We've arrived in Paris!

We've safely arrived in Paris!  When the plane landed, the pilot announced how great the weather was...beautiful and sunny skies.  From the airport, we took a bus which dropped us off at the Arc D'Triomph.  From there we had to walk 2 blocks to our hotel.  Suitcases in hand, we started walking.  And it promptly started raining.  Somehow the rain doesn't seem to bother people here.  They walk around like they don't even notice it.

The hotel's nice...small but really cute. We have a balcony that overlooks the lane outside.  I'm feeling very French right now.

After we quickly showered up, we went to the Arc for a photo-opp, then walked down to the Eiffel Tower.  It's amazing how late it gets dark here.  We were there around 8:30 and wanted to see it lit up at night.  The Information lady told us it lights up at 10.  We cursed the odd timing and decided to go have dinner instead.  In the middle of dinner, around 9:30, we glanced outside and noticed that it still wasn't completely dark outside!  Ok, so we're no longer complaining about the Eiffel Tower lighting up at 10pm.  We're planning to check it out tomorrow after we're well-rested. 

Tomorrow we're heading to Versailles in the morning, then spending the afternoon shopping, drinking coffee, and generally milling about town.  Keep your fingers crossed for us that we don't run into too much more rain.

Back from Cambria, now off to France!

we went down to cambria for the weekend with the gang. we had rented the perfect house - it had a huge fridge that i think Leena wanted to climb into, a pool table, a gorgeous garden, and truly spectacular views of the ocean... we got there friday night and didn't do much - sat around, drank beers, and just caught up. i was suffering from just about the worst allergy attack i've ever had so i was happy to have a low-key evening.

saturday was spent wine tasting in paso robles. i lost count of how many wineries we visited - i just know that i came home with some delicious new wines! i thought i loved sonoma, but this place was great - each winery gave us 10+ tastings! no wonder i don't remember how many we visited! saturday night we ordered mexican takeout from Medusa's (but Dumma and Sri decided to go to some other Mexican restaurant, and were annoyed when the place claimed that we never called in an order...So Dumma and Sri had to "Re"-order. Medusa's must have been less than thrilled that no one showed up to claim the 12 tacos, 2 quesadillas, and 4 orders of rice and

beans! After all the confusion was abated, we chowed down on some tacos (from the other restaurant!) while playing pool and sipping beers. we were determined to stay awake till at least 1am. mission accomplished.....barely....

sunday morning the husbands took care of all the cooking and made a fabulous brunch. it was a fantastic spread. everything was delicious, and...we learned from chethan that dicing an onion is an artform. We stuffed ourselves with fruits, dumma's famous french toast, naveen's gourmet pancakes, amit's double-secret recipe omlettes, etc... around 1pm we loaded up the cars and headed back home. a wonderfully relaxing weekend...

on tuesday, amit and i are off to France for about 12 days!! i'll try to blog daily from there so stay tuned in for the updates!

Crossed the finish line!

the relay for life was this weekend. it was amazing. i enjoyed my van driving responsibilities and hopefully did a good job of taking care of the runners in my van :-)

haven't heard any complaints so far...

check out my Van 1 posse in the pic...

friday night we were supposed to have dinner with dean karnzes, but he didn't show up...something about a flight delay. we were disappointed, but definitely felt better when we got to see him the next morning at the relay start! go team dean! some of our runners actually got to run with him for some of their segments.

everyone on the team did amazing! there was so much energy, it didnt matter that we didn't get more than 1-2 hours of sleep the entire weekend. right from the start in calistoga to the finish on the beach in santa cruz was a rush of energy and excitement. kudos to the Slow As Molassas team!

you can see all the pictures here

http://picasaweb.google.com/amit.rele/RelayForLife2008

cole slaw is the new salsa

5 days left till the Relay! After all these months of anticipation, it's finally here! We leave Friday afternoon to drive up to Calistoga. There's a dinner with Dean Karnazes (author of the autobiography Ultra-Marathon Man) that night. I am almost finished reading his book - have just a couple more chapters to go. Then the Relay starts Saturday morning and will wrap up by Sunday evening.

I'm the "official" Captain of Van 1, so runners 1-6 from our team will be with me. It's my job to make sure our team's runners get to their start points on time, give them water along the way, clock their times, etc... Oh and I'm also the official photographer of Van 1! Exciting stuff!!

