When we went to go pick up the corvette two weeks ago, Linus got bundled up in my LL Bean tote bag and off we went.

He was very good in the bag. He just hung out all mellow like a good boy. Not too squirmy.
Going to get the train:

Where are we going? (We are going to visit “the man who gives you cheese,” Linus)

He ‘aint heavy, he’s my corgi.

We skied a few days at Dodge Ridge, which is a very cool little mountain. It’s not the most extreme or the biggest, but it has a really nice family vibe- great if you have kiddos in your crew, and man… the snow was GREAT. It was so fun hanging out with my cousin, his wife and their two kids. We did lots of family stuff including cooking pizza in and staying up late playing board games. Also, by far the two of the best days of skiing I’ve had this season. I’m really feeling like I’m getting my “legs” back skiing. The past two years I basically regressed in my skills and finally feel like things are on the upswing again. I’m able to go out hard and feel like I’m actually SKIING, not just huffing around the mountain in a state of exhaustion. Not exactly “bell to bell” yet, but at least an improvement.

Here’s E and I at the base. Not sure where my skis are- outside the frame I guess, but don’t I look like a (the horrors!) snowboarder here?

“Egg salad?!” I scoffed, having never tried in my life, “Yuck! That’s disgusting! Who eats that?” My father had ingrained in me (I think this was some wacky holdover from the 50s) that egg salad sandwiches were “for dweebs” and “gross.” So I’d never really gave them a whirl.

“Suit yourself, more for me,” responded Earl as he dove into his. Somewhere up the Jersey pike he offered me a bite. Practically holding my nose, I tentatively ventured a nosh. “Woah! That’s pretty good,” came my response as I chewed. Luckily, my sandwich had yet to be devoured so I got to scarf it in pleasure and have been an egg salad convert ever since. We used to eat them almost every weekend during the winter, especially when we drove up north. Later when we moved together on the Upper East Side, we still would head all the way over to Lennys Bagels on the west side (99th and Broadway, to be exact) to grab some.

I even converted a few others to egg salad afterwards! Every Friday during Lent I would bring in two egg salad sandwiches to the Private Equity Firm where I worked and share one with the admin. Formerly a strictly chicken salad gal, she RAVED over them and quickly became a convert.

Once we moved to San Francisco, Earl and I spent many sad days longing for those Lennys Egg Salad sandwiches. Out here in California, they just don’t know how to make em. There’s always too much dill, or celery, drowning in mayo, or other junk. One time I even tried one with RANCH DRESSING!!! Can you believe it!?! My theory is that San Francisco (and California in general) needs more Jews. We already went through this with Matzoh ball soup- here the same problem is rearing its head.

Today, as we were packing our bags to go skiing and I was contemplating what we would eat for dinner on the drive, I reached the end of my rope. Just like I learned with matzoh ball soup, the only way to get decent egg salad out here in this stupid city is going to be to make my own. That’s IT! I’m calling Lennys!!

I called Lennys and sweet talked the manager into giving me their egg salad recipe this afternoon. My lips are sealed and I can’t post the recipe on this blog, however I will tell you that it’s deceptively simple. Idiotically simple. I’m making them right now (the eggs are cooling as I type this) and I can’t wait to see how closely my sandwiches replicate the Gold Standard. I was a little wary with bread, but went to the hippy grocery store and got the freshest, fluffiest, thickest sliced cracked wheat bread I could get my hands on.

I will end this post by saying hopefully they come out well, and that if you are ever in New York City (or happen to be there right now) to get your butt over to Lennys on the upper west side and please scarf down an egg salad sandwich in my honor.

All the running has been great. I’ve got my new running kicks, a coupla track buddies at work (one of my partners and I do sprint workouts and plyo stuff between calls at work), interesting places around here to run, an awesome and supportive “crew” and overall things have been splendid.

One problemo: Now that I’m a Serious Runner, what happens to my little jog with the dog?

