'Dee's Garret

The Tribe Responds: Virtual Run for Sherry

2012-02-09T20:51:00.001-06:00

I often talk about runners as my “tribe”. Fast ones, slow ones, veterans, rookies, it doesn’t matter. My whole life, I’ve often been a loner. I like being alone, it comes naturally to me. But something weird happened to me a few years ago. I started to run, and then I fell in love with it, and then I ran my first race. And my second. And all the way up to my tenth (so far).

And while I’m still a loner, these other people who share the unique joy that is running and who are part of the still-indescribable feeling of being hip-to-hip with each other in some random race corral have slowly become my tribe. There’s just something about it, something I can probably never adequately explain.

So when the news stories emerged last month about the disappearance of Sherry Arnold, wife, mom, and runner, I was a member of the tribe who waited, hoping against hope, that she would be found and brought safely back to those who loved her. And when the worst came to be true, and the world learned that Sherry would indeed never be coming home, I was a member of the tribe who grieved the loss of one of our own.

This weekend, there will be a Virtual Run for Sherry to honor her memory and to celebrate her life. If you are a runner, please join our virtual run. If you are walker, please join us. If you are skater, please join us. If you have not moved from your couch in years, please join us. Any distance, any amount of time, any speed. It all counts. I am 100% confident that my fellow tribe members will welcome all with open arms as honorary members of our weird yet wonderful little world.

To learn more about the Virtual Run for Sherry and to print your own “race bib”, please hop over to SUAR’s blog to learn more and, if you can, to donate to a fund for Sherry’s children. Beth, the author of Shut Up And Run (SUAR), is Sherry’s cousin and the voice behind one of the first running blogs I ever began to read regularly. She is a gifted writer, a helluva runner, and she is a grieving member of Sherry’s family and of my tribe.

This Saturday, I will be one of many whose run will be dedicated to Sherry. On a probably-frosty February morning, I will lace up my trusty running shoes, I will stand for a moment of silence as the wind whispers among the pines in my back yard, and then I will run.

I hope you will, too.

Work-Life Balance: Fact or Fiction?

2012-01-24T21:39:00.001-06:00

It might be a good time for me to stop finding all of these life-issue calculators on the Internet. First, I made the soul-crushing discovery that I am actually considered obese depending on what method I choose to calculate such a thing. Now I’m out there assessing my “work-life balance”.

This was a very bad idea.

CNN’s Work-Life Balance Calculator

I started second-guessing myself after I did this, asking questions like “where does showering fit in?” or “blow-drying my hair?” or “putting on makeup?” or “what about trips to the bathroom from my newfound resolution to drink at least 68 ounces of water a day?”

I didn’t think those activities counted as “leisure”. Hmm, maybe “chores”? In the end, I got mad at myself for wasting any of my puny “unplanned” 22 hours a week on such a stupid dilemma and left it alone.

Naturally, the discovery of the work-life balance calculator turned into another episode of “’Dee falls down the interwebs rabbit hole for a few hours” (Argh! More drainage of unplanned time!). I suppose I did pick up a few tips here, here, and here.

It all sounded fine, a series of reasonable, manageable tips but with no false promises of perfection.

And then I got pulled up by the short hairs when I read this post on the HBR Blog Network by John Beeson. I had to face the facts: My job is NOT the kind that makes even pursuit of “balance” an easy endeavor.

Beeson pulled no punches…

“Many companies extol the value of work-life balance for their employees, but the reality for senior executives? There isn't any. Frequently, stressed and harried managers look up the organization hierarchy and assume that they'll have greater control of their time when they advance to the C-suite. What they don't understand is that modern-day telecommunications, the hair-trigger requirements of financial markets, and the pace of global organizations create 24 x 7 work lives for most executives. So, forget work-life balance and think personal organization and finding ways to relax.”

…and then Beeson went on to describe my life to such perfection that I quit reading the Internet that very moment, shut off the laptop, cracked the spine of the new Stephen King novel I’ve been putting off, and escaped into Obi-Wan’s weird-yet-wonderful world, far, far away from the dead-on accuracy of this assessment:

“In their drive to succeed, many new executives get caught up in a merry-go-round of business reviews, executive team meetings, e-mail, and late-night conference calls with colleagues around the world. At one large, global company, the CEO was known to keep his top 100 people on speed dial for impromptu phone calls at any time of the day or night. In many companies it can be difficult if not impossible to break away from this routine even for a long weekend, and the cumulative effects of stress and workload are damaging.”

This scares me. I may have known it subconsciously, but facing it consciously is something else altogether. It doesn’t sound like much of a fun life, does it? I guess for some people it sounds ideal. I don’t think I’m one of those people anymore.

It seems that I have some thinkin’ to do on the old career front.

Well, that’s way more than I can even handle thinking about right now. So I’m going to settle (for now) for taking this cue from our friends at WebMD:

"You have to make a little time for the things that ignite your joy."

Okay, THAT? I can do.

Although what ignites my joy often involves some level of torture for my dog:

I worked from my home office on Monday, attempting to get “caught up” (ha!) without “drive by” interruption. It occurred to me that making the Rox-Monster wear my conference call headphones and snapping photos of her humiliation for the blog was a small way of “igniting my joy”.

She was somewhat less amused.

A Weighty Problem by Any Measure

2012-01-16T17:44:00.001-06:00

A Note from the Blogger: In this post, I am going to talk about weight loss. While I have never approached my blog as a “healthy living blog” (OK, seriously, this would be closer to an UN-healthy living blog!), I have been talking a lot about running for the past few years and that could wind up on someone’s Google search as a fitness blog. Which, frankly, is ironic to me considering what I’m about to post about. Nonetheless,I am aware that sometimes the content of healthy living and/or fitness blogs can be triggering to people who have wrestled with eating disorders. Though I have never dealt with an ED personally, I am sensitive to those who have. If you, dearest reader, are dealing with (or are in recovery from) an eating disorder, please use caution in reading further.

Now that that is out of the way, here we go.

The weight on my scale, combined with my height and my body composition, officially qualifies me for at least “overweight” if not outright “obese”.

No, I’m serious. Why do you think I do not post many photos of late? Why do you think the photos I’ve posted in recent months are strategically cropped?

That’s why.

I’m seriously overweight for my frame and I’m embarrassed all to hell about it.

Lest you think I’m just suffering from ill-fitting “pre-holiday” jeans and/or “the last ten pounds” here, allow me to offer the results of my research. There are many measures of obesity out there, the most common of which is BMI or Body Mass Index. In recent years, there’s been a growing debate about the accuracy of BMI.

Last year, when I ran my first (and so far, only half-marathon), I saw a Registered Dietician for twelve weeks, in search of an eating plan to correct what I felt were imbalances in how I was fueling for my runs. She used BMI as an initial screener only – she followed it up with a metabolic test combined with a body fat test. The combination of which, by the way, proved that my metabolism was just fine but my body fat was way too high.

Now, more than a year later, I sit here 16 pounds heavier than I was after that race. SIXTEEN.

Egads. Yes, I have eaten my way back to an all-time high in terms of weight. And where I used to NEVER carry weight in my tummy (it’s all hips & butt for me, folks), now I’m sporting a gut. Not a pot belly, not a pooch. A GUT.

And this brings us to the newest, albeit still reportedly imperfect, measurement of obesity – the BAI, or Body Adiposity Index. Unlike the BMI, which takes into account only height and weight, this crazy-complex formula adds in hip circumference. The theory is that this added point of data (combined with math that would make even my nerd-genius brother’s head spin) makes this measure a more accurate one for overall body fat.

So I ran my numbers on both. And the results, no matter what the measure, are not pretty:

BMI: 30.1 ---> according to the tables, anything over 30 is considered “obese”. <---[insert ‘Dee screaming riiiiight about here]
BAI: 35.7 ---> according to the tables for this measure, anything over 35 is considered “overweight”. <---[being a hair under the “obese” measure for this one does NOT make me feel any better]

No, I’m not going to tell you what my input numbers were. Maybe after they change (for the better), I will be brave and post them. In the meantime, let’s just say that weight loss is going to be a theme on this blog for a while.

The slightly daunting realization is this: I have so much to lose that it’s going to take MONTHS to do so (in a healthful way, which is the only way that I will consider). Persistence is going to be key but I won’t lie – I am not looking forward to adapting my eating and exercise to the extent needed to pull this off. I’d rather eat like I want, exercise when I want, and be slender anyway.

It would seem that is not in the cards. *Sigh*

Anybody else out there on a weight loss journey that means you’ll be in it for the long haul? If so, let me know, I’d love to hear from you. And if you have a blog, let me know that, too! You will be promptly added to my blogroll so that we may all collectively cheer each other on.

Project 2012: One Goal

2012-01-06T22:59:00.001-06:00

A lot of my favorite blogs have posted about goals and resolutions in the past two weeks. And that has been my intent for my first post of 2012 – to do the same.

Except I’ve struggled. Where in past years, I set about crafting my personal goals just as I would my professional and work goals, for some reason, this year I just couldn’t seem to stomach it. I tried several times … there are four draft “Project 2012” documents in my trusty laptop. There are 5 pages of notes in the Moleskine that always travels in my laptop case with me, wherever it is that I may roam. Things like “eat more healthfully”, or “run four days a week”, or “FINALLY stick to our date night goal.”

None of it fully added up. It was all good stuff, all stuff I wanted to do. But it all felt so … disparate. Disconnected. Even perhaps … superficial?

I couldn’t get enthused about ANY of it. And so I couldn’t get enthused about posting it here.

It felt fake.

And it finally hit me. There was really only one thing on my mind, and if you read through my posts for the past year (two? three??), maybe it will be more clear to you than it was to me. But I’m thick sometimes, and it took me awhile to get there.

There is only one goal I wish to pursue in 2012. Or 2013. 2014. 2015. Frankly, for the rest of my life.

And it’s this: Don’t waste it.

Don’t waste life. Don’t be “too tired” to take my rescue pup on a walk when I get home late. Don’t be “too grouchy” to make my husband know, every second of every day, how much I love him. Don’t wait until a funeral to tell someone how much they mattered in my life. Don’t be “too busy” to give back and make a difference. Don’t be “too stressed” (or too fat or too self-conscious or too whatever) to appreciate the Summer. Or the Fall. Or the Winter. And especially Spring. Don’t do it. DON’T WAIT.

DON’T WASTE THIS LIFE.

We all are born with the clock already ticking. Our days are automatically finite. Why do we behave as though those days are limitless? I do it all the time:

“I’ll call Mom tomorrow.”
“I’ll work on that story on the plane.”
“I’ll run the fall half-marathon instead.”
“I’ll visit my brother next summer.”
“I’ll finally take all my vacation days next year.”

Any of this hitting a nerve out there? It does for me.

So that’s it. That’s my only goal for 2012. At every turn, with every intentional plan and unintentional random accident of how I spend my time, all I ask of myself is this:

Don’t waste it.

I dare you to do the same.

Double dog dare.

“Dontcha just love New Years?”

2011-12-31T22:20:00.001-06:00

“… You get to start all over. Everybody gets a second chance.” ~ Lenore, Forrest Gump, 1994

As the hours and minutes of 2011 tick down, I turn my view towards the horizon of a new year. A calendar as-yet unfilled, a slate as-yet totally clean. Man, oh, man. Whatta concept.

What might we do with this fresh year? What old ways of thinking may we shuck off? What new, mysterious paths might we choose? What favorite pursuits shall we sustain?

Let’s find out together, shall we?

Happy New Year to my readers, to my friends, and to my “tribe”.

“We’ve been through some things together
With trunks of memories still to come
We found things to do in stormy weather
Long may you run.” ~ Neil Young

Back to blogging, January 2012. Hope to see you here.

I give up. For a while.

2011-12-06T21:48:00.001-06:00

My friends, it’s too much right now. The work. More work. Still more work. Planes. Trains. Rental car buses. Twelve-hour days. Fourteen-hour days. Hell, last week alone, I posted a 20-hour day.

Yeah, between the bags under my eyes and the general zombie-ness that ensued, that particular day lands right up there in the suck-factor of all time.

Rather than continue to post half-assed content in the midst of this, I am crying “uncle” and admitting defeat. I simply have no time to put any thought into my blog. I probably realized it when my frequent-flyer status clicked over to “Gold” somewhere over Syria, but the point was really driven home when it clicked up the next notch to “Platinum” somewhere over Pennsylvania. I mean, really … how surreal is THAT?

I don’t like being a half-assed anything, but since it appears work is not going to lighten up any time soon, I’m going to have to put my non-half-assery efforts towards that for now.

If I have something that I think may be of real interest to post and can manage to do so, I will. But I’m not going to throw up a post just to say I did it. I expect this is simply my reality until at least the end of the year and it’s time to put my big-girl panties on and admit it.

I am still running, though not as much as I want to and nowhere close to as far as I want to. The siren-song of an April half-marathon is calling my name, and I desperately wish to answer it. I’m finding some time to write on planes, but not finding enough to finish anything. A dozen things I want to do are colliding with a million things I HAVE to do. I suppose such is life.

I hope some of you are still here when I come back. I enjoy your blogs, I love your comments, and I’m not going to be gone forever. Just for now. Just for a while.

For those of you of my “running tribe”, in the meantime, long may you run. For you fleet-of-foot gazelles, please keep on making us mere mortals look so damned mortal. And a special note for you Penguins: Rock on with your badass slow-running selves. You rule.

‘Dee

Free Day

2011-11-25T12:08:00.001-06:00

What exactly is it about having a day off when you have NO plans? It’s both disconcerting and delightful, I think. Disconcerting because I feel very out of my element when I’m not trying to check things off my to-do list. Delightful because I don’t get to rebel against my to-do list very often!

Roxie and I have already taken a walk through our neighborhood and played a mean game of “fetch” in the back yard. Now she’s snoozing next to me on the couch and I’m watching a little mindless TV. Occasionally, I feel guilty for just sitting here. And then I force myself to stay seated until the feeling passes.

Hah.

A few pictures from yesterday, beginning with the turkey!

All buttered-and-herbed and ready to go in the oven:

And the finished product: This frankly may have been my best bird EVER. Bomber would not quit raving about it. Success!

And since Roxie did such a good job on security detail before dinner, she ended up getting some, too:

“All right, you squirrels. I’m. WATCHING. You.”

Maybe later I’ll start switching out Fall décor and begin my Christmas decorating. Or … maybe I’ll just go to the movies and see “Breaking Dawn.”

Besides, I like these little fellas. Think I’ll keep them out for another day.

Dee’s No-Fear Brine-Roasted Turkey

2011-11-23T16:44:00.001-06:00

Hola, mi amigas! I am blissfully happy to have the next FOUR DAYS OFF! I have to hoof it back to the mothership next Monday, so no rest for the wicked wheelie bag quite yet. But for a few precious days at least, I will be spending my long Thanksgiving Day weekend any way I damn well please.

For us this year, that means our favorite way to spend a holiday -- just our little family, me, Bomber, and the Rox-Monster. We will start our day by running in our local Turkey Trot 5K, then spend all of those wonderfully pre-earned calories on a full turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Naturally, to be followed by lots and lots of FOOTBALL.

Definitely my kind of day.

I love cooking a big Thanksgiving feast and I especially love the turkey. I know a lot of people can get freaked out about cooking a turkey, but I’m here to testify that it’s really very easy. I love anything I can season up and just throw in the oven for a few hours.

I’ve experimented over the years with lots of prep methods and they’ve all had merit. But if you want a fool-proof checklist for the PERFECT turkey, then I have the recipe for you. I found this a few years ago and modified it to my liking. It is my go-to, no-fail method for a great turkey dinner.

Dee’s No-Fear Brine-Roasted Turkey

Ingredients:

2 gallons water, divided
2 cups kosher salt
2 cups packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons black peppercorns, coarsely cracked [I put whole peppercorns in wax paper and then beat the heck out of them with a mallet!]
1 (12-14 pound) fresh turkey [Note: Because I strive to vote myself as far off the industrial agriculture wagon as I can get, I buy cage-free, humanely raised turkeys from a local farm. It is worth it to me to devote the additional effort to find a bird who lived a good life.]
2 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature

The night before roasting the turkey, make the brine. In a medium saucepan, combine 4 cups water, kosher salt, and sugar; cook over medium heat, stirring, until salt and sugar dissolve. Remove pan from heat, stir in peppercorns, and let cool.

Rinse the turkey inside and out and place in a very large stock pot. [My turkey in this picture is about 11 pounds and this is my largest stock pot.]

Add the remaining water and the brown sugar mixture, stirring to blend. Refrigerate for 12-15 hours. If your turkey floats to the top too much, you can weight it down with a plate and then put the stock pot lid on to keep it under the brine. Alternatively, you an just flip your bird halfway through to ensure even brining.

[Note: If you are using a bigger bird and/or don’t have a big enough pot, you can use an ice chest lined with heavy plastic. Just put the bird and the brine in the plastic, then close up the plastic and pack ice around it all. Store in a cool place, like a garage in Missouri in November. Hah. Another option is to pick up one of the ready-made “brining bags” on the market these days. I haven’t tried one, but they look pretty sturdy. For safety, I’d put it in a roasting pan before storing in the fridge in case you get a hole in the bag.]

When time’s up, remove the bird from the brine and rinse THOROUGHLY under cold running water. I mean thoroughly! When you think you are done, do it again. And then again. Otherwise, your pan drippings may be too salty for gravy or other uses. Next, pat it dry with paper towels. If you are not quite ready to roast it, put it in the refrigerator in the meantime.

When you ARE ready to roast, now’s the time for your butter. First, preheat the oven to 325F. Then, gently loosen the skin over the breast until you can rub butter UNDER the skin. Work it under the skin as far as you can. If this is too challenging, don’t worry about it! Just rub the butter ON the skin. It’ll still be great, I promise.

Follow with a light dusting of pepper or seasoning of your choice. I advise skipping salt or anything with salt in it, e.g. garlic salt, onion salt, etc. The flesh will have absorbed some salt from the brine and you don’t want to add more. For me, I just dust with freshly ground black pepper and very loosely stuff the cavity of the bird with assorted herbs – rosemary, thyme, and sage. The herbs really add an amazing flavor to the bird and the pan drippings!

Now tie the legs together with kitchen twine (or twist foil around or whatever you have on hand that can handle oven heat.) And if you have nothing, it will still be fine! It just makes for prettier presentation. Put the bird on a rack, breast side up, in your roasting pan. Tuck the wing tips under the back of the bird (it keeps them from getting too crispy). Put the turkey in the oven and baste with pan drippings about every half hour for 1 hour.

Next, cover the turkey breast loosely with foil. This helps keep the breast from drying out while the denser dark meat takes a little longer. Some people flip the bird over on the breast side at this point, but have you ever tried to flip a partially-cooked, 12-pound bird? Umm, yeah. Not easy. Others simply roast it on the breast the whole time, but that’s never worked out as well for me as they say it should. Since we’re going for no-fail, no-fear, no-freak-out, folks, I advise against both of those methods.

Continue roasting for 2 to 3 hours longer, or until a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh (don’t connect with the bone, it’ll throw off your temp results) reads between 165-175F. You have about 30 minutes to go now, so take the foil off and the skin will brown up nicely. And keep basting!

How do you know when your turkey is done? When your temp reading is 180F, your turkey is considered fully cooked and you are safe! You can cook it more if you like, but get it to at least 180F and then take it out to rest, about 15-20 minutes. It won’t get cold, I promise. If you are worried, cover it with foil or put the lid on your roasting pan. The resting is key to getting the juiciest turkey – and to getting one that is easy to carve as well.

If I remember before I devour the turkey tomorrow, I’ll take photos to show you this year’s finished product.

And if you try this, good luck, and please let me know how it went!

"A bin of wine, a spice of wit"

2011-11-16T20:53:00.001-06:00

Here I sit,
A stone's throw from
The mothership.

A fine hotel
A fine meal
A place where fine service
is part of the deal.

Alas, my server
Was quite a bit late
And thus brought to me
An extra glass of grape.

