Day 2 - Hace dos días

What I saw

1. Text on phone about lunch
2. White jeans at Aubun Wills
3. oooo Brick Lane vegetable market
4. Cheap household junk at other BL stalls
5. Brunch table at Owl & Pussycat
6. ooo Rebekah making post-brunch at Nelson's
7. Getting lost during the run
8. Seeing John the masseur finshing up my run
9. Word with Friends notifications on iPhone
10. Laptop screen with documents I didn't finish this weekend

5. Brunch table at the Owl and the Pussycat

The boys didn't want to sit upstairs we ordered at the bar and tried to decide on a table. Most of the chairs are stools and don't have backs. We sit by the door, but they decide to move to a bigger table that has benches.  I opt for the more comfortable thrift-store chair at the head of the table, professing it has a better view instead of saying I wanted to sit comfortably. 

The back patio is empty. Service didn't start till noon, so the place is still quiet as the wall clock reads 12:10. And that's probably bar time. Better than the 10:30 start the boys asked for last night. Who has Sunday brunch at 10:30am?

A woman sits at the table next to us, drinking a Bloody Mary and reading a paper while waiting for her foodl.  Our table is big -- distressed wood and could easily sit six, so there's plenty of room. The manager, perhaps even cuter than he was last visit, has cranked up the sound and starts dancing to "Brown Sugar" despite having told me he's shattered from last night and starting a double. He assures me the vegetable roast (egplant -- sorry, it's aubergine in these parts --, carrots and sweet potato in strudel) will be amazing. When the food arrives, I will find he did not steer me wrong.

The speaker is directly above our table, which means brunch will be louder than I expected. It's never this loud upstairs.

The patio fills while we're eating, as does the pub. My iPhone goes off, telling me a bloke I know who moved back north has just checked in on F'book to a pub with the same name as the one we're in. A few minutes later, he walks by and looks surprised to see me.  I'm not the one who moved.

"It's trendier here than I remember," he says.

I joke "that's 'cuase I'm here" and he says that might have something to do with it.

Cryptically Mitzi, Day 2

Some of us are going beyond our comfort zones. That is what we taught our boys at school camp (when I taught at high school) when encouraging them to drop down from 15 foot ledges attached to a rope and carabine; or to climb 20 vertical feet on a ropes course, wearing a helmet and safety rope. In all of those team-building activities, the poor sucker trapped on a fashioned log at way too high metres is forced to trust the people below, and the person within.

Metaphorically, here in 30 Days land, we are holding each other's safety rope. I am so at the edge of my comfort zone I am in danger of falling off! Still, the second security feature on this madcap challenge - attempting 3 cryptic clues only - has got the second half of my August off to a cracking start.

Yesterday's answers - I won't know if they're correct until Monday.

I also attempted the mini-xword below the Omega, and I am able to check my answers using the Tuesday edition.

Here goes (and by the way, the first two are totally non-traditional cryptics, in my humble op!)

1. (weird, does not use the letters of the questions words)
Q Young and Grizzly (4, 3)
A Bear Cub

2 (weird, also does not use letters from question words, but it's bloody funny.)
Q What the devil may do if you don't pay the exorcist? (9)
A Repossess

3 (I tried this because the answer was only three letters. I got two out of the three letters. )
Q sounds like little dog gets every last bit of scrap (3)
A Yap
(I got "pup" and "ap" but could not make it from "pap" to "yap"...this one was a learning experience)

BONUS GLORY
(The answer was three letters, and this was a trad the-answer-is-in-the-question cryptic clue.)
Q Reach the abyss but not by donkey (3)
A Ass

Nerd note: I am cutting and pasting the crosswords into a special book. Am regressing to teenage geekdom. Fun!

Day 1 - EPIC FAIL!

Hmm... let's see... what time is it? Oh, look! It is 11:49pm as I type this. Hmm... what time was supposed to be in bed? That's right... 10:30pm. Oops.

I was rather spontaneously going to take the kids to Indianapolis to visit the Children's Museum for a day or two, which involved getting a hotel, which took longer than it perhaps should because I really wanted one with a pool and a hot tub that didn't have terrible reviews AND didn't cost very much. Seems like that's a pretty tall order. I started that at 10:00pm.

Two hours later, I have a hotel reservation, and have unfortunately determined that the reciprocity from my local children's museum membership does not extend to the Indianapolis Children's Museum (why?), so I can't reasonably go there two days in a row. Argh.

New plan, wait for the husband to come home after work, then head over there so the kids can play in the indoor pool for a few hours before bed, then spend the day at the museum, then drive home. We could do the museum as a day trip, but the kids REALLY want to stay in a hotel, and it ensures that we can get to the museum as early as possible. I know I'll be dragging them out of there at 5:00 when the museum closes, anyway, and I like to eke out every moment I can.

Anyway, all that to say, EPIC FAIL. I'm already 1.5 hours late for my deadline. Oops.

Why am I so bad at this?

Reading & Riding: Day One

I decided to impose one more restriction on myself: No substitutions. I ran up and down the basement stairs probably ten times today, moving some things that we need to get rid of. And I thought, well, that's as good as riding the stationary bike, isn't it?

