I feel like the last week and a half disappeared without a trace. I now find myself back at my desk after last week’s off-site meeting and an all-day off-site class yesterday…and it’s proving to be difficult to get back into the groove of regular ol’ office work. The fact that vacation is rapidly approaching does NOT help matters. I’m ready to head out for the holidays already. In theory, I’m working through next Thursday but in reality… Well, I’ve got a few extra vacation days I could use. Or I could always telework, since it’s not like there will be anyone in the office by Thursday. We’ll see.
It was the busiest weekend I’ve had in ages. On Friday night, Jose joined me for a Russian class “field trip” to the Imperia Bar and Grill wayyy the heck over on the west side of Houston. My Russian instructor organized the outing and all in all there were 30-40 people at dinner — half students, and half guests. We were required to introduce our spouse or friend in Russian, and the waitresses were under strict instruction to only speak to us in Russian. The rules got relaxed a bit (ok, a lot) after the food arrived and it was a fun night. Jose and I shared a bowl of borscht, the classic Russian beet soup as an appetizer. (This was also randomly appropriate given our book club book this month, which talks a LOT about beets.) He got Moscow schnitzel, which was basically a breaded and fried chicken breast with potatoes and pickled vegetables, and I got pelmeni, which are Russian dumplings that you eat with sour cream. It was all pretty tasty, and I’d go back for sure if it weren’t so far away.
On Saturday morning, we used a Groupon for an “Introduction to Sailing” class in Kemah. The Groupon expired at the end of the month so of course we waited until the last minute. Melissa and Matt joined us too and we had a lot of fun — except for the fact that it was about 50 degrees outside with winds around 25 knots so we were all FREEZING cold. December? Not the greatest time to go sailing!
The class was pretty informal — you could get involved if you wanted too, or you could just sit back and enjoy the ride. We were on a 45-foot boat that was probably in the best condition of any sailboat I’ve ever been on, so that was nice. We each got to steer and work the sails a bit, although we didn’t put the main sail all the way up because it was so windy.
We got back from sailing and immediately had to start making dinner since we’d invited a few people over that night since Nick is in town from Boston. Jose wanted to make chicken tortilla soup again, which is delicious, but we had to start cooking it 3 hours ahead of time for it to be ready! We cooked and cleaned and had a fun evening.
On Sunday morning, I was up bright and early to run my half of RunGirl this year. I got hooked up with a relay partner through one of my BAM buddies. I’m not going to bother writing a full race report because trust me, my performance is not worth talking about, but I was happy to get to do this race again. Last year there were only around 300 runners but this year there were 1200! I love this course, and spent a good portion of the back half — where the sun was shining through the trees and the weather was cool but comfortable — smiling as I jogged along.
The race is far away, and then the group I carpooled with stopped for lunch on the way back, so I didn’t get home until almost 1:00. I crashed for about an hour’s nap before finally getting some time to relax before heading out for dinner with friends again.
Whew! I need this week to recover from my very fun weekend!
