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Reflections: on half a year of “The Pescatarian Project”

June 26, 2011 By 25 Comments
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Continuing in my reflection theme started earlier this week in my reflections on six months out of Africa… installment parte dois! Running (or lack thereof) and injury update tomorrow. I’m feeling optimistic! Anyways… moving on.

It’s been half a year since I had a burger. I love burgers.

[source]

It’s also been half a year since I had a chicken wing, a pig in a blanket, a shawarma, or any of very many delicious things.

Six months ago today I ate a little slider at my parent’s house and decided that was it… for a while, at least. I dubbed my temporary no-meat existence “The Pescatarian Project.” In that blog post, I detailed why I wanted to cut meat out of my diet post-world-travel, for a variety of reasons, including basing my diet around vegetables and eating healthier overall. I decided to include fish in my diet not just because I couldn’t imagine giving up raw ahi tuna once in a while, but also because I thought it would be less intimidating (and a guaranteed easy source of protein). I committed myself to eating lots of veggies and just in general being health-conscious and awesome.

It’s been six months. How do I feel?

First of all, I call myself a vegetarian. Yes, I eat fish sometimes, but for normal life it’s too annoying to non-nutrition-nerds to talk about the particulars of my self-imposed dietary restrictions because let’s be honest, nobody cares. Also, in the last few months, I can count the number of times I’ve eaten fish on one hand and I never really order it or buy it, so it’s become much less relevant.

So to be completely honest: going vegetarian has NOT changed my life.

Backing up. There are many good things about being vegetarian. One, a lot of my unhealthy splurge foods are now off-limits. I don’t have the most discriminating tastes  with meat, so in college I would gave pretty easily to Panda Express orange chicken and In-N-Out burgers… and don’t get me started on Chili’s boneless buffalo wings.

I gravitate towards healthier menu options. I usually don’t order salads when eating out, because they are either complete calorie bombs and generally unhealthy OR they are overpriced and don’t fill you up. I look for veggie entrees or combine side dishes.

I have also reduced my menu-induced anxiety. (Read: it takes me two hours to pick something to order off a substantial menu. Being veg has not only cut my options and thus my decision time drastically, but has also made me more pleasant of a dining partner.)

It has made me more aware of my diet and nutrition needs. When I was training for my marathon I frequently mentioned my weird obsession with protein. (Continues.) But in general I am more conscious of my daily balance of what I’m consuming.

I spend less. Not buying meat or buying meat dishes at restaurants has definitely reduced my expenses, considering. I have learned to cook a lot of easy vegetarian dishes.

It is freaking easy to be a veggie in SF. Not only are you mainstream and normal, but I can walk into a Sausage Grill and know that I’ll be able to get a tofu dog. Legit.

I have reduced my environmental impact by a ton (cue Whole-Foods-induced “conscientious shopper” flood-of-pride-slash-moral-superiority HERE).

But what about the other side?

I am not convinced that the vegetarian diet is “right” for me. I don’t believe there is a right diet across the board—everyone’s body is different and while there are general nutritional guidelines that apply to everyone, one person might feel great as a vegetarian, another on an Atkins-type diet, another vegan… we’re all different.

I don’t feel “better” as a vegetarian.

There are things I really like about it, as mentioned before. When I say “better” I mean purely from a health standpoint. I did not feel more energetic, lighter on my feet, better digestion… any of those things. My hunger didn’t increase a lot either. My body seemed to take vegetarianism in stride, no problem, but wasn’t thrilled and ecstatic either. It was simply a new way of eating and everything else carried on as normal.

I gained weight, probably. I don’t know—I also was marathon training at the same time that I went veg so I can’t speak to that. I CAN say that carbs are my favorite food group (seriously, I could eat just carbs all day every day and be very happy) and also that I DO lose weight when I cut the carbs. Being veg has definitely made me eat even MORE carbs as many great sources of protein (like beans) also contain a decent amount of carbs. And who wants to eat faux meat products without rice or a bun? Not me, really.

So after six months, am I healthier? I feel like I’m wired healthier in that way that being a vegetarian creates (basically, you think about nutrition more). But I don’t feel better or look better.

So now what?

