Its a Hero

thoughts

just another reason i’m awesome.

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It caught me off guard. Yesterday I walked out of Subway during my lunch break with HT and I saw the cutest car decal:

{image}

The “adult female” car decal {also known as the ‘mom’} was doing tree pose!

I must have been the only person in the world to think this was awesome.

I stood behind this car and said “HT! Look! Look! She’s doing yoga! HT! Come here!! Look! She’s doing yoga!”
{if in your head it sounded like a little kid whining, you’re pretty much spot on.
I sounded like a little kid yelling “MOM LOOK! I saaaaid, MOM LOOK!“}

HT, as any mother would, was mortified. And refused to come near me.
And kept giving me the get-in-the-car-right-now look.

Soon there after I realized why.

I was standing directly behind this car, yelling about how cool it was.

And they were in the car.

Trying to back up.

But I was behind them yelling about how awesome the decals were.

For like 2 minutes.

Ha. I rock. Obviously.

Dear Crooked River Grill: You suck.

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Dear Crooked River Grill and Restaurant.com:

Get your crap together. Crooked River Grill {located in Munroe Falls, a suburb of Akron, Ohio}, we heard some pretty “ehh” things about you, but your menu looked pretty good, so we decided to give you a try, thanks to the folks over at Restaurant.com.

So on May 10th of this year, we purchased a $25 Restaurant.com gift certificate {for those who are unfamiliar with Restaurant.com, it’s a website where you pay discounted rates for restaurant gift certificates with an understanding that there is a minimum you must spend at the time of your visit} for $10. The certificate says you must purchase a minimum of $35 worth of food.

It can be difficult for the two of us to spend $35 in one dinner, but BF was excited about trying something he wouldn’t typically {a rack of ribs} and I was going to get the coconut shrimp.

We originally went to the shady place Crooked River Grill on Monday the 5th of July. We were so excited. But the parking lot was empty. It was pretty much the only restaurant in town that was closed for the holiday both Sunday and Monday. Such a bummer. So we went back this past Monday.

As we pulled in BF says to me, “Wouldn’t it suck if they wouldn’t take it?” And we laughed. And then we see a note on the door:

No longer accepting Restaurant.com certificates as of May 15th, 2010.

Immediately my brain was thinking of “going Target lady” on them, as we would refer. But BF, being the logical and level-headed one, decided that maybe we should ask. So we did. And it was true. And I got pissed and tweeted this:



The best is that the woman from Crooked River Grill said they had a disagreement with Restaurant.com and asked them to take it down and they didn’t. And we had just purchased it 5 days prior to the date on the sign.

And I checked today and it’s STILL up on Restaurant.com.


WTF.

And Restaurant.com still hasn’t responded to our WTF refund request.

WTF.

Lesson learned but it still pisses me off.

proud to call ohio home.

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In the wake of all of the LeBron drama, I figured I’d let you all know about the awesome things that Northeast Ohio {Cleveland AND Akron} have going for them:

1. Cleveland Browns, Cavs, and the Indians. Yes, professional sports teams. They may not be winning sports teams, but they are professional sports teams. Some places {clears throat — Syracuse} aren’t lucky enough to have a single professional team.

2. The Flats. Lots of people keep themselves entertained day in and day out in the flats!

3. Museum of Contemporary Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Not to mention the Akron Art Museum, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. I’ve visited zoos in other cities, and I don’t think Cleveland realizes what an awesome zoo we have. It is huge!

4. Fantastic restaurants. Not only is it home to Michael Symon’s Lola, but also to Jonathan Sawyer’s The Greenhouse, Melt Bar and Grilled {which was recently featured on Man Vs. Food}, Chrissie Hynde’s Vegiterranian, and my personal Akron fave, Crave {which is where BF took me on our first date}.

5. We are within short driving distance to Cedar Point and Kalahari. I’ve not yet been to Kalahari but have been begging BF to take me. We are also a short car ride from Put-In-Bay, a great weekend destination.

