Take Me Out to the Ballgame

WHEW. Um, so where was I??

Oh yeah -- Friday's Phils game!



PhillyGuy's birthday was last week. As part of his present, I picked up tickets for the game. But not just ANY tickets...



Diamond Club, baby!

Yeah, our seats didn't suck. Right behind home plate, 14 rows back. Worth EVERY penny!



Any baseball game requires a hot dog. Period.



I also had a few of PhillyGuy's nachos, and we shared a bag of roasted peanuts later in the game. Any time I eat roasted peanuts, I chew the whole thing up -- shell and all. PhillyGuy was horrified at this -- in fact, he called me a "dinosaur." (Right, because that's what dinosaurs ate. Peanut shells. WTF.)

The Phanatic started the game off by acting out "Casey at the Bat" while it was being read aloud as part of a "Phanatic About Reading" promotion they were doing that night.





It was ROASTING and super-humid, but we had an awesome time. The seats were incredible -- you could see each pitch move, which was fascinating for me. I have such terrible hand-eye coordination that I considered it amazing if I could even throw a ball directly at someone's glove, let alone force the ball to spin and move in different directions to screw with someone's head in the meantime.

Massive exodus to the subway after the game:



The rest of my weekend was pretty uneventful. My hip is still really bothering me -- but I haven't even had time to make a doctor's appointment, because naturally, my week has been insane since I got back to work. Such is life -- at least the days are flying by and it's almost the weekend again!

PhillyGuy somehow managed to snag a FREE TICKET for tonight's Flyers game -- so he's down at the Wachovia Center in a huge luxury box with food and open bar. Must be nice, right?? Honestly though, I didn't make it home until after 7 tonight, and by the time I walked the pups (who LOVE to play in the rain!) and got changed, it was almost 8. I'm so, so happy to be sitting on my couch watching the game from the comfort of my sweats, while my puppies wrestle on the floor in front of me. Dinner was a salmon burger over a salad made with baby spinach, blackberries, blueberries and crumbled feta:



I whisked together balsamic vinegar, a tiny bit of olive oil, mustard and some honey for the dressing. It's good, but I definitely got a little pour-happy with the vinegar. Still delicious, but super-tart.



Salmon burgers, much like Chobani and acorn squash, are another blogworld discovery of mine. I had a coupon, so I picked up a package at Costco. Um, WHY did I forget how much I love salmon?? And how did I manage to go for so long without the convenience of something you can pull out of the freezer and cook in less than 10 minutes? THANK YOU, BLOGWORLD. I would clearly be lost without you.

How's your week going? Do you eat the shells of peanuts or am I a dinosaur?

No Farmers Market for You

I'm already up one for the day, since I actually managed to, you know, GET OUT OF BED AND GO FOR A RUN instead of falling back asleep. Of course, I think it helps that it was 7:30 and not 4:55.



After walking the puppies and downing some instant caffeine (Via freakin' rocks) while watching Real Housewives of OC "Lost Footage," I was more than ready to head out. Inspired by Melissa at Miles for Markets, I planned to do an easy four-mile out-and-back down South Street to Headhouse Square for the farmer's market.

I stuck to an easy, comfortable pace, which ended up getting me down to 2nd & South in about 19:48. Cruising down South Street east of Broad always makes me want to cry a little bit. Like most people who grew up in this area, high school for me was punctuated by more than a few Friday night visits to South Street. It was nothing short of AWESOME. Funky, random little stores, Zipperheads, and a fantastic crowd of really, REALLY cool people.

(Great shot of Zipperheads, courtesy of Wikipedia, for those who might not remember:)



Well, Zipperheads is gone now. And apparently, so are all the really cool people. Although I strongly suspect that South Street may have always been so...um...shady...I prefer to believe that it was just a different, more awesome place when I was sixteen or seventeen. So tragic.

So, mourning for the South Street of my youth , I hung a left into Headhouse Square, wildly anticipating the Farmer's Market.

That is not really what I got.



After talking to one of the people at the single booth that was setting up, I found out that the market doesn't open until 10am -- which I consider kind of late for a Farmer's Market. It was 9:15. FAIL. Oh, well. I took a few pictures, stretched my calves and then hightailed it out of there:







I ran back up Lombard instead of South Street. MAN, what a difference a block makes. It was shady and quiet and tree-lined, instead of being lined by (not-so-funky) stores and a Dairy Queen. Most of it, I just ran, looking around and singing along (hopefully not out loud) to my iPod and just enjoying the relative quiet of a Saturday morning.





I wound up back home around 40 minutes later, sweating and smiling.



Today's fun playlist:



Now I'm hungry and so, SO ready to head out and get a much-needed pedicure. I usually get my nails done every other week, and it's been over a month since I've had time -- I think about 7 weeks since I've had a pedicure. My poor feet are really in need of a little TLC...especially since my big toenail is bruised to high heaven from Broad Street.

Happy weekend all!

Dream Theater

First of all:



I cannot put into words how much I love my commute. I walk 1.17 miles (according to my Garmin -- I ran it one day because I was curious) through some of the prettiest neighborhoods in the city. Even when it's cold and not-so-gorgeous, I look forward to my 15 or 20 minutes of peacefulness. And on mornings like today, when it's mid-60s and sunny? I get ridiculously, ridiculously excited about it.

What really kills me, though? For some reason, I was wide awake at about 4:55 this morning. I flipped on the news and sat there for a minute, petting my dogs and generally thinking how awesome it was that I had a whole hour before my alarm was going to go off.

(Not that I get up when my alarm goes off. Since at least high school, I've been setting my alarm for 20-30 minutes before I actually need to be out of bed so that I can hit the snooze button a few times first. Don't ask me how I started that habit, but it's just how I roll.)

And then, I was like "WAIT A MINUTE, PHILLYGIRL. You have all this extra time. You're not tired. You're awake. Let's get out of bed and go for a run!" I was very pleased with myself. The sun was coming up, but I'd still be able to watch it rise. I'd put my Garmin out on the balcony to catch a signal while I got dressed. And I'd be able to start my day knowing I'd gotten in a good 5 or 6 miles.

Know what happened then? I must have fallen back to sleep mid-thought, because I DREAMED that I got out of bed, got dressed (I even dreamed that I was down to my one gray pair of lululemon wunder under crops and that all the black ones were in the laundry!), and got out the door. I even dreamed that my Garmin picked up a signal immediately (which should have been a sure sign that this was not reality, since that NEVER happens). And I was off.

And the next thing I knew, my alarm was going off. It was 6:05 and I was most certainly still in bed, not rocking my Garmin or my lulu's. I wanted to kick myself.

Oh well. It would have been the perfect morning to run -- but it was also the perfect morning to walk to work with an iced coffee and flipflops and a big dumb grin because it's so freakin' gorgeous out.

Happy Friday!