Check back next week to see some pictures and hear about the run.

nothing noteworthy here

Amit and I were in Denver over the weekend visiting some friends. I'm fully convinced that Global Warming is causing all kinds of strange weather patterns. On Saturday it was 60-something degrees outside. There we were - in Denver on March 1, and we weren't even wearing our coats. Then....Sunday morning we woke up to see that snow had piled up overnight. It kept snowing pretty much all day. Brrr.... It was a fun weekend - these last minute trips are always a pleasant surprise.

This weekend we're doing another multi-segment run. I say "we" but really it's Amit and the rest of the team. Yes, I'm still doing the the training runs, too...but I don't have any of the pressure that they have for the relay...so I don't really feel qualified to say "we". I am really glad to part of this - it's a good cause - and I'd never be pushing myself like this if it weren't for everyone else. Check out Amit's page: http://www.firstgiving.com/amitrele

So this weekend, we're doing 3-4 Easy miles Friday night, then 6 Medium intensity miles Saturday morning, followed by 3-4 more Easy miles Saturday evening. I'm excited! Hope I can finish it... I'm fully expecting that I won't be going more than 3 steps away from my bed on Sunday.

Check back next week to see if I can still walk....

travel plans?

well, the results are in... i'm trying to plan our Galapagos trip. amit and i were talking about vacations the other day, and we realized that it's been 3, maybe even 4 years since we took an extended (more than a week) vacation where it was just the 2 of us. alaska was the last one. sure - there have been other trips - vegas, tahoe, east coast, sedona, canada, local road trips... but those were short 3 or 4 day getaways. we're ready for a nice long vacation... so we're thinking galapagos, chile, brazil & some other south american hot spots will be a great way to spend a couple of weeks. now let's see if the travel gods will help us find a good deal. otherwise, we'll have to come up with Plan B.

today's topic: when bad days happen to good people

have you ever had one of those days when you realize that you should never have left the house that morning? today has been that kind of day for me...and it's only 4pm so i'm a little worried about what's still to come!

i had a normal morning. brushed my teeth and took a shower - no problems. got through breakfast without spilling my tea anywhere. left for work and was pleasantly surprised that there was no traffic. the day was off to a good start!

unfortunately, about 3 minutes after I thought that, i got pulled over for expired registration. the cop asked to see my license and insurance. as i was digging around in the glove compartment, i noticed that the current registration was in there. so i handed it to him to show him that i had it after all. he said "Yup - that explains it" so i thought he'd realize it was all just a silly little oversight and that i'd be on my way in a jiffy. instead, he gave me a ticket and said have a nice day. ughh... if i didn't think cops were so cool, i would have been highly annoyed.

strikes two & three happened when i got to work and found myself in two unpleasant and sticky situations. you might be bursting with curiosity, but i really can't / shouldn't mention them here. some of you will undoubtedly be getting the updates from me in person!

hopefully I'm done dodging bullets today. thankfully, i had a fantastic weekend so i'm seemingly unfazed by the randomness that has plagued me today.

why was my weekend so great, you ask? well let's see...friday i left work at 2 and got a head start on the weekend. that night we went to dinner at Amici's and had some pasta to help us fuel up for our run at Sawyer Camp the next morning.

saturday morning we got to Sawyer Camp at 7am where Amit and the rest of the relay team were going to do a 7-mile run. i'm having fun joining them for runs when i can...i managed to run 6.0 miles that day! it was really tough, but it felt good and i'm glad that i'm pushing myself. after the run, we went to Dosa Place for lunch. that night Samir & Manisha came over for dinner - we hadn't seen them in months so it was great to catch up!

sunday morning i went for a short "cool down" run...mostly just to stretch and loosen up my legs. then i went to lunch at Krung Thai for Sam's baby shower. that night we went up to SF and hung out in Castro. Dinner at Nirvana was fabulous and the couple of bars we went to were really good, too.

monday was President's Day so Amit had the day off. i took PTO so i could be home, too. we went on a morning hike to Mission Peak. we all met there around 8:30 and started hiking just before 9. i didn't go all the way up - i hiked up about 1 hr 20 mins, which is about how long it took the others to go all the way to the peak, and then turned around to head back at the same time they did (amit called me from the top to let me know they were heading back). i was totally wiped out the rest of the day. my legs are pretty sore today, but it felt good. if everyone goes back for a 2nd hike, i'm hoping to make it all the way to the top next time...or given a constrained amount of time, at least farther than i did yesterday (i *think* i got 2/3 of the way there).

so that's what's going on with me. i'm looking forward to a slow week - need some recovery time from the fun, but totally exhausting weekend.

