Richmond VA, Your Roots are Showing!: Crazy Trees after Hurricane Irene

Tree huggers, shade your eyes from these x-rated tree photos, this won't be pretty.

Hurricane Irene was here and gone within a day, but I can't help but oggle at the destruction of trees that it left in its path.

These were all taken the day after the hurricane blew through town.  Notice how it's gorgeous and sunny, just hours after the mess.

Sorry house, I just got tired of leaning....and you looked like such a soft landing!

Look closely at the people right in those roots.

This photo is from the Richmond Times Dispatch, the house is missing it's roof...I saw this
during an 8 mile run on Sunday, but had forgotten my camera with me.

Wow, that guy looks really old...

Another angle.

Goodbye house, goodbye sidewalk.

 Big hunk of tree roots.

Drive-by of something that looks like it's from Jurassic Park

Looks so peaceful out in the pretty green field, poor guy.

Just checking on the pump house....minus some gross brown water, looks good!

My Bunker During Hurricane Irene

Richmond VA was taken over by Hurricane Irene on Saturday.

It was raining horizontally, the wind was gusting up to 60mph (sustained 20 to 30mph), trees were down all around town, power was out most of the day...

According to the Richmond Times Dispatch, 730,000 homes and businesses around Virginia lost power as a result of the hurricane, making it the 2nd highest blackout since Hurricane Isabel in 2003.  This amounts to over 75% of the Richmond area.

There were a total of 3 deaths attributed to Hurricane Irene in VA, according to the RTD.

I had worked nightshift until 8am on Saturday morning, so it was convenient that I was exhausted and was able to sleep a fair amount of the day away.

My power went out at 12noon.  It was pretty dangerous on the roads, so I didn't venture out until 5:30pm for some yummy Thai food.  And when I got back around 6:30pm...

...electricity was back on!  I felt like I was in the stone age and had just discovered electricity for the first time.  I have never been so excited to see lights go on.

It did go out 1 or 2 times later Saturday night, but just for 10-20 minutes.

Here's a photo essay of my candle splattered bunker.

Note the theme of green.

My fake window....turned into a fire hazard!

Little tea lights from Ikea, vanilla scented, $1.99 for a set of like 24?

This is my friend Bob, hangin with a diploma, he was $9.99, on sale, from Ikea

Neon green art matches the green montage of candles, etc.

I love this neon green little basket that holds the extra tea lights, from Target from the $1 bin.

Hurricane Irene was a little bit of an inconvenience, but all in all, not a disaster for me.  I made off much better than the rest of the city...

Did anyone else deal with Hurricane Irene?

Come on, Irene.......

One week, two natural disasters.

I don't think this means that it's the end of the world or anything dramatic like that.

...I'm not superstitious, I'm just mildly inconvenienced.

Today Irene is supposed to hit land (momentarily actually) and plow its way up the east coast Saturday through Sunday.

Let's hope I'm still here come Sunday morning.  Just kidding, I'm not afraid of this in the same way that the earthquake scared me.

All I'm looking forward to right now is heading home and curling up under my down comforter, warm tea in hand, movies on the TV.

...interspersed with a hurricane party or two!!

Anthem Moonlight Ride

I recently did the Anthem Moonlight Ride, it's a 17 mile nighttime bike ride through Richmond VA.

It's a fun, family friendly event.  People are encouraged to dress up--- which is right down my alley, everything is more fun when you have on a ridiculous outfit.

We did the "full moon" 17 mile option, but there was a "half moon" 8 mile option as well.

It cost $25, which was a pretty good deal because it included the bib and a sweet t-shirt...plus beer, pizza, and ice cream afterward.

Annnnd all this was followed by a fab performance by Three Sheets to the Wind, my fav yacht rock band.

For the ride, we decided to dress up as "team america."

The girls dressed up in "american" star red/white/blue shorts....

....plus a ton of tats, including artfully crafted "tat' sleeves" from the dollar store:

The boys just did straight-up country.  Plus lots of tats.

The lines at the event were excruciatingly long, so we left a little early and created our own good old american times.  Note the cut-off jean shorts.

In America, your glass is always full...even when it's empty!

Good times.  

I highly recommend this ride, it's short enough that it doesn't require a huge investment in training.  It has a high reward/fun value!

Anyone done a Moonlight ride before?  Do you ride you bike at night?

It was dark the whole time, I was a little nervous about falling off.  Not going to lie, I was a little relieved when it was done and I was still in one piece.

Eating in NYC

Get ready for a photo montage of various foodstuffs in NYC that we enjoyed during the half marathon weekend.

