charlotte harris

Just in time to kick off another weekend, I finally got around to recapping the previous one, as I love to do after holiday breaks.  In no particular order:

The race support and post-race food at the Cascades 10K Firechase Saturday morning.  Starbucks, Corner Bakery, Robeks, Outback Steakhouse.  A deejay and fun random giveaways.  Unheard of for a neighborhood fun run!

Hiking Old Rag Monday with MF and his parents.  8.8 miles from the Old Rag lower parking area.  We did the clockwise loop and tackled the rock scramble going uphill, thank goodness.  Had we done that hike counterclockwise, the view looking out and down from the rock scramble would have paralyzed me with fear and I would have needed to be rescued by helicopter.  Holy crap that was just so mentally tough for me (I was scared of the height and kept getting vertigo), and I am really proud of MF’s (very fit!) parents for doing it too. 

A huge NY style pizza with spinach, tomato and pepperoni on top for dinner Friday night.  I love to eat pizza the night before a long run.  Yes, I do love this pizza so much that it makes my list of highlights!

Making cheese.  Or at least trying.  I had curds.  I had whey.  OK, so it never came together as mozzarella because my particular brand of milk was pasteurized at too high a temperature.  But I have enough supplies to try it 26 more times!

Dinner with my friend Pia and her family Saturday night.  Got to hold on tight to a cute baby too!

Finding out that my man is a fearless and agile urban skater.  Seriously, he used to skate all over DC when he lived there, before I ever knew him.  And now he’s got a brand new pair of skates.  So I chased him on his new rollerblades (me on my bike) down the W&OD on Sunday. 

A visit with my friend who is recovering from a “mommy makeover.”  Boobs, tummy, and thighs all in one shot.  She was wrapped in elastic and covered in ice packs but doing great.  Brought her a healthy brunch and helped her wash the painkillers down with a Prosecco toast.  I mean, what else could I do?

Getting let out of work early on Friday and hitting the pool at my gym.  It was empty at mid-day on a Friday, just the way I like it!

Sunday breakfast at the Amphora Diner.  Oh, when I think about diners, I miss Long Island. 

Supporting local businesses.  Spent my money at a local bookstore instead of at a box store.  I feel so good when I do that.  Got one sci-fi book for MF and two history books for myself, one about Civil War Richmond and another about the life of a pioneer woman.  As if I needed more books.  I think I got that gene from my Gramma.

I’ve been tagged!  ErinSlick, a clever and witty fellow blogger, tagged me for this “Four Things” meme.  It was interesting to learn that she’s played ball with the Spin Doctors and lived in a buncha cool cities.  Hopefully y’all will find my own favorites just so intriguing! 

Four Jobs I’ve Had:
(aside from the unexciting corporate jobs I’ve had over the past 12 years)

• Bagel shop girl. Babylon, New York. I wasn’t even old enough to drive, so I took the bus to and from.  One night I closed up the shop but forgot to turn off the coffee pots.  I had to have my dad drive me back to turn them off so the place wouldn’t be a pile of ashes by the next morning.
• Beach shop girl. Robert Moses State Park, New York.  Sold sunscreen and batteries to the bleached and permed masses and ogled the cute lifeguards all day.  My girlfriends and I all had jobs there, so that made it more fun!
• Beach shop girl. Fair Harbor, Fire Island, New York.  Sold sunscreen and batteries to wealthy weekenders.  Took a ferry to and from work every day and read a lot of books.
• Waitress.  Fredericksburg, Virgnia.  I appreciate a good server because I was just terrible at this job.  We had so few customers that my coworker and I would go behind the bar and pour liquor into our coffee mugs and sip for our own amusement.

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over:

• Lost in Translation
• Amelie
• Goodfellas
• The Sound of Music

Four Places I’ve Lived:

• West Islip, NY
• Fredericksburg, VA
• Falls Church, VA
• Reston, VA

(I have lived in 7 different towns in VA, I just picked a random few.)

Four Three TV Shows I Like:

• Lost
• Ugly Betty
• Holmes on Homes

(I don’t have cable these days so I was hard pressed to even think of 3 shows.)

Four Favorite Foods:

• Hummus from Sammy T’s in Fredericksburg, VA
• Pizza from La Villa Roma in Leesburg, VA
• Hamburger meat from The Locker in Wallingford, VT.
• Murg Makhani and onion naan from any good Indian restaurant

(It was hard to think of just 4.  I picked 4 recent favorites.  Not my 4 all-time favorites, though.)