(If I knew how to upload from my iPhone to the blog, you would see the two glorious glasses of Pinot Grigio that I got instead of one for my late room service dinner. I have decided that this hotel has me figured out.)

***Edited to Add***
HA! Figured it out:

28 Days Later

2011-11-14T15:11:00.001-06:00

I was reading up on blogging “don’ts” while traveling last week, and it seems that apologizing to one’s readers for a longer-than-normal blogging hiatus is a no-no. So I guess I’m not going to do that. But I have to wonder, what does one do if not apologize? Am I to insult you? Pull out my best taunts of, “Oh YEAH? Well, your mother wears ARMY BOOTS!” from childhood playground days?

Well, that just doesn’t seem right.

Although plenty of blogs-perts have told me quite clearly what NOT to do, nobody seems to have thought to tell me what TO do. And so I wandered the blogosphere, hunting for a “what to do if you’re a lapsed blogger with precious damned few readers in the first place” etiquette that seems to not exist.

And as the days without blogging ticked by, I reached the point where if I didn’t blog now, I couldn’t use this post title anymore. And you know how I love me some movie title blog posts …

Ah well. Until I find the Miss Manners of blogging, I guess I will just jump right back in.

Things I Would Have Blogged About … If I’d Been Blogging

1. Emergency Room Visit #1: Blonde Bomber. 4:00 a.m. Kidney stones. Ouch.

2. Trip #1 - Mexico: Work trip. NOT a resort destination. Bomber severely miffed at me for traveling to a high-risk area. Company’s security division required a text that says “I’m OK” upon arrival. (And it just occurred to me to wonder: What would they have done if they didn’t get a text?) Our driver was armed. I alternated from feeling completely weirded out to feeling like a total BADASS. I kept expecting Machete to leap into the vehicle with me, wanting my autograph.

Eh, it actually wasn’t any worse than the Bronx, but nevertheless, landing at good old DFW on the way back did feel particularly good.

3. Raked leaves: Lots and lots and lots of leaves.

Roxie helped. Happy Autumn!

4. Ran a 5K! Gumbo Flats Pumpkin Run – a frrrosty but beautiful fall day and I didn’t suck as badly as I expected I would. Chip time: 43:05.

5. Trip #2 – Atlanta: Day trip. Visit to see a competitor who is also very large customer. Made for challenging conversation but sales guy said I was “masterful.” Note to self: Never trust anything said by sales guy.

6. Trip #3 - New York: Quick trip to Mothership. Pitched the financial business cases to launch my group’s services in India and Mexico. Felt weird talking about dollars and cents when all that is in my mind is how my stuff can help those wonderful people live better lives. Resolved anew to find way out of Corporate America. But in the meantime … must have worked. Think you’ll see future trips pics from India and Mexico. Must be ‘cause I’m masterful.

7. Emergency Room Visit #2: Me. Unfortunate kitchen mishap involving my beloved new Wustof knives.

Evidently I am not only NOT masterful, I also will NOT be “The Next Iron Chef.”

It was a busy month.

So…Where Were We?

2011-10-16T15:24:00.001-05:00

Would you believe that I fell into a deep, dark cave for the last two weeks? Struggled out by climbing the gritty, razor-sharp walls with my own bare hands? Hiked miles and miles to get back to my home, spent days in the hospital treating my wounds of self-sufficiency and bravery?

No? Hmm. OK, so nothing of that dramatic themery actually happened to me. I just worked a lot. And did not much other than that, I’m afraid.

I promise I’ll fill you in on my final reflections on India soon. Sadly, I also have to tell you why I’m not going to be running this. And I’ll catch you up on some other goings-on and then – hopefully – resume something resembling more of a normal blogging schedule.

But not right this minute, because I’ve got something else I need to do:

Watch the Dallas Cowboys! They are playing the New England Patriots, which is always hard for me to watch – I grew up in Maine, where the Patriots RULE, but I didn’t fall in love with football until I lived in Texas, where the Cowboys stole my heart. I think Dallas is going to have their work cut out for them today if they have a hope of winning. Patriots are GOOD.

Oh yes, and she’s helping:

Sort of.

Be back.

My Passage to India: Mumbai, Day 4

2011-10-03T22:05:00.001-05:00

So, where were we? Yes. We were off to pay a bill in India. A local retailer who operated a chain of franchise stores providing local services to consumers was ready to help us experience this.

My company’s local office is in the Bandra-Kurla Complex, or BKC (a verbal shorthand that became very important to know as absolutely NONE of the car service drivers had any idea what I meant in terms of destination unless I said “I’m going to BKC.”)

We had told the retailer that we wanted the “real India”. We said we wanted to go where the mass market of Indian consumers live so that we could learn all that we could about how they lived, how they transacted, how they paid. We said, “Do not send us to your most perfect location. Send us to a NORMAL location.” So when the local retailer gave us an address where we could go watch a shopkeeper who handled bill payments in action, he gave us an address that was (relatively) nearby with his full assurances that we would, indeed, experience the “real India.”

We piled into two cars, and, as it turned out, the horrified looks on our drivers’ faces when we gave them the general directions would become understandable soon enough. After a jouncing ride with many zigs and zags along narrow, dusty “streets” (italics used on purpose), we arrived at our requested “normal location.”

We arrived in the heart of Dharavi.

[Source]

Dharavi is one of the largest “low income neighborhoods” in Asia (this is how the retailer described it to us. “Low income.”) It is more than 500 acres across and is home to more than one million people. Yes. ONE MILLION. When you approach Mumbai by air, you can see it easily, nestled against the tall commercial buildings and business district suburbs.

We drove through narrow alleys crowded with people, debris, and livestock. My heart ached at the stray dogs and the many, many animals, foraging for scraps amid the garbage. If my heart ached for the animals, it practically broke apart at the naked babies, held on the hips of wide-eyed siblings only a few years older. No adults in sight. Men washed themselves in a communal “bath” in front of what used to be a building, but was now a concrete shell, the face of the building completely blown away. I have no idea from what.

[Source]

Beautiful young women in beautiful saris picked their way over dark puddles left in the street from the last monsoon season rainstorm. A man dressed in pristine white led a young and perfectly groomed bull, festooned with flowers and colorful drapings, to a destination unknown.

[Source]

After many wrong turns, several stops to ask the locals for guidance, and more than one “reverse-turn-go-the-other-way” moments, we arrived at the “store.” Once again, italics used on purpose.

Now, you have to picture this. We didn’t expect to go on a field visit when we left the hotel in the morning. So here we come – three natives and four foreigners – piling out of two hotel cars in full business attire. All of us in suits. And on the foreigners, heels, blonde hair (for 3 of 4 of us), and jewelry that was, collectively, probably worth more than the store itself.

I have never felt so out-of-place nor so embarrassed by my relative wealth in my entire life. It doesn’t matter that I can describe in detail what food stamps looked like in 1975. Nor does it buy me any credibility that I can personally attest that U.S. government-ration peanut butter is the finest peanut butter on this planet. That I was not a child born of wealth mattered nothing. I’ve worked my way to a very comfortable place in this life and here, in Dharavi, I felt disgustingly, glaringly, wealthy.

I wished fervently that I’d planned ahead better. At least worn jeans, a t-shirt, tennis shoes. But such that it was, we all trooped into the back of the retailer’s shop in our American business attire to see how this man served his community when it came to paying bills.

If nothing else makes me smile about this experience, it’s this: We were a SPECTACLE. We were the entertainment highlight of the evening. I believe the neighborhood is still talking about the scrubbed, blonde, high-heeled foreigners who alighted in their world. Two children actually stroked my sleeve, eyes wide at me, as if I were an alien from another planet. It did not take long before the part of the alley where we stopped was FILLED with people. All there to look at us.

Where I would have been nothing more than another suit on the street in St. Louis or New York, here in Dharavi, I was an unintentional roadside attraction. Go figure.

Back to the store.

The shopkeeper’s main business was handing out government rations --- food. Bill payments were a small side service, earning him less than $20 USD a month in fees. Yet he was clearly trusted – having no bills waiting on the desk to be entered, he literally went out in the alley and approached people he knew asking if they had any to pay. Sure enough, five minutes later, here he came with a wad of rupees and a neighbor’s Reliance Energy bill.

The shopkeeper led us to the back, where his 10-year old computer and his satellite internet connection awaited. A young boy sat at the desk, school books in front of him. Seeing this invading horde of foreigners, his eyes went wide, he grabbed his books, and he backed up to the door at the rear of the shop. A colleague struck up a conversation with him, and as the rest of us were viewing the process by which the shopkeeper entered his customers’ bills on the ancient computer, they murmured in quiet conversation. She made a friend. And as it turns out, she learned what the young man had been studying.

World history.

How poignant. I felt I was LIVING world history, right there in the back of the shop, dimly lit by one struggling bare lightbulb, superficially cooled by a ceiling fan with the noise level of a small lawnmower engine, surrounded by feedsacks of rice awaiting distribution to the shopkeeper’s neighbors.

Hours later, having spent the afternoon in the “low income” neighborhood of Dharavi, we returned to the office, and later, to our hotel. The four of us foreigners were quiet at dinner. We kept looking at each other, unspoken messages passing easily between us.

We thought we knew. We didn’t know. We are so lucky. They are so strong.

We want to make a difference.

Author’s Note: All photos used in this post are NOT mine. I have linked to their sources and ask any owners to please let me know if they wish them to be removed from my blog.

Why no photos? As I spent my time in the streets and the slums of India, every time I thought to take out my camera and take a photo, the thought was followed IMMEDIATELY by a feeling of abject disrespect if I did. I wish I’d gotten photos of Dharavi, but I’m glad I didn’t. I wish I’d gotten photos of the shopkeeper (he was willing!) but I’m glad I didn’t.

I wish I had because the experience was SO powerful that I would dearly love to share it with all of you through original photographs.

I am glad I didn’t because I felt that, in some very small way, I was honoring the humanity and the nobility of these beautiful people who so graciously let me into their lives by declining to be just another American tourist with a camera.

And so the camera sat in my bag, unused. But the film in my mind and the photos of my memory are full to overflowing with images of this experience.

More full than words can describe.

Up next: The voyage home and final reflections on my passage to India.

My Passage to India: Mumbai, Days 2 and 3

2011-09-29T13:11:00.001-05:00

What a whirlwind week. The days are going by very fast and before I even blinked, Day 2 and Day 3 of my visit to India have already been written in the books.

We spent most of our days in our company’s offices in the suburbs of South Mumbai, talking to consumer service providers in the city, uncovering what works about how consumers pay for things in India, and especially what doesn’t work. The solutions that my part of the company offers represent a potential improvement to the payment systems in India, and subsequently, a potential improvement to financial inclusion for consumers and in the ease of a consumer’s life in how they have to make those payments.

After a day and a half of interviews, brainstorming, etc., we all decided that we needed to go out into the market and live an afternoon in the life of a consumer making a bill payment in India.

And by that we did not mean a day in the life of a well-off suburban Indian consumer. Nope. Picturing the scenarios being described as "normal life" to so many Indians from the air-conditioned comfort of a suburban office building wasn't going to cut it.

If what we could offer were to be developed in a way that would really matter, we had to go the real India. We had to go the mass market – the places where a majority of the 20 million consumers in this city actually live.

We had to go to the slums.

Over the course of the next five hours, I would experience a world so remarkably different from my own, and develop such an emotional drive to help people remarkably NOT different from my own, that I’m never going to look at anything quite the same way ever again.

To be continued …

My Passage to India: Mumbai, Day 1

2011-09-27T13:10:00.000-05:00

Greetings from a world away.

We departed St. Louis on Sunday afternoon, heading first to Chicago O'Hare, then a flight change to Brussels, and finally a final flight change to Mumbai. All in, we were looking at a 23-hour day of travel.

The Chicago leg went by quickly and after a short layover, it was off to Europe on the next leg of our trip, flying 8 hours to the next stop in Brussels. In reality, it turned into more like 9.5 hours because our plane had a mechanical issue and we left late. Thirty minutes after we were to depart, the captain came on the intercom to report that we "have a screw loose."

Yep. Great. We have a comedian piloting the oversized aluminum tube that will be hanging out over nothin' but big blue ocean for more than 5 of the 8 hours AND it's been 30 minutes since said loose screw was spotted and nobody seems able to find a replacement. Either that, or nobody knew how to operate a screwdriver. For a captive passenger of that aluminum tube, also known as a jumbo Boeing 767, I'm not quite sure which option was more disconcerting ...

Happily, some erstwhile mechanic whom I don't know but now dearly appreciate managed to locate and install a replacement screw. It only took 1.5 hours, but whatever. The thing could fly (properly) and land (well and on purpose). I was good.

It's the little things.

Figuring we would still have a good 30 minutes wiggle room on the other side of that ocean to make our Mumbai flight connection, we weren't too concerned. Until after we fixed the loose screw and ... promptly sat on the runway for another 40 minutes.

By this time we were looking at each other and wondering, "Even if we make the Mumbai flight connection, will our luggage?" We were each dressed in what can politely be called "publicly acceptable pajamas." I had on a track suit jacket, jogging pants, and my slip-on tennies. My seat mate/colleague wore yoga pants and a tunic length hoody. Our other two colleagues had various versions of stretch travel knit plus comfy wrap sweaters.

Hey, when you are trying to get yourself prepared for an 11.5 hour time difference, the best way to start is to sleep on the plane. So we came prepared for some sleepin'.

But since we were due to meet with a client in Mumbai first thing in the morning, waltzing into the meeting in our public pajamas probably wouldn't have made the best impression. Well, we figured we'd cross that bridge if we got to it.

Luckily, we did sleep (a little), we did arrive in time to nab the next flight (by a margin of about 10 minutes), and thankfully - - so did our luggage.

And then, we were in Mumbai.

How to describe Mumbai? Although I was informed, educated, and prepared, the real-life experience of this city (and this country) can still be a shock.

The stark juxtaposition of gleaming glass and steel skyscrapers bumped right up against miles and miles of trash-ridden slums where the "homes" are little more than four pieces of corrugated steel and a tarp, is mind blowing.
The children darting into traffic with horns blaring and tires screeching around them to beg for rupees at midnight is heart-wrenching.
The sleek black limousine cruising past the battered old auto-rickshaw is a tangible reminder that there are very rich, very poor, and not that much in between.

And all of this was seen in the dark.

I thought I was prepared. I wasn't.

This morning, I opened my hotel room curtains to this scene:

My first thought: "Wow. Beautiful."
Upon closer inspection, my second thought: "Wow. There's more smog here than in Los Angeles. And that's saying something."
And upon my peering closer into the distance, my third thought: "What's over there on the beach? What is that .... oh..."

More slums. My simple little camera isn't powerful enough to magnify, but my eyes are.

It was time for the day to begin, so we piled into the car for the trip to the office. During the ride, I began to understand that what I thought had been heartbreaking at night, in the dark, became outright gut-wrenching when experienced in the harsh light of day.

To be continued ...

Date Night– September 2011: The Foos!

2011-09-24T00:13:00.001-05:00

My now-abject adoration of the Foos (aka the Foo Fighters) is almost entirely due to my husband’s influence. I never really appreciated Nirvana until, sadly, after Kurt C. passed away. And so I was shocked and awed to learn years ago from the man who is now my husband that a band oddly named “The Foo Fighters” – a band that I had found myself drawn to, song after song, without knowing who the members of the band actually were, was led by the former drummer for Nirvana. Dave Grohl.

Fast forward to today, and, as it is with me and great writers, so it shall be with me and great musical artists.

I fell down the rabbit hole.

Dave Grohl rocks. The Foos rock.

And I have been a Foos devotee ever since.

For September’s “date night”, the Blonde Bomber squired me away to an evening I was looking forward to for a long time: The Foos in concert at Scott Trade Center in St. Louis.

Three hours. THREE HOURS. Of chart-topping Foo hits, of lesser-known acts of genius, of unknown acts of musical humanity, you name it. Those men kill it. They deliver THE SHOW. Every. Single. Time.

My personal favorites?

Up first: “Everlong”. In the soundtrack of my life with the Blonde Bomber, this song has the capacity to reduce me to a sniveling, sentimental idiot. Case in point: The simplest, most crisp, most essential translation of what it felt to recognize that I’d finally found “my better half”:

Hello
I've waited here for you
Everlong

As simple, and as complicated, as that. So much life represented in seven small words. *Shakes Head*

Live in St. Louis – September 2011 (warning – a little salty language!)

General Music Video Release:

And, more than a decade after encountering my Bomber, my own personal everlong, everything about how he is embedded into the fabric of who I am and how I live and how shredded I would be if he were not here is in these lyrics:

And I wonder
When I sing along with you
If everything could ever feel this real forever
If anything could ever be this good again
The only thing I'll ever ask of you
You've got to promise not to stop when I say when

I suppose if anything could ever be considered “our song”, or the main musical feature in the soundtrack of our lives, this one is it. And BB is always gently amused at me every time I sit in the audience of a Foo concert, yearning, not-at-all-secretly, for Dave to begin belting out Everlong.

And when he does? Whether acoustical or blasting the amps, I hold the Bomber’s hand every time. And he knows what I mean by it. Without me saying a word.

Can you top this? For me, simply, no. But what’s close? For ME? The ME that was before BB and the ME that continues after and WITH BB?? Well, there is no question. For good, for bad, for somewhere in between. In all of our lives, these questions come up from time to time, from one angle or the other. So it must be – it HAS to be – “Best of You”.

Has someone taken your faith?
Its real, the pain you feel
The life, the love you'd die to heal
The hope that starts the broken hearts
You trust, you must
Confess

Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?

I've got another confession my friend
I'm no fool
I'm getting tired of starting again
Somewhere new
Were you born to resist or be abused?
I swear I'll never give in
I refuse

Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?

I suppose if something should be considered the anthem of my life, this may be it.

Whichever way you may interpret it – good, neutral, bad – is someone getting the BEST of you?

And is this the situation you WANT? Only you can decide. No-one else. Just you.

Live in St. Louis – September 2011:

General Music Video Release:

The best parts of the night? First, when Grohl spied a ten-year-old kid in the audience and admonished him to do this:

“YOU. You need to start a f****** band. We’re going to go away after tonight and make another record. And next time we come back, you’d better have a band.”

The next-best part? When Grohl said this: “You know what? People ask me if I get nervous doing this s***. I say, no. Not anymore. Because if I weren’t up here playing this s***, I’d be where you are – on the floor, rocking out, goin’ nuts, LISTENING to this s***. I don’t get nervous. You’re ME. I’m YOU.”

Long live rock & roll. Long live the Foos.

My Passage to India: Before the Journey Begins

2011-09-23T22:25:00.001-05:00

My friends, I am less than 48 hours away from one of the most “business trippy” of business trips of my entire life.

I am off to India.

Although I won’t share all the details because it is for work, I will say this: This is an adventure that causes me to be of two completely opposite minds. First, I’m gratified and excited to have this opportunity because I think that I (and my part of my company) have the chance to make a real difference in people’s lives in this amazing country. But second, I’m also very melancholy because I will be gone for more than a week and I will miss my loves – my Blonde Bomber and my Rox-monster – very, very badly for that length of time. I live for my loves. Anything I do in my work is only on behalf of creating a good life for my loves. Le sigh.

My company hosts an internal blog and I will be posting there about our cause and our adventures in India. Which is pretty cool, because the only way I can sometimes reconcile my “Corporate American-ness” is to tie it back to value – in the sometimes-vain hope that what I do resonates, even if only in some small way, in the lives of people like you and like me. And more often, of people less fortunate than you and me. And I hope to also blog right here, on my own little postage-stamp-sized part of the virtual world, about my PERSONAL experience as this work journey adds to the richness (and yes, the melancholy) of my personal life.

The Back-Story: At a recent leadership training exercise, we were asked to write down our “long term goal”. For most of my colleagues in this exercise, the answers ranged from “to become head of my division” or “to become a board member of a Fortune 500 company” or “to become COO [or CEO, CFO, or some other “C-level” position'].

For me? Well, I struggled. A lot. Because my career ceased to be my key driver in life a while ago. So I hemmed, and I hawed, and I dithered for the days between the exercise and the day when our answers were due back to our trainers.

