Archive for August, 2009

Posted on August 21, 2009 - by Ashley Jackson

In which she walks for the sake of walking

A couple of nights ago I finally finished pulling all the content off the old StarlightFading.net, and tonight it begins again, with an adventure of which I’m strangely proud.

Last weekend at my apartment complex’s pool party, I took a break from being mosquito bait to win a pair of free passes to the Raleigh Grande Cinema. And since the theater’s only about 2.5 miles away, I got the notion to spend a chunk of my Friday walking to the theater to see Julie & Julia.

Walking.

To the theater.

That’s two minutes away if you drive.

It’s 45 minutes away if you walk, by the way.

I also, for some reason, felt the need to set my alarm for 8AM on my day off. I stumbled out of bed and pulled some French toast sticks that I’d made last month out of the freezer. While they were in the microwave, I mixed some Greek yogurt from Trader Joe’s with a little bit of homemade-but-not-by-me strawberry jam. When the toast was done, I plonked the mixture on top, then added half a banana.

Delicious! The dog thought so, too.

After that, I was off to run some errands–mainly dropping my RSVP for the community yard sale off at the leasing office and driving to Harris Teeter to spend 99 cents on a jug of drinking water as part of my “Eat for a Month on $60″ adventure. I stopped by Wag, the froo-froo pet store, to grab Heath another bag of food, but it was 9:50AM and they didn’t open until 10. I didn’t want to spend 10 minutes waiting around.

But I spent 45 minutes walking to the theater. I don’t understand the thought process there, but whatever. I left at 10:25AM, an hour before the movie was set to start. I was a little worried about the weather, because we were expecting some storms in Raleigh sometime during the day. It was overcast the entire way to the theater, but I had an umbrella in my bag just in case. I took the lake trail as a shortcut out to the main road. I was the only one out there in jeans.

I got to the Raleigh Grande at 11:10AM, having only been honked at once, strolled up to the ticket counter, and asked to exchange my free pass for a ticket to Julie & Julia. Being me, I’ve been worried since I won the tickets that I wouldn’t be able to use them, but the guy working the ticket counter was the pinnacle of customer service. And by that I mean he stared slack-jawed at his computer screen with a phone crammed between his shoulder and his ear and said not a word to me the entire time.

I said “thank you” anyway, ’cause that’s how I roll, and because I had heard not-so-great things about the theater anyway. I was just relieved I was able to use my ticket.

Once inside, I discovered a table of theater swag and made a note to stop back by on the way out and grab a poster for Julie & Julia. Then I made a beeline for the rest room, where I was dismayed to find that there were no paper towels, only air dryers. I know, they’re “better for the environment,” but have you ever tried to clean up after a long walk using toliet paper because there were no paper towels? It’s like…ew.

I also took the opportunity to chug half of the water I had hidden in my bag, then headed back out to the lobby. No one was in there but the guy behind the popcorn counter, who smiled and nodded his head at me, so I just went directly into the theater. I hope they didn’t want my ticket stub.

Only two other people ended up in the theater with me–both women who found the movie as funny as I did and who mercifully sat several rows behind me rather than directly behind me. After about an hour a movie started up in the next theater over, some loud and obnoxious action flick, and you could totally hear it through the walls, but I enjoyed the movie anyway. The Julia Child parts were better than the Julie Powell parts, though, and I took note of the subtle digs at a certain political party and discovered after the movie that Powell admits that the same is present in her book to a larger degree, so I will not be picking that up.

I also enjoyed some more of the water I snuck in, and a single-serving bag of dried cranberries from Trader Joe’s.

When I got outside after the movie, I discovered the sun had come back out.

And by the time I got back home, I was sweating like I’d just done a Couch to 5K session and slightly out of breath, but otherwise feeling strangely fine. I know five miles isn’t really that far, but it’s the farthest I’ve walked somewhere and back, and I remember when I started trying to better my lifestyle last year that I could barely walk half a mile without feeling like I was going to die. I think I enjoyed my newfound ability to walk further than I thought I could and come out feeling great more than I did the movie.

Having returned, I chugged some cold water directly from the jug and then hit the shower. Then I was starving, so I made myself a burrito using two corn tortillas, black beans, brown rice, kosher salt, salsa con queso, Greek yogurt, and two little cherry tomatoes from the garden.

I think I’m going to ditch the rest of the salsa con queso–this is the second time I’ve eaten it and it’s just too hot to be enjoyable. It was the Food Lion brand–I much prefer the Pace four-cheese kind I purchased previously.

After some TV, I realized how tired I was and took a nice four-hour nap. Upon waking, I put the Julie & Julia poster on my pantry door.

I didn’t know much about Julia Child before, but I found her story as told in the movie fascinating. I think I’d like to read more about her life.