Shopping by geography

[redbird]

I did a fairly thorough workout this morning (numbers below) and then went down to Chinatown for lunch. Afterwards, I started walking east. After a few blocks I realized that the vegetable stands weren't tempting me, and that I didn't want ice cream. I was feeling a bit down, it was drizzling, and what I wanted to do was walk. Hence, over to Elizabeth Street, north to Grand, and then east again, to Kossar's. If I don't have rye bread, I can have bialys--and pumpernickel bagels.

Heading back west toward the subway, I saw a sign that said "The Pickle Guys on Essex Street," and walked over. They have lots of kinds of pickles. The man behind the counter greeted me with a cheerful "Hello, young lady, what can I do for you?" So I said "Hello, young man, do you have half-sour pickles?" [I've never liked being called "young lady," but that rejoinder works better at 42 than it would have at 16.] They did, and he offered a gallon. I said that was too much, and described having had a container of half-sours recently go to full-sour while forgotten in the refrigerator for a week. We settled on a quart, which the other man working there filled, and the counter guy suggested putting some "new pickles" at the bottom, so they'd be half-sour by the time I got to them. I said maybe next time, paid for my quart of pickles, and accepted one to eat as I went. It was good.

The next stop was one of several little Chinese shops, for a whole roast duck. This particular one has them for $8, $9 if you have the store cut them up for you. I took it home whole, a chance to play with the cleaver lisajulie gave me, or maybe to carve it as if it were a roast chicken. Either way, that means no silly metal container, no tiny things of soy sauce, and I get all the bits in case I have the energy to make soup.

If, come suppertime, I really don't think Chinese roast duck goes with half sour pickles and pumpernickel bagels, maybe I'll steam some white rice.

I'm still congested, and not feeling as up as I normally would after playing with weights for an hour or more. Ah, well. It's good for me even so, and I did enjoy the lifting while I was doing it.

Phenology side note: there are pink roses blooming in the little triangular garden at Seaman Avenue and Isham Street. One open flat, another with the petals still curving inward.

I actually remembered to do the leg and heel stretches before cardio, this time.

Cardio, 20 minutes, top heart rate 152
Chest press, 70 pounds, 12, 7
Seated calf lift, 75 pounds, 13, 12; 70 pounds, 9. I didn't want to push too hard on this, because the usual "too much" signal on this one is a leg cramp.)
Leg press, 300 pounds, 3 sets of 14
Tricep curl, 45 pounds, 2 sets of 15
Wrist curl, 35 pounds, 3 sets of 15
Adjustable row, 70 pounds, 3 sets of 15

Crunches, 3 sets of 30
Back arch, 3 sets of 17
Tree, 4 sets of {3 on each side}, good balance today

Bicep curl, 25 pounds, 3 sets of 25
Balance lateral raise, 5 pounds each hand, 2 sets of 15; 2.5 pounds each, 15. The third set was the only one where I didn't lose my balance enough to step/fall off the ball at least once: at 2.5 pounds I was able to focus more on the balance and less on my shoulders, which were quite tired by the end of the second set.

Hip adduction, 110 pounds, 13, 10
Hip abduction, 85 pounds, 2 sets of 13
Leg extension, 50 pounds, 10
Balance quasi-fly, 50 pounds, 15 with each leg forward

Stretches