Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Foxfield

Last weekend I had the pleasure of driving down to Charlottesville, Virginia with some of my girlfriends to attend the Foxfield horse races. I was thinking that it would be very Kentucky Derby with sundresses and mint julips.



Well, everyone was dressed nice, but it was more frat party than anything. I have never seen so many intoxicated people! The group I came with was pretty tame, though, and we had a great time.


Even when it started to pour down rain the last hour, we just hopped in my SUV and made the best of it. It was great to get away for the weekend.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

A day in the life

A little blog about how lazy and impatient I've become in this automated world.

I walk out to my car every morning in just about the same way. I'm usually carrying way too much stuff but I hate making two trips so I deal with it. I reach for my keyless entry (which is always at the bottom of my purse) and try to unlock everything before I drop something important and probably breakable. Once in my car, I turn on the radio with the steering wheel controls (where I can also adjust the AC and cruise control), put in my hands-free ear piece for my blackberry and I'm off to work.

Once I get to the hospital, I park my car in the garage and go inside through the automatic doors. They almost don't open because I walk too fast for the sensor. I always hesitate a minute to make sure they are indeed open so I don't smack myself in the face (I'm not going to say if that has ever happened before). Then I have to wait (way too long!) for one of the two very slow elevators to go up to, yes, the second floor. I'm on the first.

At some point in the day I use the restroom. And yes, they are automatic toilets with automatic flushing and automatic sinks and hand dryers. If the door to the restroom was on a sensor, you could get in and out without touching anything! In an OCD person's perfect world ...

Some times I think I should go out to the mountains for a few days like that kid in "Into The Wild" and learn to live without anything modern. I think it would be eye-opening for me to see how we could survive without all these conveniences.

Then again, he died at the end of that movie.

I'll stick with being lazy and impatient.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Happy Birthday to ME

Last weekend, Saturday actually, I turned the ripe old age of 27. It's strange to me and even as I type this I can't believe how fast the years have gone by. I feel like just yesterday I was hanging out in the choir room with Annalise talking about how excited we were to be in senior musical and how we couldn't wait to graduate.

That was eight years ago ...

It's fun to look back some times and see how things have changed. I went off to college and then moved 1400 miles away from everything I knew. Annalise moved right after graduation and now lives in Utah. She just started cooking school. I haven't seen her since the year 2000, but one of these days we'll hang out. And maybe she'll cook me dinner. :-)

My party last weekend was a blast! I had about 30 of my friends come over to the house to hang out and celebrate with me. The attire was 1940's style it was great to see people get into it. We even had one guy in a zoot suit!


Stu got a cookie monster pinata. I tried to break it but couldn't so he had to step in. Now the cookie monster is headless and sitting in my foyer - it's a little morbid. It was a great time.


I have to admit that I was feeling a little down about being 3 years away from 20-10 but Stu said I had nothing to worry about. It helps that he'll be turning 34 in a couple of months. It makes me feel young.


So here's to another year gone by ... I'm so happy to be 27 and not 17. Every year gets better and better and I can't wait to see how this year turns out.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Run, Shani, Run!

This past weekend I ran in the annual Cherry Blossom 10-mile Race. It was a beautiful course through Washington, DC along streets lined with cherry trees in full bloom. There were about 10,000 runners and a ton of spectators who came out for the event.

I had my own little cheering section - Anne and Stu got up at 5:30 to metro into DC with me and watch me run. The race started at around 8 AM and I finished around 9:40 AM. My official time was 1 hour 37 mins giving me a pace of 9 mins 44 seconds. Not bad for my first race!


The weather that morning was about fifty degrees with light rain. I thought it would be hard for me to run in the temperature (I trained mostly on a treadmill indoors) but the weather didn't slow me down. The hardest part about the race was finding a little space to run. Because there were so many runners, there was a lot of moving around to find the right position and not bump into anyone. Miles 5 and 6 were probably my hardest, but I didn't stop (wahoo!) and Anne and Stu were at the end to snap a few pictures.


To celebrate the day, Anne and Brian and Stu took me to get pancakes. They were awesome! The perfect indulgence after running so far.

I think I will run again - perhaps a half marathon. But I'm not going to think about that for a few weeks. My knees need a break!