WWW = whirlwind weekend

every so often, you can just have one of these great, great times that make you feel all alive and invincible and ready to take on the world – any task, mind you – dust bunnies under the bed, blog posts that are sorely behind, balancing a checkbook, losing 20#, creating peace in the middle east…. well, i have had one of these weekends, my friends, gather round while mother tells you all about it…

 my sweetie came out to visit for a nice long weekend, of course, pre-visit, i did my usual twisting in the wind and generalized fretting about the aforementioned dust bunnies and how maggie would behave (which was great! except for a minor vomiting episode ON THE BED and the “let me gently lift you off of lisa” incident in which said sweetie saw the lightening quick change from cuddlebug to devil dog), but all went so well!

 day one was a welcome to my town, a drive around, a tour of the neigboorhood, bonding time with the magpie. next, my very own metrosexual whips out this awsome ensemble (no capes) that put me to shame with its casual unstudied funky elegance with an edge (we call CUFEWAE for short). we went and had a great dinner at a cool place called the boot in norfolk. for reasons unknown to either of us, we had no cheeseplate – though it was there….. instead we did split a fantastic goat cheese bruchette – which i feared as it was described to include a pine nut-cumin… vinaigrette i think? i am not a cumin fan. we got it on the side and gobbled it up in 8 seconds..    the rest of the dinner was wonderful – wish only that we had gotten more adventurous early with the cocktail choices

as i had told trace that one of the things i love about this place is their signature cocktails - and i am NOT talking apple martinis. they had something called a “super collins” (i don’t even know what a tom collins is and i am a wine girl, so i usually shy away from these types of things) but it was homemade grapefruit simple syrup, soda water and vodka. adult lemonade. YUM! oh yes, and we highly recommend hub’s peanuts on your coffee gelato brownie sundae (we did split one in my own defense).

saturday was another fun one – it was beautiful out, but cold as sh…. – is shit cold? i think not. why do i even think that? am i in 7th grade? sheesh. we walked the magpie, we laid around, i had to wash the aforementioned barf extravaganza off the duvet that i just washed the day before! then – and this is the part that makes me go “awwwww!!!”, trace and i went to donate blood!

a dear friend, tairy over at the little red’s writing hood podcast (poetry) and of disney tidbits: did you know? has developed a charity effort that is so wonderful – we’ve mentioned it on those darn cats and i hope to talk about it more there and here. she has been a long time blood and platelet donor. she is asking folks to sponsor her this year, one measly dollar every time she makes a donation. i believe the monetary donations will be going to a diabetes charity – she has just finalized some of the red tape around getting this project up and running, so more details are to be found at the website. i know of several pals who donate blood regularly – perhaps you would consider linking your donation with tairy’s AND making a small monetary donation? we are talking less than $30 for the entire year? please consider?

 anywho, the cool thing for me was, i haven’t donated blood in like 10 years. if you’ve attended college or grad school, i’m sure you are aware there are blood drives on campus about every 82 seconds. i’ve donated blood before, but, i went through a period (no pun intended) where my hemoglobin was always too low to be a donor. like 4 or 5 times of trying to donate and then not. i gave up. talking with my pal tairy as she was sharing her inspiration and idea for this blood drive, motivated me to give it a try. and tairy did all the hard work!!!! i just sent her my zip code and she emailed me back a place to donate! and guess what? it was RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET!!! so, in a gesture of solidarity, trace and i did this…

 the rest of the weekend i can happily report was not quite so bloody…. we visited the atlantic ocean – which trace had not been to before (and which he keeps calling “the arctic ocean” given the lovely temps of the day… then we enjoyed a seafood tower of terror and a wonderful long evening of talking and noshing at catch 31 on the ocean front! yummmmmm!!!

