i see food, i eat it

as much as we'd all missed the bean while she was away at grandma camp, the time flew by like crazy.  before we knew it, it was friday and the last chance the hub and i had for a date night before he left for texas to scoop her up and take her home.  i spent most of the afternoon working on a dress to wear, settling on this one:

except that for a number of reasons, i ended up switching to something else instead.  this one'll have to wait for another outing.

after debating a handful of different spots to spend our evening, we settled on lost at sea in pasadena.  neither of us had heard of it before, but it sounded interesting and had pretty good reviews on yelp.

the hub said it totally looked like they'd run out of water glasses and served our h20 in some leftover votive candle holders instead.

the menu was...interesting.  the hub pointed out that everything that would normally catch my eye had at least one element that would totally put me off.  and as i read through it more carefully, i realized he was totally right.  i was going to be that customer who asked to modify every freaking thing i ordered.

but we both found something on the drink menu...beer for him, sparkling rose for me.

he likes octopus, so while he enjoyed this as his appetizer:

"take a picture from this angle, you can see all the tentacles and shit!"  barf.

i had some super delicious, unadventurous bread and butter.

the prawn ceviche was really delicious...with the cilantro left out of it.  heh.

but the cauliflower panna cotta - well, we were both rather grossed out by it.

my gnocchi was delicious, though!

he opted for the barramundi, but it wasn't love.  i don't know if it was undercooked or if that's how it's supposed to be prepared, but the mushiness in the middle of the fish totally grossed him out.  bummer.

the dessert menu was pretty small, and so we opted to walk around old town and see if we could find something elsewhere.

we walked into vanilla bake shop, but nothing jumped out at us.

and because neither of us left lost at sea full by any stretch of the imagination, we walked into sushi roku and sat at the bar.

you can't go to sushi roku and not have one of their super delicious baked crab hand rolls.

and we chose the warm butter cake with ice cream for our sweet finish.

it was a lovely way to close out no-bean week 2017.
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3 seconds of fame

because i seem to be on a mission to earn at least one race medal per month, i dragged my ass outta bed at a stupidly early hour to head out and run the pasadena 5K.  i did this race last year with my friend kelley, although we'd chosen the 10K - which i've since decided is my most hated distance to run.  i don't know why, it just sucks ass.  so i guess with me it's either 3 miles or 13.  weird, huh?

and because the bean can't seem to get enough of her BFF, she'd taken lilcee up on her offer to wake up early and meet us in pasadena to take her home and play with mini cee while i ran.

after they were gone, i managed to find a decent parking spot on a residential sidestreet not too far away from the start line.  i'd considered attempting to find parking in the pasadena city college structure, but the road closures kept me from getting anywhere near it.  plus i had to hit the potty, like pronto.  lucky for me, there was a starbucks along the way with a nice, clean restroom.  thank goodness.

i always think it's weird when they set up the course so that you're facing the finish line when you start. whatever.  and it was as i joined the growing crowd that i realized i'd forgotten my damn headphones, which i'd been so mindful of charging the night before.  ugh.  i hate running without music.

because the half marathoners (who had a start time an hour earlier than we did) ended up starting about fifteen minutes late, the 5K/10K race got off to a late start as well.  it kinda sucked, because the weather people were forecasting a mighty hot day and at 7am, it was already hovering over the 80-degree mark.  this was kind of a big deal for me, since i usually make it a point to start my runs during the hot summer months nice and early to avoid the heat.  i'm not a fan of running when it gets any warmer than 75, and even that's too much.  bah.

we finally got going somewhere around 7:20, and sure enough - it was pretty stinking warm.  it was a different course from the previous year's, which was nice.  the course took us west along colorado boulevard - just like the route for the annual rose parade - and before i reached the first mile marker the rhythmic sound of live drums helped keep my legs going.

we turned up garfield avenue and ran past one of my favorite pasadena landmarks, city hall.

there was plenty of signage to keep everyone safe.

according to my nike+ app, the course was a little longer than 5K - 3.4 miles, to be exact.  i'd like to say that the heat really affected my time, but i've come to terms with the fact that i'm just not as fast as i was when i first started running.  i don't care.  i still finished, and snagged my medal.

the volunteers were still working on unpacking and unwrapping the medals, and by the looks of this table you wouldn't have guessed that they'd actually run out of hardware before the last runner crossed the finish line.  it really sucks that they did, especially for those half marathoners who were out running in blistering heat.

through the magic of facebook, i knew that my friend spinny was out running this 5K too, but because there were so many people out there i didn't really think we'd find each other.  yet as i stood there chugging warm bottled water and trying to cool down, i spied her accepting her medal as she finished her run.

a few minutes later we were approached by a reporter from the local NBC news crew.  he wanted to ask some questions about how the heat affected our participation in that morning's race, and i was more than happy to chat as spinny backed away slowly.  ha!  but she had the presence of mind to pull out her phone and snap a couple of pictures of me and the reporter.

on my way back to the car, i got a text from lilcee telling me that she and the girls were off having brunch.  so i did what came naturally - i stopped at that starbucks again and grabbed something to drink.  it's not a good morning until i've had my iced caramel macchiato, people.

this was the first thing i laid eyes on when i got into the pri-YES.  hmph.

back at lilcee's, the bean was rocking a tiara and dropped into a curtsy as i walked in.  silly girl.

that early morning wake-up hit her hard as we hit the road and headed home.  i turned around not long after we got on the freeway and found her like this:

later that afternoon, i was tipped off by one of my facebook friends to check out the news.  sure enough:

wanna see?  i'm right around 1:38.

thanks, reggie kumar!

lying liars who lie!