I thought. I pondered. I soul-searched. I came up with nothing “worthy” of the objective. Everything “acceptable” felt completely artificial. Fake. Faux. False.

So then I came back to me. Not to the Corporate American version of me. To ME. When I brought it back to who I was, and NOT to what I do, it was then that it hit me. Suddenly, it was all crystal clear.

Here is the poetic version of my answer to the question of “what is my long-term goal?”

"To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one's self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived - this is to have succeeded." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let me make this even more plain. Here’s the important nugget …”to know even one life has breathed easier” because I have lived.

That. Right there. That’s it.

That’s my long-term goal.

And this? Well, this is but the tiniest, abstract, photographic snapshot of India. And yet it tells so much.

The beauty and richness and the glamour:

…and the beauty and the reality and the tragedy:

That last photo is why I can feel more excited than melancholy about leaving my loves (my heart, my soul, my existence) for a week to embark on this adventure. Because the cool part is, if I do my job well? If I follow my vision? I can make a difference. A Mom’s life will be better. A young adult’s life will better. And once you can make a difference in just ONE life? Society becomes better. The future of children’s lives become better.

So for once, here in my little corner of big Corporate and Global business, where I toil and where I struggle to find meaning, I actually have a real chance to start just a small spark that might -- just might -- make a difference.

That, I have decided, is worth the melancholy.

“I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by; and that has made all the difference.” ~ Robert Frost

Stay tuned for more posts on my passage to India.

Namaste.

By Popular Demand: Fall Container Garden Redux

2011-09-21T21:58:00.000-05:00

I'm on the road for work (I know, you are shocked), and was using my new toy to peruse my blog stats and realized that I was getting a TON of Google search hits on a post that I did in 2008. YES. Three years ago. What's funnier to me is it was one of my rare "Martha Stewart" moments when I wasn't whining about work, dreaming about doing something different, etc., and was before I discovered running, so it wasn't even a running blog back then.

Well, that rare post seems to have hit a nerve about this time of year. The title was "Fall Container Garden Ideas" and it would seem I'm not the only person sick of a pot full o'mums and searching for something with a little more "oomph" when the weather turns crisp and colorful.

So by popular demand, here are the links to the original post with the ideas (cribbed from the now-defunct "Cottage Living" magazine) plus the next post where I showed my personal results.

For those of you looking for fun fall arrangements, here you go!

Fall Container Garden Ideas
So, How Did I Do?

Enjoy.

Sometimes, You Just Need A Day Off

2011-09-18T21:04:00.001-05:00

There were so many things I needed to do today. Go on my long run. Clean my bathrooms. Catch up on my overflowing mail pile. Finish the next installment of my “Burnout” blog post series. Clean up my email. File paperwork. Wash floors.

I didn’t do any of it. And you know what? I don’t feel (too bad) about that.

What I did instead:

Slept in to the sound of rain on the eaves
Lounged around all morning on my couch, sipping coffee, reading the paper, watching HGTV, National Geographic, Animal Planet, and reading blogs
Did only enough laundry to be sufficiently clothed at work tomorrow
Played fetch with Roxie…twice
Walked Roxie…twice
Wiped muddy puppy paws … four times
Read the latest “Runner’s World” magazine and dreamed of races I want to someday run
Read a few chapters of “The Help” and appreciated anew the talent of good writers
Watched my beloved Dallas Cowboys win in overtime
Did not look at the clock
Lived

The real world begins again promptly at 5am tomorrow. But until then, I simply decided that sometimes you just need a day off.

Doggie DNA Test Reveal! “She Confounds Us All”

2011-09-16T18:43:00.001-05:00

Remember when we tortured our dog by swabbing her cheeks for a DNA test? Well, the results are in!

She’s a German-Kees-Mal-Terv-Rott-Herd.

Here’s the test animal:

And here’s the first breed result confirmed: German Shepherd Dog!

[Source]

I know, shocker, right? Hah. Nailed this one. I know my Shepherds, I tell you. But … as for the rest? Yeah, I totally failed. “She confounds us all!'”

Drumroll, please – the second breed result was … Keeshond!

[Source]

She’s SO much larger than this breed and not the slightest bit fluffy, but after I looked at photos and read up on the breed, I finally spotted the common element: Her spectacles! See how the pup above looks like she’s wearing glasses? Apparently, this is a common trait among Keeshonds. Roxie has the same little black lines around her own eyes. Go figure.

Now if you’ll notice the silver bones on those result snapshots, you will see the big, fat MIXED BREED notation. So what’s in those mixes? Aha, now we get another big surprise plus two results that make everything suddenly clear:

Wait, what? ROTTWEILER????

[Source]

Oh, wait. The EARS!! Yep, those are her ears. All of the other breeds in her have stand-up ears. Her build is not the slightest bit boxy or brute-y like the Rottie’s, but oh, boy, have we have found the ancestral culprit for her cute floppy ears.

And next it really all does come together. The other two mixes were both in the Belgian Sheepdog (also known as Belgian Shepherd) family. After a little bit of sleuthing, I went from skepticism to “oh, now I get it.”

The Belgian Tervuren – a breed I’d NEVER even heard of:

[Source]

And … the Belgian Malinois:

[Source]

Yup. That’s my dog.

What’s even more interesting is how much all of these breeds seem to have in common. I mean ALL of them. And it’s like describing my girl to a “T”!

Keen, alert and fearless
Cheerful, obedient and eager to learn (OK, most of the time on the “obedient” part – hah)
Confident, serious and clever
Extremely faithful and brave
High learning ability
High energy
Love to be close to their families, but can be wary of strangers
Needs her people and should not be left isolated for long periods of time; can become destructive if too much time alone (um, no joke – this is why I have a throw blanket strategically covering the chunk she took out of my living room chair!)
Very strong protective instinct
Extremely loyal to their handler

This was one of the most eye-opening experiments I’ve ever done. I have had dog companions all my life and never really thought that much about how our “Heinz 57” pups become the dogs they are. This peek into the parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents who made up my sweet galoot of a shelter mutt was a blast!

If you also have a mixed breed dog and are comfortable forking over about $50 (USD), you can find out all sorts of things. The company that made the test I used is Wisdon Panel Insights.

If anyone else out there does this, you MUST tell me!

My New Toy and a Six Mile Run

2011-09-11T17:25:00.001-05:00

There are three key facts about my life that have caused me consternation:

I travel a lot for work. This means a lot of time on planes, in airports, and in hotel rooms all by my lonesome.
You would think that gives me a TON of idle time to write, blog, watch movies, etc. It would. Except for Fact #3:
My work-issued laptop is on total lockdown – security is so tight with my company that you cannot play ANY media (videos, DVDs, music) on our office computers and you cannot download or install ANY software. When I say “cannot”, I mean “can” not … not “may” not. The ability to do so is disabled.

This means that I often can’t use airport Wi-Fi as well, even to work. Because you have to download the driver for the common airport Wi-Fi providers like Boingo and T-Mobile, I’m left unplugged from the interwebs a lot. And the kicker is that you are not allowed to buy your own wireless USB thingy to use with your work computer. Urgh. I despise being unplugged.

But I recognize that even if I could get wired in, I am uncomfortable using my work laptop for personal use – especially my writing and my blogging. The obvious solution was to lug another, smaller laptop. But since the work laptop is a 7.5-pound beast, my laptop bag is already a backbreaker with that thing in it. My little HP notebook from home is over 5 pounds – it’s smaller, but still heavy. I tried it once. Evidently, lugging that much poundage around on my right shoulder resulted in my becoming a kinked-up Quasimodo – even my massage therapist noticed. So much for that idea.

So I’ve been making do with my iPhone and good old-fashioned pen and paper. But I had a dilemma coming up: I've known for some time that September was going to be a busy travel month. I will be on the road for the last 2 weeks of the month with only a few days at home. This includes an overseas trip with 15 hours of flight time each way (Yes. FIFTEEN hours. That doesn’t count airport or transfer time. That’s just the flight time.)

If I wanted to stay partially sane, I decided it was time to get creative. I first started looking at the iPad, but quickly realized that if I wanted to type anything more than a few lines that I’d need a portable keyboard. And some of the software that I like can’t be installed on an iPad. Humph. Then I looked for “ultra-lightweight” PCs. I hunted. And hunted. And simply could not find a model that met my needs – lightweight, speedy, long battery life, decent-sized screen and full-sized backlit keyboard.

Major shopping FAIL. What to do, what to do?

Well, after all those weeks of researching, enter this beauty: My new toy.

May I introduce you to my new MacBook Air. A full thirteen-inch screen, a lovely back-lit keyboard (for those overnight flights), and weighing in at a feather-weight 2.9 pounds.

They had an even smaller and lighter 11-inch model that I ALMOST bought, but in the end the SD-card slot on the 13 (that is not on the 11) won me over. Bloggin’ from the road with pics! ‘Bout damn time.

It’s my first Mac ever, and I will say that getting used to a non-Windows operating system has burned more of my brain cells than I thought it would (it took me for-freaking-ever to figure out “right click” – and once I did it was so simple that I acknowledged that I may very well be a moron.) But I’ve been a PC gal all my life, so I’ve spent a lot of time asking my aluminum-skinned new friend to please forgive the Windows operating system filter that seems to be permanently applied to my brain.

Good news is that the MAC’s OS is very intuitive, and in not much time at all, I found that I could navigate almost as well as the hipsters at Starbucks who would rather drink Folgers (egads!) than use anything but a Mac.

This little beauty is so streamlined that it’s thinner than the spiral notebook that I keep in my laptop bag. It’s lighter than the “mobile office” folder that I keep in there as well – the one that is filled with things like paperwork or presentations that I’ll need when I get to where I’m going, projects that I’m going to work on while on the road, etc.

I love her already. Now I have to figure out a name for her. Yes, I name my electronic toys. Any ideas?

I bought MS Office for Mac already so my documents easily transfer, but I still need to figure out how to use Windows Live Writer on it (I’ve been hunting tech forums and there are ways!) Just give me time. I LOVE that software for blogging, so I’m on a mission.

And in other news, I was supposed to do my six-mile long run today and planned to do it outside on the same hilly route that I did for last week’s long run. However, I awoke this morning with … digestive issues. I’ll be a lady and just leave it at that.

Anyway, since I the idea of having a digestive issue miles from home did not sound all that appealing, I decided it was time to call an audible and take my run indoors. Only problem is, I’m such a slow runner that it would be well over an hour on that darned treadmill. I needed entertainment. Stat.

OK, now here’s where you have my full permission to laugh at me.

Cue my as-yet-unnamed-aluminum-thing-of-beauty and throw in a little MacGyver ingenuity:

Yes, that is my new MacBook Air, wedged into the magazine holder of my treadmill.

What?

I wrapped her lovingly in a towel to keep her sexy aluminum skin all pristine-like, and to ensure extra safety and stability, I strapped her down with this:

Yeppers. That would be my yoga strap. The one that I use after every run to stretch the bejeebies out of my tight hamstrings.

Voila! Perfect solution. I got to watch several episodes of “Whale Wars” that I haven’t had time to watch plus the first few episodes of last year’s “Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team."

What? I’m a rabid tree-hugger (whale-hugger?) and an even more rabid Dallas Cowboys and DCC fan. I have eclectic tastes in entertainment. What can I say.

All of this did lead up to Today’s Key Lesson for ‘Dee: Having to undo a yoga strap from a pricey piece of electronic love while sweaty and overexerted from a run that I am woefully undertrained for is not a good idea. I ran for 1 hour, 38 minutes and wobbled my weary Penguin butt off that treadmill when it was done. With shaking fingers and sweaty grip, I tried to unfasten that damned yoga strap without dumping Miss Sexy Beast on the floor. It was a success not to be had.

I couldn’t get her unfastened in my post-run state to save my life and there was no way I was sacrificing her beauty by trying any more. My hamstrings had to go ghetto and stretch the old-fashioned way – with my bare hands pulling like hell on my sweat-slippery calves. Oh well.

Must think of alternate mode of securing my electronic love.

Hmmm. I think I have some bungee cords in the Jeep…wrapped in velvet, they might just do the job.

As the Day Draws Near: In Remembrance, 9/11/01

2011-09-09T21:33:00.001-05:00

I am worried. I am not a worrier. I am vigilant. I am not an on-edge person. But momentous occasions can inspire unbalanced minds in very bad ways. While I watch, and while I wait, and while I hope against hope for a regular, everyday kind of weekend, I cannot help but remember. That day.

September 11, 2001

I am in my office at a bank in downtown St. Louis. It’s a normal, busy morning of a normal, busy workday, and the department that I run is buzzing with life and noise and controlled pandemonium. Just another day in bank operations.

I’m checking email when my phone rings. It’s my husband’s investment firm, and the number on the display is his extension.

HIM: “Honey, something is happening. Don’t you have a TV on the Ops floor?”
ME [Waving to one of my nearby team members, “Turn on the TV – CNN – NOW”]: “Yes – we’re turning it on now -- what’s going on?”
HIM: “Something just hit the trade center – they think it was a plane. It’s on all the stock exchange monitors and it’s starting to come on network news.”

I’ve never heard the level of intensity in my husband’s voice before then, and I’ve never heard it since. I hope never to hear it again. What followed those few moments was minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, one of the darkest days, weeks, and months in American history.

My husband’s voice over the telephone lines as we watched the second plane hit. Our mutual stunned silence as the first tower fell. And then the horrible helplessness as we watched the second. The tears that rolled down the faces of the more than 100 employees on my floor – people I felt responsible for, people I cared about, people whom I wanted to protect – but from what? From whom? The danger was a ghost. A vapor. I couldn’t protect them, I didn’t now from what to defend. Such an utter feeling of helpless “what happens now?” I hope to never experience that again. Ever.

I thought of my company’s CFO. I remember thinking “Isn’t he in New York today?” Later on, I confirm, yes, he was. I won’t say much more about it, but I suspect it will go down in history as the only day of his life that he will have been so desperately grateful for getting stuck in traffic.

He had been headed to Tower 1.

As details began to emerge, I felt as my grandparents most certainly must have felt on December 7, 1941. War. We’re at war. The empty, vacant, hollow, and red-hot-poker-enraged feeling of OH, HELL, NO.

As I watch news clips of New York suffering blow after blow after blow, I see the faces of my brethren. They are all different colors. As the cameras pan across the faces, there are at least 15 nationalities in that image. And yet they are all Americans. I think to myself “THIS is who you are killing! You think you’re killing ‘ugly Americans’ – you’re not! You are killing my FAMILY. You are killing our WORLD.”

The people leaping from the towers. The horrible, horrible images of people dying with no way out. The people covered in ash, running from destruction. The people. The people. The people.

MY PEOPLE.

Then it gets worse. The Pentagon. Pennsylvania. My people. All my people. Gone.

In the days to come, as the air traffic opens back up, I’m walking the block from my parking garage to my office and a commercial jet flies over downtown. I freeze and stare at the sky, adrenaline pumping wildly, nerves firing, heart racing.

Every few minutes in the weeks to come, the roar of fighter jets becomes commonplace as they patrol the air traffic space. But not so commonplace that I don’t see the spark of fear in the eyes of people I work with when it happens. And not so commonplace that I don’t feel it in my own.

Ten years ago Sunday, I was one of millions of Americans who experienced one of the most misguided and misjudged evils in history. This is my America. We are not perfect. We are not always, nor even often, right. But we are here – every single one of us – of our own free will. We are here because generations of us sought freedom. We sought a life where the pursuit of happiness was decreed to be endowed as a certain unalienable right. It was many generations before my own for me. In those faces in that camera shot, THEY were the first generation. How do you hate that? How do you hate an image? How do millions of us become a single image subject to such hate when the whole point of our nation is that we are all individuals? My mind will never be able to process such hate. Never.

We are here because we believed in the promise of a free nation. I will defend my brethren of every color, of every nationality, of every race, of every ethnic origin who make this free nation richer, brighter, BETTER. I am glad we are all here. Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Agnostic, Atheist. Irish, English, Iraqi, Swedish, Nigerian, Russian. Bonded on common soil with common purpose. Freedom.

I am an American. And I will never forget.

The Topic I’ve Avoided for Too Long

2011-09-06T22:29:00.001-05:00

I don’t talk about work much on my blog for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I want to guard my precious personal time away from my often-exhausting professional career. But, I also want to be fair to my employer, a very good company, and not allow any of my possible “life complaints” that can creep into a blog to reflect poorly on them. I want to respect my company as much as I want them to respect my personal life. I think they’ve earned it from me and I think I’ve earned it from them.

[Photo Source]

But. There is a topic that is the #1 thought in my head right now, and has been for a very long time. That topic is “burnout”. In my pledge to not discuss work, I’ve refrained from posting my thoughts or my research on this topic. I think that has been a mistake.

First, a blog represents the personal stamp, key interests, and unique point of view of the blogger. By withholding such a huge topic of interest to me, I’m not being true to what I want for my blog.

Second, I KNOW many of us struggle with burnout. By not blogging about my perspective on burnout, I have absolutely no chance of possibly helping someone else who may be feeling the exact same way that I do, even if all I do to “help” is simply make one other person feel not so alone.

And third, I WANT to talk about this topic. However, a majority of my “social connections” happen to be work colleagues. Is it really fair to address this topic with them? In our place of employment? I don’t think so. I’m the boss. Hearing one’s boss wax despondent about her professional burnout does not sound like the sort of situation that I’d enjoy if roles were reversed.

No, I decided that my colleagues don’t need to also become my therapists. I try to live by the rule to “act like a leader, even if I don’t feel like it.” And lately, I don’t feel like it all that much.

And so, I am going to be addressing this topic on the blog. I will set out to do so in a manner that allows me to discuss it without turning it into a corporate-America-bash-fest. And certainly without being disrespectful to my company.

Let’s begin the conversation with a few statistics and some painful evidence of a personal reality check:

These statistics are aging – they are from studies that were conducted BEFORE our most recent economic recession in America. I can’t imagine what they might be like if the study were repeated now if they were this sobering back then:

The American worker has the least vacation time of any modern, developed society. [Or, if you are like me, you actually have a decent vacation benefit and you just never take all of it!]
In 2007, 20 percent of workers said they would be checking in with the office while on vacation. [Guilty.]
More than half of workers say they work under a great deal of stress, and 77 percent say they feel burned out on the job.
Forty-four percent of working moms admit to being preoccupied about work while at home and one-fourth say they bring home projects at least one day a week. [I’m not a working mom, but I’m a working woman and it’s more like three to four days a week in my case.]
Nineteen percent of working moms reported they often or always work weekends. [Guilty.]
Thirty-seven percent of all working dads said they would consider the option of taking a new job with less pay if it offered a better work/life balance. [I’m with you, Dads!]

Onto the personal reality check – I found this self-test online in my research endeavors and took it MORE THAN A YEAR AGO. I took it again tonight. I didn’t score any better: I scored a 66.

Ouch. Evidently, I should seriously consider becoming a monk in the Himalayas.

Have you ever experienced burnout? Are you living in a state of burnout today? What are you doing to cope or overcome?

Wine o’The Week: Sparkling Twilight

2011-09-05T15:31:00.001-05:00

This week’s wine may seem a little bit off the beaten path for a sparkling wine, but trust me on this: It is DIVINE.

This unique and ridiculously tasty wine comes from my some of my very favorite fellow winos, the Working Girls at Olympic Cellars Winery on the North Olympic Peninsula of Washington State in Port Angeles. Yes. THAT Port Angeles.

If you are a Twi-hard, like me, then you know exactly which beautiful spot on the planet of which I speak.

If you are not a Twi-hard, then you likely have no idea what I’m babbling on about. It does not matter. If you are merely a wino (also like me) who appreciates unique wines, then you have to try this wine.

Blonde Bomber and I had the pleasure of visiting Olympic Cellars during our great Pacific Northwest Adventure last year. (See recaps and photos here, here, and here!)

We stopped in on a whim, met Molly, and with no background on the winery at all, quickly realized we were sampling some truly great wines. We left as raving fans of the Chardonnay, the Dungeness Red, and of course, the Sparkling Twilight.