Here’s an interesting thing about all of this: I don’t miss meat. I haven’t eaten any minus an accidental bite of a chicken burrito (which was SUPPOSED to be curry paneer… thanks for nothing, Curry Up Now!) and I don’t miss it. I am still attracted to the smell of meat—not eating it anymore doesn’t mean that walking by the sizzling bacon-wrapped hot dogs doesn’t intoxicate me! But yet, I don’t really give it a passing thought. It’s more like “oh, that hot dog/chicken wing/pepperoni pizza smells good” and then the thought leaves my head. Whatever.

In addition to not eating meat, I do believe I have fully shifted to vegetarian mentality. Though I like the smell of some meat, and don’t think it’s wrong to eat meat if it’s done sustainably, I’m just so in the “I don’t eat that!” mentality that I think it would be REALLY hard to take that first bite again. (Especially after I teared up reading Fast Food Nation last week during the part about how they kill the cows…)

So part of me wants to be a vegetarian forever. The other part of me really wants to seriously pursue my passion of being a food blogger or a restaurant reviewer/food critic/food writer etc etc, and to be honest, vegetarian is a niche and I’d need to eat meat if I wanted to do anything mainstream out from under a vegetarian umbrella. And of course, I’m “missing out” on a lot of really awesome food.

Conclusions? I really have no idea what the future holds for me and my previously-beloved fried chicken. I know that for now, I’m going to continue down my quasi-vegetarian path, and see how it goes from here. I’m happy where I am, and I know that at any point, the decision to go back is always mine. I’m just not convinced either way.

Have you ever gone vegetarian/vegan or tried any other significant dietary change? How did you know if it was/wasn’t right for you?

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    Reflections: On Six Months Out of Africa

    June 23, 2011 By 17 Comments
    africa1

    We interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast of food, running, and San Francisco adventure to spend some time reflecting. These two weeks hold a number of meaningful occasions for me, and since my passion is first and foremost to write, these posts may a little bit different than the normal fare. But if you choose to read them, I hope you enjoy.

    ***

    Today marks a pretty momentous day for me. It’s officially been six months since I got back to America after 27 months abroad. At this point, I’m officially supposed to be adjusted… right?

    This blog started in Africa and Africa is an inextricable part of both me and P&P. Being so far away, a “Stranger in a Strange Land,” as it worse, changed me forever and was a big part of me starting this blog—a last-ditch effort in re-establishing connection with the “outside world” that I so often felt had forgotten me. I’ve been back now for half a year, six whole months, and life has changed drastically.

    I’m living the life I dreamed about when I was in Africa. Not that the life I’m living is a dream or ideal life, but it has everything I missed so much when I was there. Friends. A social life. Things to do. Good food to eat. Things to buy. Cute clothes. Eligible men. Places I can go by myself at night. Personal space. Language I understand. Etc. We always what we can’t have, as so often in the last months I’ve found myself longing for the simplicity of Africa, the dirt and the sand and the sea and the sky, each stretching onward in a remarkable sense of infinity. Where life was simpler and worrying about what to cook for dinner was enough.

    My life has changed a lot in between then and now, and I’ve been spending a lot of time, mostly subconsciously, thinking about what I sometimes internally refer to as The Great Divide. Africa. America. Two different lives. But not two different people. Rationalizing that has been hard. A few examples:

    Africa: Too. Much. TIME.

    America: OMGNOTENOUGHTIMEEVER.

    Okay, I saw this one coming for sure. But it’s no less of a shock. In Africa, some nights I’d come home to my hut, made dinner, ate, watched a TV show on my laptop, and changed into jammies… all before 7:15. What now? Reading, journaling, more reading… sleeping… there were nights I went to bed at 7:45 because I just simply had nothing to do. Here, my to-do list grows every single day. Finding time for just the crucial things I find important—God, important relationships, cooking, blogging, working out—feels darn near impossible.


    Africa: a cell phone with one-color screen that got reception half of the time.

    America: an iPhone that rules my life and voicemails that terrify me.

