The Week's End

1. On Saturday, I went by the studio (which is closer to the airport than the casita) to work a little on the new sculpture and to wait for Dave to call me to come pick him up. He called a little after 10:00 a.m. We came home, I had an egg on toast for lunch (he had eaten on his layover in Denver) while we made out a to-do list for the day, and then, since neither of us had gotten much sleep, we decided to have a fifteen minute power nap before heading out.

Six hours later, we woke up, made pasta and Swiss chard for dinner, changed into our pajamas and went back to bed. I woke up sometime in the middle of the night (and watched the last of the first season of Broad City), but Dave slept all the way through until 9:00 a.m. Sunday morning.

2. Sunday we got up, had Lotaburger for breakfast (Dave had a breakfast burrito and I had a Lotaburger and seasoned fries), and went to the studio.  I worked more on the new sculpture, building the torso and neck and laying out plans for the head and arm placement (which is a little tricky since the top of the sculpture comes off completely). Dave glazed. Judi came out with Crunch and we chatted and made plans to go to our pilates class at 3:15.

3. This is our third pilates class and the hardest so far. The three of us do a private lesson with a local teacher (an Argentinian former dancer with a PhD in exercise physiology) at her studio, so it is an hour of no distraction pilates. I don't know if you've ever done pilates, but it is really difficult. The focus is on the core/abdominal muscles, but while working the core, you also work the butt, legs, shoulders and arms.

The first night--the least difficult night--I walked out on shaky legs. The second night, I just tried to hang on through the lesson. (It was the day of my great aunt's funeral and my only goal was just not to cancel the lesson, to get myself there, which I did.) Today's lesson though! Oof.  At the end, I was so tired that I could barely lift my arms and, by the time we were halfway through dinner, my glutes were really complaining.

Our next lesson is Wednesday, so I can't wait to see what kind of torturous time we'll have.

4. After pilates, we came back to Judi's and took Crunch out for a walk. Poor guy, he would walk for hours and hours if we let him, but my butt and hips were starting to hurt, so we only took him to two different nearby parks before bringing him home.

5. Dave and I had dinner with Judi and Paul at our local favorite Chinese restaurant, Chopstix. The place was deserted because everyone was home watching the Super Bowl. We ordered a feast, ginger chicken, sauteed baby bok choi, Mongolian beef, vinegar and sugar ribs, their house tofu dish, vegetarian egg rolls, and rice. That was for four people! It was way too much food and since Judi and Paul won't eat leftovers, Dave and I came home with three big take-out boxes. (I just had some of the Mongolian beef, ginger chicken and rice for breakfast.)

As we boxed up our left-overs, the taciturn young Chinese man who works there overheard us talking about ramen and became immediately and unexpectedly loquacious about the subject. There aren't many ramen places in town--just two that are any good--and we had all been to both. One of the places is owned by a (I think former US military) guy who is married to a woman from Japan. They have great service and okay ramen. (They also serve curry and a handful of other dishes like takoyaki and such.) The other, much better ramen place is owned by a Japanese woman who runs the tiny restaurant with her American husband and half-Japanese son.

The man we were talking to said that the second place had good ramen and curry, but commented on how they closed at 8:00 pm. "I guess they are lazy," he said. "Don't want to work."

5. On the way home, we had to stop at the co-op to buy some things for Dave's lunch tomorrow. We picked up some frozen berries, yogurt, Ak-mak crackers, hummus, and a small bag of chocolate-covered pretzels for me. We both wandered around the store in a bit of a daze, from the combined effect of pilates and Chinese food overload.

6. The cats were happy to see us. They got to go outside for a bit then have their dinner. Dave practiced his clarinet, but I changed into my pajamas, brushed my teeth, and went straight to bed.

7. And that was our weekend.