MoodyBabe

Accountability, redux

2009-04-22T16:07:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've been absent for the last few weeks. It's because I've been plotting and planning like a madwoman for my company's ShapeUp fitness and weight loss challenge. I was busy as a bee crafting two weeks worth of motivational e-mails (for the two weeks before the challenge began) to send to my team of 10.

Plus, I've been designing my personal strategy, including a finely honed meal plan and workout schedule.

I am a machine. I am the Terminatrix.

So, even though I haven't been accountable via this blog, I have been so highly motivated in my quest for leanness that you need not fear: I have been a good girl.

I'm not going to publish everything I eat and do here. Instead, I'll just do the highlights. For example:

Monday, April 20
1,358 calories (36%C/30%P/34%F)
21,055 pedometer steps
185 minutes of moderate exercise

Tuesday, April 21
1,709 calories (35%C/27%P/39%F)
20,078 pedometer steps
205 minutes moderate exercise

There. Short and simple.

As a twist on the accountability idea, I will be starting a new feature on my blog: "What's in your cart?" It will feature weekly pix of what's in my Costco cart (and PCC reusable bag).

Here's the pix from two weeks ago:

Pineapple
2 loaves sprouted grain bread
18 large eggs
Apples
6-pack o' peppers
Box of sweet potatoes
2 bins of mixed salad greens
Tub of hummus
2 bunches of bananas
Cream cheese (for Easter dessert)
Avocados
We also bought yogurt (organic, plain, nonfat) and organic lemons at PCC, but I don't remember what else.

And, here's last week's pix:

Big bag o' broccoli
2 loaves sprouted grain bread (forgot we bought 2 the week before)
Apples
Lowfat cottage cheese
3 half-gallons organic 1% milk
18 large eggs
1 bunch bananas
Turkey breast
1 bin organic mixed salad greens
1 bin organic baby spinach
French roast coffee
6 mangos
6 pack o' peppers
Pineapple
2 jars of peanuts
Chicken raviolis (a final pre-competition splurge)

At PCC, we bought yogurt (organic, plain, nonfat), kefir (organic, plain, lowfat), steel-cut oats, muesli, a few fig bars and organic mint chocolate chip ice cream (the rest of the splurge).

Ciao, until tomorrow!

Consider the glass

2009-04-01T16:36:00.000-07:00

Yes, this glass. What does it make you think of? Paris? Accordions? Edith Piaf? Crusty baguettes borne in bicycle baskets? Black berets and walks along the Seine? Well, of course it does! I mean, this is the quintessential bistro glass. It is, the Duralex Picardie, and it is a joy to behold.

If you recall my post about my restaurant supply store wanderings from the other day, you'll also remember my expressed love of anything that looks like it might hold food or drink in a diner or bistro (somewhat redundant, I know, since a bistro is a French diner).

Anyhoo, I can't tell you how many time over the last decade-plus my eyes passed over the lovely Duralex Picardie (not that I knew it's name, then). In Williams Sonoma, Cost Plus, Sur la Table, heck probably even in Anthropologie (can't swear to that one, but it seems like something they would stock). Each time, my thoughts were along these lines: "Heavens, that's a lovely, classic glass. I really must get some of those sometime."

My interest in these sweet glasses had reached a heightened sense of urgency in Buenos Aires, where the smallest sizes were used liberally in cafes for juice and for the mineral water that always accompanies an espresso. "Sometime" became "very soon." On Saturday, with the heady rush of Saturday's Buffalo china score making me giddy, I decided that "very soon" meant "now!"

I didn't see these lovelies at any of the stores we were in (which surprised me), so I did a Google search for "bistro glasses." I quickly learned my beloved's name...only to discover shortly thereafter that these glasses had been discontinued and were essentially elevated to "collector's status," fetching some pretty (read: high) prices on eBay!

Nooooooooooooo! This is not fair!

I continued to gnash my teeth and Web surf, finally learning that my best bet was to head to my nearest Cost Plus World Market and hope they still had some stock on the shelves. J suggested I call around to the stores in our area, but I hate doing that. No, I would wait a little longer.

Enter Tuesday. At high noon, I don my coat and hat and walk down to the CPWM near Pike Place Market. I enter. I do NOT take a shopping basket (why tempt fate?). I calmly walk to the glassware section. Scanning...scanning...OMG! They have them!

I am now the proud owner of 12 8.75-ounce Duralex Picardie tumblers. I opted not to buy the 12+ ounce and the 17+ ounce specimins, because I find the shape more appealingly curvy in the shorter, smaller glasses.

So now I need to find the 3 oz., the 4.4 oz., the 5.4 oz. and maybe the 7.5 oz. Rumor has it that the orignal Duralex factory has new owner and may start regular production and distribution, so I don't think I'll resort to an eBay auction quite yet. I mean, I've waited this long, haven't I?

Tuesday, March 31
Morning workout: "Beautiful Technique" DVD (flow practice)
Breakfast: 1/2 c. muesli + 6 oz. plain NF yogurt; 12 oz. Americano; 32 oz. water.
Snack: Apple + 10 almonds; 16 oz. water; green tea.
Noon workout: Walk around downtown.
Lunch: 2 oz. pasta (dry weight) with 1 c. veggie/meat sauce; carrots; pea pods; 6 oz. V8; 16 oz. water.
Snack: 1/2 orange; 4 oz. 2% cottage cheese.
Dinner: Green salad w/ oil & vinegar, 4 oz. turkey breast, 3 oz. yellow pepper, 1/4 avocado, 1 oz. walnuts; 16 oz. water.
Evening workout: Power Belly dance class (1 hour); performance class (about 30 minutes of actual dancing).
Snack: Cocoa LaraBar; 16 oz. water; 2 small truffles; 3 hard coffee candies; 5 small pretzels; 1 c. pineapple-ginger juice; green tea.

Kids today...

2009-03-31T15:48:00.000-07:00

...have no clue about the Dark Ages, when details about their favorite band were not available at the click of a mouse or the swipe of an iPhone touchscreen. Forget the whole "I had to walk to school in the snow five miles uphill both ways" thing. This lack of information was serious!

The first band I ever luvvvved was ABBA, in like, the 5th grade. There was no MTV back then, let alone the internet (although I'm sure Al Gore was hard at work on it). I remember pathetically trying to watch "Abba: The Movie" on a pre-HBO movie channel that we didn't even subscribe to (think audio and nausea-inducing wavy video).

I cobbled together whatever shreds of information I could find on that fab Swedish foursome and recorded it in my diary (which had a gold lock and an ethereal pastel fairy princess motif). Those lovingly written words probably make up 1/1000 of what I can find today in the band's Wikipedia entry. Sigh.

Heck, they broke up decades ago, and they even have an official Web site. Do you know what I would have given to have this information 29 years ago. Do you?!

Anyway, my current bout of Abba-mania started a few weeks ago after we watched the trainwreck of a movie that is "Mamma Mia!" (I do have it on reliable authority that the stage version did not suck, however.) Let me say this: Pierce Brosnan should not sing...EVER!

So I let my fingers do the walking to my library's Web site, where I find not one, but THREE DVDs featuring the pop superstars in their 1970s-very early '80s glory. Really, did any band make better use of spandex?

Even though their costumes make me giggle, there's no denying that ABBA produced some insanely classic pop songs, performed in voices so lovely that any Hollywood actor or karoke enthusiast who dares to attempt replication will suffer mightily by comparison.

Monday, March 30
Morning workout: "Beautiful Technique" DVD; "Baladi" DVD (maqsoum drills).
Breakfast: Leftover quiche; 1/2 c. fresh pineapple; cafe au lait; 2 0z. fresh squeezed orange juice; 32 oz. water.
Snack: Apple + 10 almonds; 16 oz. water.
Noon workout: 30 minutes free dance; "Baladi" DVD (various drills).
Lunch: Green salad w/oil & vinegar, 4 oz. turkey breast, 3 oz. yellow pepper, 3 oz. cucumber, 1/4 avocado, 1 oz. walnuts.
Snack: 4 oz. 2% cottage cheese; 4 oz. fresh pineapple.
Post-work workout: "Body Fat Solution" workout B.
Dinner: 2 oz. pasta (dry weight) with 1 c. leftover veggie/meat sauce; green salad w/ oil & vinegar; 4 oz. red wine.
Snack: Cafe Americano; olive oil/yogurt/lime loaf cake.

Sloppy Sunday

2009-03-30T15:23:00.000-07:00

More signs of spring! Just look at that rhubarb plant. I think it's doubled in size since last weekend.

No discernible signs of life from the vegetable seeds I planted outside last week, but it's early (and cold) days yet. Jeff helped me tie one of our grapevines to it's overhead arbor, and I finally got around to planting my Cascadia peas.

I didn't get a lot of gardening done, because I was busy in the kitchen. I don't make quiche Lorraine very often, what with all the cream and egg (2 + 2 yolks) and Gruyere and bacon and buttery crust, but I hadn't made it in ages, and it sounded perfect for lunch with a green salad. Quiche fall under the category of things I don't make often because I make them the right (read: delicious) way, and not the compromise low-fat, low-taste way. I'd rather have it a few times a year and really enjoy it. (Ezell's chicken also falls in that category, although we don't make it ourselves, clearly.)

Dinner's main course was a grass-fed eye of round roast (always wonderful...I so love our beef people), prepared with a rub of Dijon mustard, red wine, minced garlic, salt, pepper and dried herbs. Dessert was a simple, delicious EVO and yogurt loaf cake.

The weather made long walks and gardening much more appealing on Sunday, which, along with the large servings of vegetables I downed, provided some semblance of balance against the liberties I took with the home bar. [Hangs head in shame.]

I was planning on, and looking forward to, enjoying a glass of porter while I made dinner, and a second one with dinner. I was not planning on the martini and the red wine. Sheesh. That's a lot of calories, although according to a recent study I read about, I'm protecting my bones!

Sunday, March 29
Breakfast: Cafe au lait; one piece sprouted grain toast w/ 1 tbs natural peanut butter and 2 tsp marmalade; 1 c. fresh pineapple and mango; 16 oz. water.
Morning workout: 4-mile speed walk (with some hills)
Snack: Apple + 10 almonds; 16 oz. water; cafe au lait.
Lunch: Quiche Lorraine; mixed green salad w/ oil & vinegar; 4 oz. fresh squeezed orange juice; 16 oz. water.
Afternoon workout: 2.2-mile walk (with stops, thanks to dog).
Cocktail hour: 2 12-oz glasses of porter; 1 small (1 oz.) martini w/ 1 olive & 1 onion; 1 oz. mixed nuts; 16 oz. water.
Dinner: 5.5 oz. lean roast beef; mixed green salad w/ oil and vinegar; 1.5 c. steamed broccoli; 4 oz. red wine; 8 oz. mineral water.
Snack: Olive oil/yogurt/lime cake; cafe Americano.

Superfantastic Saturday

2009-03-29T14:28:00.000-07:00

The amazingly craptastic weather on Saturday derailed our outdoor plans, so we decided to finally checkout some of the restaurant supply stores we pass regularly in the SODO neighborhood.

Our Plan B did come with a mission: to find a most excellent juicer. One of the tiny addictions we picked up in Buenos Aires was fresh squeezed orange juice. The stuff was everywhere down there. Cafes, bars, street corners. A little glass came with breakfast in our favorite cafe, and in the busier neighborhoods, you could get a plastic tumbler full from a street vendor for less than $1.

Our apartment had a lever-operated manual juicer, and juice oranges were cheap and plentiful in any grocery, large or small. Since we returned home, we'd been making do on the weekends (the only time we have it...as delicious as fresh-squeezed juice is, we don't drink a lot of juice on principle) with our little low-tech Pyrex juicer.

We knew we wanted an OrangeX juicer, and we were hoping to find it for less than the slightly discounted price on Amazon. Which we did ($40 less) at Dick's Restaurant Supply. That's it in the middle of the top shelf. The white one. Sturdy as hell, and a thing of beauty.

But the real story begins when I walked into the back room of used merchandise. Dear reader, I do believe my heart went a pitter-pat. You see, I have a deep and abiding love for chunky, plain, off-white china that was born to live in a diner or no-nonsense bistro. Like-new 9-inch Buffalo china plates for $2 each? Hand me a paper bag, please, I think I might hyperventilate. Hearty little teacups that allow for just the right proportion of espresso shot-to-hot water (for an Americano) or milk (for a cafe con leche)...for only 50 cents each? How I limited myself to six, I'll never know. Short, round dishwasher-safe wineglasses, the stemware equivalent of eating off a smaller plate, for $2 each? I'll take four, please.

"When I die," I whispered to J after he wandered over, "I want to be buried here!"

Even at those prices, I didn't buy everything that captured my fancy (wouldn't be prudent!), but I came home with enough goodies that I had to do an impromptu reorganization of my kitchen cabinets (and run the dishwasher...my babies were dusty!)

I was pleased that my new Buffalo china almost exactly matched the four Syracuse china dinner plates that we bought 12 or 13 years ago at a Pottery Barn/Williams Sonoma outlet in Manhattan. A real outlet mind you: It was in this funky unfinished space (truly unfinished, not "shabby chic" unfinished) space in Chelsea, where the goods were helter skelter with no discernible method of organization. Those plates have held up with nary a chip or crack, despite almost daily use for more than 10 years. That's quality merchandise, people! I might note that W-S sells the 8-inch Buffalo plate for $36 each...the 10-inch for $60 each. Ahem!

One more deal of the day: The extra-fantastic-super-delicious 9 Pound Porter from Georgetown Brewing Co., only $6 for a half-gallon growler of goodness. Slurp!

P.S. If you haven't seen the movie "In Bruges," please do. It's very funny, and a hit with both the male and female constituencies in our household (even though the male one claimed the cold he was coming down with was making him too tired to stay up and watch a movie and he couldn't possibly make it through more than 10 minutes....he was laughing harder than I was).

Saturday, March 28
Breakfast: 2 fried eggs; 1 piece sprouted grain toast w/ natural peanut butter (1 tbs) and marmalade (2 tsp); cafe au lait; 4 oz. fresh squeezed orange juice; 16 oz. water.
Snack: Apple + 10 almonds; a few Costco samples; 16 oz. water.
Lunch: 1 c. chili w/ 1/4 avocado, 1 tbs. LF sour cream, salsa; large mixed green salad w/ oil and vinegar; 16 oz. water; cafe Americano.
Afternoon workout: "Rhythm Workout" DVD
Snack: 12 oz. Porter + 1 oz peanuts.
Dinner: 2 oz. (dry weight) whole-wheat pasta; 1 c. sauce (tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, garlic, onion, grass-fed ground beef, herbs and spices); 1 grilled Italian sausage; mixed green salad w/ oil & vinegar and tomatoes; 6 oz. red wine; 16 oz. water; cafe Americano.

Frugal Friday

2009-03-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

One of the joys of the morning this time of year is trotting down to the basement to say hello to my tomato seedlings. I plug in their lights, check that their heat mats haven't crapped out, feel the soil to make sure it's moist enough (giving them a little spritz on top and a dollop of water in the seed tray if they need it).

Garden centers these days are better about offering a wider variety of tomato starts than the ubiquitous "Early Girl," but since I have the time, space and inclination, it makes me pretty happy that I can create my own starts for a fraction of the price, AND have as much variety as I want. Well, not quite as much as I want [sigh]. This year, I am severely limiting myself to 11 varieties (and 11 plants):

Gold Nugget (orange cherry)
Green Grape (green cherry)
Koralik (red cherry)
Sungold (orange cherry)
Supersweet 100 (red cherry)
Sweet Gold (yellow cherry)
Black Plum (heirloom plum tomato)
San Marzano (classic Italian plum tomato)
Japanese Trifele Black (heirloom with 2.5- to 3-inch fruit)
Siletz (small slicer)
Silvery Fir Tree (3+ inch slicer with the prettiest carrot-like foliage)

Just as I appreciate variety in my vegetables, I appreciated them in my cookbooks. That must be why I have so freakin' many of them. Either that, or I have an addiction. Who's to say. With so many cookbooks, it's a common occurrence that when I crack one of them open for a specific recipe, I come across some amazing discovery elsewhere in the volume.

Such was the case with Donna Hay's The New Cook, which I referred to Thursday for my favorite risotto recipe. (I hadn't made risotto in so long that I had to remind myself of the ingredient proportions.) I had taken chicken out to defrost for Friday, but had no idea what I was going to do with it. Then I spied Donna's recipe for grilled balsamic chicken with lime. So perfect! A simple marinade of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, crushed garlic and salt and pepper, grilled and served over a bed of salad greens, with the juice of halved and grilled limes(!) squeezed over it. It met my main recipe ideals: healthy, simple-yet-interesting and made with ingredients I have on hand. As a extra-special bonus, I have a Costco bag of limes that I need to use up while they were still in good shape (also on the weekend's agenda is a lime-yogurt cake).

Speaking of no waste, I got four free eco-friendly lightbulbs today! Someone from the city's Climate Protection Initiative was going door to door handing them out and signing people up to receive more information. Cool!

Friday, March 27
Morning workout: "Beautiful Technique" DVD (practice flow + choreography); "Baladi" DVD (maqusom drills).
Breakfast: Cafe au lait; 1 egg + 2 whites scrambled with onion and 1/2 red pepper, with 1 tbs feta cheese and 1 small tomato; 1 slice sprouted grain toast w/ 1 tbs peanut butter & 2 tsp marmalade; 1/2 c. fresh pineapple; cafe Americano; 32 oz. water.
Snack: Apple + 10 almonds; 32 oz water.
Noon workout: "Luscious: the Bellydance Workout" DVD (45 minutes)
Lunch: Green salad w/oil & vinegar, 4 oz. turkey breast, 3 oz. yellow pepper, 3 oz. cucumber, 1/4 avocado, 1 oz. walnuts.
Snack: Orange; 1/2 c. 2% cottage cheese, 1 tbs peanuts; 16 oz. water.
Post-work workout: "Body Fat Solution" workout A
Dinner: Grilled balsamic-lime chicken breast; mixed greens; 4-inch section of baguette with 1 tsp butter; 4 oz. red wine; cafe Americano.

Ms. Motivation

2009-03-27T16:18:00.000-07:00

My company will be starting a 12-week "corporate fitness challenge" next month, which I was quite excited about when it was first announced a few weeks ago. One of the categories is "most steps walked" and another is "most exercise minutes logged."

Come to mama...that prize is MINE!

Fast forward to Thursday morning, when we all find out there is no prize, other than the satisfaction of meeting goals...oh, and recognition on the company intranet site.

Color me underwhelmed.

But wait, there's a new twist!

I am captain of my own team, made up of my department (five including me), and three free agents that I swiftly bagged (including one who was quite in demand). Two have a proven track record of exercise (even though they will be of no help in the weight loss portion of the competition...they're pretty darn lean), the third is motivated by his dismay that working at home and having two young children has contributed to a number of excess pounds.

Everybody on my team (except for one) seem truly ready to make changes. And I'm just the person to motivate them...because I've traveled that road before, yes I have.

All I have to say is, "Bring it ON!"

Thursday, March 26
Morning workout: "Baladi" DVD (taqsim & sekkat drills)
Breakfast: Cafe au lait (1% milk); 6 oz. plain NF yogurt + 55 g. Kashi GoLean Crunch; 16 oz. fruit smoothie; cafe Americano; 16 oz. water.
Snack: Apple + 10 almonds; 16 oz water.
Noon workout: 3.25-mile speed walk (with some hills) + .75 miles running (flat).
Lunch: Mixed green salad with oil & vinegar, 4 oz. turkey, 3 oz. yellow pepper, 3 oz. cucumber, 1/4 avocado, 1 oz. walnuts; 4 oz. 2% cottage cheese; 16 oz. water; caramel frappucino (bottled).
Snack: Orange; 4 oz. 2% cottage cheese; 1 tbs peanuts; 16 oz. water.
Post-work workout: "Rhythm Workout" DVD (45 min.)
Dinner: 1 c. risotto (made with short-grain brown rice) w/ 1 oz. parmesean; 1/2 leftover chicken thigh with apricot sauce; mixed green salad with oil & vinegar; 12 oz. mineral water; 4 oz. red wine.
Snack: Cafe Americano + 3 dried dates.

Spring is springing

2009-03-26T14:46:00.001-07:00

Even though it's still freakin' cold outside, it's gratifying and encouraging to go on a noontime walk in the actual sunshine (still needed gloves, though) and come home to find fat robins hippity-hopping through my front garden, and my hellebores gloriously in bloom.

I've found hellebores to be an amazingly low-effort plant. Since I think they look good year round, the care-to-reward ratio is quite remarkable. Their dark green foliage doesn't die back, and in fact looks quite handsome all year (sometimes some of the oldest foliage gets a bit ratty, but it's easy to snip off).

In other news, I went to watch a bellydance classmate perform at a Moroccan restaurant downtown. The food was good, although I'm not sure if I would go there only for the food. Seating was on the floor on big, reasonably comfortable cushions...but my foot did fall asleep after a while.

I was disturbed to learn from my classmate (who recently turned professional, and is starting to get booked in better venues, such as this restaurant), that her gig would get canceled if not enough people made dinner reservations. Her performance was set for 7:30 p.m., which meant she needed to be there with hair and makeup done, ready to go (other than changing into her costume) by 7 p.m. Yet she didn't even know if she was performing until 5 p.m. Insane!

Even more insane, at another of her regular bookings the dancers don't know if they will actually get to perform until after they show up. Which in her case, means driving over to the Eastside. It makes me crazy that someone can be completely dedicated to her art form, spend hour upon hour and dollar upon dollar:

Taking classes and workshops
Rehearsing
Building a music library
Buying professional-quality costumes (which run several hundreds of dollars each...used!)
Creating a Web site
Networking
Paying dues by dancing in non-paying "amature-friendly" venues
Learning specialty skills like zill-playing, veilwork and sword balancing.