    This is probably the weirdest one: I came back from Africa intensely upset by voicemail. I recognize this is irrational. After years of not having reception quite often, much less voicemail, I grew used to the fact that communication happened on occasion, almost by accident. The idea that someone can leave me a message whenever they wanted and socially I HAD to respond to it freaked me out. I just didn’t listen to them. At one point I had 12. The breaking point was when a friend was in SF for a weekend—that I hadn’t seen in months—and she called me and told me. I thought I missed the message, but then I realized that like all the other ones, I just hadn’t listened to it. I can’t say I am perfect, but I listen to them more now. This speaks to something bigger, a bit of discomfort with the way that here we’re so connected, but in artificial ways.


    Africa: No money and nothing to spend on.

    America: no money and too much to spend it on.

    In Africa I made $5 a day. In America I make over twenty times that and I worry about money about a million times more. Bills, monthly rent which is equivalent to more than five month’s salary in Africa, utilities, and all the good stuff… restaurants, $11 margaritas, fun distractions… too much to do, and too little money, in one of the most expensive cities ever. It was so much easier to just not have any money and to not care because I spent like $30 a week. Man.

    Africa: not enough personal space!

    America: too much personal space!

    Let me explain this one. In Africa, one of the hardest things about life there was people never leaving you alone. Anywhere I went, people wanted to talk, or at least talk about me in front of me. No one ever let me listen to my iPod in peace. No one let me walk down the sidewalk in peace. I longed, literally LONGED with all my heart to blend in and simply not be bothered. Some people grew to love kids calling them “mulungo!” (white person), yelling at you whenever you walked by. I didn’t. I got used to it, but I never liked it. I simply wanted to blend in. but in America, I miss that. We keep to ourselves too much. Yesterday I asked someone what bus had just passed and they looked at me like I was a crazy person. So many places in the world, you can make friends on the street or on the bus and no one thinks you’re a creeper. Here, people are content to live in self-isolation, and I never thought I’d say this, but, I miss that about Africa.

    Africa: freedom!

    America: trapped.

    I think this has been the hardest part of coming back. In Africa, I was free. Sure, I had a job and some responsibilities, but not that many. I had a lot of flexibility. I could take off for a long weekend, hitchhike 800 kilometers, spend a day on a beach somewhere with a cold soda for 25 cents, and not really have anything to care about. I didn’t have a to-do list coming home with me at the end of the day. I could travel to Swaziland, to the World Cup in South Africa, to Thailand. I went to eight countries last year, maybe 9? I don’t remember. I felt like I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. There were no limits.

    Here I don’t feel that way anymore, that sense of endless and limitless possibility. I look at my near future and instead of seeing world travel and adventure, I see a job and bills. That’s all I see anytime soon. I know that’s not fair—that this is real life and that real life demands certain sacrifices and the obtaining of a certain sense of balance—but I’ve been so far on the other end of the spectrum that real life feels like handcuffs. The idea of not leaving the country in 2011 (when I circumnavigated the globe in 2010!) feels too much to bear. I feel like some youthful irresponsibility has been forever lost. And my heart starts pounding when I wonder if I’ll ever get it back, or if this is really it. A former Volunteer told me “it all fades to a rosy hue…” and it does. I look back on Africa now longingly, missing the parts of life I’ll never get here, and forgetting all the times I wished I was anywhere else. That’s how life goes. It’s so hard to be content in the present.

    If there’s anything this self-indulgent post makes me realize, it’s that I’m still adjusting. I’m six months back, and life simply won’t be the same, no matter how hard I try. The only thing I can do is to accept the differences and find ways to explore the joys of Africa in San Francisco, to mix the best of both worlds, to find that balance between my two lives. To find the moments where I feel free and unharnessed, that the world is wide open in front of me, and hang onto those moments. To approach my life with that same sense of wonder that I once approached the unknown. That will prove to be my key to happiness. That will be my ticket to finally once again feeling like I’m home.

    If you’d like to read any of my posts about Africa, please check out my Peace Corps/Moz tab.

    Have a good night everyone!