This includes culinary delights from the Ninja Restaurant.  A must-see while visiting the city.  All about the presentation.

Sorry for the late posting of this, I just found it in my draft box from a few weeks ago, oops!  Can't waste these visual treats.

Ninja restaurant, giant rock in the background.

People watching at the outside patio of Starbucks

Out front of Courtney's apt, preparing to venture out to dinner

A splattering of Thai treats

My pad thai came with champagne.  Enough said.

Tappan's new fav digs

inside Jeckyll and Hyde, Tappan's new friend

Ninja Sushi

Ninja Sushi, Pop-Rocks Sushi, some mysterious steam...

As I mentioned in previous posts...I'm ready to move to NYC.  I could probably try a different restaurant every day of the year and still many would be left untouched.

I Survived the 5.9 Earthquake in Virginia!!

Alright friends, earlier today was a bit on the EVENTFUL side!  I was legitimately shook up.

Today at 1:53pm, Virginia had a 5.9 earthquake, the epicenter was just northwest of Richmond VA, which is where I live.

This was the biggest earthquake to hit the east coast since 1897.

At the time of the earthquake, I was at work, in the middle of a 12 hour shift.  I work in a surgery/trauma intensive care unit (STICU), which is about 13 stories up in the sky in the 2-year-old critical care hospital tower.

my work building!

I was helping with a coworker's patient when all of a sudden I felt like I had lost my balance and stepped backwards and felt the tower swaying back and forth.

I looked around to see if I was having some weird sort of dizzy episode, but everyone else's eyes were wide open, wondering what the heck was going on.

So apparently I wasn't alone.

Whew, I wasn't going crazy, as I had suspected :)

This weird shaking feeling kept going for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality it was probably just a couple minutes.

My immediate reaction was the GET THE HECK OUT of the tower!  All I could picture was being stuck in some staircase as the entire building was crumbling to the ground.

But in reality, the building was not going to collapse, it just felt like it was going to.

NOT to mention the fact that my two patients were both on the ventilator and life support and would not last very long if their nurse deserted them!

I returned to reality and calmed down as my patient's families and I were glued to the TVs, watching the news for reports of what was going on.

At this point I was just afraid of some sort of aftershock or some larger event happening.  I could deal with the 5.9 earthquake, but I was all anxious about something worse happening, like the 9.0 earthquake in Japan.

Was this just a foreshock?

The phones were not working, the internet was not working, the paging system was down.  Fortunately, after a little while, my work phone splotched in and I was able to call Tappan to check in on him.  And he was just fine, but had felt everything too.

It took two hours before my cell phone would work, but I was finally able to call my parents to check in.

There was a 2.8 aftershock, but other than that, no more earth shaking.

Anyway, everything turned out fine in the end, just a bit of anxiety about being stuck in a tall tower during the event.  Glad everyone's OK!

Marathon Training Week #12

Marathon Training Week #12

Total miles:  41.1 miles
Rest Days:  3
Long Run:  16 miles at 8:02 pace

I already blabbed about my long run in an earlier post.

Alright, I knew this already, but after this week, I am officially in love with these long runs.  I was having great convos the whole time and at the end I felt really good.  I'm sure I won't be able to keep this sort of pace up for much longer distances, I'm just going to continue to listen to my body and do what feels good.

Here's my big group that I do my long runs with on Saturdays:

Guess which one is me?
Could it possibly be the person with neon orange plus neon green laces?!

16 Miles, Longest Run Ever

Literally.

This morning, I ran the farthest that I've ever run in my life.

16 miles in 2:09:18, average pace of 8:02.

Yes, I know there will be a few of these "longest runs ever" remaining this season before my marathon in November.  But this one was significant for me because 16 just sounds like it's long as heck.  You know, that whole mental side of running.

Don't have any running photos from this weekend, so here's my consolation completely random photo from a dress-up bike ride that my friends and I did last weekend.  More about that in my next post.

You like them arm sleeve tats?

Anyway, back to running...

I have to split up the Garmin screen because it wouldn't all fit in one screen shot:

It felt great.  I had a great group that stuck together for the most part, made the time fly by.

And I tried eating a gel for the first time this week, YUM.  Tried it at mile 10, but next time I'd possibly try it a little earlier?  Don't know if it made a difference or not, but I wasn't super hungry/struggling at the end, so I assume it did.

Alright, time to go enjoy my day.  Post-long run, the best time of the week ever.

Missing in Action

Yes, I have been missing in action.

And life certainly has been filled with action.