I decided today that in celebration of our U.S. holiday, Labor Day, that this was the sparkling wine I wanted. I’m sipping as I type. Yum.

So, how to describe? First, the carbonation is very mild – not the slightest bit harsh or otherwise aggressive like some sparkling wines. It’s soft and smooooooth. Second, it is a Syrah at heart, so the berry flavors are to die for. Rich, round, and mouthwatering. It is not sweet nor is it overly dry. Just a nicely balanced wine that surprises you when you first pour it out – it is a deep, purple-red that is somehow still light on the palate and easy to drink.

Perhaps too easy. In the course of typing this post, the above pictured glass has somehow become bone-dry empty. “Honey!!!”

If you ever have the pleasure of visiting the Olympic National Peninsula, please do stop by and say hello to Kathy, Molly, and the rest of the Working Girls. They are the greatest and I promise you’re gonna have a good time.

And, I kid you not: There is ALWAYS an Olympic Cellars label in my wine fridge. Always.

Come to think of it, I haven’t talked to Molly in a while. Time to restock!

“It’s supposed to be hard.”

2011-09-04T13:38:00.001-05:00

“If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard … is what makes it great.”

As my aching left butt cheek grows progressively numb from its perch atop a strategically placed ice-pack, I reflect on two things:

Those immortal words of Jimmy Dugan in A League of Their Own. Man had it right. He just didn’t know he was also talking about running.
My little corner of West St. Louis County is hilly as hell.

That would be today’s five-mile run doing its best visual impersonation of an EKG chart, compliments of my Garmin.

I wanted to quit very early in this run. It kicked my fanny (literally – damned IT band).

Ignoring the little voice in my head that was whining, “Bail, bail, bail!” at mile 2, I kept going, feeling out of breath, out of shape, and completely out of my element as I wheezed like a geezer up and down those hills. I was depressed and had a visual image of myself as a beet-faced lumbering beast (probably a pretty accurate visual image actually). But I didn’t quit.

Then the damned voice popped back up during a walk break at mile #4-ish, berating me with, “See … it’s harrrrd … you can’t do this. You are too fat. You are too slow.” I told the voice to buzz off and broke back into a motion that at least resembled running more than it did crawling.

I knew my Jeep, parked like a beacon of hope at the local grade school where I’d begun my run with a warm-up walk around the track, loomed just out of sight. Just out of sight at the end of one of the most heinous hills of the run. I really need to get a picture of this hill. Next time.

I chugged. I trudged. I blasted my music. I distracted myself. (Is that an aspen tree? Gingko?) I tried to tune out my burning lungs, my ragged breathing, and the salt crust that had formed on every inch of exposed skin.

And eventually, I made it up that hill.

My pace was all over the map, but damnit, I finished my planned five miles. In spite of the voice and in spite of my secret agreement with it that I was, indeed, too slow, too fat, and that it was, indeed, too hard.

This is the #1 reason why owning a Garmin rocks:

Evidence. Proof that you did it. Visual affirmation that the voice was beaten out by the siren song of the run.

Even for an out-of-shape, overweight Penguin, the hard is what makes it great.

“You’re KILLIN’ me, Smalls!”

2011-08-26T22:00:00.001-05:00

[Urgent Letter from Running ‘Dee to Working ‘Dee]

Dearest Working ‘Dee:

As we happen to inhabit the same mortal body, it is with utmost earnest-ness (earnest-y? earnest-ess? whatever, stop taking me off topic you b****) that I write my appeal to your good sense and good humor.

You are killing me. Your sporadic and lengthy hours in pursuit of shareholder value on behalf of your organization are encroaching substantially on my need to exist. Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand the necessity of your half of our shared body to pursue essential human survival interests such as food, housing, transportation, contributions to 401Ks, IRAs, and probably a gazillion other acronyms that represent the foundation of our mutual security until we achieve old age status. Or until we die. Whichever comes first.

However.

I don’t care if you “have”" to forgo your evening run because you have a conference call with Singapore. I don’t care if you “must” blow off your morning run because you are “tired” from your evening call with the far East, the far West, or anything else that is far. I don’t care if you are “on a plane all the time”. I don’t care if you are “in a hotel.” I don’t care if you are tired, frustrated, annoyed. I DON’T CARE.

I want to run. You are getting in my way. I appeal to you to correct this heinous and regrettable situation.

First, I beseech you to learn the following word: “No.”

Failing that simple instruction, as I suspect you are wont to do, I implore you to learn the following FOUR words: “Not at this time.”

f you are still brain-dead enough as to not catch on to the gist of this conversation, allow me to (with all politeness, naturally) spell it out to you verbatim:

IF YOU DO NOT ACHIEVE SOME FORM OF RUNNING HABIT IMMEDIATELY, POST HASTE, RIGHT NOW, OR ASAP, I SWEAR TO THE UNIVERSE AND ALL THAT IS HOLY THAT I WILL TAKE SUPERNATURAL FORM AND SHANK YOU.

Ahem. Oh, dear. My sincerest apologies for the frank nature of my written conversation

GET OFF YOUR ASS B****.

Um. Well.

IF YOU ARE SO DIM AS TO REQUIRE YOUR ALTER EGO TO SPELL THIS OUT, THEN SO BE IT.

Step 1: Go to bed at a decent hour.

Step 2: Haul your overly-wide a** out of bed earlier than is your habit.

Step 3: Walk dog.

Step 4: Run.

Step 5: Shower, dress, go into that brick-and-glass monstrosity of an office building and earn our keep.

Step 6: If you continue to be stupid enough to believe that steps #1 – #5 are of no consequence, may I introduce you to what it if feels like to face a 5 mile run after a typical work day spent wrangling all manner of stupid, incompetent, ignorant, and/or malicious human beings. YOU ARE NOT GOING TO RUN AT NIGHT AFTER TWENTY HOURS OF THIS S***. YOU JUST AREN’T. LIVE IT. LEARN IT. OWN IT.

And so dearest alter ego, I submit my plea to you. Because it is not only I who will be completely humiliated on October 23 should you fail at my request. Oh, no. It will be you as well.

YOUR A** IS GOIN’ DOWN B****.

Oh, dear. I seriously do not know where that comes from, but not to worry, not to worry.

I am sure you will find it in your heart to overlook the overly-frank and overly-aggressive undertones of this missive and meet my supremely polite request.

Delivered with warmest regards and utmost consideration for your well-being,

Signed,

Running ‘Dee

I Went There

2011-08-23T21:45:00.001-05:00

Remember this post?

During a Saturday girls-day-out-at-Petsmart, Roxie and I randomly cruised the aisles, visited some yappy little dogs in the adopt-a-pet area (she was not impressed) and watched some playful felines on the hunt for a new home (she seems to have a sweet spot for kitties!) And then as we turned into the vitamins and supplements aisle, we spied this:

Oh, yes. I went there.

So we went from this happy scene on that day:

See how sweet she is behaving??

Cue THIS scene on Sunday:

“Mom. Um, Mama? MOM! What the HELL is that???”

Come here, my dear Roxie, and let me swab your cheek. Bwah ha ha ha haaaaa.

Thus ensued, by far, the most entertaining 3 minutes of my weekend. All at the expense of this sweet shelter dog whose new Mama will not rest until she knows from whence (and from whom) she came.

In three-ish weeks we shall discover if our prediction of German Shepherd+Doberman is anywhere close to true, or if science will tell us that she’s a surprise to us all.

You may now commence to make fun of the person who forked over more for a doggy DNA test than she forked over for the actual doggy in the first place.

P.S. In case you have not already guessed, that is Blonde Bomber doing the doggy-wrangling, and NO, I will NEVER live this one down. Like, ever. One hundred years from now, descendants of our combined families will be sitting around a table somewhere, telling the legend of The Weird One who DNA-tested her shelter mutt.

I’m good with that.

“Every night before he goes to bed, I massage his hamstrings with evaporated milk”

2011-08-21T21:59:00.001-05:00

Last week was a bad week for running. Usually, my work travels are solo, but this time I had two colleagues with me the whole way and bumped into a third at the same hotel in the city of our destination.

What is it about work peeps and hotel bars that brainwash me into ignoring the running shoes in my suitcase in favor of a beer? Or two. Or … well, more than one, let’s just leave it at that.

After schlepping my hefty motion-control hoofers from the Midwest to the East Coast and back again, it turns out that I didn’t even tie them on once. There is only one word for what I am:

Welp. It is what it is. When Saturday morning rolled around, I was determined to rectify the situation. I brought out the big guns to shame myself into movement:

That would be the official training t-shirt of the RnR St. Louis Half-Marathon

I did a respectable three miles, followed by some major stretching. My muscles are TIGHT and I am convinced it’s affecting my gait, too. The left IT band and hamstring are complaining in chorus way too often. And not that I can seem to change the situation, but adding several 2-to-3 hour plane rides to the menu every month is NOT helping. I lock up faster than the Tin Man in a rainshower after two hours in a seat built for a toddler-sized butt. And in case I need to make this point SUPER clear: I do NOT have a toddler-sized butt. Eesh.

My current daily mission as a result: Sweet-talk the hammie. Stretch the crap out of every muscle, tendon, and ligament every single day and definitely do the ice-thing post-run. While I am fine with ice packs and use them religiously after any run of 3+ miles, I DETEST ice baths. Tried. Hated them. Too much like when I fell through the ice as a kid in Maine and nearly lost two toes. Doing something like that again on purpose? Nope. Not gonna happen.

But, I have discovered the glory of Epsom salts baths and loooove them. First, they are best served warm, so even if I were sloshing around in an Epsom salts bath while someone beat me upside the head with a Louisville Slugger, it would still be an improvement over an ice bath. ** Shudder **

Since embarking on my Epsom salts endeavors, I have quickly grown bored with generic unscented versions and started spotting alternatives. Lavender? Mmmm. Found that at Walgreens and stewed away in lavender-scented heaven for a few weeks until I ran out. On the hunt for more, I spied this version online at RoadRunner Sports and had to have it:

It’s Endura Soak in Lavender/Lemongrass scent.

Mmmmmm. Throw in a little of this…

…add a good book and a closed door and it’s suddenly less like muscle therapy and more like a good old fashioned bubble bath. Without the bubbles, but who’s counting.

You have to suffer to be a runner, I tell you. Excuse me while I suffer.

Ahhhhhhh.

Five Things Friday: Music & Lyrics

2011-08-19T20:46:00.001-05:00

I’ve been traveling this week, which means an awful lot of time wired into my earbuds on an airplane in an effort to drown out the sounds from which I could not escape (human, mechanical, inhuman … oh wait, those were children, never mind). Any time I spend that much time with music, I am amazed anew at those who have musical talent of any kind. Because I have zero. Zip. Nada.

With this edition of Five Things, may I present musings on some of the best who do – a sampling of my musical crushes.

1. Offbeat songwriter whose lyrics stop me short: Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters

A million miles away
Your signal in the distance
To whom it may concern
I think I lost my way
Getting good at starting over
Every time that I return

I'm learning to walk again
I believe I've waited long enough
Where do I begin?
I'm learning to talk again
Can't you see I've waited long enough
Where do I begin?

Perhaps hitting home just a LITTLE given my starting all over again with the running??? Perhaps the “signal in the distance” is my looming half-marathon?

Yes. Perhaps.

2. Voice with the best operatic growl: James Hetfield, Metallica

I have no idea how he does this. I’m quite grateful that he can.

3. Guitarist of unearthly talent: Joe Satriani

Try running to this and even daring to quit before your miles are up:

4. Drummer who seems to be equal parts machine and supernatural being: Neil Peart, Rush

I confess I am not nearly as big of a “Rush” fan as my demented Blonde Bomber is, but this man can do no wrong in my eyes (um, ears?) Best drummer on the planet, bar none.

5. Most emotive, pitch-perfect voice of all the ages: Freddie Mercury, Queen

His passing left a gaping hole in the world of music. Thanks to the magic of recordings, his artistry will always live on.

Who are some of your musical crushes?

Rebel Rebel: Roxmonster Goes to the Vet

2011-08-11T21:58:00.001-05:00

Is this the face of a rebel, you ask?

Yes. The answer is yes.

After multiple mornings of being awoken to the sound of the Roxinator’s loudly-flapping ears combined with frantic pawing and frustrated grunts, it finally dawned on me that her ears were itchy.

I know, I’m quick on the uptake, I tell you. Woe to the poor pup who has to have me for her Mama.

So it was off to the vet for the very first time with my shelter-girl. As we hung out in the waiting area, surrounded by chaos of all forms and species, she slowly crawled her way underneath my chair.

This was when it finally dawned on me that she was afraid.

See, told ya. Quick on the uptake.

While my pets have never been overjoyed to see the vet, I have to say that I’ve never actually had one be FEARFUL. As in quaking. As long as I was there, no worries. Nobody freaked. Nobody panicked. Mom’s here, must be OK. It’s allllll under control.

Yet we hadn’t even made it into the exam room and here was the big galoot with the ginormous bark and imposing stance –– quaking like a leaf.

I’ll give you the rest of this story in the “Cliff Notes” version:

Vet on duty is a man – a very kind, yet very tall, very large man
Vet tech helping vet on duty is a man – another very kind, yet very tall, very large man
Vet and vet tech approach Roxie, who has backed herself into a corner of the exam room
All of us can practically hear the fear-wheels turning in her mind as she faces down these two very tall, very large men from her scary little corner of the animal hospital
Growling and general doggy-language for “Back off, back off, BACK OFF!” now commences

I felt so bad for letting my pup get into this state and asked the nice men to let me calm her.

Yep, didn’t work. Cue the vet’s next statement: “I’m going to have to ask you to muzzle her.”

Oh. My.

Feeling like a complete and total failure as a doggy-Mama, I sheepishly took the muzzle from him and she sheepishly (yet bravely) stuck her nose out at Mama to be muzzled.

With all opportunity to consider misbehaving in any injurious way now totally off the table, Roxie instantly calmed down and even seemed to enjoy having her ears handled as she was examined.

I still felt like a failure.

As we left the hospital – muzzle-less now but sporting a nifty new tube of anti-biotic cream for her ear infection – I vowed that I owe this girl more time with humans. LOTS more time.

I never want her to be that afraid.

As for Roxie, she pranced awfully high on the way out of the hospital. I think somewhere in her doggy-brain she was thinking something like this: “Yeah, baby. I totally OWNED those dudes. Oooh, yeah. I got muzzled. Muzzled! Heh. I’m bad. Wait’ll that yappie little yorkie next door gets a load of ME! Heh.”

[source]

Great. I’m raising a delinquent.

Date Night Dinner at Niche

2011-08-07T17:49:00.001-05:00

A few months back, I was sharing with the Blonde Bomber how several friends (and of course Julie!) have a “date night” tradition, how much fun I thought that sounded, and could we please do this, too? Bomber thought that was a fine idea, so I decided the first month (August) was my turn. And as it so happens, August is also my beloved’s birthday month, so this date night was doubly fun.

Setting off for downtown St. Louis last night, my better half and I headed to dinner at Niche, a popular restaurant in the Benton Park neighborhood of our fair city, near Soulard. We LOVE this neighborhood but have never been to this restaurant before and always wanted to go, so I thought his birthday dinner and our first official date night would be a great time to do so!

[source]

Owned by Chef Gerard Craft, Niche is an award-winning restaurant featuring fresh, local ingredients. Winning the #1 St. Louis restaurant on Zagat’s survey in 2009, Niche has made a name for itself as a consistently exceptional dining experience in our town. Chef Craft himself was named one of 2008’s best new chefs by Food & Wine magazine and is a multi-year nominee for the James Beard Award.

Needless to say, we were really looking forward to this meal – and I’m happy to say, Chef Craft and the fine people finessing that beautiful food in the Niche kitchen that night did NOT disappoint!

Note: I did not take my camera, so I’m afraid descriptions will have to do. I am not the kind of person who is comfortable photographing her meals in a restaurant. At home, sure, but not out for a fine dining experience. It somehow takes away from the fun for me. I’d love to get over that! Maybe next time.

Appetizers: Bomber selected the Jonah Crab and I chose the Hamachi Crudo. Both were amazing, albeit very small, so we were glad we got an appetizer each instead of splitting one, which is what we usually do.

I was thoroughly impressed at the artistry of the ingredients. Bomber’s crab dish was so light and flavorful with ingredients such as avocado, grapefruit, lemon, and mint. As for my dish, if that hamachi (yellow tail) had been any more fresh, its fins would have slapped me in the face. It was served sashimi-style with delectable additions scattered around, including yuzu, dashi, nori, and these amazing “soy marshmallows” with crispy rice. I know it sounds odd, but trust me when I say I’ve never tasted anything like those savory, slightly crispy “marshmallows”. We were off to a very good start!

Main Dishes: Bomber’s choice was the Vermilion Snapper and I selected the Roasted Chicken. We shared a bottle of Sonoma pinot noir with dinner that was perfectly “berry-esque”, but I do not recall the label – will have to ask Bomber later and do a follow-up post because I am definitely buying that wine again.

That snapper came PERFECTLY cooked on a colorful corn puree that was packed with flavors. I don’t know what else was in that puree, but it wasn’t just corn! Also in the dish were chanterelle mushrooms, lime, and thai chiles. OUT of this world. We are still trying to figure out how that fish was prepared as I am dying to try it at home.

When my roasted chicken came out, I thought they’d made an error – it looked like a long, rectangular piece of nicely-browned tofu! But nope, it was not. Apparently, Niche first de-bones and then forms the chicken into a mold before searing and roasting into savory deliciousness. I have to say I was impressed with the cool factor of rectangular chicken, but I was even more blown away by the flavors. We definitely had some secret seasonings going on there. Accompanying my dish was the most amazing combination of wheat berries and quinoa that I’ve ever had. Talk about elevating simple ingredients – this was phenomenal. Along with roasted spring onions and a hint of balsamic, it resulted in a dish that had me dying to lick the plate clean.

Don’t worry, I refrained.

Dessert: I spied a lovely 10-year tawny port on the menu and Bomber, true to form, went straight to a dish named “Chocolate³”. Yes, as in chocolate-to-the-third-power. This man is a chocolate fiend, I tell you.

We shared the port and the dessert between the two of us. As for those “three powers”, the chocolate dish included dark chocolate pound cake with ice cream (wow, just wow), a milk chocolate ganache (swoon-worthy – my favorite part!), and a white chocolate custard (accompanied by a very cool and very tiny white chocolate cookie!)

After all was said and done, we both left very full and quite impressed with Chef Craft’s talent. The service was just right – not too hovering, not too absent. The wait-staff knew their stuff, easily offering recommendations to diners around us to suit their tastes. The dining room was small and narrow (Niche is housed in a turn-of-the-century brick townhouse in one of the oldest parts of St. Louis), but it was perfectly turned out, with a gorgeous dark wood bar area, crisp white linens on the tables, and (my favorite part of a restaurant) an open view into the kitchen.

Not cheap by any means, so if you are local to the Lou or plan to visit, be warned that you may encounter some sticker-shock. But we will definitely be going back. Chef Craft has us wanting to try everything on that menu.

Maybe next time I may even make an exception and take my camera.

Happy Birthday to my beloved Blonde Bomber. Here’s to many fine meals to come. *Clink*!

Five Things

2011-08-05T22:16:00.001-05:00

Since I don’t have fifteen things of interest for a Friday like this girl, I figured I’d do a "five things” Friday post instead.

This Friday: Five things I did this week that I’ve never done before.

1. Used a Trouser Press

My hotel in the NY ‘burbs had this in the room and I had never tried one of these, so decided to give it a whirl. I sat on the edge of the bed staring at this thing with a suspicious stink-eye as it worked, certain that it would melt my cheapo-Macy’s trousers on the spot. It didn’t, but it didn’t press them very well, either and I had to bust out the ironing board anyway. Fail.

2. Carried a Refillable Water Bottle on a Work Trip

I always say I’m going to do this and I never do because I tell myself that I have no room in my laptop bag for a bottle to fit. Then I inevitably get thirsty, buy a plastic bottle of water for eight bucks from some airport kiosk, and stuff it into my bag anyway. So this time I brought this:

Best decision I’ve made in a long time. I am never leaving home without my travel bottle again.

