8 years ago: Taekwondo. Participate for about 2 years, get up to green belt, then do some high kick that tears my plantar fascia to the point that I think I’ve broken my leg. That’s out.
6 years ago: Start the Cool Running Couch-to-5K running program. At week 2, tear my fascia again. Visits to a podiatrist teaches me that my tendons are too loose — they don’t prevent me from over stretching. So running is out of the picture, forever.
4 years ago: Take yoga at a local studio. Fun. But the monthly fee is a killer. Give it up.
2 years ago: Hike every autumn weekend in the mountains of NH while we’re on sabbatical. Stamina goes up, strength increases, … but then we return to flat, uninspiring Iowa.
1 year ago: Begin a 5-times-a-week home aerobics program. Feel great! Notice shrinkage! But then an excrutiating pain in the muscles of my head (not neck) stops me. Try acupuncture, visit chiropractor, nothing helps. Pain is gone after our 3-week summer travels (during which I did no crunches or other ab work). Makes me think it’s the ab work, so now I fear it.
5 days ago: Receive the hula hoop that I ordered from hoopnotica. First two days, I’m a failure. Third day, I can keep it up for most of 5 minutes! This is great! Fourth day, I noticed bruises (veritable BLACK AND BLUES) on my ribcage and waist.
Sigh. I’m losing confidence.
Not only am I the lady with the squeaky brakes, I seem to also be the lady with the squeaky shoes. How embarrassing.
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I *think* the glasses store will be replacing my cracked lenses for free. I mean, I was ready for a fight, but she just looked at them and filled out a work ticket. When I asked, “So, you’ll be taking care of this?” she nodded her head — but I realized after I left the store that that was about the wimpiest way to ask the question.
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This whole “mall walking” thing that the elderly do here in Iowa still catches me off guard. And they seem so embarrassed about it, too — rarely looking you in the eye as they make their speedy way down the halls.
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Dang, having to use my old glasses for the next 5 days is going to be tricky. This prescription doesn’t do my right eye much good anymore (and that’s my worse eye).
I’ve been baking bread for almost 20 years. It was one of the rotating chores we had in the hippie house we shared with 3 other grad students (making enough bread for sandwiches for 5 people for a week at a time!). Two years ago, almost to the day, I started making sourdough bread. And what a lot of fun that has been. But I think it’s part of the reason I don’t really enjoy making other breads anymore.
(Oh, by the way, I made marbled rye and swirled rye a couple of weeks ago, and with one thing and the other, I never talked about it here. Here you are:
I used the recipe in Peter Reinhart’s Bread Baker’s Apprentice, and it was much easier than I feared it would be. As soon as I can find more rye flour (suspiciously unfindable last week when the Consort went shopping), I’ll make this again.)
The reason I don’t like making other types of bread is that they are all so sweet. Why do they need so much sweetener in them? Goodness, if I want a sweet bread, then I would make muffins, for crying out loud! Who wants a lunch sandwich on sweet bread? (Clearly, most people.) Today I am making the multigrain bread extraordinaire from Reinhart’s book, but as I put it in a bowl to proof, I got a bit on my fingers, and I am afraid it’s going to be sweet, too (how could it not, with both honey and brown sugar in it?).
We shall see. But does anyone have a good recipe, or a suggestion for a good book (that I could check out at the library, preferably), that has a variety of nonsourdough bread recipes that don’t have so much sweetener in them?
Dear friend,
You were one of the first people I shared my blog link with — but I don’t think you’ve ever come here more than that one time.
More than anything, I would hate for you to come for a visit and think that I was being snarky about you at your expense. If that were to happen, then I would be a very sad blogger, indeed.
We do visit on Facebook quite a bit, and, well, something has been bothering me quite a bit. I know, I know — it’s completely my problem. It’s petty petty petty, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it — it’s in my editing genes. What’s also in my genes is the danger of keeping things bottled up inside. Noticing the error takes me over, I can’t concentrate on anything else, and then I explode. That would be worse than the momentary irritation I feel every time this quirk of yours pops up, so, I have decided to say this on my blog (where you don’t visit, and even if you did, I hope you see that I am not being snarky at all).
Here goes.
It’s more than. More — than. With an “a”. More then means nothing at all.
Phew! I am so happy to get that off my chest. Have a great day!
Somebody really wanted a cell phone, preferably with unlimited texting.
Somebody’s parents said, “What?! We can’t afford that ungodly amount of money. And just to have you and your friends text conversations that go: Yo.–Yo.–Yo!–Yo. No to the no, girl! Unless you can pay for phone and contract yourself!”
So Somebody began designing all sorts of money-making schemes, but that $40-70 per month just didn’t look attainable.
But then — Somebody’s friend told her there’s an app for the iPod Touch that allows you to text — for free. She showed her how to use it. She even told her about the tic-tac-sharing app, and the bubble-wrap popping app. Sure, it’s still pricey, but there’s Christmas money from the Arizona great-aunt and -uncle that’s burning a hole in her bank account.
And who CARES about cell phones, really? Heck, texting and music and fun candy-sharing apps are all that matters, right?
So today, Somebody bought a iPod Touch with her Christmas money.
And this is how she looked all afternoon:
If you will think of ourselves as coming out of the earth, rather than having been thrown in here from somewhere else, you see that we are the earth, we are the consciousness of the earth. These are the eyes of the Earth. And this is the voice of the earth.
–Joseph Campbell
Received from the Consort’s aunt, in Switzerland (all names changed, of course):
Thank you very much for your letter, it’s good to hear about you all.
We had a good 2009. In June Marta and her Jurg married and in July their “Paco” was born. They live near Zurich, I often go to look after the baby and see it grow up.
Szusi and her Jan moved from Prague to Paris, their apartment is in the middle of Paris, on the 7th floor, 100 small steps up and down. They have not really settled down and are not sure about marriage and children, Szusi is 32 1/2.
Piet is in LA. He bought a bigger house with a bigger garden, with a pool. He is proud of it all.
Hans broke his arm in December, no good in the wintertime with the snow. I don’t like driving a car and Hans cannot for 2 months.
Have a good 2010,
Aunt Sofi
Her letters always crack me up — she’s got such an aptitude to say so much with so few words. The Consort’s father (“Aunt Sofi”’s brother) often writes his holiday letter in a similar vein. Every year when I open it I am curious to see what disasters we all have barely avoided or almost succumbed to in the past 12 months. I think it comes from their upbringing — the Consort’s grandfather was a village Calvinist minister (and we all know how upbeat Calvin was on life here and in the hereafter!) — although the two oldest daughters curiously both showed a much more positive outlook on life. (Of course, so does the Consort — he’s one of the most upbeat, positive people I know, so perhaps every generation needs at least one happy-go-lucky person [the look-on-the-negative-side personality shows up in his generation, too -- one of his sibs has taken care of that one!].)
My leisure time is still filled with questing and dragon-slaying, but I did want to share this memory:
- When I was in (private, religious) elementary school, any time an adult would come into the room — to speak to the teacher, to collect one of us, etc. — we would all get up from our desks, stand to the left of it, and say, in unison, “Good morning/afternoon Sister Mary/Mr. Jones/{..}”. And the guest would then ask us to be seated before getting to the business at hand.
My girls went to Montessori elementary, so first of all, they didn’t have desks, and second of all, I don’t think public schools do the stand at attention thing, even if the children do use desks. But in any case, this memory feels so quaint and old-fashioned in the twenty-first century. Did any one else do this sort of thing?
BRB.
