Really?

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

* pain (2x)
* stab (1x)

Hmph. I'd think I would get at least a PG-13.

My boy's back in town

I picked Big Boy up from the bus stop this afternoon. He's here for the weekend, this week being spring break. little boy is going to Wisconsin for the weekend, so they're really just trading places.

Although it was a beautiful day today, I didn't run. I feel bad. I should have run. But it's my day off, I've run three days in a row... Oh well. There might be other spring days yet this year.

Big Boy & I are going to look over a selection of Russia photos for a segment called "Famous Dead Russians" which will likely appear sometime towards the end of the week.

Pi Day

My calculus professor in college had us memorize pi to 20 or so places for extra credit. (I got A's in all three semesters of calculus.) I can only remember 3.14159 now.

little boy tells me yesterday that today is Pi Day and everyone in math class is bringing pie. He wants to make pie, so we go buy some apples after school. The deal is: I make the crust and he does the apples. We have this fancy low tech machine that peels, cores and turns the apple into one long slice.
It generally works pretty well. So I dragged out the food processor and make the crust for two (2!) pies and little boy worked on the apples. We guessed at the sugar/spice amounts, tossing in brown sugar, cinnamon (aka death spice), nutmeg, vanilla and a dash of lemon juice until the apples tasted right. little boy helpfully taste tested for me. In the spirit of Pi Day, I cut vents in the top crusts that were shaped like the character pi. Although I suggested an apple turnover with the spare dough for us, little boy voted for a berry turnover instead. The pies and the turnover looked fabulous, and the berry one tasted great... I'll have to get some feedback from little boy about the pi pies.

Although this week has been crazy busy at work and I was so tired yesterday that I didn't want to do anything when I got home but take a nap, I forced myself to go out with the dog to run my 5 mile loop. It was totally gorgeous outside, 54 and sunny, some wind, but I wore a black long sleeve shirt and the sun-absorbing properties of black worked to offset the wind. I wore shorts! The dog was so happy. I was a little less than happy about the puddle situation in the park. There was one on the path that was several inches deep. I tried to detour around, but the invisible lake in the grass was even deeper than what was on the path. My shoes got entirely filled with water and I squished the last half mile home. Of course, poochie, being a white dog with black spots, was a completely muddy mess. My legs were pretty muddy too, so I hopped in the shower with her. She is now a very clean dog, thankyouverymuch. It was a fun run. Spring is nice. Well, it was yesterday. Today it's cloudy and 33, which spells ice to me.

I got offered a job on Tuesday. I decided that it was about time I read Dr. Zhivago. So I went to the bookstore while little boy was at orchestra rehearsal (after running about a hundred other errands) and to my utter embarrassment, I found I could not remember the author of said Soviet classic. So I did what any other self-respecting Rusophile geek would do - I went over to the travel section, found a copy of the book Big Boy and I took along to Russia, and oh yeah! Boris Pasternak! Duh. Back to the fiction & literature section and there it is. I'm checking out and the guy asks me if I found everything ok.

me: Well, yeah, once I found out what the author's name was!
guy: Oh, and who was helping you with that?
me: No one. This is a bookstore. You have a reference section. I looked it up.
guy: (dumbfounded) Wow. That's smarter than 90% of the people who come in here. Honestly, it's smarter than most of the people who work here. Are you looking for a job...?
me: Umm... I'm a lawyer, I don't think you could afford me.
guy: You'd be surprised, we pay pretty well.
me: And I do work for the state, so I don't actually make as much as real lawyers do...

Conversation then devolves into talking about special ed. and what lawyers who work for the education department do. Well, at least when they're me. I can't really speak for the other lawyers. They do other stuff.

I'm considering meeting SO and a couple of her carpenter buddies at Pi Bar later on. I have to run 5 miles, though. And I can't really eat bar food yet. We'll see.

Speed is relative

I'm sure Einstein said something about that. So I tried speed work this week. Like I said last week, I haven't done tempo (hard, sustained effort, such as 4 or more miles at a specified pace) or speed (very hard, shorter duration effort, such as mile repeats with half-mile slower recovery running between each mile) work since before the marathon last October. What a difference four months makes! Well, that and the 15-odd pounds I've put on (hey! stop that! round is too a shape!).

I had worked up a revised schedule based on what I thought were realistic target paces. Uh. No. I can run 1 mile at an 8:00 pace (outside, we're not talking treadmill here, people), but not three of them, even with rest in between. Maybe it was because it was the last day of running 5 consecutive days, which I just don't do (5, 13, 8, 5, 5). little boy giggled at me, asked how fast "speed" was for me and said he wanted to do speed work with me.

So back to the drawing board! I shorted my runs, because they crept up on me and suddenly were longer than I had time or energy for. I ran 31 miles last week and am on track for running 40 this week, with a 12 mile long run on Saturday. I ditched the Irish 10 Mile Race, because it was too expensive. I'd thought it was $30, but no, it's $50. For a 10 mile? With only a short sleeve t-shirt for swag? No.

In work-related news, the judge finally came out with the report on our proposed rules and a large part of them were shitcanned. Eh. The mountain of work the judge just created for us is amazing. Because the section that was disallowed was connected to lots of other rules and retained stuff we'd repealed elsewhere, there are a million loose ends that have to be located and tied back up. Without making substantial changes to what's actually been approved. Fun!

In dental-related news, I now have a temporary crown. Ok, people, if you're got some nice 70's era amalgam fillings in your teeth, and they're not falling out or breaking or anything, LEAVE THEM ALONE! Don't let some cute little 12 year old dentist talk you into replacing them and having a crown put on. NO NO NO. Don't do it. Unless weeks and months of smoothies, soup, and near-constant pain is something you're really into, don't do it. Given that the procedure is similar for bridges, despite the fact that for some godforsaken reason the insurance companies love them and will pay a small pittance towards them, don't do that either.

