Last Thursday’s post is about what an amazing effort Kathy, the impromptu newscaster, put in for her husband’s birthday:
We are live from Charlottesville this morning!!
How did Kathy make Bath Matt’s 32nd birthday so “smashing”? First, she “showered” him with a bounty of presents:
….new shirts from GAP with breakfast along with celebratory French toast – topped with coconut butter “frosting” and sprinkles!
Our favorite weather girl also announced Charlottesville’s first “snow dusting,” which she said was “quite exciting.” Bursting with the thrill of it all, she went to the gym for “workout and play time” before heading to the fakery to eat a free salad and a free slice of something called “Raspberry Swirl —
MY FAV!
That evening, after Bath Matt got home from his full day working at the fakery, “a playmate … aka a babysitter” took care of Toddler Carbz so that Kathy and Bath Matt could go to a Wednesday-night beer tasting at Market St. Wine Shop. Somehow, she managed to not describe this as a variation on the word “play,” although she did caption a photo of her husband “Beer Nerd,” some term to which they aspire, and said they brought one of their latest California wine trip bottles of wine
Yummy Roth Pinot!
to the C&O restaurant, where she didn’t have to cook or clean a damn thing.
Do tell us, food blogger, about the bread:
GAH! Like a doughy pretzel with that salt crust on top!
Let’s continue. How did Bath Matt enjoy his birthday meal?
Matt got pick of the menu and chose a cheese plate as an appetizer.
Wait, that’s something worth noting? That he was able to pick his own order? Is he a child? Actually, scratch that. Even children — especially on their birthdays — can generally pick what they want to eat, right?
It’s especially dumb to be royally handing out menu pardons when Queen KERF can’t even describe the food that came to the table in an adult fashion:
For entrees I had the sea bass with mushrooms and root veggie puree. Pea shoots on top! Delicious.
Matt had duck, his favorite, with a sweet potato + blue cheese layer stack that was awesome.
We also ordered a side of butternut squash with crispy sage – divine!
So, someone who makes her living writing about food just described two dinners by saying they were “delicious,” “awesome,” and “divine,” and that one of the ingredients was “crispy”? I’ve gotten hungrier reading Cheez-It coupons*.
The dessert:
And finally…the warm chocolate tart with peanut butter ice cream. Matt likes to say that he doesn’t really care for dessert, but he proclaimed this the best dessert he had ever had!! Good timing for his birthday ; )
How nice that a grown-ass man was allowed to choose his own meal for his own damn birthday.
Kathy posted a second entry on Thursday by accident, saying she “pushed publish too soon.” This one was about how she registered for that 10-mile race she was dithering about a few weeks ago. Her reaction?
Yay!!
and
YIKES!
Oh, why’s that, dear?
Well, it has to do with a lack of, ahem, forests near Kathy’s neighborhood:
I haven’t been in a good running grove [sic] since…2011 maybe?
Back in the day I used to run outside a lot, and consistently 6 miles or so at a time. Once time I did 8 for fun (imagine that!) I used to sign up for races more often, and my greatest distance was the Racefest Half Marathon in Charlotte (at an 8:41 pace!)
Back in the day I used to run outside a lot, and consistently 6 miles or so at a time. Once time I did 8 for fun (imagine that!) I used to sign up for races more often, and my greatest distance was the Racefest Half Marathon in Charlotte (at an 8:41 pace!)Why won’t that happen now? Well, her absurdly geriatric age of 32 means she’s “older,” and she’s supposedly interested only in training “for the fun of it!”
I don’t believe that, but maybe it’s true. She says she runs 4 miles in one burst every week, or maybe 5 miles — which she can do in 48 minutes — but that 10 miles shouldn’t be too hard:
I’m sure I could run them tomorrow if I needed to.
She complains that the cold has been holding back her running times, but that she’s on track with a training plan she’s “discussed” with a friend called Nelle, described as “a speed demon runner.”
Who’s Nelle? Well, Nelle had her kid about half a year before Kathy had Toddler Carbz. Here she is with her newborn child and with Charlottesville’s top inspiration for hair, makeup, and taco-eating, last Halloween:
Kathy says she would like to run three times a week, but her kid is not going to make that “feasible,” so she wants to do a weekly 3-mile run indoors at her gym and a weekly 4-mile run outdoors.
Well, only if Bath Matt can change his work schedule to accommodate her, since her gym won’t allow her to drop her child off so she can prance around the streets of Charlottesville
….and it’s too cold/dark to run outside with him this time of year. I’m also going to have to plan around soccer games. I shouldn’t run the day after a game because my legs are usually really sore, and our games come and go on random days.
She also says that she’ll be aiming for a time of an hour and 45 minutes, since her top speed for a 10-mile course was 90 minutes, pre-Inconvenient Toddler:
Maybe it’s a little too easy of a goal, but again, this is for fun! I have a handful of friends who are also running it, so we’re hoping to do some of the training runs together.
Kathy’s also given herself a perk: a new pair of running shoes. She’s “dusted off” her Garmin — as well as some photos of herself from more than half a decade ago —
From 2010, when she described coffee as her “ergogenic aid and laxative ;)” so that she could let her readers know she had taken a shit — or, in her words, was “totally digested and ready to go” — by whatever time.
Another one, from the Healthy Living Summit (RIP) when she yelled in the middle of the guy from “Biggest Loser”‘s talk.
— and her Camelbak Charm, so that she can “do another batch of [her] homemade sports drink”:
This time of year though, I hope the water doesn’t freeze in the tube! I’ll probably do another batch of my homemade sports drink for the longer runs since that worked so well last time.