the teen and i were kinda excited for a different kind of 5K in pasadena that we'd signed up for a few months ago.  it's called the city challenge urban race, and it's kind of like a scavenger hunt - you get a list of twelve different riddle-type things that you have to answer.  then you head to wherever it is - a park, a statue, what have you - and take a picture of yourself or a teammate in front of it.  plus, the riddles aren't in order, so it's key to take a few minutes to solve each one and then map them all out so that you aren't running back and forth across the whole damn town trying to get all of your photos.

we arrived at the designated meeting place - ixtapa cantina, at the eastern edge of old town pasadena.

inside, we were met by two crew members who handed us our t-shirts and waivers to sign.

fuel for the race.

oh, and the official pre-race pic.

we'd arrived fairly early, not knowing how many people were signed up and trying to avoid any parking issues.  so this left us with roughly an hour to wander up and down colorado boulevard, stopping in shops here and there.  i totally giggled at these ridiculous-looking shoes:

and side-eyed the hell out of this kid and her mother, wandering around forever 21 barefoot.  ew.

we headed back to ixtapa to listen to the final race instructions and pick up our clue sheet, and then we were sent out into the sunshine to begin our journey.  there's only one actual rule for this thing, and it basically says that the entire thing has to be done on foot.  no skateboards, taxis, buses, rides from a friend.  there were actually two versions of this thing happening at the same time - the one we were doing, which was projected to be 3-5 miles (i suppose depending on how well you mapped out your course), and a half marathon-length option that still offered a dozen riddles but spread out over a larger area.  so we were free to use our phones to look up answers to the clues - thank goodness, because we wouldn't have gotten half of them without help from our friend google.

prepare for a handful of lame ass pictures of me with that stupid look on my face and the pointer finger(s) out.

once we'd gotten through all 12 riddles, we decided to head out towards the pasadena playhouse.  it was under a mile away, with a handful of the other destinations scattered along the way.  our first stop was the pacific asia museum:

there was a picture clue that took us a minute to figure out, and even then we weren't 100% sure that we were right.  but we headed off in the direction we thought it might be located, and sure enough:

next up, the playhouse.

we had to laugh at ourselves when we reached the bighorn fountain, because we'd passed it on our way to the museum and dismissed it as unimportant.  turned out that it was indeed one of the things we needed a picture of.  at least it was on our way back, right?  d-oh!

we'd passed by other teams who were working on the same list as we were, and decided to head off the beaten path a bit.  on our way to the next landmark, we managed to check off another item:  any of the old brick buildings in the old town pasadena area.  the teen loves her some king taco, so this was extra amusing to me.

as many times as i've driven through this area, i can't say i'd ever noticed the two mosaic wall murals nor the historic theater that they were created in tribute to.  huh.

two more landmarks were crossed off at the memorial park across the street.  see, i wasn't kidding about the stupid expression and pointing.

this random kinetic sculpture, something i never would've looked at twice before, was next.

and now we had no choice but to head out to the farthest point on our list:  the gamble house.  it was almost a mile away, and with a couple of gnarly hills to climb no matter how we chose to get there.  as we approached it, the entrance was partially blocked by a group of folks we recognized from ixtapa.  "have you guys got them all?" one guy asked.  i said "not quite, but most!" and over his shoulder he tossed out "oh, we're all done.  we already checked back in, too."  cool, dude.  yay for you.  we were just happy to get this one over with.

the teen couldn't help but take this with that group in the background.  it was hard to tell if they were being serious or not, but at this point we were right around an hour into the game and hey, they could've totally been done.  we just wanted to finish.

except that there was another couple who we kept running into along the way.  they were clearly full of themselves as they scurried along, all serious with not a wave or a smile in return to our cheerful greetings.  whatthefuckever.

our last clues were in a familiar location:  one colorado, which also houses a little cupcake shop i know and love.  we got our pictures and jumped back out onto colorado boulevard to make our way back to ixtapa.

we knew that couple was somewhere nearby, but we didn't see them as we scampered through the crowds with our completed list in hand.  with the restaurant signage in our sight, we picked up the pace and started getting a little excited at the prospect of perhaps finishing in the top three and winning a medal.  and then...

that couple?  the one we thought we'd shaken off our leg like a dog in heat?  they pushed past us full steam ahead - which would've been totally cool.  hey, they obviously really wanted to take first place and were willing to sprint to the finish to get there.  except that as they passed us, they laughed.  like, a "haha, you thought you were gonna win but you're not, neener neener neener" ugly kind of guffaw as they weaseled their way past us and right in the door.

two seconds ahead of us.  two!

they refused to make eye contact with us as we checked in with the race staff, who asked to see the photos we'd all taken along the route.  when they couldn't figure out how to access their pictures right away, i held up my phone for the guy to flip through and check off.  the woman in the couple was clearly annoyed by this as she let out a huge sigh, snatching the phone away from her husband to take care o'business.  we were happy to hear that we'd gotten all of the answers right, while that harpy told the staffers that she thought the clues were just far too easy and that they should have made them way harder.  i wanted to rip a nasty, smelly fart in her direction.

the other staffer congratulated us and commented that we'd done a great job of getting through the course so quickly.  we were pretty happy with our 1:26 finish time, during which we'd covered just a hair under four miles.  and so we rewarded ourselves with a walk back to king taco for a burrito and some nachos.

we returned to ixtapa an hour later to see if we'd managed to place after all - which we did.  right behind that couple.

second place.  yeah.

which, of course, means that that dude in front of the gamble house was totally lying when he'd said they were all done.  how dumb.  i didn't get the point of that whole exchange, but i guess i just don't understand why a lot of people say and do the stupid ass shit they do.

in any case, we'd had a great time with the challenge, had some delicious lunch, and took home a medal.  considering we hadn't even gone into this thing with a prize in mind, i'd say it ended up being a pretty good sunday afternoon.