#2050 three things: LEGOs, zingers and straws

1. Nature Connects at Red Butte Garden. Today I had the opportunity to take a guided tour of the Nature Connects exhibit that is opening on June 2 and staying through September 16 at the garden. There are 14 LEGO creations on display and they are all truly fantastic. I like the way the creations have been set up in different areas so they look like they belong there. RBG has planned several events to coincide with the exhibit. It's going to be a fun summer up there!

2. Zing! I have had an active exercise week. It started on Monday morning when I did a back-to-back workout of Strong and then Zumba. Between the two classes, it was just over 100 minutes of sweatiness. The Strong class made me sore. I work out pretty regularly, and I've taken Strong classes many times, but for some reason Monday's class totally wiped me out. I mean, I felt good at the time, but Monday night my legs, bum and back were tight and sore. On Tuesday I went to Zumba to try to work out the soreness. That helped. On Wednesday I went to Strong (different teacher). I felt ok, then during the warmup - THE WARMUP! - I felt a zing just under my right bum cheek. I actually reached back, grabbed my bum and shrieked a little. I made it through the class, but I was on a little slower speed than the rest of the group. I'm good now, but, wow. that was not fun.

3. No more straws. I drink a lot of water and I typically drink it from a 24 oz tumbler through a disposable single-use straw. I buy the straws from the grocery store and I use two or three straws a day. A few weeks ago I heard a story about how the U.K. was going to ban single-use straws because of the terrible island of plastic that is floating in the ocean. I decided I would try to drink water without a straw, but I found I wasn't drinking as much water if I didn't have a straw, so I went back to straws.
Today I heard a story on NPR that has made me vow to give up disposable straws forever.  They were talking about companies that are no longer going to provide plastic straws. They go on to talk about a sea turtle that had a plastic straw up its nose. (Here's a story about it from National Geographic.)

I have an affinity for turtles. I cannot bear to think that something I use could harm of my favorite animals, even though I don't live anywhere near an ocean. Hearing about the turtle with the straw in his nose made me immediately get on Amazon.com to buy reusable silicone straws (they will be here Saturday). When I go to McDonalds for my Diet Coke, I am going to start giving the straw back to them. I will bring my own straw from now on. I can't/won't be responsible to turtles with straws in their noses. 

That's all I got tonight! Talk to you Saturday! Hope y'all had a great May!

#2049 travel Tuesday: food memories

I don't think anyone I know is on vacation or is planning one right now. Maybe I spend too much time thinking about being on vacation: either thinking about somewhere I want to go or having a memory of somewhere that I have been and thinking of a special moment at a cool place.

Tonight I was thinking about meals I have had while on my travels. Usually it is not so much about the food itself, but the atmosphere and the company and occasionally the food sticks out as a good memory too.

It doesn't take much effort to put myself back at that restaurant near the beach in Sitges, Spain. The meal certainly was not the best meal I had on that trip, but sitting there with my mom and my sister, the sun warming my back, sipping sangria de cava is a damn fine memory.

Another favorite memory is having lunch on Palm Island. There were two restaurants on the island; one was private for guests only and the other was open to sailors who happened by the island. MT and I would wander down to that restaurant for lunch every now and then. They served delicious guacamole and delicious cheeseburgers. Talk about a cheeseburger in paradise!

Or how about that night in Barbados, sitting under the stars, listening to the sea waves break gently on the beach while we feasted on freshly caught Dorado, creamy mashed potatoes and a seriously good little salad?

I won't ever forget celebrating Lizzie's birthday at Emeril's Nola restaurant in New Orleans. The food was sublime (I didn't know a piece of fried chicken could be taste that amazing. Don't even get me started on that pepper jack mac & cheese.) And then there was the excellent service of Tall Paul. It was such a great night!

Every now and again, my mouth will water a little thinking about the shrimp BLT with avocado I had in Key West. Damn! That was a good sandwich! The restaurant was really cool, too, right on the water at the marina. It was fun watching the boats bobbing on the water as the sky darkened behind them with the impending rain storm.

Shrimp faijitas in Cozumel.

Surf and turf on the cruise ship, washed down with cava.

Lobster quesadillas on Isla Mujeres and cold cold Sol beer.

Okay. I'm done for tonight. Memories will tide me over until my next adventure.