PS, yes, that is a combo of the Texas state silhouette with a dolphin tail. It’s from my beloveds at TMMSN where I once volunteered rescuing injured or sick marine mammals in the Gulf of Mexico. Now that I live in the middle of the country, I find a remarkable absence of marine mammals, so it’s helpful to keep mementos around to remind oneself that you once did something … well, remarkable.

Plus, any time someone in my office asked me about my bottle, I got to use this line: “Yeah, I once did necropsies on deceased cetaceans and all I got was this lousy water bottle.”

I don’t understand why they walked away. Hmmm.

3. Stacked my Bangles

Get your minds out of the gutter, please. I’m talking about bracelets, not some sort of super-hip naughty bits move.

Now, I realize this is not earth-shattering to most of you lovely fashionistas out there. But for ‘Dee, the queen of fashion-ineptitude, adding anything jewelry-like to my person other than a watch and my wedding rings is not typical. This is cutting edge for me, people. Please respect my rebellion and bask in the awe of the fact that, first, I actually bought BANGLES, and second, stacked them ever-so-artfully above my watch.

“Don’t act like you’re not impressed!”

4. Slept in TriBeCa

When I need to stay in NYC instead of the ‘burbs, it’s usually downtown. But after my stint in the ‘burbs, I had to spend a day with a customer whose building is in lower Manhattan, closer to TriBeCa, so I headed thataway and spent the night before the meeting at the Tribeca Grand Hotel. Fun fact: The reason it’s typed that way isn’t because New Yorkers are schizophrenic delusional sycophants. Well, some of them are. Anyway, no, the reason it’s written as “TriBeCa” is because it’s an acronym for “Triangle Below Canal” street. Tri-Be-Ca. Tuck that away for your next trivia night challenge, my friends.

But, as cool as the neighborhood was, it is still New York. Which must equate to some ancient tribal language translation for SMALL. My room on the busy corner of Church St. was the size of a shoebox with finishings that looked an awful lot like those on a business class sleeper suite on a flight to Singapore. In other words, small, and with a lot of brushed steel and thin fabrics.

No, this is not an actual picture of my room. It is called “creative exaggeration.”

These, however, ARE actual pictures of my room-service dinner in this hotel. Looks pretty, no?

That is corn chowder on the left and lobster salad on the right. Pretty or not, it was the most BLAND food I’ve tasted in ages. That little bottle of hot sauce that inevitably comes on a room service tray? Yes, that was a dead soldier pretty darn quickly.

Come on, guys! It’s NEW YORK! A girl should be able to get decent food in New York. I’m just sayin’.

This made up for it (a little):

Speaking of “decent food”, the next day I …

5. Ate at Bubby’s

Bubby’s is a New York institution in TriBeCa. The natives (I mean local NY colleagues) with whom I was spending my day insisted we must eat there. It was equal parts hip and quaint. It also was not air-conditioned, therefore hot and sticky, and very popular, therefore crowded. But the cobb salad was one of the best I’ve ever had and I can’t complain about the company. I dined with two of the smartest women in my company.

All in all, a good ending to a work trip I’d rather not have had to make in the first place.

It even made up for the fact that I had to open a bottle of (hot sauce) whupp-ass on my meal the night before.

What new things did YOU do this week?

The shortest, least detailed excuse you may ever read.

2011-08-02T17:50:00.000-05:00

On the road for work. Ready to head to hotel fitness center for a run. Go to suitcase. Running shoes, check. Socks, check. Shorts, check. Shirt, check. iPod, check. Sports bra .... ohhhh, crap.

Neither I nor my potential fitness-room neighbors deserve to be subjected to that particular experience.

That is all.

Off to the Mothership

2011-08-01T08:31:00.001-05:00

So long to lazy days floating in the pool. See ya later to days where I could leave my planner tucked in my briefcase, totally unopened because I simply had no appointments at all. Yep, it’s Monday. And now I bid adieu to a much-needed week away from my day job and say hello again to said day job.

First up, another road trip. With battered wheelie-bag in hand, I am once again off to the mothership (also known as my company’s headquarters on the East coast.)

[source]

And I have packed my running shoes – here comes another test of my no-excuses workout resolutins.

Hasta la vista, blog friends.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

2011-07-31T17:28:00.001-05:00

My mental health vacation week has flown! Here it is Sunday night already and I’m back on the chain gain starting tomorrow. Bummer. Considering that I did a ton of work around the house during my week, I think the fact that I’m still not the slightest bit interested in going back to my job speaks volumes. When one would choose cleaning out the basement over one’s day job, perhaps it’s time to spend some quality time musing on one’s career situation.

In addition to puttering away on the basement (how did we end up with all that STUFF?), I caulked, spackled, puttied, sanded, painted, planted, scrubbed, and decluttered. It was a productive (and oddly fulfilling) week of getting things checked off my to-do list.

This was me repairing where we put in new outdoor light fixtures. Don’t worry, I really did sand and paint over all that! I thinks this particular day was over 100F and I got simply too melt-y to be bothered to take even a single more photo. I escaped into the air-conditioning stat!

Sanding, scraping, caulking and painting were involved in this little project. It’s always amazing to me how much work it is just to haul all the painting supplies out, much less do the job itself. But my patio door and a neighboring window frame are now sparkly white! (And after several hours of this stuff, I jumped in the pool with a cold beer perched on the edge and called it good.)

I really should have taken “before” pictures of these. With all of this heat plus my travel schedule, my watering habits (or lack thereof) had resulted in flowerpots full of dried crunchy stubs. Between those and the weeds sprouting in my mulch beds, I feared the neighborhood association was going to kick us out, so at least I took care of these babies. I love driving up to my house to see fresh flowers blooming out front.

Here’s hoping I actually water them enough to get to fall!

But my summer vacation wasn’t all work. I confess to countless hours of television watching as well. Pretty much anything on HGTV, Food Network, National Geographic, Animal Planet, etc. Don’t even get me started on all the movies I watched as well. I love movies and I am not ashamed to admit how much I love TV. It was bliss.

I also did a decent job of keeping us fed this week, using an enormous amount of Shared Bounty CSA veggies in the process!

Cauliflower and kohlrabi made an appearance:

So did the dill – I used it used to season two perfect salmon filets:

By the way, I have heard so many people say that they are intimidated by cooking fish that I thought I’d offer my fool-proof method: First, make sure you buy fresh fish! Fish is truly NOT supposed to smell. If it smells “fishy”, don’t buy it! When you buy fish that is fresh, the only aroma you're going to smell is a pleasant, slightly briny one (assuming it’s salt-water fish). There should be very little aroma at ALL for fresh-water fish. And in my book, the best way to respect the freshest fish filet (say that three times fast) is about as simple as it gets:

Put a cast-iron skillet in the oven on high broil and let it get hot.
Lightly spray your fish filets with olive oil (I use the “Misto” spritzer) and whatever seasoning you want, then put them in the hot pan in the oven and listen to the mouthwatering sizzle start!
Depending on the thickness of your fish, this only takes from 5 to 10 minutes and you have perfectly seared fish (on both sides with no flipping required, thanks to the hot skillet) that is tender in the middle. No dried out, flaky fish here!

Apparently, I need to clean my oven!

Once it’s done, I often just squeeze lemon juice over the fish when I make it this way, but since I had more dill, I whipped up a lemon, butter, white wine, capers, and dill sauce to go with everything. I also finished our meal by pureeing the simmered cauliflower with my immersion blender and caramelizing the kohlrabi. Here was the end result:

It was delicious.

On the running front, I am so grateful that I got four runs in this week (counting today), although only one was outside:

It was just too darn hot. The rest of my runs were completed inside with the miracle that is central air-conditioning on the treadmill. I’m going to count it as a win anyway just because I finally got more than 2 runs in during a week. If I’m going to run this sucker in a matter of months, I need the mileage!

Now, as my last evening of freedom winds down, I have a few things I WANT to do (like watch the Bachelorette-The Men Tell All) and a few things I HAVE to do (like laundry and packing for my next trip to the mother ship starting Monday night – blah).

And on that note, I leave you with this quotation that I found earlier today:

“Burnout is nature’s way of telling you that you’ve been going through the motions. Your soul has departed; you’re a zombie, a member of the walking dead, a sleepwalker. False optimism is like administering stimulants to an exhausted nervous system.” ~ Sam Keen

Please, stop sugar-coating this. Give it to me straight.

“The ground is SOW-AH”

2011-07-28T22:12:00.001-05:00

Warning, the following recipe is NOT for the faint of heart. If, however, you appreciate foods that fight back – those that are super spicy, garlicky, or sour – then this, my friends, is the pickle recipe for you.

By the way, since I realize not everybody speaks Mainer (or “Maine-ah” or “Maine-iac” if you prefer), the last word of the post title is “sour.” The post title that’s also a movie quote. And that’s all I’m gonna tell you, but may-jah points to anyone who identifies it.

By the BY the way … here’s a convenient link to my homeland’s dialect if you are scratching your head at how “sour” turns into “sow-ah.” It’s a Maine thing.

Anyway.

So I mentioned that I had a surplus of cucumbers from Shared Bounty CSA a few posts back. I LOVE cucumbers, but sadly, Bomber does not. I realized I wasn’t eating them fast enough in their normal state to keep them from going soft. And so, I decided it was time for pickles!

But not just any pickles. My grandmother’s Maine Sour Pickle recipe is the only one that would do.

If you can take the pucker-factor of these pickles, they are seriously the EASIEST pickles to make. No official canning expertise required. I promise.

Grandma’s Maine Sour Pickles (recipe copied from the dog-eared, handwritten-in-cursive 3x5 card that I have carried around from place to place since I was 17)

Several cucumbers (do you like how specific my grandma was?)
2 quarts of apple cider vinegar
½ cup salt
½ cup sugar
½ cup ground dry mustard

Wash and dry the whole cucumbers and pack into jars (you can slice them if you want them extra sour – I like them sliced!) Mix together other ingredients and pour over cucumbers. Close jars and store in a cool place. The pickles will be sour within a week.

That’s right – no canning required, just pour this toxic brew over your cukes, close ‘em up in any jar you have on hand, and they will ripen into perfect pickles. The brew double-dog-dares any bacteria to enter. It’s just too acidic for spoilage to happen. I remember eating these beauties in my grandma’s basement MONTHS and MONTHS after she’d put them up. Awesome puckery deliciousness with no rotten pickles, ever.

On a side note, this could be why I evolved to be the woman known for her cast-iron stomach. Hmmm. Might be something to that.

I had a bowlful of these tonight – major puckers! Soooo good.

Are You My Mother?

2011-07-26T20:34:00.001-05:00

Today’s Workout: Another 2.5 mile treadmill run (including 1/4 mile warm-up and cool-down walks each). I upped my speed to 4.5mph for the 2-mile run portion and nearly blew a gasket. I think the dog was concerned based on how she bathed my beet-red face in dog-kisses while I *tried* to stretch out on the floor. Doing so with a 60-pound galoot slobbering on you is a situation that Runner’s World never seems to cover in their editorials.

Topic of the Day: Speaking of the pooch, the Blonde Bomber and I have been trying to figure out the “mix” part of her “German Shepherd Dog mix” heritage since she joined our little family. Our current guess is Doberman, based on her coloring (a lot of copper, especially in her legs), her nail color (pitch black!), and the structure of her back and legs (not sloped downward like a purebred Shepherd, but high and athletic). I’ve also wondered if there might be hound in there somewhere, or Lab? Who was this little girl’s real Mama? Dad? Or Grandparents?

What do you think?

The Bomber says she thinks I’m her Mama (well of COURSE I am – duh) with the way she has of just gazing at me. She only seems to do this to me. She will just lie there and stare at me forever. Naturally, this usually results in me going over to give her all sorts of love and tummy rubs or decide an impromptu training session (with treats) is in order. All of which may simply mean she has figured out EXACTLY which levers to press to have Mama do anything she wants.

I’m dying to know what breeds are in this pup and I was out surfing the interwebs this past weekend, Googling all sorts of posts on how to figure out your dog’s ancestry. That’s when I stumbled across this:

Really? DNA tests for dogs?!

Oh, I am so doing this. And I am so NEVER going to live this down with the Bomber if I do.

I can see it now. “Roxxxxxie … come here, pooch. Mama has to swab your cheek …”

Somebody please tell me I am not the only crazy pet lady who would consider doing this?

It’s a Lazy … Monday?

2011-07-25T07:56:00.001-05:00

Wait, what? It’s 7:45 on a Monday morning and I’m blogging? I’m not in the office? Not gazing at the sea of meetings and action items on my calendar stretching out as far as the eye can see? Not on a conference call with the mothership?

Well. This is very weird. At least it would be if I weren’t …

ON VACATION!

I needed a sabbatical. I’m not going anywhere, unless you count running around my little part of Missouri or hiking the 20 feet from my back door to my pool. Blonde Bomber isn’t even off this week, this was just a much-needed week of mental health time (and an attempt to NOT leave weeks and weeks of vacation time unused at the end of the year … again).

Evidence of how much I needed it can be had by seeing the herculean effort that it took my amazingly sweet and totally overprotective administrative assistant to actually clear my calendar. I am blessed by that woman, I tell you. And now completely convinced that she could run a small air force base all on her own if the job required it.

I have some home projects that I’m dying to just get checked off and I’m sure they’ll be interspersed with heavy nose-in-book time, maybe some shopping, some blogging, definitely some swimming, and of course lots of lazy time with this girl:

She seems to like being lazy with her Mama.

And now I’m off to get a routine medical visit out of the way so that the rest of the week is MINE. Mine all mine.

Hasta la vista!

Room for Motivation

2011-07-24T15:52:00.001-05:00

Today’s Workout: 2.5 mile treadmill run + long stretch routine

Quarter-mile warm-up walk
Two mile run, between 4.0mph and 4.5mph
Quarter-mile cool-down walk
20 minutes stretching, focusing on IT band, hamstrings, hips, quads, and calves

I wanted to quit a mile into the run, but my killer playlist and my pride wouldn’t let me.

She wouldn’t either:

Even though it was only two miles of straight running, it felt AWESOME to not give into the temptation of walking. While I am adamant that there is ZERO SHAME in runners taking walk breaks, I am trying to recover the sort of endurance that it took me to do this and I’m a lonnnnng way from my goal! So many times when I’m tempted to walk or stop, it’s not a physical thing. It’s almost always entirely mental. Like today – my legs felt fine, my feet were perfectly comfy, I had no IT band “twinges of death”, nothin’. It was all in my head. It was my lazy little brain that kept whining, “it’s too harrrrrd!”

I didn’t listen.

Part of it probably had to do with the new content that I posted on one of my motivation boards:

That would be the course map for the Rock’n’Roll St. Louis Marathon and Half-Marathon! Staring me right in the face from the wall as I ran. It was kind of hard to wimp out at the end of mile numero uno when looking at the thirteen-point-one mile path I intend to traverse (definitely upright and preferably running the whole way) in a mere matter of months.

Yeah. I have some work to do.

Over the past few years as a slow rookie runner (I don’t think I’ll ever feel that I’ve graduated beyond rookie!), I’ve put up a bunch of motivational quotes plus all of my race bibs and medals on bulletin boards around my workout room. On days when I question my ability, they are a colorful and visual reminder of what I can do if I only put my mind to it.

Upper Left Quote: “Show no weakness. Give no quarter. Endure.”

This has been my personal mantra for a long time. I stole it from a novel that I read, and when the main character thought this to herself, I went “Oh Lord, that is so me.” I’ve long since forgotten the novel but it has remained the motto that never fails to kick me in the ass when I’m feeling sorry for myself.

Lower Left Quote: “There will come a day when I can no longer run. Today is not that day.”

A famous runner’s quote. I hope I live to be old enough to see the day when my then-ancient and frail body says “I think from now on I’ll walk”, but until then, this one is a classic.

Upper Right Quote: “It’s a test of ultimate will, the heartbreak climb uphill, got to pick up the pace if you want to stay in the race.”

My husband’s contribution – lyrics from a Rush song, called “Marathon Man.” (And is it just me, or is the only quote that was printed off by a GUY the only one that’s in girly-man FONT? *Snicker*)

Lower Right Quote: “I am warrior, I’m fearless. No pain. No mercy. No weakness.”

A recent one of mine – I tend to rotate quotes on this part of the bulletin board real estate – whatever I’m feeling at the time. This is an Ozzy Osbourne lyric, from a song called “Fearless” (absolutely GREAT running song, by the way).

The other boards have all of my race bibs, photos, and medals. I don’t subscribe to vanity very often, as I rarely think I’ve got much about which to be vain, but there is no denying the warm buzz of pride that I feel anytime I look back on where I started and where I’ve been along the way.

Especially with this one:

I never thought I could do that. I still can’t believe I did that.

I still can’t believe I’m going to do it again.

Until then, I shall take it one day, one run, and one mile at a time. A little more than three months and counting!

Ovens Are For Food, Not Runners

2011-07-23T18:27:00.001-05:00

These are definitely the days when I am grateful for two things: Air conditioning and a treadmill.

Seriously, this heat wave has been broiling us for more than a month! This time last year, I was happily circling Creve Coeur Lake park for my weekend runs, but when it’s already 90F by 7:00 a.m., you can forget seeing me out there. So it’s been the treadmill for this girl this weekend. Which is great – better than NOT running – but I realize I need to get some road time in. If it feels hard on the treadmill (and it does – I’m definitely behind the curve here), then the road will kick my butt.

Alas, the road is going to have to wait for this runner until it stops melting under my feet. Treadmill, it is then.

Time for a CSA update - the big red coolers keep coming!

Not pictured are a TON of both red and yellow potatoes. Seriously, I’ve got a potato stockpile going on! So tonight, when Blonde Bomber asked me what I wanted for dinner, I replied, “gourmet mashed potatoes!”

He wisely asked if this was meant to be a side dish or if he should just shove a tub of potatoes under my nose and call it a night. It took me a minute to answer … I do love potatoes.

Bomber’s rationalism won out, so he’s out there in the oven, um, I mean the back yard, grilling some beautiful bison filets while a big pot of potatoes simmers on stove. Pictures and a foodie review later!

PS: I also had more cucumbers than I knew what to do with, so I busted out my grandmothers recipe for Old Fashioned Maine Sour Pickles last weekend. After a week in their vinegary-salty-mustardy brine, they should be perrrrfect for a late night snack.

The longest, most detailed excuse you may ever read

2011-07-20T22:13:00.001-05:00

Cliff Notes version of this post: I didn’t work out yesterday. I didn’t work out today.

Long version of this post:

Monday

5:00 a.m. – Take puppy on long walk, count it as exercise.
7:00 a.m. – Kissed hubby and puppy goodbye and headed to the airport for a client visit in Milwaukee.
10:00 a.m. - The f****** airline finally admitted the 9:00 flight was cancelled.
10:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. – Wrangled with corporate travel supplier to see if actually making client meeting on time was an elusive dream.
10:30 a.m. – Confirmed what I already knew. It was an elusive dream. Called client, worked magic on schedules for Tuesday.
10:45 a.m. – Drove back home to work from the home office and field half a dozen meetings that I’d planned on missing because I was SUPPOSED to be at the client’s office.
12:00 p.m. – Broke for lunch, cursed my existence.
12:20 p.m. – Went back to work.
5:00 p.m. – Broke for an early dinner with a handsome blonde man, to whom I happen to be married.
6:15 p.m. – Drove to airport for 8:00 flight
8:00 p.m. – Wheels up, off to Milwaukee
10:ish p.m. – Hello, Courtyard by Marriott. This is a truly awful room.
10:30 p.m. – Finished unpacking, did a stretch routine with grimy hotel towels protecting my delicate heiney from grimier hotel carpet
10:40-ish - Work from hotel room in prep for rescheduled customer meeting; take time out to blog, go back to work.
11:45 p.m. – Iron clothes for next day, prep client meeting materials.
12:00 a.m. – Set iPhone alarm, hit the hay.