Four Places I’d Rather Be:

• On top of Old Rag.  (Fresh in my mind from a hike this weekend.)
• Splashing around in the Gulf off the coast of Sanibel Island.
• On my parents’ front porch with a book and a Magic Hat
• At any local festival or fair with good people-watching, music, vendors, and food and drink

I am not going to tag anyone, but if you want to play along, just paste the meme into your own blog or an email and change the answers to suit your own favorites.  You know how these thangs work by now!

I got my cheesemaking kit in the mail on Monday and plan to experiment with it tonight.  I have complete confidence that my foray into soft cheese is going to be a success, so here’s what’s up.

To my peeps growing gardens this summer:  Let’s strike a deal now.  I will supply you with fresh whole milk mozzarella* if you keep me in the tomatoes**. 

Caprese salad for everbody! 

* or ricotta
** or other veggies

So I spend a bit o’ time getting my fitness out on the W&OD.  Without fail, every time I am out there I either see some weird people doing weird s#!t or I see cool people just being awesome. 

I remember sharing several trail stories with you all last season and whaddaya know it’s that time of year again!  This year, I have decided to write a regular installment about my adventures on the W&OD and I will call it “Tales From the Trail.” 

Vol. 1

I was doing a 5.4 mile out-and-back run, a regular of mine.  Although I hit this particular route probably once a week, it never feels the same twice.  Some days I feel like a champ and others I am so sluggish.  This was one of those tired days where I felt like I was running with an extra 5 pounds. 

Anyway, I passed a pair of walkers, an older couple out for an afternoon stroll.  At that moment, I was on a slight uphill and I could see my turnoff in the distance.  I had only about 3/4 mile to go but I was running on pure mental fuel at that point.   It was just a bad day for a run.

So as I passed those seniors, the lady just shouted in the cheeriest voice, “you go girl, you can do it, good for you!” 

And boy did that light a fire under my ass!  Without turning around and risking losing momentum, I thanked her by throwing my arms up in the air and punching the sky with my fists.  I yelled, “oh yeah!” over my shoulder and immediately forgot how heavy my legs were feeling.  I all but pranced the rest of the way back. 

I needed that so bad.  That stranger had no idea how I was feeling, she was just being a total sweetie.  But her kindness caused a surge of endorphins which fueled me home. 

It wasn’t weird at all - it felt great!  Why don’t we all do that for each other?!  I see the same people out there running every time I hit the trail, but we breeze past each other without much more than a nod.  Why don’t I high five the guy with the white bandanna when we pass each other or say “lookin’ good today” to the dude with red shorts?  I always see a fella I recognize from college, so why don’t I shout “go Eagles!” when I run by him he runs by me? 

Perhaps I should resolve to start with a familiar wave, as it’s a common runners’ courtesy anyway.  If that works out well, maybe I will move on to words of encouragement.  Who knows, we might start a revolution on my little stretch of the trail.

The last time I got all choked up was during Superbowl, when Jordin Sparks sang the National Anthem… flawlessly.  That was the day MF learned I am a sensitive sap.  This time it was the USAF Heritage Flight display at the Joint Service Open House Air Show on Saturday.  His dad, Jim, turned to me and asked “so what do you think?”  I barely eked out the words, “I feel very patriotic right now.” 

It was a flight display of Air Force history, of four important military planes, and dedicated to war veterans.  The B51 Mustang, the F4 Phantom, the F15 Strike Eagle, and the F22 Raptor flew in diamond formation overhead as military hymns played over the PA system.  But it was only one awesome display of many that day.

We’d arrived at Andrews AFB at noon on Saturday, just as the Golden Knights jumped out of the sky, dangling from parachutes, red smoke trailing from canisters on their heels.  We immediately made like children and climbed in and out of a Navy Sea Dragon helicopter.  This massive collection of rivets has masqueraded as a Decepticon in the movie Transformers but, according to the pilot at the show, in real life was used primarily for cargo.

I saw the T-38 two-seater that Jim trained in for 2000 hours and then the F4 Phantom he flew during reconnaissance flights during his time in the Air Force.  MF remembers when his daddy used to take aerial pics of his own house for fun and bring them home to show off. 

On the ground we glimpsed the A-18, the plane which, according to MF, “defends our interests.”   We saw the Memphis Belle, decorated with both a pinup girl and several swastikas to mark the number of Nazi planes it shot down. 

