Exercising While Sick

Someone remind to just not go to the gym when I'm feeling under the weather.

The thing is, I'm not even that sick. I've got the remnants of a mild cold - some slight congestion and an occasional cough. Mostly I've just been tired, which could actually be more related to the lack of sunlight. At any rate, by the time I finish work I'm exhausted. So I've mostly been skipping the gym.

But I'm also paying a trainer to meet with me every week. I'm doing this so that I don't just stop going to the gym entirely in late Fall, like I have the past two years. Since I wasn't actually that sick, and since I don't want to stop working out entirely, I've been keeping these appointments.

Last week was okay. I told my trainer I was feeling a bit sick and we went slow. We did easier exercises and I was careful to stop when I felt myself approaching limits, which was happening quickly.

The biggest thing I noticed was a lack of balance. I don't have the greatest core muscles yet, so I usually expend a lot of brainpower making sure I stay upright. As fatigued as I was, I wasn't able to concentrate on this quite so much. So I had to go slow, use less weight, take more breaks.

I made it through last week without any injuries, though I was so exhausted I could barely stand by the end of it. This week I was feeling better, so I decided to go for a full workout. It turns out this was a bad idea.

About 15 minutes in, while I was doing my second set of squats, something went wrong. The next squat hurt in a way it wasn't supposed to. I quickly realized that I couldn't bend my left knee or put any weight on it. I'm not even sure what I did, except that I distinctly remember my knee hurting in exactly the same way a few times over the last decade or so.

We concentrated on arms and abs for the rest of the work out. I managed to hobble home, where I wrapped and iced my knee. Now I'm just hoping that it doesn't take too long to heal. I'd like to get to the gym this weekend, since I'll actually have time. But if I can't walk it'll be a moot point.

Halloweiner IV: Quad Damage

This was our fourth year hosting Halloweiner, and I think we're really perfecting this party. Although we definitely got way too much meet this year. So much that I barely remember all the things we ate. And I was so busy cutting and serving it to our 30+ guests that I didn't even attempt to take pictures. So I'm relying on the help of my friends for this particular blog post, in terms of the list of meats and pictures of said meats. Our friend Alyssa takes far better pictures than I ever could, anyway.

We started the day by braising a pig's foot to be grilled later. We also set out some cured meats to snack on. I managed to get pictures of both of these things (with my crappy iPad camera) because no guests had arrived yet.

Pig foot! It's already been braising for an hour or so at this point

Cured Meats. Some of these were spicy, some were fatty. They were all delicious.

 

 

Like always, we had a rabbit. Although the popularity of this seems to be declining. Bunnies aren't large, but most of this one was put in a quesadilla a couple of days after the party. The stuffing went really quickly, though.

Mmmmm, bunny

We also got a lot more seafood this year than in the past, including this catfish that was prepared three ways (and also went mostly uneaten).

Catfish with a spice rub, a lemon-pepper rub, and unseasoned. I think there's also some conch meat in that pan.

We also got a Mako shark steak at the Eastern Market. The verdict? This basically tastes like swordfish.

Shark steak!

But the real star of the night was the cow heart. Everyone was pretty excited about this. Unfortunately it took a really long time to cook and didn't make it to the table until everyone had already stuffed themselves. It was still fun to try a bite are pretend I was khaleesi.

Zach is ready to demolish the heart

Heart halved and cooking. Most of it is still in my fridge

Rather than talk about everything we cooked and tasted, I'll leave you with this list that Alex recorded through the night:

• Kangaroo loin
• Wild boar loin
• Mysterious fish (something flounder?) 
• Chorizo sausage
• Lamb & herb sausage
• Squid
• Octopus
• Rock fish
• Wild boar sausage 
• Pig foot 
• Roast bunny
• Ostrich loin
• Asian barbecue sausage
• Mako shark
• Ox tail
• Bunny sausage
• Elk medallion
• Duck duck brandy (sausage)
• Conch
• Catfish
• Pulled pork
• Cow heart!
• Russo sausage
• Orata (fish)
• Calatrese sausage
• Heart sausage
• Eel (dry)
• Venison saddle
• Tofu bunny
• Octopus
• Venison pork cherry sausage
• Eel (wet)
• Cow tail
• Camel burger
• Salted jellyfish

The ostrich was a real winner. It was super tender and rich, more like beef than a bird, but still delicious. And as expected from previous years, I loved the kangaroo and duck, duck, brandy sausages. I didn't try the jellyfish, because almost everyone made the same look of disgust immediately upon eating some. Word is it tasted like salt and nothing else.

