Mom's First 5k

My mom texted me tonight to see if I wanted to do a charity 5k, which supports the middle school where she works, with her in a few weeks. Unfortunately, I've already got salon plans that morning, so I had to turn down her offer. However, I'm quite proud of her for doing it. I grew up in a relatively healthy household (no sodas, healthy, home-cooked meals, etc...) but, of course, there's always room for improvement. Recently, my dad's made A LOT of healthy changes; he's hitting the gym for lifting and cardio nearly every day, making healthier food choices (the other day he told me that the family was now addicted to Sabra roasted red pepper hummus -- "We eat it with raw veggies! So much better than chips and dip!") and just being overall excited about it and open to learning more. My mom's dabbled in exercise for years. A couple of times a year, she'll sign up for this or that group class (water aerobics, jazzercise, etc.) and has been practicing gentle (hatha, I think) yoga a couple of times per week for the past six months or so. When she texted me tonight, I couldn't help but think that she was slowly slipping over to "the dark side" (if you can indeed call a healthy lifestyle, erm, dark). The following text exchange made me laugh. I think I pushed her a bit too hard, too fast with the Jeff Galloway comment... [bolded text added for clarification]

SoSarahSays: You should do it with dad :)

Mom: He can't -- in Calif. [for work]

SoSarahSays: Can you do it? Is it a walk/run? Sorry I'm not available!

Mom: I have signed up.

SoSarahSays: Exciting! Your first 5k, right? We are becoming such an active fam!

Mom: Before you get excited - I'm walking.

SoSarahSays: So? I walk sometimes. You're still going the distance.

Mom: Wow. [Looking back, I feel like she meant this sarcastically. I know there are a lot of people who will argue that people who walk 26.2 aren't really "running a marathon," but you can't argue that it's not impressive to walk 26.2. Yeah, this is just a 5k, but you've got to start somewhere, right?!]

SoSarahSays: Everyone walks before they run!! Some people ALWAYS walk and run -- google Jeff Galloway and the Galloway Method [Seriously, do it. I was reading on his blog today about a woman who cut 30 minutes off her marathon time -- from 5:15 to 4:38 -- by utilizing a 30s/30s run/walk ratio. 4:38 isn't Kenyan or even Boston-qualifying, but it's not terrible for the average Joe, and certainly nothing to sneeze at. I haven't run a marathon yet, but when I do, I imagine I'd be happy for 4:38, at least for my first one!]

Mom: Barf.

SoSarahSays: Dad's come over to the dark side... You're next. Muahahaha. You've been toeing the line for years with your exercise classes.

Mom: Towing like a tow truck.


lol. :)

Lemonade?

Piggybacking my last post, I also found this picture on my blackberry. I took this photo at Whole Foods in Tenleytown, DC in February, when I was waiting in an aisle-long line to buy quinoa and soy creamer (necessities!) right before the first great snowstorm. I thought lemonade was just lemons, sugar and water? Apparently sometimes grapes, too. I was surprised at the time, but now that I know you can make ORANGE JUICE from lemons (see previous post), nothing surprises me. Lemon... The most versatile fruit?
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Orangeade

Anyone have a recipe for orange juice made from lemons?

Snapped in the produce section at the Giant grocery store in Bethesda, MD on Wednesday, March 24, 2010.

I bought a couple of these potentially-hybrid lemons and can assure you that they taste like regular lemons and don't appear to be a food science, taste modification experiment. Confounding.
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Looks like we won't be recycling any time soon...

WMATA and SNOWPACALYPSE 2

We're in the middle of Snowpacalypse 2 here in the DC area (to see what I learned during Snowpacalypse 1, go here). I'm already suffering from a bit of cabin fever. It seems to set in quick when you're anticipating it, doesn't it? In a bit, I'm going to eat a hearty coffee and stove top oatmeal breakfast spiked with creatine and go outside to get huge start shoveling. In the mean time, the snow means delays for Metro (and all above-ground stations are closed), but they seem to be taking it in stride:

(click to enlarge)

When you're just too lazy to go inside...