#2048 a crease in my vision and other stuff

I missed writing on Friday because I was so exceptionally tired that I was in bed by 9PM. Saturday was busy as it usually is. The day started with WW (down 2 lbs!), then breakfast with MT followed by my weekly stint at Red Butte Garden.

Then something went wrong. When I got into my car to drive home, something was wrong with my vision. It was like there was a wrinkle or a crease in the vision of my left eye. It's hard to explain but I'll try. There was a street sign for Sunnyside Ave. I saw it like something like this:

Sunny

                Side

The space in between the words was a bright line. It was awful and it freaked me out. While I was having this vision crease, I developed a raging headache. 

A couple blocks up from Sunnyside Avenue is a gas station. I needed to get some gas, so I pulled in and filled up. While I was getting the gas, the vision crease went away, but the headache did not. I was glad the vision was back to normal, though.

When I got home, I felt a little better, thankfully. MT and I went to see Solo: A Star Wars Story. I totally loved it. The movie was super-entertaining. The actors were all good looking. There was good action and it followed the Star Wars lore.  

After the movie we went to dinner and my headache came back with a vengeance. I think it had been there all along, but was in the background. By the time we finished eating, the pain was intense and raging. I described how I was feeling to MT and about the vision crease and he thought it might be a migraine. Whatever it was, it was terrible. We came home, I took some ibuprofen and went straight to bed. I slept hard all night but when I got up this morning, I still felt dizzy and headachy. 

Over the course of the day I felt better. I did some stuff around the house and took it easy. It's cool that there is another day off because I still have a bunch of things on my to-do list to take care of. 

Here's hoping I wake up feeling great tomorrow!

#2047 on my mind

My mind is running around with a jillion different thoughts.

                                                       We were happy that Wendell won Survivor.

             It rained again today.  
                                                  Does Osi have foxtails in her feet? I've got to check for that.

  Part of my heart is in Provo.

                                                                                            Tomorrow is Thursday!!

   I got a stand-up desk at work. Trendy, I am.
                   

TOMORROW IS MT'S BIRTHDAY!

                Man, I have got to do some cleaning around this house.

                                                                                                          I need a pedicure.

                                                                                                       And my eyebrows need some love.

  Everything is fine. I got 10,000 steps in today.

                                   Don't forget to get the steak out of the freezer.

                                                   I want to hit some golf balls.

                                                                      Maybe I'll ride my bike on Sunday.

    I want to see Solo!

                               I should be in bed.

                                                            I hate the word "should". 

#2046 a wet walk

I went up to Red Butte Garden this evening after work to record blooms. I've been going on Thursday, but this Thursday is MT's birthday, so we're going to hang out. Tonight was the best night for me to go. It was warm and partly cloudy with a little breeze, so it was pretty much perfect weather.

After recording all the blooms I could find in the Children's Garden, I decided to take a walk around the rest of the place. Why wouldn't I? The clouds had gathered and there were some sprinkles, but nothing uncomfortable or too wet.

I made my way up to the top of the Water Conservation Garden. I stopped to look at the sky over to the south over the Wasatch Mountains. It was dark gray with big fat dark thunderclouds. Behind me, to the north, the sun was shining, so it was quite the dichotomy of weather.

About that time a super-cute gardener rolled up on his cool cart thing. He saw me looking up at the sky and said, "It's fresh up here, isn't it?" I said, "Yeah and I think we're about to get wet." He nodded just as the sprinkles started getting bigger and more frequent. Pretty soon it was pouring. I was making my way down the mountain, but I was getting good and wet. I'm glad there wasn't any lightning as I was walking - that started when I was in my car.

Silver lining: it smelled awesome up there!

As I drove down into the valley, the rain that was so heavy on the east side tapered out as I got to the middle of the valley. Over here where I live on the west side, it wasn't raining at all.

The moral of this story is that if you don't like the weather where you are in Salt Lake City, drive to another part of the valley and you'll probably find what you are looking for.

#2045 the royal wedding

I was up at 4:30 this morning, just in time to see Prince Harry and Prince William arrive at the church for Harry's wedding to Meghan Markle.

