Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Prayer beads and Paddy's day


In honor of the holiday, Mabel is dressed up like an avocado. I gave her some wooden beads to play with yesterday, and she's really taken a shine to them. I call them her prayer beads.

Right after I ran an almost record-breaking 12 miles (my actual record is between 13 and 14 miles, but that was 7 years ago) I caught a cold and have been laid up in bed, rubbing Zicam in my nose, for most of last week. I did wickedly sneak out and go to lunch at an Indian restaurant with a couple other moms. I had to pretend it was the spices that were making my nose run (I don't think I was fooling anyone, especially since my voice had morphed into a distinguished baritone). I had just received my late but much appreciated Valentine's present from Bobby; season 1 of Monk, and I went through the whole thing in 3 days, and I reread Babbitt. But now I'm feeling most of the way better, and am trying to nudge myself into going out on a run today. Part of me is like, C'mon, just a little run...and then there's a middle part of me that's worried to listen to the "little run" spiel, because once I get out there, the other part of me (call it Martyr part) will say, Hey, now that you're out here, why don't you run 7 or 8 miles, go whole hog! And I'm afraid I will and then get sick again. We'll see who wins. If the sun stays out, I'm betting on Running part to win). There's another part of me that's like, I like cookies! But the other parts don't really socialize with that part.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

After the Party


Mabel and I had a Hina-Matsuri (Japanese Girls Day) party yesterday, which is to say, we stole the name and nothing else, and had a brunch and playdate. I honestly did read up about the real holiday, but it involves making dolls and then setting them out to sea in a boat and/or burning them (it gets rid of bad luck), and the menu calls for soup with whole clams, sushi, and saki. We had none of those things (whole clams?! disgusting). I went with old brunch standards; fruit, cinnamon rolls (CinnaBwanas), and a cheese strata, which I had made (with a different recipe) once before a while back. I didn't decide to make it until the last minute (well, an hour and a half before the brunch) but I'm glad I did. It turned out well, and was very easy.
Anyway, here's Mabel after it was over. She zonked within 10 minutes of the last guest leaving. Oh, she was P-double O-P-e-D.