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    Laid Up

    June 20, 2011 By 21 Comments
    daddycourtney

    First of all, Happy (belated) Father’s Day to my amazing father! Thanks for being the absolute best daddy I could ever have asked for. I’ll always be daddy’s little girl :)

    This weekend was great. I had baking book club yesterday and met two awesome bloggers/new friends and made some awesome lava cake. I’ll update on that later. I also had a great afternoon with my family in San Francisco. My parents drove in from the Sacramento area, picking up my sis from Berkeley on the way. I was already out and about to go to church, so I picked up some pastries for my parents at Tartine (SF’s most famous bakery, and rightfully slow!) to kill some time.

    Once my family got into town, they met me at Spork in the Mission for brunch.

    We were all pretty hungry by then. We split some coffee cake as a starter and then I got the Dirty Birdy (three-egg scramble with mushrooms, cheese, cherry tomatoes, and homefries mixed in and with avocado instead of bacon).

    Hit the spot. Not excellent service, but decent food. I was hungry when I entered and left full. Thus, success.

    But can we just TALK about the cookies that came with the bill???

    We had the rare joy of having a WARM day in SF today. It never really happens. I left my house at 9:50 and was wiping sweat off my lip by 9:55. Okay, I was climbing a hill, but STILL. It was nice! We went over to Golden Gate Park to walk around a little. I usually always just run through GGP and never really meander, so it was fun, and my family being there made it 100x better.

    Family time continued at Costco. I love Costco. I have a love affair in my heart going on with Costco. Let me just say. But I don’t love Costco more than I love my family… and my daddy. Happy Fathers’ Day! Thanks for making the drive. : )

    The only unhappy part of my weekend: I’m injured. For the first time since I started marathon training the first week of January, I have an injury that is preventing me from running. I’ve had a ton of soreness, growing pains, tweaks, pinches, etc. along the course of the last six months, but nothing ever made me stop a run early less than voluntarily. Last week after I ran 16 miles in preparation for the SF Marathon (which I’m hoping to run in July) I was telling my mom I felt lucky because with each long run during round 1 something ALWAYS hurt, but then it’d go away, and my last few long runs here, nothing has really hurt and I felt really lucky. Open mouth, insert foot.

    I ran six miles on Thursday morning and it was a great run. I felt good and was in an awesome mood since it was warm in SF at 6:30am which never happens. I ran the six, jumped in the shower, then jumped on the bus to make my 30-plus minute bus commute down to Market Street.

    Then, when I stood to get off the bus, I almost fell over. I had shooting pain in my inner right thigh. It’s not quite my groin, not quite my quad, but something in the inner thigh kind of in about the middle of the thigh between the groin and knee. I had no idea what it was but it HURT. I shuffled the five blocks to my office and spent the next two days walking quite gingerly. I felt like it would get better. I tried to stretch but it didn’t work. I felt like I just had some sort of a tweak.

    Saturday, I was supposed to run 18 miles. I got up and still felt bad. But I’ve run out a lot of tweaks in the first 5-10 minutes of a run, so I fueled up with awesome pancakes… and then went out to give it a shot.

    I ran one mile. Every step hurt. I thought it’d get better but it just didn’t. So I did what I knew I needed to do. I limped home.

    It’s been another two full days and it hasn’t gotten better. Walking is mildly uncomfortable. Stretching doesn’t help and I cannot isolate the area no matter what I try. I did the elliptical yesterday with no pain and the stationary bike today with no pain, but putting all my weight on my right foot doesn’t work. I tried a mock jump-rope, and I couldn’t do it. I cannot put my full weight, with any impact, on my right leg.

    This terrifies me. Especially because I don’t know what the injury is or how to make it better. Discounting my one mile, I now have taken FOUR days off running, it will probably turn into a week… or more? And who knows how it’s going to get better?

    I need to not worry about this too much. It’s going to be okay. This week I will try to figure out what is wrong with it this week and still try to work my butt off at the gym to stay in shape.

    But how do I make it better?

    I’m really lucky to have run about 600 miles this year without ever getting laid up, and I’m lucky that I have six weeks til the SF race so that even if I take a week off now, I can likely get back. But what scares me is that it still solidly hurts FOUR FULL DAYS LATER and that I have no idea what’s wrong with it. The pain spread down my leg to my foot today so I’m thinking it’s my sciatic nerve. I’m going to try to get an appointment with a doctor tomorrow.

    Happy thoughts.

