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Already Monday? The start of a fresh, new week. Are you ready?

We had a great weekend, as evidenced by the fact that I spent nearly the entirety of my Sunday afternoon on the couch icing an injured foot. That’s how every good weekend should end, with a slight battle wound to prove you had fun.

Friday night after work we started out our weekend with dinner and a movie. We ventured across the river to Newport, Kentucky to down some tacos and Corona at a cozy little hole-in-the-wall called La Mexicana. We’d been meaning to try La Mexicana for quite a while now and were happy to indulge. Their food is utterly authentic and their tacos are pure excellence. Made from corn tortillas, onion, cilantro, lime, white cheese, and your choice of 19 different meats (including chorizo, beef brains, goat, sheep, steak, and chicken – to name only a few), you really can’t go wrong. It was delicious and is easily among our top 2 favorite Mexican restaurants in the Tri-State area for it’s authenticity.

We rounded off the evening with a showing of the new hit IMAX film To the Arctic at Museum Center’s Omnimax Theatre. The film is brand spanking new, narrated by Meryl Streep and features great music by Paul McCartney. And it is excellent. It follows the plight of polar bears, walruses, and caribou as they struggle to maintain balance in their changing world, despite the climate change that is melting the Arctic ice they so desperately depend on to survive. The images and close-ups with all the animals are just phenomenal and touching. Please go see it – it’s funny, breathtaking, captivating, and majestic. Well worth your time and money.

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Saturday morning, bright and early, we participated in Incline to the Finish Line, the annual St. Joseph’s Home 5k run/walk fundraiser. St. Joseph’s Home is a home for people with severe and profound developmental difficulties. It’s located about 30 minutes north of downtown Cincinnati in Sharonville. The 5k is known for its challenging hill in the third mile and the cheering crowd (the home’s residents, their families, and nursing staff) at the finish line. The course of the 5k is steady and beautiful, until you get to the beast of a hill at the end that is incredibly steep and a total time and pace killer. It was no less beastly this year than last year. But we survived and thrived and beat last year’s times by about 5 minutes (Ted) and 2.5 minutes (Lara) and both took home medals for first place in our age and gender divisions. Ted clocked in at 35:30 and I timed in at 38:05. So, Ted did better on this 5k than the one at GA a few weeks ago, and I did slightly worse – I totally blame the hill because I basically crawled up it at a snail’s pace so as not to vomit all over the asphalt and shrubbery. It was cold, windy, and threatening rain the entire 5k (exactly like last year), but we had a great time and were very proud of what we were able to accomplish. Somewhere along the way I must have procured some sort of injury on the outside of my left foot/ankle, though I have no recollection of twisting or spraining it. Perhaps a stress fracture? Anyhow, it only started hurting a few hours after the 5k and now aches and burns with the pressure of every step I take, requiring me to stay off of it and ice it every 20 minutes.

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After the 5k I had to work well into the evening, but thoroughly enjoyed my shift due to the PROM!!! for the School of Creative and Performing Arts that was being held at the Museum that evening. I knew this was going to be good people watching because A) it’s Cincinnati, home to highly questionable and entertaining behavior, fashion, and personal choices, B) it’s an arts school, and arts kids are notoriously unabashed and full of surprises, and C) the theme was “candy land” which screams of potential in the hilarity department. Very much like the prom for the Visual and Performing Arts high school in Dallas that my then-boyfriend and I attended way back when, this school clearly had both excess money to spend on a great location and swanking out the place with saucy decorations, and no dress code whatsoever for prom, because the outrageousness of the inappropriate dresses, plethora of stripper shoes, and crazy/weird accessories exceeded my wildest expectations. Needless to say, it was awesome. I have no photos to share, I apologize, but please take my word for it: it was epic. In fact, some girl showed up wearing this exact vision of a prom dress, complete with the thigh-highs and 6″ heels.

