This whole 4th of July on a Friday thing is a really fine idea, I recommend we do this every year. Having a couple of days to recover from the 4th is great-we still get a whole weekend of lazing about after yesterday’s festivities.
I have been on a bit of a cooking spree lately. This may have been spurred on by the fact that our remodel plans were finally approved by the city last week (it took 4 months!) which means we could finally start construction soon. This of course means we won’t have a kitchen for several months which may be why I’m cooking like a madwoman this week. Having time off definitely contributes to this habit as well, and I did just have a blissful week off from work after our week up at Sequoia. So, for the 4th I actually planned a menu. Pretty fancy, eh? For starters we had…
Caprese-on-a-stick: mozzarella ball, cherry tomato and basil on a toothpick, drizzled with olive oil and topped with a little fleur de sel.
Garlicky White Bean Dip and Pita Chips: I wasn’t so sure about this dip right after I made it, but after it sat in the fridge for a couple of hours and soaked up some of that garlic flavor and I added the fresh oregano, it was really, really tasty. At this point I started drinking and completely forgot to take any more pictures of food, but here was the rest of the menu:
Indian Grilled Chicken, my own recipe
These potatoes-so good!
Herb-tossed Corn
Greek salad, courtesy of my mother-in-law, the Salad Queen
White chocolate chip Heath bar brownies, courtesy of my sister the Queen of all Baking
It was goooood. If only I had the time to cook like this the rest of the year.
Ashok’s cousin was over for dinner so they had all sorts of fun. Swimming…
…wagon rides…
…and bubbles.
Or, maybe just bubble.
Today, there was some more excitement around here, but I haven’t uploaded the appropriate pictures yet, so all three of you reading will have to wait for my next post. I promise it won’t be two weeks from now.
July 5th, 2008
June 15th, 2008
Yes, it has been forever…and I really want to write a real post one of these days. But for now, I had to do this meme that I found on Courtney’s blog. Here;s what you do:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.
1. Shalini Goel - Abhinaya Example - 1, 2. Biriyani - India. Chicken Rissoto, 3. Winter Rhapsody Concert: Davis High School Combined Bands 2005, 4. Verde no Aquarius, 5. brad mehldau, 6. Maker’s Mark Manhattan, 7. Fiji Banded Iguana, 8. Ice cream afterwards. Mmmm, chocolate and peanut butter!, 9. Winkin’ Kitten ;o), 10. Family Portrait, 11. i am excitable., 12. The R Man
The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.
June 9th, 2008
It has been scorching hot here for the last few days. Somehow we went from two gloomy weeks of overcast skies, highs in the mid 60’s and chilly evenings directly to highs of 98 and little flowers that had just started to bloom being burnt to a crisp. Can I get something in between? Where are my gorgeous spring days that peak at 75 leaving the evenings blissful and breezy? Is that too much to ask for?
The heat has certainly not motivated me to run, nor has the 5 pounds of phlegm I feel like I’m carrying around in my sinuses and lungs from last week’s cold. So today, for the first time this season, I swam. And lo, it was pathetic. I haven’t done laps in our pool since last fall and you would think that since I just ran a half marathon a month ago and am in possibly better shape than I ever have been that swimming would not be the gasping, splashing, flailing struggle that it was today. But damn, swimming is hard. I need to work on that.
The other big problem with the heat is the fact that we don’t have air conditioning. And we live in a two-story house. AND we sleep upstairs (for now). Last year when we moved into this house, we didn’t bother trying to get the a/c fixed since we were planning on doing some major remodeling that would involve moving ducts and upgrading the current system. Of course, we thought that would all be done by now but sadly, it has even started. It just took much longer than we thought it would to get things in order before someone takes a sledgehammer to the walls. We have plans now, drawn up by a great designer but they are still with the city, a process that we thought would only take 3 weeks and has now taken about 2 months. We’re closer to finding a contractor, but still not sold on any one person. Of course, once all of that gets sorted out and we actually start the whole process, we’re probably looking at 3-4 months of living in construction, but I’m really excited about our plans and am pretty sure it will all be worth it in the end.
