San Francisco

Last weekend (Oct. 19-21) we spent a quick weekend in San Francisco to watch our friend Angela run her first marathon (the Nike Women's Marathon). We hardly need an excuse to go to one of our favorite cities in the country, but cheering Angela on was a great excuse.

Our hotel was great (not as great as the Kimpton hotels up there, but it was great nontheless). We stayed at the Hyatt Regency on the Embarcadero. Here's a view from our room:



We arrived late Friday night and met up with Angela and a friend of hers for dinner. Then we called it a night because I'm an old lady and have an old lady bedtime.

Saturday, we met up with Angela and we went to Hang Ah Tea Room - the BEST dim sum restaurant in San Francisco. We ate like kings who stuffed themselves past the point of bursting for only $22. $22!!!! Insanity.

Afterwards, we dropped Angela off at the black hole that was Niketown where all of the 22,000 marathoners were picking up their commemerative shirts, bags and sweatshirts. We went to Cafe Trieste for coffee and a snack. I know you must be wondering what it's like to be me on all of my travels. Here's what I typically see when traveling with Sean:




Here's the fiance mugging for the camera. Notice the scruffiness - his souveneir for me from his trip to Ireland. (I really do like it, by the way.)

After this picture was taken we met up with our friend Adam and headed to Zeitgeist, where we met up with our friend Eric. Zietgeist is now in my top 3 list of favorite bars. As Sean said, it's the least pretentious bar. Ever. It had a great big outdoor patio (patio's putting it mildly - it's a big expanse of dirt with rows of dirty picnic tables) and was filled with every single type of person imaginable: hipsters, faux-hipsters, bikers, bike messengers, stoners, tourists, the list goes on. They make fantastically strong bloody Marys (strong in both spice and alcohol content) and you can't knock a place that has a wall of port-a-potties in the back in order to keep the line for the real bathrooms inside short.

Sunday was the marathon - the big event we came up here for. Angela's spent the last 6-8 months training with Team In Training for the marathon. Here she is at mile 12. TNT raises money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society - so all of the ribbons on her back are for people that she knows with Leukemia or lymphoma. (there's one for JG on there.)

And here's Angela at mile 26!!! Only .2 miles to go until a fireman in a tux hands her a Tiffany necklace.
In the TNT tent at the finish line. I am super incredibly proud of Angela for not only running the marathon, but for sticking to her long training schedule and accomplishing a major goal. Kudos to her.
And, finally, a picture of two of marathoners in my life. I'm not sure what it is about me... it seems that more and more people in my life want to run as FAR AWAY from me as they possibly can.

Our Travels

This is the first weekend in the entire month of October that Sean and I are able to spend at home together. Last weekend we went to San Francisco to see Angela run her butt off (I'll post photos soon); the weekend before that I went to San Diego with Sunshine under the pretenses of visiting wedding locations (more on that later) because Sean and his dad were on the "father-son bonding expedition in the Old Country" trip in Ireland; and the weekend before that Sean was running his butt off in Chicago. Enjoy the posts and photos that are soon to come chronicling these trips.

Fire Smoke

For the first time since the fires started I saw the blue sky tonight on my way home from work. I haven't seen the sky in an entire week. We've been living in thick smokey air for a week and it's nice to see it finally starting to dissapate. I opened up the windows in the bedrooms for the first time since the fires started today; we'd been keeping them closed to avoid having a fine covering of ash and soot on our furniture. But, I saw blue sky today - that makes me happy.

Here are some NASA photos of the So Cal fires.

Marathon Man

First off, let me start this post by stating that my fiance is a rock star. He is a freaking rock star.
He ran the Chicago Marathon last weekend and finished in great time, considering the heat, humidity, water stations running out of water, incompetence on the organizers behalf and the over 200 people collapsing due to heat exhaustion. You can read Sean's point of view of the marathon here. Here is my take on it.

Let me set the scene: it was approximately 88 F with 60-70% humidity. You walked outside and it felt like Miami. We're staying with our friends Joni and Mike in their fabulous apartment in the city. (which, FYI, is in the same neighborhood that my grandpa grew up in - they live across the street from his high school - but I digress...). So, we wake up at 5:30am, hop on the El and head to Grant Park. At that time in the morning the El was filled with runners and their cheering squads. We say our good-byes and good lucks to Sean in Grant Park. At this point in the morning (7:00 am-ish) I'm already starting to notice how sticky I'm feeling and wishing I had an ice cold water to drink.