And then have to drive to another city to be told "Sorry, we don't need you tonight"? WTF?!

(OK, stepping off my soapbox now...)

Wednesday, March 25
Morning workout: "Beautiful Technique" DVD (practice flow and choreography)
Breakfast: Cafe au lait; scrambled eggs (1 whole, 2 whites) with 1/2 red pepper; banana bread; 1/2 c. fresh pineapple; cafe Americano; 16 oz. water.
Snack: Apple + 10 almonds; 16 oz. water.
Noon workout: 30 minutes free dance + "Baladi" DVD (maqusom improv drill sections).
Lunch: Mixed green salad w/olive oil & vinegar + 4 0z. turkey breast, 1/2 yellow pepper; 3 oz. cucumber, 2 small tomatoes, 1/4 avocado, 1 oz walnuts; banana bread; herbal tea.
Post-work workout: "Body Fat Solution" workout B
Snack: Orange; 16 oz water.
Dinner: Lentil soup; two small pieces bread with eggplant dip and diced vegetables; b'stilla (sweet/savory pastry with ground chicken and powdered sugar); 2 chicken thighs with apricot sauce; milk pudding; sweet mint tea.
Late cocktail hour: 3 oz. red wine (while watching "Lost").

Reduce, reuse, recycle

2009-03-25T14:10:00.000-07:00

Now that food waste recycling is mandatory in the city of Seattle, we're actually doing what we should have been doing years ago (since most of the currently allowable foods could always be thrown in with the yard waste).

This turn of events is somewhat surprising to me, since I tend to rebel against authority in small ways (i.e., not in any way that might land me in jail). For example, I started reading when I was 3 and don't believe it's possible to own too many books, yet just have an English teacher dare to tell me to read a certain book on a certain time frame, and you'd think I would rather eat dirt than read.

But food waste recyclers we have indeed become, mostly because J spearheaded the change and nags me like a fishwife if I happen to throw so much as an apple core or the seeds from a bell pepper down the disposal! Neither of us is very fond of taking the bin outside to be emptied, but we suck it up.

While part of me would love to have one of those cute little countertop food scrap receptacles, I'm really pretty satisfied with our cheap (well, free) solution of using one of those clear plastic tubs that the mixed salad greens come in at Costco. I love these tubs so much, I should write a book about their many varied reuses. Here are my personal favorites:

Cloches (mini-coldframes) for tender seedlings in the garden during the shoulder seasons (see Sunday's post for a photo of this).
Mini-greenhouses for indoor seedling starts.
Organizers/dividers for lightweight craft/sewing supplies, toolshed/greenhouse odds and ends, pantry items, toiletries, small linens (like washcloths).

Brilliant!

As of today, I'm adding a "new feature" to my food/exercise log. I'm putting any items that I should not have eaten (because I wasn't really hungry, or I was giving into a craving, I didn't plan to eat it, or it was just too many calories) in red. Honestly, this is more a tool for my benefit, but it also plays nicely into the accountability thing.

Tuesday, March 24
Morning workout: "Next Level" DVD (warmup and hip layering drills)
Breakfast 1 (at home): Cafe Americano; 1/3 c. fresh pineapple; 16 oz. water.
Breakfast 2 (at work): 12 oz. nonfat latte; banana bread; 16 oz water.
Snack: Apple + 10 almonds; 1 Girl Scout cookie; 16 oz. water.
Lunch: (Bridal shower for a co-worker, so no walk today)* 1 2X3" turkey wrap; 2 tortilla chips with shrimp dip; 1/2 c. tortellini salad; 1/2 c. broccoli salad; 1/2 c. fresh fruit; 1 piece spice bread; 1 3x3" piece chocolate cake; ginger tea.
Snack: 1 2x3" turkey wrap; orange; 12 oz. Americano; 16 oz. water.
Post-work activity: Practiced drum rhythms; "Killer Ziller" DVD (drills section); dance class (With more talking than dancing AGAIN. Sigh.).
Dinner: Mixed green salad with oil and vinegar and 3 oz. turkey breast; banana bread; 16 oz. water.
Snack: 2 oz. mixed tequila drink; caramel corn; pumpkin seeds.
* In retrospect, should have bagged the drum/zill practice to fit in a workout.

Muscling through

2009-03-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

I'm fortunate to work from home four days a week (usually), making it easier to fit in workouts. No gym bags to cart around...just a 30-second walk to my closet and then another to my yoga/bellydance room, to my basement weight room, or to the sidewalk outside.

It would be even easier if I allowed myself to work in workout clothes...but I don't (well, maybe twice a month). Why? Because I am firmly convinced that stretchy yoga pants contributed to my reaching my all-time-high body weight before I broke an ankle and gained a boatload of motivation 2 1/2 years ago.

On the one hand, you would think that wearing stretchy pants would be a visual reminder of creeping weight gain. In reality, Lycra is powerless against the sheer brute force of denial. We've been going through old photos recently, moving them from boxes into actual albums. If I had a nickel for each time the words "Oh my GOD! Burn that! No, wait, don't...I need the reminder!" crossed my lips, I could buy myself a boatload of toxic bank debt.

No, my casual home office attire of choice runs to jeans or other woven pants that button and zip and have a minimum of stretchy stuff in the fiber content (if any at all). You can't slip up too much before these pants let you know it.

I commuted into the office Friday, Monday and again today, so I've been feeling a little twitchy, with my workout time slashed and burned by my office time. I can only fit in an abbreviated dance workout in the morning, and while running errands on foot at lunch does get me out of the office and moving, it's not enough to truly qualify as a workout. I also find it harder to lift weights when I arrive home, hungry and tired, after a 45-minute bus ride (on the plus side, I do get a lot more reading done on days I commute).

I know, you're thinking, "Boo hoo, poor you!" I did suck it up yesterday, muscling through my workout even though I wanted to be doing something else, making a healthy pasta dinner, doing dishes and baking two loaves of banana bread (the six bananas were THIS close to being too ripe for even banana bread...after a week of stalling, I had no choice but to act).

I also managed to fit in one of my current favorite bellydance instructional DVDs, Autumn Ward's "Bellydance: Beautiful Technique from Step One - The Beginner's Path to Flawless Artistry." It includes an extensive movement and posture breakdown for beginners, then a practice flow series and choreography for the intermediate-advanced set. The choreography she teaches, to a song from Solace's "Iman" album, is the only choreography-on-a-DVD that I've ever wanted to actually perform in public. I love it SO much! I've included the promo video below. Unfortunately, they only show a tiny bit of the performance (one of two on the DVD) from the choreo she teaches. You'll catch a tiny bit of it from about 1:45-1:53 (she's wearing red harem pants and has red flowers in her hair).

Monday, March 23
Morning workout: "Next Level" DVD (warmup + hip layering drills)
Breakfast 1 (at home): Cafe Americano; 1/2 c. fresh pineapple; 16 oz. water.
Breakfast 2 (at work): 1/2 c. muesli + 6 oz. plain NF yogurt; Americano; banana; 16 oz. water.
Snack: Apple + 10 almonds; 16 oz. water.
Noon workout: 2-mile walk while running errands downtown.
Lunch: Ethnic Gourmet chicken biriyani; carrot sticks; pea pods; herbal tea.
Snack: Orange; green tea.
Snack: 1 tbs. peanuts; 16 oz. water.
Post-work workout: "Body Fat Solution" workout A.
Dinner: 1.5 oz. pasta (dry weight) w/ 3 oz. turkey, 1/2 orange pepper, broccoli, 1 tbs. pine nuts, 1/4 c. pesto, 1/2 oz. parmesan, 2 small tomatoes; green salad with EVO & vinegar; 4 oz. red wine; cafe Americano.
Evening workout: "Beautiful Technique" DVD (practice flow + choreography).

Missing the point

2009-03-23T14:47:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, after a 5-mile walk/run, we stopped by our local natural foods coop (PCC, for the benefit of local readers) for a few odds and ends. On our way out, we were behind a family of four—two parents and two children under 5. Each parent was pushing a loaded shopping cart. Almost every shopping bag in the carts was one of the PCC’s bright purple purchaseable, reuseable bags, so I assume they are regular customers.

Now, I’m trying to state the facts as I saw them, without passing (too much) judgment. Both parents were significantly overweight. One of the children, a boy of about age 3, was sitting in his mother’s cart, voraciously snacking on grated cheese out of a plastic deli container.

Now, in moderation, cheese can certainly be part of a healthy, nutritious diet. But it does have a lot of fat and calories. As J put it: “Why isn’t that kid snacking on apple slices.”

The incident brought home the fact that many people simply have no idea what a healthy diet is.

You’ve got people who don’t care what they put in their mouths, as long as it’s cheap, fast and it tastes good (I’m talking about you, McDonald’s value menu).

Then you’ve got people who know they should eat better, but feel like they can’t, because they “can’t afford organic food.”

They you’ve got your people who can afford organic food, who can afford to shop at Whole Foods or PCC instead of Safeway, but who make the error of thinking that if it’s organic and from a “health food” store, it’s healthy. This assumption is false for at least two reasons:

I’m sorry, people, but there is a lot of junk food to be had at Whole Foods and its peers. An organic potato chip is still a potato chip, albeit with fewer chemicals. And don’t even get me started on the concept of organic Coke.

Too many calories are too many calories, regardless of whether the food is organic or non-organic, processed or whole. If I stuff my face with organic cheese, then plop my butt on the couch with a bag of organic root-vegetable chips, I am NOT being healthy!

After spending quite some time ruminating on this subject yesterday, imagine my delight when I discovered this morning that the New York Times’ Mark Bittman apparently read my mind.

I wanted to pump my fist in the air and scream “Yes!” (I didn’t, since I was working from the office today) when I read this: “The truth is that most Americans eat so badly — we get 7 percent of our calories from soft drinks, more than we do from vegetables; the top food group by caloric intake is “sweets”; and one-third of nation’s adults are now obese — that the organic question is a secondary one.”

In an ideal world, we would all sit down with family and friends three times a day to meals lovingly prepared from organic, locally-grown, in-season whole foods. But is anyone ready to argue that we’re living in an ideal world? The reality is that we have to make choices, all of the time. Hopefully we make the better choice most of the time. Better to bring a simple sandwich from home than to stop for a Big Mac. Better to eat a non-organic apple than organic cheese puffs. Better to drink water than soda pop. Better to eat frozen vegetables than to not eat vegetables at all.

Sunday, March 22
Breakfast 1: 12 oz. fruit smoothie; espresso with 1% milk; 16 oz. water
Morning workout: 2.5-mile brisk walk + 2.5-mile run walk.
Breakfast 2: 2 whole eggs (fried in small amount of olive oil); toasted baguette with light cream cheese & marmalade; fresh mango and pineapple; cafe Americano; 16 oz. water.
Lunch: Leftover lamb & couscous; 16 oz. water.
Cocktail hour: Martini w/green olive; 1/4 c. peanuts.
Dinner: Grilled burger w/sauteed (in olive oil) mushrooms; mixed green salad with olive oil & vinegar; 1 c. baked beans; 4 oz. red wine; 16 oz water; cafe Americano.

Saturday at Ye Olde Homestead

2009-03-22T16:39:00.000-07:00

Saturday actually brought some sunshine along with the chilly temperatures, so J and I jumped at the chance to work in the garden without getting rained on. While J dug trenches in on half of the front garden so he could finish installing an irrigation system, I toiled in the back garden, planting the first of the season's vegetable seeds and freeing our strawberry patch from invading weedy marauders.

Two weeks ago, I put down sheets of plastic to help the soil warm up and dry out nominally. It was still pretty soggy, but the top layer was fluffy and lightly damp, hopefully exactly what the seeds desire. (Sidenote: I was extremely spoiled in our previous house, at which I did all of my vegetable gardening in foot-deep, wood-framed raised beds, built by J and filled with lovely soil mix from Cedar Grove. For this garden, we tilled up the weedy lawn and have been gradually mixing in loads of compost. The clay soil is improving, but it's still far from perfect.) The leafy stuff you see are remnants from the late summer-fall garden.

I planted arugula, beets, lettuce, carrots, radishes, spinach and turnips. I meant to plant peas, but I forgot to soak them the night before. Oh well...there's always next weekend.

While the gardening season is making it's shaky start, so is the garage sale season. On our drive back from our walk/run at the park, we were lured by the sirens call of "Estate Sale." There's always something sad about pawing through the material remnants of a deceased mother's life (or she may have been moved to a nursing home, I suppose), but we came away with a 2-quart Pyrex measuring cup (which I have been needing/wanting for some time), three cute blue and white plates, a silver jigger (which J has been wanting for some time), two sturdy dineresqe bowls and a pretty blue-and-yellow print bowl made in Luxembourg. All for $13. If we had been a little earlier, we could have picked up some cool metal garden bed edgers. Grrrrrrr...

A thought about how this whole "accountability via blog" thing is working: Normally, I lift weights on a MWF schedule. I skipped my Friday workout because, frankly, after going to happy hour I didn't feel like it (normally I workout after work before J gets home). But I resolved to reschedule the workout for Saturday, because of the blog. And I followed through on that plan...because of the blog. It's very hard for me to lift weights on weekends, because my schedule, while not hindered by things like working for a paycheck, tends to be fluid and variable, and I find myself getting involved in other things and running out of usable time. In this case, I was certain of two things: I was going to post that workout on the blog AND I was not going to do something pointless like lie!

Saturday, March 21

Breakfast: 12 oz. fruit smoothie; espresso w/ 1% milk.

Morning workout: 2.5-mile speedwalk + 2.5-mile run/walk.

Brunch: 1 whole egg + 2 whites, scrambled in olive oil with 1/2 yellow pepper, 3 large white mushrooms, 1 oz. feta cheese; fresh mango and pineapple; 1 slice sprouted grain toast w/ 1 tbs natural peanut butter and 2 tsp orange marmalade; espresso with 1% milk; 16 oz. water

Mid-day workout (sort of): 4 hours gardening.

Snack: Apple; 1 oz. white cheddar; 4 oz. turkey breast; 10 almonds; espresso; 16 oz. sparkling mineral water.

Snack: Larabar + 1 tbs peanuts.

Post-gardening workout: Weightlifting (Body Fat Solution workout B).

Snack: Orange; 16 oz. water

Dinner: Lamb stew w/ couscous, caramelized onions, raisins and almonds; small martini; 6 oz. red wine.

Snack: espresso; 16 oz water.

Happy and healthy

2009-03-21T16:02:00.000-07:00

Can Happy Hour be Healthy Hour? Why, yes, I believe it can.

I worked in the office Friday (instead of from home) which meant that at the end of the workday, I was badly in need of a drink. So I walked from downtown to meet J and one of his amusing coworkers at the Westlake outpost of Tutta Bella.

We enjoyed tasty $2 pints of Tutta Bella Ale, and J and I split a pizza crust-style flatbread with marinara, a small dish of mixed olives and a beet salad with goat cheese and pistachios. Delish, non-greasy and with actual nutrition included! Among the other tempting items on the menu are a cauliflower salad and a salad with arugula, proscuttio and I can't remember what else...

Friday, March 20

Morning workout: "Next Level" DVD (warmup and hip layering drills).

Breakfast 1 (at home): 12 oz. fruit smoothie, espresso with 1% milk, 16 oz water.

Breakfast 2 (at work): 1/2 c. muesli + 6 oz. plain NF yogurt; 12 oz. Americano.

Snack: Apple + 10 almonds; 16 oz. water.

Noon workout: Short urban walk.

Lunch: Ethnic Gourmet Chicken Biryani; pea pods; carrot; 16 oz. water.

Snack: Orange; green tea.

Post-work workout: Brisk 1.5 mile walk.

Happy Hour: 16 oz. ale; flatbread w/marinara sauce; beet salad w/goat cheese and pistachios; 6 olives; 1/4 c. hazelnuts; 16 oz. water.

Dinner: Large mixed green salad w/ olive oil + vinegar; 4 oz meatloaf; 1/2 c. mashed potatoes; 6 oz. red wine.

Snack: Espresso; 16 oz. water.

Guilty pleasures

2009-03-21T15:50:00.000-07:00

I came home from Buenos Aires last month with several things, including two leather jackets, an appreciation for international travel (yet a loathing for 12-hour flights) and an addiction to "Gossip Girl."

I had the opportunity to catch two episodes on our Air Canada flights and completely agree with the assessment that it is "Sex and the City" meets "Cruel Intentions." Having attended high school in Eugene, Oregon, I of course can not relate at all to life at a richie-rich boarding school in Manhattan, but then I suppose I can't exactly relate to life as a worker in a paper company ("The Office"), as a plane crash survivor on a really weird island ("Lost") or a corseted English lass living in a huge, drafty house (take your pick of "Masterpiece Classic" airings).

So I Tivo "GG" each Monday, delaying my gratification until Thursday, when I enjoy the drama and hijinks while I fold several loads of laundry. Divine!

Thursday, March 19

Morning workout: "Beautiful Technique" DVD (practice flow + choreography)

Breakfast: 2 espressos (1 with 1% milk); 6 oz. plain NF yogurt + 58 g. Kashi GoLean Crunch; 16 oz. water.

Snack: Apple + 10 almonds; 16 oz. water.

Noon workout: 4-mile speed walk.

Lunch: Mixed green salad w/ olive oil + vinegar, 3.5 oz. yellow pepper, 3 oz. cucumber, 4 oz. turkey and 1 oz. walnuts; green tea; 16 oz. water.

Snack: Handful of pea pods; Mini Babybel; 16 oz water.

Dinner: Mixed green salad w/ olive oil + vinegar and 1 oz. blue cheese; 3 oz. meatloaf; 1 c. mashed potatoes; 6 oz. red wine.

Snack: espresso; 16 oz. water.

Bringing the sun indoors

2009-03-19T10:17:00.000-07:00

Cold, damp weather often makes one long for something warm and comforting to eat. Since finishing The Fourth Queen last week, a partially-based-on-real-historical-events novel about a Scottish lass who is abducted by pirates and sold in the harem of the Emperor of Morocco, I have been badly craving some sort of lamb-and-couscous concoction, laced with cinnamon and some sort of dried fruit.

I found just such a recipe in a cookbook I already own, Claudia Rodin's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. I lusted after, then asked for (and received) this book as a Christmas gift in 2007. I've yet to cook from it, which is sad, true, but not too surprising, given the massive heft of my cookbook collection. Just look at this book, though. Isn't it so very pretty? Really, have you seen a prettier cookbook? I didn't think so.

The recipe in question also calls for caramelized onions and raisins, which I have in my pantry, of course, along with couscous, which I restocked last week. And I happened to have a package of lamb stew meat in my freezer. Oh, happy day! I can't wait until Saturday!

Of course, my lamb-and-couscous yearnings (and my reading of The Fourth Queen) were inspired by dreams of traveling to Spain and Morocco next spring. Those plans have been derailed by the need to go to Hawaii for a wedding next January. Since we're flying there anyway, we figured we had better make that our main 2010 vacation. Plane tickets are cheap (free for J with his Alaska Air miles, just over $400 for me), and we'll be spending only a few days on more-expensive Maui (the wedding location) before hopping a puddle jumper to Kauai. We're planning to rent a small cottage (inexpensive but really cute!) with a full kitchen and a gas barbecue, since it's cheaper and healthier to not rely on restaurant meals for 2 weeks.

I can't say Hawaii is my first choice of vacation destinations (which is why I've never been), but it will be warm, there will be sun, and I'm sure it will all be just lovely.

Wednesday, March 18
Morning workout: "Beautiful Technique" DVD (flow practice + choreography)
Breakfast: 2 espressos (one with 1% milk); leftover steel-cut oatmeal with pecans, almonds, dates, raisins and coconut; 1/2 c. fresh pineapple; 16 oz. water.
Snack: Apple; 10 almonds; 16 oz. water.
Noon workout: "Next level" DVD (warm up + hip layering drills); "Baladi" DVD (Baladi 1 maqsoum drills).
Lunch: Mixed green salad w/ oil & vinegar, 5 oz. turkey breast, 4 oz. red pepper, 3 oz. cucumber, 1 oz. walnuts; sparkling water; green tea.
Snack: Large carrot; handful of pea pods; Wasa cracker + one LF Laughing Cow cheese wedge; 16 oz. water.
Post-work workout: Drum DVD (rhythm practice: malfouf, ayoub, masmoudi, baladi); "Killer Ziller" DVD (drills section); weight lifting ("Body Fat Solution" workout A); 2.2-mile walk (with some hills).
Dinner: Mixed green salad w/ oil & vinegar, 2 oz. red pepper, 3 oz. cucumber, 2 tbs. feta cheese, 4 falafel balls (from Costco); rest of leftover black bean enchiladas (about 1/3 portion); 16 oz. water.
Snack: Espresso shot; orange.

Spring, wherefore art thou?

2009-03-18T16:05:00.000-07:00

Seriously. The spring equinox is two or three days away (need to consult a calendar), and the weather here is still deeply chilly. I am cold down to my bones...making last month's vacation in sunny hot Buenos Aires seem oh-so-far away.

I am itching to plant spring veggies, but I know from the last two years experience gardening at this house that even cool weather veg like peas and lettuces don't appreciate the cold sogginess of my late winter-early spring soil. We covered a few vegetable beds with clear plastic weekend before last, so if I get a weather reprieve this weekend I might take my chances.

Meanwhile, my tomato starts are plugging away in the basement, aided by lights and heat mats. Eggplants and peppers should sprout up to join them, soon.