See, Old Courtney used to roll out of bed, laze around with Nerd, meander into her day, and then when she felt like it head out con woof on a leisurely and fun little 3 mile jog. I LOVE our little jogs together. I feel like Linus gets a good chunk of his daily exercise, we explore all the sites and sounds of the hood, he gets to socialize at two dog parks, and we chitchat with our neighbors. But, it’s NOT a speedy run. We stop, we chat, we sniff butts, we attempt to eat leftover McDonalds wrappers from potheads toking up in Buena Vista Park, we shamelessly pander for pets, treats, and attention. We also have fun trying to trip me up in the leash by employing a wide array of darting and wrapping techniques. All this doesn’t exactly jive with a “focused training run.” I can’t really do a “legit” training run with Buddy.

Linus will still be my faithful running partner for all “easy” runs, recovery jogs, BRICK runs, runs on the beach and of course trail running. He’s fine with keeping up on the mileage (not sure if you recall, but I took him on a 14mile trail run last year), and he’s okay on pacing, it’s just the deadly combo of the leash and distractions that make him hard to run with en la ciudad.

So… what to do. For example, tomorrow on the boards: I’ve got a 6-mile “regular” run at 60% effort, and then 2 miles of hill repeats later. What I need to figure out is, where does “jog with Linus around the neighborhood” fit into that?

One idea I’m chewing on- what about if I take Linus out with me for a “warm up” … say- 2 miles, easy around the hood, like normal, then come back, drop him off and head right back out the door solo to bag some REAL miles? I guess I could do the same with a cool down… though I bet I would tend to cheat on the tail end and cut it short. Hmm… hmm…. Any thoughts?

We are off to ski! See you on Monday
C

Snapped this quickie before I doffed. This is post chem-tape and my respirator is a little crooked. The only way to model a PAPR suit is to smize, cuz it’s all ya got.

We also studied and tested on our Duodote auto injector (dual atropine and pralidoxime chloride) protocols for organophosphate & other nerve agent exposure. It’s crazy how quickly you become rusty on this stuff. So glad my company holds these training and fit test sessions.

Scarily enough, my running into organophosphates while on the job is not that far out of the realm of possibility. These chemicals are apparently heavily used in almond fields, which they have quite few of in Santa Clara county. Hopefully I won’t be encountering them in the field any time soon.

I received my new running shoes in the mail today! This is exciting because it’s the first time I’ve bought myself shoes in over two years (mandatory EMT work boots don’t count). Yay, employment! There seem to be so many “basics” that I scrimped on while unemployed that I almost have a backlog of necessary boring life items to procure. Linus was kind enough to model my new kicks. I’ve been using these Brooks Trance running sneakers for several years. Absolutely love them, tho for a while they kept redesigning them to be more and more ugly. Each year I would buy the new model and they just kept getting worse looking. Was happy to find a model online that wasn’t horrendous- check out the steezy orange! Also, I found them online for $79- and free shipping, whereas normally at the store they run $140ish. Nice.

After his modeling stint (which he clearly didn’t enjoy), Linus got a treated to a nap in the bed (which he enjoyed).

While hounds and nerds slept, I wrassled up a tuna casserole for dinner. This recipe is an oldie, originating from my Aunt’s mother. Pretty basic- tuna, egg noodles, peas, cream of mushroom soup, and some milk. I added celery, mushrooms, a little lemon thyme and two diced hardboiled eggs… stemming off my my (#1FAVORITE MEAL OF ALL TIME) mother’s chicken casserole recipe. The top is a mixture of crushed potato chips and cheese. Not the healthiest meal in the world, but certainly scrumptious comfort food at its finest!

Lucy enjoyed staking out the shoebox as her new snooze spot, with added bonus of being the first to crinkle the sneaker-wrapping paper.

All in all, nothing big to report. I’m working the 6am-6pm shift tomorrow with a really cool partner. I’ve been enjoying the 6-6 shift- you don’t have to get up *too* early (set my alarm for 4:45am, which seems a heck of a lot easier to stomach than 3:45am for the 5-5… must be psychological), but you still get off in time to do stuff at night (gym!). We’ve been having some crazy interesting calls as of late. My Monday shift seemed to be a magnet for cranky patients. Everyone we transported was in a really bad mood!