Standing on the “ramp,” we craned our necks skyward and hooted with excitement for hours as the fighter jets showed off rolls and climbs, hovering and banking turns.  The  B-2 “Stealth Bomber,” the F-15 Eagle, the F-4 Phantom, and the F-22 Raptor did low fly-by’s and other unclassified maneuvers.  With their afterburners glowing red hot and the thunderous sound rocking the concrete, I shook in my shoes and felt chills up my spine on a 75 degree day. 

These jets were flying so fast that the moisture in the air would get squeezed by the pressure, creating little “clouds” and what appeared to be vapors would bounce off the planes’ surfaces.  Some of the pilots could speak over the PA from the cockpit, so we heard a lot of “Yeah, baby!” and “Woo hoooooo!”

I learned a new word, “stealthiness,” when the narrator described the B-2 and it’s flying wing design.  It was my favorite aircraft of the day, purely because it tripped me out, it looked so out of place and scary.  With the B-2 overhead, I would have guessed we were on a sci-fi movie set or soon-to-be victims of an alien invasion. 

The pilot of the F-22 flirted with the crowd with a move I can best describe as “opening the kimono.”  He flew low and with the underbelly of the plane angled down at the crowd, he opened and closed the bay doors as if to wink at us.

Finally, the aforementioned Heritage Flight wrapped up the fighter jet portion of the show just before the The Blue Angels came out for a big finale.   Powered by GE engines and often flying with only 18 inches of wing-to-canopy separation between the six of them, The Blue Angels wowed us with their daring precision.  We marveled at their speed and sound and at the pure showiness of it all. 

We saw MF’s favorite, the F-104.  Actually we saw three of them, flying in formation, shiny and sleek, piloted by the Starfighters.  It’s the first time MF had ever seen even one in flight.  “It was my favorite as a kid.  I used to have a model of it.”  Well, the 104 and the F-4, so he bought himself a toy model of the plane his daddy used to fly.

And of course what air show would have been complete without soaring B-1-RD’s and GU-11’s?  What, you can’t find those in Wikipedia?  That’s old pilot speak for birds and gulls, silly.   It was a fun day.

Year two of my Triathlon hobby, I learned that I really don’t love cycling.  Well OK, I do like cycling for leisure: pedaling around in a cute skirt looking at pretty sights, putting odds and ends in the basket, stopping for ice cream, biking some more, heading home before my hiney gets sore.  Ya know, just cycling for fun.

But I loathe the long fast rides I am required to put in for training.  The 500 minutes per week I need to crank out just to be ready for one race that will be over in just a few hours.  And fast for me and my silly bike, people, is 15 MPH.   It’s a chore and I really only love the rare few minutes out of those 500 when I am heading eastbound down a slight hill, sun on my shoulders, breeze in my face, with enough speed that I have no choice but to take a brief break from pedaling.

So this spring, I had not actually ridden my bike yet.  With my first Tri of 2008 looming only 5 weeks away, I had not even been down to the basement to make sure the dang bike was still there.   Not even to a spin class since January.  So I figured that committing to Bike to Work Day 2008 would get my ass in gear.  I registered in early April when I heard the magic words “free t-shirt” and “iPod Nano giveaway” and figured I’d dust off the Trek at some point.

Of course as the day approached my favorite weatherman on WTOP began talking of rain.   But the ride in this morning ”was wet but not as bad as we expected.”  Or at least that’s what we told the lady at the pit stop when we went to pick up our free t-shirts.  She asked “how was the ride in?”  And we lied through our teeth.   My coworker and I had registered, but bailed due to the weather.  Yes folks, I drove the 6.5 miles to work today, Bike to Work Day of all days.

I knew that my only access from the W&OD was via a break in the construction barrier about 1/4 mile from my office building.  On a good day, getting off the trail there means riding, or even walking the bike, through sticky clay mud.  Not normally a hardship at all, but I knew that with all the recent rain and flooding that there was no way I’d be able to get through that widened swampy trench without ending up ankle-deep in the clay.  No exaggeration.

It made me mad to think that that was what was going to stop me from following through with this commitment.  But I drove to work.  Another coworker did ride in and reported that someone had placed three cinder blocks in the mud back there so that pedestrians (or cyclists carrying their bikes) can hop from cinder block to cinder block to traverse the mud.  Had I known, I might not have bailed. 

But I have the weight of serious guilt on my shoulders this afternoon, and the guys around the office are like, well if you feel so guilty, take the t-shirt back.  I decided instead that, to right my wrongs, I promise to go home, pump up my bike tires, and bike to work at least one day next week.

Now, here’s to hoping I win that iPod Nano!  LOL.