Meanwhile, to do my due diligence, here's my specs from yesterday:

Tuesday, March 17
Morning workout: "Next level" (warmup and hip layering drills) and "Beautiful Technique" (flow practice) DVDs.
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs (1 whole + 2 whites) in a little olive oil; one slice sprouted grain bread + 1 tbs almond butter + 2 tsp orange marmalade; 3/4 c. fresh pineapple; 2 espresso shots (one with 1% milk); 12 oz. water.
Snack: Apple; 10 almonds; 16 oz. water.
Noon workout: 3.25 miles speed walking (with some hills) + .75 miles jogging (no hills...I'm not a masochist).
Lunch: Exact same salad as yesterday; orange; 8 oz. coffee; 16 oz. water.
Post-work workout: Drum DVD (basic exercises + malfouf, ayoub & masmoudi rhythm practice); "Killer Ziller" (drills section); Neon's "Rhythm Workout" (entire beginner practice flow).
Dinner: Mixed green salad w/ 4 oz turkey breast + oil & vinegar; 7 oz. 2% cottage cheese; 16 oz. water.
Evening workout: Dance performance class (more talking than dancing, unfortunately).
Snack: 4 oz. white wine; 5 bites of tiramisu; 1 almond shortbread cookie (all at class); 8 oz. water.

Accountability

2009-03-17T15:04:00.000-07:00

Since I am sporadic at best (ha!) about posting to this poor neglected blog, and have just been reading about the importance of accountability in Tom Venuto's excellent new book, "The Body Fat Solution," I've decided to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

As he explains, accountability is one powerful tool for keeping on track with fitness and nutrition goals. "Internal accountability is becoming accountable for your actions and results by measuring and recording them. External accountability is when you report those actions and results to someone else... ."

So, I've resumed writing down what I eat and how much I exercise (something I did when I was actively in the process of losing 50 pounds, but then kind of quit doing over a year ago). That's the internal accountability. Posting my actions on this blog...that's new to me. That's some mighty powerful external accountability, even if only 2.3 people ever read it ;-)

Why bother? Because since the fall, I've felt like I'm in that dangerous post-weight loss place where some of my initial sources of motivation have pretty much dropped off. My eyes have adjusted to my thinner reflection in the mirror, and the "you've lost weight" type compliments are few and far between (I do still occasionally run into someone I haven't seen since 2006).

Now, my motivation must purely come from within. That's fine, but it is a trickier source to tap. Which is why so many people can lose weight, but can't keep it off. And I am determined to keep it off!

So I've set some new goals for myself, so I have some shiny new carrots to chase after. These involve both body composition and dance performance, so I'll be logging my nutrition, general fitness and dance training activities. And since I'll be obligated to post here daily, surely I'll be inspired to post on other topics, too!

Monday, March 16
Morning workout: Autumn Ward's "Beautiful Technique" DVD (flow practice section)
Breakfast: 2 espressos with 1% milk; 7 oz. plain NF yogurt w/ 55 g. Kashi Go Lean Crunch; 16 oz. water
Snack: Apple; 10 raw almonds; 16 oz water
Noon workout: Jenna's "The Next Level" DVD (warmup and hip layering drills); Ranya Renee's "Baladi" DVD (Baladi 1, drills 1-4)
Lunch: Mixed green salad w/ 3 oz. orange pepper, 3 oz. cucumber, 4 oz. turkey breast, 1 oz. avocado, 1 oz. walnuts, oil and vinegar; Darjeeling tea; orange
Snack: Larabar
Post-work workout: Drum practice DVD (practice drills + malfouf, ayoub & masmoudi rhythm practice); Michelle Joyce's "Killer Ziller" DVD (zill rhythm drills + combo 1); Weightlifting (Tom Venuto's "Body Fat Solution" workout B); Neon's "Bellydance Rhythm Workout" DVD (part of beginner's practice flow)
Snack: Espresso shot; pea pods; 16 oz. water
Dinner: Black bean enchiladas w/ 1 oz. avocado & 1 tbs. LF sour cream; 12 oz beer; 16 oz water
Snack: 2 gingersnaps (small and storebought); 1/2 shortbread cookie (fresh-baked...had to taste test new recipe)

Fashion begins at home

2009-01-08T14:38:00.000-08:00

I had to snicker a bit when I read an online news article yesterday about how retailers are fretting that consumers will become so used to getting 70 percent or more discounts on merchandise that they simply won't be willing to go back to paying full price (or close to it) once the economy climbs out of the crapper.

Not to toot my own horn, but, I've been there, done that, and am well on my way to the next level.

For the last hearty handful of years, I have purchased very few items of clothing that have not been 75-90 percent off. I regularly take home clothing from Macy's for 85-90 percent off (that's generally with an extra percent off already-marked-down clearance prices plus a coupon of some sort). J and I also made a massive score on bedding at Macy's earlier this year, at similar discounts, too.

This year at Banana Republic, I picked up four office-appropriate (but cute with jeans, too) jackets for at least 90 percent off. Plus a purple trench I had been watching and drooling over forEVER for 75 percent off and a classic khaki trench for 90 percent off.

And then there are the scores I get through the secondhand market (most notably my beloved Goodwill). I have no shortage of cute, sparkly tops to wear to bellydance class, and few cost me more than $2. On my last trip, I got the most adorable brocade jacket with 3/4-length sleeves and these wide curvy lapels for $5. And the perfect tailored jean jacket (just worn enough to look well-loved) for $7.

So, yeah, I know my way around a deal. I know about patience, and timing, and being willing to walk away if it doesn't drop below 70 percent off.

But I'm beyond that now. 2009 is all about the ultimate deal: shopping my closet. Seriously people...I have enough clothes. And don't get me started on my fabric and pattern stash.

I've made a signed pact (co-signed by J) to spend a maximum of $20 a month on clothes. I'm sure to some people that's spare change, and to others it's still a lot, but I feet that amount was sufficiently frugal, yet not so frugal as to cause feelings of utter deprivation. Consider that this amount must cover any purchase of any item (new or used) that will be worn on my body or used to create something to be worn on my body (including things like thread, zippers and other sewing notions). That includes clothes, shoes, unmentionables, accessories and bellydance costumes. Perhaps more significantly than curbing clothes spending, this will curb my forays to Joann Fabrics and fabric.com.

This is all part of my larger plan to put the brakes on my consumerist mindset. While I'm not the biggest spender around (by a long shot), I find that the desire for something new, something different is like a disease that makes it harder to enjoy what I already have. And I have plenty. I should be grateful. I should be delirious.

Here's to delerium!

Preoccupation

2008-12-10T15:09:00.000-08:00

Raise your hand if a hearty portion of your brain's bandwidth has been taken up by the suckworthy state of the economy.

OK, you can put your hands down, now.

Me, I've been fretting. Even though, as J. rightly pointed out last night, "Nothing has changed for us."

True enough. We both have jobs. Our mortgage is not a type that will give us a nasty "readjustment" surprise. Life continues on, same as always.

But should it? Who knows how secure their job really is anymore? J's company just had another round of layoffs. Fortunately, he has a combination of seniority, talent and likability that means he probably doesn't have anything to worry about...other than crappy morale. Probably. I haven't detected any whiff of layoffs at my company, and I have a combination of talent, reliability, likability and underpaidness (!) that will probably serve me well if things take a turn. Probably.

But after months of economic news going from bad to worse, and intense weeks of watching friends and associates get (or narrowly avoid getting) their pink slips, how can we truly say nothing has changed for us? Or at least, how can we say beyond a shadow of a doubt that nothing will change.

Simple. We can't!

Because being passive rarely serves anyone well (except possibly in the rare case of a bear attack), I've decided to be the architect of my own change. The result, I believe, will bring about a satisfying increase in financial and mental well-being. Stay tuned!

No big government? For who?

2008-09-03T17:32:00.000-07:00

I had no plans to ever address politics on my wee little blog, but I just about choked on my leftover spaghetti (with sauce made from homegrown tomatoes...see how frugal I am during these tough economic times?) listening to Meg Whitman, the former president and CEO of eBay, talk about how Republicans want to reduce "big government," because we as individuals and families have ultimate responsibility for ourselves [I'm paraphrasing here, and while I captured the gist of it, I will try to find a transcript later].

Really? I, as an American citizen, have responsibility for myself? Government shouldn't be trying to run my life? Then why does the Republican Party platform say that if I have an unwanted pregnancy, I should be forced to carry that pregnancy to term?

Pardon me for feeling that a government that would dare to force me to breed against my will is a very big government indeed.

And now, please excuse me while I go dig my rhinestone donkey broach out of my jewelry box. It's going to see A LOT of wear time between now and Election Day.

A laborious Labor Day

2008-09-02T10:31:00.000-07:00

While many Americans spent Labor Day relaxing with picnics and barbecues (or is that just a cliche?), I was working my butt off.

No really, I mean it. I walked a half-marathon event, and I think my butt actually fell off somewhere around mile 11.

This is my second half-marathon, and it was my last (probably...never say never). I was pretty sure it would be my last before yesterday even arrived, for a handful of decent reasons:

1. I used training for a half-marathon as motivation to increase my walking mileage last year when I was trying to rehabilitate my fractured (and healed) ankle while losing weight. It worked...my ankle is strong and I'm 50 pounds lighter. But I've since realized that I'm firmly enough into a routine of regular, varied exercise that I don't need to dangle that carrot anymore.

2. While I do enjoy the longer walks that come with a training schedule (especially when the training period is in the nice-weather months), I don't enjoy the schedule's rigidity. There were a few weekends this summer where it was really inconvenient to need to fit a 9-mile walk into a weekend away. If I'm walking for myself, and not for a training schedule, I can be more flexible.

3. How many "free" souvenir shirts do I really need? Especially when they seem to be in colors I don't wear (Last year: golden yellow. This year: navy.) Plus, they only come in men's sizes, which annoys me. I didn't get back into shape so I could wear boxy men's shirts, thank you very much.

But...I had committed to doing this race, so I stuck to plan. However, by about Mile 2, I thought "Yeah, I'm not doing this again." This was a half-marathon walk, mind you (there was a separate half-marathon run), yet I was one of VERY few walkers. I made sure I was on the start line, rather than back in the pack, so I was able to suss out the situation rapidly.

Two older gentlemen were off and gone rather quickly, using actual racewalking technique (which I've never learned, but I'm pretty fast without it).
A small pack of joggers broke ahead, staying in my sights for about half the race. A few of them eventually picked up their (running) pace and I never saw them again. I passed the others and stayed ahead for a few miles before they picked up their own pace and pulled ahead again.
A handful of run-walkers would pass me when running, but I would pass them once they started walking.

In a nutshell, I knew there were only two people ahead of me who were walking the entire race. And nobody who passed me was walking...they were running. Which would make me the Number 3 walker, and the Number 1 female walker (This was confirmed by some of the cheering volunteers at a few mile points. A frequent comment was "Wow, it's great so see someone who's actually walking.") .

So...how did I fare in the final results? Number 24, with a time of 2:46. The racewalkers came in at 2:33. The top two finishers came in at around 1:30. I'll bet everything I own that they didn't walk a single step. They were slow-to-medium runners, pure and simple. Total BS, in my book.

So, that's it. I'm done. Retired. When I walked a larger half-marathon last year, the sheer number of entrants (and my starting position further back in the pack) made it impossible for me to know how I fared against people who walked the entire event. Well, this year, I know. And I rock!

Smile and the world smiles with you

2008-06-27T09:27:00.000-07:00

O-kayyyyyy...well, it's been a while since I've posted. In my defense, I spent more than a month chained to my computer for an intense (yet fulfilling) writing project at work, which left me rather computer-averse during my free time. Then I was busy learning choreography and creating a costume for the Fremont Summer Solstice Parade.

But, last week, in response to the question "So, are you ever going to update your blog?" I said "Next week! I swear!" And now it is Friday, and I am leaving for a week's vacation in about three hours, so it's now or never, I suppose. Now, on to my topic du jour.

Yesterday, I was pondering (read: agonizing over) the fact that I have trouble smiling with any sort of regularity when bellydancing. Since I love bellydancing, I hate it that my face does not accurately represent what is in my head and heart.

This fact is something that bothers me in a low-level sort of way, oh, constantly. But my worry has ramped up in this post-parade, pre-MedFest window. At MedFest, I am performing twice, once with my teacher and some of the other students who were also in her spring choreography class, and once solo. I've never performed at MedFest, so this is a huge deal for me.

So, about that smiling thing. Yesterday, I had an interesting thought: What if you can train your "smile muscles" just as you can train other muscles. If I make a conscious effort to go around smiling more, will it be easier to whip out the smile when the pressure is on?

Let me note that I am not a generally smiley person. When walking about (downtown, etc.) I often get people (translation: men whom I do not know) yelling out "Smile!." Little do they know that their command, rather than making me want to smile, makes me want to kick them in the nuts. But I digress.

So my experiment has two parts. One, simply to smile more during everyday goings-on. Two, when I am near a mirror, I will fix what I think is a "nice smile" on my face, then check the reality out in the mirror. I'm aiming for something less than glassy-eyed-beauty-pageant-contestant, and something more than too-subtle-to-notice.

Of course, all of this goes deeply against my cynical nature, but one must suffer for one's art!

Blast from the semi-distant past

2008-03-20T15:04:00.000-07:00

With all the news about wheat prices going through the roof, and small bakeries feeling the financial pinch, it made me awfully glad that the idea J and I had of opening our own bakery/cafe got delayed for the indeterminate future two years ago when we decided to buy our house in Seattle.

At about this time three years ago, I was getting ready to enter baking and pastry school. Quite by chance, as I was browsing my digital photo files for a pix to use in the previous post, I came across the photos I took of the lovely cakes I made in my advanced cakes class during my third term of school. Let's take a peek, shall we?

The first lovely pink, silver and white concoction was my first teeth-gnashing experience with fondant icing. Painting the stripes on was fun, though.

The next example (right) was my Round 2 with fondant. Went much better as I recall, in spite of the fact that the layers on this "crazy" cake came with sharp angles to smoothly fit the fondant over. FYI, in case you think any of these cakes look tasty, think again. These things were nasty. Nasty, nasty, nasty. These cakes were all about the decorating, so we baked our cake layers, used them, scraped off the icing and used them again, and again. Did I mention nasty? The crazy cake was the THIRD incarnation of those cake layers. Once this sucker was graded, I could not wait to get rid of it.

Fortunately, I got to start fresh for this lovely buttercream number (left). (Did I mention we scraped and reused a lot of buttercream frosting, too. Nope, didn't think I had. Again, not tasty. It's all about appearances, people.)

But wait! Ms. Square Cake Layers got tired of her outfit. She needed a makeover...a Chocolate Ganache makeover! What can I say about ganache? How about, "tastes great, is a bitch to pour." Those truffles on tier 1 and 3 were old, recycled ganache, which didn't stop students from another class from eating half of them in the several days the cake sat unattended between classes. Nice!

Ms. Square had one more grading party to go to, and this time she wanted to wear fondant (left). Sigh. But she really did look pretty, didn't she? Too bad that, like her circular forbearer, she was destined for the Dumpster.

Although I wouldn't stick one bite of any of these cakes in my mouth for a million dollars (well, maybe if that million dollars came with a course of antibiotics), I can assure you that some of my work that term was both beautiful and infinitely edible.

Behold...bread!

Spring has sprung!

2008-03-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

It's the first full day of spring, and although the weather has been typically Seattle springlike (cool and wet, but not reliably wet, so you never know if you will really need that raincoat when you head out for work in the morning), many happier signs of spring abound.

One of the things I love about spring is the element of change. Every time I take a walk, whether around my garden or around my 'hood, something is blooming, sprouting or opening that wasn't the day before. Never a dull moment.

Even though the weather was bleh on Sunday, we got lots o' planting done at the homestead.

30 bareroot coneflowers
17 bareroot Nootka roses
12 forget-me-nots
A 4-foot row of edible peas
A 3-foot row of sweet peas
10 bunchberries (groundcover dogwoods)
10 Kinnickinnick
12 assorted gallon-size perennials from Costco
5 Camas (a NW native bulb)
1 maidenhair fern
1 hosta
24 assorted oriental lily bulbs
7 assorted dahlia bulbs

Whew!

The weather on Saturday is supposed to be respectable, so I will hopefully get the rest of my ferns (5) and hostas (11) planted, along with my annual fuchsia starts (20), one hellebore and two clematis that are still in their black plastic pots from last year.

Now that I'm starting to plant spring veggies, I need to yank out the last of the fall-winter holdouts. I feel guilty that I didn't eat more kale over the winter, but since it is still in great shape, I have plans to use up about eight cups of the nutritious greens in a fritatta and a turkey chili verde.

I've been entering everything I eat into the free nutrition calculator on Fitday, and it's been very educational to see the results. Given that many foods I eat appear on my menu repeatedly (eggs, sprouted grain bread, turkey breast, broccoli, salad greens, peppers, skim milk, cottage cheese, bananas, apples, avocados, whey protein powder, energy bars, frozen berries, whole grain cereal, nuts, olive oil, yogurt), it's interesting that some days I nearly hit the mark on all of the various important nutrients, and other days I'm way down on a few. Also, some days I seem to hit the 30-40-30 protein-carb-fat ratio effortlessly (within a percentage point or two) and on others I have to struggle to keep the carbs in check.

I figure that once I have a few more weeks of consistent food reportage logged, I can really start tweaking my menus. I'm aiming to have my weight lifting days a bit higher in calories and carbs, and my non-lifting days less on both. Once I start logging one high-mileage walking day on the weekend (for half-marathon training), I can have a higher-carb meal afterwards, too.

Tuesday's workouts:
Morning: Suhaila Salimpour's Bellydance Fitness Fusion Pilates DVD (40 minutes); Darshan's Bellydance Tribal Fusion NYC DVD (drills section, 30 minutes)
Lunch: 4-mile walk

Tuesday's food overview:
1786 calories (33% protein, 32% carbs, 31% fat, 5% alcohol)

Wednesday's workouts:
Morning: Rachel Brice's Yoga, Isolations and Drills DVD (30-minute workout)
After work: NROWLFW "A" workout with kickboxing warmup
Evening: Bellydance choreography class

Wednesday's food overview:
1842 calories (26% protein, 45% carbs, 29% fat)

One down, five to go

2008-03-18T17:30:00.000-07:00

Back on New Year's Eve, I posted about the six fitness-related activities I wanted to try in the next six months.

Victim #1: Snowshoeing.

I wanted to be out of the house on Saturday so I couldn't dwell on my cats' demise. So we rented snowshoes at REI and headed up to Snoqualamie Pass. (That's me with our silly golden retriever.)

Let's just say I know what I'm asking Santa (aka my mother-in-law) for this Christmas.

Fun, fun, fun.

Oh, and it's true what they say: If you can walk, you can snowshoe. Plus, it's kind of cool (in a "oh, I stood up too fast" kind of way) that when you take off your snowshoes after tromping around for a few hours, the loss of that extra foot weight make you feel like you're walking on air.

Hitting my stride

2008-03-18T17:08:00.001-07:00

Yesterday began Week 2 of my new workout agenda, and while I still feel a bit of next-day soreness, I am spared the mind-numbing ab pain of Week 1.

This is a "BAB" week, with the "B" workouts on Monday and Wednesday. Here's an overview:

Deadlift (2 sets of 15 reps)
Superset: Shoulder press (2 sets of 15) and assisted pull-ups (2 sets of 15)
Superset: Lunges (2 sets of 15 on each leg) and stability ball crunches (2 sets of 8...although I do more)

What was supposed to be one cheat meal last week turned into a smattering of cheat meals and snacks from Thursday evening through the weekend. I kind of rolled with it, since I was grieving, but I'm firmly back on track now.

Monday's workouts:
Lunchtime: 2-mile walk
After work: NROWLFW Stage 1, Workout B, with a nice little punching bag warmup

Monday's food overview:
2062 calories (21% protein, 42% carbs, 31% fat, 6% alcohol)

Farewell, my furry friends

2008-03-18T16:45:00.000-07:00

Simon (March 1993 - March 13, 2008)

Samantha (July 2003 - March 13, 2008)

My household hasn't been the happiest for the past few weeks, as we went about our daily lives while trying to decide the ultimate fate of our two beloved cats. Last Thursday, we took them both to our vet to be euthanized.

Samantha has been sick with hyperthyroidism for a few years. Medicine bought her one more good year, but she's been clearly in a state of decline since late last summer.

Simon's problems came on suddenly and shockingly. It seemed as if one day he was hale and hearty as always, the next he had dropped a significant portion of his body weight. Chronic kidney failure was his diagnosis. Although he took to his new low-protein food (he always was a carb-craver), he hated his medication, and did not like it when we gave him subcutaneous injections of fluid. He hated going the vet so much (for that reason--plus the fact that he was indoors only--we stopped taking him in for shots many years ago) that follow-up appointments would have been torture for him.

So we decided to end it before they had a chance to suffer more than we could tell they already were. The vet prepped each cat with a different type of sedative, since they each had such different temperaments. Then the end came peacefully.

I adopted both cats as tiny shelter kittens when J and I were still just dating. Samantha was a friend to all who crossed our threshold. Simon's highly evolved sense of irrational fear meant that he perceived threats where there were none. So while he was a big loving baby with J and I (with the world's loudest purr), he was known for trapping real estate agents in corners and attacking visiting family in stairwells and hallways.

I don't envy anyone who has had to go through this. Five days later, I miss them and expect to see them in their regular spots. But I feel I made the right decision, and I'm glad they never suffered acutely. Most of all, I'm thankful for the nearly 15 years of memories they left me with. (Damn, here go the waterworks again.)

I know all cat owners think their cats are the best cats ever. Sorry to disappoint you, but mine were the best. Totally.

