Last week, my sister hopped on a plane at LAX. Five hours later, I excitedly headed out to pick her up in my beat up car. It was a hot and humid evening with the sun still shining over the horizon. April walked through the baggage claim doors at IAD wearing black leggings and a slim white v-neck shirt. Her silver aviator sunglasses were dangling from her fingers. You know what else that stylish blond chick was also wearing? UGG boots!
Gasping for air in the humidity, she exclaimed, “How do you breathe here?” I had to laugh because she reminded me of me when I was her age visiting DC in the summer while living in California. Once we got into my car, she immediately kicked off her Uggs. I had a sneaking suspicion she wouldn’t be wearing those for the rest of her stay here! And she didn’t.
It was so good to have her here! It had been way too long since I last saw her. She lets me be a dumb dork, and I have no shame! Bust out some popular music videos with funny people signing the lyrics in ASL and you got us jumping around the living room with hella energy. She’s cool. Good heart to heart chats, visiting other family members, music, and shopping!
The week flew by way too fast. Before we knew it, her visit had to come to an end. She put her UGG boots back on and walked back through the IAD gates to hop on a plane back to LAX. If only I could’ve hidden in her luggage to go back home with her. Guess who else was on her flight? Stevie Wonder! For real.
Is the climate rapidly destabilizing? Is mother nature having a meltdown? Is this all a mild preview to 2012? I don’t know what’s going on, but extreme seems to be the new normal! Mother nature is unleashing its frigid, violent, and hot flashes.
Remember Snowtorious B.I.G. aka Snowmaggedon in February? Frigid!
(How does it feel seeing this picture? Ready for winter?)
Then, we got a 3.6 earthquake. What? I swear this wasn’t a burp from my California days. This was really here in Maryland/DC! Violent!
And now, we have trees falling left and right because of really nasty thunderstorms. The humidity is through the roof! Hot flashes!
More extreme stuff is happening around the world, but you know what else is extreme? My little sister from Los Angeles is coming to visit! THAT IS EXTREME! Haven’t seen her in over a year!
If you’re under 23 and physically active, take my advice – do not stop. Turning 30 and suddenly taking up vigorous running after a long hiatus is literally a pain in the ass! Your lazy old fart body will get shocked to the core and throw you all kinds of aches and pains. At least mine did. But, boy, was it sweet. I actually loved the running!
My shin pain got to the point where I couldn’t even bend over without wanting to scream for mercy. The pain was so agonizing, I could barely walk back to my car in the middle of my run. After that, I took a break from running. Since then, I’ve developed a pain in my butt and left hamstring. It’s all tender. I’m a mess and it’s frustrating. I don’t understand why, though, because I took a break. Did the car accident I was a passenger in affect me? Hmm. Perhaps my unconscious is unleashing fury on me.
At any rate, I am a little pissed because I’m supposed to be doing a half marathon in September, and I should be up eight miles now. But I only got up to four miles until my shin keeled me over and put me on the sidelines. Here’s where I must remember my Uncle’s wise words – I have my whole life.
I went to a physical therapist about my shin. He put me on a cold laser therapy treatment plan. He took a look at my feet and said my feet had a low arch, so he suggested I buy Superfeet for my shoes. He said my hips were off and would do some hip adjustments.
Well, the hip adjustments seem to have made things a bit… different. I don’t want to say it made things worse as I am not sure yet. I crack like fireworks when I bend over now. I should have known better not to allow the hip adjustments just yet, as my hips weren’t even hurting at all. However, the good news is my shin pain seems to be gone! Whoo! Superfeet and cold laser therapy!
I’ve gotten back into my running the past week, but with a step backwards. I’m only going 2-3 miles for now and will gradually work it up, slowly but surely.
Anyway, moral of the story is simply this – don’t fix it if it ain’t broken. Be patient and wait things out. My shin definitely had pain and that had to be fixed. My hip, however, was fine, and now it’s off.
Busting out Shakira hip moves…
You know my hips don’t lie.
Seriously, the city never ends! I spent most of my time in Manhattan and it’s mind-boggling. San Francisco seems so tiny compared to Manhattan, but in reality, San Francisco has more land. I’m amazed at the never-ending skyline in Manhattan and how crammed it is. The buildings went on and on forever! I’m blown away.
Going to the public bathroom is such a chore these days! I griped a few years ago about the automatic flush sensors, and since then, the bathroom life has surely evolved big time. Other automatic gadgets are taking over the public bathrooms at an alarming pace.
First, let me remind you how I feel about the automatic flush sensors. The number one thing I despise the most is that it’s trigger happy. Spend time putting on the toilet seat cover nicely and even, and boom, the slightest movement of your body makes the toilet flush. There goes the toilet cover! Move again and it flushes again. See, it’s trigger happy like it’s on a lot of crack! When you do need it to flush, sometimes it decides not to. The worst part is when it flushes while you’re on the toilet. However, I decided a long time ago that the toilets will not control me anymore. All I have to do is tear off a piece of toilet paper and put it over the sensor. THERE. Can’t flush on me now, trigger happy toilet!
