I have to run 9.3 miles on Saturday...

...and there's a very real chance I may die trying.

In July, it seemed like a great idea to sign up for this race. I'm sure my thought process went much like this: "Oh, I've got four months to train for this race? I'll sign up for the 15K, that'll be a great challenge." So I signed up. And $65 later I was committed to run the first annual Hot Chocolate 15K at National Harbor on December 3.

I did not regret this decision until about 2 days ago when I realized that I have been out of town 10 of the past 14 days. And besides the 10K I ran on November 13, I have not been running at all very much this month. In case you're not understanding my panic here, let me break it down for you.A 15K is 9.3 miles. That is .7 miles shorter than the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler I ran in April; a race I trained 6 months for. (Insert panic here.)

My 10K earlier this month went pretty well, but was by no means by finest race. I ran the whole thing, and my lungs felt great, but that was all three weeks ago now and I'm a bit concerned that my body has forgotten what to do. (And on a slightly-gross-runner's-note, the calluses on my feet have gone away; I anticipate this to be a very, very painful process to get my feet back into good long distance running shape. And I have four days to do it. FML.)

There are two pieces of good news amidst the wreckage: On Thursday night I'm going to the Expo with Running Buddy, we're going to grab some dinner out at National Harbor, probably have a few glasses of wine, and gab for a while. All essential to my four-day training plan. And the other good news is I get to meet up with the fabulous running-grad school-city life-baseball-etc. blogger Christy from 25 before 25. New friends and post-race-brunch are two of my favorite things. Ever.

In the event that I don't actually perish from this racing endeavor, I'll post a recap over the weekend. But just in case, I hereby bequeath my entire wardrobe to my sister, Carly; my blue tweed love seat should go to my brother, Matt (as I believe this piece of furniture should live forever and be passed from one college kid to the next); and to my youngest brother, Ryan, I give "my vote" in all sibling arguments (we've been picking on him since the day he was born, so the least I can do is let him win a few with my help); and all other items can be pillaged by my friends, happy hunting.

Happy Tuesday friends. Hope to see you again on the other side of those 9.3 miles.

Oh, How Pinteresting: Got me thinking

Joining The Vintage Apple's Oh How Pinteresting Wednesday link up, like I did for the first time last week...

I leave for Milwaukee tomorrow, so the usual nostalgia is kicking in. Last week my brain was completely consumed by work; and Sunday/Monday I was attempting to finish my schoolwork for the semester. I hate having assignments lingering over vacations, so I'm happy to have most of it out of the way. The nostalgia  didn't hit me until this morning, so I thought I'd share some quotes, found on Pinterest, that speak volumes to me this week.

Above:  I'm the "baby" of the office by quite a few years, although I don't often feel like it. But for real, I need to stop wishing I was older, because when that day comes I'm going to wish it had never come.

Below: Feeling very career confused lately. Bowie helps.

Above: I'm already prepping for the homesickness I'll feel next week after I get back to DC. I just need to remember that I'll be back for Christmas in less than a month.

Below: Enough said.

Happy Wednesday.

A Complex Little Cookie

Thanksgiving potluck at work tomorrow, so I thought I'd try a new recipe for the occasion. I attempted to make this cookie last week, but after spending an hour at the grocery store looking for rice flour (heads up, it's in the baking aisle and I would have found it sooner if I had opened my eyes and gotten off my cell phone, my bad), I got home and realized that I was short on oatmeal. Kind of an essential ingredient for oatmeal cookies. So take two, all ingredients in the pantry, ready to go.

This is a recipe I found one of my favorite blogs, Eat, Run, Read, and it's a mock up of the delicious salted oat cookies at Teaism. Any DC-ers had one? Epic little cookie, agree? Totally necessary of replicating.  Here we go:

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (NOT quick-cooking)
3/4 cup butter flavored Crisco shortening
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
1 3/4 cup rice flour
1 cup raisins
Kosher or Sea Salt for sprinkling
1/2 cup water (as needed)

1. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter. Remove from the heat and stir in oats. Set aside.
2. With a mixer, beat shortening on medium or high speed until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the sugars gradually, beating until mixed.
3. Add in the baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and allspice and beat until incorporated.
4. Add the eggs, vanilla, coconut, beating until blended.
5. Add in the oatmeal and rice flour (you may need to hand-stir at this point) and beat until just incorporated. Add the raisins. My dough was really dry, so I added water as needed (about 1/2 cup). Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour.
6. Preheat your oven to 375* and spray your cookie sheets (or cover them in parchment paper).
7. Form dough into balls the size of golf balls and place on the baking sheets about 2 inches apart. Flatten the balls slightly and sprinkle generously with Kosher or Sea Salt.
8. Bake one sheet of cookie at a time for 15 minutes, or until they are puffed and starting to brown.
9. With a spatula carefully remove cookies and transfer cookies to a cooling rack.

Changes I Made Along The Way:

• I went from golf ball size dough balls to a little smaller than ping pong ball size dough balls; which adjusted the cooking time to about 7 1/2 minutes. They looked a little doughy coming out of the oven, but ended up normal after cooling. 

Thing I'll change next time:

• More raisins. Lots more raisins. 
• Use a coarser salt. I only had table salt, which tastes fine but doesn't look as good. 
• Double the recipe. I'm going to make my kitchen a cookie-doughy-disaster, more cookies need to be yielded. 

Overall, a success. Hopefully they are a hit tomorrow at the potluck. 

A few more tweaks to the recipe and it'll be perfect.

A Brief St. Louis Restaurant Tour

I'm now happy reintegrated into society after a five day business trip to St. Louis. Although, I'm not sure that "business trip" really sums up what those five days were like. In short, they were exhausting. Starting with 6:00 a.m. staff meetings and ending anywhere from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.; and at night I was so paranoid I'd sleep through my alarm (make the five alarms and a wake up call) I ended up waking up every 90 minutes or so. Oh and add stress dreams about work to the mix, lots of stress dreams about things not going well the next day. After the second day of that lack of sleep, I thought I was going to loose my mind. The only thing keeping me going were the great dinner with my coworkers after a long day. I didn't know what to expect to find in St. Louis, but all of the places we ended up going pleasantly surprised me.

Pappy's Smokehouse

A cafeteria style restaurant that serves homemade Memphis style barbecue and sides. I got a combo plate of pulled pork and brisket, with sides of deep fried corn on the cob and sweet potato fries. As a lover of all things barbecue, I was a big fan of this place. If I were there again, I'd skip the pork and opt for more brisket or try the ribs (a couple of coworkers ordered the ribs, they were the definition of food envy).

Pappy's via my terrible blackberry camera

The Jive and Wail Dueling Piano Bar

This is not really my scene, but we were hosting a work event here that ended up being pretty entertaining. It's traditional dueling piano bar tucked into a very narrow space with a low stage, which puts the piano players almost disturbingly close to you. Works to their advantage because part of their whole routine is to interact with the audience. They had traditional deep fried bar food (which I didn't try) and an average selection of drinks. I'd forgotten what non-DC drink prices were like. Sigh.


Copia Urban Winery and Market

This title makes it sounds really stuffy, and I'll be honest in saying that I didn't know what it was called when we were there. It was five of my favorite coworkers and I, after and extremely long day, and it was an excellent choice. We started with a few bottles of wine and a couple of appetizers out in their beautiful "wine garden," rather than sitting in the dining room. The "wine garden" was this very lush, jungle-like indoor patio space with open fire pits and candles all around the room. The food was amazing (I had the duck), and it was probably my favorite meal of the week.

Mizu Sushi Bar

On a rare early evening, we headed just a block from our hotel to the first sushi bar we could find. We happily stumbled upon Mizu and their happy hour; half price wine/beer/saki and half price appetizers until 7:00 p.m. - it was 5:15 when we walked in. We were set for the evening. Eventually we ordered sushi and shared a few different rolls around the table. We ordered a roll called "Imperial Gaurd" that came wrapped in tin foil in the shape of a ship, and the whole thing was surrounded in flames. I was mortified as we had quickly become "those people" in the restaurant. How were we supposed to know it was served on fire?