Tuesday

6:30 a.m. – Realize I picked the wrong option on iPhone alarm clock settings. Meant to pick the 5:30 option. Curse my existence for realizing I do not have time to get my workout gear on, go for a run, get out of workout gear, shower, and be ready for 7:30 conference call followed by 8:00 a.m. departure to customer site.
7:30 a.m. – Join conference call with the mothership.
8:00 a.m. – Join colleagues in hotel lobby, leave for client meeting.
3:00 p.m. – End client meeting, head to airport.
3:15 p.m. – View “amazing” house that the shuttle driver was so damned excited about that he actually convinced my colleagues to take a 15-minute detour from our trip to the airport to go see. Wonder if we’ve actually been kidnapped by hotel shuttle driver and just don’t know it yet. Sigh with relief when he actually shows us a (lovely) house and promptly points the van back to the airport. Driver proceeds to tell us that Obama is an idiot, that they sacrifice virgins at Bohemian Grove, that although he knocked up a 17-year old when he was 15, he now believes nobody should have sex before marriage and that’s why he married his wife one week and 4 days after meeting her. Talks about how women are meant by God to be baby-makers, that is their role. Now talks about Bush Two. He’s also an idiot. Talks about how he wasn’t supposed to take hotel guests to the airport, but he doesn’t agree with the hotel so he decided to do it anyway. And no, I am not making this shit up.
4:00 p.m. – Arrive at airport with plenty of time to spare for 6:00 flight to St. Louis and with strong gratitude for not winding up strangled in ditch by whacked-out shuttle driver.
4:05 p.m. – Try to check in. Curse my existence when I realize 6:00 flight is cancelled, too.
4:05 p.m – 4:50 p.m. – More wrangling with travel agency; manage to secure late flight to Atlanta with connection to St. Louis.
4:50 p.m. – 7:45 p.m. – Get drunk with colleagues. Eat cheese curds in bar. (What? It’s Milwaukee.)
9:00 p.m. (10:00 now that we are in Eastern time): Arrive Hotlanta.
10:15 p.m. (11:15 Eastern): Depart Hotlanta for the Lou
10:15 p.m. – 10:35 p.m. (You know to add the hour now, right?) – Sit on runway while maintenance does their Sherlock Holmes routine on why the weather radar has gone paws-up.
10:35 p.m. – 10:40 p.m. – Wonder if we’ll take off only to end up dying because Sherlock is dumb and wrong. Positive wing will fall off.
10:40 p.m. – Nice-sounding pilot with Southern drawl announces that everything is A-OK. Trust him because he is nice-sounding man with Southern drawl.
10:45 p.m. – Wheels up, farewell Hotlanta.
12:08 a.m. – Wheels down, Hello Lou.
12:40 a.m. – Always amazed at how f****** happy I am to see my garage door go up when I hit that magic button.
12:45 a.m. – Make the dog feel like she’s failed because I woke her up instead of “letting” her hear me and react like Cujo to the “intruder”
1:00 a.m. – Collapse into bed. Think of 7:00 a.m. meeting with mothership. Silently beseech universe to give me death or give me layoff package.

Wednesday

5:30 a.m. – Realize husband has quietly taken mad dog out for her morning walk. Bless the ground he walks on. Beseech the universe to promise he’ll never get so fed up as to dump me. Hit the snooze button.
5:40 a.m. – Drag my wide butt out of bed, no time for coffee to brew, so power-slam a Red Bull, scan the morning paper headlines, wish I hadn’t, drag my wide butt upstairs and get in shower.
6:40 a.m. – Throw half a ton of toys, plus dog bed, plus water bowl into laundry room. Call reluctant puppy. Close door – the monster is secured. Fill Kong toys with treats, leave puppy in treat-induced splendor, sneak out of house, drive to work.
7:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Meetings. And more meetings. And still more meetings.
12:00 A.M. – 12:20 P.M. Food. Stir fry veggies from cafeteria because I refuse to touch their mystery meat. Secretly wonder if veggies come from GMO seeds and I’m killing myself anyway.
12:20-1:00 p.m. – Prep for meetings.
1:00 – 5:00 p.m. – Meetings.
5:00 – 6:30 p.m. – Prep for Thursday’s meetings, complete half-assed 2012 execution “plan”, send to boss.
6:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. – Drive home. Alternate music between mournful Metallica and “I-hate-you-I-will-kill-you-please-die” Metallica.
7:00 p.m. – Arrive home, see handsome blonde man, see manic nutjob dog, hug and kiss both, get fresh bruise from manic nutjob dog because she’s outta her mind to see her Mama.
7:30 p.m. – The pizza that the blonde man ordered (love you) arrives. A glass of red wine magically appears in my paw.
7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. – Watch vapid mind-candy (The Bachelorette) that blonde man recorded for me (love you).
9:00 p.m. – 9:45 p.m. – Read some blogs
9:45 p.m. – Now – Blog about excuses for not working out.

I’ll go back to figuring out “balance” tomorrow. As for now, Goodnight World.

Mill-e-wah-que, Algonquin for "the good land"

2011-07-18T22:47:00.000-05:00

Greetings from Milwaukee, hometown of the Blonde Bomber and thus a city that is remarkably close to my heart :-)

But alas, that's not why I'm here. I know this will come as a shock, but I'm *gasp* traveling for work.

I'm counting this as the first true test of my "no excuses" mantra for getting my balance back, including consistency with exercise. How'd I do? Well, the results will be tallied at the end of the trip, but so far ...

I took the Rox-monster on an extra-long walk this morning before I left for the airport -- 30 minutes at "Rox Pace". I don't know how fast Rox Pace actually is, but it feels pretty darn fast. Maybe it only feels fast because we walk before I get any caffeine into my system, but I think I need to wear my Garmin next time to see just how zippy this little monster is.
I just completed a full stretching routine here in my nondescript hotel room. On the floor. On the hotel room floor. On the hotel room floor where who knows what may be buried in the carpet fibers. After seeing wayyyy too many "Dateline" and "20/20" exposes on dirty hotel rooms, I am simply not that brave -- I dragged a handful of bathroom towels out and put them under me! Please think of me with pity when all I have to wrap my wet hair in tomorrow morning is a 5x5 washcloth.
I packed my running shoes and workout gear. Will I be donning them in the morning for an appearance at the dinky little hotel fitness center? Only time will tell!

P.S.
Random Rule of the 'Dee Universe: There is no life experience that cannot be twisted to fit a Wayne's World movie quote to perfection.

The No-Excuses Playlist

2011-07-17T19:48:00.001-05:00

Also known as music that keeps me from flopping to the ground and begging for death upon the realization that my running fitness has (almost) completely flown the coop.

I am all over the map with my tastes in music, enjoying everything from pop to classical to hip-hop to jazz to blues. But there is no doubt that at heart, I am a rock kind of girl. When it’s time to get serious, for me there is no better soundtrack by which to do so than the kind where guitars shred and drums thunder.

Tomoyasu Hotei (Kill Bill Vol. 1 Soundtrack) – Battle Without Honor or Humanity
Metallica – No Leaf Clover
Smashing Pumpkins – Bullet With Butterfly Wings
Joe Satriani – Big Bad Moon
Night Ranger – You Can Still Rock in America
Orianthi – Highly Strung
Joe Satriani – Crowd Chant
Judas Priest – Electric Eye
Chickenfoot – Avenida Revolucion
Joe Satriani – Summer Song
Orianthi – What’s It Gonna Be
The Stooges – I Wanna Be Your Dog
Foo Fighters – Walk
Eric Johnson – Cliffs of Dover

I am looking forward to the day when my pace can keep up with these beats!

A Brutally Honest Three-Miler

2011-07-17T15:07:00.001-05:00

Other contenders for today’s post title included:

How I’ve Let Myself Go
Nobody Would Believe I Once Ran 13.1 Miles
Oh, How the Once-Thinner-and-Fitter Have Fallen

The backstory for this post is that my work life has been, um, a challenge. Let’s just say that my company is getting their money’s worth out of me and it’s killing my workout time. This past week, I only got one run in during the week, a frantic single-mile loop around my neighborhood before the sun even thought about coming up one morning. I’m disappointed in myself for letting my balance get blown – again! Argh.

As the weekend approached, I vowed to fill it with plenty of movement, healthy eating, and some sanity-time, otherwise known as FUN.

Yesterday, I worked on the movement and fun part with my partner-in-crime, the Rox-monster. We did tons of walking and enjoyed a side trip to watch Blonde Bomber play in his company’s annual softball tournament. My shelter girl is still a little shy around people so some socializing time is a priority right now. What better place than a ballpark?

She was a bit reserved at first and hid under the picnic table:

The owner of the feet behind her in the picture was quite gracious when Roxie decided to settle in for a little nap and … lay down on her feet. Whoops. That’s a little habit she’s recently picked up with us at home. We’re pretty sure this pup is well over 60 pounds now, so I guess it’s a good thing our picnic-table-neighbor had a fondness for galoot-ish silly dogs!

Later that night at home, while the Bomber was resting his achy-breaky self after playing his annual role as kamikaze shortstop for his team, I opened up iTunes and worked on a cranking, no-excuses playlist for my run today. It may have been the only reason that I didn’t just flop to the ground and beg for death because the humiliation factor of doing so while Satch, Sammy, Rob, James, and the rest of the crowd were wailing away would be simply too horrific to bear.

I can hear the EMT now as he pulls my earbuds from my cold dead … um… ears? Anyway, I’m sure it would go something like this: “Holy $hit, you mean to tell me she couldn’t stay upright to THIS? The woman’s clearly both a weakling and an idiot. She’s not even conscious for this guitar solo! What a waste.”

Yes,I’m sure it would have gone something like that, so I managed to stay upright, moving in a forward motion (for the most part) and eventually did complete three miles.

So that leads us to the brutal honesty of today’s three-miler.

Fact: I have gained back every pound I lost last year plus a couple extra that seem happy to join the team. And I am feeling every single ounce of the excess body weight when I run. My cardiovascular levels and my endurance suck! And can I say what horrors I face with the two-sports-bra routine when the last time they fit properly was ten pounds ago? Oh, the humanity. And the chafing. Gah.

Fact: I have not been stretching. At all. And the infamously tight IT band decided that the hilly part of my neighborhood was the perfect spot, dahling, to re-introduce what I call “the twinge of death”. Any of you who have dealt with tight IT bands know precisely what I mean by “the twinge of death".

So I did it, but it was not pretty. Even with a warm-up walk and cool-down walk, I still had to slow to a shuffle (fine, a fast walk) in the middle of those three miles. It took me more than 50 minutes to do three miles. Even for me, a proud penguin, that’s slow my friends. Worse – it wasn’t FUN. I love to run. Except right now, I don’t. It hurts, I feel huge, and other than my socks and my shoes, my running gear doesn’t fit well. Any pace over a fast walk puts my heart rate into a bad place.

Excuse me while I go cry.

All righty. Time to refocus. Time for balance! My almost-end-of-July resolution will be to blog daily, even if it’s only a snippet at a time, as a way of keeping myself honest to that goal. Because I’m either going to have to tell you all that I was that idiot weakling again … OR … I’m going to blog that I hauled wide butt somehow, someway.

Well. The only way to change the current state is to work towards the new. Starting now.

Tutorial: ‘Dee’s Mushroom Risotto

2011-07-10T19:59:00.001-05:00

I never seem to be more popular with my friends and my husband as when I make this particular dish. But every time someone asks me for the recipe, I say I can’t give it to them. It’s not because it’s some kind of sacred family recipe (Are you kidding? I grew up in Maine, where things like boiled cabbage with potatoes and corned beef were the height of gourmet. Come to think of it, I sure do miss old fashioned New England Boiled Dinner … mmm).

I digress.

Nope, rather it’s just that I’ve done this so many times that now I just wing it. I make a lot of risotto – all sorts of ingredients just seem to pair well with risotto, and it’s not as hard or intimidating as many people might think. So now, I don’t follow recipes. Whatever looks good to throw in, I throw in. I may not have a “recipe” to hand out, but my basic approach is the same, so I decided a tutorial was in order.

First, I have two caveats:

If you are afraid of butter or olive oil (or the calories involved in copious amounts of butter or olive oil), my approach may not be for you. You don’t have to use as much butter and olive oil as I do, but you do need to use at least a decent amount (a few swirls around the pan) of olive oil. Don’t let it scare you -- try it once as a splurge and I bet you’ll come back for future splurges.

I know the “right way” –- the purist way -- to make risotto but I don’t practice the “perfect” purist way in my risotto anymore. Most, yes, but not all of it, including the mandate to serve immediately at the end. I don’t and I’ll describe why, but any hate-mailers intent on telling me why I’m making it wrong need not waste their keystrokes. The proof of any food is in the tasting. I like it my way.

The Base:

First, get some chicken stock (or veggie stock) simmering in a pot on the stove – I usually use about 1 1/2 to 2 cartons of organic chicken or veggie stock. No idea how many ounces/litres. I just use however much the risotto decides to demand. We’ll get to that part in a minute.

Next, finely dice some garlic and shallots. No idea how many. A few cloves of garlic? One small shallot? Don’t know. Enough of both to make one cupped handful I’d say.

Then, melt a chunk of butter and a drizzle of olive oil in a large pot (I use my spaghetti pot) over medium heat. Add the shallots and garlic and stir until soft:

The Rice:

Now add your rice – and it must be Arborio rice for risotto. I am a purist on that point. But only because I thought I knew better a few times and tried other types of rice. Nope. I didn’t know better. Risotto fail.

So use Arborio.

In the interest of trying to be at least a little helpful, I did measure out my rice for this – I used two cups:

Pour the rice into the garlic/shallot mixture and start stirring! Stir until well-coated with the butter and olive oil. Keep stirring constantly so it won’t stick. You don’t want it to brown, you want the rice grains to be slightly translucent on the edges with a more opaque “dot” of white in the very center.

When it starts to look like that, it’s time for wine.

Wait, isn’t it always time for wine? Oh, right. This wine is for the rice.

Pour about a cup of dry white wine into the rice mixture and prepare for one of the MOST glorious aromas to instantly fill the house. As the pan deglazes, all the wonderful yumminess that is in that pot will send its beauty over the airwaves. This is about the time when I cook risotto that my husband comes in to make sure I have enough of my own wine. Although he usually detours to stick his head into the pot first before my wineglass earns a single new drop.

Now immediately start stirring! And be ready with your ladle, because as soon as the rice starts to become a little dry, it’s time for that stock that you’ve had simmering on the stove to come into the act.

This is the point in the risotto-making process where you must insist that everyone else in the house wait on you hand-and-foot. Because you do NOT move away from the pot now –- you must become a stirring machine. Stir that rice constantly, and as soon as you see it become a bit dry, add another ladle-full of stock. And you keep stirring-and-ladling until your arm falls off. Then use your other arm. Then borrow the arm of a guest, a spouse, a child, or a random stranger. Whatever it takes. But you keep on stirrin’ until it all begins to look creamy and plump.

(If you demand that I time-box this part, I’d guess 20-25 minutes of the stir-ladle-stir-ladle routine is about right. But don’t hold me to it. For more definite timing, come to my house next time. Watch. Bring a stop-watch. Be prepared to get drunk because Blonde Bomber keeps coming into the kitchen, ostensibly to fill up our wineglasses, but we all know he’s a risotto-aroma junky, now don’t we.)

The Fixins:

You can eat your risotto completely plain in the purist way. But I like to add stuff. Since I made mushroom risotto this time, I had a little side-job going on where I was also sauteeing some wild mushrooms in butter (yes, more butter!)

If this is your first time making risotto, it can be tricky to do this kind of multi-tasking. Trust me. I’ve burned my fair share of risotto and it’s enough to make a home cook cry. Be more risk-averse on your first time out and have everything prepped before you start on the risotto. It will make the whole experience MUCH less stressful and any living beings who must be near you a whole lot happier.

Now add your lightly sauteed mushrooms to the goodness:

See, even my camera is getting all steamed up at this point. That’s how good this shit is. Heh.

Stir until combined, and don’t forget to keep adding stock as needed. Now, add about a cup of grated Parmesano-Reggiano cheese and stir in completely. And don’t you dare use that fake parmesan cheese in the green plastic shakers. I would die. Seriously. I would know you did it and I would die.

It would be a bad-cheese homicide. Don’t. Do. It.

OK, so you don’t have to buy the super-expensive Reggiano, but for the love of risotto and all that is holy, at least buy a decent Parmesan. Bonus points if you grate it yourself.

(Note: If you are vegan, you can can use dairy and cheese alternatives or just omit the butter and cheese completely. I promise this stuff will be plenty creamy all by itself with just good olive oil, patient stirring, and high-quality veggie stock. In fact, if you make your own veggie stock, I cross my heart that it will be out of this world. 90% of a good risotto is all about the rice and the care with which it is cooked.)

The Rest (aka where ‘Dee goes off the purist rails):

Now, most traditionalists tell you that after you finish stirring in that cheese that you must serve immediately. Here’s where I disagree. Turn off the heat, add just a touch more stock, a little salt and pepper to season, and stir one more time. Then let it rest with a closed lid. I have found that this approach really makes the rice super-creamy and melds all those great flavors together without compromising the intended texture of the grains. It WON’T turn to mush. I promise.

So this is where I usually prep whatever else I am serving with the risotto, which is often fish because it cooks in just the right amount of time as I think one needs to let risotto achieve it's super-creamy well-rested goodness. If I’m making a (grass-fed) steak or (pastured) lamb or something else that takes a little more effort, I usually recruit assistance and have the Blonde Bomber help me start it about halfway through and then it’s ready when the risotto is.

With this meal, I made some pan-seared sea bass, lightly seasoned with salt, pepper, and red pepper blend. And, ahem. Cooked in more butter.

What can I say? I like butter. Butter is good, butter is wise.

And, voila, after only about 8 minutes of cooking the fish, it’s ready. Stir the rice once more, serve with fish on top, a little chopped parsley, and some extra grated Parmesano-Reggiano. Here’s what we had on this particular meal as our finished result:

While this makes plenty for four servings, the only reason the two of us had leftovers is because we were too stuffed to roll ourselves out to the kitchen for more.

Cooking risotto takes a little manual labor, to be sure, but it’s a labor of love. If you are someone who loves to cook, like me, and enjoys flavorful comfort food, like me, you need to add risotto to your home chef repertoire. You just do.

If you try this, be sure to let me know! If you have questions, drop me a line at reinventingdee@gmail.com and I’ll be happy to help.

The only price is that I’ll want to know what wine you drank with dinner when you’re done.

Bon appetit!

Wine o’The Week: Gazela Vinho Verde

2011-07-10T15:51:00.001-05:00

Today, I celebrate two things: 1) The return of “Wine o’The Week” on the blog!, and 2) quite possibly the most perfect summer-afternoon-on-the-patio wine ever invented.

Introducing Gazela Vinho Verde:

This inexpensive little wine is from Portugal. Typically sold for less than USD $10.00 per bottle, it is a lightweight white wine that is absolutely best served COLD. Although not a sparkling wine exactly, it is very lightly effervescent – teeny tiny bubbles that seem to only make the experience even more pool-worthy.

It’s not sweet, nor is it overly dry. It’s quite balanced, which is why I think it’s so easy to drink on a hot summer day. It also has a relatively low alcohol content at 9%, so you can sip away to your heart’s delight if you happen to live somewhere like St. Louis where a mid-July day equals a steam room and you perpetually reach for a glass of something to wet your whistle.

It is somewhat fruity, very fresh. Reviews that I’ve read on this suggest things like “apricot”, but I almost think it’s more citrusy than that – perhaps lemon? Maybe a little bit of melon? It’s hard to describe. I think “crisp and fresh” is the best I can do. In the end, it’s just a very refreshing wine that’s just right for sipping between dips in the pool and mad dashes to the shade of the patio umbrella.

Even good when one decides to give up on the outdoor steam-room and head back into the modern day miracle known as central air conditioning.

We snagged this bottle (and several of its brethren) at The Wine Merchant in downtown Clayton, Missouri, for less than $7.00/bottle, so don’t take my word for it –- at that price, pick some up and let me know if you like it!