Rest in peace, my fluffies.

Sowing the seeds of love

2008-03-11T21:05:00.000-07:00

The combination of J's whimpering of "when are you going to plant lettuces" AND the fact that I actually meant to plant the first spring veggies last weekend AND a sunny window of opportunity in a day of very changeable weather forced me outside after work (at home today and after getting a pot of beef daube simmering on the stove.

One hour of work (and one hour of worrying that gusts of wind would blow my precious seeds away) allowed me to sow:

Cabbage ("Ruby Ball" and "Derby Day")
Broccoli ("Small Miracle")
Swiss chard ("Rainbow")
Wild Arugula
Spinach ("Teton")
Endive (frisee)
Wild garden mustards
Cilantro
Lettuce (a mix)

All seed (except the cilantro) was from Territorial Seeds. While I drool over many seed catalogs, I trust Territorial the most, since their research gardens are, like my garden, in the Pacific Northwest, west of the Cascade Mountains (albeit in Oregon's Willamette Valley, which does have slightly warmer summers than Seattle).

Since this year I am trying to garden according to the phases of the moon and other astrological signs (sounds kooky, I know, but I think there is actually something to it), I have to grab my planting windows when I can, which can be hard this time of year when said windows may be filled with soaking rain. Today was one of the best days of the month for planting, period, and it was in the right moon phase for planting crops that grow mostly above ground. So, whew, I'm glad I managed to get it done!

Kickin' my own butt

2008-03-11T20:28:00.000-07:00

I started a new weight lifting routine yesterday, courtesy of my new bible, The New Rules of Lifting for Women: Lift Like a Man, Look Like a Goddess.

You wouldn't think that a workout with only five exercises could leave a person whimpering the next day, yet begging for more. But I'm telling you it can.

The premise of the workout plan is that you work all the muscles in your body three days a week (alternating days). You won't find a bicep curl, calf raise or tricep extension in the bunch. Instead, you do big moves that work multiple muscles.

Here's an overview of the "A" workout from Stage 1:

Squat (2 sets of 15 reps)
Superset: Pushups (2 sets of 15 reps) and bent barbell row (2 sets of 15)
Superset: Lunges (2 sets of 15) and a wicked stability ball ab exercise (2 sets of 8)

Oh, how my abs and chest are complaining this morning. In a good way, of course.

The book offers 6 months of workouts, changing things every several weeks to keep the muscles guessing. I'm also following the nutrition guidance in the book, since building a better body has perhaps more to do with good nutrition than it does with exercise.

Although I'm at a weight I am OK with, I want to build muscle and reduce body fat. I took a big leap of faith yesterday and had J photograph me in a bikini, front, side and back views. Much better than it would have been 48 pounds ago, but there is still work to be done. And having a series of photographs as a visual tracker will be valuable.

Monday's workouts:
Morning: Rachel Brice's Tribal Fusion - Yoga Isolations & Drills for Bellydance (30 minute practice)
After work: NROWLFW Stage 1, Workout A

Monday's food overview (aiming for 30% protein, 40% carbs, 30% fat):
2126 calories (26% protein, 38% carbs, 32% fat, 4% alcohol)

Tuesday's workouts:
Morning: Disc 1 of Sacred Bellydance (90 minutes)
Noon: 4-mile brisk walk

Tuesday's food overview:
1888 calories (31% protein, 26% carbs. 32% fat, 11% alcohol)
Should not have had that pre-dinner cocktail...

I want chickens, yes I do

2008-03-09T16:50:00.000-07:00

J and I took a drive to the Evergreen State Fairgrounds in Monroe to pick-up our pre-ordered plants from the Snohomish County Conservation District's annual native plant sale (which is has a better selection than the one in my own county). We picked up 25 Nootka roses, 30 coneflowers, five Pacific rhododendrons, 10 kinnickinnick, 10 bunchberry (aka groundcover dogwood) and six ferns. Then, as if that wasn't enough, we paid for five camas bulbs, five native lupine, two evergreen huckleberries and five fir trees (all of these are small plant starts, mind).

And THEN, as if all THAT wasn't enough, we stopped at Flowerworld and bought two conifers (for the large pots on our newly finished front entry porch), a cute lime green conifer for a pot on the back patio (because it needs frost protection), 12 English daisies, 12 forget-me-nots and 24 fuchsia starts. Then we stopped at Molbaks and bought pansies and "feet" for the aforementioned front porch pots.

Where I will put all of these plants, I do not know. Arrgghhh!

But back to the title of this post. Immediately after the native plant sale pick-up, we stopped at a farm supply store next to the fairgrounds to buy some metal fence posts so we can rein in our raspberry bed. I was in no way prepared for the dozens of adorable tiny chicks. A whole room full of huge galvanized metal tubs, outfitted with bedding, heat lamps and water dishes, and filled with adorable baby chicks! Did I say ADORABLE?

Now, J and I a planning to build a small chicken coop at some point, but were hesitant about where we would get the chicks (reputable mail-order businesses require a minimum of a 25-chick order, or 22 more chicks than we need). Now we have that part figured out. So I am dreaming of the day when we can have our own Buff Orpington (above) and Barred Rock (below). And all the fresh eggs we can eat. Yum.

(Photos taken from the fabulous McMurray Hatchery Web site.)

Bellydance goodness

2008-03-09T16:16:00.000-07:00

It was with some regret that I let three great bellydance workshops pass me by so far this year, so I was extra excited for today's workshop with Kami Liddle of the Bellydance Superstars. (Photo of Kami below is from the BDSS Web site, fyi.)

About half of the three-hour workshop was movement drills, and I picked up a few bits of very valuable information.

One was the correct muscles to be contracting to tip the pelvis backwards (the gluteus medius, which are, in basic terms, located above the large gluteus maximus muscles but below the lower back). Her attention to good form and posture was excellent, in both example and explanation of why it is so important (so we can all still be dancing when we're 110 years old!).

The other is something she learned from Carolena Nerricio (creator of American Tribal Style Belly Dance (ATS) and director of Fat Chance Belly Dance), which is that it takes eight minutes of drilling a certain movement to create "muscle memory" for that movement. Dancers want muscle memory because once you have it, you can use proper technique while performing without consciously thinking about what muscles to contract. This will definitely change the way I do movement drills at home.

After drills, she taught us an advanced-level combo from a choreography she did for Bellydance Superstars (and one that they are currently performing on tour). I can't say I nailed it perfectly on every run-through, but I kept up pretty darn well. Yay me!

Busy as a bee

2008-02-29T16:57:00.000-08:00

Seriously. We saw our first bee of the season in the garden last weekend, and since so few flowers are in bloom right now, it was indeed busy.

The last three weekends have provided enough glimpses of springlike weather (with a strange, glowing orb in the sky and temperatures above bone-chilling) that I pronounce that the 2008 gardening season has officially begun in our small homestead. J and I took a trip to a specialty nursery that stocks more varieties of rhododendrons than most people can imagine. It is a dangerous, dangerous place (it would have been more dangerous if we realized at the time that many, many varieties of Japanese maples were also to be had).

We had planned on buying only a few small rhodies (by small I mean those that max out at about 1’ x 1’ or 2’ x 2’) as evergreen anchor plants in a still-empty bed in the middle of our front yard. Well…we came home with 10. For anyone out there who things rhodies are simply big-leaved foundation shrubs (especially ubiquitous in the Pacific Northwest), the diversity in just those few plants we adopted is astounding. Big leaves, tiny leaves (1” by 1/8”), round paddle-shaped leaves, narrow pointy leaves. Flowers in shades of lemon yellow, sky blue, violet, deep red, cream, white, cotton candy pink and pink fading into white. Lovely. The largest of these will reach 3’ x 3’ over many, many years.

In case you don’t think miracles exist, we arrived home with our plant bounty and immediately put ALL OF THEM into the ground. Unheard of! We also moved three plants to the front yard from their temporary resting places (a Viburnum, a small false cypress (Chamaecyparis pisifera ‘Snow’) and a small variegated-leaved evergreen shrub whose name I can’t recall...)

It’s amazing how a few hours work can transform a landscape. Especially when the rest of our front yard already has young shrubs and trees in place, along with a lovely-even-in-winter herb border, foxgloves that never figured out it was winter, a winter vegetable patch (mostly kale, chard and beets) and masses of emerging spring bulbs.

My ambitiousness extended to planting four bags of bareroot perennials from Costco, including bleeding heart (Dicentra), maidenhair and cinnamon ferns, trillium and about 20 assorted hostas. I plugged a dozen of the hostas around the rhodies, for a nice contrast of leaf size and shape. I’ll add some deep purple columbine later, along with three hellebores I picked up at Costco last night (I also picked up a bag of 12 variegated-leaf hostas [after swearing up, down and sideways to J that I had actual spots for them] and a flowering pear tree that has a narrow enough mature width for our fenced side yard.).

A lovely line of coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea)will flow on the street side of the rhody bed, once we pick them up from a conservation district native plant sale next week.

Indoors, most of my tomato seeds have sprouted (except for holdout Koralik...not sure what it's waiting for) and I hope to see action from my pepper and eggplant seeds any day now. With grow lights glowing from the basement 24-7, I'm sure our neighbors must think we're growing pot. Heh, heh.

Gratuitous dog photo

2008-02-28T21:16:00.000-08:00

Yep, this is my golden retriever. Photo taken Sunday, when he was getting in my way as I was trying to take garden photos. He clearly believed that I was only out on the patio to see him and photograph his gorgeousness. Self-centered beast.

I meant to post more tonight, but I have to go watch Lost. Will fulfill intentions tomorrow, for I have many secrets to tell...

(Old-)fashion(ed) obession

2008-02-09T17:55:00.000-08:00

Last night J and I watched Sweet Land (excellent, I highly recommend) and this morning I watched the rest of Northanger Abbey off Tivo while I drank my coffee. These two viewings unexpectedly spawned a burning desire to adopt some of the fashions of decades long past.

In Sweet Land, I fell head over heels with young Inge's traveling outfit of circa 1920 deep purple above-ankle-length (wool?) gored skirt and fitted black puff-sleeved jacket. I drooled over her black brimmed hat with the purple and black polka-dotted scarf tied around it. If you want to see the outfit in all its glory, visit the movie's clips page and watch Clip 2. Sigh.

I think the skirt from Folkwear pattern 232 will do nicely. The jacket may be more problematic. But where there's a will, there's a way!

I always yearn for Regency-era fashion a bit whenever I watch a Jane Austen movie, but that familiar pull was especially acute as I watched Northanger Abbey. I particularly fancied the jackets, especially the cute little Spencer jacket in light blue velvet. Fortunately this recreation will be a bit easier, thanks to this pattern from (the aptly named) Sense and Sensibility. For Jane-worthy gowns, I like their "The Lady's Elegant Closet" pattern, as well as Folkwear pattern 215.

An accidental obsession occurred while looking for the Spencer jacket pattern. I stumbled over a little selection of patterns collectively called "Women of the Middle Bustle Era: 1877-1882." I'm especially fond of the elaborately draped skirts that don't actually require a bustle.

Sigh, I think I'm in love.

Thrifty genes

2008-02-05T14:17:00.000-08:00

I’ve inherited many traits from my mother. My eye and hair colors. My body type. My extreme nearsightedness (we’re talking blind as a bat, people). My tendency to talk with my hands. And, last but not least, my love of thrift store shopping.

I can’t pinpoint my first thrift store experience, but since my mother and her mother thrifted before I can remember (and probably long before I was born), it was with undoubtedly by the side of one or the other (if not both).

I do have distinct grade-school memories of visiting my grandmother’s home in the San Francisco Bay Area and walking to nearby thrift stores, and taking BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) to others. I was always thrilled with my clothing finds, because even at that age, I liked that I had something that no other kid in my class would have.

(Come to think of it, my grandfather was a thrifter, too. About five years ago, my grandmother gave me a partial set of Mikasa china. I finally asked her about its provenance last fall. It turns out my grandfather [who died when I as a child] had pieced together that incomplete collection from thrift stores! Of course, at the time my grandmother was all, “Why do we need more china?”)

Through the years, I continued to thrift store shop with Mom and Grandmother, then with friends in high school and college. One of my first jobs out of college, as a poorly paid reporter at a weekly newspaper in a small western Oregon town, was luckily within two blocks of a decent Goodwill. My editor (a friend who graduated a year ahead of me) and I knew exactly when new shipments came in, and made sure to take a break to hit the racks, unless news was breaking (ha!). One of my best finds was an Anne Klein double breasted suit jacket, which I wore for years.

Then I moved to the Midwest, followed by two years in New Jersey, and I abandoned thrifting altogether (and I was an hour from NYC…what was I thinking?!).

When I took up bellydance with a vengeance four years ago, I started making occasional forays into a Goodwill here, a Value Village there, to look for velvet tops and long, full skirts suitable for class or costuming.

My official return to thrifting was the day after Thanksgiving last year. J had to work; I did not. I was able to go to Goodwill by myself (we use our car very little and tend to group our errands, so he was always with me on previous trips) with the time and space to roam the racks and sift the wheat from the chaff. You know how you can not see a good friend for what feels like forever, and then take up exactly where you left off. Yep, me and thrifting.

My friend Goodwill was especially good to me on my one appointed January thrifting trip (in accordance with my Wardrobe Refashion pledge). For $80 and change (including tax) I got 22 items of clothing:

Three cute cardigans (pink cotton, red cotton, charcoal merino wool)
Three hoodies (red velour, olive velour, charcoal knit)
Two pink striped shirts (Eddie Bauer and American Eagle)
Green washable suede jacket
Green Gap zip-front short raincoat
Summery hip-length, ¾-sleeve jacket in shades of blue and green
Cozy nubby fleece jacket
Black ribbed merino wool turtleneck
Deep red nubby wool Eddie Bauer sweater set
Striped I.N.C sweater
Olive green rib-knit V-neck sweater
Blue cropped sweater perfect for bellydance class
Crazy striped sweater with bell sleeves
Burgundy long-sleeved Ann Taylor crew-neck T
Lime green ribbed boat-neck T
White button-down shirt with stripes of black stitching
Red/black brocade button-front vest

Items in italics were a mere 99 cents each (red tags). The others were 30 percent off of their tagged price (blue and green tags). Bold items need some refashioning (just new buttons in one case). I have my February trip planned for the big President's Day sale, when Goodwill has the same 99 cent/30 percent off arrangement going. Good times!

Pix of a few items are on my Flickr page. I'll include one or two in this post later...

Tranformation with a capital T

2008-01-29T16:19:00.000-08:00

I've become quite enamored with Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-Shirt, which I checked out from the library but now must actually purchase. I ran my first test projects by raiding my stack of "too baggy but maybe still OK for gardening" T-shirts. I also plucked two nearly new Old Navy Perfect Fit Ts for good measure (I bought them last year while losing weight and they fit me properly for about two nanoseconds before failing to be my perfect fit).

My first guinea pig was a turquoise heather ONPF T, which I transformed into the stegosaurus T (number 33 in the book, "tying game"). All it required was cutting off the sleeves, hem and neck, making one vertical cut all the way up center back, then making a series of 3-inch horizontal cuts 1+ inches apart on both sides of the center cut, then tie a bunch of knots and you're in business.

My pink ONPF T got a different treatment (number 19 in the book, "fermez la ruche"). I started by (again) saying "bye-bye" to sleeves, neck and hem. Then, I stitched new side seams 1" from the existing seam. That extra seam allowance became casings for drawstrings made from the few inches of T I cut from the bottom. Cute! A detail photo of the ruching is on my Flickr page.

When I lived in Belltown and had a P-Patch (community garden) plot, I bought a P-Patch T-shirt because I liked the color and graphics. What I didn't like was that it was a man's-style T. Now that it was even baggier than ever, I never wore it. But now, minus mannish sleeves and too-long hem, plus two new side seams to nip it in, I think I will wear it quite a lot (it's number 14, "classic punk"). I gave a similar treatment to a really baggy white V-neck (keeping the original) neck, but felt it was to utilitarian to bother photographing.

Next up: Let's see how many items of clothing I can make from a super-soft thick brushed cotton long-sleeve T of Js in a great color of red that surprisingly has barely faded (J bought it back when he still tended to wear his shirts and sweaters on the big side; now that he wears sleeker clothing , he's purging his closet). I'm aiming for a little skirt, legwarmers, hat and arm warmers.

I (heart) refashioning

2008-01-24T22:17:00.000-08:00

Being out of town last weekend put a crimp in my refashioning activities, but I managed to finish a pair of arm warmers made from a beloved black- and white-striped T-shirt that had an unfortunate stain on the front. I have enough scraps left to make some sort of headband, when I get around to that. My Wardrobe Refashion pledge is really keeping me motivated, I'll tell ya.

I also whipped up a olive green panne velvet skirt that's great over yoga pants for bellydance class, or as one element in a tribal fusion-style costume. The velvet wasn't a color I usually choose (it looked slightly different online), but it looks vibrant against black, and the price was right: $3 for the one yard when the previous owners of denverfabrics.com were clearing out inventory to make way for new owners last fall. I have additional photos on my Flickr page, including some with the skirt layered under similar skirts made of black burnout velvet and gray/silver fishnet. There are also two fuzzy photos of the costume I made for the Fremont Arts Council Winter Solstice Feast (where I bellydanced with burning candles and managed to not spill wax or break the snifters holding the candles...whoo-hoo!).

The skirts are my approximation of the Rosehips skirts made by Rose Harden, formerly of the troupe Ultra Gypsy. I'm a committed DIYer and have no ethical problem copying other people's designs for myself (never to sell!), but I like to give credit, especially when the designer is a one-woman operation.

Back to the books

2008-01-22T14:42:00.000-08:00

Even though I've reached a number on the scale that I can totally live with, I've decided it's time to buckle down and really clean up my eating. I don't care if I lose another pound, but I can tell where I have muscle and where I still have excess body fat. I do care about gaining the former and losing the latter.

One important tool that helped me kick almost 50 pounds to the curb last year was The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person. It's not a diet; rather, it works with any eating plan you choose (healthy, please).

Some of the daily assignments made me think "duh, I already know this," but let me tell you, there were many that made me open my eyes and see the light bulb going off over my head. Finally I got it: hunger is NOT an emergency and mindless eating is bad, bad, BAD!

Some things in the book were totally new and revolutionary to me. Others were nothing new, but something about the way they were explained finally broke through my mental barriers. I formed some great, healthy new habits and didn't feel much pain doing it.

However, I've noticed in the last month or so that I'm slipping into that sense of complacency that comes once the weight is lost. That feeling that I don't have to watch what I eat so carefully. Fortunately, this time I was prepared for it. That feeling came around every time I've lost weight in the past, why would this time be any different. What is different, is I've got Dr. Beck's book on my side. I probably won't work through every daily exercise (six weeks worth), but I will review the ones that I know are sticking points.

The only women's fitness magazine I regularly enjoy is Oxygen. While I don't like all the ads for fat-burning supplements and whatnot, Oxygen is heavy on the fitness and nutrition content, light on beauty and fashion (which I get from Vogue, thank you very much). Well, Oxygen wouldn't be Oxygen without regular contributing editor Tosca Reno, who has a small list of books to her name, including two recent books on clean eating. I just added one title, The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook: Great-Tasting Recipes That Keep you Lean, to my personal cookbook library (which I really need to inventory one of these days...).

I started cooking from it last night, preparing the Crock-Pot Porridge. It was nice to have a hot breakfast ready and waiting for me after my morning workout. Adding unsweetened applesauce instead of brown sugar will take a little getting used to, but it was tasty. And totally healthy. Tonight's dinner will be Country Style Beef Soup, which I picked mainly because I can use one of the packages of soup bones from the 100 pounds of grass-fed steer we have in our freezer. Oddly, I've had a hard time finding recipes that call for beef soup bones. I can also use up the rest of the cubed butternut squash in the freezer, as well as one pack of the frozen edamame from Costco and a few of the turnips still braving the cold in my garden.

Really, this is one of the few cookbooks from which I will probably make every single recipe. I'll just have to be a bit sneaky with the tofu recipes (sorry, J!).

Anticipation is making me wait...for spring

2008-01-18T15:03:00.000-08:00

I am so ready for spring. And not just because Mother Nature is cackling as she sends temperatures in Seattle plunging again. It’s because I placed my annual spring seed order with Territorial Seeds this week. I can’t wait for them to arrive (My preeeecioussss...).

Of course, in planning my order, I ran smack dab into one of my most tormenting addictions: heirloom winter squash seeds. I thought I had it licked, but I guess my change in location was just a temporary salve.

You see, my previous house (about an hour north of Seattle) was on a half-acre lot. We had a HUGE vegetable garden. With all the space in the world for whatever my little seed-planting soul desired. Couple that with the fact that I think most vegetables are as pretty as they are edible, and you can see how I got led into temptation.

Winter squash wasn’t my only trouble. Summer squash was tough, too. And do you have any idea how many pretty heirloom pole beans there are? Do you? Then there were the lettuces: oak leaf, ruffled leaf, tongue-shaped leaf, butter head, speckled…the list REALLY goes on and on.

One thing about lettuces, pole beans and summer squash is that they don’t take up TOO much room. You can’t say that about winter squash. Boy, can those babies sprawl! So beautiful, too. In fact, almost too beautiful to actually eat… . (Don’t even get J started on this point. Boy, do I still hear about it!)

When we moved to Seattle’s urban core and had only small community garden plots to call our own, sheer space constraints pushed any thoughts of planting winter squash off the table. The space situation isn’t a whole lot better with the veggie plot that takes up most of the plantable area in our current back garden…but there’s a new twist to the plot this year. (Accidental pun alert: story plot…garden plot.)