Just last weekend, I was in a big, fancy public bathroom. It blew me away. However, my nice impression of the fancy bathroom immediately went for a nosedive when I tried to wash my hands. I stuck my hand under one of those automatic soap dispensers getting ready for a nice soapy lather, which worked perfectly, thank god. Then, I stuck my hands under an automatic faucet. No water came out. I thought it wasn’t a big deal, and that I’d just try the other faucet. Still no water. WTF? Tried another one, still no water! I waved around under the faucet to get it to get it to flow some damn water. But the faucet ignored me like a snob! I tried another faucet and finally it flowed freely! Four faucets later, I got an exciting super mini Niagara Falls!
How about them automatic paper towel dispensers? Pretty nifty, huh? You just wave your hand in front of it for paper. If you have an extra cool dispenser, a red light will shine back in greeting. OMG, it recognizes your presence! And out comes a nice fresh piece of paper. But what about those times when a red light doesn’t acknowledge your lovely presence? That happened to me today. I waved at the paper towel dispenser. It didn’t flash it’s pretty red light. I waved again. It continued to ignore me. I waved again with my lips scowling. OMFG, come on! I’m waving at you! Here’s the kicker, though. This particular “dispenser” didn’t have a manual way for me to get paper out if it failed to dispense. I had no choice but to either get some toilet paper to dry my hands, which would leave a ton of wet toilet paper pieces on my hands, or wipe my hands on my clothes and look like I splashed all over myself while peeing. I chose the latter and walked out of there defeated.
Death to the controlling automatic bathroom crap!
Life is like a rainbow. You need both the sun and rain to show its amazing colors.
In this case it couldn’t be truer! I was driving while the sun was shining down cheerfully. I saw major clouds rolling in quickly up ahead, and whaddya know, there’s this beautiful rainbow! I hadn’t seen one in years! I clicked away with my iPhone camera, then the next thing you know after passing the rainbow, I have zero visibility! It started to pour hard, each drop like the size of a golf ball! Then, boom, the sun came right back out and the storm never really happened. Or did it?
What a Florida-type of summer we’re having.
This was my view for three days with fantastic weather! Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I had an actual oceanfront view. It was so nice to just walk right out on the patio, breathe in the salt air, and listen to the crashing waves. Looking at the vast reaches of the ocean is seriously like reading the story of Earth.
I have a love affair with sunsets. There’s just something about a sunset that puts me into a speechless mode. Sunsets make me appreciate the beauty of life and how fascinating it works. The more length the sun has (like on the horizon during sunset and sunrise), the more red, orange, and yellow we see. If I didn’t say this right, oh well, who cares, sunsets still ROCK.
Along with the amazing incredibles of Earth, we also need a bit of humor in our lives, such as this Giraffe at an amusement park. You can concoct your own explanation. Personally, it made me go, WTF, then burst out with laughter.
This was pretty neat – a pool in a garage! The pool was half indoor and half outdoor. When I was a teenager in California, me and my friends would often hang out in garages, just like the east likes to hang out in basements. So this was like a California type hang out, but pool style!
Of course, you cannot go to Ocean City without cracking them crabs! Gotta get that Old Bay all over your hands! Advice: do not crack crabs with a cut on your hand. Be sure to bandage yourself, or you’re in for a nasty sting.
You can’t see the Atlantic Ocean without seeing the sunrise! Lucky for me I was up early because of a nasty stomachache (too much Old Bay?), so I got to catch the sunrise. Look how quiet the beach is! Everything’s about to wake up and start the busy life once again.
It was hot & humid. The ocean couldn’t have been more inviting with it’s cold, fun waves. The only caveat about Ocean City these days is that apparently there is some green laser fad going on. When night takes over, you see these green lasers shooting around on the sand and ocean from people on their patios. Really relaxing to see those…NOT. It was so ridiculous that at one point I was watching someone point the green laser to this truck that was driving on the sand, the whole way. Kind of distracting and disrespectful for the driver, don’t you think? Eh, whatever.
By the way, running barefoot on the sand for a mile? Whew – calves!! That’s all I’ll say. THE CALVES!
I agree with these people, I FIST PUMP Ocean City (minus the green lasers)!
(PS: Every picture in this post was taken by the iPhone 4 without any adjustments, except the Tiger Woods picture of course.)
Hey!
You wanna shower with the Washington DC Metro?
This was for sale at Bed Bath and Beyond. It’s even PVC free. Yup. You better believe it. WMATA for sale.
Has it really been a month since I’ve posted a new fruit?!
Brought to you by Kingsburg Orchards in California, I present to you the Black Velvet Apricot! The fuzzy skin is nearly black, some sort of beautiful midnight purple. Some are more red, though. The size is like a plum.
Just one bite into this, and I went whoa! I had to process the fact that the flavor of the skin totally surprised my taste buds with a tantalizing and tangy flavor. The juice of the bright, yellow inside came flushing out all over my hand. The yellow is a neat contrast with the dark purple skin, so it’s actually a really beautiful work of fruit art!
Apparently, the Black Velvet is an “aprium,” a cross of 75% apricot and 25% plum. This makes sense because of how yellow it is inside and how only the skin represents the plum. The apricot inside definitely mellows out the tangy skin.
Although the taste was surprising, sweet, tangy, and juicy all in one, I really wanted to abandon the rest after just a few bites. It was just so tangy! You know how just a few bites of dark chocolate is satisfying? The same goes for this. Would I eat it every day? Probably not. This is to be considered a rare, special treat.
Tantalizing is totally the right description for this fruit! Have you tried this?