Work has been hell for the last couple of weeks and although I get a bit of a break this week, next week is right back into the fire. Luckily, once I hit June things will lighten up a lot and I’m hoping they’ll stay that way for most of the summer. The hardest thing about working at night, which I did last week Sunday through Saturday, is not being around for Ashok’s evening activities. Missing his dinner, bath and bedtime that many nights in a row really sucks after a while, especially since on many of those days I had some daytime work as well. Brian and I agreed that this last week was particularly bad. Obviously, it’s hard on him too since he has no one to help out at the crankiest time of the evening, and let’s face it we ALL start getting cranky as the day wears on, so I’m going to try and plan things out a bit better form now on. This is the pain in the ass with freelancing-all the work comes at once or doesn’t come at all so it makes it hard to turn things down, but I would gladly turn down a few gigs to spend more time with these guys:
At Hosmer Grove in Haleakala Park, Maui
May 19th, 2008
Thanks for all the well wishes in comments on the last post. It took a few days of clutching onto the walls every time I moved around, but the vertigo finally subsided. Once I was finally feeling better, I managed to get sick again so now I’m recovering from a cold which may be developing into a sinus infection. But, at least I can walk and drive and don’t need an escort every time I get up to go to the bathroom. That vertigo, she was a bitch.
Hopefully, this will be the last of the sickness for a while-I haven’t been able to run much at all in the last couple of weeks. I had plans to do a 10K on Memorial Day but I’ll have to see what kind of shape I’m in once this cold passes. It is starting to get hot here, which means I’m going to have to start dragging my ass out of bed at an obscene hour to be able to run at all, something I’m not looking forward to. Today though, I’m going to use sinus pain as an excuse to skip the run and eat a chocolate pop-tart instead. I hear they have healing properties.
May 15th, 2008
Now if only I looked as good as Kim Novak. I woke up this morning with a brutal case of vertigo. This has never happened to me before, although I am severely prone to all varieties of ear maladies (damn you, small eustachian tubes). When I got up from bed this morning, the whole room was spinning, a sensation I usually associate with drinking an entire bottle of Southern Comfort, and yet I had been respectably sober the night before. I blame allergies and my stupid middle ear. Thank goodness my mom was staying over last night-Brian was out of town on business-otherwise I don’t think I would have made it to the couch without barfing. She was also able to get Ashok out of bed and dressed while I sat in the living room staring at an electrical socket to keep myself from falling over. What a horrible feeling, and I didn’t even get to get drunk first.
Needless to say, I have been stuck on the couch for the remainder of the day. Brian is back now and being a great nurse and I am hopped up on Benadryl and feeling a little better. Standing up, or even moving my head too fast while seated, will send me reeling though, and I’m wondering if I’m going to be calling in sick for work tomorrow.
mmmm…..benadryl kicking in now…night ni……zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
May 7th, 2008
Sometime in the last year, WordPress swallowed my About Me and Archives pages whole and ate them with a side of bacon. I have made a feeble attempt to construct a new About Me page with my limited computer skills. The link is over there to the right. Oh, and the post that link takes you to? Is right below this. Whatever, I’m not exactly in this to win awards for blog design.
April 29th, 2008
My name is Shalini, rhyme it with “colony” and you’re pronouncing it pretty much right, although my Indian mother might not agree. I play the violin for a living in the greater Los Angeles area which means I spend a lot of time driving on the epic L.A. freeway system. I play in a couple of orchestras, on some TV shows and movies and in various other places but no more wedding gigs, I left that behind in New York.
Run, Lucy, Run started out as a running blog back when I was just getting started with slow, painful loops around the Rose Bowl. I eventually picked up a little endurance and (very) little speed and completed my first half marathon in April of 2008. Lucy is my faithful brown dog who accompanies me on most of my runs during which we try to burn off some of that puppy energy that is still lingering in her at age 4. I am married to Brian, who is a computer genius/musician/most patient man on earth. Our son, Ashok (I have no rhyme for this one yet, check back later) was born in September of 2006 and now makes fairly regular appearances on this site as well. We have a cat who is named after a lawbreaking TV psychic with a Jamaican accent. I’ll let you guess.
April 29th, 2008
We’re in the midst of our first official wildfire in Southern California. We live about 10 miles away from the Sierra Madre fire and although we are in no danger at all, I can smell the smoke from where I’m sitting inside my house and my eyes have been burning for the last hour. I had planned to run 6-7 miles today but with the air like this, I decided to skip it and stay inside. I’m hoping tomorrow will bring good news, hopefully they can get it contained, but it sounds like it will probably take a couple more days. I know a couple of musicians who live in that community so I’m thinking good thoughts for them and all the other people who had to leave their homes this weekend.
April 27th, 2008
Ah, springtime. Flowers, fresh air, and beautiful sandals I can’t afford.
April 25th, 2008
Previous Posts