Ew.

I guess I need to give the title more context. My agency has a few buildings in SF. Two of which that are across the street from one another and well, sometimes (read: all the time) we jaywalk across a cable car hill to get from point A to point B.

There’s a loading zone out front of the main building which is also home to the a divey Chinese restaurant/bar. While waiting for traffic to clear some gross dude in a silver Dodge Magnum wagon blasting “Whomp There It Is” pulls up along side me and honks. Ew.

Then he proceeds to struggle to parallel park his car. I back up onto the sidewalk and talk with a co-worker of mine. When the dude finally gets his car parked (in a loading zone) I go back out off the curb to wait out traffic and he comes over behind me, touches my arm (NOT COOL) and in his white adidas track jacket with black stripes and black adidas track pants with white stripes with ugly gold chain/medallion and haze  of overbearing cologne says “I only did that honking thing to make you move because if you’re a fan of Boston then shame on you”. *For context I am wearing a Red Sox vintage tee today.

My response was to immediately give him a disturbed look at the place in which his hand made contact with my arm and to say “Ok, go away”.

He then retorted with “Oh…wow…” like I was the one who was a STRANGER and came over to insult and touch him as he then slow jogged into the aforementioned divey Chinese restaurant/bar. Right. My bad.

My co-worker was simultaneously horrified and hysterical with laughter.

Shit like this only happens to me.

Lady of Leisure?

Last night not only did I make BBQ Chicken Sharp Cheddar Mac and Cheese but I made homemade BBQ sauce. Yes, this is happening.

These new adventures into domesticity have me thinking I would make a pretty stellar lady of leisure. I like searching the interwebs for new food recipes, I like grocery shopping, I like the satisfaction that comes with making something and it being delicious…the only part I don’t like can be all the prep work..and the dishes.

If I was a lady of leisure I could grocery shop, and cook, and go for runs whenever I wanted, and read more books, and watch more of my stories on the TV….what have I been doing for the last 28 years?!?!

 

WANT.

So what if a 16 year old girl posted this on her Tumblr. I want this shirt. After a basic google search and a google image shirt with this same post I’m coming up empty.

Help me find this shirt.

And follow me on Tumblr: http://duckinthecity.tumblr.com/

Remarkable Squirrel

While running outer loops at Kezar Stadium last week I saw what I think was proof that squirrels, despite their small demeanor, might be outpacing other rodents in genius behavior tendencies.

There are those old steel drum lid-less garbage cans around the stadium and while running I looked over to see this squirrel pull-up style lifting himself (or herself – who knows) up with a plastic ziploc bag containing what was a half-eaten hot dog in a bun.

My first instinct was – that sucks, he’s never going to get that tasty garbage treat out – or he’ll eat plastic, go into some toxic plastic non-digestible shock and die. Then, a magical thing happened. Mr. Squirrel jumped from the rim of the can – bag in his teeth – to the ground. Looked anxiously around for possible pirate thieves in his midst – and OPENED the bag with his tiny claw-like hands to free his treat.

I kid you not. He unzipped that ziploc bag with his hands, stuck his head and upper body in to drag the treat out with his mouth – then snatched up his hot dog treat by hugging it to his body and only partially dragging it he bolted for the base of tree safety.

It was remarkable. Kudos to you little buddy.

 

It’s getting pretty serious…

I’m currently attempting to train for my second 1/2 marathon and as I valuably learned during triathlon training the key to running is in the shoes.

It had been about 2 years since my last running shoe fitting and while I did go through a couple pairs of my initial fitting shoes (Asics 2140 & 2150) and venture out testing some other styles from Nike (LunarGlide 2+ and LunarEclipse+)ultimately I knew I really wanted to get re-fit and see what as of now I should be running in.

Initially I was told that I had a tendency to slightly over-pronate so I need a more stability focused shoe. This time I was told that my gait is neutral – suck it stability shoes! The benefit to neutral running shoes honestly for me is the variety and wider array of color-way options; clearly very important things.

I tested 3 pairs of shoes (Saucony, Nike and Brooks). While I would consider trying the Nike Vomero 6+ that I tested the clear winner from my brief test of running back and forth outside Portland Running Company was the Brooks Defyance 4.

These shoes have been a game changer for sure. I’m now a handful of runs in and I feel stronger, able to push my endurance and ultimately I feel like I can focus on my form by having a shoe that is better suited to my gait.

