tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

We had the most fantastic weekend visiting my cousins in Virginia Beach – but of course, I knew that would happen since it is impossible to not have an awesome time with them. (Side Note: IA, you guys have to come visit and meet them. You will fall in love).

Matt and Amy were supposed to come down with us, but Amy’s rabbit got sick and she ended up staying home to take care of him. I believe the rabbit is now better. So it ended up just Matt coming down. We left Friday at 5.30pm and arrived at a little after 9pm, and there was no traffic which was great. There was terrible traffic going West on 64 though. Lucky us!

We arrived as Christopher and Dee just finished dinner. We immediately opened the bottle of red wine I brought and had a nice chat…and then opened another bottle of wine and finished our chat, finally getting to bed around midnight. Yes, they are my blood relatives, why do you ask? Hmm yes, I do believe our blood is actually mostly wine…

Anyway, Matt arrived Saturday morning and we made a huge English breakfast. You will note that food is the main star of this weekend.

A little background. Christopher is my mother’s first cousin, and though they have lived here for over 30 years, still retain strong English accents. They live in an amazing house on the bay, complete with an in-ground pool, a dock and a brand new jet ski. They are both fabulous cooks and it is impossible to not eat a ton of delicious meals at their house, and if you have never met them before, you will promptly fall in love with them and try to adopt them as your own family. They were by far the biggest hit at our wedding, and every single one of my friends want to come and spend a weekend with them, which of course they are all invited to do.

Anyway, after our huge breakfast we headed down to the boardwalk for the Neptune festival. We ended up walking 6 miles up and down the boardwalk, looking at the sand sculptures and craft booths. We had an enormous lunch at the only 5 star restaurant in VA Beach. Aaron’s clam and mussel dishes were absolutely phenomenal. Everything was good, but those were a standout.

We went home and napped to ensure we would have enough energy for our sushi dinner. I require a trip to Sakura every time I go down there, as they have the best sushi ever, and since C&D go there so often they know all the chefs and we get the biggest cuts of fish and free dessert. We followed dinner with a trip to One Fish, Two Fish, another fancy restaurant, where we sat at the bar, had another bottle of wine and two incredible chocolate desserts. So. Freaking. Good.

This morning Matt took Archie (the dog) out on the jet ski, which is the fastest 3 seater jet ski they make, and he got it up to 68 mph! The dog was loving it. As soon as you get out his little doggy life jacket, he starts crying and whining and his little stumpy tail wags his whole body. He’s the happiest when his ears are flying straight back as he’s cruising the bay!

For lunch we had the infamous Chrissy Burgers, a secret family recipe so secret even I am not allowed to know all the ingredients, but the main ingredient is the highest quality ground sirloin you can get. I did see him add some panang curry paste and English mustard powder as well. There was tons of other food – garlic smashed potatoes, horseradish crushed beets, salad, brie, and of course, wine.

After that we headed home and got stuck in some traffic but still made it home in 3.5 hours. Luckily again, there was a 10 mile backup going south on 95 as we came home. Craziness!

Oh and I finally got Christopher to burn a cd of the pictures he took at our ceremony and reception, and he got some amazing shots. They are up at our photo blog now. I’ll add pics from the weekend soon too.

I can’t wait to go back!

I’ve been dutifully wearing my BodyBugg since I got it, and it’s been quite enlightening. Most interesting to me was seeing my BMR. I had my BMR tested using the Body Gem (or something like that) at my gym at work, and it said I burn 1790 calories just existing, and it could tell this just from me breathing into it for 10 minutes. Now if I calculate my BMR using the online calculators, someone at my height and weight should burn (an average) of 1500 calories just existing. I assume because I have more muscle, my metabolism is higher than expected.

It was nice to see the BodyBugg confirm this higher BMR – the first day I got it I was working from home and just sat around all day and burned about 1800 calories.

I compared three workouts: jogging, HIT on elliptical, and weight lifting. I burned the most calories jogging, next was HIT and finally weight lifting. What I would like to do is get three good weight lifting days in and see if my resting calorie burn goes up a measurable amount. I know lifting raises your metabolism for longer than cardio does, but I am not sure if it’s an amount measurable by the Bugg.

Another interesting thing I noticed is that you can see my nightmares in my calorie burn. The other night I had some bad dreams and my calories fluctuated all night. Then you could see at 4.30am when the cat woke me up and I spiked. Last night I don’t remember dreaming but I know my sleep was not entirely peaceful by my calorie burn.