We wandered into the cafe having heard only that it claimed to serve the “best breakfast in the USA.”

In the back corner sat a table full of local cops.  A good sign.  I do believe cops know breakfast.  They’re always eating locally and on the go.  Usually cheap and quick.  But good.

My dad, a retired police officer, once had a breakfast sandwich named after him at the deli across the street from his precinct.  Eggs, roast beef, and lotsa butter.  “And if the butter isn’t dripping down to your elbows while you eat, that means they didn’t put enough on!”

So we sat and ate and yes, it was a damn good breakfast.  Eat where the cops eat.  That’s it!

I recently finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and more than ever I want to fast forward to the part of my life I have been patiently waiting for — you know that part with the cozy little house in the country with a backyard big enough for a garden and a hammock and a couple of ankle biters running around pulling up all my lettuce?

Planting a lush vegetable garden and pickling and canning have long been on my dream to-do list.  I have been biding my time in a series of apartments and condos, knowing one day I will have a backyard to grow in, a kitchen large enough to can in, and a pantry deep enough to store in.  I’ll have a lifestyle that keeps me close to home so I can water and weed and love on those plants.  Even a tiny patio herb garden would wither right now because I spend too much time away from home.

It’s something I daydream out loud about pretty regularly these days. 

Now Barbara Kingsolver has pretty much wrecked me for good.  Not only do I long to garden and pickle, but after reading her book I have added chickens and cheesemaking to my wish list.  Fresh eggs!  Homemade mozzarella!  I want to fast forward to the chapter of my own life where my hypothetical kids help me in the kitchen and get excited about Friday Family Pizza Night!

Who knows when I’ll get my big backyard and my root cellar and those helpful teenagers, so in the meantime, I am inspired by Barbara’s pleas to eat locally and in season and choose organic however I can right now. 

This isn’t exactly a new concept for me… I have subscribed to a CSA in the past but found myself skipping town or making plans so often during that time of year that I missed too many vegetable pickups to make it worth the several hundred dollars I paid up front.  I have gratefully accepted bag-fuls of zucchini and tomatoes from my green-thumbed friends and family, knowing that a juicy Early Girl grown in my Dad’s garden is going to taste so much more exceptional than anything from Giant, and that the zucchini grown by my coworker’s wife in Frederick, MD is going to be fat enough to make a loaf of bread AND a salad.

Now that they’re open for the season, I will absolutely shop the weekend growers markets and have loved doing so in the past.  My current dilemma is that half of the weekends I am not even sleeping at my own home, so I can’t exactly roll out of bed and hit the farmers markets then run home to stock up my kitchen.  Because the growers markets will work for me only about half the time, I am left to the grocery produce section the remaining weeks.  So this Tuesday, when I returned from vacation and made a desperate trip to the Harris Teeter, I vowed to buy only locally grown fruits and veggies.

Harder said than done. 

I managed to keep it in the USA family, but most of the stuff I got was from California.  Asparagus is in season in these parts now, so why couldn’t I get some locally-grown asparagus?  Lettuce is growing up all over this region right now, but my big bunch of lettuce wasn’t grown down the road here, either.  I needed scallions and parsley for my hummus recipe, both of which I think should have been available from a local producer, but weren’t.  

The grocery store is not buying locally.  Sections of Barbara’s book, especially some co-written by her husband Steven L. Hopp, explain why stores often buy truckloads of produce from across the country instead of buying smaller deliveries locally.  I have always heard arguments both for and against this practice.  I read an article in the Economist last summer arguing against buying local organic produce because it uses more fuel to make more smaller deliveries than it does to make one large delivery.

Yes there’s a price for fuel, but there’s also a price for putting local farmers out of business or for buying fruits and vegetables grown treated with insecticides.  If I were to recap all of her thoughtful talking points, I would have to quote half the book right here, so I recommend you just read it cover to cover.  Even if you have no intention of getting dirt under your nails, it’s still such an informative and eye-opening read.  This book will remain on my bookshelf as a reference manual from here on out.

I don’t ever anticipate taking as firm a stance as Barbara and her family did.  The bananas I buy will likely never be from a from a northern Virginia farm.  Barbara would say something like: So just don’t eat bananas.  Get your potassium from some local potatoes instead.   But I am not quite ready to dip fingerlings into my morning yogurt.  Yogurt which I now know I can make easily at home!

“Are you really on vacation or did you bring your laptop?”  The front desk clerk wanted to know if we needed instructions for the wireless Internet.

