Catching up

Woooo-weeeee!  It has been busy around here.  What is it about September that always rushes by?  Or maybe the world just seems to be rushing by because I've been spending so much time running lately!  On September 8th, I completed the Wurst Tri Ever my second triathlon of the year and my longest to date.  A cold front came through through about an hour before the race began and made the temperatures perfect, but the wind pretty intense.  That's definitely a trade-off I'll take!

Veronica and I decided to compete in this tri for one reason and one reason only - the slide!  This is a way more fun way to start a race than clinging to the side of a pool until someone says go.  The slide drops you into a 70 degree spring-fed pool.  I was ready for it to be cold, but for some reason I wasn't expecting the pool to be full of plants (I even found some stuck to me when I hit the showers after).  After the swim, we took off on a very hilly bike ride with 15 mph headwinds for the first 7 miles.  Luckily it was an out and back loop (with lots of pretty farmlands and cows), so I flew on the return with the wind at my back.  By the time I got to the run, I was cruising.  The weather was gorgeous and some young deer ran with me for a few blocks!  

A few days later, my cousin Abbie was in town for business so we took her out to dinner at La Fonda on Main.  It's San Antonio's oldest Mexican restaurant and has a fantastic patio.  The weather has finally cooled down enough that we can eat outside again.  It's a weird quirk of south Texas weather that fall through spring is our outdoor eating season.  It was so great to catch up with Abbie, I wish we got the chance to see each other more often.  (Notice our cousin synchronicity - we showed up to dinner wearing the same necklace.)

Last Friday we did something I wish we did more often - see (and in Geoff's case, play) live music.  There are plenty of opportunities to see shows any night of the week, but it took an old friend from the Ataris coming to town to get us out of the house.  There were a couple great local bands opening up, the beer was cheap, and the bar was Stanley Kubrick-themed.  (You can watch a video of Geoff playing base on their last song, here).

I took it easy because Saturday mornings are my longest runs - 7 miles this week - in training for the half marathon. I have mostly been running along the Riverwalk, starting and ending at the farmer's market where I can pick up some produce, locally roasted coffee, and a breakfast burrito.  This week there was even a great rockabilly band playing while I stretched.  (If you want to donate to SBTX in support of my half-marathon, and get an entry in my custom-knit raffle here's the link.)

I've been trying to make some protein-packed snacks lately including these protein-poppers for before runs.  For mid-afternoon snacking, I made some homemade crackers and white bean dip.  The dip is super easy - cooked or canned white beans, lots of lightly toasted garlic, thyme, rosemary, and red pepper flakes thinned out the richest chicken stock you can get your hands on.  Good, healthy, and quick.  Okay, I think you're caught up now!  I'll be back soon, I promise.

Sweettooth Premiere!

We took a trip to State College a few weeks ago so that Geoff could premiere the Thai Honeymoon CD, "Sweet Tooth."  The CD is fantastic and you can listen to it for free here or download the full album for just $5.  The cover art was done by Geoff's incredibly talented friend Brian Stannard.

We got in on Tuesday night and on Wednesday we climbed Mt. Nittany before Geoff headed to band practice and I went to campus to meet with some collaborators.  We reminisced about the first time we climbed Mt. Nittany together.  It was a particularly warm day in January 2007 a few months after we started dating.  Classes hadn't started for the spring semester and town was deserted.  Afterwards we caught a matinee and were the only ones in the theater.  Oh, memories.

Thai Honeymoon premiered their album on Thursday night at the Darkhorse and it was so much fun!  The set was great and everyone loved the album (seriously, go listen to it).  Lots of our friends from State College came out and we had a great time.  On Friday, a huge storm rolled through the valley which I loved.  I adore thunderstorms and we have been living through the most severe drought since the 1950s.  That night, all of our East Coast friends drove to town (plus a very special guest from Mexico City).

On Saturday morning, my friend Clara and I went to the lake (her parents came too).  We had lots of fun splashing in the water while wearing our matching swimwear.  We built a sandcastle and ate peanut butter sandwiches before both us needed a nap.  (There was a little too much celebrating the arrival of our friends the night before.)

On Saturday night, our friend Brownbird Rudy Relic and Thai Honeymoon opened for a Wilcox Hotel reunion set at the Darkhorse.  It reminded me so much of the spring of 2008 when Wilcox Hotel played at least one night a week and usually two.  Geoff rocked so hard that he ripped open a callus on his hand and sprayed blood all over his guitar.  We had to wonder what the TSA agent thought when they opened this case.

Seeing all of our friends - almost all of whom have ended up back within an 8 hour drive of each other - was a wonderful treat and made us a little homesick for our lives back in State College.  However, we also realized that we are really happy with our life in Texas and that leaving State College was part of moving forward!  Luckily, we have lots of friends all over the country to visit.

End of Summer

The end of summer has been a little unusual for me this year.  For the past 25 years, summer has ended when I either started classes or started teaching.  For the first time in my memory, neither of those things is happening this September.  Nevertheless, the nights are getting colder and fall is most decidedly around the corner.  To cap off my summer, I had an AMAZING Labor Day weekend.

On Saturday morning, I got up at 8:30 to catch a bus down to the football stadium for my first ever Penn State football game which I felt was something that I just had to experience before I left.  My awesome friend Tracy had an extra ticket and took me along to the pre-game and post-game tailgate hosted by a friend of hers.  The noon game meant that the pre-game tailgating involved cinnamon rolls baked in a propane-fueled oven on the back of a pick-up truck.  And don't think that we were the only ones tail-gating at 9am.  Penn State fans are nothing if not dedicated.  The stadium (which seats well over 100,000 individuals) was about 3/4 full for this game but that still means that 75,000 people were there!

It was chilly and windy but we had a great time watching Penn State win 44-7 over the Youngstown State Penguins.  I never did figure out where they got that mascot.  The Star Trek tribute at half time was particularly awesome.

After the game, more tailgating, this time with burgers and beers.  Then I had to head home to get ready for Laurel's birthday party and the Wilcox Hotel Reunion show!!!!  Laurel loves animals and so I made her some birthday cookies with woodland creatures cookie cutters I found at IKEA.

I took the pictures quickly on the way out the door so if you can't tell there is a moose, a squirrel, a bear, a wolf, a snail, and a porcupine.  My favorite is the porcupine because of how I was able to make the spines.  If I have more time to devote to these cookie cutters in the future, I'll definitely want to add more details, but I sort of enjoy the simplicity of just the plain icing and eyes.

 The Wilcox Hotel show was phenomenal.  So many of our friends were back in town and I think we were all purely euphoric.  The rough thing about any college town is that most people are transitory and so most of my good friends from Penn State have already moved on to other jobs all over the country.  Having so many of them back and hearing Wilcox play took me back to Spring 2008 when we were all together and going to Wilcox shows twice a week.  Is it weird to be nostalgic for two years ago?  I didn't get many good pictures, but everyone had a phenomenal time.  It sounded something like this:

I forget how spoiled I am to always have Geoff around playing music and in particular to get to go watch him play great music like this with our awesome friends who I love and miss.  We didn't get to see them for long enough as almost everyone left on Sunday, but our friend Maria is in town from Mexico for a while so we got to hang out on Monday for a relaxed evening of grilling and bocce.  A great end to a fantastic weekend.