Shameful Saturday

The merriment of a co-worker/friend's birthday and a sort of general malaise prevented me from going on my long Saturday run today with the rest of the Team In Training-ites. Probably not a good move, though not an unforgiveable sin. Therefore I'm doing a switcheroo on my weekend routine--today is coffee and Internet day (followed by two interviews downtown and a Bat Mitzvah. No joke! More on that later.) and tomorrow will be the nine-miler. I hope it's just as overcast tomorrow as it is today.

You'll notice a few new links on the right hand side of the page: There are a lot of good bloggers in Springfield. Click around, you'll enjoy the reads.

A few bullet points for a Saturday and I'll be on my merry way.

-- So about this Bat Mitzvah. The younger sister of one of my wife's bestest students is having her Jewish coming-of-age (I really don't know what else to call it) and the family invited us to attend. Nichole and I traveled with three members of this family during our trip to Italy and Greece in March... this bestest student took her mom and brother along, and bonding ensued. Just to prove I didn't make this up, I included a photo of Nichole and I at the Colosseum at the top of this post.
If you couple this evening's sure-to-be-interesting experience with the fact that I was best man in a traditional Jewish wedding a couple of years ago (my bestest buddy Nathan) and I, perhaps, have more first-hand ceremonial Jewish experience than any other journalist in Springfield. You know, unless any of them are actually Jewish.

-- Perhaps as karma for shirking my weekend run, I woke up this morning to find out the TV isn't working (it's obviously not the cable, because I'm working on our broadband right now.) If it's the picture tube on our barely one-year-old plasma, I'm going to flip out. How am I supposed to follow Big Brother 8?

-- I ate at Springfield's newest, swankiest sushi joint last night. It's called Kai, and it's very Asian-hipster... in all the best ways. I really haven't tasted sushi rolls like that, like, ever; from the noises my fellow diners were making, the seafood entrees were pretty tasty as well. There were a few service hiccups, mostly with the hostesses, but it's too early to knock that stuff anyway. Check it out if you haven't already.

-- I'm reading Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel The Road right now. I'll give fuller impressions when I'm finished, but I think this is the book that might, finally, graduate me from my "Matt is obsessed with post-apocalyptic novels" phase (No, I haven't read the Left Behind series. No plans to), not because it's bad but because I'm pretty sure there's nothing left to say. You should read it. Oprah says so.

Gosh, I'm self-indulgent this morning.

Peace.

M