When we turned our front yard from a sloping lawn to a leveled-off, retaining wall encased garden last year, most of the trees and shrubs we planted were small, to save on $ (since plants do grow, often faster than you know). So we have lots of bare space right now. Space where winter squash vines could quite happily meander.

Yes, when I realized this, I did have to be careful not to hyperventilate.

I felt pretty good, limiting myself to only four varieties of winter squash + one pumpkin, but J made me remove one from my online shopping cart [sniff]. The one I am most excited about, my non-negotiable, is Marina di Chioggia. This squash first crossed my radar years ago, but it became a must-have when I read Barbara Kingsolver’s account of encountering it in its natural habitat (Italy) in “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.”

I’m also pretty pleased with my pumpkin pick, Fairytale. I’ll also be planting some Small Sugar pumpkin seeds I already have.

2008 is going to be my best vegetable garden year ever (well, to date). With a smaller urban yard, and no guerilla gardening to be done this year (digging ditches, removing sod, putting in a side yard where once there was driveway), I can focus on my vegetable babies. Hey, spring! Hurry the heck up, will ya?

What I'm reading

2008-01-15T11:16:00.000-08:00

One of my must-read sections in the Sunday New York Times is the Sunday Book Review (runner up to Sunday Style, fyi). Each week, I get, if nothing else, a sort of Cliff's Notes version of books that are interesting, but I know I'll never read. Most weeks yield at least a few candidates for my "To Read" list. On a good week, I'll discover one for my "To Read A.S.A.P." list.

Tom Perrotta's "The Abstinence Teacher" swiftly made that list. Of course, with the NY Times practically hitting me over the head with it (great review plus author articles/interviews in two other sections the same week), how could it not?

If you're not familiar with Mr. Perrotta, he wrote the "Little Children: A Novel," as well as the screenplay for the fabulous movie adaptation. He also wrote the novel "Election," from which the hilarious movie was made. I'm about one-third through "Abstinence" and one of the things I'm enjoying immensely (as I did with "Little Children") is how human his characters are. You may not agree with their opinions, or even their actions, but their humanity shines through. No character is perfect; no character is irredeemable. Each has their hopes, dreams and desires and is trying to live life the best way they can, stumbling a little or a lot along the way. And aren't we all?

Also, Perrotta's characters aren't caricatures. Sometimes, you think you're seeing a caricature, but then you're shown another side, and you realize that, as in life, first impressions aren't always accurate impressions. This depth of characterization is especially effective when dealing with topics as polarizing as the those in "Abstinence": Sex ed vs. abstinence ed; evangelical Christianity vs. everyone else.

I just finished reading another find from Book Review, this time from an ad (yes, sometimes it is OK to judge a book by it's cover). "New Moon" is the second book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. Thumbnail series sketch: Teenage girl (Isabella Swan) moves to Forks, Washington to live with her police chief father and falls in love with a teenage vampire (Edward Cullen). Complications ensue. I won't say more about that, because it would involve spoilers.

I'm not an across-the-board fan of the vampire fiction genre. That said, Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian" was one of the best books I read last year, and I've recommended it to several people who read and loved it as much as I did. What I enjoy so much about the Twilight books is similar to what I enjoy about Harry Potter: vicariously reliving teen angst through the experiences of intelligent fictional characters who are placed in an environment that is on one hand pure fantasy and on the other hand totally normal.

A movie version of the first book, "Twilight," is in the works. Ironically, the actor cast to play the dreamy teen vamp is Robert Pattinson, who played Cedric Diggory in two of the HP movies.

Leapin' leopards, part 1

2008-01-13T19:36:00.000-08:00

This weekend I finished my first few projects for my Wardrobe Refashion pledge. Two are in the photo at right. The leopard-print fleece jacket is from Butterick retro pattern 4928. I purchased the fabric last fall on sale at fabric.com. I opted to not line the jacket, since the fleece feels so cozy. The fabric cost $14.60, and I still have some sizable scraps left to use on some other small projects (an ear-protecting headband, for example). Thread was the only other cost.

Also pictured are a pair of flat-front denim trousers that I had all-but-finished three months ago. I finally finished hemming them and tacking down the waistband lining. The dark stretch denim was a steal at $1.95 a yard from fabric.com (yes, I do love them very much). Including zipper, thread and bias tape, these cost me maybe $6 to make.

I also finished refashioning a light gray, slightly metallic lightweight sweater set I bought at Goodwill for $5. I shortened the thin straps on the shell by 4 inches, making it look less like a strappy tank, more like a sleeveless square-necked shell. I took in the too-big cardigan along the sleeve and side seams to make it fit a little closer. Photos of that project, along with a front view and pattern envelope view of the leopard jacket are posted on my Flickr page.

Up next: I have a whole slew of Goodwill purchase that have refashioning written all over them. Plus, I just got a book on T-shirt refashioning from the library, so I have many T's that should be looking very different, very soon.

Ready, set...garden!

2008-01-13T19:13:00.000-08:00

I bet you didn't know it, but today was the first day of my gardening season. It was the first weekend day of 2008 with no rain, so J and I jumped on the chance to do a little tidying around the old homestead.

It's amazing what a difference plucking up the kazillion tiny weeds that were growing JUST TO SPITE ME and laying down a layer of Zoo Doo can do to make the garden look almost springtime fresh.

We got enough Doo out of the plastic-covered pile on our driveway to actually reclaim a few feet for, you know, parking. I planted the last 240 of the, again, kazillion flower bulbs I bought last fall. Better late than never. They were tiny bulbs so the planting went fast, thank god, because my fingers were half frozen (maybe that was my just punishment for being so neglectful to them).

I trimmed back last year's now-dead top growth on the coreopsis, veronica and echinacea (but not on the foxgloves...I swear those things don't know it's winter). J cut back the canes in the fall raspberry bed and I started cleaning up the strawberry bed...until we called it a day for early cocktail hour. Can't work TOO hard, now.

Full disclosure

2008-01-12T11:13:00.001-08:00

I shun most (ahem) reality shows, as I feel they are as addictive and unhealthy as any drug. So it was a big decision for me to start watching the new season of “The Biggest Loser.” I don’t really know why I decided to watch; it just felt like a natural thing to do. I don’t regret that decision, because, let me tell ya, it’s been a kick in the pants. I’ve never walked in the shoes of these contestants, but I’ve been close. Too close.

May 2003: Weight 224 pounds. At a height of 5-feet-7, that translates to a body mass index of 35.1. Otherwise known as obese. My intentions to “do something” about those excess pounds meant little until I truly had an “enough is enough” moment. I join Gold’s Gym. Five mornings a week I lift weights and power through 45-60 minutes on the elliptical trainer. I clean up my eating habits a bit, too. 40 pounds slip off. At 184 pounds, my BMI is 28.8. Straddling the fine line between obese and overweight.

March 2004: I move away from the ‘burbs and the gym, to the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle. I use my apartment building’s gym sporadically, walk our golden retriever daily, and manage to keep off most of those 40 pounds (in spite of nine months in pastry school).

October 2006. In a moment of stupidity, I do a bang up job of breaking my left ankle in our house of six months. My orthopedic surgeon informs me that during my recovery (six weeks on crutches, then six more in a walking cast) I will gain weight and lose fitness. How ironic that I was once again “gearing up” to lose weight when my little accident occurred.

Losing fitness I couldn’t argue about (I mean, I couldn’t even MOVE much). But I was NOT going to gain a bunch of weight. My OS said that his patients think they will just eat less to compensate for their decreased physical activity but end up eating more…because they have nothing else to do.

At this point let me mention that my crutches and I did not get along. At all. During that six weeks, I only left the house for doctor’s appointments and for Thanksgiving (I telecommuted). I developed a revolving set of muscle and joint pains from hauling myself up and down the stairs (on my butt, mind you).

What a blessing in disguise. If you can’t cope with crutches, you really can’t cope with carrying anything while on crutches. Including food. That helped prevent my weight from ballooning. I also realized if I was having that hard of a time getting around, what would happen if a similar situation occurred 10 years down the road?

I believe now, more than ever, that most people won’t make a serious change in their life unless they hit some kind of rock bottom. My rock bottom came in two phases: 2003, and 2006, when I literally hit the bottom of the stairs!

I made a serious plan. I started eating better immediately (with help from J, since I wasn’t up to cooking). I began exercising as soon and as much as I could. I installed a basic home gym in the basement (well, J did the heavy lifting). I read diet and nutrition books to help build an eating plan designed for both health and weight loss. I studied up on the psychology of eating and weight loss. I was ready.

February 2007: Less than a month out of my walking cast, I buy a scale. 192 pounds. Back to obese. I clock the mileage on what I thought was a “long” walk. Just over two miles. Not long enough. Not even close. I decide to walk a half-marathon in November. I choose a training plan from Walking Magazine The Complete Guide To Walking: for Health, Fitness, and Weight Loss. My mileage increases weekly (peaking at 30 miles/week). I steadily lose weight (about 1.5 pounds per week average).

January 2008: I have been in the 143-145 range for the last three months. BMI of 22.6, mid-range in the “normal weight” category. My doctor tells me not to lose more weight (which I think is insane, but more on this later…)

The funny thing is that, for me, losing the weight wasn’t hard. Sure, sometimes it’s hard to find the time or motivation to exercise, sometimes it’s hard to say no to free office donuts. But I never starved myself, never worked out to the point of exhaustion. I never worked hard at the weight loss. I worked smart. I worked steadily. I wish I had done it sooner, but I don’t dwell on that, because this time I know it is for keeps. It’s not just about looking better in clothes. It’s about being as fit and healthy as I can possibly be.

Business as usual

2008-01-08T14:26:00.000-08:00

This is the first week in about a month and a half when my fitness routine is running like clockwork. Honestly, it feels great. I was pretty good about keeping up with workouts in the month leading up to the holidays, but let's be frank, there was some slippage.

In case you're curious, here's a basic rundown of my weekly exercise schedule.

Monday
5:30 a.m.: Rachel Brice's Tribal Fusion - Yoga Isolations & Drills for Bellydance OR yoga on my own
Noon: Casual 2-mile walk
5:30 p.m.: Weight training (legs, lower back, abs)

Tuesday
5:30 a.m.: Bellydance for Beginners with Suhaila: Fitness Fusion Pilates and weight training (Deltoids, trapezius, biceps, triceps. I skip abs, because the DVD has an abs segment.)
Noon: 4-mile training walk
5 p.m.: Bellydance - Tribal Fusion NYC OR Tribal Fusion Bellydance with Sharon Kihara

Wednesday
5:30 a.m.: Rachel Brice's Tribal Fusion - Yoga Isolations & Drills for Bellydance or yoga on my own
Noon: Casual 2-mile walk
Evening: Bellydance class du jour

Thursday
5:30 a.m.: Bellydance for Beginners with Suhaila: Fitness Fusion Buns and weight training (chest, back, rear deltoids, abs)
Noon: 4-mile training walk
5 p.m.: Contemporary Bellydance and Yoga Conditioning with Ariellah OR Rachel Brice: Bellydance Arms and Posture

Friday
5:30 a.m.: Rachel Brice's Tribal Fusion - Yoga Isolations & Drills for Bellydance or yoga on my own
Noon: Casual 2-mile walk
5:30 p.m.: Weight training (legs, lower back, abs)

Saturday
5+ mile training walk
Weight training (deltoids, trapezius, biceps, triceps, abs)

Sunday
4-mile training walk
Weight training (chest, back, rear deltoids, abs)

Extras
I usually fit in at least one additional DVD from my bellydance library in the course of the weekend.

I too want some U2

2008-01-03T15:54:00.001-08:00

You would think that having seen U2 live in concernt four times and owning all of their DVDs (including the DVD of their July 4, 1987 Paris concert from the extra-special edition box set of the remastered "The Joshua Tree" [thanks J...I mean Santa]) would be enough. Well, you would be wrong.

Wardrobe Refashion Pledge

2008-01-03T10:25:00.000-08:00

Seeing as I have amassed such a stash of lovely fabric that I can't even fit it in a steamer trunk (yes, I have an ancient steamer trunk in my sewing/yoga/bellydance room, so I mean this literally), it seems prudent to actually turn the fabric into wearable apparel. How fortunate that I tripped across a blog that offers the motivation to toss myself off the retail/consumer treadmill and onto the road of creative clothing expression, aka refashioning. To that end, I gladly take this pledge:

I, Kate, pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 6 months. I pledge that I shall refashion, renovate or recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovated, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that thy thriftyness brings!

As an addendum to this pledge, I vow not to purchase any new fabric, unless I need it to complete a project for which I have the other materials needed. I also vow to limit my trips to Goodwill or other thrift stores to one per calendar month for the duration of this pledge.

Note: In case you're curious, the Wardrobe Refashion pledge does allow for the purchase of new shoes and undergarments, although pledgers are encouraged to take a stab at making those themselves, too!

This pledge technically took effect January 1. I'll have you know that it was quite difficult to not walk into Banana Republic yesterday to check out their sale. But I abstained, like a good little refashionista. Yay me!

Six in six

2007-12-31T08:31:00.000-08:00

2008 will be the first year in a looong time that one of my New Year resolutions will not need to be "lose weight." Which, really, is freaking amazing. However, because "weight loss maintenance" is such a boring and static idea, I am challenging myself to become fitter than ever in 2008.

I will of course continue to do the activities that helped me get to where I am today. That would be walking (20 miles a week minimum), weight lifting (mixing up my exact routine every 6-8 weeks to keep my muscles guessing), bellydancing (live classes and DVDs) and yoga (which I want to actually do more of).

Each of these activities is fantastic, and I love all of them enough to spend many hours a week doing them. But my personal idea of fitness means having the strength, endurance and flexibility to move any which way with relative confidence and little-or-no delayed-onset muscle soreness the next day.

I arrived at this notion gradually over the summer and fall. We did a heavy renovation of our garden, which involved digging and hoeing a lot of heavily compacted soil. Let's just say that traditional ab workouts have got nothing on sustained shoveling. Then this fall, when I had been weight lifting for several months and was looking and feeling pretty darn good, I was humbled by the load of Zoo Doo we shoveled into, then out of, the back of a pickup truck. This time it was my shoulders. No injuries, but lots of the kind of pain that says "you got a serious workout."

At first, I thought I might have trouble coming up with six activities (I chose that number because it meant an average of one new activity per month). I ended up needing to cull a few (although I might do them anyway). Here are my winners:

Snowshoeing. I can't cross-country ski without falling on my behind continuously, so I think this winter activity might be more up my alley. I've read that "if you can walk, you can snowshoe." We'll see about that.

Hooping. A woman I watched hoop at an event last month was fit and toned and sleekly muscular. Plus, you can make your own hoops and decorate them with pretty, sparkly tape. A hot bod and DIY possiblities? Sign me up!

Shadowboxing. I use this term because I have no interest in actually sparring with another person. I bought an 80-pound heavy bag a few months ago on sale, and J finally installed it in the basement for me yesterday. I tried out some basic punches and kicks (with two books for guidance on form). Fun, fun, fun.

American Tribal Style bellydance. This is one area where my bellydance education has been lacking. Now that there is an officially certified ATS instructor near my neighborhood, I figure I have no more excuses.

Shovelglove. This set of exercises, created at home by a guy who was itching for a non-gym workout, uses a sledgehammer for weight, working muscles in a way that traditional weightlifting exercises won't. I think working these into my routine will pay off next time I have to unload Zoo Doo.

Kayaking. When I'm walking along the shore of Lake Washington during pleasant weather, I always envy the glide of the kayakers across the water. Plus, I figure it will be a killer arm workout.

Top 10 tasty bites

2007-12-18T14:20:00.000-08:00

J's and my joint devotion to, nay obsession with, "Kitchen Nightmares" naturally leads to conversations about various facets of restaurantdom, including gross hygiene violations, decor and menu. That got me thinking about my favorite places to eat in Seattle.

It was HARD to limit it to 10, people. I decided I had to exclude bakeries from this list, or I would still be whittling. I've been to all but two of the 10 multiple times. Each of the "winners" causes me to develop either acute cravings or a dreamy look on my face when I think of them. Here they are, in alphabetical order:

Baguette Box: I know that the crispy drunken chicken baguette is their big hit, but I luvvvv the roasted pork loin with apricot aioli. And their beet salad with garlic olive oil inspired me to make my own version at home regularly.

Cafe Campagne: I've been here for brunch, lunch and dinner, and it's all good. Croque-monsieur, yum. Lamb burger with pommes frites, yum. Cassoulet, double yum. I already told my coworkers that this is where they are taking me for my birthday lunch next month so that I can order the oeufs en meurette.

Casuelitas: Everything I've sampled here is delish, but I can't bring myself to actually order anything other than the goat curry. With a mojito and some plantains on the side, please.

Dahlia Lounge/Lola (tie): These are both Tom Douglas restaurants, of course, so I don't feel I'm cheating. I am as devoted to the bread salad at Dahlia (with a lavender Dry Soda) as I am to Lola's kabob plate at lunch (with a pot of Moroccan mint tea).

India Express (510 Broadway E. on Capitol Hill): I've been there for dinner more than once, but J and I drool over the lunch buffet (but not in the buffet...that would be gross). Always delicious, always friendly efficient service.

The Kingfish Cafe: Finally (!) went here with coworkers last summer, for lunch. Was instantly smitten by their buttermilk fried chicken breast over mixed salad greens and HUGE desserts. Did I say HUGE? I'm not kidding.

Le Pichet: J and I first went here on the Fourth of July a few years ago. I think I could eat here three meals a day and be perfectly pleased.

Matt's In The Market: Finally (!) went here a few months ago (again with coworkers). I was torn between the lamb burger and the "honkin' hot" ahi tuna sandwich. Lamb won the first round, but I must go back for that tuna...

Tutta Bella: Their Columbia City location is dangerously close to my neighborhood. I love every single thing about this place. Their salads. Their pizzas. Their desserts. The cute little glasses (smaller versions of their water glasses) they serve (most) wine in.

Typhoon: I go here a lot with coworkers, and I never get tired of the green chicken curry and the lengthy tea menu.

It was a very good year

2007-12-15T21:02:00.000-08:00

I know it's not Thanksgiving, but 2007 has been a significant year for me. So, as it draws to a close, it seems fitting to declare my thanks for what I'll call my Top 10 Events of 2007. In rough chronological order, they are:

1. Successfully rehabilitated my broken ankle (broken 10/12/06, lots o' metal installed on 10/14/06).

2. Set up home gym in basement with free weights and benches purchased inexpensively on Craigslist. Renewed my commitment to serious weight lifting...as all women should!

3. Resumed weekly bellydance class, this time from a fantastic new (to me) teacher. I feel blessed that both of my long-term teachers (to date) have been top-notch.

4. Completely landscaped our previously boring front yard. Thanks to He Who Puts Up With Me (who I will refer to as "J." from this point forward) for doing the heavy lifting on that one. We're talking rock walls, et al.

5. Reconnected with my long-lost high school-to-college best friend at my 20th high school reunion. (Also: Discovered that high school-to-college boyfriend was not aging particularly well.)

6. Lost 47 pounds since February (when I could start going for proper walks again), and am now at a healthy size 8.

7. Took an amazing workshop from Amy Sigil of Unmata. Marveled at the complicated ways in which the human body can move.

8. Welcomed a healthy (albeit a bit premature) niece into the world.

9. Walked a half-marathon for the first time, and saw my months of dedicated training pay off with a good finish time.

10. Discovered my next avenue for fitness fun, after a chance encounter with a visiting hooper named Spiral.

S.L.U.T.s and slices

2007-12-15T20:36:00.001-08:00

Nothing says "holiday" like a tasty Christmas lunch of arguably the best pizza in town...especially when your boss is footing the bill.

Yesterday my department of four hoofed it from downtown to the latest outpost of the lovely Tutta Bella. We had intended to ride the S.L.U.T. (South Lake Union Trolley*, for those non-Seattleites scratching their heads and saying "What the huh?"), but after waiting for 15 minutes at its first stop in front of the Westin, we gave up and walked the several blocks (fine with me, because walking is my preferred mode of transportation). Two blocks from our destination, we passed the S.L.U.T., temporarily inoperable, and only three days into official operation. Nice.

But not as nice as lunch. I'd already enjoyed dinner at Tutta Bella's other locations in Columbia City and Wallingford, and although I prefer Columbia City for its atmosphere, the new location is also worthy.

If I could, I would eat the Insalata di Mista (fresh field greens, sweet red onions, white beans, matchstick carrots, kalamata olives, house roasted red peppers, white balsamic viniagrette and optional crumbled gorgonzola) every single day. I love that salad more than words can say. But I have to always share it, because otherwise I would be too full to savor the exquisite Neapolitan-style pizza.

On this occasion, we shared the Pizza Bianca (extra virgin olive oil, roasted garlic, oregano, roasted onions, formaggi della case, goat cheese, Grana Padano and the optional rosemary ham) and the Mediterranea (Pomodoro San Marzano, formaggi della casa, goat cheese, herb mushrooms, eggplant, fresh basil, kalamata olives and Grana Padano). I preferred the Mediterranea, but my heart still belongs to the first pizza I ever had at Tutta Bella, a September special featuring figs and a balsamic reduction. Divine, truly.

Their tiramisu (serves 2!) is out of this world, but I went for the affogato (scoop of gelato served with a double shot of Attibassi espresso). On my last trip, I followed our server's recommendation and poured the espresso over a scoop of cinnamon gelato. That flavor wasn't on the menu at this time (or this location), so I went with chocolate. Good...but the cinnamon was so much better. Mmmmm...Tutta Bella.

*For the record, in case anyone is wondering, although in our hearts the S.L.U.T. will always be, well, you know...that is no longer its official name. As soon as the horror of it's unfortunate acronym (giggle) set in, the name was promptly changed to "South Lake Union Streetcar." The name has since morphed to "Seattle Streetcar." Yawn.

