Food Coma

One of the things I had planned with Rob for this weekend was to do a long run--about 10 miles--together.

Problem #1: He hadn't been doing much running lately, so I afeared of his pulling a muscle or 3. Then he told me he did an 8.2 mile run earlier this week. "You're going to overtrain!" I told him.

"You're just trying to wimp out," he said.

Problem #2: We were both incredibly dehydrated this morning after last night's party, despite each of us drinking tons of water. I woke up feeling as though the army had been conducting chemical weapons research in my body during the night.

Problem #3: Rob was feeling sick from the night before. Probably culprit: the large quantity of rich food.

Upshot: we didn't do the long run in the morning.

We wanted to go out to brunch this morning with our guests and friends. Darin really likes the brunch at the Daily Grill--well, to be more specific, he really likes the chicken hash at the Daily Grill--and so we called the Daily Grill to make reservations. They said they could take us at 3 o'clock.

3 o' clock?

Every other place we called gave us similarly bizarrely long wait times.

Finally I said, "It's Mother's Day."

We all looked at one another.

"Oh crap. We won't get in anywhere."

Somehow we alit upon the idea of going to dim sum at Empress Pavilion in Chinatown--the restaurant would be ridiculously crowded, but it's always ridiculously crowded and they're good at moving people in and out.

Darin took off for Chinatown with Greg and Jimi; I gave phone directions to Ceej so that she could chauffeur David and Alex; I waited for David F. to call and Rob and Laura to arrive so the 3 of us could drive down.

Everybody except David F. met up at the Empress Pavilion easily enough. We stood around in the vast throngs--this is not, I'll have you know, Dianesian hyperbole; there really are vast throngs outside of Empress Pavilion on Sunday mornings--waiting for our number to be up. David F. called me on my cell phone and I gave him directions on how to find us.

Rob, Laura, and I went in search of caffeine for Rob, who was unable to function coherently without it. (Some might say that the caffeine doesn't help, but I'm not one of them.) We stopped in this little bakery that had the word Coffee outside of it and he and I each bought a cup. I dumped mine after a sip--it was the most foul concoction I'd ever ingested without benefit of pneumonia. He kept drinking his--his need for caffeine took precedence over every fibre in his body saying, "No! No! This is not of this world!"

Soon (well, after an hour's wait) we got our table. David F. phoned me again and said, "Where are you guys?" I directed him into the restaurant and to our table. We ate lots of yummy things--shrimp chow fun, bao, Chinese asparagus, egg custards--and managed to get away with only $11 damage each. (David F., who was keeping semi-kosher and so did not enjoy the yummy pork and shrimp dishes, subsidized the rest of us.)

After brunch our caravan proceeded back to our house.

Where we munched out on the leftover goodies from the party. Oy.

We had a long discussion in the living room about writing. I asked Alex about his post-Clarion activities--he evidently took 6 months off and wrote a book. (I'm assuming it's a novel.) We talked a lot about Hollywood and why movies are such messes. There was something else we talked about, but my memory is so clouded by sleep and carbohydrates at this point I can't remember what.

Ceej said she wanted to talk about a new design for my page, so she, Laura, and I headed into my office: Laura stretched out on the bed and fell asleep, I stretched out on the floor and dozed. I don't think Ceej got anything very intelligible out of me

The hard floor's soothing effect on my lower back not withstanding, after a while I went downstairs and climbed into bed. I slept like a rock (do rocks sleep?) for two hours.

I got up and got dressed for a run. Rob, who had not slept, went running with me. Before we could leave, we said goodbye to all the people who would be leaving while we were out--the Ceej and David and Alex group, and David F.

(David F.'s visit was the most gratifying--he lives in New York and we thought it was completely unlikely that he'd come visit. It turned out that he was in town this weekend for a conference in Long Beach or somewhere anyhow, so he RSVP'd to be and asked me not to tell Darin so that it would be a surprise, which it definitely was.)

We had a good run, though we were both convinced that our bodies were made out of some kind of industrial waste that was not meant to move aerobically. It took longer to do 4.7 miles today than it did to do 5.3 miles the other day.

The rest of the evening was spent slug-like in the living room, periodically noshing on party leftovers--biggest hit: reheating one of the pecan bries, although I did not partake in that because I am not a big fan o' brie--and watching The Larry Sanders Show, 60 Minutes, The Simpsons (so-so; funniest bit: the Russian section of Springfield), King of the Hill (very funny), and finally The X-Files (one of their creepiest episodes ever).

After that, I just collapsed. Boom.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

4.7 miles with Rob at 5pm. Both of us felt like our limbs were made of lead. I don't know how we managed to get trashed by a weekend during which neither of drank, but there it is.