Long day. I might write about it tomorrow.
In the meantime, I've put some new tunes up in the widget:
Big Chief by Dr. John and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band
Tipitina by Professor Longhair
New Second Line by the Olympia Brass Band
Eh Petit Fille by Clifton Chenier
When all else fails, and you're tired and a little frustrated, you might as well put on some good music and shake it a little.
Showing posts with label my travel-related obsessive compulsive disorder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my travel-related obsessive compulsive disorder. Show all posts
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Monday, January 05, 2009
We need to get away
It's only the fifth day of the new year and I'm already struck with a bad case of cabin fever. We were successful in clearing out all the Christmas decorations right away, and the tree is out at the curb as I type this. I'm eager for 2009 to be a more active year than 2008, but it's hard to warm the body up to run when it's 8 degrees outside.
One of the things we've been doing to pass the time is think about how to use an airline voucher that we have. It's the result of canceling our Las Vegas trip in December since I was too fat, achy and under-trained to run in the Las Vegas Half Marathon like I did the year before. We have to book something by April.
Book what? We both want to go somewhere warmer than Chicago, that's for sure. Well, one thing led to another and I started looking at last-minute deals for all-inclusive resorts in Mexico. The idea of flying in and living in a hermetically sealed tourist bubble for 4 or 5 nights, lying on the beach and soaking in rum, sounds pretty good right now. We've never done anything like that before.
Then I saw a video teaser for the new season of No Reservations. My celebrity lookalike and travel hero Anthony Bourdain visits Mexico in the first episode, and here he is eating fresh tacos from a street vendor:
Dang. I can't have adventures among the street vendors if I'm shacked up at some resort, now, can I? I do know that I want beach if I go to Mexico, and I won't be visiting any place like Mexico City. So I started looking around at smaller places near Playa del Carmen and Tulum, and found a bunch of places that look like perfect tropical hideaways, complete with thatched roofs, white sand beaches, mosquito netting over the beds and food cooked from the local catch.
MizBubs has a birthday coming up at the end of February, and I wanted to time a trip around that. Now I'm learning all I can about Mexican tourism. Right now my choice is this:
1) Be a typical American tourist and stay in an all-inclusive resort, eating, lounging in the sun and boozing it up for one pre-paid price, or
2) Be a slightly less typical American tourist and stay somewhere a little less developed, ignore my total lack of Spanish language skills, and rely on my innate ability to find good food and booze in local shacks and dives.
In the meantime I'm going to stretch some more, ice up my lower back again, and try a short run before I go to work this afternoon.
One of the things we've been doing to pass the time is think about how to use an airline voucher that we have. It's the result of canceling our Las Vegas trip in December since I was too fat, achy and under-trained to run in the Las Vegas Half Marathon like I did the year before. We have to book something by April.
Book what? We both want to go somewhere warmer than Chicago, that's for sure. Well, one thing led to another and I started looking at last-minute deals for all-inclusive resorts in Mexico. The idea of flying in and living in a hermetically sealed tourist bubble for 4 or 5 nights, lying on the beach and soaking in rum, sounds pretty good right now. We've never done anything like that before.
Then I saw a video teaser for the new season of No Reservations. My celebrity lookalike and travel hero Anthony Bourdain visits Mexico in the first episode, and here he is eating fresh tacos from a street vendor:
Dang. I can't have adventures among the street vendors if I'm shacked up at some resort, now, can I? I do know that I want beach if I go to Mexico, and I won't be visiting any place like Mexico City. So I started looking around at smaller places near Playa del Carmen and Tulum, and found a bunch of places that look like perfect tropical hideaways, complete with thatched roofs, white sand beaches, mosquito netting over the beds and food cooked from the local catch.
MizBubs has a birthday coming up at the end of February, and I wanted to time a trip around that. Now I'm learning all I can about Mexican tourism. Right now my choice is this:
1) Be a typical American tourist and stay in an all-inclusive resort, eating, lounging in the sun and boozing it up for one pre-paid price, or
2) Be a slightly less typical American tourist and stay somewhere a little less developed, ignore my total lack of Spanish language skills, and rely on my innate ability to find good food and booze in local shacks and dives.
In the meantime I'm going to stretch some more, ice up my lower back again, and try a short run before I go to work this afternoon.
Friday, November 30, 2007
The countdown continues...
I just finished my last training run, a quick 3 miler. The starting temperature was 29, and what kind of Chicagoan would I be if I didn't throw in the wind chill factor, huh? That made it feel like 19.
It felt good. For some reason this felt like a particularly powerful run. And why, I wondered, was that?
Was it the power of the Elvis hair (even if it was suppressed by a cap during the run)
Was it the powerful new tights?
Or, more likely, was it my good luck mutt, Duffy, who was waiting to see me when I got home?
It felt good. For some reason this felt like a particularly powerful run. And why, I wondered, was that?
Was it the power of the Elvis hair (even if it was suppressed by a cap during the run)
Was it the powerful new tights?
Or, more likely, was it my good luck mutt, Duffy, who was waiting to see me when I got home?
Now it's time for laundry, some housecleaning and packing before the youngest gets home from school and MizBubs gets home from work. Then it's time to try on the full Elvis suit. I'm not sure if I'm ready for it yet.
TCB!
TCB!
Counting down
Ok, so we didn't solve the murder we were working on yet...but we're going to. These things take time. Damn you, videotaped statements. I had hoped to be celebrating clearing that case before I headed for Las Vegas, but real life lately has frequently refused to adjust to my timetable. But that will not stop me from having a good time. No sir. Today is the first of 11 days away from work, and I aim to enjoy them all.
Middle age male vanity is a powerful and ridiculous force. Part of tonight was spent dying my hair in order to achieve the proper Elvis color for Sunday's run. MizBubs, girl dynamo, altered my gold lame jacket and got the sleeves to the proper length. I picked up some extra Body Glide at the running store this afternoon, and solved the pants problem. Pants problem? Yeah, it turns out that the gold lame pants that came with the jacket really aren't suited to running. MizBubs, girl genius, suggested that I hit the thrift shops and find some black pants to run in--turns out Elvis only wore the full lame suit a couple of times before ripping the pants, and most of the times he performed in the gold lame jacket he wore black pants as a result. I hit the jackpot--I found two pairs of black pants at the Wings resale shop! One is a comfortable loose-fitting old pair of shiny black dress pants, high-wasted and pleated, and the other is actually a pair of Nike black running pants. I have all day tomorrow to decide.
I went to the library and got some Elvis material for inspiration. While my hair turned color and MizBubs sewed her pretty fingers to the bone we watched the first two disks of Elvis--The Great Performances, which was chock-full of very cool early footage of the King.
And now it's time for bed.
TCB!
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