Blog Abandonment

2007-12-11T14:17:00.000-08:00

You know you've let too much time elapse between posts when:

a) You become AFRAID of even looking at your blog.
b) You can't remember your blog's username and password.
c) Almost two full calendar years have elapsed.
d) Oh, heck. All of the above.

Yikes.

So here's the plan: play a bit of catch-up the rest of this month, then dive in full force with the New Year. Yeah. Sounds good.

Oh, the waiting

2006-01-27T14:34:00.000-08:00

The new year was supposed to be a time of less stress. With no more baking class 15 hours a week, I was looking forward to having more time to read, cook, create bellydance costumes out of the boxes of fabric I've accumulated.

How was I to know that there would be a hitch in that lovely plan?

Over the holiday break, He Who Puts Up With Me and I had been discussing the fact that we were getting tired of renting, in spite of the fact that we have a patio with such an excellent view of Elliot Bay (really, about the only thing our building has going for it, other than that it allows dogs). But the price of house in Seattle sent shivers up our spines. The solution, we decided? Build our own house.

The plan was to find a small lot, small enough that it was 1) not attractive to developers looking to put up more than one townhome on it, and 2) not big enough to appeal to anyone wanting to build a big house attached to a big yard.

Just a small house, we thought, with just the features we really want, and nothing we don't need. So we talked to our loan officer about construction and regular loans. Frankly, we were a bit surprised about how much we qualified for. And a little scared at how big of an mortgage payment that would entail.

Then, two days later, we were rudely awoken at 5 a.m. on a SATURDAY (!) by the fire alarms going off in our building. Another false alarm, as always. And yes, this happens a lot. So we grabbed a few more hours of unsatisfying sleep, then hauled our tired carcases out to peruse some lots for sale, mostly in Southeast Seattle.

We took an unexpected detour down a random street to avoid a police patrol car (we were driving around with expired tags...naughty, naughty), and saw a house. A lovely Dutch Colonial house with a blank slate of a yard that made my garden-loving hands start twiching with possibilities.

So much for a life of less stress. More on this later (I promise!).

Hypocrite...moi?

2006-01-03T15:56:00.000-08:00

Dodging raindrops on my way back to the office from Nordstrom, clutching my cute new Danskos and my grilled chicken cesear (for which my stomach was ardently begging), I was excited to see my favorite street musician at the corner of Fifth and Pine. I call this guy the Stevie Ray Vaughan Wanna-Be, because his sound has a strong SRV vibe, but it's probably not fair to label him like that.

Anyway, I'm crossing Pine while rummaging through my wallet for a bill or two to drop in the dude's guitar case. I get to the other side and (shocking disclosure alert!) without looking or even thinking I start to cross Fifth...against the light. Not a good idea, because there are cars coming. Honking cars. I jump back with sufficient seconds to spare, so the sickness I felt was not because of any near-death experience, but because I was guilty of hypocrisy.

All the times I verbally railed against people who just walk out in front of cars, all the moments when I extended my middle finger toward cars that have nearly run me over in crosswalks...oh, the shame. I am humbled.

Gifts that keep on giving

2006-01-03T15:25:00.000-08:00

With the exception of a box of Applets & Cotlets and a tacky cut lead crystal vase (both from the same relative), Christmas 2005 was a good year for gifts.

By that, I don't mean I hit the motherload (that would have been Christmas 2004, the year of the Kate Spade purse and the special edition U2 iPod), I mean that everything I got was something I would actually enjoy and/or use.

Some nice bottles of wine (and Johnny Walker and Tanqueray No. Ten for He Who Puts Up With Me), yummy candles, a pair of sinfully soft black leather gloves, a divine Global cheese knife, a badly needed warm scarf, better coffee mugs than the ones I already have, an adorable bracelet, a book I wanted, and cash and gift cards to buy more books I want...as well as the cute, comfy Dansko "Mariel" mary janes I picked up at Nordstrom today.

HWPUWM and I decided not to exchange gifts this year, what with last year's excess (but I don't believe for a second that it was really Santa who put that scarf and cheese knife in my stocking), but we did hit the post-Christmas sales a bit. We found steep discounts on some necessities like new bedding, but I also scored massive deals on some cute cardigans I'd been watching at Macy's, and a cheerful pink striped shirt from Banana Republic. Oh, and a silver leather case for my iPod.

Ho, ho, ho.

Out with the old, in with the new

2006-01-03T10:14:00.000-08:00

My twin resolutions (just resolutions, not New Year's resolutions, which carry too much baggage, thanks) to eat better (nine months of pastry classes have taken a bit of a toll) and to watch my pennies (so we can afford to once again become homeowners) took a flying leap this morning, when halfway through my walk to work I realized that I had left my carefully packed, tasty and healthy lunch and breakfast at home.

Drat.

Instead, it was a S'bucks scone and drip coffee to start the day. Lunch will be a chicken cesear from the Nordstroms Cafe. Oh, well.

Now that I am freed from the bonds of going to school full time while working full time (I decided to forgo my last term of pastry school, which would have started this week), I am also resolving to be a more dedicated blogger. Cross your fingers for me!

Logic

2005-11-14T10:14:00.000-08:00

OK, I've badly abandoned my blog...again. I blame the sudden onset of winter and my extreme urge to hibernate.

But enough excuses. I'm fired up. Mere moments ago, I was reading an article online about how Scott Peterson is faring one year after his conviction. The reporter asked the San Quentin prison spokesperson if the rumors were true that Peterson would be getting remarried. The spokesperson said that the prison has had no contact from anyone "expressing an interest to actaully marry him through the process that we have for death row inmates to marry."

The instant I finished reading that sentence, it hit me. Here in the United States of America, it is acceptible for someone on DEATH ROW to get married, but (in most places and cases) it is unacceptible for gay and lesbian Americans to legally marry. What the hell? You're gay, you pay your taxes, you go about your daily life without killing anyone, yet you can't legally marry the person you love. Again, what the hell?

But Scott Peterson, who CHEATED on his wife then MURDERED her and their unborn child, dumped their bodies and then LIED about it, HE can get married again if he chooses? Just because he's a straight man who would be marrying a straight woman. Where is the logic in that. Aaaarrrrggghhhhhh!

I will certainly not!

2005-10-06T11:14:00.000-07:00

If the guy who yelled at me outside a church last week was pretty brazen, he's got nothing on the fine upstanding citizen I encountered down at Pike Place Market yesterday.

I skipped down there at lunch to pick up some Asian pears and salad greens at the Wednesday organic market, then decided to hop on over to Cost Plus for walnut oil and green tea.

I'm about a block away, passing a Tully's on my left and a parked delivery truck on my right. As I pass the back end of the truck, a guy steps up onto the sidewalk. I'm not particularly paying attention to him, but I hear him say something about the scarf I'm wearing (one of my favorites...a cute leopard print I bought almost 15 years ago at Banana Republic). I keep walking, of course, and don't even make it to the end of the block before this anonymous guy screams at me an, ahem, order (I really can't call it a request) to perform a certain intimate act on him. And he punctuates the order by calling me a bitch.

Now, I am a bitch, but really, how would he know that? And He-Who-Puts-Up-With-Me would probably not appreciate it if I went along with the rest of what the guy said.

I'm thinking this is a sign that I should just get the hell out of Dodge. More on that later...

Locker room parity

2005-10-06T11:00:00.000-07:00

In a near-panic, I ran down to school early this week to claim a locker, knowing full well that if I waited until my first day of class (today), I would either be stuck with a locker that sticks, or with one of the puny lockers that won't hold more than a set of street clothes.

And the thought of lugging my heavy tool box full of baking paraphanalia to and from class three days a week did NOT make me happy, let me tell you.

So imagine my surprise and delight when I rush to the culinary floor shortly before 8 a.m. (which meant I was certainly not going to make it to work by that very hour, but sacrifices must be made), and discover that the men's and women's locker rooms had been swapped.

I swipe my key card, enter, and am awash in awestruck wonder by the very vastness of this room. The selection of available lockers was so plentiful, that I wasn't sure how to choose. But choose I did...a fine, non-sticking locker in a prime location. Yippee skippy.

Still humming with joy over this happy development, when I arrived at work I e-mailed one of my classmates about it. She thanked me for the news, and asked me if I was "surprised" by my grades from last quarter.

"Not really," I replied. I got an 'A' in my chocolate class, and an 'A-' in each of my two cakes classes. Because this classmate was on my team, which means we made the same cakes, I assumed that she would have recieved the same grades.

And what happens when you assume, boys and girls? That's right, you make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me.' Oh, no. She did not get the same grades I did for cakes. She got a 'B+' and a 'B-." and the other person on our team got an 'A-' and a 'B-.'

I was flabbergasted. I expressed as much, mentioning that perhaps the grade on our final project (we had to develop a cake menu along with a brochure, cost sheets, etc.) was the determining factor.

I haven't heard from her since. And this was two days ago. Class begins tonight. Our overcrowded artisan breads class. And tomorrow we have advanced cakes from the same chef who gave such mysterious grades.

I haven't paid my tuition yet. Maybe I should just drop out before I get a knife in my back.

No, not really. But I am truly not looking forward to this term as much as I once was. (Sigh.)

You talkin' to me?

2005-09-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

So I'm walking home from work yesterday, and as I'm about to pass by this church on First Ave. in Belltown, I idly notice a guy with a guitar sitting on the front steps. I only glance at him, but it's enough to gather an impression that this is an average guy. Not young, not old. Not homeless-ish, but not snazzy.

As I am about to pass the man in question, he says "Hey there. How's it going?"

I display what I intend to be an I'm-acknowledging-your-existence-but-I'm-not-going-to-talk-to-you smile.

Well, either he didn't see the smile, or it simply failed to meet his expectations, because he starts to yell, "Hey! You! I'm talking you you! Yeah, YOU!"

This verbal tirade continues as I walk down the street, until I put about a half block between us. I never responded, never looked back, which I'm sure irked him far more than if I turned around and told him to F-off, with accompanying hand gestures.

As I walk, I ponder: Why do some people believe that when they speak to a stranger on the street, that the stranger has an obligation to respond?

Every few months or so, I come across some jackass like Mr. Church Steps Sitter (the same church where a rightous young couple bitched at us for letting Doofus take care of his dog business on the building's side lawn...only to start swearing at us when I said we weren't Christian...but I digress).

In many cases, it's someone asking for money who gets mad when I ignore him (yes, always a him) and keep walking.

Occasionally, it's one of those sidewalk telemarketers who piss me off so much (Some days, I swear that if I hear someone ask me "Do you have a few minutes for the environment?" or "Do you have a moment to help ensure better health care?" one more time, I'm going to punch somebody. It's a good thing I don't carry a gun.). You would think they would have to be polite, but some of them get a bit pissy when you ignore them. Again, only the guys.

I may have spouted about this before, but I firmly believe that my only obligation to strangers is to not cause them harm. As an extention of that, I believe that if I came across someone who was choking, having a heart attack, or was physically hurt or in immediate danger of becomeing so, and if helping them would not put myself in the same or worse danger, then I have a moral obligation to involve myself with that person.

But talking to someone just because they talk to me first? I don't think so.

One caveat: Living in Belltown and working downtown, I am often asked directions by tourists or people from the 'burbs. I always try to help them, unless it's a lone guy asking, and I suspect he's just asking directions as a means to engage me in conversation. I have a pretty good radar about that sort of thing.

The church steps incident reminded me of my heady college days, when the Political Correctness demon ran amok on campuses across the nation (this was the late 80s, early 90s). I distinctly remember the argument being made by various women's (and sympathetic men's) groups that, because "any man could be a rapist," nice guys should go out of their way to cross the street should they ever find themselves sharing a sidewalk with a woman after dark. So she wouldn't think "Oh, no! There's a man on the sidewalk with me, and I can't tell by looking at him if he's a rapist, because it's dark and because even in daylight you can't really tell just by looking at someone."

I understood the though process behind that idea, but always felt it went a bit too far. I would never expect a man to cross the street to avoid scaring me, but damn it, if he talks to me and I don't want to talk to him, than he can just shove it!

Phoenix rising

2005-09-05T13:40:00.000-07:00

On my way home from walking Doofus today, I stopped by my community garden to do a little pre-fall cleanup on my plot.

I pulled out some mildewed calendula, cut back a few sunflowers that had been completely picked over by birds, and pulled out the bush bean plants that were finished producing. Then, as I cut back a tomato vine that was straining to reach beyond the boundaries of my plot, I witnessed a small miracle.

The artichoke plant that had been so rudely broken off at soil level, victim to a random act of vandalism, is growing back. Yes, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, this artichoke plant has mustered enough strength from its young root system, without benefit of any foliage to gather energy from the sun, to push skyward a dense thicket of beautiful, green new leaves.

I am so happy. My small garden has seen justice.

And shortly, I am off with He Who Puts Up With Me to go see "The Aristocrats," a movie all about the raunchiest joke ever told. That makes me happy, too.

What else is making me happy right now? The weather has turned cool enough for my boy cat to become a lap cat again (my girl cat is a lap cat year round, because she's an attention whore). And I have a crockpot full of spicy black beans with chorizo sausages simmering away. Yes, life is good.

See, I'm not always moody!

Ups and downs

2005-09-03T00:36:00.000-07:00

As tired as I was, I came home from baking class riding high on the fact that I successfully made chocolates. Yes, chocolates. Three kinds actually: white chocolate with a white chocolate-lemon ganache filling (delicious in spite of the fact that I usually consider white chocolate to be a sham), semi-sweet chocolate with an espresso-chocolate ganache filling and semi-sweet chocolate with a raspberry ganache filling. They are all delish, if I do say so (just don't look at the undersides, which are a bit on the amature side...but on top they look great!).

I have to take something to my community garden's potluck tomorrow, so I decided on the harvest squash loaf from my Macrina Bakery cookbook, mostly because it was the first thing that occured to me that I had all the ingredients for. I've been a bad planner! So, to bolster my resolve to measure out the ingredients for it, so I could bake it tomorrow morning without much effort, I asked He Who Puts Up With Me (who, incidentally, is still boycotting my blog because I allegedly insulted him in it, but really he is being a Big Baby) to "buy a girl a drink." So he made me a Silk Stalking, which involves tequila, creme de cacao, cream, and amaretto in place of the grenadine that we didn't have.

I drank one while I measured out sugar, flour and spice and toasted walnuts, pecans and pumpkin seeds. Then I had a second while we started to watch Nightline. Big mistake. Ted Koppel was interviewing congressmen and other people talking about how little was being done to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and how white people were getting preferential treatment. I started to cry like a baby, because I don't doubt it's true.

Just tonight, in my baking class, someone said "I bet if it was LA that was flooded, and all the beautiful people were out of their homes, all kinds of people would be rushing to help. But have poor black people be the victims, and no one cares."

I have to do something to help the victims, but I'm not sure what would be the best thing to do. I want to send them food and clothes, but that's clearly not practical. But at this moment I'm too tipsy (no, I'm not kidding...damn Silk Stalkings...I might add that it is a testament to my training and experience as a writer that I am typing coherently at the moment. Is it wrong to blog while under the influence?)

Anyhoo...I have to do something, because stupid how-could-he-have-been-reelected-I-mean-honestly? President Bush is too busy sending resources to fight a clearly unwinnable war to actually help his own people as we go sliding into a recession (no, I'm not bitter or anything!!), the rest of us must do something. Damn it!

Clearly I am in no state to form a plan now. Maybe tomorrow. I really want to organize a bellydance benefit, but I have no time! Damn it again! OK, no more drunk blogging. Jeez, I'm a lightweight! And I will not delete this post tommorrow...

Critical mass

2005-09-02T16:59:00.000-07:00

I've hit a wall. It's that point in the school term where weeks on end of combining a full-time job, school, dance class and home responsibilities start taking their toll.

This happened to me last term, so at least this time I was kind of prepared for it.

Too many nights of not enough sleep, too little "me" time, after a while it's hard to bounce back. I crave sleep, I crave sloth. I've been finding it harder and harder to get up and work out in the morning, even though working out generally involves a cool bellydance workout DVD.

Yesterday morning I worked from home, rolling out of bed at 7:55 a.m., enough time to answer nature's call then check my work e-mail at the start of my business day.

This morning, the alarm going off at 6:30 a.m. was not making me happy. "No, you have to get your butt out of bed and then do something to move it!" I told myself. So, fine, I stumbled into the second bedroom, fired up my iPod, scrolled to my "Bellydance" playlist (which I finally uploaded this weekend...I've had my pod since Christmas, and so far all it had on it was the complete U2 discography) and hip circled, undulated and chest locked my way into conciousness and proper blood flow.

And damn if I didn't feel better. Now if I can only make it through the next two weeks, when I'll have one week of full vacation (no work and no school) followed by another week of partial vacation (no school). For now, I'll have to make do with the holiday weekend. TGIF!

Two perspectives

2005-09-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

There's a lot going on in the world and in our own country right now that is less than ideal.

I think it's safe to say that many of us tend to forget to be grateful for what we have, in terms of health and creature comforts.

Anyone watching the news coverage of Hurricane Katrina is probably regaining a little perspective on what's really important, but in case you need more, here are a few tips:

1) Watch Sarah MacLachlan's video "World On Fire." Even if you're not a Sarah fan, or even if you've already seen this video, it's worth a look. Be warned, it might make you cry.

2) Go see "The Constant Gardener." This movie is a fine example of acting and filmmaking, but it also gives some startling examples of how Western governments and corporations view Africa and its people. One case in point: when a character, talking about "donations" of expired prescription medications to Africa, says "disposable medications for disposable people."

A dish best served cold

2005-09-01T10:28:00.000-07:00

This work week got off to a rocky start, what with the extreme demoralization handed to me last week. But by Tuesday afternoon, I was flying high.

Why? Because the sources of my distress got their comeuppance. The main instigator, my boss-once-removed, can no longer run amuck, spending money like there is no tomorrow and trying to punish people who actually have the best interests of the company and its products in mind. Yes, she and all her little yes-lings are feeling the pain. And it's glorious. Maybe it makes me petty to feel this way, but I don't care.

After watching scads of people in her location of our department get promoted to "director" positions when they don't even direct anyone, after hearing how they come into work late, go to breakfast for an hour or more, come back to work a little before taking a long lunch, going back to work for a bit and then leaving early...I think I earned my bitterness.

Is it so wrong that I find it amusing that the head of the company is asking for job descriptions and project status reports from everyone in her department? I must add that my workload is sufficiently full and my work is of a nature that no one else currently employed by my company could be trusted to do what I do and do it right. And I have many, many other people in other departments to back me up if need be. So I am confident that my job is secure.

For now, the universe is righting itself, and things should be better until I find myself a different job. (Recent reversals of fortune aside, my company still has issues.)

Where America shops for mats

2005-08-29T08:22:00.000-07:00

Not that anything about the hurricane blasting the Southeast U.S. is funny, but I did find some small amusement in one of the live-on-the-scene TV reports from Alabama this morning. When the reporter's sound feed cut out, the anchor pointed out damage to some stores in the background...including a Wal-Mart, which had lost the 'R' on its sign.

And a Wal-Mart without an 'R' is just a Wal-Mat.

Can I have some cheese with my whine?

2005-08-25T16:48:00.000-07:00

I worked from home today (technically I'm "off" in 12 minutes...), so I escaped the constant reminders of my bitchy, blonde, nitwitty Southern co-workers. But I still fumed and steamed intermittantly.

Unfortunately, that fuming and steaming didn't seem to give me the adrenaline boost that righteous indignation often does. So now I'm dragging big time, and I'm about to head out for five hours of baking class. Cripes!

A full night's sleep didn't help (nice thing about working from home...no need to get up early to make yourself presentable and transport yourself anywhere). Neither did a few good-sized coffee infusions. And I have to rally my internal forces enough to make three complicated cakes for my two-day practical exam.

To say I'm feeling grumpy right about now would be a tad of an understatment!

To add insult to injury, it's hot out (relatively speaking). I hate hot. I'm so ready for fall.

But tomorrow is another day, and that day is Friday (hooray), and I've got bellydance stuff (of both the butt-kicking and fun varieties) planned for the weekend.

And at least I don't have to spend this weekend moving, unlike someone I know (who had better get done in time for the fun bellydance stuff Sunday night!).

Dishes served cold

2005-08-24T18:16:00.000-07:00

In light of my unfair treatment by my stupid coworkers in another state (and apparently in another dimension where being it's better to be "yes" person than to simply do the right thing), I was itching for revenge of some sort.

I thought about sending a mail bomb (OK, not really). I thought about putting a hex on them. Neither turned out to be viable.

In a seemingly unrelated matter, during the brief hour on Monday that He Who Puts Up With Me took our vehicle out of our building's parking garage (to take a jaunt to Costco, where we found out we can get Doofus' expensive prescription medication for a fraction...yes, a fraction!...of what we were paying elsewhere), a strange vehicle parked in our spot. The spot that we pay monthly rent for. Why our spot, I do not know, since there are many spots that are currently unoccupied, and even more that are unoccupied during the day.

Anyhoo...HWPUWM wrote down the license plate and took it to the manager's office. They had no idea who's car it was, but they offered to put a "move your ass within 24 hours or get towed" notice on it. "Hell, yeah" we said.

Yesterday, car was still there.

This morning, car was still there. Manager said they would have it towed.

After work, car was still there. I told manager.

Manager said "it's really still there?"

I said "We'd like it towed, please."

Manager said "I'll call right now."

About 15 minutes ago, I heard (and saw) a tow truck in the alley.

About 5 minutes ago the manager called to say the car had been towed.

Yee haw!