Some may think it ridiculous that I would get up so early on a Saturday morning to watch the royal wedding. It's true that the wedding has absolutely no bearing or relevance to my life and why should I care? I'm not British. I had never heard of Meghan Markle before she became involved with Prince Harry. For some reason, though, I really like all of it: the monarchy, William and Kate, Harry and Meghan, the whole royal thing.

I think what it comes down to for me is the fairy tale aspect of it all. Not the she's a divorced bi-racial American and she found her prince thing. It's more about a man, who happens to be a prince, falling in love with a beautiful lady and she loves him back and they get married on the grounds of a real castle and they both looked gorgeous and happy and in love and people cheered when they said "I will" and the Archbishop of Canterbury (for God's sake more fairy tale stuff!) pronounced them husband and wife and people cheered again. Then they went for a ride in an open carriage through the village and people cheered and waved flags and she was wearing a tiara and he was in a military uniform.

That's fairy tale shit, people, and it was real! It was really happening in another part of the world. I was all about it. I was crying and smiling and loving every bloody minute.

I was on Twitter during the festivities, commenting and reading some of what people were saying. I don't understand what makes people get on a social media platform and say shitty things. I read more than one comment that said "I don't give a crap about this royal wedding" and I thought, then why would you go on Twitter and use the hashtag and waste your time saying you don't care? There were other snarky comments that just made me feel kinda yucky. Not cool.

This morning there weren't as many people at the WW meeting as there usually are. Leader Lana wondered where everyone was. I suggested they might be watching the wedding (even though it was over.) One of the other members, a woman I like hearing from, groaned and said, "Oh my God. Who cares about that stupid thing?" A few people laughed. I didn't respond, but the truth is that I care, I guess. I'm interested enough to get up early and watch the whole event. It doesn't make me silly or crazy. Like I said, I like the fairy tale aspect of it all.

It was all lovely.

#2044 3 things: no, then yes

Tonight's three things all have something in common.

1. Cooking. I do like to cook. I like to prepare food and enjoy eating the food. I also like to see people enjoy the food I have made. But...thinking about what to make and buying the ingredients isn't that much fun. When I'm actually preparing the food - chopping, sauteing, stirring, tasting, putting in the seasoning and watching it all come together - that's great. The cleanup isn't fun either, though I usually do that as I go along. When the food is all prepared and the family sits down to eat and the food tastes good and tummies are satisfied and leftovers are stored, I always think, "That was pretty great."

2. Going to the gym. At the end of a work day, sometimes the only thing I want to do is come home and sit on the couch. There are some days when that happens. I put on my relaxing clothes, plop myself on the couch to watch TV or lay on my bed to read a book and that's it. Most days, though, I change into my gym clothes and head over to the fitness center to go to an exercise class. I have to go to class. I'm not disciplined enough to push myself by working out on my own, plus it's just more fun for me to exercise in a group. I pretty much take whatever class happens at 7pm and fortunately, I like all of them, except for Wednesday's class. Wednesday night's class  is Strong by Zumba. The class is physically challenging because it is a HIIT class (high intensity interval training). You start out with a fast-paced warm-up, then you get your heart rate up, then back down then back up and back down. There are lots of squats and lunges and burpees all set to a very energetic beat. It's fantastic and awful all at the same time. I dread going, but when the workout is over, I always think, "That was pretty great."

3. Bloom recording/going to the garden. If you read this blog very often, it's pretty easy to figure out that Red Butte Garden is one of my favorite places in the city. I enjoy volunteering there and I love to wander around there...once I'm there. I have a regular docent shift on Saturday afternoon, and usually I don't have any problem with going to cover that shift. It's the bloom recording that makes me drag my heels. It's best if I leave directly from work to go record blooms because it's much closer to the garden than if I come home first. If I come home, I mostly just want to stay home. Sometimes I think about going to record blooms and I don't feel excited, but I committed to do it, so I do it. Once I am at the garden though, I push open the visitor center doors to enter the courtyard and the beauty and the scents hits me. I walk up the path to the Children's Garden and marvel about all the new plants that are blooming, different from the previous week. I feel sad when plants I know were blooming last week are done with their blooming time, but I feel happy when I see new plants bursting with color. After I'm done looking at all the plants in the Children's Garden, I walk through the rest of the garden and as I make my way back to the visitor center, I always think, "That was pretty great."