Bikram is a Beast

So I braved the hot yoga this morning. Oh my lord. I felt sick right after--light-headed and dehydrated yes also unable to keep any water down.  A few hours later, I do feel ok. I think it was the getting up at 5:30 am, sitting in a hundred degree room, and having it be nowhere near as restful as I thought it would be. But it's good to do something different, right? I mean, I used to be unable to run a mile, let alone ten miles or thirteen miles. So you have to start from somewhere.  For me, that's going to be to actually find a lower intensity stretchy kind of yoga, at Results or at another studio on H Street. I totally can do it, right?

The Road to XVI

Remember this from 2008?

Ah, how things have changed.

J&J Returns

It's been eons since I've watched Days, but I've been more than intrigued by the relaunch. With AMC ending on Friday, one of the only soaps I just never got into ever, I think Days has capture some of the attention. Hell, even the despised John and Marlena are worth watching. A return to classics is good. I'm being careful with limiting my sneak peeks, though. It's been twenty years! But J&J always hold a soft spot for me, and I'm looking forward to somewhat passively monitoring their story. So cheers to Jack's return, and let's hope it helps Days save itself a place in a dying genre.

Restful Weekend

I think today is proving to be hectic because the weekend was so restful. Two good runs, of 7+ and 6+, lots of pasta, and lots of football.  And no yelling. And I'm rewarded by promoting the incompetence.

One more game to go tonight. Cowboys vs. Redskins. Always a big story here in town.

Acadiana

We went out for an impromptu dinner at Acadiana the other night. We split a bottle of wine, the meat pies, and redfish with cheesy grits.  It was my first time there, and I don't know why I haven't been before. The biscuits they served as bread would have been much better had they been warm, and we were a bit taken a back by the abruptness with which they gave us our 2/3 completed bottle to go. But it was a nice, early night out and what has been a mediocre week.

I am actually hoping to do some real cooking this weekend. I really want to take a stab at making chili. I might break down and get a slow cooker. I bet I could get a decent one from Target. I have all of these magazines and recipes I've ripped out but have been too exhausted to cook. It's time, especially if it will be somewhat rainy this weekend and I'll be held hostage by football.

Lions and Tigers, Oh My!

I've definitely been captivated over the last several weeks on the Lions and Tigers and their upswing.  The Lions are 2-0, have a healthy starting QB in Matthew Stafford, and they demolished KC last weekend 48-3, their biggest victory EVER. Oh, and they have won ten in a row, including the pre-season.  Those days of 0-16 seem so far away. Granted, they've won nothing. They've accomplished nothing. But it's true optimism I see and hear for the first time, perhaps ever.

Oh, yeah, the Tigers. They just won their first division championship in 24 years, they have the best pitcher in baseball in Justin Verlander, and again, the excitement is palpable.  Their 12 game winning streak and their chance at getting #2 seed in the AL definitely have sparked some optimism.

Not that the Red Wings, whose pre-season is just getting underway, deserve to be left out of the conversation.  They are the most consistent team in sports, reliably making the playoffs every year.  And they've won a few Stanleys to boot, even though they have had some unfortunately luck the last couple of years.

It is finally a good time to be a Detroit sports fan, no matter what happens this season and post-season. It's good to be feeling good about something in Detroit.

And yeah, for the first time ever, I might be rooting for the Lions to beat the Cowboys in two weeks.

Enthusiasm Curbed

I have to admit, for maybe the first time ever, I've mustered up exactly zero interest in the new TV season. Maybe I get used to watching old Frasier and Office reruns and football, and maybe I get used to just finding other things to do in the evening.  But this is not at all like me.

In fact, it's hard for me to find much enthusiasm for much of everything. I'm bored. Well, not bored.  I'm deflated by these last several months, and exhausted, and just over the drama. I am enjoying my Mark Steyn and Dick Cheney books, and I'm enjoying trying to find new music. But everything else leaves me spent.  And that worries me.

I keep feeling like I'm just going to have a complete breakdown one of these days from the stress of everything--the constant tantrums, the fighting, the yelling, the name calling, and the work and the lack of appreciate and the lack of affection I'm feeling. I know stress does horrible things to people. But I think it might even do worse things to the people they surround.

Lord, give me strength.

Foodie Raves

We had one night in Brooklyn for the Food Experiments. And even though our friend did not win, I was very excited about the Brooklyn Brewery (particularly the Pumpkin Ale), lots of good food, and lots of good football at the Whiskey Brooklyn.

Houston v. Detroit

Who wins?

Detroit, conversely, is proof of concept for the liberal vision of government, which seeks to solve every problem through government, to shape economic development through government, to redress grievances through government, to attain social justice through government, and, finally, to insinuate government into every aspect of our lives. The problems Detroit faced in the latter half of the 20th century would have been enormously challenging no matter what policies it embraced. But it embraced the worst ones and so plunged recklessly down the slope of decline...

Mayor Young presided over this disaster for 20 years. The city he left behind is a disheartening relic of its past. Of its 350,000 homes, more than 80,000 stand vacant, and the business-vacancy rate is 62 percent. As if that were not bad enough, many Detroiters enjoy whiling away the empty hours by setting empty houses on fire. Devil’s Night is a local tradition of vandalism and arson on a massive scale around Halloween. It was vigorously celebrated under Coleman Young, when it was common to have as many as 800 fires in the last days of October. Last year, there were more than 160 fires around Halloween, the drop due at least in part to the fact that the city has lost about a third of its population since 1993. City Hall is full of calls to tear down empty buildings, but there is no money even for demolition. ..