The Dubliner

Wanting to kill some time before having to leave for the airport, a few of us headed to The Dubliner for lunch and some college football. I instantly fell in love with this bar the second we walked in. High ceilings covered in futbol flags and dark wooden boothes all along the walls. Not as many televisions around as I'd hoped for, but luckily the Wisconsin game was over so I wasn't missing out on anything. I went with the standard fish and chips followed by a couple of beers, and no complaints here on their menu of seemingly authentic Irish fare.

So it seems like I complain, and complain, and complain, about this trip because it was exhausting, it was overall a great experience. Getting to these restaurants were literally the only time I was outside my hotel room of the Convention Center the entire trip, so I'm glad we made such great food choices.  If you're ever in St. Louis, check them out.

Three Things Thursday: Out of Office Reply

Off on business trip at the moment (it's not as glamorous as it sounds, so don't be jealous, at all, seriously), but clever ole me wrote this post ahead of time as to not miss a Three Things Thursday.

This week's Three are things I'm missing out on by being out of town at the moment:

1. Thursday Night Television: I'm not really hooked on a lot of television shows. Full-time job, grad school, life, whatnots, doesn't leave a lot of time for television. At least, that's what I tell myself. It's far to easy to come home after work, plop down on the couch and watch a couple mindless hours of Kardashian family values. But, I should be doing a few other things instead. So I tell myself there's not enough time for mindless television. It works most of the time.

But there are four shows I go out of my way to watch (aka DVR because I'm never actually home when they're on): It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The League, Grey's Anatomy, and The Walking Dead. All but the latter are on Thursday night. While I am quite excited about having a DVR chalk full of exciting television to watch when I get back, I'm kind of pissed I have to wait until then to find out what happens with Meredith and Alex on the side of the road with that baby.

PS - If you're not a Sunny fan, become one. All of the episodes are hilarious. Here's my favorite scene, from my favorite episode. Enjoy.

2. This orange, striped face: I feel bad leavin him alone. He better not throw any parties or invite girls over while I'm done.

3. The ESPN Zone DC auction: You may or may not have ever been to an ESPN Zone before they closed a few years ago; they're a lot like Dave and Busters, Chuck E Cheese for adults, etc., but had a local sports flare to them. Courtesy of a DCist article I found a while back, I wasted an afternoon on this website. (Click through, look around, and then come back...) So you're telling me, that for the bargain price of $180 I can get one of those jetskiing games? And we could pool our money and install a mini two-lane bowling in the conference room for $610? The auction closed last night, but you have to pick it up today. There inlies the problem. No one to go get these gems.

A coworker and I spent at least an hour oogling the various arcade items, wondering how much convincing it would take to get our boss to use the holiday party budget on a pitching machine and black light air hockey table. We'd use it everyday, we swear. We'd have all our meetings at the air hockey table. 


Hope you're having a happy Thursday. I'll be back to the interwebz later this week.

Oh, How Pinteresting: Snuggle in

Let's face it. I'm addicted to Pinterest. And if we're being really honest, Hannah and Maggie are too. So it's nice to know that I'm in good company. I'm following Maggie's lead here and joining The Vintage Apple's Oh How Pintersting Wednesdays link up to share some of my favorite pins. Each week I'll pick a different theme, and post a few of my favorite photos, ideas, products, pins, etc. Join in, and enjoy!


The air here in DC is finally starting to crisp up and I believe we're finally settled into fall. I'm sorry Wisconsinites, I know it was snowing there yesterday. But the truth is, I really miss the cooler weather. It was disgusting, humid, and swamp-like here in our nation's capital from approximately May until early October. Not a fan. So this week's pins are cozy little corners of the world I'd like to curl up with a good book, a mug of tea,  and perhaps an orange striped cat.

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Veterans Day 10K

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I ran the Veterans Day 10K last year, and it introduced me to the beauty of West Potomac Park and Haines Point. Since then, I'd say I've gone running down there at least twice a month. It's flat, it's beautiful, and it's an easy way to get an easy three to six miles added to a route.

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Yesterday's promise of beautiful running weather held true; it was perfect this morning. In the high 40s, just a slight breeze, only a few clouds in the sky. Light jacket, running gloves, ear cover headband thing, and I was good to go. We'll start with mile splits, then a race breakdown:

Mile 1 - 11:39
Mile 2 - 11:40
Mile 3 - 11:35
Mile 4 - 11:34
Mile 5 - 11:36
Mile 6 - 11:32

Now that's fuckin' consistency! I felt like I was pacing really well, and I literally said to Ange on the phone afterwards, "I bet there's only a few seconds difference in my mile time." Bam.