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I nearly died of joy. She was “Candy Stripper.” There was also “Feathers,” “Pretty, Pretty Princess,” “Neon,” “Tutu”, “The Bride,” and “Grace Kelly.” After a while I had to start nicknaming them all to keep them straight.

Sunday morning we did church and breakfast at the newly opened Original Pancake House in Anderson, which we love. They built in an 1100 gallon saltwater fish tank with pretty tropical fish that I could stare at all day, and of course, the food is breakfast comfort food at its finest. It reminds me a little of Al Johnson’s “Goats on the Roof” in Door County, because they serve lingonberry Swedish Pancakes, which are my favorite. This time I indulged in a side of thick bacon that was smokey, savory, and absolutely heavenly. Between the bacon, 49er Flap Jacks, and my bi-annual cup of coffee, I was all with set with my contentment and calories for the week. Might as well get it out of the way early on, right? Oh, but that bacon…seriously!! Sorry, vegetarian friends.

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Finally, we finished off our weekend of adventure, before the monotony of laundry, entering receipts, house cleaning, work stuff, strike, and foot icing set in, with a Queen City Underground Walking Tour of Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine historical district from American Legacy Tours, located at the Cincy Haus right downtown on Vine Street. The 2-hour tour was packed (probably between 75-100 people!) but great because of how extremely reasonably priced it was (thanks to a half off deal) and also because the two tour guides were loud enough to be heard the entire time, and were also very knowledgeable, funny, and passionate about the work they do. The tour was informative, entertaining, and perfect for residents of Cincy wanting to learn more about the grand and very interesting history their town and for visitors just wanting a taste of Cincy. We toured several decrepit, abandoned old buildings dating back to the 1850s that dot Vine Street (you know, the ones you pass every day, cringe, and wonder what’s in there), including old theatres, biergartens, German tenant buildings, breweries, and underground lagering tunnels. Because we learned so much neat, rich Cincinnati history, saw so many cool places, and took so many pictures, I think I’ll save a majority of it for a post all it’s own…coming soon! Needless to say, I’d highly recommend that you check out this company’s tours – they have several different ones that all sound great. But here’s a teaser pic from our tour:

Also, Ted and I found this sweet little toad perched right outside our front door, on our welcome mat, absolutely parched and practically unable to move on Saturday morning. I had to rush off to work, but Ted picked up the little guy, who was lethargic and severely dehydrated, and nursed him back to health by pouring a few cups of cool water over him until he felt well enough to hop and be released into the grass out back. He said he grew like a Chia Pet once the water got to him. Super adorable! I love that husband of mine – kitty rescuer extraordinaire, toad saver…

And finally, Mav. Sweet, sweet Mav. She really hasn’t been feeling so great lately. And we’ve done nothing but researching and reading. SO much reading, but it’s all just opinions. Opinions, opinions, and more opinions. Nobody is really an expert on blue cray health, we are learning. She’s a tough little lady and has been through one hell of a few weeks, with more to come, presumably. But she survived the cycle when nobody said she would, and now her water is back to normal and just when things were looking up and we thought it was all figured out, we have a whole new set of challenges, which we are sure are after-effects of the ammonia and nitrite from the cycle, but really, we don’t know. But I have absolute faith in her, and we’re just doing everything we can to keep her comfortable, happy, and healthy – and hoping the rest will sort itself out. It’s too early yet to tell if the new developments are really good news (and then everything would make sense and she’d be happy and healthy once more) or bad news (and then everything would also make sense), so it’s kind of touch and go by the day. But like I said, she’s a trooper and a fighter. It’s just hard to know how to help her when we know nothing about crayfish health, there’s a different opinion on every internet page, and she can’t talk. Poor little girl has a bum leg (plus a bit of discoloration and a myriad of other little issues) just like I do, so she and I are limping together. But she’s still just as pretty and just as awesome as ever. Right now she’s chillin’ beneath her cave, taking it easy. Send some love her way if you think of her this week!

How was your weekend?