I'm meeeelting.

No, I did not manage to do anything cultural this weekend.  It was too hot.

I was supposed to do something athletic, though; namely, participate in an organized training run for the New York City Marathon.  But the afternoon before, with the forecast for 7 a.m. something like 82 degrees, the organizers sent out an email announcing that the pace groups would move at a slower pace, there would be extra water available on the course, and that they encouraged runners sensitive to heat to skip the run.  That was all the encouragement I needed to wimp out; while I'm very worried about how I'll train for an entire marathon in what is basically going to end up being the month of September, after my last long run, when it was seventy degrees and I barely made it ten miles, I wasn't anxious for a repeat.  Instead, I went to the gym, where I did the stairmaster for 15 minutes - the cardio area was crowded, and everyone was on treadmills and ellipticals, leaving all the stairmasters and bikes open - and then ran four miles on the treadmill before attending a yoga class.  I hadn't been to yoga for a long time, which usually means a painful and difficult practice, but the run must have loosened me up because I felt really good.  ...until I went home and discovered that I was covered with the painful and unsightly friction burns that I frequently get when running long distances, especially during warm weather.  These burns, which take days or weeks to heal, which hurt every time I brush against them (which, because they appear in the places that get brushed against when I move, is frequently), and which sting so much when wet that I dread the shower immediately after a long run, were a significant part of the reason I avoided the long, sweaty run on Saturday morning, so I was extremely displeased to have gotten them anyway.  Three days later, they still hurt, although not all the time, and I'm no closer to being trained for the marathon than I was a month ago.

Despite my failure to perform any significant physical activity this weekend, I did manage to have a significant meal, at Artisanal, a French bistro.  I went at brunch for the very end of restaurant week, and was able to sample their cold potato leek soup (good but weird), beignets (very good, if unsubtle), "soft scrambled eggs" (more like coddled eggs, served with bacon and very good potatoes), "chocolate marquise" (a sort of slice of mouse, very chocolatey, very salty, not very sweet, a dessert for the hormonally wretched), and a small amount of typically-French (read: burnt, even compared to Starbucks) coffee.  It was a good meal, worth the excursion, although the prices for non-Restaurant-Week items were not as stratospheric as I'd expected, and an equally good and perhaps more interesting meal could perhaps have been made of fondue or crepes or the like.  Fortunately, they are not going anywhere, so if I run out of other places in New York to try I will be sure to go back.

Today my dinner was leftover chinese vegetables followed by yogurt with granola.  It was very sophisticated, especially the part where I  almost knocked over my microwave trying to open it without unbalancing the drying rack full of wet clothes that takes up my entire "kitchen".