I'm looking forward to next year, when we will hopefully buy a little less meat. I'm not too fond of the leftovers that are currently (still) sitting in my fridge.

SHIELD: F.Z.Z.T.

We got an episode about Simmons! I was so excited to learn more about her character and watch her interact with more than just Fitz. Although it was also nice to see more definition in her relationship with Fitz.

Anyway, this was an exciting episode that kept me guessing. I liked that the monster of the week wrapped up so quickly and we were able to spend a bit more time with the team. I suppose that was an extension of the MotW, being the same virus and all, but it nice to see it contained to the main cast. After the third firefighter died, I fully expected the episode to turn to Coulson's resurrection, it being November sweeps and all. So I was surprised when it was revealed that Simmons was infected.

I really liked watching her try not to fall apart as she frantically searched for a cure for herself. It sure was lucky that she had three lab rats and it took her three tries to get the antiserum right. But I did like the breakthrough moment and Fitz rushing in to help her.

The whole skydiving bit was seriously thrilling, too. An excellent use of the huge budget this show has.

As for relationships, it seems the Fitz has a crush on Skye, though I doubt she reciprocates it. Simmons may or may not have a crush on Fitz (setting up a handy mirror of Buffy-Xander-Willow that I'm not sure needs to be repeated). But mostly I'm interested in Skye and Simmons' friendship. Skye clearly cares more about her (and probably all of them) than she's let on, and I want more of that.

This show definitely has the action scenes down. The witty dialogue is coming along. And now we need to work on all of the relationships. That's what tends to make a Whedon show special, so I'm glad that we're starting to deepen them.

It's also worth noting that the November 19th episode will apparently deal with aftermath of the Thor movie, which is an interesting ploy. I doubt there's anyone watching this show who wasn't planning on seeing that movie, so I don't think this is an attempt to boost box-office sales. As for getting more people to watch the show, well we'll have to wait and see if that ploy works. It better be an excellent episode, though, if that's what they're going for. Otherwise this will backfire horribly.

PS Does anyone know what F.Z.Z.T stands for?

Hurry Up and Wait

After realizing how much we still had to do for this wedding, Kevin and I sent out a flurry of emails to a wide variety of vendors so we could start nailing things down. That this happened to coincide with a major deadline at work did not do good things for my stress levels. But now we're in that frustrating place where all we can do is wait for people to get back to us. Which makes it hard to see the progress we're actually making. So I'm recording it here to make myself feel better.

Rehearsal Dinner. Kevin called a bunch of possible venues. Some were already booked, some couldn't accommodate our (admittedly large) party. Why do we both have such big families? At any rate, we narrowed it down to two possibilities and went to explore on Friday night with Kevin's mom. We got drinks at one and dinner at the other, and we have hopefully made a decision. But there are a bunch of details to iron out, along with payments to be made and contracts to be signed, before I can say anything more than that.

Flowers. We have feelers out to a couple of florists. One email bounced back to me, which was rather disappointing. The florist came highly recommended, but without a working email address I don't feel comfortable using them. We have one appointment scheduled for next Saturday and are waiting to hear back from another place. Hopefully we'll have a better picture of what's happening after that.

Cake. Much to my surprise, Kevin has decided that he wants to be in on this decision. Even though we are definitely getting a chocolate cake and he hates chocolate. So my plans to drag my Doctor of Honor, Sarah, along on a girl's day full of cake eating have been scrapped in favor of trying to squeeze in a tasting or two between everything else. Luckily, the place I contacted said we don't need to schedule anything until January. So I made an appointment, and I'm officially not thinking about this until next year.

DJ. Honestly, this was the easiest thing to scrap. It turns out I care way too much about the music to let someone else pick it. (Much to my horror, I'm mimicking my step-mom's behavior here from when she married my dad.) Plus this is an easy way to save money and (for now) sanity. Check back with me in the Spring when we're frantically trying to pull together a playlist, and you can laugh and say "I told you so" to your heart's content. But I've been to a few weddings that used iPods instead of professional DJs and I couldn't really tell the difference (except that the iPods tend to let the entire song play, I hate that mixing/fading thing DJs always do that cuts off the end of a song), so we're going to cross our fingers that this works out. It sounds like a perfect problem for future Caitlin and future Kevin to deal with.