But that would miss the point. I'm supposed to be adding to my everyday activities. And I'm supposed to be reading. So, no substitutions.

I was tired and had a headache after dinner, and last night was a bit rough, and it was a grueling work day, and blah blah blah. But I pushed on. You can't skip Day One if you wish to have any credibility, with yourself or with others.

So we did the bedtime thing with the kids, and I got on the bike. I had a surprisingly hard time figuring out what to read. It seems like it has to be a certain kind of book - something with a good story, rather than say, a non-fiction book... though I have no idea why. It may take me a few days to settle on the right book.

At any rate, here are my stats for the first day:

Weight: 230.6 lbs
Distance: 3.86 miles
Calories: 187

It's a start. Which, I suppose, is the point.

--

Day 1 - hace dos días

Ha, you thought this would be Spanish-free, didn't you. ;-)

What I saw:

1. My clothes on the floor next to the bed.
2. A pile of papers and books on the coffee table.
3. Cream swirling into my coffee.
4. Larry lying on the sofa.
5. A stack of newspapers under his feet.
6. The cat lying on the back of the sofa, above Larry's head.
7. Cyclist in my way as I ran.
8. A bowl of crips at G's.
9. A table set for four.
10. A white black cab stopping to take us home.

#8: A Bowl of Crisps at G's

Potato chips, 'crisps' because I'm in England now, beckon to me. They sit on the end table in G's living room. I haven't been there since camping out last December after the fire at ours. J is on the sofa, next to Larry. G is in the kitchen, apologizing that dinner is going to be late. His iPod in in the Bose player on the bookshelf to my left.

I want the crisps, but they're not on my reducing plan. Neither is the red wine I'm drinking. We'll call this a cheat evening rather than a cheat day — and I did run seven miles today, faster than I had planned.

I have pistachios instead. They are delicious and I'm thankful they're not cashews, because I'd be downing them by the handful. Larry and J are talking about the insurance market (J's job) and I want more wine. The shell dish (brown ceramic, just like the two next to it that harbor nuts and crisps) is filling up while the pistachios slowly disappear inside my gut.

G moves my wine glass to a coaster, saying, "Sorry to be an old woman about that."

"Not at all, it's your house," I say, instead of telling him it's stemware and therefore won't leave a mark. You don't need coasters with wine glasses.

He changes the music to something I've never heard before, but would be happy to play on a rainy afternoon at home. Which, being England, never happens. An indy band that sounds like something you'd slit your wrists to. "Is it too dour?" G asks.

"No, I like suicide dinner music," I say.  The potato chips' siren call is too tempting and I start to slide down the slippery slope of having just the one. Mmm. Salt and crispy fat.  So much for the reducing plan.

Day 1 - Accountable Yoga

I sat recovering from our long morning walk, reading blogs, checking email, that sort of thing, and thought to myself, ok, so yoga is next.  Then I smiled, because there it was: the accountability factor. 

And that's why I'm doing this, right?  The accountability?  Yes, I do believe so.  At least today anyway, because today would've been one of those days I'd have let myself skip it if I weren't doing it as part of this challenge.

So, knees popping, muscles groaning, whole body wobbling against gravity, I did my yoga routine.  And yes, I do feel better for it. 

I do believe this will be a much tougher challenge than the last one.  I abhor exercise, which is why I like yoga.  It's the least horrific of all exercises.  (Although I will begrudgingly admit that when my dog is seized by anxiety and refuses to walk for several days in a row I do miss it and will go without him if he's too stubborn for too long.  That's what walking almost daily-- usually twice a day-- for five years will do to you.)

Cryptically Mitzi, Day 1

For 30 Days Challenge Round 2 I am going to (gulp) attempt an intellectual rather than physical feat. I am going to attempt to solve three cryptic crossword clues per day. Earlier in the year I made it my mission to make the 2010s-20s the "Decade of the Cryptic", as it's a long-term goal that I know I can only reach slowly and painfully.

Over the months, my cryptic skills have improved microscopically but noticeably, so I thought I would sneak some into the 30 day shebang, to keep my crypticise regular.

I will need to be organised. Every Monday, usually, I get the SMH newspaper with the "Omega" crossword. It's a ritual commenced when living with my parents as an adult between bouts of wishful independence. So, here I am, a tentative crossword junkie on the make. If I don't buy the newspaper daily, it's no hardship: I plan to hang on to each attempted cryptic crossword puzzle and check on results the next day ... the system is still under construction.

By the way, the Monday Omega seems somehow easier or more accessible than the daily puzzle. It's because cryptic clues are mixed in with regular clues, so you have more of a chance of getting some letters down to help you.

Here's Day 1. I won't know if I'm correct until next Monday.
1.
47 Across: ?Those taking part in audition?
A: Listeners

(it's not so cryptic, but fits in with surrounding letters...)

2.
31 Across: ?Cheese is sharp for the most part?
A: Brie

(I may well be incorrect, but the letters R and E where provided, and I like Brie, so nyah. Also, it sounds likes brief, so brief is the "most part" of a word?)

3.
29 Across: ?Identify nucleus of neat plan?
A: ions

(The letter I was provided; The "n" and "p" could stand for positive and negative, which relate to the ions in a nucleus, if faded memories of Year 9 science class serve me well.)