Mile 1 - Felt great. Barely into the course yet. Not too crowded, everybody scattered pretty quickly and it's a two lane road so you don't feel like you're being pushed around by other runners.

Mile 2 - Water station was a complete nightmare. It's only been two miles, people, why the hell are you stopping? (Just some inner thoughts from that point in the race.) I obviously realize that everyone has different hydration needs, but I tend to avoid water stations especially when they're super crowded like this one.

Mile 3 - Between the 2 and 3 mile marker sign (right at the tip of Haines Point) I was starting to get really bored. In my head I was telling myself, just keep going to 3, you can walk at 3. But the second I came around the other side of the Point, I felt renewed. Like I had been slingshotted right on through to the mile 3 marker.

Mile 4 - At the 5K turn around I picked up a pace person. (Someone you run next to or follow. They generally look like they're having an easier time than you. You keep telling yourself, if they're still running, I'm still running. Keep going, stay with them.) We were running the exact same speed, until she stopped at the 4 mile marker. Sad face. I was back to running by myself, unmotivated to finish. But at this point, 4 miles in, I'm not stopping. Home stretch, just two miles left. I'm not stopping.

Mile 5 - This is about when I decided it's officially time for new running shoes. I could feel it in my knees. Not good. But overall, my body was keeping up quite nicely. I never felt out of breath, just steady consistent breathing. Nice job lungs! This is a stark contrast to the same point in the race last year, where I distinctly remember being beet red and huffing and puffing along the last mile or so.

Home stretch - Came around the corner by the exit of the FDR Memorial, and the finish line was in sight. A ways away, but it was in sight. I started to speed up a little but, to start my finish line momentum. But I got lightheaded, and everything went a little spotty for a second. So apparently my body did not like the idea of speeding up. Tried it again about 20 seconds later, same result. Held my pace until I was in the finishing chute and could see the clock. I picked up my pace a bit, thinking if I pass out, at least someone will probably drag me over the finish so my time can be officially recorded.

iPod time - 1:12:11 (But it also says I ran 6.33 because I was a ways back from the start, so I'll repost my official time when it's on the website.)

Post race - My feet are pretty torn up. The usual blister on the tip of my right foot's second toe really, really hurts. And there's a few other tender places, where clearly the padding in my shoes has been worn down. Time to start shopping for shoes.

I feel good, glad I ran the whole thing, but all in all not my finest race. I was five minutes slower than last year, and really bored through most of the race. Probably because I run this course almost every weekend? Probably. I also have been running by myself a lot lately. Running Buddy get better already, I miss you! And in general, I need to train more. One run during the week is not going to cut it even if I have two great runs on the weekend. I'm ready for work to not be so busy, running is the last thing I have energy for then I get home. Whine, whine, whine, I know...

Next up: December 3 - 15K (9.3 miles)

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This will be my longest run since the Cherry Blossom, and I'm really looking forward to it. Let's hope my body agrees.

Three Things Thursday: This week, next week, and the week after.

It's been a crazy week here on the East Coast, and my schedule only gets busier from here. This week's Three are just a few life and schedule updates...

This Thursday: Tonight I will be booking my plane ticket to come home for Christmas. I'm very, very excited that I'll be able to include a trip through Viroqua to see my darling Hannah (assuming she'll still have me) and then spend some time with Maggie in La Crosse. 

Besides snuggling with my besties in their adorably decorated homes I am looking forward to a Del's bloody mary, Fayze's breakfast, eating wings with Chris, and cashing in on a few sports bets that I won as a result of being better than the Cubs.

Next Thursday: I will be enduring day three of five at my company's annual convention. Hello 18 hour days! I'll be surviving on convention center coffee that will surely taste like rocket fuel; but hell, if it keeps me on my feet from our 6:00 a.m. staff meeting until whenever I'm told I'm done working for the day, bring it on. 

Oh, and did I mention this convention is in St. Louis? Yeah. Like punishment straight from Satan himself, I have to spend five days in this armpit of a town which (I can only assume) will be covered in Cardinals World Series paraphernalia. I'd go for another root canal before voluntarily subjecting myself to this cruel and unusual torture. 