“Nope!  We are unplugged!”  We grabbed our room keys and two rubber beer cozies and headed off to the beach.  We’d planned it well.  Stopped at a Publix off the Island and stocked up on beer, limes, crackers, cheese, veggies and hummus.  Bottled water and dixie cups.  We pretty much stocked up “on happy hour.”

The first stop was our second-story balcony where we kicked off our travelin’ shoes and clinked a couple cold sweaty longnecks together with a toast to the start of our vacation.  For the next several days, we’d alternate between splashing around in the Gulf, snoozing under a beach umbrella, reading in the shade, pedaling into town, playing in the saltwater pool, and sipping beers at sunset. 

Instead of RSS feeds, we had a National Geographic Magazine and a Barbara Kingsolver book.  In lieu of cable, we watched the sky for pelicans and egrets and scanned the water for dolphins and manatees.  If we missed our gym memberships, we jumped in the saltwater pool or pedaled around on borrowed bicycles with baskets on the handlebars… or simply rolled over in bed when the clock struck six.   We left the iPods at home and zoned out to the unfamiliar calls of Island wildlife, the crunch of seashells under foot, the rustle of palm leaves in the breeze and the wind flapping at the fabric of our umbrella.  Cell phones buried in our bags, we used them only on to call out on Mothers Day. 

There was no fast food, but there were plenty of fresh local Gulf shrimp from a marina oasis called Gramma Dot’s, a couple breakfasts on the patio at the Island Cow, one lunch at Schnapper’s hot dog stand, and two fresh margaritas we intended to sip while listening to some island music but instead found ourselves out at Trader’s during the blue-hair-dinner-hour. 

We filled the moments in between with chit-chat and flirting, one or two petty personality clashes, and even more moments of relaxing silence.   No making friends down by the pool, no chatting up the locals down at the Lighthouse Cafe, and no wondering about the folks back home. 

We fell asleep to a movie around 9pm on two nights, but otherwise no TV.  Even the newspaper we bought on Sunday turned out to be Friday’s news.  The ceiling fan and A/C were indispensable, but no alarm clocks, no hair dryers, and just one emergency pit stop for number 45 sunscreen and after-sun lotion from Jerry’s Supermarket.  

So when we flew that last leg back into Dulles last night, it hurt me.  The sensory overload.  It hurt my ears to listen to Dora the Explorer on some kid’s portable DVD player throughout the whole flight, it hurt my skin to emerge from the airport into a 48-degree rainy night, it hurt my lips to kiss my man goodbye and go to sleep alone, and it hurt my eyes to power up my laptop and read through 5 days of email. 

This morning, I woke up on beach time, which happens to be my normal time anyway, and decided to ease my way back into real life.  I covered my tanned legs and arms with stiff blue jeans and a light sweater but didn’t do my hair or makeup.  I stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast and ate margarita-flavored potato chips for lunch.  I wrote this blog about my trip instead of culling through my work emails. 

We’d been playing this game, my friend and me, where we’d send each other cameraphone pics of ourselves, alone, doing everyday boring tasks.  Reading textbooks, driving to work, staring at a computer screen.  The more mundane the funnier. 

So of course when I found myself driving past his office building at lunchtime the other day, I started snapping pics.  I took like 5 blurry photos before I got a decent one.  And then I texted it to his work email from my phone. 

A picture tells a thousand words, and my picture was intended to say “I am driving past your office at noon on Thursday, which is highly unusual, and oh wouldn’t it be funny if this ends up being a photo of the very window where you sit and work all day?”  That’s all.  Just being silly and letting him know I thought of him when I drove by.

So I got a call later, “Charlotte.  I need to ask you a favor.  Please do not take pictures of my building and then send them to my work email.”

“Huh?  Why?  I was just bring funny.”

“I know you were just being funny but nobody else knows that.”  Seems he works in the kind of building one simply does not photograph.   I am now betting that if anyone had seen me taking cameraphone pics and captured my tag number, some men in dark suits might come a-knocking on my door.  And if his email is being monitored at all, my friend will get called down “to the principal’s office,” as he put it.

I actually used to work down the street from there, so I have seen the armed guards and the barriers that pop out of the ground.  I know it’s a government building of some sort (and that’s truly all I know).  I just didn’t think about all that when I was goofing off with my phone.  Obviously I have no hidden agenda and I was just having fun.  But I feel awful that I could get my friend in trouble.  So I deleted the pics and promised never to do it again. 

The upside is, I like to think that perhaps our government has finally begun compiling a dossier on me and my little cameraphone capers.   Awesome.