Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

a tale of two saturdays

Today really felt like two distinctly different days.

It started just after 5 a.m. Rob had to get up early to drive a friend in Rockville to the airport. Shortly after he got back home, the two of us (me still slightly groggy) boarded a Metro train downtown for Race for the Cure. We were about ten minutes late for the 8:15 a.m. walker start time, but there were so many other latecomers, it didn’t seem to matter. We made our way over to the starting line and joined the crowd.

Despite the gloomy sky and occasional human traffic jam, the people around us all seemed very upbeat. With so many pink-clad cancer survivors and boisterous teams marching to honor or memorialize loved ones, the event was more a celebration than a fitness walk. It was heart-warming, and a lot of fun.

I didn’t pin a sign to my shirt, but I walked in honor of my grandmother, who’s now 10 years cancer-free. The sight of so many cancer survivors — and even people in treatment — also made me think of my brother Ryan who, recently diagnosed with a different kind of cancer, started chemo yesterday. (Later this year, I’ll be walking in the Light the Night Walk, which benefits programs for leukemia and lymphoma.)

After the race, we walked over to Teaism for brunch, then headed home to crash.

When we woke up a few hours later, it was as if it was a brand new day. The sky, previously overcast, had cleared, and it was warm outside. Renewed from our nap, we had plenty of energy to tackle household chores and run errands.

We’d heard good things about Super H Mart, a fairly new Asian supermarket in Fairfax, and we decided to check it out. The place was fantastic: well-lit, great selection, beautiful produce, low prices. And I’ve never seen so many kinds of seaweed in my life. Among our finds: a huge bundle of chives (think about the packs of chives that they have at ordinary grocery stores; now multiply that by about 20), bean curd sheets (Rob’s been looking for these for a while to add to soup), frozen dumplings and some Japanese gummy candies.

Then we headed down the street to Wegmans to complete our grocery shopping. Wegman’s, a fairly recent addition to the local grocery scene, is an upscale grocery store with fairly reasonable prices. It also seemed like it had a multiple personality problem, as different areas of the store had decidedly different feels to them. The produce section, Rob remarked, looked like Trader Joe’s-meets-REI. The surprisingly large health food area looked like Whole Foods. And past the freezer aisle, which seemed to be the DMZ between the specialty foods and the rest of the store, the “regular grocery store” area was actually disappointingly ordinary.

All that said, we ended up spending a lot of time — and money — there. Though that’s not necessarily a bad thing: Our pantry now fully stocked, we have no excuse not to eat at home all week — and we’ll be eating well.