    Injuries can be good because they give you perspective. Last week I was not excited about running. Yesterday walking through GGP I wanted to trip the three billion runners who were floating past me out of sheer jealousy, because I knew I couldn’t do that right now. When I can run again–hopefully soon–I’ll be so happy to be able to run.

    Have you ever had an injury? How do you deal with it/stay in shape?

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    Birthday Week: Tourist Day!

    June 18, 2011 By 10 Comments
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    This is my last Birthday Week post, I promise. I just wanted to document all the fun stuff I did to celebrate! If you missed anything, the other posts:

    This will also be the last “look what I did!” post for a while. I have much more interesting stuff coming up next week I promise. : )

    Sunday of Birthday Week was a bit mellow at first. I woke up and celebrated by going and spending a lot of money at Trader Joe’s. TJ’s has absolutely been a GODSEND when trying to readapt to living and eating healthy (and affordably) in the big city. That’s another post, though.Today ended up being a Tourist Day, which fit because I was with someone who didn’t live in SF and someone who’s lived there almost all his life. I LOVE tourist days. I think that sometimes when you live in places that are very touristed (like SF, now, and Los Angeles, before I moved) you instinctively avoid tourist destinations since “you live there”… but most touristy destinations are that way for a reason: because they’re cool. Today ended up being a pretty awesome Tourist Day in SF.

    First, Jeremy and Alex came over and we checked out the Haight Street Fair.

    Background: the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood is where the hippie movement and Summer of Love that people so frequently associate with San Francisco, originated. It’s now a bit calmer, partly gentrified and partly run down, populated by families with kids and homeless teenagers with backpacks alike. It’s one of the most touristed streets in the city and is great fun on the weekends as people pour out from all over to hang out on Haight and in Golden Gate Park that borders it. It also happens to be where I live. #winning

    Sunday was the annual Haight Street Fair, when the street closes down from Stanyan to Masonic and gets filled up with booths and vendors selling everything imaginable. We wandered around and had a good time. I bought a piece of African art to go in my apartment (pictures to come when I get it hung up!) and a bag of kettle korn for lunch. I really HAVE to stop eating bags of kettle korn for meals… but I just can’t help it!

    This made me a bit nostalgic for Africa. Despite the whole vegetarian thing, I REALLY miss buying meat on sticks on the side of the road! Flashback.

    I LOVE fair food. Love love love. Too bad that they were pretty much all meat at this place… in hippie veg/vegan central! What were they thinking?? I really thought about buying a funnel cake for lunch.

    \

    After we wore out the fair’s entertainment value, we headed down to San Francisco’s trendy/hipster Mission neighborhood to go to Dolores Park. Dolores Park is probably… okay, deifnitely the coolest park in the city to sit around and people watch. It’s basically a big square of grass covered with people drinking, smoking (or eating) weed, throwing balls to their dogs, or playing with their children. It’s a great cross-section of SF life. And it has pretty awesome views of the city from the top corner.

    One of the best things about Dolores Park is that right on the corner is Bi-Rite Creamery, probably the best ice cream in San Francisco. The line is always long even at 10pm when it’s 45 degrees and the freezing wind is blowing you over.

    They have a ton of really interesting flavors and are probably most famous for their Salted Caramel. Which I think is pretty good, but it’s actually not my favorite. Neither is the honey lavender. It tastes like a perfume (but still manages to be delicious).

    I went with the brown sugar with ginger caramel swirl (my personal favorite… until now) and ricanelas (my new favorite–cinnamon ice cream with pieces of snickerdoodle cookies in it) with their homemade graham crackers on top.

    DIE.

    Next stop: we traversed the city all the way to the Ocean (despite being the City by the Bay, sometimes I forget that we’re on the ocean until I like, run by it!)

    We were at the Sutro Baths, a very cool (modern) ruin. See that big pool? This actually was a bath house 100 or so years ago. So crazy! And man is our ocean windy and cold. But it’s beautiful.

    Light at the end of the tunnel, anybody? :)

    Overall it was an awesome day and a superb end to Birthday Week. I have a lot of blog projects/goals over the next two weeks and one of them is making a list of things in SF I’m excited to do–even if they’re touristy. :)

    I just dropped off an 18 mile run after 1 mile due to injury… that’s another post. But hey, I got to update the blog! Have a super Saturday, everybody!