Dog Days

2011-07-04T20:30:00.001-05:00

Apparently, when the weather heats up in the middle of the country as it can tend to do (with veritable walls of humidity just waiting to turn the average human being into a sweaty, slimy disinterested slug), this is what my dog (Roxie, the Rox-Monster, the Red Roxer, the Rox-inator) wants to do:

That would be to shred her toys to bits in the blissfully air-conditioned comfort of the living room. Yeah. She has zero interest in going outside.

Smart dog.

Time to go fire up the vacuum.

Again.

Sometimes, we need to remember.

2011-07-04T13:03:00.001-05:00

On July 4, 1976, I was ten years old. My little New England hometown went all out to celebrate our American bicentennial – two hundred years from our country’s Declaration of Independence and the start of one of the longest wars in human history, the American Revolution. I rode on a parade float depicting a Colonial family life scene. I was one of the “daughters”, wearing clothing of the period and with bright streamers in my hair. Later, we had a classic American family picnic, several generations of us, eating until we were stuffed, enjoying the summer air and the celebration.

It was a day that I will never forget, but probably more so now, at this stage of my life, because I look around our world and understand too well how so many ten-year-old girls will never enjoy such a scene.

Right now, a ten-year-old girl in Darfur may be hiding from armed militia, fearing brutal rape and probable death if she is seen while trying to collect water for her family. The image of someday enjoying an open and happy celebration with streamers in her hair would be as alien as a spaceship to that girl.

Right now, a ten-year-old girl in the Congo may be on the edge of starvation, feeling herself waste away and wind down, one second of her short life at a time. In this life that she has known, how could she possibly fathom the image of a bountiful American holiday picnic?

We Americans don’t always get things right – not by a long shot, sometimes. But on one day long ago, we set forth a vision of how we intended to try. As we enjoy our parades and our picnics, I think we have a duty – to ourselves and to all those other ten-year-old girls – to remember what it took to be free.

Sometimes, we need to remember the vision. And keep trying to live up to it.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

Hot Chicks With Guitars

2011-06-29T22:13:00.001-05:00

This is a post about music. Which leads to playlists. To which some of we runners are devoted. To which some of us are in horror. It’s an interesting dichotomy in the running community. I am of the former inclination, not the latter. For anybody not following, this translates to: I rarely run without my music.

I have considered the possibility that I am weird. It would not be the first time in my life if that were indeed proven to be true, but I’m intrigued by testing the possibilities. But. Given the number of runners who report to often (or always) run with music, I got to thinking. (Here is where I pause to say, “oooh, don’t I sound all Carrie Bradshaw???” I mean really … “then, I got to thinking…” as much as I loved that series, I acknowledge the general hack-iness of what I just said if those .0000000000000000000000001% of you on the planet who may read this blog also thought the same thing.)

Anyway.

I adore music. I adore running. I adore running to music. And there is a (very large) part of my psyche that is completely enamored of what I call “bad ass” music. That would be METAL. That would be ROCK. That would be guitars, drums, and the kind of vocals that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

In a good way.

Anyway.

My question: What better “bad ass music” but that which is produced by hot chicks who can wail on guitars?

(Is this where I declare my absolute hetero-sexuality or is that a wholly unnecessary defense of a purely artistic adoration of hot chicks who wail? If it helps, I equally adore hot dudes who wail. Does that help? Does it help that I am scientifically obsessed by the mathematical nature of music? Of the supernatural acoustic abilities of the guitar? Of the soul-awakening aspects of the drum? No? OK, well, whatever. Go work your issues out without me. Any “beings”, chick, dude, or otherwise, who rock, well… they rock. Period.)

Anyway.

I came to the realization that some of the BEST running music that I have on my playlists was the creation of hot chicks with guitars. Lita Ford. Joan Jett. Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart. Liz Phair (who can curse like a mother ****** like nobody’s business, by the way). Or, for those chronologically younger than I… how about Orianthi? Wailing with Steve Vai (for those of my own chronological age grouping…)

I mean, seriously. How do you NOT run faster to this? I dare you to put any of these on your playlists and see if you don’t pick up a few minutes on your average mile.

Lita

Joan

Orianthi

My dear hot chicks with guitars: May you be ever present on my playlist.

Run fast, run hard, run long. For those about to rock – we salute you.

How They Got Here

2011-06-26T21:00:00.001-05:00

I had the most amazing mashed potatoes with chives the other night. Guess how they got to my table?

An antique potato digger, circa 1900! Video from my main man Farmer Jim of Shared Bounty CSA:

And, the two things I love the most about this video: 1) the dogs, and 2) how farmer Jim is yelling at Farmer Ramona about the clutch on the tractor.

I have not felt so close to my food since my grandmother sent me to the backyard garden to dig the “spuds” out of the dirt with my own bare hands.

Pretty sure Grandpa yelled at someone about the clutch back then, too.

Proof that I am insane plus Iron Chef CSA challenge update

2011-06-18T12:19:00.001-05:00

Today’s Workout: 30 minute treadmill run, then 30 minute total body strength training, ending with 15 minutes of stretching. All while watching Season 3 of Alias. Is it sad that I’ve owned this DVD forEVER and am just now watching it? I guess recommitting to my workouts posed the perfect opportunity for me to catch up on all the box set DVDs I’ve gotten as gifts over the years!

I finally feel back in the game workout-wise. While neither my speed (which I never had) nor my endurance (which I actually did have) are up to par, it feels good to move again.

Which is probably a good thing, considering that I signed up for this:

And, if that is not proof enough of my insanity, I am |this| close to signing up for this:

I’m a mid-forties, overweight, 13-minute mile runner who currently can’t run further than 3 miles without wanting to lie down in the ditch and gasp like there’s no tomorrow.

Yup. Insane.

Challenge Update Scenes: Iron Chef CSA, aka “no produce left behind”

The big red CSA coolers keep coming! I’m so glad we only did a half-share because we are stuffing ourselves silly on all these amazing fresh veggies. It definitely takes more planning, but I’m happy to say that we have left very little produce behind in our first three weeks into the season.

Some of the lost soldiers were due to “operator error” on my part – as in recipe FAILS. Exhibit A: My first batch of kale chips -- WAY too salty. Major fail!

But I better restrained my sea-salt-shaker hand on the second go-round and the next batch turned out to be delicious. NOW I get why all these bloggers love these things. They are addictive!

Next up: The salad that I made with CSA spring lettuce plus grape tomatoes, smoked Gouda cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette was a major hit. We served it with pan-seared bass.

And this week, we whipped up a stir-fry with CSA bok choy, radishes, and broccoli and added our own carrots and chicken. Some soy sauce, a little chicken stock, plus lots of spicy chili garlic paste totally made this meal. We served it over jasmine rice.

We’ve having fun with our challenge while enjoying all the fresh food. And I am REALLY looking forward to this week’s cooler delivery – Farmer Jim tells us that it’s time for new potatoes, cucumbers, and the first of the season’s fresh tomatoes this week. Yum!

And now I need to go take this whack job for a walk. The dog, not the man … although come to think of it, they’re both a little whacky.

Considering that I am insane, I guess we all found the right family

I totes have to go to bed now, fo-shizzle. Awesomesauce!

2011-06-07T22:25:00.001-05:00

I have to go to bed, now. Or at least stop reading blogs with any of the following three words that seem to be scattered consistently about them like so many sprinkles on a cupcake (or “jimmies” if you are of the non-sprinkles terminology persuasion).

Word #1: “Awesomesauce” – I believe this is intended to represent the astounding level of fabulosity, greatness, and all around glorious-ness of something. In actuality, it’s just annoying to read.

Word #2: “Totes” – as in abbreviation for “totally”. You couldn’t be bothered to type the extra letters? Or do you think you sound cute, cool, hip, or otherwise “awesomesauce”?

Word #3: Anything ending in “izzle” – as in “fo-shizzle, mah mizzle”. Snoop Dogg cornered the market on this one, my friends. And you are not – I’m fairly certain – Snoop Dogg. Please drop it.

Caveat: If any of those words are used in a completely sarcastic manner, I’m good with that. If you are using them as normal language and are over the age of 12, no soup for you. Please. Stop. I beg of you.

‘Dee out.

The Humane Omnivore: Community Supported Agriculture

2011-06-05T15:35:00.001-05:00

I never thought I’d get so excited about seeing a bright red Igloo cooler that contains absolutely NO beer. Much less one that actually contains VEGETABLES.

But now I do. And I have the added benefit of being not just a customer, but a friend, with a local farmer. When Jim from Shared Bounty Farm drove up last Saturday, the first delivery week of our brand new CSA membership, he was careful not to disturb the baby robins nesting on my porch door – just as I’d asked him in my email to him. I heard his knock and went out to say hello – and I liked him immediately. We exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes and then he headed out on the rest of his deliveries with a friendly wave and a “see you next Saturday!”

This summer, I really wanted to grow my own vegetables. But knowing my time limitations, I just couldn’t do it justice. Yet I still wanted to reduce the fossil fuels used to get fresh vegetables to my plate. Enter the CSA – Community Supported Agriculture. For less money than Blonde Bomber and I would spend at Whole Foods for equivalent veggies over an equivalent timeframe, we instead signed up for a weekly half-share of fresh veggies, fruits, and (if we like), eggs, for 24 weeks. All from a local farmer who picks this produce from his own farm not even 30 miles from our door. And the best part – we were in his delivery area! Sweet.

Last week, we enjoyed an abundance of fresh salad greens, amazing green onions, beautiful kale, fresh herbs, and radishes. This week, we received more of those delicious salad greens, some GORGEOUS mustard greens (more on those later), rosemary, chives, more green onions, bok choy, and … strawberries!

YUM.

BB and I talked a lot about signing up for the CSA before we did it. He was concerned we wouldn’t eat all the goodies and would end up wasting food. Secretly, so was I – though I was so jazzed about trying it that I wouldn’t admit it to him.

In the end, we decided this would be our “Iron Chef CSA Experiment”. Meaning, we would treat every week’s cooler like an Iron Chef would do and get super creative to ensure we never left any of that beautiful produce to spoil.

We’ve done great so far! It has taken some extra planning, but my new farmer-friend helps immensely – 2 days before the week’s delivery, he sends out a newsletter letting us all know what will likely be in this week’s harvest. And – bonus! – he sends out some great recipes as well. Now that’s a farmer who knows his audience, I tell you. Translation: Working, time-strapped suburban families who are busy enough that even looking up YET ANOTHER salad recipe is just too much work.

Tonight, I am trying (for the first time ever) to make kale chips. I’ll let you know how that turns out – I may be the ONLY blogger on the planet who has not tried these.

Last night, I made an amazing mustard greens dish to go with roasted (humanely raised) chicken. I actually found this recipe myself because I had a feeling I would need to get REALLY creative for BB to like anything with mustard greens. He is deeply suspicious of most greens besides, perhaps, lettuce.

I did neglect to get any photos (a side effect of starting on the wine while you are washing, drying, and chopping veggies – you focus more on your quickly-emptying wineglass than you do on documenting your activities for your blog … whoops), but here’s the recipe I followed.

Mustard Greens with Chipotle & Bacon (From Epicurious)

2 3/4 pounds curly mustard greens (2 to 3 bunches), stems and coarse ribs discarded

4 bacon slices, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch pieces [Note – I used Whole Foods’ Black Forest bacon]

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon minced canned chipotle chiles in adobo

1/2 teaspoon salt

Coarsely chop greens, then cook in 2 batches in a 6- to 8-quart pot of boiling salted water, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until wilted and tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer with a slotted spoon to a large bowl of cold water to stop cooking. Drain greens in a colander, pressing gently to release excess moisture.

Cook bacon in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring, until crisp, 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer with a slotted spoon to paper towels to drain, reserving fat in skillet. Add oil, chipotle, greens, and salt to fat and cook, stirring occasionally, until heated through, 2 to 3 minutes. Add cooked bacon, stir to combine and serve.

In the original recipe, they called for sprinkling the cooked bacon on top, but I found that mixing it into the moist greens was the best way – nice warmed bacon among perfectly wilted greens with just the right temperature of spice from the chipotle.

The verdict? As hoped, BB proclaimed these greens to be “awesome”. I’m pretty sure it was the bacon. I figure anything cooked with bacon gets a thumbs-up from a man.

Stay tuned for more “Iron Chef CSA” adventures this summer as BB and I try to meet our self-induced challenge: No produce left behind!

Want to see what CSA options may be available in your area? Check out Local Harvest for CSAs, farmers’ markets, and more.

Sunday Morning Scene

2011-06-05T07:52:00.001-05:00

Note to self: Next time I adopt a dog, remember that youngsters do not come equipped with snooze buttons. Check. 5:35 a.m. on a Sunday morning? Oh yes, she did.

And now this is the look I’m getting because the one-mile walk that her Dad gave her (so that I could get a little more shut-eye – love that man!) apparently was not enough:

I’m off to get MY run in first, then a jog with her. I will teach her to run straight eventually!

PS: See all the flotsam and jetsam in the living room behind her? Yeah. That would be the disemboweled remains of about 4 squeaky toys.

Cardinal rule of young dog ownership: A tired dog is a good dog.

Stop, start, stop, start.

2011-06-01T20:20:00.001-05:00

On a personal basis, it has been a tumultuous year so far, no doubt. One of the great things about running, for me, is how it is so helpful to getting (and keeping) a balanced state of mind even during stressful periods in my life. And yet for the past few months, I have developed a long list of excuses to not run. Why?

Some days, I chalk it up to long work hours, which in and of itself can definitely be the case. But what about days when I work normal hours? Or I chalk it up to being on the road for work PLUS long hours. Okay, maybe that can be the case sometimes. But what about weekends? I get religion on Monday and I’m off the wagon by Wednesday. What gives? Why am I stopping, starting, and stopping again when it comes to something that is so good to me?

I often default to thinking that it comes down to my character – that it translates to a lack of willpower. That I’ve gotten soft(er) or lazy(er) (and yes, I know that’s not spelled correctly – claiming creative license here).

But it’s not that I can’t get clever with my schedule or that I can’t be persistent in pursuit of a goal. Didn’t I train for months to go from running 5Ks as a steady diet to running my first half marathon? I didn’t have time off work to do it, that’s for sure. And I traveled plenty. I fit it in there somehow. I packed my running shoes, I ran early, I ran late. I just ran. Whatever it took. I set a goal and I met it. So was I really getting soft? Lazy? Less persistent? I was confused.

Then I read Amy's post and realized she nailed it.

It’s pride. Or more correctly, the wounded pride that comes with realizing how much I’ve let my endurance and fitness erode in a mere matter of months. And how I feel like slow, plodding, dorky me from 2.5 years ago when I could only run for 90 seconds at a time before wishing I would just faint dead away and have the world be done with me.

And I don’t like feeling like that, but on my runs right now, that’s the way I feel. I miss the ability to feel that awesome sort of good on my runs. The kind of good that comes from a body that is ready to do what I’m asking of it and able to do what I’m asking of it. But in reality, it’s not. Not right now.

So I avoid running. And my body gets less ready by the day, less able by the day, because of it.

Well that’s about enough of that. Pride be damned, I don’t care if I look like the same overweight shuffler that I did when I gasped out that very first quarter-mile, I’m just going to have to get over it.

And go back to the place in my mind, back where I began this love affair with running. Back to where I wasn’t, as Amy said, “ashamed of small beginnings.”

Thanks for the swift kick in the butt, Amy.

Moorings Refastened: Introducing Roxie

2011-05-29T16:21:00.001-05:00

There is balance back in my home – a beautiful animal once again brings her spirit and her life to my world.

This nutjob is Roxie. German Shepherd mix, one year old, and 54-pounds of graceful-yet-clumsy teenage galoot.

She drove away from the Humane Society and rode to her forever-home in the back of my Jeep just like a well-behaved little girl should. She can “sit”, “wait”, “shake”, and “lie down”. Squeaky toys must fear her. The automatic pool cleaner totally confounds her. Fetch is a glorious game. Puppy cookies are simply the bomb. Dad is an object of awe and adoration. Mom is a safe haven to whom she constantly looks to know, “is this OK?” And Mom gets lots of kisses. Shhh, don’t tell Dad – he’ll feel left out.

And she can thunder around the first floor like the finest yearling thoroughbred at Churchill Downs.

I would say that she is sleeping at my feet right now, but she’s not. Oh she’s zoned out at my feet all right - - that part’s true.

But it’s not sleeping. It’s merely recharging.

She is perfect.

Question for Runners: Does your family “get it?”

2011-05-26T21:10:00.001-05:00

I think I’ve mentioned in the past that while my husband, the dear Blonde Bomber, seems to relate to running short distances such as the 5K as “sane”, he genuinely does not understand the allure of long distance running.

So we got in (yet another) conversation on the topic this evening where he let the “should” word out, and I confess, I went a little off the reservation.

It went something like this:

“Honey”, I said, “I am signing up for the Rock & Roll St. Louis half marathon and I really want to do Las Vegas as well … would you be up for a long weekend in Vegas in December with me?”

BB responds, “I’d be up for a weekend in Vegas, but why would you want to run another half?”

I say, “Well, actually, I was considering doing the FULL marathon in Vegas …”

I won’t go into the rest of the details, but the Cliff Notes version is this:

a) People who want to run long distances are nuts.

b) People who want to run marathons are “stupid”.

c) Slow runners (like me) should (“should” alert!) focus on getting faster, not running longer.

d) I should (another “should” alert!) “master” the 5K before I “attempt” to run the half … (translation: you are not good enough yet, why are you going to try to run even LONGER? … or at least that what I heard through my “someone is telling me what I can’t or shouldn’t do” filter.)

Ahem.

The killer comment that sent me off the reservation was this: “Well, honey, you know you’re going to have to run a LOT to do a half marathon.”

Um, yeah. I know. Because I kinda did that once? And you, um, kinda never have?

The next half hour wasn’t pretty.

Love the man, truly I do, but I gritted my teeth and finally pointed out that I don’t try to judge his “mastery” of tennis or advise him on how to train for it or how long to play it. I’m happy he’s happy with that passion. Same thing for baseball. They are not my thing, but I see that they are his things, and I don’t judge him or offer advice that I’m not qualified to offer. I just enjoy that he enjoys them.

All I ask is the same thing for what I enjoy. Running. On my own terms. No “shoulds” allowed.

So question to all of you runners: Do your families and significant others “get it”? Do you ever get “should” on when it comes to the subject of your running?

How do you deal with people you love having contrarian opinions on the sport that you love?

PS - after giving BB the tennis and baseball comparisons, he did see my point. I know he still doesn’t understand why I would ever want to do this, but he’s acknowledged that he would HATE it if I judged either his reasons for wanting to do a sport he loves OR tried to give uninformed opinions on how he “should” master it.

Ahh, marriage.

Pack-less

2011-05-25T21:31:00.001-05:00

Don’t run away, this isn’t a “downer” post, I promise. It’s a “hopeful” post.

My house is too empty. We knew that after Ripley died in January that we would not be adding to our fur-family again while Alex was with us. Both the Blonde Bomber and I felt she needed to be “queen” of the house, all by herself. And looking back, I’m so, so, so very glad we did. She didn’t have as much time to be queen as we’d expected, but that sweet kitty lived it up in those four months and she left the world on her own terms. Although she left me far too soon, we made the right decision for her to be an “only child” for a while. That was one supremely happy cat.

But now, I find myself, for the first time in decades (not kidding), totally “pack-less”. I have no animal faction roaming the halls of the house of ‘Dee. None. Nada. Zip.

I do not understand how to operate this way. I feel somehow unhinged -- loose from my moorings, set adrift -- without animals sharing my home. I am not able to be who I really am without my pack.

It’s a very alien feeling for me. Part of me is conflicted. To assemble a new pack, I feel I’m being disloyal to the spirits of the old. Yet part of me understands that this is what I’ve always done. Invited new pack members who need a home into my life because I need them in mine. None of them have lived forever. None of them will. The heartache of losing them does not seem to be deterrent enough to outweigh my inherent need for having them in my life.