We took the El up to mile 7 (Wrigleyville or Lake View, depending on who you talk to) where Ericka and Pepe meet us to cheer Sean on. Luckily, Sean told us that he'd be running on the right hand side of the road, so we were able to grab a spot on the same side in the hopes of increasing our chances of seeing him.

We saw the first group of runners come by at 8:30 am. The race started at 8:00 am which mean that these guys were running 4:28 minute miles. Those guys are animals - very sedate, relaxed animals, given how effortlessly they ran by us. They reminded me of gazelles - quite the contrast to the wave of runners 30 minutes behind them who were huffing, puffing, moaning, groaning and limping their way by us.

I didn't realize how exciting watching a marathon can be - it's a bit exhilarating. When I finally spotted Sean I was SO excited to see him run by. In my excitement of jumping and yelling his name to get his attention I completely forgot to take his photo. It was thrilling to see him run by. At that point I couldn't wait to head to the next spot on the route to see him, again.

The next stop was mile 21 in Chinatown, where we met up with my mom, my dad, my sister Sarah and her friend Beth. It seems apropro that we met my family in Chinatown. Every trip to the homeland (Chicago) involves at least one trek to Chinatown for dim sum. And my parents were wonderful enough to have leftovers in hand when they met up with us...

... mmm.... barbeque pork bun. Aside from seeing Sean in the race, this is the most memorable moment of that day.

At this point, Mike ran up ahead of us (or behind us??) to hop in the race and run with Sean and lead him to the side of the street that we were standing on (the left side). I got a little nervous when I didn't see Sean in the 3:50 group (his goal was to finish in 3hrs 50 mins). But, he showed up and it was fantastic! He looked exhausted and worn down, but he was still running.

After that, my parents, Pepe and I headed down to Grant Park, to meet up with Sean and Mike. (Mike kept hopping into and out of the race with Sean. Huge thanks go out to Mike for lending Sean moral support and keeping him going.)

This is Sean after the marathon.

Sean and Mike (who ran the two previous Chicago marathons).

And lest I forget about the wonderful food in Chicago. We ate at a great restaurant Saturday night in Lincoln Park where Pepe and Ericka met up with us. I had great pasta with lobster and spinach and a creamy garlic sauce. And the gellato was very tasty, too.

All in all, it was a great weekend. I want to thank everyone who came out to support Sean during the run and even bigger thanks to Mike and Joni who let us invade their space for the weekend. It was great seeing everyone and made me miss home (because it will always be home no matter how long I've lived in CA) just a little bit more.

Sweet Home Chicago

We're off to Chicago this weekend as thousands of athletes, Sean among them, descend upon the city to chase each other around for 26.2 miles.

Things to do in Chicago:

1. Visit my family. Want a quick ego boost? Move across the country, ensuring you only see your family once a year. Then, schedule a trip home and at the last minute (less than 5 days before your plane lands) call your entire family up and ask them to meet you for lunch. Everyone comes just to see you. If that doesn't fill your dark empty hole of self-pity, I'm not sure anything can.


2. Get lots of Erika time! Erika is living the dream we talked about in college - living in Chicago, in a great area of the city, with a fabulous view.


3. Load up on a weekend's worth of Yelp reviews. Between the Italian restaurant we're going to the night before the marathon so Sean can carbo-load, the bars in Wrigleyville that Erika and I will peruse, and the after-marathon feast Sean will need - I'm hoping to break 30 reviews on Yelp.


4. Run around the city with the Sean's cheering section (there's 7 of us) , trying to catch a glimpse of Sean as he runs the marathon. So far we have stops in Boys Town, Chinatown, mile 21 (or 23) and the finish line. Wonder if they give away medals for furthest run as a spectator?


5. Figure out a way to stop off at Three Happiness, have some dim sum, and not miss Sean as he runs through Chinatown. Maybe I'll ask to be seated by a window...


6. Get lots of Pepe time! So far, I've been able to see him every time I've gone back to Chicago. I want to see how long I can keep that streak going.

Wish us luck - and by us, I mean Sean. He's trained incredibly hard over the past year and despite getting hit by a car and then suffering a broken rib, he's still running the marathon. I couldn't be prouder of him.