I'm going to try and pre-schedule a few blogs while I'm gone, but don't expect much from me on twitter, facebook, or the blogosphere next week. It might kill me. The convention, St. Louis, and the lack of social media all included in that sentiment.

The Thursday after that: My reward for surviving convention and my HTML class this semester. Thanksgiving with my family. I arrive in Milwaukee at 7:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning. By 8:00 a.m. I plan to be firmly planted on the couch with a cup of coffee and three large Labradors. I think Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday with my family because my siblings and I have our very own little tradition of watching The National Dog Show after the parade. I look forward to spending that time with them every year. Hopefully Carly can get her internet in the south of France by then so we can Skype her in to enjoy the festivities with us. 

Busy, busy, busy. Back to work now. Happy thursday!

PS - Check out Courtney's first's Three Things Thursday post! She's a great blogger/runner buddy out in Colorado, so make sure to keep up on her blog for running/race updates and wedding info, she got engaged a couple months ago!

I think I should clarify, I'm not an alcoholic.

I just got out of a 90-minute mid-morning meeting; I sat back down at my computer and thought, "I'd love a beer right now." So I tweeted it. Which I do often. (Both tweet and crave a beer.) Then I realized, that this is now the third day in a row that by noon, I've wanted/felt I required a cocktail to successfully move through the rest of my day. It's Wednesday. Meaning everyday this week I've had this same string of thoughts. There's a problem here. A few actually.

But lets start by clarifying, I'm not an alcoholic or anything close to it. I've never actually gone out during lunch and gotten an alcoholic beverage, and I rarely drink when I get home from work. (Mainly because it seems counter productive to the long runs and training I'm doing right now. Boo.) So, the whole scenario above isn't  a real problem beyond the fact that I probably should find a new job that doesn't cause me to have the urge to drink before noon.

But job searching isn't in my immediate future, and it's still faux pas around this office to drink on the job. So in the mean time, I'm just going to tweet about, blog about it, and share my cocktail dreams with you all. Enjoy. Hopefully you have an office that insists on a happy hour.

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Happy New York City Marathon Day!

Video found via Eat, Run, Read.

Renewed faith in DC's ability to craft a decent bloody mary

You may remember my recent attempt at making/finding a decent bloody mary; it was a complete failure. So huge thanks to my gal KU for scooping this article form the Washington Post, and leading us to Poste for brunch this morning. We've been there before for their happy hour, but when I found out they started up a supposedly-decent bloody mary bar, a brunch trip was a necessity. 

I was actually quite impressed with their spread (and I pretty much had the run of the place, I didn't see anyone else head over there all morning. Best kept secret in the DC bloody mary world? I think so.). The article advised to skip their bloody mary mix, and instead go for the house-made Worcestershire and tomato juice instead. A quality decision, because then that left me to season my beverage exactly how I liked it. Lots of celery salt, hot sauce, and a healthy helping of their Worcestershire. Oh, and I forgot to mention the vodka; three options, including a bacon infused vodka, so I obviously went with that one.

And the final product: toppings included bacon, olives, onions, pepperoncini, and cucumber spears. Kudos to Poste for not skimping on their topping selections or the amount of vodka per drink. Maybe it was the empty stomach I was drinking on, but this one kind of put me on my ass. Nice work, Poste, nice work. The title of this post is a bit misleading, since I ended up crafting the bloody mary myself, but I was happy to finally find the options there for me.

KU and Gabbie enjoyed a couple of Brave New World's (Maker's Mark, sparkling wine, and bitters). They are both lovers of bourbon and highly recommended this cocktail.

And, as if the perfect bloody mary wasn't enough... the main reason I love brunch - you can get a burger for breakfast and it's totally acceptable. I love brunch.

Happy Saturday :)

Thursday Night Crafts and Cocktails

I'm a real glutton for punishment; Thursday nights will be the death of me. Why? Because going out on Thursdays make Friday's at work almost unbearable. So I'm stating it here, loud and clear. The death of me. So what did I do last night, I went out with Gabbie. Of course. Lets start at the beginning...