So while the color way is a bit orange starburst fruit chew I’m learning to get over it – hopefully in a future release I can get some green or yellow in these bad boys. But if you see a relationship change in my Facebook status it’s probably going to be between myself and these shoes.

SF Commuting: Fish in Bags

Yes, that headline pretty much says it all. Being a daily commuter and public transport patron I tend to see and in this case unfortunately, smell some strange things.

It’s mid-day on Tuesday and I was feeling a little under the weather so I was headed home to WFH (work from home). I’m minding my own business when I smell something a bit off in the underground MUNI station waiting for the N train. It sometimes can be a bit unique but very rarely is the underground station actually smelly.

The thing was it was a very unique and assaulting smell. One of over ripe fish. Yuck. Here I am thinking maybe it’s just a full trashcan or perhaps just a waft of a smelly individual and that if I move further down the platform it will dissipate. Not so much.

There, a handful of people away, is a woman with her arms loaded of red plastic flimsy plastic bags – the kind you get at dollar stores or in this case Chinatown markets. Inside one aforementioned bag I see is a fish. A full, non-fileted, head/scales and all fish. Mind you, this fish isn’t wrapped in butcher paper or even for that matter another cheap plastic bag. He (or she) is just slunk down in a half moon bend inside an open plastic bag.

For the love of all things sanitary why is this fish just out loose?!?! I’m pretty sure he/she was dead (due to the lack of movement and ultimately the lack of available H2O but all I could wonder is how this exposure keeping that fish from hitting the food poison danger zone?

Thankfully the fish purchaser and I were not on the same train – the thought of that fish smell trapped in a train car for even a few stops is just too much for me to handle.

Hey Ya!

I have a list of blog items that I can’t wait to write about but then I saw this. Frankly, I just couldn’t help myself and had to post this.

*I’m not usually a poster of kid videos but this is just SO good.

Indiana Jones and the Tales of the Culturally Relevant

That’s right. After 28 years I have now seen all 4 Indiana Jones movies.

Seeing as how the first class I enrolled in for Fall term of Freshman year of college was Archaeology 101 and that I ended up minoring in Anthropology you would of thought Indy shaped my youth. False.

In fact, my first exposure to Indiana Jones was the first 7 minutes of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark which my archaeology professor showed during the start of the first class and then said “If you enrolled in this class because this is what you think archaeology is all about then leave now” and shockingly many people did leave. I was confused because I thought archaeology was about dinosaurs not running from boulders so I stayed.

Fast forward from that day in 2001 to 2007 when I was harassed a bit further at the shock and awe that I hadn’t seen these critical movies and there was one attempt to watch the at the time trilogy. About 1/2 way once again into Raiders of the Last Ark an unanticipated interruption took place.

Fast forward yet again to 2011 and it’s complete. I watched the first 2 in one weekend, the 3rd a few weeks later and after a hiatus in which I was informed that watching the 4th one wasn’t critical since it was bad I went ahead and completed the set.

Rankings in order of best to worst:

1. Last Crusade
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark
3. Temple of Doom
4. Crystal Skull

Really those last 2 are throw aways to me – they were equally bad.

 

Running and Books – A Nerd’s Life

Yep, that pretty much sums up what I’m into these days.

I’m training for my second 1/2 marathon this October – 10/16/11 in SF in case you are interested in spectating – and while I am well behind where I should be I have actually been consistent since I started back up with running. Ultimately I think my experience will be better than it was last year but I’m really looking to get in a PR in May at the Rock ‘n Roll 1/2 in PDX. But enough about running…let’s get into the nerdier things in life.

Books. I set the goal to read 30 books this year. Factoring in that I am living in a new city, at a new job and well just in general life seems to be busier than ever I realized 30 books was a decent goal. In the past couple years I tried 24 books a year (completed) and 36 books a year (derailed) so 30 feels like a middle ground that should be achievable. Also factoring in I live literally 1.5 blocks from a library I felt it was great and I’d be right on track.

Oh wait, it’s 8/1 and I’ve only read 12 books! GAH! Thanks to the goal I set on Good Reads I’m 5 books behind pace or 18% behind my goal. F. Know any good books I need to read to get my to-read list fuller and maybe re-inspire my reading needs? I mean, let’s be honest, I’m way too competitive to let this slide but new book recos are always welcome!