Cheese and Wine and Whine

It's been a long, cold, frustrating week. It was especially apparent yesterday, when my attitude at work was basically "BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" If I could have heckled work, I would have.

Side note: I went to see John Mulaney perform in Madison a few weeks ago with my former college roomie and current super-chum Mary and her guy Friday Peter. Mulaney was incredible, of course, and I laughed and laughed and laughed... but there was this one drunk girl nearby who was making awkward attempts to heckle, and it was the worst. Mulaney was great about it, opting to acknowledge it in a puzzled manner, then ignore it completely, but... honestly. Do people not have friends who are mortified by that sort of behavior? Do a-holes all run in a similarly a-holish pack? Heckling: only appropriate if you're funnier than the comic, and this girl wasn't by a wide-ass margin.

So back to the cruddy week: I was supposed to be in my virtual PHR prep class last night, but I've been having a lot of trouble engaging with it, in large part because the chat option allows for students to talk and ask questions and be disruptive throughout the entire class, and the virtual professor* contributes by addressing the nonstop nattering in real-time. So when Kate (here is her blog, in case you want to marvel at mind-blowing cakes) mentioned that she wished I didn't have to go to class, because she could use happy hour, I responded by saying I was declaring Thursday a Ditch Day... much like our early halcyon days of youth in England, where I was finishing out my college career and routinely tried to be a bad influence on Kate's earnest studying ways.

So we went out and had a bottle of wine and some rich creamy cheese and parmesan garlic frites, which went into my Lose It with broad guesstimates--I had to picture pouring each of my cute little glasses of wine in a Big Gulp to determine how many fluid oz I drank--and I walked home from Montrose and Ravenswood and went to the gym and put in some time on the elliptical, but I'm pretty sure I was still significantly over. And as Kate wisely mentioned, calorie counting is great for losing weight, but there's a fine line where it can become an unhealthy mindset. Even as I work hard and continue to lose weight, I never want to lose my connection with indulging in triple-cream cheeses and something fried once in a while. I'm a sturdy Midwestern gal and, as one former coworker described me, a "cheese freak," and if I'm not feeding the creamery co-op milk tank once in a while, I'm afraid the Wisconsin will seep right out of me.

Besides, we didn't finish the frites. There's something to be said for making the decision to let an indulge come to a natural end.

By the way, I'm not letting Kate off the hook for this, despite her current crabbiness at herself: I read her interview over at K-Town's booger a few days ago, along with the very funniest person I know's, to give myself a little stay-the-course pep talk, and I find Kate's words alternately inspirational and pragmatic. It really helped me to remind myself that it's all about choices and control and health and happiness. And I'm not just saying that because she paid for happy hour last night (wokka wokka).

*Not Max Headroom, sadly... and I realize that by referencing Max Headroom, I date myself in a very, very inescapable manner.

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I begin week 7 on Couch to 5K tonight. No looking back: it's all "run a bunch of minutes without walking" from here on out. So if that's the case, it was only logical to sign up for my first 5K this morning. Get ready, world! Get ready to see my beet-red face sweating all over Ravenswood! Mike and Kate and I are going to run it and then go and get pancakes (as God intended).

I'm going to add some tracks (or as the kids call them "traxx") to my running playlist tonight to try and spice it up and get some motivation. Aim has been terrible/great about making some recommendations, which I will add to my #1 goal of adding the Joe Esposito number from The Karate Kid. My running playlist is a mish-mash of grrrl power! (Britney and P!nk and Garbage), Folk/Americana (Avett Brothers and Emmylou Harris), R&B/rap (Salt 'n' Pepa and Michael Jackson and Ini Kamoze?) and recommendations I never would have found thanks to blahmanda (Japandroids and...that one song I downloaded, "Burn," and I can't remember the name of the artist, but they're pretty great), but I dig it, and it's been a great motivator when I need it most, ill-timed Vangelis aside.

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My plans for the weekend are to have a morning of fitness with Kate on Saturday, see Aziz Ansari and go to Uncommon Ground in Rogers Park Saturday night, and hopefully BodyFit, then bumming around on Sunday, catching up with Justified and Southland and The Americans.

In the meantime, I will also be taking several pictures of my latest foster, Tux, aka Mr. Alley Cat. In a household full of bulky to muffiny housecats, Tux is a lean machine from the streets. He was fascinated by the terlet, which suggests he is just now seeing the inside of a house. Tux was in the L2 room, which is reserved for kitties who have a bite history, are afraid of/don't do well with children, or have super high energy levels (I like to think of it as Miss Plum Marie's Home for Discipline Cases and Jerkwads... but that's just me). After two days at my apartment, Tux's energy level seems normal for his age... he probably just needed a little more space to roam in, what with his scrappy Ellis Island-and-into-Hell's-Kitchen beginnings. He's a total lovebug, and E. Edward is determined to make friends, despite Tux's reluctance. I realize my booger posts have been pretty void of pictures, so perhaps I'll work on getting one or two into the next one.

PS My kitteny foster, Mr. Otter, is now available for adoption. I am going to go and see him over my lunch hour. I imagine he will be gone by the time the adoption center closes on Saturday. He's a bundle of personality.