I’ve been having a decent calorie deficit this week, and I have lost a little weight since I started wearing it, so so far I’m pleased with the purchase. It definitely helps you stop from overindulging when you know you have to account for your calories at the end of the day! All those little bites really add up.

You know how commercials always lie to you? Toyota so doesn’t make me want to jump for joy. Snickers doesn’t really satisfy. And all those other commercials that show the consumer deliriously happy with their mediocre product.

Well, have you seen the commercials for the Bloom grocery store? I guess all the Food Lions turned into Bloom, or some such thing. I just skimmed the article, I don’t really know. Well anyway, in the commercials they make it out to seem like buying your groceries is a life-changing, euphoric event.

Yeah, right. Right?

Wrong, mo-fo! Bloom fcuking rocks!! I seriously walk around that store with a giant grin on my face. The produce! It’s actually fresh! Instead of sitting in moldy plastic bins, the apples are displayed in cute little terra cotta bowls! The onions aren’t all rotten in the middle, like the ones at Giant! We had some Bloom steaks tonight and they were really good. Mostly, the store was clean. Ahhhh.

The coolest thing is that you can take a little scanner with you and as you put stuff in your bag, you scan it, and then bring the scanner to the checkout line, they synch up and you pay the total. Just like that! I haven’t signed up for that yet, as I was in a rush today, but I am so going to. It’s even better than weighing your own produce at Wegman’s!

Yes, these are the things that excite me at this point in my life. Shut up, I’m happy. Finally.

I’m finally getting around to listening to Some Mad Hope, the new Matt Nathanson cd. I love this guy. I first saw him at Iota in Arlington when he opened for Dan Bern, and he absolutely blew me away. Even if you don’t like his music, you have to go see him perform just because he is so freaking funny when he performs. He has the best stories, ever.
I saw him again in San Francisco when I was there for the Java One conference (yes, I’m a geek, whatever). He remembered me from the Iota show, which I thought was cool. He is nice, funny, adorable. And his music rocks.

Of course now he’s too big for Iota and he’s playing the 930 club instead. I would love to go see him there. I have an aversion to going into DC on the weekends now though, and I’m not sure I can convince Aaron or anyone else to go see his show with me. Well hmmm I think Matt saw him with me at Iota when he was headlining…that might be an option.

Anyway, I highly suggest you check him out.

One of the things I miss most about Chicago is Malt-O-Meal.

I have stopped asking people around here if they have ever heard of Malt-O-Meal, much less scanning the shelves at the grocery store for that lovely red and yellow box.

(Is it even red and yellow? It’s been so long that I’ve forgotten.) 

My guess is it doesn’t get cold enough down here to necessitate the soul-warming hot wheat cereal. Sad, really. Maybe Denver will come through for me…

I still remember the commercial where a little boy eats a steaming bowl of Malt-O-Meal for breakfast, then piles on all his snow gear, leaving only his face exposed,  grabs his sled and heads outside. Then immediately turns around and asks his mom, “Can I have some more Malt-O-Meal, please?”

Because it is that damn cold outside. But Malt-O-Meal will prepare you. Sometimes it just takes two bowls.

Ah, I remember bowls of M-O-M exploding in the microwave, hardening to a shell impossible to clean if you let it sit too long. Or made on the stove, topped off with milk and spoonfuls of brown sugar. Sometimes I would put in so much sugar it would turn a deep brown. You could use less milk to have it thicker, or more milk so it was more soupy.  Good times.

Good times.

UPDATE: Not much of a surprise, but IA, being from Indiana, a state which is also familiar with the bone-chilling cold, has heard of the wonderful goodness. AND I just checked the M-O-M site and they have so many new products! 100 Calorie Snack Packs of…Malt-O-Meal?? Weird, but I’ll take it. I mean, if I could get it…

I seriously hate Starbucks.

They have the gall to charge 30 cents more for a coffee than every other shop in the area, and yet, their coffee consistently tastes burned. I hate that I didn’t have time to go to the smaller coffee shop around the corner which sells fair trade coffee, and I had to pay more for inferior beans this morning.

But that’s not the real reason I hate them.

Why, with the amount of technology available at our fingertips, or rather their fingertips, given they make money hand over fist, why oh why can they not come up with a lid that does not leak??

I will not claim that theirs is the only lid that leaks, however, their lid is the most flagrant offender. Every single time I get a coffee there, the lid starts to leak almost immediately. At first you think, yes, this will be the golden moment. This time I will not get hot coffee dripping all over my hand as I walk out of the store. I will take a sip and coffee will not drip onto my shirt.

But no. Every time, every single time, the lid leaks.