She ends the post by asking for “suggestions from any hard-core runners out there!” There are a couple recommendations that she join the Charlottesville Track Club’s program that’s specifically geared towards training for the 10-miler —
— mixed in with some general encouragement and some Who Cares, Just Go Have Fun sentiment. Look, Kathy — there are things where I, too, talk about wanting to throw up (as she used to do) that end up being fun, but they’re generally confined to roller-coasters. And I don’t have to tell anyone about what I do in the bathroom.
Kathy posted a sixth weekly post on Friday, thanking her readers for “all the wonderfully nice comments” on her post about returning to a more informal, less informational format for her blog:
I am loving bringing back these little chatty posts!
I am also back using my Vita-mix full time. I decided that I like having less parts and it sure does make a fluffy smoothie.
We have a sunny day on tap, and it should be a little warmer than usual, so M and I are hoping to meet up with some friends for a playdate.
As for Kathy’s weekend plans? She went to the Florida Georgia Line concert with Sarah (the one who ate two tacos that one time, when Kathy only ate one).
I was unfamiliar with “Florida Georgia Line” being anything more than something one crossed while driving up and down the East Coast on I-95, but Wikipedia describes their style of music as “bro-country.”
Why are they sitting like that? Do they need donut pillows?
We end by saying goodbye, this week, to Kathy’s sister’s blog, “Taking Back My Twenties.”
Larbs apparently found her twenties. This whole time, it turns out they were under that Guanaja Chocolate Coulant Daniel Boulud made at the Speiser-Skipper wedding. Who knew?
Well, more accurately, Larbs said that she finally realized she “was in denial about being an adult” when she started her first blog in 2010.
You think?
From 2011:
I’m so mentally ready for spring break next week. And then I remembered I probably will never get a spring break again. Sad. I was telling an older woman at work about my blog today and used the term quarter life crisis, and she said ‘quarter life crisis....ha, get a life.’ I can’t decide if her response was mean or if I deserve that reaction…
More from 2011:
You see, I’m not adjusting well to working 9 hour days and I’m totally wishing away the weeks (something I vowed not to do). As you know from my almost daily complaints, I’m tired and never feel like doing much (despite 8+ hours). I’m just assuming this is a normal part of the transition to full-time work? I don’t know how people can spend so many waking hours in an office and feel fulfilled. I went to regular spinning today (I’ve been doing SYNC Cycle), and during an awesome song, I realized I haven’t felt energized or inspired by exercise in weeks. …. I just dream of the summer or a time when I’ll be free to just be. But with only ten days off a year, there is no extended time to just be. And that feeling is suffocating. I keep thinking to myself I miss my life -it’s been taken away from me, and I need to take it back! …. the idea that I have to spend an hour preparing for the next work day and get in bed at 9:30 haunts me.
From 2012:
Since graduation I feel like, as an adult, I’m supposed to just work, exercise, eat healthy meals, and save money during the week. I think the thing I miss most about college is the feeling that the only thing I’m really supposed to be doing is learning. Anyway, I got home from work and decided to protest being an adult. I skipped my workout, ate cookies that arrived in the mail (thanks to Matt’s mom!!), fell asleep on the couch at 5 o’clock, avoided my to-do list with five episodes of House Hunters, and ate cereal for dinner.
When she started the blog, she writes in her I Found Them They Were Under The Long Layer Of My High-Low Hem Dress This Whole Time post, she longed for college. Then, life “seemed easy” —
….Aside from attending classes and completing homework assignments, there was time to exercise outdoors, eat lunch with friends, participate in clubs, volunteer or work off-campus, watch TV, play on the internet, go shopping, party, or (my personal favorite) just sit around and enjoy the company of interesting people. Because of this, I was very very sad to have to leave the college community and enter the real world.
Yes, I’m sure it was a veritable Algonquin Round Table at Davidson, Larbsie, where the conversation sparkled with stories about how you caught your future husband’s eye with your retainer.
While that still sounds nice “sometimes,” Larbs writes,
….I realized I no longer needed to be like a younger version of myself to be happy….I have so many things going for me that I didn’t in my mid-twenties – a job I’ve always dreamed of, financial independence, a loving husband, and now a house of my own. II’ll [sic] be turning 30 this year, and if this is what 30 looks like, then I’ll take it!
Being a natural blonde is really and truly one of the least exciting things that can happen to you in life.
The next paragraph is like a deconstructed burrito bowl of Shit Larbs’s Sister Will Never Say:
To my faithful readers, I’m sorry that my content has suffered over the past year. I should have written this post a long time ago. I still very much enjoy blogging, and I’ve loved being part of the blogging community. Selfishly, I also cherish this space as an online journal. However, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more private and you’ve probably noticed that my writing has focused primarily on food, travel, and more food.
While it’s not Larbs found the Ebola vaccine in between her marscapone ice cream and blue cheese grits or anything — and those actually sound pretty fucking delicious — her ability to take an even slightly mature and critical look at the purpose of maintaining a diary in public for a specific purpose is laudable in comparison to her older sister’s increasingly stunted schtick. It’s also laudable once you reach the comments at the end of her post:
Because, holy shit. Larbs’ mother and her older sister seem to wish they, themselves, could cling to their own idealized “twenties” — the exact idealization Larbs realized was sad and limiting, rather than gleeful and girlish.
No, Larbs, they seem to say. Don’t let go. You said you’d never let go. Come back to your twenties. You can eat all the frosting you want here!
*It’s too bad they’re not actual Cheez-It ads, because I’d totally buy the Cheez-It dust.