So I did my second walk/run of the week tonight.

I felt MUCH better this time. I recovered from the run cycles faster than I did on Monday night, didn't get light-headed, and best of all, NO SIDE STITCHES! Hurray!

The one little problem I had tonight was that my pants kept sliding down my ass every time I started to run. Hee. It was very distracting and I'm sure I looked like a putz because I had to keep hitching up my pants. Next time I have to make sure the pants I wear are a little snugger.

So in other news, I've been effing swamped at work. We're moving tomorrow, and today was just pandemonium at the office. Not to mention that I have to start producing, proofing, printing, stuffing and mailing about 2,000 participant account statements from 12/31 in the next week or two.

The other thing I wanted to mention was that yesterday I got home and there was a small UPS box addressed to me sitting on my front step. I racked my brain trying to think of what it could be, and then I remembered. A week or so ago, I ordered this, the "champagne" of teas.

I first encountered this particular brand and variety of tea in Asheville, NC when I was there with my mom in August. We had a delicious dinner at a cute little restaurant called Bistro 1896, and this tea was one of their house teas. The server brought it to me in a beautiful, slender glass bottle and presented it to me with a flourish, as if it were a fine wine. I had to try hard not to snicker.

I have to tell you, I was deeply skeptical upon first glance. The packaging was gorgeous, sure, but the color of the tea was so pale that I couldn't believe it would have any kind of flavor at all.

Until I poured some, added some sweetener (love my Splenda, or "cancer powder" as I am wont to call it) and took a sip. It was absolutely delicious, subtle and fruity! Like black tea bumped up a couple notches.

I wound up drinking two sixteen-ounce bottles of it during our meal, all the while making my mom crack up because I kept referring to it as the "cham-pog-nee" of teas, as was touted on the label of the bottle.

I enjoyed it again in September at Gallagher's Steakhouse in the New York New York casino in Las Vegas, and it was even better-tasting than I'd remembered. Ambrosial, almost.

After we got back home from our trip, I started researching this tea. I've seen tins of several flavors of Republic of Tea at Panera and World Market, but I couldn't seem to find the Darjeeling tea anywhere in any stores. And forget the bottled tea. I learned that it's only available wholesale to white-tablecloth restaurants...or I could buy a case of twelve bottles directly from Republic of Tea--for $50 (!!!!).

So I finally got around to buying a tin of the loose tea from them last week. I'm going to try to make some iced tea with it on my own. The customer service representative who took my order on the phone warned me that I'd never be able to duplicate the precise flavor of the bottled tea, because the company uses some special triple-filtered process to brew it. But she said that it would still taste great.

We'll see...

Labels: fitness, food, goals, shopping, travel