Weekend Update

we had a fun weekend. it was amit's birthday on saturday. friday night amit and i went out on a date to kick off his birthday weekend. we had dinner at The Basin in los gatos. we shared a bottle of wine, and just enjoyed having some time together without the pressure of having to be somewhere or having something to do. it was nice.

saturday morning we had to be at the Sawyer Camp trail in san mateo by 7am. amit and the rest of the running team ran 6 miles, i ran 4 miles with them. i ran 2 miles, walked 1/2 a mile, then ran another 1.5 miles. i'm making decent progress - that was the longest i've been able to run without stopping so far, so it felt great. i'm trying to push myself a little harder each week, so this week's looking a bit daunting right now! by the way, the trail was gorgeous! here's a picture from the run. and....here's the link on Bay Area Hiker http://www.bahiker.com/southbayhikes/sawyercamp.html

in the afternoon i took amit to Watercourse Way in palo alto where we had reserved a private hot tub & sauna for an hour. he loved it! we got to spend an hour in the tub room, and after the long run in the morning, it felt great. we were so relaxed afterwards - as soon as we got home, we fell asleep.

that night we went to Antonio's Nut House with some friends to party it up. sunday was all about the superbowl - went to a party at Dumma & Leena's house. it was a really great weekend - somehow i felt like i was on vacation the whole the weekend. i'll post some pictures from amit's birthday and the superbowl party later this week.

i want to be an anthropologist

it's been a brutal week at work. dare i say that today is shaping up to be tolerable so far... i've tried to take the afternoon off every day this week, but without fail, i keep getting pulled into a fire drills that keep me at work late. yesterday, i got as far as clicking on "shutdown" on my computer when my phone rang. sighh... it all went downhill from there. so i finally just blocked off my calendar to be out of the office after 1pm tomorrow...this time i mean it!

with work taking so much time away from "other" things i could be doing, i've been doing a lot of reflecting (ok, i guess daydreaming) about what other fabulous jobs i could have:

Fabulous Job #1: Anthropologist
Why I'm qualified:
(a) I took an anthropology class in college;
(b) I like to shop at Anthropologie; and
(c) I think it would sound cool to tell people that I'm an anthropologist
Obstacle: I don't like scientific things :-)

Fabulous Job #2: President of the US
Why I'm qualified: I like to decide things
Obstacle: Do I really need to tell you the obstacle here??

Fabulous Job #3: The person who decides all the street names
Why I'm qualified: I want to save the world, or at least the Bay Area, from the plight of random, unpronounceable, or just plain annoying street names.
Obstacle: None...I think I might really apply for this.

Check back next week to see if any of my dream careers have come true.

Welcome to 2008!

Happy New Year! I can't believe it's 2008 already! What a year it's been! Let's recap:

January: I turned 30. It was fun. That's all I remember.
February: Amit's bday (also the same as Groundhog Day)
March: ummm...
April: Barbados trip
May-August: Softball season. And...my parents were here. They got an apartment at Northpark for 3 months. It was great - I don't think I had to cook even once during those 3 months. And we took some local trips - Mendocino, Monterey, Sonoma wine tasting... Amit's mom came for a visit in August, too.
Sept-Oct: a total blur. We were both swamped at work, and while it was only a couple of months ago, I'm ashamed to say that I can't really even describe anything of significance that we did in those two months. Bahh...
Nov: Busy, busy...then we went to Ohio for Thanksgiving
Decemeber: more busy, busy, then off to Puerto Vallarta. One thing that I'm happy we did accomplish in December is some volunteer work for a family that we adopted for the Holidays. It was really rewarding to get to know them and focus on someone else. We were matched up with them through Habitat for Humanity...we're definitely planning to participate next year.

Somehow each year seems to go by faster and faster. I wish we could find a way to slow down time. I always remember that episode of The Twilight Zone where that guy gets a stop watch that can actually stop time. How amazing would that be - to be able to make the great moments in your life last longer. We have so many experiences every day, and sometimes it's the wonderful things that seem so brief.

Chethan & Srivalli hosted an 80's theme New Years party last night. It was a blast. Everyone got totally into it, and I had so much fun shopping for all that totally 80's jewellery! Amit's at the Sugar Bowl so he missed the party. I missed him there, but I know he's having a blast at the game - can't wait to see him on Thursday!