6. In addition to fun attractions, we have an awesome hospital system right at our fingertips. The Cleveland Clinic is incredible.

7. Cleveland Yoga. By far the most amazing yoga studio I have been to. The community and the practice are so strong!

8. BF and I and {most of} our families and friends live here. What else could a girl ask for?

But really Northeast Ohio is just a great community with great people and plenty of things to do and see. I’ve been here and there and everywhere, but I’m still proud to say I’m from Northeast Ohio.

still processing.

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This past Tuesday I came face to face with one of the men that shot and killed my grandfather 19 years ago. It was the first time I have ever seen him in person. I meant to write about this Tuesday night, but, honestly, it took me a while to digest what had happened.

I met my family in downtown Cleveland at the Federal courthouse. I’ve never been in a courtroom before. Federal Courtrooms are… intimidating… even for law-abiding citizens such as myself. We were there because the man who was convicted of murdering my grandfather, whom is on death row, is claiming a mistrial in 1991.

Here is the deal: I don’t want my grandfathers killer to be executed. This isn’t always a popular opinion, but I really don’t think that you understand until you are part of the victims family. Let me explain. It’s taken me a long time to deal with everything you have to deal with when someone you love is murdered; I didn’t live a “normal” childhood because of it; I was overly sensitive to things a child should not even be aware of.

But I forgave the men who killed my grandfather. I forgave them because it’s exhausting carrying around that much hatred for someone. I decided that I didn’t want him to be executed because, let’s face it, playing God and choosing who lives and who dies just breeds more hatred in the world. He may be a horrible man, but he is a man with a family; he is a man with people who love him and people who would be destroyed if he was executed. And, truth be told, I do not want anyone to feel like I’ve taken away someone they love; I’ve felt that pain. No one should have to feel it

All this being said, I still want him to be in prison forever. And he’s claiming that the reason he found himself in this situation, is because of the way he was raised and the extremely messed up childhood he had. Let me tell you, he HAD a messed up childhood. I’ll give you that. His mother was a drug addict and alcoholic. He and his mother were beat by his stepfather.

But we all have a story. You can either choose to let it define you, or you can call it a life experience and move on. I’m not saying that these moments don’t change us, cause surely they do. All I’m saying is you take from it what you want to take from it.

We all have things happen to us that help to shape us as individuals — both good things and bad things. But we decide what to do with those experiences. We decide whether to take them and grow from them, or take them and demolish our lives in the name of our tragedies. You create your fate. You decide whether or not you shoot someone. You are in control of your own life.

Basically, I’m not sure what this blog post is about. I have been thinking about getting this out all week, and I am still unsuccessful. Oh well…

a mess of words.

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“Even in the presence of extraordinary pain, we were taking right action, we were attending to our practice, each in his own way.” -Meditations from the Mat.


There’s a lot on my mind, so I’m going to do my best to get it out. I’m guessing it will just come out as a mess of words…

So many things to do:
-Send my taxes out… (oops… way to procrastinate.)
-Go to the bank (something that is VERY simple, but also something I have been avoiding all week).
-Check out the Yoga Lounge in Hudson.
-Read, read, read. A passage everyday from Meditations from the Mat & the book Naked by David Sedaris. He is so witty. Both are something I need right now. A little inspiration. A little humor.
-Tickets to Ani Difranco? Not sure. April 24th at the House Of Blues in Cleveland… Anyone want to go?
-Register for a cooking class. Hopefully a couples cooking class… the least I could do is learn to cook something. No one could survive on cookies. Or could they…. 🙂
-Continue to run outside as the weather gets nicer. I hate treadmills and they hate me. I do, however, enjoy running outdoors. I’m running a race on Memorial Day with my friend Wyatt. Also running a leg in the Akron Road Runner Marathon this summer.
-Desperate to go to the Indians versus Red Sox game later this month (Go Red Sox!)

See? Nothing here but a bunch of unclear thoughts.

we are beaten and blown by the wind
blown by the wind
oh when i go there
i go there with you
it’s all i can do.
(u2)