What do Broders' Pasta Bar and Pandora have in common?

Well, not much - about as much to do with facials. Except I do enjoy both (and the facials, too) and they're both (well, all three are) featured in this post.

I love Broders' Pasta Bar. (Uh, check out their seasonlly-updated menu and you'll see what I mean: divine.) I love sitting at the bar, watching the pasta being cooked to order, enjoying all the sights and scents and sounds. Ruthless and I went there last evening to celebrate our birthdays, and it was lovely, as usual. Also as usual, there's a long wait to get a place to sit anywhere - the bar or the tables. Popular place, and with good reason. It was such a lovely night out last night, we sat outside on the patio during our wait and enjoyed the ambience that is South Minneapolis very much.

I ate a ton - it really wasn't too much until I tried to row this morning, really - and I inhaled absolutely everything that was placed in front of me. Bread (plus refills!), insalata primavera (great blood orange and olive oil dressing), linguini cappa santa (perfectly done pasta with scallops and ginger cream - two things I love: scallops and anything with ginger in it - and spinach and tomatoes), and mango cheesecake (perfectly light with more of that awesome ginger on it). It was delish. If you've never been there, check it out, post haste.
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I had no idea until just now that there is a 40-hour per month limit on Pandora. Good thing I can just switch over to last.fm...
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I am off to get a facial this afternoon. Who doesn't love a good facial? And I'm so tired these days, pretty sure I'm gonna fall asleep on my facialist. Poor woman.

As painless as possible, please.

I don't know about you, but I have a lot of keys. So many, in fact, that I really have two key chains, and I use keys on both all the time, so I have to lug them around with me all the time. (And people wonder what women keep in their purses? I'm telling you, it's the keys that make mine so dratfully heavy. Although I'm sure having about $16.73 in change floating around on the bottom of it is not helping my cause. Someday, some chiropractor will love me when I get old and need to make regular visits.) It was time to say goodbye to some of those keys, though, and now there are three fewer.

Goodbye, Uptown. It's true: those living room walls are orange. Yes, I did willingly choose that color. (Trust me: it was my version of sunshine during our 9 months of winter. K's and my bedrooms were also crazy colors, though not as crazy as orange.) And no, we did not have to paint them back because new crazy uptown people like crazy colors. Yay for crazy uptown people! (Good luck new crazy uptown people, especially with those crazy girls living above you who do not believe a) they've actually graduated from college, b) in decent bedtimes, c) in bar closings (just bring the party home with you!), d) in taking high heels off at the door, or e) in area rugs to cover those wood floors!)

And then I gained the same three keys back.

Hello, St. Paul. (Yes, that is the skyline way out there.)

So it's only been two and a half days. Give it some time, and this place'll look like a real home soon. Also: we're on the top floor. Yay!

In some respects, I don't know if it's super convenient that I just moved a few days ago, or if it's been really annoying. I refer to the fact that everything's expiring. Driver's license, passport, all sorts of random stuff - stuff which needs to be mailed to me, basically, and stuff that corresponds with an address - preferably my new one. Even two of my insr policies? Premiums due right about now, and of course everything (read: auto policy) needs to be recalculated to the new addy. So the driver's license part was nice - kill two birds with one stone (renewal AND change of address at one time: savings, $11.50. Take that, greedy MN Legislature and DVS! Plus, I hate waiting in line, so only once is better, too). But everything else just strikes me as annoying since I have so many other things to do (pack, move, unpack, let every single person I've ever met in my entire life and all companies I've ever even window shopped know that I've moved and have a new address). And as for the let everyone and all companies know about my moving? Whatever did we do before the internet and self-service?

Also? Best moving decision EVER: Hire movers. It's worth every single penny. Especially when your ginormously heavy leather couch doesn't fit on the elevator and they have to haul it up the stairs to the third floor. Total time to move all my clothes and other possessions from point A to point B? 2 hours, 15 minutes. Sanity, friends who still like you and no back strain? Priceless.

I have now realized that by living closer, I can sleep in an extra 6 minutes, at least. 6 minutes might not sound like much, but at 4:48 a.m., trust me: it's a LOT.

In case you were wondering the final tally? Yeah, clothes- and shoes-boxes? Pretty much equal to the everything-else boxes.

Ruthless, dahling.

Happy Birthday.

Today, while technically Thursday, is my Friday. All summer long.

-I love my four-day work weeks. Very much. It's always a sad day in September when we go back to normal non-summer interim work schedules.

-Apparently my life in the office "ends" at the end of May...I just realized my daily calendar is still stuck on May 27, which is a few days after session ended this year. Never mind I still go in to work and have projects to do, the "real" work during interim is just not the same.

-I highly dislike cars' "check engine" lights. In particular, mine. Faulty sensors, bushings, all that. Who needs 'em? Apparently me, which is why my car is in the shop for a few hours today. But there's a side benefit: my mechanic is close to my parents' house, so i got to enjoy breakfast with them today after i dropped my car at the shop.

-For a few minutes this morning, I was concerned about our 8+ at practice (i.e., would we set up the boat and get ourselves balanced? would we beat other boats on the water during our pieces? would stroke seat's seat really squeak the entire practice? will our coach's megaphone's batteries deteriorate to the point that she sounds like charlie brown's mother during this practice? you know: things of that nature). But our little group of women came together nicely, and we rowed some pretty fun pieces. I - quite thankfully - was not involved in the seat racing today. That honor was left to others.