Nothing dramatic, just consumed with other stuff.  We've been short staffed at the hospital, so I've been working a number of overtime shifts to help out.  Many people at work are on maternity leave, plus there have been a few people moving away or going to part time.

Today was my first full day off in ages and it felt great!  I haven't gotten a chance to stalk my favorite blogs, can't wait to catch up and see what everyone's been doing.

Marathon training is going fabulously!  I've managed to still squeeze in weeks of around 30 miles, despite my busy schedule.  With lots of rest days packed in there, THAT'S FOR SURE.....

Since I skipped TWO weeks of marathon training recaps, here are the brief summaries of my long runs, as you know I so loyally report each week.

Training Week #10:
13.42 miles in 1:51:50, average pace of 8:20

me as a ghost

Oh, quarter mile left, OK!  Suck it up, end is near.

Training Week #11

9.81 miles in 1:20:57, average pace of 8:15

I'm mid-sentence...although it looks like I'm trying to be all serious, but I'm totally not...

Next on the schedule is 16 miles this weekend.  Can't wait!!!!  That will be the furthest that I've ever run in my life.  It was one year ago this week that I had my stress fracture and never made it to that point.

Air Popped Popcorn, my FAV snack!

I'm a big snacker.

A HUGE grazer.

I love texture and 'crunch'.

Air Popped popcorn is the way to go for me, it's the perfect snack after a long day when you just want to sit in bed and have a long-lasting snack.

I can make a big bowl last an hour.

Good for people with oral fixations, maybe when smokers want to quit, they should try munching on air popped popcorn.

I like it plan, but sometimes, it's nice to spice it up with:
-shredded parmesan cheese
-shredded 2% sharp cheddar cheese
-Kernel Season's Kettle Corn popcorn topper

DON'T get some complicated air popper, like this Hello Kitty one that involves having to wash after each use and takes up tons of space:

This just looks like a lot of work to clean up.  Although it does look like fun.

DO get what I have.

I have this exact same model, prob got it for like $19 from Target

So you may ask yourself:
.....she loves popcorn, I wonder if the Neon Blonde eats popcorn at the movies.....???

NEVER!
Don't do it!

Check out this article from the New York Times.
Popcorn's Dark Secret

It says that a large popcorn has:
-1,200 calories
-980 milligrams of sodium
-60 grams of saturated fat. 
-Adding just a tablespoon of butter adds 130 calories


Nope, won't catch me eating that.


Does anyone else have a popcorn air-popper?  Or am I the only one from the 1950's who still loves these machines??
I grew up eating air popped popcorn that my mom would make.  Nothing's changed since the 1980's except I'm now the one cooking it.

Battery Park NYC

Has anyone checked out Battery Park in NYC?

It was some refreshing blue and green at the southernmost tip of Manhattan.

So this statue pictured above is SUPER interesting.  Loving it was my exception to being non-touristy.

This giant sphere had been in a courtyard between the two towers of the World Trade Center on 9/11, it was a gift from artist Fritz Koenig as a symbol of world piece.

It became half smushed and damaged on 9/11, but it still survived and is now a memorial.

I thought that was the coolest symbol ever.

Here's the inscription:

In the spot of the old demolished towers, they are currently building three new towers, one of which is going to be higher than the previous two towers.

Is three new taller towers a good statement about the resilience of the US or is this just asking for another terrorist plane to come make their own statement?

Ink 48 NYC Rooftop Bar

Alright so we all know that I'm a huge sucker for a rooftop view.

Or any sort of great view, really, such as the one from the Rice House in Richmond VA that I talked about in this post.

So when I was in NYC this weekend, my girlfriend suggested that we check out the rooftop bar at Ink 48, a hotel in Manhattan, I was sold on the idea immediately.

The view was...
....to die for.

Views from three directions.

No, that's not a cardboard cutout.

Oh wait, there's the Hudson river too!

Oh wait, there's a third view of the city, towards the south.

Of course I had on some neon tights.

And for when the winter comes around, there's an indoor area so that you can still enjoy the sights without losing a toe to frostbite.

This is all my style.
I like clean and modern, no clutter.
Huge open windows.
Green plants.

After we checked out the bar, we wandered down to Times Square, a few blocks away, to catch a subway.

The neon in full effect

This is my dear friend who I have known since I was 11 years old.  We went to the same middle/high school program and then both went to UVa.  She was so sweet to host me and hang out for the weekend, love her.  And I love her city, I'm ready to move up there.

Anyone else love NYC?
I thought it was going to be scary and overwhelming, but it actually was a completely pleasurable and relaxing adventure!