Dude

          

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sunday turned into the fun lazy day i was

hoping it would be…. a yummy breakfast at the silver diner (crabcake omelettes YUM!), moving of my bedroom furniture to restore proper fung shui (me thinks it worked), a visit to the local disneystore (just to check it out), an ill motivated visit to uno’s (i should have gone for the pho that drove me there, but the smell of cheeses!!! DAMN YOU CHEESY GODS!!!) then some disney movie marathons and the oscars!!

of course there was plenty of cuddling, and fun times as well. sigh. long distance relationships…. not my fave, but hey, you can’t always pick how things turn out…. and let me just say – WOW! from a year ago??? no, from like all my life ago till now?? definitely worth the wait and the drama… even if it isn’t a forever thing (i’m very superstitious) what a joy to be with an open, intelligent, funny, cute, adult, together, responsible, did i mention super cute?, dude who has their shit together???? holy mackerel!!!! we’ll probably break up tomorrow….. cause i’m positive like that!

guess what i did today?

i have been remiss, dear reader, to not update after the sturm und drang of my last post… yes, i indeed went to my surgeon (i LOVE him!!!!!!) and… duh duh DUH!!!! i am cleared to return to work! yay and huzzah! my bone is fusing appropriately and my MRI was much improved. he thinks the discomfort i still have (which has been improving over the last 3 weeks) is muscle spasm related and will subside with appropriate activity increase, PT and continued use of muscle relaxers.  i am going back to work monday (YIKES!!!), but no more 16 hour shifts for me. and i am going to try to aim for certain case specialties and nurse anesthesia resident cases to minimize my lifting etc.. unfortunately, my first PT appt isn’t for another 2 weeks, but i hope i get a good therapist who can give me some real and practical strength building exercises and guidance to resume activities. i can even resume erging (thats the rowing machine) on LOW resistance for SHORT times. WOOT!

i have resumed my “running” program. theoretically, it is the physical therapist who will assess and clear me for normal activities, but i am doing the infamous walk/jog (WOG) deal, and honestly, given my time off, i ain’t running long distances, but i am committed to getting my mileage in to complete that damned 1/2 marathon i am doing in early january. so this week started off with a bang – 2 4mile “runs” and the long run supposedly 7 miles this week. today i completed my second ~3.55 mile wog at a combined pace of ~13:40. now, thats slow, but i was surprised that i even did that distance in that time given a)no real cardio since mid july and b) the first 5K i ever did, that i trained for, took me 50 minutes of honest jog time, so, though not the jock hottie i want to be, i think it is a more than respectable start. the distance is what it is due to the fact that i am back outside and trying to develop running routes i can do straight out the door. i haven’t even figured out what i am going to do saturday as the thought of just doing the current route twice makes me think i will hurl from boredom.

i feel pretty good actually, relieved. although, at the moment, i belieive i am having what is called a muscle spasm, probably from the running maybe, the fact that i didn’t, until about an hour ago, take any pain meds/muscle relaxers today and that i sat out by the pool and ended up having an hour long chat with s dude, not too much older then myself – a dentist actually – in the building who had his hip replaced. we compared recovery stories and i was twisting around to talk  quite a bit. god i am old.

i feel happy this week because i am indeed officially in crush hood (my pessimistic nature insists i follow that statement with the declaration that y’all need to prepare for more crash and burn heartbreak blogging in the near future therefore) and i am feeling happy over podcasting efforts and an upcoming disney online community event of which my podcasting power duo blog partner and i are taking part in as sponsors! i still have tons to do to get ready to go back to work, but i feel happy!!! (side note – i was indeed on the rag when i posted the last couple posts of doom – i feel the need to share that as i haven’t posted on the period periodicals lately and, with my birthday coming up quick, i realize i probably won’t have old auntie flo to kick around for much longer).

oh, and i VOTED today!!!!!!!!

  

it never ends

mix tapes

its funny, earlier in the year, i had somebody sending me mix tapes – well, ok, mix CDs, but you know what i mean. and it was a rush! in fact i think it contributed greatly to an ill fated crush that just ended badly in every possible way. i broke them all and threw them away…

BUT.

but i keep having this urge, this idea that i may be crafting a mix tape of my own for someone. how scary is that? flirtations, dating, its all good, but putting it out there in a sappy, craig monkmellow, check one: do you like me? yes or no kind of way????

it is simultaneously thrilling and totally scary.

memorable mix tapes i actually have received have run the gamut from every lascivious prince song there is (that was like freshman year), one that opened with “hello its me” from todd rundgren (another knife through the heart) and a wonderful ani di franco/grunge genre mix that seemed so freaking DEEP at the time…

 

if i do it, i will post the song list.