Other goings ons: taking the Corvette back on Thursday and as a thank-you present to my uncle for letting us borrow it I am taking him out to dinner (Dennys! the man likes what he likes) and a movie of his choice. Apparently he *loves* to go to the movies, although my aunt hates going, so he has no one to go with. Hmm… that is a familiar situation We had lots of fun driving the ‘vette this weekend- we took it up Highway 1 and along the coast to Stinson Beach. It was surprising how many people will pull over on a windy road and let a corvette pass! My uncle did give me specific instructions to “drive it like a Corvette is meant to be driven” and we took him up on it. Earl’s head hit the ceiling when he was driving which was mildly amusing for me. Apparently 6′4 people aren’t meant for Corvettes. The Jeep is back from the shop but will be going right back in a few weeks when our budget is ready to dole out for the next round of slated repairs. Blegh.

*yawn* Well I am off to read, write in my journal, and pass out. Horray for not doing the dishes. Corgi BART and Corvette pics to come
Yours in casserole fandom,
C

Yesterday, we got the chance to use it because the car overheated in SOMA when I was picking E up on his lunchbreak to go run an errand.  The coolant was overflowing and leaking everywhere.

The AAA towing people were… okay, however they REFUSED to let Linus go in the cab of the tow truck!  So he was in for a scary ride, all by himself, in the Jeep on the back of a flatbed truck.

$650 (and five days of waiting in the shop for the new part to come in) later, we will have a new coolant fan and cooling fan module. I’d say “hopefully this is the last of it” for a while, however we already have some other repairs waiting in the wings- a new CV boot and the transmission pan leaking both also need to be fixed. Oh, the joys of car ownership!! I miss living in NYC and not owning a car.

Despite having a scary ride, Linus survived. He does enjoy going to the car mechanic because they give him dog biscuits. So he wasn’t *too* traumatized. I was the only one traumatized because they initially told me it was “probably a headgasket” which would basically mean the car was totaled. Fortunately, it ended up not being that… however we should still probably think about getting a new car at this point anyways. For all the cash we dump into this one we could just be making a car payment and at least have something reliable.

In the meantime, Linus is coming with me on BART to visit my Aunt and Uncle, who are very kindly lending me their spare car (a corvette! how funny!… and how nervewracking… I am going to be one cautious driver in that thing) to get to and fro work in the intermin while Jeep is being fixed.

Wearing this U Mad shirt which Earl snagged me when we visited his alma mater.

Wearing this shirt for a run really brings out the San Francisco peanut gallery. I never knew there was such Wisconsin pride around here until I sported this one day on a jog through Golden Gate Park.  I’d say I get about… at least 5 or 6 people shouting something out to me per run.
Back of the shirt sports the same deal (writing on hat reads “Girdwood, Alaska” which is NOT reversed, the U Mad image actually reads backwards, flippy mirror trick).

Comments range from:

• The obvious: “Go Wisconsin!”
• “Go Badgers!”
• “Yeah, BUCKY!!”
• “Hey, I went there!”
• “My boyfriend/girlfriend/mother/father went there.”
• “WISSSSSSSSSCOOOOOOOONNNNNNSIIIIIIINNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
• “I’d like to see YOUR badger.”  (Me: [thinking] “Doesn’t he mean beaver?”)
• “What is that?  A ferret?”
• “Are you from Wisconsin?”
• “YEAHHHH SCONNIE PRIDE DUDE!!!!!!!!!!”
• “Hey Wisconsin- How ya liking the California sunshine?”
• “Wow, that shirt is really red.”
• “Beersconsin!”
• “Go Pack”
• “whooo cheeseheads”
• etc, etc, etc.

Takeaway: If you are uncomfortable in the public eye, do NOT rock a University of Wisconsin t-shirt while running!