Invitations. Um, well, I've looked at these. I think we have an idea of the design and all that. But we need to figure out what they're going to say and actually order them. I believe the plan is to send them out in early January. That means we probably need them by Christmas. Also, there is a surprising amount of work that goes into these, not to mention all the different pieces. At least this can be done during the week.

Honeymoon. Kevin's mom recommended a travel agent who we've been in contact with. Plans are becoming more solid, but they're still pretty up in the air. We probably ought to buy tickets soonish, though.

I believe that's everything we have to worry about now. There are a few things, mostly gifts, that are on the horizon, but can probably be put off until after Thanksgiving at least. I'll feel a lot better when we can check some of these off our list.

SHIELD: The Girl in the Flower Dress

Every now and then work explodes and makes it difficult for me to watch (and then write about) tv. So I was late getting to this episode and even later to write anything about it. Frankly I was just too tired last week to really engage with this show.

Surprisingly, that made the show rather more enjoyable. Or maybe not surprisingly. Maybe the word I'm looking for is disappointingly. I want this to be a show that makes me think and that sparks interesting conversations. But it remains a collection of really cool action sequences strung together by a bunch of witty one-liners. And there's nothing exactly wrong with that. It's certainly a show that I will continue watching until it gets canceled. Or at least until the end of the season. I just wanted and, perhaps foolishly, expected more.

Then again, we're still only five episodes in. There's still time for it to be great.

In the meantime we're circling around to yet another shadowy organization. That puts the count at four, which is a lot to be juggling. Unless there's some nefarious connection between everything, which seems both likely and easy.

At least Skye has a more interesting motivation now that doesn't force her to constantly be a double-agent. Her loyalties are more clear now, and they're mostly to herself. She isn't in direct opposition with her team, though.

Here's hoping this show gets better. Or at least gives me more to talk about

Revisiting the Venue

Over the weekend Kevin and I had a second meeting with the wedding venue to make sure everything's on track. We're a little behind where we should be, but I actually feel a lot better about this whole thing than I had been. It probably didn't help that I had my first wedding-based nightmare this week, in which our photographer refused to take pictures because it was raining and we had to share a ballroom with two other groups. It was basically a worst case scenario, which means there's no way things could possibly go that bad.

Anyway, we were able to meet with the actual wedding coordinator and get some definitive answers to our questions, previously we had met with the head of catering who didn't seem to have a clear idea of the big picture. The biggest takeaways are that the rooms aren't as small as we feared they would be, though they are smaller than typical hotel rooms. More exciting it that we get to offer our guests a choice of four different dinner options. I'm really excited for the tasting, which should happen in January.

The next big things we need to focus on are flowers and cake. So be prepared to hear about those adventures. We also need to order invitations, and send those out within the next few months. This thing feels like it's getting close! I think we're on top of everything though. Or at least we will be soon.

Fancy Dinner Party

Kevin and I had been wanting to cook a leg of lamb for a while. This isn't the sort of thing you can really just pick up and cook for two people. It's a lot of food. So we decided to have a dinner party. And when Sarah got her doctorate on her husband's birthday shortly before a college friend came to visit, well it was the perfect confluence of events to warrant a fancy dinner party. Not that we really needed a reason beyond wanting to eat lamb, but it's always nice to have something to celebrate.

I remained impressively calm throughout the experience. Kevin may disagree with this statement, but anything he calls stressing, I call planning. I mean, you need to figure out the menu and buy all the food and make sure everything's cooked on time. Figuring out the details is a necessary step.

We settled on a menu that was pretty easy to time. Soup and dessert were made early in the day. The potatoes were cooked in the toaster over. Roasted asparagus can be completed in the time it takes to carve the lamb. And if my scalloped potatoes were a little undercooked, Kevin's roasted potatoes were perfect.

 

We even remembered to put all the food on the table. Everything was delicious, although we drank entirely too much wine. I'm struggling right now between wanting to just buy kitchen things (particularly a larger variety of bakeware) and holding off until after the wedding.

At any rate, dinner was a wild success. We're getting better at hosting large dinners, which means I'm feeling almost no stress about Thanksgiving. Except for the part where I actually don't think we have enough plates for everyone we've invited. But we'll make do. In the meantime it turns out that good friends and food and wine is all you really need for an awesome evening. Even if it does result in a somewhat less than awesome morning/early afternoon.