Of cows and parties

To misquote one of my favorite bands, this weekend "I eat too much, I drink too much, I knit too much, too much!"

Oh right, I'm supposed to be dieting, aren't I. Not so much this weekend. Oh, it started off right. Saturday morning I ran 8 miles at Inspiration Point with Sandy and Anita. And a whole shitload of cows (uh, literally in some places). The bovine creatures were right in the middle the trail, ON the trail, at two different spots. As I've said previously my hate dislike of the walking beefsteaks is partly irrational. Meaning, there's not a damn thing I can do about it. I see them there, my heart rate increases, the adrenalin flows, my flight response kicks in. So I speed up, trying to cower behind my running buddies. Which is tough when one of them is half my size. Anita thinks I'm hilarious and she talks to the cows to get them out of my way. It doesn't always work and I still have to get around the things.

Sprinting uphill isn't always the best idea in the middle of a run. I ended up walking most of the hill to the 4 mile point, but then ran most of the run again until the last mile. I had wanted to just do 7 miles total but we decided not to wuss out and do the whole thing. I guess I know my body pretty well, by 7 miles I was toast. I walked all the uphills in the last mile, I just had nothing left. Stoopid cows.

The nice thing about starting a relatively short run at 7:00 am is that when you finish, the whole day is ahead of you. I went home, did a few things here and there, did some knitting on my Temescal Bag, and took a nap. A long nap. I didn't sleep much but just drifting in and out on the sofa for a few hours was fabulous.

Saturday evening was a celebration for Petra's birthday. Ten people met at Pizzaiolo in Oakland. We had wine, appetizers, salad, pizza, dessert, pretty much everything on the menu. It was all good, some of it great. My favorite was the pizza with anchovy, black olives, feta and, uh, something else. I also loved the fresh figs in the fig/pancetta dish, even though I passed on the pancetta itself. Great conversation, great food. Yes, I did not watch what I ate and no, I didn't count points.

Sunday I made up for slacking all day Saturday. I cleaned house, ran my errands, did some other stuff that needed to get done. Strangely, there's still tons of stuff I never got to. I didn't water the citrus trees which were starting to look so good with the extra attention and water. Whoops. In fact, I didn't do any gardening at all. My yard is almost at the point in the summer where it doesn't need any attention, but not quite. Maybe next weekend.

Last night Mrs. Claudia had the first Stitch n Bitch at her new digs. I'm pretty sure that all of us who hadn't been there before got lost or, I dunno, misdirected a little. Even though she texted complete directions to us. I must not be the only directionally dyslexic in the bunch. She has a great little condo, fresh and new. In fact just about everything inside is fresh and new too. So nice, and I covet much of her furniture.

Her new hubby was kind enough to bbq for us and I think we opened his eyes to what a group of women are like when they get together. Loud, raucous and not afraid to discuss anything under the sun. Or learn new words. And medical conditions. I'm not sure he'll be hanging around next time we meet there. Or maybe he'll just decide he has to drink more than we do. Join the knitting circle!

Claudia greeted each of us with a wonderful pomegranate martini in her pretty new martini glasses. Such a brave girl; dark drinks in long stemware to go with light new carpet. We were all on our best guest behavior and managed to not spill or break anything. This time.

While we chatted and talked (and yelled) (and ate-the food was delish) (and drank) I knit a few inches on my bag, going into the 4th color. I love how it looks and I planned to post the interim picture here. Except I got home too late and didn't feel like futzing with the computer. Pretend that THIS is a picture of a partially knit Temescal bag. Nice, isn't it? Thank you, I think I'm doing a good job too! Heh.

You're also going to have to pretend to see the picture of the lovely dessert Jeanette prepared. Along with the sponge cake (which was not, alas, homemade) were some wonderful fresh berries drenched in sweet wine or liquor. Plate-licking good. And no, I didn't say "oh, that piece is too big, I just want a sliver" because that would have been a lie.

Today is back on the program. The whole program. I'm supposed to be training for a race here, right? Training to breathe again, right? It's hard since the more running and cross-training I do, the hungrier I get. Somewhere there has to be the perfect foods that fix that but I haven't discovered them yet. My great quest!