Off the wagon already

2005-08-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

On Monday I vowed to blog daily. On Tuesday I failed to blog.

I blame this on the fact that I was so shell-shocked by the verbal backstabbing from coworkers in our Southern corporate office that I accidentally overheard yesterday.

(Let's just say that the stupid blonde perpetrators need to learn how to properly hang up a phone after leaving a voice mail message.)

I was not in the mood to head to my two hours of bellydance class after work, but my teacher was in such a high-energy place (how does she do it), that I was too busy sweating to think about the pit vipers in my workplace midst.

And now I am in the odd and somewhat uncomfortable position of being on the same side as my Napoleonic boss (who was blasted in the same attack). Amazing what having a common enemy will do.

What would Jesus do?

2005-08-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

So He Who Puts Up with Me and I are walking with Doofus to Pike Place Market yesterday when we stop at a grassy area next to a church so Doofus can attend to his dog business.

Doofus is about to take care of the nastier portion of his business when I young couple (mid-to-late 20s?) walks past. I catch snippets of their conversation, which includes "in front of a church" and "people should carry bags with them."

They pass just as Doofus is finishing, and the guy turns and looks at us. "I hope you're going to pick that up."

Now...that was just the wrong thing to say. There are many things that push my buttons, and that one has got to be near the top of the list. We always pick up after Doofus. I know some people are horrible, or at best spotty, about picking up after their dogs, and I really resent someone assuming that I am one of those people.

Because, children, when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.

So HWPUWM and I respond at the same moment: he by pulling a plastic bag out of his pocket and holding it up with an any-more-questions-you-moron look on his face, me by giving them a one-fingered salute.

But the guy won't stop. He says "You really shouldn't let you dog do that in front of a church."

We were actually along the side of the church, but I digress. I point at the grass and say "grass," wave my arms around and say "urban environment," then point at Doofus and say "dog." I mean, honestly, unless you are going to go radical and say that pet dogs should be completely barred from high-density urban neighborhoods, then you are going to have people taking their dogs to do business on just about any available patch of grass.

Mr. One-Track-Mind repeats his statement that we "really shouldn't do that" in front of a church.

Then I get really mad. And I decide to go for broke.

I shrug. "Well, we're not Christian, so it doesn't matter to us."

And then both members of this fine young couple start to swear. They cuss, and they cuss, and they keep on cussing over their shoulders at us as they reach the end of the block and turn the corner.

So, children, what important moral lesson can we take from this little encounter? That's right: It's a sin to let your dog relieve an important and normal biological function next to a church, but it's perfectly OK to use profanity!

%^&$*)@+!

I'm baaaack!

2005-08-22T14:29:00.000-07:00

Oy, I've been a bad blogger, again.

In my defense, I've been very busy lately getting my kid sister married off.

As her maid/matron of honor (since I'm married already, it's technically matron, but I sure as hello don't feel like a matron...and never will if I can help it!), I had to throw her a bridal shower (which I also catered myself, fyi) and a bachelorette party (did I really need to see my master's-degree holding, elementary school-teaching sister dancing around shaking male member-shaped maracas? Not so much.). And those are responsibilities that I would never take on for anyone else but her. No way, no how. Especially when I never even had my own bachelorette or shower, as I had the good sense to elope.

And then, last weekend, the big event, on the Olympic Peninsula, with huge ferry waits due to the stupid Hood Canal Bridge being closed. Family and friends carted themselves in from all over the country. It was fun, the location was gorgeous, the food was delish, the band was fab...but it was exhausting. And I am more glad than ever that I eloped. I was glad for Kid Sis, sure, but I saw exactly what it was I didn't want for myself...more stress.

So, now that I'm finally recovering, I've decided to mend my Bad Blogger ways by blogging every day this week. Let's see if I can do it, shall we?

Stark raving mad!

2005-08-02T14:32:00.000-07:00

I've dithered for months (really, we're talking since at least January...or maybe December) about getting my hair cut.

For a while, it made sense to let it grow out, mostly for belly dancing purposes (a student performance in April, then the Solstice Parade in June). And I kind of liked being able to put it in a ponytail, or two cute braids, or up in a twist. And women, we all know how nutty men get about long hair. If I had a nickel for every time He Who Puts Up With Me said "NO! You can't get it cut!" I'd be able to pay for my next haircut.

So the state of my hair has been reaching critical mass. It's past my shoulders, one length, thick but baby fine. I never wear it down anymore, because it just goes limp (a state that is made worse by the fact that I walk everywhere. Now, if I had time to style it nicely and never had to go outside...then maybe it would work).

I was looking for digital photos of myself to post onto a newsgroup I belong to, and I came across pix from last summer, when my hair was in a cute bob. I snapped. Must get hair cut. Must get hair cut now!

Trouble is, my salon was closed until this morning. So with the patience of a saint, I waited until I could book my precious appointment...for this Saturday.

Now, I'll need not only patience (a quality that I am quite lacking in, according to HWPUWM), but tremendous willpower as well (a quality that I am quite lacking in, according to me!) to keep my paws off the scissors and the scissors away from my lanky locks. Give me strength!

You're not from here, are you?

2005-08-02T14:11:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, He Who Puts Up With Me* and I clipped Doofus to his leash and headed off on a walk by way of the Belltown Starbucks.

As is our usual M.O., Doofus and I grabbed an outside table while HWPUWM zipped inside for our coffees, et al.

Only the zipping wasn't so zippy on Sunday. So Doofus and I sat, and waited, and wondered what the holy heck was taking so long. After a looong while, an older couple (70s, maybe) exited. The man sat down at one of the two remaining empty tables (there are five outside tables, total), and the woman walked my direction. As she approached, she extended her hand, palm down, so I figured she just came over to meet Doofus (Doofus makes friends wherever he goes). I comment that "he's very friendly."

So, as the woman is kind of petting Doofus, she looks at me and asks, "Are you eating here?"

I reply, "Uhhh...yes. I'm waiting for my husband." I accompany this statement with a jerk of the head toward the black hole/interior which has apparently swallowed him up.

"Oh," she says slowly. "Because we were waiting for this table."

What the f--k, I think. "Oh," I say.

She turns and walks back to her second-choice table. She sits. A barista emerges with some pastries on plates and sets them on the second-choice table. She disappears inside and reemerges with coffee in real cups. Gee, I didn't know Starbucks had sidewalk table service.

Finally, HWPUWM extricates himself from the bowels of the building. "Gee, you were gone so long that people were trying to steal our table," I say.

He sits. We eat our shared muffin. We replentish our dangerously low caffeine levels.

I lean toward him and tell him quietly about how the older couple was apparently "waiting" for our table. He starts laughing. Turns out he was behind them in line, and at some point the woman looked out the window, saw me, and with great dismay informed her husband that I had "stolen" their table. "Should I go say something to her?" she asked him, according to HWPUWM (who for a moment considered acknowledging his connection to me, the wanton table-stealer, but then decided it was more fun to watch them nearly give themselves strokes).

You snooze, you lose. I'm glad I don't have to wait until I'm grandma-aged to figure that one out!

*HWPUWM is still being a Big Baby about the fact that I made fun of him in this blog for not knowing that Freddie Mercury is dead. Translation: He is boycotting my blog. Which means I can say anything about him here that I want, and he'll never know. Muah-ha-ha!

Irish among us

2005-07-25T14:28:00.000-07:00

I was doubly touched by a bit 'o the green this weekend.

Exhibit A: I step out of my building to head to baking class. I immediately spy a group of people (eight or so) waiting to cross the street. They are all wearing matching green T-shirts of a shade somewhere between kelly and emerald. My first thought, "Ah...another matchy-matchy tour group."

Then I squinted my eyes to get a better look. The people were of an assortment of ages. Just the right assortment to be...ohmygod! It's a family! A family, dressed in matching green T-shirts! The horror!

I incurred moderate damage to my retinas and to the portions of my brain responsible for good taste. Fortunately, the damage was not severe enough to prevent me from producing both a delicious carrot cake (with cream cheese frosting and handmade marzipan carrots) and a scrumptious coconut cake (butter cake soaked with a sugar-coconut milk syrup, filled with a mixture of pastry cream and toasted coconut flakes, and frosted with Swiss meringue topped with a coating of non-toasted coconut flakes). No sugar high going on in my household. No siree!

Exhibit B: Walking to Pike Place Market on Sunday with Doofus and He Who Puts Up With Me, I spied a gent wearing an emerald green hooded sweatshirt emblazoned with "Kiss me, I'm Irish" in big gold letters. Only the gent in question was quite clearly not Irish. He was Latino. Which made me appreciate the slogan all the more (it's a bit trite on folks who actually are Irish...although I wouldn't mind if The Edge crossed my path while wearing one of those sweatshirts. Sigh.)

P.S. Speaking of HWPUWM...he's a little irritated with the, ahem, disparaging remarks I made about him in my Mullets-R-Us post from July 19. (I believe his exact words included "I'm not reading your blog anymore!" and included some foot stamping.) I stand behind my words. Maybe that will teach him to not dis Freddie Mercury's teeth (he's dead, for goodness sake!) and Bono's boots.

As you wish...

2005-07-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

I was catching a little local TV news (something I usually avoid like the plague) this morning, when what did my shocked eyes spy? Inigo Montoya, (as in, "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.") shilling for a cholesterol drug company.

It was painful to watch. If I ever see Princess Buttercup pushing hormone replacement therapy (or whatever), I will...oh, heck, I don't know what I'll do. But whatever it is, it won't be pretty.

What would Fezzik say?

Mullets-R-Us

2005-07-19T14:47:00.000-07:00

He Who Puts Up With Me scored a DVD copy of the 1985 Live Aid concerts from the library, so we had great fun watching that last night. FYI, I have officially renamed the event. Heretofore, it will be known as Mulletpalooza. I had forgotten (or blocked out) just how big mullets were 20 years ago. Frightening.

Speaking of frightening...It didn't bother me at all that I am old enough to remember with near crystal clarity spending July 13, 1985 camped out in front of my TV set watching the concert's original broadcast on MTV (that was back in the days when they actually played music, nothing but music). Nope, didn't bother me one little bit. No siree.

So, we're watching Freddie Mercury of Queen apply his amazing vocal skills to "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," a song I remember fondly from, let's see, fifth grade (which was several years prior to 1985). HWPUWM is sitting on the couch; I'm doing something in the kitchen, when the following dialogue plays out:

HWPUWM: "I sure hope he's earned enough in his career to get those teeth fixed."

MB (that's me): "Ummmm...he died. Years ago. Of AIDS." [Said with an appropriate mix of horror and disgust of his lack of pop cultural knowledge. Of course, this was a man who knew almost nothing about popular music until I started dating him in college in 1991. I know, don't ask, I can't explain it.]

HWPUWM: "Oh. Do you think he had them fixed before he died?"

MB: "Gee, no, because I hardly think that was his top priority when he was dying of AIDS!"

Someone help me, please.

Almost as bad as the abundance of mullets was the abundance of ballads. Please, people. You're playing to an enormous stadium. Put some life into it. Sting, I love you man, and I know The Police just broke up and you were getting into your jazz phase and all, and I think Branford Marsalis is pretty great, but what were you thinking when you decided on an acoustic version of "Roxanne," with Branford as the lone accompaniment? Yawnapalooza!

Now, U2 knew how to bring some life to the party. Their performances of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Bad" were i-n-s-p-i-r-e-d! [HWPUWM: "I didn't know 'Bad' was that old." MB: "Yep. Unforgettable Fire album, 1984." HWPUWM: "Wow." MB: (muttered under breath) And you call yourself a fan.] And, while not quite a baby band anymore, U2 had not yet broken into the world of stadium tours yet, which makes their show-stealing peformance all the more impressive.

Of course, HWPUWM could not get over U2's stage clothes. I believe he proclaimed them "the worst costumes ever." They weren't great, but they weren't that bad. HWPUWM was practically having seizures over the perceived awfulness of Bono's calf-high, almost high-heeled boots. Now, from my point of view, those boots (and yes, even the mullet) are simply part of the U2 iconography. Love the band, love the boots.

I got a kick out of watching Duran Duran perform (Simon LeBon had ditched his mullet by this time, incidentally). I discovered the true awfulness of songs like "Union of the Snake" and "The Reflex." (I always suspected that their significant-sounding lyrics were really just a bunch of gobbledygook). More importantly, I was blown away by Andy Taylor. I was never heavily into DD, but he was my favorite. A little less pretty boy, a little more rock-n-roll black sheep. But man, in this concert he was wild! His hair (long and tons of it), his facial expressions, his movements on stage...whoa, mama. How did I forget about that?!

#%^&$(*&@?}!!!

2005-07-13T20:36:00.000-07:00

A message to all you miscreants who continue to pollute my beloved P-Patch (that's a community garden to you non-Seattlites) with your presence:

P-Patches were not created to give you a place to smoke crack, litter, vandalize (that rock wall was there for a reason, thank you very much), urinate, drink cheap beer and sleep (or pass out, as the case may be).

They were also not created to give you a place to pick produce. I grew that artichoke you stole, and I had intended to eat it! And my plot neighbor? The one who you stole every single pea from? She grew those, and she had intended to pick and eat them!

I just know you're eyeing my big, lush, dark green tomato plants and already anticipating the day when you will steal my tomatoes. I swear to whatever you might hold holy (even if it's only your damn crack pipe): You touch my tomatoes, and I will put a hex on you, so help me...

Frankly, I'm getting a little tired of having to call 911 every other time I go down to do a little gardening. I pay an annual fee to garden there. I deserve to garden in relative peace. I deserve to be able to harvest the fruits of my labor. That is the bottom line.

But I will continue to call the police, and e-mail the police, and start bugging the damn city council if I have to. Because you are pond scum. And you will not win.

Do you think I sound angry? You bet your ass I am. Hell hath no fury like a gardener whose garden is tampered with.

So just stop it.

Stop it.

Stop it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm done...for now.

Do not call!

2005-07-13T15:24:00.000-07:00

I am not exaggerating when I say that I have spent years of effort preventing my alma mater, University of Oregon, from having my phone number. Since the day I graduated, in fact.

Why?

Because I don't want students calling me and asking me to donate money, that's why.

At first, it was for philosophical reasons. I was paying off student loans, which meant I was giving quite enough money for education, thank you very much. Then, I developed a new philosophy: I don't want anyone calling me and asking me for money, ever!

All was well until this morning, when I received a telemarketing call at my desk at work. You know the kind: you answer, and there's no one there because the autodialer missed the boat on the timing between telemarketing parasite and innocent victim. I looked up the area code: Virginia. Hmmmm....

A few hours later, I get another call. The same number pops up on my phone display. This time, there's someone on the other end of the line. He identifies himself as being from the University of Oregon (gee, didn't know they had a satellite campus in Virginia). I politely (I am at work and within the earshot of others) tell him that I don't appreciate receiving telemarketing calls at my place of business. He hangs up before I even finish my sentence. The nerve!

So I fume about how the Fighting Ducks got my work number. I check my alumni profile online. Nothing there. Then the lightbulb over my head goes on. In February, I faxed in a request for my transcript to be sent to the culinary school I was in the process of applying to. And I gave them my work number (only because I am even more zealous about not giving out my cell/home number). I think those bastards in the registrar's office shared my information.

I am steaming. Really, its still coming out of my ears.

I fired off a frosty e-mail (yes, frosty in spite of all the steam) asking who they share that information with. Hmmph!

Vive la France!

2005-07-13T15:07:00.000-07:00

I have long been a fan of that "Very French Bakery," Le Panier, located in the Pike Place Market, for those of you who aren't familiar. Their pain au chocolat is a breakfast treat I would love to indulge in daily (I don't). And I adore the delicious simplicity of their jambon et fromage baguette sandwiches. Yum.

So, imagine my surprise when I visited my favorite Seattle food blog (more than just food, actually), Seattle Bon Vivant. It turns out that mere blocks from me is a Frencher than French bakery called Biofournil (the Web site says nothing about the Seattle location, but it does have info on their breads and philosophy). I say that because there are only two outposts: The original one in France, and the one in Seattle. Located at 2507 Fourth Ave in Belltown (just north of Wall Street), not only is this bakery French, they're organic. Two things that are music to my ears (and tastebuds).

So I took a different path on my walk to work this morning, and treated myself to a yummy almond croissant and a lovely, crusty loaf for later. I am eager to return to sample their lunch offerings, which I understand include quiche and tasty French sandwiches. Hmmmm...tomorrow is Bastille Day. Did I mention the organic part?

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N

2005-07-13T08:05:00.000-07:00

Well, it's hump day of the week following my one glorious week of vacation, and I am surviving.

I am well aware that I did not blog once during that week. Even if I did not possess that inner awareness, He Who Puts Up With Me gave me more than enough reminders. If I had a nickel for every time he said, "You haven't blogged in forever. I'm giving up on you," I would have a truckload of nickels.

Since HWPUWM is in the process of starting his own blog (only the harder way, with a blank slate and html programming from scratch...not that he knows html yet, mind you), I hearby lay down the blog challenge: I double-dog-dare him to blog every single day beginning with the day he posts his first official entry.

To be fair, I will issue to the same challege to myself (again, starting the day of his first official post). May the best blogger win.

I had a lovely vacation (oh, how I miss thee already). We stayed in city, with the exception of a day trip to West Seattle, which has the amazing quality of not feeling like Seattle at all (I'm talking about the tip of Alki Beach, here, especially once you make it far enough around where you can't see downtown Seattle anymore.

I had a small list of restaurants I wanted to hit, but only made it to two: Baguette Box and Le Pichet, both of which I heartily recommend. The roasted pork loin with apricot aioli baguette was divine, and HWPUWM was quite pleased with his roasted Oregon leg of lamb baguette. A shared cup of truffle fries and plate of beet salad with garlic olive oil rounded out the meal nicely.

I felt there was no more appropriate way to kick off the Fourth of July than with a late breakfast at a French cafe. So off we went, to Le Pichet, to satisfy ourselves with two servings (total, not each...please!) of oeufs plats, jambon et fromage. That would be two eggs broiled with ham and gruyere for you non-French speakers. I admit that I ordered in English, because I couldn't remember how to properly pronounce "oeufs" (it's been a long time since high school French class, OK?). Our lovely, cheesy, breakfast came with a tasty baguette and sweet butter. Oui! Oui! Please monsieur, may I have another!

And another vacation, while you're at it. S'il vous plait.

The Letdown

2005-06-29T20:29:00.000-07:00

I walked Doofus to the park again this evening...but alas, there were no puppies. Not a single pudgy ball of golden fuzz to be had. Sigh.

There was a very leggy, very bouncy 3-month-old black lab named Sam. But that's not the same.

Oh, why have the puppies forsaken me?

The good...

2005-06-29T14:50:00.000-07:00

There are two new golden retriver puppies (brother and sister) in my neighborhood, one in my building and one in a neighboring building. I've seen the girl puppy several times in the last week, by happy coincidence, but yesterday evening when I walked Doofus to the park, what did I spy?

Two puppies! Two golden, roly poly puppies! With coal black noses and eyes and tiny whip tails!

Say it with me now: Awwwwww!

They were more enamored with Doofus than Doofus was with them. I think he was a tad jealous, as he is quite used to being in the spotlight wherever we go (he may be dumb as a post, but he is a looker).

An Australian tourist family stopped to ohh and ahh and cuddle and pet. One of the kids asked if Doofus was the puppies' mother. The answer, of course is "no" (he's a boy) and "no" (he's been neutered). But it was a cute tableau, nonetheless.

...the bad...

2005-06-29T14:19:00.000-07:00

Last night before bellydance class, my teacher said that a local schoolteacher had been reprimanded for introducing bellydance to her students. She said she was trying to find more information about exactly what the situation is.

This is another classic example of how, despite its burgeoning popularity, so many people have these unfair stereotypes about bellydance.

In the interest of setting the record straight for whomever may come across this post, here's the straight scoop:

Bellydance is empowering for women, not demeaning (in fact, many bellydancers I know would be classified as feminists).

Bellydance is not designed to entice men. Bellydance is in fact performed (mostly) by women, mostly for women. Go to almost any bellydance performance (one exception may be restaurant shows where the show is clearly secondary to the food), and you'll see that the overwhelming majority of the audience is women.

Bellydance is not simply standing and shimmying in a sparkly costume. Bellydance is a physically challenging dance, and a hell of a good workout (especially for the same core muscles targeted by Pilates), yet is low impact enough to be accessible to women of a wide range of shapes, sizes and fitness levels. And you try maintaining a shimmy for several minutes, or layering a shimmy over a second (and maybe even third) movement. It's damn hard work! And not all bellydance involves sequins. American Tribal Style bellydance, and its many derivatives, are often very colorful and festive, but are far from sparkly.

Bellydance is not stripping. Bellydancers do not remove any clothing when they dance. Sometimes bellydancers who use a veil in their performance choose to have their veil artfully wrapped around them when they begin their performance, then later unwrap it when they wish to actually begin using it. But they are wearing a full costume underneath! This is not to say that a stripper has never worn a bellydance costume on stage. But if a stripper comes onto stage dressed in a cop costume, does that mean that police officers are strippers. Hardly!

...and the delicious

2005-06-29T14:02:00.000-07:00

Starbucks was handing out free, individually packaged (so cute!) portions of its Java Chip (my favorite!) ice cream today. As an added bonus, they came with those grade school nostalgia-inducing little flat wooden "spoons." Oh, happy day!

Personally, I think 'bucks should sell its ice cream in those little 4-ounce sizes. That is technically the proper portion size for ice cream, after all. I suspect that would make it much easier to exercise a bit of moderation.