And yes, it’s my own fault for going back for more – I should just take the extra time to get the good coffee from the good place with the good, non-leaking lids.  Or I should bring my own lid. Or my own travel mug, and help save the environment just a little bit.

But I still think they should redesign their damn lids.

Am I the only person totally grossed out by the Domino’s commercial for the Oreo Dessert Pizza? During the commercial, a man and his son eat a slice of the ‘pizza’ and consequently grow an oreo beard. It starts out as an oreo mustache and with each bite grows more, into a goatee, and finally a full beard.

Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl. Only maggots revolt me more. The thought of an inanimate object somehow becoming…animate…and taking over your body like a parasite to a host and growing, growing growing until it takes over makes me want to throw up. Right on that stupid pizza.

It reminds me too much of Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher which I will forever regret reading as, years later, I still cannot get those images out of my head. I can’t even talk about what those images are. Read the book, if you dare. Then try to watch that commercial. Tell me if your skin doesn’t crawl.

Totally Gross.

Saturday was Aaron’s birthday, and I did not make fresh cinnamon rolls for him. The ones I made previously were just as delicious reheated – we decided it was too much temptation to have so many cinnamon rolls lying around the house. I did, however, make country ham biscuits. I even had one.

Then we went out for a hike. We did the shorter, yet more strenuous loop, then came home for a nap before dinner. I took him out to Morton’s for some delicious steak. His was marinated in cajun spices for 60 hours. Mine was plain jane, and wonderful. And yes, I ate the whole creme brulee myself. Yum. What? He ate his whole chocolate lava cake himself…

Then we came home and watched Tokyo Drift (Fast & Furious 3). I cannot say I recommend this ‘film’, but Aaron liked the cars and it was his birthday, so I didn’t even quit watching halfway through. I did, however, make a few snide comments. Ok, more than a few.

Today we went on another hike with Matt, Amy, Kelly, and Pat. We took the longer yet less-steep route, and were rewarded for our efforts with a beautiful view at the top of the mountain. Then we came home and grilled some burgers and chicken.

And now I am going to pass out. My legs are dead. Dead!

Since Aaron’s birthday is on a Saturday this year, instead of making him dinner, I’m going to take him out to dinner and make him breakfast. His desired menu is country ham biscuits and cinnamon rolls. Yes, folks, he is a Southern boy, through and through.

I recently perfected the country ham biscuit, apparently quite an accomplishment for a Yankee. Cinnamon Rolls, however, are new to me. But since I have a bread machine, it’s about time I master them.

I don’t like to take risks with birthday meals, so I usually make ‘practice’ cakes or what have you. And I didn’t want to ruin his birthday breakfast so last night I made a first run at Cinnamon Rolls. I used the Cinnabon Clone recipe at allrecipes.com and it was super easy.

And they were incredible.

Definitely better than store bought, but I don’t remember what a real Cinnabon one tastes like enough to compare them. Suffice to say that while I ate mine, I couldn’t stop saying, through gooey mouthfuls of cinnamon goodness, Oh my God. These are so good. These are so good!!!

There are two drawbacks, however. First, they took about 2.5 hours to make, so I don’t know that I will have them made for breakfast on Saturday, since we both like to sleep in, and we are going on a hike as soon as we get up. Second, they are around 400 calories each. Ouch. And it’s really hard to eat just one. Double ouch.

The plus side of being a Yankee is that I have no inbred instinctual love of biscuits, so I can skip those and have cereal or an egg white omelet for my breakfast, so I don’t completely destroy my calorie balance for the day.

Although, since we are going to Morton’s for his birthday dinner, that balance is going to be pretty much destroyed, anyway.

Mmmm cinnamon rolls…

In keeping with the theme of reading about Italy to get more into the culture when we are there, I just finished The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant. It is set in Florence in the late 1400’s, conveniently overlapping with the time frame of Basilica. There were no conflicts between the historical data, either, which was a pleasant surprise. It was cool to read the same story in both books about wealthy Romans throwing their dirty (silver) plates out in the river after dinner…but then later retrieving them, since they wanted to look so rich they didn’t care, but obviously they did (or they wouldn’t be so rich!).

I loved being immersed in the time period, and all the discussions about art and frescoes, and getting caught up in the passions and dramas. But the best part of the book by far was the prose – Dunant has such a lovely, flowing rhythm with her words. It was so soothing that I had trouble putting the book down. I just wanted to read more about all the characters – it was one of those books that you are truly sad to finish.

Even if you aren’t traveling to Italy in the near future, I can’t recommend this book enough.