-There is a going-away BBQ tonight for friend Kristi at the boat club. Kristi, you will be missed. It's been awfully nice practicing and winning medals with you, and your personality on the water (both in attitude and in desire to win) has been a pleasure for all of us. When you're ready to leave your post-doc job at that shall-remain-nameless-university-that-has-that-pretentious-"The"-in-front-of-it, please come back here!

p.s. The answer to those two questions you're really thinking about: no, her seat did not squeak throughout the entire practice, and yes, she did sound like Charlie Brown's mother.

Tour Du Mont Blanc - "Show Me the Way to Amarillo"

Between this vid and the fact that the Tour de France just went "right by" Mont Blanc yesterday in stage 16, I really want to go back and do more hiking in the Alps...

A Day in the Life: Wednesday.

-Rowing a 1x on nice water early in the day is a most excellent way to start Wednesday. And today was not a row hard day (aka, seat racing day, as I'm sure the next, oh, 5 practices will be). Yes, indeedy: It was a technique day! I love long, steady state rows where you just do drills for miles. (Except the feet-out drill, which we've already established as being, well, tricky for me this year.)

-Pico de gallo and chips from El Burrito Mercado: I could live on this stuff for the rest of the summer. (Also, their delicious mango salsa is rather tasty. I could pretty much eat the entire carton at one time by myself.)

-Have almost all of my stuff packed up in boxes. And I'm not sure if I like this or not, but realizing the clothes boxes outnumber the everything-else boxes. Is that pathetically sad, or what? For example: the boxes of shoes equal the boxes of pots/pans/cookie sheets and the few random cooking gadgets I own, in both size (kinda on the large side) and number (2). I think it is a testament to the various aspects of my life that I require completely different and non-interchangeable clothing (really: row in a suit? go to work in spandex? I think not), and also that I don't collect a lot of other useless crap. Or it could mean that whatever useless crap I do have is still floating around my parents' house. I'll confess, there is some of that going on.

-I will not miss crazy drivers in uptown. I am tired of being able to read other drivers' lips when they call me nasty names because I, well, care about not careening my car into parked objects or small children in the middle of the street, or because I would like to parallel park and their most apparent goal in life is to tail me so closely that I cannot. Seriously? What is your problem uptown people? I'm done with you. Begone.

I also like to ease into Tuesdays.

But that didn't happen this morning, either. More seat racing. In the pouring rain. Oooh, fun times! Dare I say this aloud? I actually don't mind the seat racing all that much - the point is to go out every single practice and make the most of your time on the water, right? So how is seat racing different? Well, I suppose I can say that since I've not been switched out of my seat yet - I'm just in a boat that's involved with seat racing. Pretty sure Peter's still watching every stroke we all take.

If you view seat racing kinda sorta like another set of pieces, and row your best, it should pretty much be the same as every other day. Row hard. Work on technique while you're rowing hard. Eyes in the boat. Concentrate.

Every. Single. Time. You're. On. The. Water.

When I'm out there (unless I'm supposed to be paddling - whatever coach says, should go), I row hard. And every single time - including the paddling - I try to concentrate and make the most of every single piece. And I want to win. Call it the competitiveness in me.

But even having said all that, seat racing two days in a row is tough, especially mentally. I mean, it's really early in the morning, I'm not really awake, and I do so like to ease into my day...

I like to ease into Mondays.

Seat racing first thing on a Monday morning is not my idea of "easing into" the week. Whatever happened to "technique Mondays"? I swear it's been two years since we had technique days on a regular basis. But, I guess, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger...or something like that.

In other news: packing up my belongings is not my idea of a good time. And I don't even have that much stuff! Also. How did everything get so dusty? I swear I clean. But apparently open windows in the summertime = dust EVERYWHERE. Everything's dusty, but I just give up. I'll be gone from this place in another week, so then I won't have to care about dust in this old place. I'll just leave the worrying-about-dust thing for the new place. Also. I am happy to report that my new roommate has a neat-freakish thing going on, so I should get along swimmingly with the new K in that department.

July Generalities

Things I like:
-Finding a suitable place to live

Things I dislike:
-MOVING

Like:
-Living closer to work and boat club

Dislike:
-I'm losing my old roommate...but since she's throwing me over for a husband, I suppose I can live with that (plus, he's a good, long-time friend, so we're all good); and now I'll have a new roommate, whose name also conveniently starts with the letter K, so I won't even have to adjust my blogging much

Like:
-Parking in a garage (yes! no more scraping my car in the winter, or questionable sappy residue in the summer)

Dislike:
-Mysterious deciduous tree sap on my car from parking it on the street (no matter which type of tree I park under or where on the street I park it), requiring many, many more car washings than I am accustomed to

Like:
-Season tix to the Guthrie, with a great lineup scheduled (seriously?! Dowling is acting this season, not just artistically directing?! MacBeth? Streetcar? M. Butterfly? She Stoops to Conquer? should be good)

Dislike:
-Realizing summer is half over and it's already time to start thinking about season tix for the fall and getting emails about orchestra starting back up

2009 Duluth Regatta

Lane 1 finishes first, naturally

Rowing on Lake Superior, eating cinnabears and wearing strange hats

Tired, happy

Post-regatta party

More medals for the collection in the closet
Duluth International Regatta, 7.11.2009

The Niece Turned 1

The Niece's 1st Birthday Party