Decay and decline

2005-06-28T15:31:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to decide which body part is most likely to give out while I'm at the office. My brain, from atrophy? My eyes, from excessive rolling? Or my butt, from excessive sitting? Maybe I should start an office pool.

In other workplace news, I was equally horrified and delighted when mere moments before I stepped out to meet He Who Puts Up With Me for a little jaunt to the library, my boss had spied and greeted him while leaving to go to an appointment.

So what? Well, what could have been a run-of-the-mill exchange of pleasantries between two people who had briefly met only once before took a severely ironic turn when HWPUWM accidentally called my boss by the wrong name. And not just any wrong name...the name of my boss's predecessor.

This little social misstep was made all the more potent by the fact that for a good few months after my boss started working here, he took every opportunity to thrash and trash his predecesor (who happened to be a very talented, intelligent, funny and all-around good guy), ripping on the work he had done and questioning his skills and experience. This continued until a few pissed-off souls from other departments told him to knock it the hell off.

So of course it was to those very souls I ran with this little tale the moment I set foot back in the office. They were as delighted as I was.

Bad, bad blogger!

2005-06-23T14:04:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know. I've been a very bad blogger. I must admit, I had no idea quite how bad until I logged on and saw that it had been almost a month.

I'm so very sorry.

But today is a perfect day to reform my bad behavior. Why? Because it started with a thick spread of my homemade chunky strawberry jam (made from organic local berries purchased Sunday at the Pike Place Market) on a slice of Essential Bakery's Fremont Sour White bread. Yum. It's the first strawberry jam I've ever made, and it was delish! (Note to He Who Puts Up With Me...I lied. I did put in the black peppercorns and the mint! Hahahahahahahaha! Who do you think you are to question Jam Goddess Christine Ferber? And before strawberry season is over, you will eat strawberries with slivered basil, and you WILL like it! It, too, is more delicious than words can adequately describe.)

Of course, I might have saved my jam fest for tomorrow, if I had known that my boss was going to bring in a box of Top Pot doughnuts. Mmmmmm...chocolate for breakfast.

Today being the gorgeous, sunny Seattle day that it is, my work cohorts and I decided to take a visiting collegue (from a city in the gentile south) down to Pike Place for lunch. We meandered through the main arcade, pointing out the "throwing fish" guys, the local produce, the gorgeous flowers, etc. Then we got down to business, grabbing greasy (in a good way!) cheesy smoked turkey sandwiches from Beechers and walking down to Victor Steinbruck Park, where we could nosh while soaking up the sun, fending off the pigeons, and pointing out the ferries and other notable Seattle sites.

I so rarely walk through the main part of the Market this time of year (too crowded with tourists), but I must admit it was a pleasure to do so today. Of course, when I'm with other people, I am forced to walk at about one-tenth of my usual pace, so I didn't have the irritation of having slow people in my way. I was one of the slow people.

We capped off lunch with a bag of ripe, sweet, gorgeous, local Ranier cherries the size of plums. God, I love summer!

Tonight, we're going, on the company's dime, to Restaurant Zoe in Belltown. Hmmm...what to have, what to have?

Happiness is...

2005-05-27T12:15:00.000-07:00

1) Sneaking a few spoonfuls of cool, creamy chocolate mousse before walking to work.

Especially when each spoonful delivers an explosion of super-saturated dark chocolatey goodness to your tastebuds.

And extra especially when that mousse was not made nor paid for by you...when it was a gift from another baking and pastry class, because they made such a huge vat of it that they had to give some of it away.

Yum!

2) Finding out when you arrive at work that your boss is going to let you leave at 2 p.m., to get an early start on the long holiday weekend.

3) The amazing coincidence that the very week it gets hot in Seattle is the same week when your baking class is slated to make ice creams and sorbets.

Sigh.

Blinded by the sight

2005-05-27T11:04:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh...my eyes! My eyes!

Brown mandals (that's "man sandals," in case you didn't know) with navy blue socks. Oh the humanity! And outside the Starbucks on First and Bell, no less. For shame!

I know it's sandal season, but honestly...there's just no excuse for such a fashion faux pas. If I ever witness such an ugly sight again, I'll just have to gouge my eyes out with forks. I see no other way around it (pun not intended).

The only thing worse would have been the same foot ensemble...worn with manpris.

Aiiieeeeeee!

You're the inspiration

2005-05-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

I had the brilliant idea today that, in honor of spring, I would hoof it to my friendly neighborhood Old Navy at lunch to pick up a few spring staples.

Unfortunately, everyone else in Seattle had the same idea.

I couldn't bring myself to pay $25-35 for a cute skirt that I could make for less than $10; they didn't have the capri pants I wanted in my size; they didn't have the divine Perfect Fit T-shirt in the colors I wanted. So I left, empty handed.

I detoured to Banana Republic and Anthropologie for inspiration. At Anthropologie, I was inspired to leave a puddle of drool on the wide-planked wood floor. But no matter how cute their flippy little spring skirts (and they were so cute that it almost brings a tear to my eye even now), I can't bring myself to pay about $90 for a skirt with an unfinished hem, no matter how fashionable (and, yes, part of the reason is that I could make that unfinished-hem skirt for a fraction of the price myself).

At Banana Republic, I was so close to buying a $78 crinkly, gauzy, pink-and-green-striped skirt that my fingers were tingling...but I didn't. Because I wasn't 100 percent crazy about the 2-inch band of pink around the hem. Sigh.

Then I went to Borders, with the intent of buying Vogue and InStyle for further inspiration, and as kind of a consolation prize. Instead, I flipped through them and put them back on the shelf, coming away only with the conviction that Katie Holmes is one of the cutest 20-somethings alive, and that it is really, really wrong that she is dating Tom Cruise.

By then I was dragging, and due back at work, so I made my one tiny purchase of the day: A grande sweetened iced coffee from Starbucks. Ahhhh...refreshingly satisfying. But I wouldn't want to wear it.

Die, morons, die!

2005-05-26T10:58:00.000-07:00

There's nothing quite as annoying and frustrating as dealing with a freaked-out golden retriever, unless it's repressing the urge to track down and kill the morons who decided to shoot off two professional (or perhaps just high-caliber illegal...I'm not a connoisseur) fireworks from a small barge-like craft just off the waterfront in Elliot Bay.

I was sitting at my sewing machine, sewing a tricky seam on a costume-in-progress, when this incident occured. Doofus the Dog promptly tried to climb onto my lap. And at 85 pounds, give or take a couple of pounds, he is not exactly lap dog material.

I managed to keep him off my lap until I finished what I was doing, then hustled him downstairs to distract him with the last few minutes of "Lost," which I don't watch, then with "Alias," which I do. I also managed to keep him from jumping in the shower with me. I know that when he's stressed he likes to have his people in sight at all times, but sheesh.

My dread-drenched countdown to the Fourth of July has officially begun.

Spring fever

2005-05-26T10:40:00.000-07:00

Something odd happened yesterday. As I was walking to work, three strange men (and my that, I mean strangers, not strange) said "Hello" to me.

I had a feeling of deja vu, because after moving back into the city a year ago, this happened a lot. Not necessarily every day, but a lot. But it had not happened for some months. I pondered this turn of events for a moment, then with crystalline clarity I realized the reason for the stopping and starting of this strange phenomena: spring.

More specifically, yesterday was the first day I walked to work without a coat or jacket of any kind. Just a black skirt and tank top, sage green V-neck cardigan, cute dark red Mary Janes, and my beloved cream-and-purple flowered silk scarf from Banana Republic.

Then my (male) work buddy independently commented on the joys of spring...especially women in cute (and less concealing) spring clothes.

Then two more guys said "Hello" to me as I walked home from work.

I rest my case.

Dahlia delights

2005-05-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

Had lunch at Dahlia Lounge today. Ordered my usual grilled bread salad with pesto, oil-cured olives, fresh mozzarella and coppacola (I always humor myself by looking at the menu, but really, who am I kidding?). Topped it off with the pear tart (nestled in a puff pastry shell, topped with almond cream and warm caramel sauce). That part wasn't my usual...I often go for the fabulous creme caramel. Disappointed by the coffee, however. Specifically, I was bummed that since my last visit, they had traded out their usual rustic sugar-in-the-raw cubes for tiny, plain white sugar cubes, paired up and wrapped in paper (for your protection!). I loved those little tan cubes!

Afterwards, I stopped next door at Dahlia Bakery to pick up a loaf of pain de campagne. When I exited, a rather questionable looking gentleman (I use that term loosely) asked me for a "favor."

"What?" I said, giving him a hard look.

"I'm trying to raise $15..."

"No," I said, turning my back on him. Then my coworker emerged. She said "no" before the guy even had a chance to ask his favor.

"You shouldn't talk to me that way," he said. "You don't know me...or what I can do."

Excuse me? Being threatened at 1 p.m. in broad daylight on a sunny day in front of Dahlia Lounge? The nerve!

I have two regrets:

1) That I didn't get a better look at the details of his appearance before he moved halfway down the block. I would have totally turned his ass in to the police. Bastard.

2) That I didn't have the presence of mind to utter this snappy comeback: "Yeah? Well, you don't know me. And since you don't, you don't know that I'm sick of getting asked for money, and that just this morning I decided that I was going to pop the next guy who asked me for any." Of course, to make that effective, I would have had to been able to pull a gun (or a reasonable facsimile) out of my Kate Spade purse. I don't think a finger-in-the pocket gun would have worked. Especially since, today, I am without pockets.

Jammin'

2005-05-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

Inspired by my 'A' grade on my baking practical exam on Saturday (yay, me!) I decided to dip into the possibilities of a lovely book I had checked out from the library after seeing it, and it's author, praised so highly on my favorite food blog, Chocolate & Zucchini.

The book, Mes Confitures: The Jams and Jellies of Christine Ferber, is a treasure trove of delightfully unusual (you guessed it) jam and jelly recipes. The recipes are arranged by season, so on Sunday I eagerly read the spring suggestions, settling on a rhubarb and Granny Smith apple concoction, jazzed up with a cup of Gewurztraminer wine.

A quick outing to Pike Place Market netted me the required ingredients, which I peeled, diced, combined and left in the refrigerator in a parchment paper-covered bowl to macerate overnight.

On Monday, a quick lunchtime outing to Sur la Table netted me jam jars and other jam-making necessities that added up to 10 times the cost of the ingredients. Yikes!

That evening, I drained the juice, boiled it down slightly, then added the fruit to boil for several more minutes. Then, I ladled them into my new, sterilized jars, twisted on the caps, and turned them upside down to set the seals. I opted not to do the hot-water bath treatment on the sealed jars, as is the norm in this country. Jam is a low-risk food, and it is the European custom to simply place the boiling hot jam in hot, sterilized jars, seal them quickly, and call it good. I decided that was good enough for me.

The jam looks lovely, all shades of pink and red and pale green. I'll let it stay in its jars for a few months to allow the flavors to continue to mingle. In the meantime, I am practially salivating for local strawberry season. I have in mind some strawberry-rhubarb jam, and the enticing strawberry-mint-black pepper concoction. Yum! And then there's summer, with apricots and nectarines and raspberries...oh, my!

No rest for the weary

2005-05-24T09:06:00.000-07:00

The weekends are when I usually compensate for any sleep debt I've run up during the week. So you can imagine my ire when my apartment building's fire alarms went off at 5 a.m. Saturday morning (a mere 4 hours after I rested my head on my pillow)...and again at shortly before midnight on Sunday (right after I had finally fallen asleep).

It turns out that one occurence was caused by a small drip in the building's fire sprinkler system, and the other by air in the pipes of the same system. A system that is very sensitive, apparently.

Much like The Boy Who Cried Wolf, all of these false alarms have made me quite disinclined to evacuate the building as I technically should. Instead, I evacuate to my rooftop patio to watch the ferries, the sliding glass doors muffling the shrill sound to a sufficient degree.

So, much like Pavlov's dog, last night I was fully expecting to be rudely awoken from dreamland. I was pleasantly surprised (pleasant being a relative concept in this case) when the alarm went off while I was still actively awake. Off to the patio we went. Apparently the fire department (they must be really sick of showing up at my building every day) decided that our alarm system needed to be turned off. Which means that the fire doors stayed closed, the elevators stayed offline, and forced air rushed down each blocked-off section of the corridors, creating a wind-tunnel effect. All of that in case there really is a fire before the system is fixed. Lovely.

It's a mystery

2005-05-20T12:34:00.000-07:00

A very strange thing happened this morning on my way to the kitchen. I discovered a cigarette butt laying in middle of the dining room floor.

This is indeed a true mystery, because no member of my household (human, canine or feline) smokes cigarettes. He Who Puts Up With Me smokes a cigar a few times a year, but that's it. And if that ever changes, the offender will die swiftly by my hand.

What with getting up late this morning, then dragging my sorry ass through my morning routine, I didn't have time to sufficiently question the cats. Little hoodlums. You wouldn't think that at 12 years of age (which is, what, like 80 in cat years), they would develop a nicotine jones. Strange.

Dead woman walking

2005-05-20T09:27:00.000-07:00

Or not walking, as the case may be. I think I'll fall over from exhaustion if I stand up for too long.

I left work early yesterday to practically sprint home, grab my crap for baking class, and fly over to the school library early to work out a game plan with my team for this weekend's round of practical exams.

As I'm cramming my uniform in my bag at home, I notice, by chance, that my cell phone message light is blinking. It's He-Who-Puts-Up-With-Me, reminding me to feed Doofus (when in fact that morning he said that HE would feed him before he left for work that afternoon), and oh, by the way, Doofus was having trouble, ahem, taking care of business, so could I take him out before I go to class.

Well, gee, no, I can't. I don't have time to stand outside in the pouring rain for a half-hour with a dog who can't pee when I'm supposed to leave for class RIGHT NOW!

So I leave for class, drenched in rain and guilt, only to discover that none of my teammates managed to show up. Lovely. So I work out an exam game plan on my own. When I present it to my teammates at the beginning of class, they are so relieved and appreciative that I can't stay mad at them (good thing, because I had been so pissed off that I was practically spitting nails). "You're so organized. You'll make a great business owner," they say. I hope they're right.

Tonight, we learned about chocolate. Specifically, the precise temperatures that chocolate must be heated to, then cooled to, then heated back to, in order to temper it. When chocolate is tempered properly, it has a nice sheen, it holds a desired shape at room temperature, and breaks with a crisp, satsifying snap. How? Because all that heating and cooling forces a certain type of crystal in the chocolate's fat (aka cocoa butter) to line up in an orderly procession.

All I will say is that tempering chocolate is one of those things that always works in theory, but doesn't always work in practice. Ahem.

So I spend class surrounded by chocolate, good and bad (I'm never eating Hershey's again). I haven't eaten any real food since lunch, so when a few of the students start discussing leg of lamb, it kills me. I start intensely craving lamb chops. Lamb chops have actually sounded good for the past few weeks, but I haven't gotten around to procuring any. The chocolate I've eaten starts to make me nauseous.

At the end of class, we go to watch these videos by/about the grand master of all confectionary artists, Ewald Notter (seriously, this guy is so good that he had to stop competing in culinary olympics type events because no one else stood a whisper of a chance...on one occasion, the judges had to make up a new award because they decided the gold medal wasn't sufficient). Interesting videos, but at 10 p.m., not interesting enough to keep my eyelids from trying to shut.

So I get home, just wiped, close to 11 p.m., relieved to find that Doofus has apparently survived my absence. So I take him outside, and spend about a half-hour trying to empty him. This isn't helped by the fact that he's all atwitter, apparently thinking that we're on our way to go meet HWPUWM.

By the time we get home, I'm not just tired, I'm really cranky and bitchy. I call HWPUWM on his cell and work phones about five times before he picks up. But he's on deadine, so he hangs up on me when I start to unleash the cranky and bitchy. Can't really blame him, but he shouldn't have dumped the dog's problems on me on Thursday, the worst day of my week. So I guess we're even.

I set my alarm for an hour later than usual this morning (no workout for me), but I'm still feeling like a zombie. Thank goddess that my boss is springing me at 3 p.m. today. So I can go home and do laundry before class. Oh, how glamorous my life is!

A fashion "maybe"

2005-05-20T08:39:00.000-07:00

Most interesting fashion sighting of the morning:

Exiting a building on First Avenue was a tall, middle-aged man with neatly cropped graying hair, wearing a black leather-and-cloth bomber jacket, a black Utilikilt, and black and yellow horizontally striped knee-high socks.

Interesting.

P.S. Check out the "Top 10 Reasons to Wear a Utilikilt" on the Utilikilt site.

Cuke, I am your father

2005-05-19T10:37:00.000-07:00

As you probably know, today is the opening day of the latest Star Wars movie. Which means that geeks in Stormtrooper costumes will be standing in line all across America (I myself will only stand in line all day for a U2 concert).

For those of us who don't feel The Force quite so urgently, or who saw the less-than-stellar reviews, I offer you a more educational, and possibly more entertaining option: Store Wars.

If your computer is equipped with Flash and a set of speakers, you too can experience the world of Obi Wan Cannoli, Cuke Skywalker, Darth Tater, Tofu D2, Princess Lettuce, and a host of other tasty characters.

The production values on this short film, sponsored by the Organic Trade Association, are quite excellent.

Still not convinced it's worth your while? Let me put it this way: Where else will you get to see a cucumber in a bad blond wig? Yeah, exactly. So watch it right now (just keep the volume low if you're at work!).

The real thing

2005-05-18T12:29:00.000-07:00

Why did I do it?

Why, why, why did I even bother to buy food-court Thai food and think it was going to be satisfying?

It's true that I'm not hungry anymore, but that pale substitute has left my tastebuds crying for Typhoon. Especially their chicken in green curry. Sigh.

And if I had gone to Typhoon, I could have also had the pleasure of choosing a tea from a list that is longer than many wine lists. Sigh.

Even Wild Ginger (on a day when I'm not seated next to the kitchen and forgotten about...I will never go there during Dine Around Seattle again) would have been preferable.

I'll just have to chalk this up as a hard lesson learned.

Two fugs, and then some

2005-05-18T08:29:00.000-07:00

I haven't quite recovered from the three rather alarming sightings I had last evening.

First, I was at Third and Pine when I was stopped in my tracks (OK, I also had to stop for the light) by the horrifying visual confirmation that the 80s were coming back into vogue. As evidence, I present you with this: stonewashed denim mini-skirt over black capri leggings, topped by a rather abstract Flashdance-inspired T-shirt and a pair of the largest plastic hoop earrings I have ever seen.

It is said that one should not wear a certain look if one is old enough to have worn said look the first time around. Well I am, so I won't. Enough said.

I was still mesmerized by the idea of big plastic hoop earrings when I encountered a second fugly vision, only moments and one city block later.

Picture this: faux dark tan, faux blonde hair forced into pigtails that were somewhat reminiscent of Pippi Longstocking (i.e., sticking straight out from the sides of her head), set off gaudily by a matching sweatshirt and baseball cap in a hideous shade of pink that I can only describe as the sickly love child of Pepto-Bismol and bubblegum.

To make matters worse, I couldn't decide if the poor deluded woman was way too old to be wearing pigtails and that much pink, or if years of hitting the tanning beds had rendered her old beyond her years. Not pretty, either way.

I had a brief reprieve before the third sighting: an apparently sane woman pushing her Daschund through the park in a baby stroller. This encounter brings up so many questions. Is this poor woman so wanting a child that she is driven to pretend that her dog is in fact a child? (Anyone with pets knows they are indeed akin to children, but honestly now!) Does she enjoy longer walks than her dog's little legs can handle? Did her beloved canine have some sort of surgery that makes it unable to go for walks? Sadly, I will probably never know the answer.

Cheese, scones and quiche, oh my!

2005-05-16T14:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a foodie day.

First, we enjoyed the last two Lemon-Lavender Scones from Saturday's mini-bakefest (I was so frustrated that because of my baking and pastry classes, I never have time to bake at home anymore, so I woke determined to make whatever scones I had the proper ingredients I had on hand for, plus a crust for a quiche-to-be-made-later.), along with a nice hot cafe au lait. Oh, the scone recipe is from the completely excellent Macrina Bakery cookbook. Buy one today!

In the afternoon, I attended a short seminar at the Art Institute of Seattle about starting a restaurant. The speaker was chef Ethan Stowell, who opened his first restaurant, Union, about 18 months ago.

He gave a great talk, with interesting tidbits about putting together a business plan, getting investors, etc., but the one thing that sticks with me the most is that he said he owns 600-700 cookbooks, and that "I've literally read every one of those recipes backwards and forwards at least three times." Yowza! I thought I had a lot of cookbooks, but I don't think I've topped 100 (didn't have time yesterday to count, though). I'd better get shopping. Of course, I do own about 5 million back issues of Food & Wine.

After the seminar, I grabbed He-Who-Puts-Up-With-Me and our dog Doofus and headed down to the Pike Place Market for the Seattle Cheese Festival. We fought our way up to enough tables to satisfy our cheese tooth with samples. We even bought a couple tasty wedges to take home, accompanied by crackers from Beechers. Yummy!

Dinner was so easy: A rotisserie chicken from Costco and sauteed fresh asparagus. For dessert: wedges of the cherry pie I made in class Saturday night. Sigh.

I tested out the grater attachment on my new food processor in order to grate the 4 ounces of Gruyere for my quiche. Wow. Drop in a block of cheese, you get grated cheese...presto! How did I ever live without this contraption?

I had never made a quiche in my life until last week...now I'm addicted. They're so easy...the crust is the hardest part, and even that's not that hard (especially with my trusty food processor). I already have my eye set on a spinach and feta quiche for next week (great way to use up the feta in my fridge). A wedge of quiche, heated slightly in the microwave (like, one minute or less), makes a great brown bag lunch, along with a green salad. Yum, yum, yum!