    What touristy things exist where YOU live? Do you enjoy them?

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    Birthday Weekend: Kiddie Museums and Gay Clubs

    June 15, 2011 By 4 Comments
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    The title pretty much just sums it up. Welcome back to the Birthday Week, a 5-part (maybe …) series on How I Spent My 25th Birthday Week. Pretty over-the-top, I know.

    On Friday, two of my best friends from LA arrived. Aren’t they cute? :) We met for some beers.

    Then that evening, we headed to Palomino on the Embarcadero for happy hour and bar food. We used to go there all the time back in college–the west Los Angeles location–so this was kind of for old times’ sake. It was a bit annoying as the happy hour area was completely spilling over, there was no standing room, and tables were “first come first serve,” so you had to hover over people (literally!) to get a table. Annoying. But the cheesy potatoes were (almost) as good as I remembered them.

    Alex and Jeremy used to always eye a drink on the LA menu called the “Hot n’ Dirty” but never got it. I wonder why… it involved olives and pepperoni! It’s off the menu, but they finally balled up and asked for it today. And the bartender remembered it.

    I think I might rather drink toilet water than an olive and meat flavored alcoholic beverage, but they mostly enjoyed it. : )

    Saturday morning, I ran 16 miles. It was kind of slow and lazy. And involved a big fight with my GPS–but that’s its own post. Then the party continued at the Palace of Fine Arts! Beautiful, isn’t it?

    Should I do an SF series on my favorite places? I think maybe I should.

    I would SO get married here if my hair wouldn’t be a frizzfest from the tornado winds in, oh, 30 seconds.

    We had a little picnic of wine and cheese outside and then went to one of my favorite places in SF: THE EXPLORATORIUM! The Exploratorium is a hands-on science museum that reminds me a ton of museums I used to go to as a kid (COSI in Columbus, Ohio; the Liberty Science Center in Jersey right outside of NYC). But I’ve been to this place and it’s almost as fun as an adult.

    Actually, it’s equally fun, the only bad thing is that as an adult you realize how many germs are on everything. Gross. Hand sanitizer to the rescue!

    We went home and freshened up and then it was time for my birthday dinner: my real birthday dinner! I brought a group of 15 to a restaurant called Bisou in the Castro, San Francisco’s fabulous gay district. It was a great time. I just felt so lucky to be surrounded by amazing friends!

    All their menu items had provocative names related to love or the act of it. This drink below was called the Hard-On. It wasn’t THAT good. :)

    Penne pasta called “light my fire”… doesn’t the name make it better?!?

    Best fries EVER. And no, I didn’t taste that meat. That’s what she said.

    Should have gotten myself a new camera for my birthday so I could take pictures of food that actually make it look somewhat appealing. Oh well.

    After that it was time to go dancing! I was given beads and glitter and confetti… and handcuffs… to prepare.

    First we went to Q bar, at least I think that’s what it was called? I just followed the crowd. I love that this picture has that blurry “ahhhh it’s 2am and we’re wasted!” blur to it when really it was the first drink and it was early and my camera just didn’t focus.

    There was dancing. Oh yes, there was dancing. I am an animal on the dance floor. If you didn’t know. Some find it sexy. Others find it startling. Yet more find it somewhat scary.

    There were my favorite gay music videos.

    There was singing.

    And after 16 miles and three hours of sweating out every drop of water in my body, I was pretty pooped. This picture says it all.

    Yup, looking good.

    I had a great birthday. From the adult going-out to the kiddie play-date, it was all so much fun. I can be an adult and a kid at the same time :) Have a great Wednesday, everyone!

    What kind of kiddie things do you like to do?

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    Birthday Week: Dinner on an Island!

    June 13, 2011 By 9 Comments
    DSC09554_480x360

    Badblogger badblogger badblogger.

    Well, Birthday Week is OVER! Which explains the lack of blogging, because I spent the last four days celebrating the year of my birth. Pretty standard stuff. Before I tell you how I spent my birthday, I want to announce some GIVEAWAY WINNERS!