There was a time when Detroit’s problems were those of the auto industry, but the city is far past that now. Detroit has become the country’s capital of vagrancy and delinquency, and the most basic problem now is the breakdown of the black family. A staggering 80 percent of the city’s children were born to unwed mothers, a statistic that leads directly to the school system’s predictably high dropout rates. Detroit today has a functional-illiteracy rate (reading level below sixth-grade average) of nearly half, a level of illiteracy more characteristic of the Third World than of the First.

All of this is  sadly true.  The workforce that is "the most deeply uneducated city labor force in the developed world."  The reduced auto industry.  The high unemployment rate.  The breakdown of the family.  The high taxes.  The union stranglehold.

The Texas is better than comparisons are ripe now, with Rick Perry running. I don't have much to add, other than that maybe things have turned a corner in Detroit. It really can't bleed population any faster, and it can't elect any worse political leaders than it has for the past decade.  And maybe the lessons of cities that have prospered will lend a lesson or two.

But something still bothers me, so many negative stories about Detroit. Yes, that drumbeat goes on. I guess I'd like some solutions proposed. It's long about time.

This Weekend

I have already written about my feelings on the anniversary of 9/11. I don't have much else to say.  I do want to acknowledge the weariness and wariness I felt running on Sunday morning on the Hill, with streets blocked off and an increased presence of cops. It is eerie. It is uncomfortable.

There is enough that makes me uncomfortable. Bad football losses. Shouting and wailing when things are "unfair."  Exhaustion from the lack of sleep or from feeling heavy. 

Maybe I have been wallowing in too much negativity lately, but that weariness has permeated my being. I need to be cheered up or have something happy happen. I wish I could have a special weekend away or a shopping trip or a family visit to look forward to.  And it feels selfish to say that in light of yesterday's sad anniversary.  But it is human of me, real of me, to want to express that, even if no one is listening.

9/11, 10 Years Later

I've been drawn to reading a lot of the recaps and profiles and remembrances that have been published in recent days about September 11. I am because it's so fresh in my memory--I remember Doug walking in my office and telling me a plane had hit the WTC and I was emailing about U2 concerts. I remember it being a beautiful day, with clear blue skies and sunshine and perfect weather. I remember I had come from a long weekend of seeing Steve every day.  I remember hitting refresh on my browser for ABC News, and I remember seeing that frozen portrait of the New York skyline with the towers and smoke and a plane.  And I remember turning on my ancient clock radio and listening to HFS or DC 101 broadcast rumors of car bombs bursting on the mall near the state department or fires in Rosslyn.  When all it really was the Pentagon burning, with a woman I knew a victim of the plane flown by the terrorists that caused that destruction.  I remember all of us leaving and spilling out into the streets of Washington in a myriad of directions because we knew we had to leave, we knew that there were rumors flying everywhere that another plane was about to come to DC.  And it could have been the Capital building or it could have been the White House.  We just did not know.  All I knew is that we needed to leave.  And after the earthquake a couple of weeks ago, I remembered that feeling.  But now I had a blackberry.

I remember standing in the hallway next to Jenny and she knew people who had siblings who worked in the WTC.  I remember calling Steve and telling him what happened. And I remember dad's email: what is going on in Washington and NY?  And I called him and I didn't know what to say, where to go, or what would happen next.

So much of that day is a blur, for so much as it was crystal clear. The walk, gathering with friends, watching TV (ironically those of us in DC didn't see that coverage immediately, we were living it), and then finally eating out at Lauriol that night with tankers in the streets, patrolling the District.  Humvees and men carrying guns patrolling the streets like the war on terrorism zone we now lived in.  And I remember being scared to sleep that night, because there was no guarantee we would still be standing that next morning.

I remember I wore the same dress I wore when I graduated from college three years earlier, and to this day, I have never worn that dress again. But I will always keep it.  I remember emailing friends the next day to assure them that we were okay, that we would just be fine.

And yet...it has been ten years. It's been striking to read profiles of some of the children of the victims and the heroes.  They were unborn babies then, or they were in elementary school, or they were just too young to remember.  And now it is ten years later, and they are in elementary or high school or college. Some of my colleagues were in middle school.  The generational divide is really those who were in school or those of us who were here working on that day a decade ago.

I found the homily that the priest gave for Barbara in my email.  He drew parallels between Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, having to witness her son's crucifixion, and being so helpless to stop it.  Just as those survivors were helpless as their loved ones were in the planes and the buildings, some of whom never knew what was coming, and some knew that there was no escaping it.


God bless America this weekend, and God bless all of those who lost a loved one.  Do not forget.

Remember Flight 93

Ten years later, this is the story people will remember. Not the terrorists. Not the terror, necessarily. But their heroics.

More from that day. 

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend was great. We drafted, we worked out despite a sore toe, we had a fantastic dinner out at the Atlas Room with friends, and we just enjoyed not laboring. Sigh. Where did the summer go? Today it's rainy and dreary outside, perfect go back to work weather. But it's a reminder that winter is just around the corner.

Seriously.

I know there are many wonderful things about Fall--cooler weather, fall foods, the upcoming holidays, federal holidays, pumpkin, etc.--but it also means shorter days, the approach of winter (the least favorite season), less time to run outside, and sweater weather. I just hate wearing layers, I really do.

And next Sunday is the ten year anniversary of 9/11.  Not something to celebrate, either.

Mario's Michigan

The place to be in the summer. I miss it.

Obama is Going Down...

On jobs, employment numbers, growth....etc. Compared against Reagan, there is no contest.

Not much of a Labor Day for many this year, unfortunately.