wonderful weekend

here's a confession: every day since i started the special k challenge i've gotten on the scale to gauge my progress.  i know you're not supposed to do that because it's obsessive and it has the possibility of throwing you off course if you get a bad read one day.  today i the scale said i gained 1.5 since yesterday.  that's it for me, i'm putting the scale in our storage in the basement until friday.  i haven't done anything to gain weight so i'm not worried that it'll stick, but it's disheartening as hell.

at the moment my immediate family including myself is bicycle obsessed.  i got my bike as a birthday present last month and i'm completely smitten with it's glossy black paint, brown leather hand grips and the cool danish baby seat in the back.  today we went to a bicycle shop in downtown long beach to see what they had to offer in a geared bike for husband.  bike shops are the new hip urban shoe boutiques.  clean white interiors with a small handpicked arrangement of bikes.  i've noticed that the less bikes a store has on site, the more important each bike in the shop seems.  it gives the store and the proprietor more credibility when there are a just a few different models.  it makes me feel like these bikes are like no other and that i'm in the hands of experts.

after a few rides around the block on a couple of different models, i proposed lunch.  i'd been hungry since around 20 minutes after breakfast and here it was like 4 hours later.  we went to bubba gump's because 1. it's a kid-friendly establishment and 2. we could have a beer.  i ordered something called, "shrimpin' dippin' broth."  i think that's what it was called.  i had no idea what to expect as there was no picture in the menu.  what was set in front of me was a korean style metal pot in which perfectly seasoned spicy shrimp sat in a dark orange broth.  on a separate plate there were two scoops of white rice and a small personal- size french bread.  the waiter suggested i put the rice in the soup and then dip the bread as i eat.  i love dipping soft french bread in anything and this broth was astoundingly flavorful.  this was the most decadent eating i've done in over a week.  in a addition to the shrimpin' dippin' i had a 16 oz hefeweizen and half an order of chips and artichoke spinach dip.  i love lunch.  i should make a lunch bag that says that.