    First giveaway… Sun Chlorella and Ghiradelli chocolate! The winner is (drumroll please…)

    Katie of Legally Fit! Katie, send me your address and I’ll get you some natural energizers and some chocolate : )

    Aaaaaand the CEREAL PRIZE PACK GIVEAWAY! The winner is…

    Cait from Beyond Bananas! Cait, get me your info and you’ll get your prize pack in the mail shortly!

    Moving on. Back to my birthday. I had the day (Thursday ) OFF. Shout out to my awesome company here. They very recently announced some new additions to Company Culture, including your birthday off and a meal on the company. Which I took gladly. THANKS. Birthday pancake! With no fruit or anything fun since I was out of ingredients.

    Sad panda pancake.

    Having a Thursday off, and having just gotten back from Boston (where birthday week began), was a little disorienting! I started off with a six mile run through Golden Gate Park. I’d like to tell you it was epic, but actually it was foggy and kind of misting on me. Anyways.

    I decided the next best thing to do on your birthday is go to spend money you don’t have, which I promptly did. I went to Express and bought two dresses, and birthday presents for my sister.

    I had to eat, which resulted in what I call Price/Calorie Shock-Induced Indecision. Basically, when confronted with tons of food choices, I want everything, but then half the stuff turns me off because it’s expensive (all the healthy, trendy eateries) and the other half is cheap but turns me off because it’s unhealthy (i.e. the several minutes I spent contemplating if I should eat Mrs. Field’s cookies for lunch). So I end up wandering around for hours trying to find a happy medium. Then I realized all I wanted was a Wetzel’s Pretzel. Imagine my pain when I realized it was closed! I was gonna chalk it up to a birthday fail but then realized there was an Auntie Anne’s upstairs. LUNCH SUCCESS! Plus Jamba Juice. For the fruit. And protein. : )

    How perfect is that quote??

    Next I headed back in time for a haircut. Girl’s gotta look fly on her b-day! On the way out, I found KITCHEN SHELVES on the street corner! You probably don’t know I’ve been “cooking” with a microwave and a toaster oven, both on the floor of the kitchen. Shelves = BEST BDAY PRESENT EVER! Pic to come when my kitchen is clean…

    Apres-haircut, I headed downtown with my lovely sister Caitlin. We boarded the streetcar to Fisherman’s Wharf, tourist capital of SF. But tourist places are usually touristy for a reason, and upon arriving I wondered why I hadn’t been there in years (besides running by it often and weaving through the tourists and nearly knocking over their ice cream cones).

    We went to a place called Forbes Island. This kitchy restaurant is an “island” (aka boat that’s been built up) floating off the pier. The “captain” has to come pick you up in a shuttle boat to get out there!

    I expected it to be touristy, but also special. They gave us a “romantic” table (wooo!) and the wait staff was amazing.

    The restaurant was participating in Dine About Town so I got a green salad, salmon with pesto rice, and chocolate mousse for $34.95. The food was good! It’s expensive and not the best food you’ll ever have (our bill was $120 including the $30 bottle of wine) but you pay for the experience and it DEFINITELY feels like a special occasion. This is a place to propose!

    My sister got the mushroom risotto and potatoes au gratin (GOOD!) and we split a bottle of wine.

    Only bad thing about this place: poor lighting for food pictures.


    Can we talk about how cute this is?


    After our lovely dinner, we climbed the 50-something steps (he said this like it was intimidating and I’m pretty sure I giggled) of the lighthouse to check out the view. Yes, there was a lighthouse. And yes, there was a view.

    After the captain dropped us back off we made our way to the pier for my next destination: an ice cream cone. See, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream is my favorite thing, but I never ever get it. Not out of guilt so much as cold. But it was my birthday and all I wanted was that darn cone!

    Success.

    To keep ourselves from getting too cold, we ate our frozen treats while wandering through a variety of tourist shops. Can we talk about these magnets???

    I had a great day. The best thing was that it was only a precursor to the weekend’s celebrations. That’ll be the next post. : )

    My mom believes in taking your birthday off every year. Now, I most definitely do too.

    Rest of birthday week posts to come. Until then… have a great night!

    What are your birthday traditions?

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