Weekend

It's early on Saturday morning. I couldn't sleep anymore so I got up and came outside to sit on my patio wrapped in a blanket. It's sixty degrees outside but feels like downright winter compared to the ninety-five of this week. The dogs are finding sunny patches of grass to wrestle in. Somewhere, church bells are ringing to mark the hour. The dog nextdoor who looks like Charlotte's Elizabeth Taylor is yapping. It's a pleasant time. Just waiting for my boyfriend to wake up. Making a playlist for this weekend's 45-minute run. I lay in bed awake last night stressing about it. The longest I've ever run is 38 minutes. I skipped last weekend's 41-minute run because we were out of town. I know I can do it. I put Tracy Chapman singing "Don't you know you better run run run run run run run run run run run ru-un?" on there for the first time. Tracy and this cool air will help me along, I think.

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Now it's Sunday evening. The dogs are chowing down on some treats. I'm back on the patio. It's cool again. The birds are chirping. The puppies in the next yard are frolicking. It's nice to be outside and to be alive.

I had my 45-minute run yesterday. It felt surprisingly easy. I didn't know if it was the beautiful day or being outside or what but it wasn't nearly as difficult as running inside on the treadmill is. We went back in the car to clock the mileage of my route and it was 3.15 miles. Which explains why it didn't feel so difficult. Because I was taking, like, 15 minutes to run each mile. Which feels sort of pathetic, but it also felt great. I wasn't straining or feeling miserable. Maybe I should slow down on the treadmill, too. Who knows?

It was a nice, relaxing weekend. On Friday evening, we went to a restaurant written up in a local magazine to check it out. I'm glad to know there is such a restaurant (authentic Latin American food, not Tex-Mex) in town, but I don't think we'll be going back. It wasn't so tasty. On Saturday morning, we split an apple cinnamon scone and a blueberry muffin and went to the library. We played Scrabble outside at the coffee shop. I broke 300, and he scored ridiculously higher than that as usual. We checked out several Yucatan travel guides at the library, so I pored over those during the game. One of the books came with a map so we studied it and tried to figure out our route and how many nights we'll stay in each place and so forth. I'm really looking forward to it. (We're only spending one night in Cancun and want to stay somewhere fancy. Does anyone have any experience there with the Ritz, Le Meridien, J.W. Marriott, or the Fiesta Americana Grand Coral Beach?) For dinner, we got Thai take-out and then watched Thank You for Smoking. Which was good but not great. Katie Holmes was highly irritating. Joanie Stubbs was unrecognizable.

This morning, it was another scone and another muffin and the Sunday paper and last night's Ebert and Roeper, featuring a shockingly annoying guest reviewer. Richard Roeper possibly tried but ultimately failed to disguise his contempt for her idiocy. (Speaking of guest hosts, folks at The View, please do not hire Shon Gables full-time. She is very unlikeable. Her questions to Meg Tilly were jarring and downright insulting. She talks too much and comes across as totally fake. Bad move, The View! Please.)

This afternoon, I trimmed a bunch of bushes outside in the yard and scrubbed bathtub grout. It was not so fun. Then I watched Sorry Haters, which was disturbing but very good. Sometimes I can't believe how talented an actress Princess Buttercup turned out to be.

Oh, and Battlestar Galactica! Of course we watched the season premiere. (To follow: nothing super spoilery, but it's vaguely spoilery.) I am really having trouble not laughing every time Fat Apollo's giant head appears onscreen. I thought the season premiere was great. It's a big adjustment, though. The show has changed so much since the beginning. I'm not really used to the beards, the bloat, and all of the changes. I still love it, though, and I'm so glad to be finally watching it on actual TV for the first time.

I must now retire and read Introducing ... Sasha Abramowitz.