Tragic Sandwich

Category: Health and Fitness

  • Swimming and Biking and Cupcakes, Oh My!

    One of my friends describes a cupcake as “the perfect ratio of frosting to cake,” and I think she’s got a point. She also describes my brother as “a sweet little cupcake baked by the devil,” and I think she’s got a point there, too. Someone’s got cupcakes on the brain, and I’m keeping her company.

    A few weeks ago I made a trip to Sprinkles for cupcakes. Today I continued my unofficial cupcake tour of Los Angeles with a visit to SusieCakes on San Vicente. Our refrigerator now contains three cupcakes–one vanilla, one lemon, and one coconut. I, on the other hand, contain one vanilla cupcake. SusieCakes describes their cupcakes as “frosting-filled,” and based on the one I’ve eaten so far, I have no idea what that means. It was delicious, though, and I’m looking forward to the other flavors.

    The cupcakes came on the heels of a strenuous afternoon. J and I did our first ocean swim in preparation for the triathlon (less than two weeks away! Aaaaagh!).

    Here’s what I learned today: sixty-degree water is very cold. It’s extra, extra cold when you leave your wetsuit at home. But I steeled myself to the cold water and swam. I actually did get used to the temperature, but I missed the buoyancy provided by the wetsuit.

    After that we went biking on San Vicente, which has excellent bike lanes–even for me and my fear of biking downhill. San Vicente is not at all steep, but I’m a downhill wimp. I admit it. Oddly, I’m not bad on the uphill portions.

    Oh, yes, I earned these cupcakes.

  • More Disappointing Than Tragic

    What does a girl have to do to get a meatball sub in this town?

    Yesterday J set out for adventures with friends, and these adventures included using the car, which meant that after my friend picked me up for coffee, I was on foot for most of the day.

    For the portion of the day that included laundry, this was no big deal. However, when J called to say that he and his friends would be eating copious quantities of BBQ at the Bear Pit (previously discussed here), I realized that I would need my own hearty late lunch/early dinner.

    One of our favorite local haunts is The Coop, a tiny hole-in-the-wall pizza place with no seating, cash-only sales, and amazing New York style pizza (New Yorkers, don’t start with me. It may not be exactly what you’re used to, due to the water–see, I know–but it’s good). Since J doesn’t like vegetables on his pizza, and I can’t eat oregano, we usually get a large pepperoni and Canadian bacon. That provides plenty of meat and avoids the sausage.

    The Coop also makes excellent meatball subs. Their posted Saturday hours are 11-9, so I figured I’d call and place the order, then walk over and pick it up. But no one answered. That suggested that they might be closed, particularly given the holiday weekend. Just in case, though, I walked over and discovered that they were, indeed, closed. On the way back I stopped at the sandwich shop on the corner of Palms and Motor. I can’t remember it’s name, it’s changed ownership at least once since we moved here, it’s nothing special. And, as it turns out, they do not have meatball subs. I toyed momentarily with the idea of a Philly cheese steak sandwich, but then realized that I had no confidence in their ability to make one–and that it would not meet my needs. A cheese steak sandwich, no matter how good, is not a meatball sub.

    From there, I headed over to Kristina’s Italian Kitchen, on Overland. Now, according to the Citysearch-provided menu, they do have a meatball parm sandwich. But their in-house menu showed no sandwiches at all (thanks a lot, Kristina’s!)

    In the end, I came home and reheated the leftover portion of a chicken quesadilla from Baja Fresh.

    Distance walked: 1.4 miles

    Meatball subs eaten: 0

  • Stumbling Around

    I’ve been exploring those little widgets that a lot of sites have at the bottom of articles. Not all of them turned out to be particularly interesting, but I’ve become instantly addicted to one.

    StumbleUpon lets you identify your interests, and then shows you websites that correspond to the topics you’ve chosen. In one day, I’ve been introduced to the Encyclopedia of Spices, Writing Realistic Injuries, and the Random Title Generator. Now I want to write a book titled “Darkness of the Misty.” I think it’s a guaranteed best-seller.