God, I "love" the concept of walk-up windows... They are like drive thrus... For your feet. For the record, they have one of these in Copenhagen (on Stroeget, next to Illum), so I know this isn't just a lazy American thing. Damnit though, seriously, you are eating Burger King, you could probably use the extra .000001 calorie burn walking inside would give you. It adds up, people.
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Snowpocalypse and being an adult

Unless you are living under a rock (or on the West Coast, possibly), you know my fellow mid-Atlantic-dwellers and I are currently experiencing a record-breaking December snowstorm, which the Weather Channel has dubbed "a winter wallop." Now, aside from the obvious grumbling that this had to happen on a weekend and couldn't buy us all a few days off work by doing its walloping on, say, a Tuesday, I've learned a few things in the past 12 hours. With the exception of a year and a half I spent being a Viking in Copenhagen, Denmark, I've lived in the mid-Atlantic region (Maryland) since I was nearly 8; the better part of, um, 15 years?! Eeep. Anyway, my point is not to age myself. My point is to illustrate that I should have a basic understanding of what you need before -- and what you need to do after -- a major snowstorm. Here's a list of things I've come up with of basic things responsible adults need to do before a snowstorm.

Things Adults do Before and After Snowstorms

1. Buy salt for sidewalks and walkways.

(I live in a house, not an apartment where they have groundskeepers to "de-snow" for you). I realized we should probably get salt for our walkway around, oh, 9:30 last night, after it had already started snowing. I needed to go to the grocery store anyway, so I thought it wouldn't be a big deal to pick a bag of rock salt for the walk there. Unfortunately, rock salt is either hardware store-exclusive or they were completely sold out of three grocery stores. I'm guessing the latter, considering it was already snowing and meteorologists have been predicting snowpocalypse since Wednesday. More on grocery store madness in a minute.

Anyway, being the resourceful Bob-Villa-cum-McGyver that I am, I picked up a $.52 container of table salt and decided that would work for the walk (we don't have sidewalks in our neighborhood and thus aren't bound under sidewalk clearing laws -- in my parents' neighborhood, they have to be cleared within 12 hours of the end of snowfall). I came home, ripped the spout off the container and "liberally" "sprinkled" the walk. When I woke up this morning and saw over a foot of snow outside my bedroom window, I ran to the front door, anxious to see my salt at work, doing it's chemical-melting-thang on the walk. Um, no. EPIC FAIL #1.

2. Locate your snow shovel. Place it by the front door, ready for action.

Last night, I was explaining my brillant table-salt-on-the-walk idea to my roommate (sounding overly pleased with my "resourcefulness," I'm sure). I distinctly remember saying something along the lines of "No worries if it doesn't work, we have a snow shovel." Well. Thing I've learned number two is that you need to know where your snow shovel is to USE it. Like, if it's sitting out back, leaning against the side of the house, maybe go grab it before there is over a foot of snow on the ground. Now I have no idea where our snow shovel is and the table-salt-on-the-walk brilliant chemical reaction isn't working. EPIC FAIL #2. This will probably become EPIC FAIL #s 3, 4 and 5 when my roommates and I need to "dig" our cars out.

3. Go to the grocery store, stock up on necessities, like bananas.

Wait, bananas? As mentioned above, I did have the foresight above to go to the grocery store (after it had already started snowing) to get some "necessities." "Necessities" for me included soy creamer for my coffee and cottage cheese. Normal people's snow storm "necessities" include things like soup, milk, eggs and bananas. Wait, bananas? Yes. Man, it was crazy. I just wanted two or three bananas to go with my greek yogurt and oatmeal and you'd think that bananas are out of season on the East Coast (haha, wait a second...!). In all seriousness, though, three out of three grocery stores I visited were completely out of bananas. In two of the three, the banana area of the produce section looked like the water aisle at Harris Teeter in Charleston after Hurricane Hugo. There were ripped open banana boxes everywhere and not a banana in sight. When checking out of the second store, I spied one lonesome, already-browning banana right by checkout. I grabbed it. The old woman in line in front of me was like "Wow, where'd you find that banana?" I was pleased to have gotten what was probably the last unclaimed banana in three states. In retrospect, I probably should have offered to give it to her. Oh well.

It's still snowing, so this list will probably grow once it stops. I'm going to gear up and go on a Snow safari to find the snow shovel and, once I do, pretend the excursion was my plan the whole time. Maybe I'll also go visit Mike Seidel, Weather Channel's on-location reporter in Tenleytown (about a mile from me) who just said "oops, I tripped over slush" on the air. Maybe I can audition to be the next Jim Cantore. Where is my favorite meteorologist, anyway?

Stay safe, DC. Don't let your white pets out in the snow. Enjoy your bananas.