Renwick Gallery's HandiHour. Handcrafted + Happy Hour =  a genius idea. Basically it's beer and crafts. I don't consider myself very crafty, or even very artsy for that matter, but you get a couple of beers in me and I think I'm the next Jackson Pollock. Just decoupaging stuff together and pretending I know how to sew. Beers. Boom. Crafty.

So it was kind of a free for all, there were all kinds of supplies and a couple of how-tos. I, very uncharacteristically, followed the directions for one of the how-tos and...

...I made this! It's a coffee coozie thing, like the cardboard one you'd use at Starbucks or something. Yeah, whatever, so you didn't know what it was, and I'll never actually remember to bring it with me to the coffee shop, but whatever. It's adorable, and I'm quite proud. Just nod and smile, please.

Phase two: Estadio, near Logan Circle, for tapas and cocktails. Tanqueray and citrus tonic. Delicious, delicious, and delicious.

Phase three: another bar of which I can not remember the name. Pitcher of pumpkin beer. Chit chat.

Phase four: Hopelessly following Gabbie to the Dupont Metro. Approximately 45 minutes and three wrong turns later, I realized we shouldn't have been trying to follow her iPhone's directions. Siri failed us.

I heart Thursday nights with Gabbie. Except on Friday morning. On Friday mornings I don't heart Thursday nights.

Three Things Thursday: Personification

With twenty-some days until I'm home for Thanksgiving, I'm battling some mild homesickness right now. It's been about a  month and a half since I was home, which doesn't really seem like that long now that I write it.  And it's weird, I'm missing the intangible things the most.


Not that I don't miss my friends and family, but there's phone calls, blog posts, text messages, skype calls, and even the occasional piece of snail mail to keep in touch with. I miss everyone from back home, but there are ways to keep in touch. But the intangibles, not so easy to do that.

This week's Three are inanimate things I miss right now:

1. The Big Yellow Mansion. Frequent readers and friends alike should be familiar with the name BYM, which refers to the Big Yellow Mansion, the house I lived in for two years in college. Most of the time when I say "BYM" I actually mean these girls, but today I mean the actual house.

I miss everything about this house. I miss the living room with the purple ceiling and gold stars. I miss the arched doorways. I miss the kitchen with the red walls. I miss the painting that hung above the stove; I'll never forget the day that Hannah took it down, moving didn't feel real until that happened. I miss back door with the electric combination lock; I'm pretty hundreds of people in La Crosse could have broken into our house because that combination was NEVER changed over the years. I miss small back bedroom, with the almost unusable closet space; it was my favorite bedroom in the house. I miss our indestructible coffee table. I miss the remnants of streamers in the corners of the dining room from our epic 4th of July party. I miss the weight of the sturdy front door. I miss everything about this house.

2. Main Street, between downtown La Crosse to my apartment. Kind of a ridiculous thing to miss, right?

It didn't even occur to me until Ange said something about it the other day. She reminded of how much fun we had the year I lived in that apartment; yeah, fun was had. As much as I loved living in the BYM, I loved my apartment senior year too. It was a place all to myself, where one year's time held a lot of surprises. Makeups, breakups, fights, celebrations, beginnings, and ends. (And a lot more cliche pairings but I'll spare you.)

The distance between that apartment and downtown holds a lot of memories, and holds within them the character of La Crosse. I miss the library fountain and all the times we jumped in it on the way home from the bars. I miss running all the way down Main to the river. I miss taking 3 a.m. walks with Ange for no reason other than we needed to clear our heads. I miss the antique store with the kittens in the window.

I feel like I often dismiss my senior year because it was post-BYM, and lets be honest, nothing can compare the the two years in that house; but that year was probably one of the most pivotal in my entire life, so I think it deserves to be missed too.

3. The pedestrian bridge over Loomis Rd (Route 36). This one's back in Milwaukee, Greendale actually. I wrote about it a little bit here, but the bottom line is this bridge holds a very special place in my heart. My grandama lives right by it, and we'd take the bridge over to the playground every time we were there. When I'm home I go for runs over the bridge; it's a great workout to get up the hill, and a great place to catch your breath at the top. It's a mainstay, it's a landmark. A strange thing to miss, but I do.

Alright. Enough with the mushy nostalgia. Back to the real world.