In other dental-related news, forget about that New York Times article you read about the new painless dentistry with actual pain relieving drugs used during procedures, that ain't what's happening, people. I got 4 shots of lidocaine the other day when my cute-as-a-bug-but-still-evil-torturing-dentist student spent two hours drilling on my tooth (it's tooth #3, in case you were interested). And I only got 4 shots cuz I complained (read: nearly jumped out of the chair) when the stuff wore off and I could feel everything. When we asked the real-dentist-in-charge if I could have something for afterwards, cuz student-dentist had been yanking hard on my jaw and drilling on my tooth for a really long time, Dr. Dentist said I could take tylenol. Gee, thanks. Could I have a drill or one of those sharp, metal poky things to go? I'd like to stab myself in the eye to take my mind off my tooth!

-8 or Marching toward spring

Yes, it was eight degrees below zero this morning on my drive in to work. I think that's a little cold for March 7th. And if it's still this cold, it's entirely too early to be playing with Daylight Savings Time. It seems like everyone I've ever ranted to about DST hates it. I'm sure I'm not that persuasive a speaker. If this playing with time is universally unpopular, why does it continue? Ok, so it seems that Americans like to have more light after the workday ends. Fine. Pick a time and stick to it. There was a study that found we actually don't conserve energy with this time game, and apparently, more little kids get hit by cars on their way to school during the dark mornings right after we play with time. Perhaps this twice yearly jet lag helps prevent the masses from rising up and overthrowing the government...?

I went out for drinks last night with SO and some other people and didn't get my 8 mile run in. That means 8 tonight, 13 tomorrow, and 5 on Sunday. Sounds a little intimidating, but I'm sure it's doable. After all, the fam will be out of town. It will be just me and the critters.

Ok, so it was 4@tempo

Yikes, that was hard. I raced home from work yesterday and fit in all 8 miles before taking little boy to his Nordic ski banquet (he got another varsity letter and was All-Conference) and from there to orchestra rehearsal, but man oh man, was it hard.

After reassessing the situation and looking at my running schedule again, I decided that jumping right into tempo runs with a 5'er was probably a little too optimistic. I haven't done any tempo runs since before the marathon last October. That's a heck of a long time. And this had to be on the TM, which although it claims to be calibrated correctly, feels a lot faster than what I am able to run comfortably outside. So I wimped out and ran 2 miles to warm up, 4 @ tempo (which ranged from 6.8 mph to 7.2 mph), then a 2 mile cool down. I was a completely yucky sweaty mess in my 55 degree basement.

little boy is on his way to Chicago for the weekend. The school band & orchestra are taking a trip. First, to the Dells, where they'll party at a water park. Then, to Chicago, where they'll perform (twice?), have a master class, and see Wicked. Oddly enough, SO is headed to Chicago this weekend to meet up with her sister, who's there on business. They're going to see Wicked, too. Weird.

So I'm on my own for the weekend. I have a 13 mile run planned for Saturday. I don't know what other mischief I'll get up to. But I know I'm not going to be seeing Wicked.

Haphazardness

Or, just some random stuff I happened to blog about today.

It was raining on Sunday (little boy had a concert clear across the metro, good concert it was, but wow, far away), but yesterday and this morning, single digits as I drove to work.

More drilling at the dentist yesterday. Fun! We'll see how chewing goes later on. More dentist next week.

I ran 121 miles in February. Huh. When? I trust that sporttracks can add, though. It hasn't failed me yet. I'm supposed to start some speedy stuff now that I'm back on a regular schedule. 8 miles today, with 5 at tempo. Hmph.

I finished my friends' taxes, now that property tax bills are out for 2008. I'm working on SO's. Despite being out of work and collecting unemployment, it looks like she's going to get some back this year. We still have to find the receipts for the sunporch (new exterior door, new energy efficient windows... Form 5695, Residential Energy Credits). I haven't done mine yet. I did an experiment last year to try to get my withholding spot on. I think I did ok, but we'll see. As Big Boy no longer lives in the house, I had to play with the withholding again this year. Hmmmm... but I am still providing 100% of his support, so why can't I still claim him?

Given the dentist comment above, I have been experimenting with mushy foods that are not soup or smoothies. Here's what I made last night for dinner. It turned out really well. Bake a potato. Eat it with some salt & truffle oil. Save the skin. While all that is going on, put 2 cups of red lentils into a pressure cooker. Cover with water to about an inch above the lentils, seal and bring up to pressure over medium-high heat. Keep at pressure 10 minutes. Meanwhile... (this is why I don't write recipes, people) Heat 2 T olive oil over med heat. Add 2 t brown mustard seeds. Let them sizzle a little, then lower heat and add

2 t cumin seeds
2 t fennel seeds
2 t kala jeera (I should use kalonji, but I can't find it)*
a few green, white & red peppercorns
some red pepper flakes

When the pressure drops on the lentils, open carefully (steam! hot!) and add a hefty teaspoon of ground fenugreek and a teaspoon of salt. I tossed in a can of diced tomatoes with green chiles. Scoop some of this lentil mixture into your baked potato skins. Yum. I made enough to have this tonight, too. Actually, I made enough to have it all week. 2 cups of lentils makes a lot!

*The other cool thing about this spice is that the Russian word for it is чёрнушка (chornushka), or little black things. Heh. Ok, this combination of things is Bengali 5 spice mixture, but I didn't want to order it off the internet sight-untasted, so I improvised. Now that I know how addictive it is, I can order some here. On this page, it says, "Bengalis are also fond of poppy seeds." Huh. I wonder what my friend RC would have to say about that.