely never be comfortable for me again. Or bras. But I live in a world where I occasionally have to wear both or at least one. I like loose sleeves. Those are ok. Lightly fitted ones feel restrictive and make me very agitated. It's crazy.
But I can't run in 40 degree weather in shorts and a tank top. My body is not built for that (Google Raynaud's). So arm-warmers.
They make commercial arm warmers, which is what I was looking for. Target didn't have them. Road Runner Sports said they'll likely get them in the next few days. Sports Basement pointed me to cycling sleeves (which I own). I will most likely ditch these things partway through the race, so I don't want to pay $40 for them. I want a cheap pair. A few bucks that are fine to toss to the side of the road and never see again. The guy at Sports Basement suggested I just make a pair with socks.
So I went to Marshall's for socks (after buying steaks at Trader Joe's). Really I was only supposed to buy one or two pair. But apparently I love socks. So many cute, soft, pretty, awesome socks. Seven pair. I do not intend on making all of them into arm-warmers, but maybe a few. Since I'll most likely be tossing the first pair, I'm going with the no-sew option. If I end up liking them, I might do a couple with some actual effort.
These might not look like much, but let me tell you why I love each and every one of these pair (there were literally hundreds of pairs that wanted to go home with me today).
First of all, who doesn't just absolutely love polar bears?
The blue pair is like a sweater (think I'll use this pair for the race this weekend).
The middle knee high has an amazing texture that will probably look super cute on either my arms or my legs.
And the two on the right are just incredibly soft.
It breaks my heart to cut holes in any of them, but it also excites me to think some of them will be given new life as amazing arm warmers. I kinda miss the days when I would wear knee high socks with boxer shorts. I'm wondering if, at this age (35), I can run around in shorts and knee-highs. I'm not much of a skirt person so that whole cute skirt and knee-highs wouldn't really do it for me.
So here is race day arm warmers! All I did was cut the tip of the toe off.
Not too bad for a 30 second job. And they are not highly uncomfortable. There is the little heel that is unimpressive.
But, they are warm. Merino wool. Made in Italy.
I will also have gloves that I will toss, probably 3-4 miles into the run. They are also cheapies- from Target. And they have some holes in them. I bought some replacements for future runs. The little 3 for $9 pairs. I will probably also wear the liner pair I have underneath them, that also has a hole in one of the fingers.
When I ran Boston, I bought a whole pre-race outfit at a thrift shop. Before the start, you ditch your clothes into special areas to be donated to charity. Maybe some lucky person will find my holey gloves and sexy arm warmers and be a little warmer this winter.
Yes, people really do run like this.
But today my mission was arm warmers and steak. I'm running a marathon in Sacramento on Sunday and it'll be around 41 at the starting line...probably around 50 by the time I finish. I will be running in shorts and most likely a tank top. This is why I can't live anywhere cold. I'm slower in pants (for real) and I can't stand material in my armpits when I work out. Of course for a lot of cold weather training runs (and on rare occasions, a race) I do wear long sleeves. I get cold easily, I have Raynaud's, I really do need to keep myself warm. But everything warm is uncomfortable to work out in. A mile or two into a run, I wish I wasn't wearing sleeves. And it's too cold to take my shirt off (sometimes my belly is red from the cold when I get home, even though I had a shirt on).
Anyway, so I decided I need to get arm warmers for this race... and I've been craving steak for days.
Let me just say, I've worn arm warmers for cycling and I hate them and love them. I love them because they work: they're warm, easy to take off, and easy to stow in a pocket. You can take them off with your teeth while riding (I still can't ride with no hands). I hate them because of my left arm that is usually very sensitive to having something wrapped around it. You'll have to look back to 2009 in this blog for the whole story, but for a short recap- my collar bone and first rib crushed the vein in my arm and caused a blood clot from my elbow to my collarbone. The rib was removed and a portion of the vein was grafted from my leg to my shoulder. The problem is, veins harden after having a big huge clot in them for months (most likely years) at a time. I don't think it was practical for the surgeons to replace 12-14 inches of vein.
It's completely functional now but minor swelling does occur on occasion and then just passes. But sleeves...sleeves will most likely never be comfortable for me again. Or bras. But I live in a world where I occasionally have to wear both or at least one. I like loose sleeves. Those are ok. Lightly fitted ones feel restrictive and make me very agitated. It's crazy.
But I can't run in 40 degree weather in shorts and a tank top. My body is not built for that (Google Raynaud's). So arm-warmers.
They make commercial arm warmers, which is what I was looking for. Target didn't have them. Road Runner Sports said they'll likely get them in the next few days. Sports Basement pointed me to cycling sleeves (which I own). I will most likely ditch these things partway through the race, so I don't want to pay $40 for them. I want a cheap pair. A few bucks that are fine to toss to the side of the road and never see again. The guy at Sports Basement suggested I just make a pair with socks.
So I went to Marshall's for socks (after buying steaks at Trader Joe's). Really I was only supposed to buy one or two pair. But apparently I love socks. So many cute, soft, pretty, awesome socks. Seven pair. I do not intend on making all of them into arm-warmers, but maybe a few. Since I'll most likely be tossing the first pair, I'm going with the no-sew option. If I end up liking them, I might do a couple with some actual effort.
These might not look like much, but let me tell you why I love each and every one of these pair (there were literally hundreds of pairs that wanted to go home with me today).
First of all, who doesn't just absolutely love polar bears?
The blue pair is like a sweater (think I'll use this pair for the race this weekend).
The middle knee high has an amazing texture that will probably look super cute on either my arms or my legs.
And the two on the right are just incredibly soft.
It breaks my heart to cut holes in any of them, but it also excites me to think some of them will be given new life as amazing arm warmers. I kinda miss the days when I would wear knee high socks with boxer shorts. I'm wondering if, at this age (35), I can run around in shorts and knee-highs. I'm not much of a skirt person so that whole cute skirt and knee-highs wouldn't really do it for me.
So here is race day arm warmers! All I did was cut the tip of the toe off.
Not too bad for a 30 second job. And they are not highly uncomfortable. There is the little heel that is unimpressive.
I will also have gloves that I will toss, probably 3-4 miles into the run. They are also cheapies- from Target. And they have some holes in them. I bought some replacements for future runs. The little 3 for $9 pairs. I will probably also wear the liner pair I have underneath them, that also has a hole in one of the fingers.
When I ran Boston, I bought a whole pre-race outfit at a thrift shop. Before the start, you ditch your clothes into special areas to be donated to charity. Maybe some lucky person will find my holey gloves and sexy arm warmers and be a little warmer this winter.
Yes, people really do run like this.
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