Author: Lara

First things first:  Thanks for bearing with me in my blog absence. I try not to escape from this old blog too much, but sometimes it’s just not feasible to keep up. And, truth be told, I probably won’t be around quite as often for the next two weeks either, but fear not: once we’re all settled, regularly scheduled blogging will resume!

The townhouse is coming along quite nicely. The kitchen is about 98% finished (I have few small fun projects up my sleeve for it yet!), the guest room/office is set up my parents visit this week, our bedroom and bathroom are done, and I have the rest of the place all unpacked, organized, and clean just in time for Ted to arrive with the next load of stuff for me start all over again with. Of course, we have zero furniture in the whole joint except for our bedroom set and a blow up air mattress for my parents, so the place looks super clean and organized…and bare…but, baby steps. We’re getting there and I’m loving it so far!

Onto the good stuff!

On Thursday night I finally tried Dogtown for the first time with three friends after volunteering with the supper program. Rochester is famous for its white hots (and its love of garbage plates, which totally gross me out – click the link to read about them), so even though the menu was packed with nasty garbage plates and awesome dogs (including a Cincinnati style chili & cheese dog!) I tried a plain old Rochester white hot with sweet potato fries…and it was really good. Simple but really delicious. Consider me a convert to the Rochester white hot!

After dinner, I met up with my YP book club group at The Little Theatre for a 9:30 showing of The Great Gatsby. And it was just as terrible as expected. It wasn’t boring or unbearable and, thankfully, it didn’t even feel like it was two-and-a-half hours long. It just wasn’t amazing. The gangta rap music they played throughout the movie (set in the 1920s, mind you) was kind of ridiculous, and the costumes (which I had hoped would be the movie’s saving grace), weren’t that spectacular after all. The acting wasn’t awful, but it was a little cheesy and nobody really stood out as stellar. And while Baz Luhrman’s very eclectic style and across-the-screen-writing and music and camera angles worked for Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge, it just didn’t work for Gatsby. I’m glad we saw it; we had fun seeing it together (and, of course, the Book Thieves are always fun to hang out with!), but we’re happy to move on to our next great read!

Friday night Becca and I saw Venus in Fur in the theatre’s Nextstage, which was definitely interesting and thought provoking (and funny). And that was only the start to the weekend… :) Stay tuned!

So, I know some of you are like, “If I see another flower picture on this blog, I quit.” Totally valid. For such an unflowery person, I sure have been overloading my blog with a lot of flowery pictures lately. But with a gorgeous upstate NY spring in full bloom – blooms that stick around for only about a week and a half, might I add – after six long blustery long months of winter…sorry, I’m not sorry about all the spring-joyment flower pictures. That being said: more flowers!

Saturday morning at Mendon Ponds Park…

Initially, I headed over there for a 2-mile run through the Grasslands Trail, which I looked up on both Google Maps and the park’s website map first, then drew the route into my RunKeeper app on my phone – just to be doubly sure that A) the trail actually existed, and B) I would stick to the well-marked path and not find myself lost in a swamp, tall grass, or a forest.

Enter foreshadowing.

Word of warning, the Grasslands Trail only kind of exists. As in, it starts out well labeled (a blue diamond spray painted on the occasional tree) with a clear path through the woods and the grass, and then the path just kind of goes away and so do the trees and you find yourself running through tall grass and eventually coming out on Clover Rd., where you then have to re-enter the park and pick the trail back up at a totally different entrance point and work your way back to your starting spot.

Soooo, better for leisurely nature hikes than running. Got it. But I did get my full run in (despite stopping at least nine times to consult my phone’s GPS to try to figure out where the heck I was) and both a deer and a goose stopped by within a few feet of me to say hello. Neither one seemed very concerned about my presence, just curious. It’s nice to get friendly with the wildlife every now and then!

Then I decided I would check out Devil’s Bathtub pond since it was right by the start of the Grasslands “trail,” and while I’m at it, I might as well kick off my shoes, hang out on the beach by the big pond, soak up some rays in the cool breeze, read my book for a while, and watch a group of little boys catch schools of minnows for bait and fish for rock bass. I mean, why else were Saturdays invented?

At night I met my friend Kristen for Ethiopian food (lintels and lamb) downtown, some good girl talk, and a scenic drive to get frozen yogurt in pretty, picturesque Pittsford as the sun set.

Best spring Saturday yet…lookin’ forward to more like it!