    It wasn’t all stumbling today. J and I were planning to go to the pool, and then in the late afternoon we got a thunderstorm. Now, it does rain in Southern California, in spite of the song–generally in the winter, which is our traditional rainy season. But thunder and lightning are very rare at any time of year. This afternoon we got downpours, noise, and a light show. Naturally, the pool was closed. And then the storm passed, and by the time we got to the pool it had re-opened. It turned out to be a wonderful time to swim, because very few people were in the pool.

    Now the air outside feels cool and clean, and inside I have lots of websites to explore. What could be better?

  • I Should Be Working Out

    But I’m not. However, that still is one of my goals for this afternoon, while J is off on a road bike ride in Malibu.

    It’s been a busy weekend, and it’s barely Sunday afternoon. Yesterday we decided to see Iron Man, so we headed over to the theater to buy tickets. However, we soon found that between us and the theater was a huge traffic jam, due to a nearby car show. We decided to continue with our errands and go to a different theater once we were done. The next stop was at the Goodwill donation point, where I gave away the first item for the 29-Day Giving Challenge–a lawn bag full of clothes. Now, there were probably more than 29 items in the bag, so I suppose I could have doled them out over the course of the Challenge. But that doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of much of anything, so I’m counting the bag as one item.

    Next, we went to the pool, where I swam 900 meters and J swam 1100. I’m hoping to be swimming twice a week, and doing 1000 on one of those swims for at least a few weeks before the triathlon. We also need to do some ocean swimming, and I still need to get on the bike. Well, not this weekend.

    After the pool, we ate at The Stand. This is probably the fanciest hot dog stand you’ll ever eat at. J had the Chili Dog and I had the Kraut Dog. The sauerkraut didn’t have the tang I was hoping for, but the hot dog and bun were quite good. This is a little splurgy for hot dogs, but I’d come back. Oh, and they have Thomas Kemper cream soda on tap, which is very nice.

    We made a brief stop at home, where we learned that the car show was over, and headed out for Iron Man. The movie was a lot of fun, and Robert Downey, Jr., did a great job as Tony Stark. I’m still not all that taken with Gwyneth Paltrow, but I think the problems I had with Pepper Potts had more to do with the writing than with Paltrow’s performance.

    Back home again, I said, “How do we not own Raiders of the Lost Ark on DVD? Check TiVo and see if it’s showing tonight.” J did and said, “Believe it or not, it’s starting in 10 minutes.” So we watched Raiders (as edited for television) for the umpteen-millionth time. It’s always good.

    Today has been a little slower, although of course there was plenty of laundry to do. When J left on the bike, I headed out with a grocery bag full of movies on VHS. We’ve been replacing our VHS tapes with DVDs wherever possible, and the stack of outbound tapes was getting pretty high. This seemed like a worthy second day of giving for the Challenge, so I dropped them off at one of the local libraries.

    I’m not sure how I’m going to fulfill the Challenge during the work week, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out. I do know that I need to get up off the couch and work out!

  • Madness, I Tell You, Madness

    I’m starting to think that’s what got me into this triathlon. Sure, I did two last fall (one as a relay, in which I only did the swim). So logically I could do another. But somehow I’ve done almost no training, and I’m starting to wonder just how badly I may do, when the race is only a month away.

    I’m not too worried about the bike and the run portions, because the race distances are so short. Still, I need to get on the bike a few times before the race, and I ought to do some walking.

    The swim, though, is another matter. We’ll be swimming 1/2 mile, which is manageable when I’m training properly. But right now I’m not training properly. On Saturday we went to the pool, and I finished 600 meters. I’ll have to do 800 in the race, and that’s assuming that the course is accurate. To be on the safe side, I should be doing 1000 in the pool. I also need to get in a couple of ocean swims, although the 58-degree water temperature is not very inviting.

    Now, I hope you’ll excuse me as I eat a vanilla cupcake from Sprinkles.

  • Hot Stuff

    This weekend has been really hot, and it’s the kind of heat that comes with no air movement whatsoever. Naturally, this is when we ran out of water.

    I believe that the city water supplies are safe. I’m not too worried about the pharmaceuticals in the water–the amounts, while measurable, are very low. Based on what I can tell, this is something that we should know about, not something that the media needed to turn into a panic-fest.

    But our water tastes bad. It’s the pipes, not the water itself, so we get the reverse-osmosis water from those machines outside the supermarket, and have a stock of 5-gallon bottles that fit into a dispenser in our kitchen. This system works well until we stop paying attention to how many full bottles remain, and suddenly run out. So we just got back from a trip to the grocery store, where we also bought ice. Sometimes we also run out of ice.

    Of course, it could always be worse. It looks like fire season may be starting, even though it’s early.

  • Googletastic

    So if you go to Google and type in “Tragic Sandwich,” guess what comes up first! Of course you didn’t need to know that, because you’re already here. But I think it’s pretty cool, because the old Tragic Sandwich, which was on the Google-owned Blogger, never came up at all. Now I feel famous.

    Last weekend was fun, although I still wish I’d been healthier, so that I could have enjoyed it even more. This coming weekend will also be busy, because we’re getting together with friends who moved out of town recently and are back for a visit, and we need to actually do more swimming. The triathlon isn’t coming up immediately, but we’re behind schedule in our training. Lousy colds. But by this weekend we both should be healthy again, and ready to swim…well, as many laps as we possibly can.

  • Yep, It’s a Cold

    I’m glad that I bought a really comfortable couch when I moved to New Jersey, and that I brought it with me to California when J and I got married, because I’ve spent a lot of time on it over the past two days. Both days I went to work in the morning, and then came home. Yesterday I spent all afternoon on the couch with a book, and I don’t think today shows signs of being any different.

    Sadly, my weekend isn’t going to be a chance to recover. Tomorrow I have a fundraising benefit for my alumni club, and I can’t skip it because I’m the president. That ought to teach me to agree to run for office. After that we’re getting together for my sister-in-law’s birthday dinner. She and my brother are in town, and we’ll be joining them and her dad and stepmom. All of this is good, of course, but I wish I felt healthier so that I could enjoy it more! Plus I’m not entirely sure why people would want to be around me in the condition I’m in. Blech.

    By the way, if anyone is looking for the old blogs (Cake Batter and the previous incarnation of Tragic Sandwich), they’re still out there. But rather than reconceive them, I decided to start fresh. But “Tragic Sandwich”? That’s a keeper regardless of blog hosting site.

    Update 2021: Someone newer to the name is using TS on Blogger, where I originally began, and at this point no one is using Cake Batter there–but who knows? There’s no connection, though, so I’ve removed those links.

  • Viral Marketing

    All kinds of bugs have been floating around my office. I know people who have stayed home sick for days on end, more than once, with flu and stomach yucks. So far I’ve managed to avoid being sick, with the exception of one sinus infection back in late December and early January. But it looks like my run of luck is coming to an end, because I have definitely got a cold.

    And of course, the weather is bizarre. I know that weather doesn’t cause illness, but it’s sure hard to feel that weather doesn’t cause illness when the highs are bouncing around the way they are. 70s today, 80 tomorrow, low 60s over the weekend. What the heck is that?

    I’m not sure who sold me this virus, but it was a lousy deal.

  • Overheated

    We’re training for the Redondo Beach Triathlon in June. The race itself is pretty short, with a 1/2-mile swim, 6-mile bike, and 2-mile run. The bike and the run portions should be fairly easy, but I do need to work on my swimming

    Yesterday was my first time in the pool since training for the Catalina Triathlon in November. I did 400 meters in my usual swim-100-gasp-for-a-minute style, and feel pretty good about it.

    It was hot yesterday, but nothing like today. The temperature was supposed to be 97 at one point, and I can believe it based on how uncomfortable the apartment is. I stayed indoors, but J went for a mountain bike ride and the heat hit him pretty hard. Fortunately the heat wave is supposed to be pretty short-lived; for the rest of the week the highs are supposed to ping-pong between the mid-60s and the upper 70s.