And then I seem to always settle on this: I picture the spirits of my packs of the past assembled somewhere out there (and let me tell you, that is one helluva BIG pack at this stage), egging me on, encouraging me to open my heart and my home to more like them. And in that, I find both peace and new hope.

And it’s about that time that I start stalking local shelters and finding amazing creatures like these:

[Image source: Petfinder]

Ack. I want them all.

I predict I’m not going to remain pack-less all that long.

And now for something completely different…

2011-05-23T21:16:00.001-05:00

Pop quiz: Where do people go for lighthearted entertainment?

Answer: Not my blog.

I know I am abusing you, dear readers, with my despair. I vow to change things up for both of us. It’s too much, too soon to lose them both so close together, and while it’s impossible for me to be instantly happy, I have to find a way to stay out of that well.

And so, if I haven’t completely scared you away by now, join me in a little bit of completely irresponsible, totally mindless, utterly fluffy bit of entertainment, will you?

By way of a truly timely link, posted courtesy of my lovely blonde friend over at HIPLIP, may I present:

The Bachelorette Drinking Game.

Instructions:

Combine a little bit of Chris Harrison looking very serious and majorly constipated:

Mix in a hearty dose of Ashley Hebert as the new Bachelorette, looking lovely, but still wearing her odd combination of giggly yet brooding insecurity:

Add the great link to Ashley Spivey’s blog post:

Throw in a large supply of Skinny Girl Margaritas:

…and the result is I’ve already lost count of how many sips, double sips, and chugs I’ve accumulated within an hour of the show’s beginning.

Blonde Bomber wisely decided to work on his fantasy baseball stats to escape Chris, Ashley, and me, hopped up on margaritas and bad reality television. Oh, no. He cannot.

I keep yelling all the details upstairs to him any time I have to drink.

“Honey!”, I yell.

“WHAT?”, he yells back.

“JOURNEY!!”

“WHAT??”

“Someone said JOURNEY!! I have to SIP!”

“Oh, my God…” he mutters.

“Oooh, wait! SOMEONE PICKED HER UP! I have to CHUG!”

Funnily enough, he has stopped responding to me. Humph. I wonder why?

Ahhh! Aerial shot of mansion!

Chug.

You have to understand…

2011-05-22T20:34:00.001-05:00

… that I’m trying to be fine. I’m trying to tell myself that losing an animal is easier than losing a person. I’m trying to tell myself she had a long, well-loved life and that makes it OK. I’m trying to tell myself that having fur-free carpets might be a nice change of pace.

But none of it is true.

It’s not easier because she wasn’t human. At least, not for the warped person that is me. You have to understand, it’s the animals – it has always been the animals -- who have made my life whole after the humans so often broke it apart.

That her life was long and full of love does not make her being gone OK. Gone is never OK, no matter how long we had. You have to understand, I wanted her to be immortal.

And you have to understand that I cried while I vacuumed the carpets today. Because I knew that now, they would stay clean.

Alex the Lionhearted died as I so fervently hoped that she would. An old lady, warm in her bed, surrounded by love. I suppose we should all be so lucky.

And apart from hearing “she’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone” on perpetual repeat in my head, I’m trying to be fine.

You have to understand … why I am not.

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light”

2011-05-20T10:43:00.001-05:00

2011 is determined to go down in history as one hell of a sucky year.

Fresh off the latest gut-punch for my lost Ripley this past weekend (another wayward toy discovery, tucked under a chair), I came home yesterday afternoon to find my sole remaining animal child seriously not well.

Alex, the 18-year-old cat.

I know. I can grow them pretty old, huh? It’s bittersweet, though. My animal kids are with me for so much of my life that when they must go it is horribly heart-wrenching.

She is still with us – for now. But as I sit here watching her, I can tell she’s winding down, winding herself out of this life and into the next. And I’m reminded again why I am so in awe of cats. They are unafraid. While she is calm and accepting and loving as ever, I’m a sloppy, sniveling wreck. And that damned Dylan Thomas poem will NOT get out of my head.

So here’s the deal. Last night, we discovered her tucked into a corner of the living room, disoriented, and seemingly unable to get herself out. Once up, out, and on her feet, she circled endlessly around the room, softly bumping into walls, head tilted, wobbly, and very dazed.

After a visit to her lovely vet last night, we all believe she has had a stroke. She can still get up and walk but cannot navigate well. Upon entering any corner, she believes herself to be stuck and will stay there until I take her out. She has eaten only a little. Every time she gets up, she’s less able to navigate that before her last nap.

Since we lost Ripley, seven pounds of cat has ruled our home, freely roaming where a devious canine once prohibited her to tread. But she was here first. This once-feral beauty who I rescued from certain death in the dog days of a South Texas summer so long ago tucked herself right under my heart and stayed there for the last 18 years. I don’t want her to go.

I want her to rage, I don’t want her to go gently into that good night. But as she sleeps peacefully as I lay with her in my arms, her familiar purring rumbling softly against my chest, I see that she is not raging. She is going gently. She is wiser than I, this tiny tough little creature.

And I am going to cherish her for as many more weeks or days or hours or minutes as this universe will allow.

God, this year sucks.

The Humane Omnivore: Dinner With a Skinny Girl Twist

2011-05-16T21:49:00.001-05:00

OK, two things: First, I know my posts are random, ill-timed, and (probably) poorly edited. Call me a corporate American who loves to blog yet must devote far more time to filling the coffers for my company’s shareholders than she wishes. And two, I only have one photo of my dinner because I let my camera battery die. I got one shot and then the sucker went paws up.

So I guess that also makes me a corporate-American-blogger-who-can’t-be-bothered-to-plug-in-her-camera-charger?

I’m going to count it a relative success that at least the photo that I did get was of something that is ALWAYS an important qualifier to the definition of a good meal in my house: The alcoholic beverage.

But we’ll get to that part in a minute. First: dinner!

As part of my mission to be a Humane Omnivore, one of my first steps was to vote myself off the ignorance island of industrialized beef. This now means that butchers hate me. Seriously. Even in Whole Foods, where smart, caring, and ethical people roam wild like so many buffalo, the sound of my footfalls approaching the butcher shop counter makes my favorite dreadlocked and friendship-braceleted grocers really wish they’d worked a different shift that day. I grill them ruthlessly on the origins of the beef in that display case. Is it pastured? Is it grass-fed? Is it grass-FINISHED? How far away was it raised? If they can’t answer to my expectations for all questions, I walk away and change my dinner plans.

Here is where I should point out that while the Blonde Bomber loves me and understands my mission, on the days where I cannot walk out with the steak he has so dreamed of for his weekend barbeques, he really wishes I was okay having one foot back on the ignorance island for industrialized beef. I think he wants to drop kick me some days. Whoops.

The problem is that I too love me a good steak. But I want the steer that became my steak to have lived a good life. The kind of life nature intended for it, not some ghastly caricature of an existence invented by man to … well, to fill the coffers of agricultural titans at the expense of compassion, humanity, and decency.

Suffice it to say, I’ve found it so problematic to find pastured, grass-fed, grass-finished beef in my local supermarkets that I’ve been eating a lot less beef. Which is not a bad thing, actually, but I did want to find a more humane alternative that would allow me to enjoy my occasional steak.

Enter one of the finest establishments that I’ve found in the search to fulfill my mission: The amazing Whisnant family’s Southern Missouri operation known as American Grass Fed Beef.

Do you have any idea how psyched I was to find such a place in my own adopted state? And a mere stone’s throw from the infamous, horrifying, and heart-breaking mass feedlots of neighboring Kansas. (Trust me. Drive by them some day. If you have an ounce of compassion, you will never be the same. And that’s just what they let you see on the outside.)

I may have squealed in delight on finding this farm and I am here to testify that my dear Blonde Bomber went beyond his usual sighs of patience and got downright cynical of me: “You’re ordering, um, MEAT?”

Cynical until the order came, that is, and we experienced the superb food these people produce. Although I wish there were fewer miles (and petroleum burned) between their farm and my door, the opportunity to buy in bulk is a nice compromise. And so I did!

With a freezer full of beef, tonight I nabbed a lovely-looking NY strip steak and decided on homemade fajitas. I know, I know – that’s usually made with flank steak or skirt steak. Work with me here, people.

Combine copious amounts of chile powders, garlic, onions, yellow peppers, and a nicely seared NY strip steak. Fire some tortillas over a gas flame, add some locally-produced salsa, top with homemade guacamole and the result was one delicious dinner. The Blonde Bomber has gone from a grudging skeptic to “oh-my-gosh-this-is-good” with every new meal where this beef makes an appearance.

So, a few thoughts after a month or so of eating grass-fed beef:

Tips for cooking: Add a little good fat, like olive oil, and do not overcook! They are super-lean so overcooking is their enemy. But when cooked well, oh my – the taste. Some seasoning, olive oil, and a good sear on all sides with pink in the middle = perfection.
Taste: After a very short time of voting myself off that island, and a few “only this once” forays back to grain-fed industrial beef (usually in the cafeteria at work during a weaker moment), I have found I can’t stomach anything less pristine. Seriously – I’ve tried. The flavor is so amazing that I went over the wall and never came back. Just goes to show, I guess. Nature is right.
My conscience: Since being so conscious of the creature that is on my plate, I am eating fewer creatures. Less consumption combined with conscious humanity seems to equal the perfect meat-eating balance for me. It’s a good place.

So that’s the latest in my mission to become a more humane omnivore.

Oh, what’s that you say? You want to know about the BOOZE? You lushes. I love you.

So, after reading countless blogs and reviews of Skinny Girl Margaritas, I had to give them a whirl. The premise was a good one: All-natural, no high-fructose corn syrup or other franken-food ingredients, and low-calorie to boot. Not like I need another excuse to consume alcohol, but if it was the slightest bit palatable, the woman had me at hello.

And sadly/happily, I now have a new obsession. This stuff is GREAT. I think all the reviews I’ve read where people have noted it as “too tart” must have been written by those of the raging sweet toothed faction. My own preference for less-sweet flavors seems to jive perfectly with this combination. It is definitely on my official rotation now.

Right along with an occasional dish featuring the happiest fajitas in Missouri.

“Forgetting, or willed ignorance, is the preferred strategy of many beef eaters, a strategy abetted by the industry. (What grocery-store item is more silent about its origins than a shrink-wrapped steak?)”

Michael Pollan

Things I learned from John Tesh and the Mayo Clinic

2011-05-08T17:31:00.001-05:00

Um, yeah. One of these things is not like the other. But stick with me for a bit – all shall become clear, my friends.

With my workload and business travel schedule in full gear, I am trying my best to achieve balance between real-world ‘Dee and corporate ‘Dee. It’s not always easy. But sometimes, the world throws me a funny ha-ha moment to help lighten the mood.

Case in point #1, the seriously career-adaptable pseudo-celebrity, John Tesh, who entered my world view earlier this week in a management group meeting. Joined by a new colleague who had recently taken leadership of a business group in my division, the management meeting was a lively mix of dialogue that included her asking about a dozen times, “Okay – WHY do we do this?” I loved her so much for that alone that I pledged my undying devotion on the spot. And then she busted out this little bon mot when giving the update for her business unit:

“So, I was driving home last night and was listening to John Tesh. Does anybody listen to John Tesh?”

*** crickets chirping ***

“Yeah, so anyway, I was listening to John Tesh and he had this whole list thing going about what’s really good for us versus what we THINK is good for us. And he brings up this Dr. Oz thing about boredom. Anybody want to hear it?”

To which MANY of us cry (okay, so maybe it was just me), “YES!” (Seriously, anything to get out of trend chart analysis and revenue projections, even for a nanosecond, please, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY tell me what Dr. Oz thinks about boredom.)

“Okay, so I’m two weeks into this job. I don’t have enough people. I don’t have enough budget. I have a presentation to update the board on our strategy in a week. I’ve actually read my strategy all the way through, like, once. Most of the words make sense, so that’s good I guess. But now I not only have to be the expert on it, I have to update the freakin’ board of directors on how we’re doing against it. No stress, right?

But here’s the good news, straight from Dr. Oz via John Tesh. What’s better for your heart – stress or boredom? The answer is STRESS! Yep, boredom is a sign that you don’t have purpose in your life, and people without purpose can suffer higher levels of heart disease and DIE.”

We are all silently absorbing this when she busts out with:

“And so with my SUPER HEALTHY HEART, it is with strong purpose and TOTAL LACK OF BOREDOM that I am thrilled to update you today on our progress against objectives …”

I may have actually snorted. For the same reasons why Dilbert will never go unloved in my household, this woman can count me as a fan for life.

And sort of on topic, but sort of not … do you have any photographs of yourself that you regret? You know, dated hair, dated clothes, funny expression, etc.? Yeah. Well, guess what. So does John Tesh:

I think he wins.

Ahem. On to Case in Point #2.

I have to be on a plane first thing tomorrow and I don’t come back home until late Thursday night (cue highly annoying whining sound right about here.) My time once at my destination is booked from sunup to well after sundown. One of those work trips where my real job will be done at the wee hours in my hotel room by the glow of a blue-screened laptop. Peachy.

And lo, in my email, to what to my wondering eyes does appear but … a randomly accelerated deadline for a task that normally does not happen until the last quarter of the year from our HR group. Yeah. Got it late Friday. Flying out into schedule Hell first thing Monday. Translation: Weekend work.

But I make the best of it. I took yesterday off from everything. I mean everything. I showered, but only because I wanted to. No social expectations are going to compel me to shower, damnit, but … **sniff**? Hmmm. Okay, well maybe I need a shower.

And then this afternoon, I decided if one must work on the weekend, one should do so in style:

Yes, that is a laptop next to a glass of wine out by the pool.

I did enough work to limit the prospects of slogging through constant 24-hour days while on the road and then decided to take a break and do some surfing of teh interwebs. And here I find that the venerable Mayo Clinic posted this little gem on achieving work/life balance as part of a broader article on the topic (red highlights are mine):

Leave work at work. With the technology to connect to anyone at any time from virtually anywhere, there may be no boundary between work and home — unless you create it. Make a conscious decision to separate work time from personal time. When you're with your family, for instance, turn off your cell phone and put away your laptop computer.

Well. Whoops. My bad.

Caging me in.

2011-05-04T20:56:00.001-05:00

The real world can really blow, sometimes. I mean really. You know how sometimes, after you’ve been on a boat on the water for the day, you still “feel” the waves when you lie down to sleep? Well, when it’s not a boat, but a plane, and you keep going up in the air, coming in for a landing, going up in the air, coming in for a landing, going up in the air … you get the idea. That kind of “motion memory” is just not as much fun.

And no, the ridiculous amount of frequent flyer miles I’m racking up does not make it better. What good is half a million miles that would pay for a sah-WEET Maui vacation if you don’t have time to TAKE the vacation?

Done ranting now. It is my own fault I’m not taking the vacation and I need to learn how to say “No, thanks, not this time. Why don’t we see if so-and-so can cover this one?”

In the meantime, my lard ass is getting lard-ier (for realz – it is embarrassing) and my untrained body is getting … er … untrained-ier?

Work is caging me in.

Too many hours at 30,000 feet spent in a too-small airline seat while the butthead in front of me is determined to rest peacefully in the fully reclined position has my leg muscles slowly but surely atrophying. While I worked a handful of hotel gym runs into my routine-killing 16-hour days here and there over the past few weeks, it’s not enough.

I am ever-so-gratefully back in my own home now (at least for the rest of this week – le sigh) and as for tomorrow night, well I told my husband to not even acknowledge my presence at home until AFTER I emerge red-faced and sweaty from a run. I can feel my fat cells partying like it’s 1999 and I can feel my cardiovascular endurance dying a slow, painful, pitiful death.

Must. Run.

brb

2011-05-02T23:53:00.000-05:00

With 48 hours of real life sandwiched in between the 150-ish hours of flying to represent the corporate mothership or working AT the mothership, I've come to realize that this whole 'making a living' thing is seriously cramping my blogging style.

brb. K thx bye.

The Humane Omnivore, Part 1: My Mission

2011-04-17T13:08:00.001-05:00

As part of my Project 2011 goals, I wanted to pay closer attention to my food: What foods best support my overall health goals, where my food comes from, and how it makes its way to my plate. And since April 22 is Earth Day, what better month to kick off the first in a series of posts on my adventures along that path? My path to eating more healthful foods and eating as a humane omnivore.

[Image Source]

It is a sad commentary on the state of modern agriculture in America when I have to say this: Despite our nation’s bounty, it’s NOT easy to know for certain that one is eating ethically or humanely. For me, eating ethically means eating sustainably raised foods (including not burning out the land with chemicals), eating local when possible (to minimize the fossil fuels burned to get my dinner to my plate), eating organic, especially when it really counts (as in the dirty dozen!), and eating humanely. This last part means that if my dinner had a mom, it will only be so if I know that it lived as it was meant to live and that it lived well.

Now, I’m a pretty resourceful kind of girl who makes a decent living. And I live in an area where bustling urban areas are bordered by pastoral suburban areas, which are in turn bordered by large swaths of rolling natural terrain. Prime agricultural terrain in many cases. This is all to say that I am surrounded by options. My potential “good eats” pool is by no means limited, living where I do, and I’m fortunate to earn a comfortable wage that enables options in my buying habits. And it’s still not easy!

I don’t know about you, but having to literally think about EVERYTHING that goes into my shopping basket and read nearly EVERY food label to see not only what’s in it, but where it’s from, is a pain in the patootie. But living as a humane omnivore means a lot to me. So I decided it was time to develop an expanded list of “go-to” resources, build new (informed) buying habits, and generally expand my food horizons. I want to become not only an educated foodie, but to (hopefully) make eating ethically and humanely less personally taxing and more automatic.

After doing some research and a little sleuthing, I think I have a few tricks up my sleeve that can help me do just that. I hope you’ll follow along in my quest this Spring and Summer and I’d love to hear from others who share my mission.

They said it better than I did: Runner's World Daily Kick in the Butt

2011-04-14T09:44:00.000-05:00

I waxed poetic in this post about the thrill of racing. This is what I got in my email this morning from Runner's World's "daily kick in the butt":

"Competitive running is a metaphor for the unresting aspiration of the human spirit."

Roger Robinson, Heroes and Sparrows: A Celebration of Running

They said it better.

Please forgive me: Running grammar lessons

2011-04-13T20:21:00.001-05:00

I follow a lot of blogs from fellow ~~nut cases~~ runners. I LOVE following them and many are a source of constant inspiration and motivation to me.

But. As the genetic product of two teachers, I have to say this. I have struggled for months with NOT saying this. And I can’t keep it up. It has got to come outttttttt. Please (please?) stop abusing and misusing the use of “run” vs. “ran”. (Did I mention … please?)

Incorrect usage examples of “ran”:

I have ran this race twice before …
She had ran the Boston Marathon in 2007 …

Correct usage examples of “ran”:

I ran this race twice before…
She ran the Boston Marathon in 2007 …

Or, if you are truly enamored of using “have” or had”:

I have run this race twice before …
She had run the Boston Marathon in 2007 …”

I’m sorry. It had to come out. It’s in the teacher-kid and writer genes.

Please forgive me. (Please?)

Penguin or Tortoise? Race recaps page (finally) updated

2011-04-09T12:28:00.001-05:00

I am a slow runner. Apparently, I am even slower at checking things off my blog to-do list! Erk.

The race recaps page finally has content.

And may I say that was sort of fun to relive the last 2 years of running and races? Makes me want to bust out a random fartlek or something.

STILL: Race #9 - Go! St. Louis 5K 2011

2011-04-09T11:29:00.001-05:00

I posted the following quote on Facebook last night after I picked up my race packet (and the Blonde Bomber’s) at the expo for my NINTH race ever:

“There is only one thing more full of promise than picking up my race packet at the expo: When I'm in the corral waiting for the starting gun to go off. Runners of all ability (or distinct lack thereof in my case) are my tribe.”

Am I the only one who gets all of those crazy-wonderful-emotional “oh, holy gee” moments when it comes to races?

I find myself STILL unable to stop smiling at the lovely volunteer shuffling through a sea of bibs to find mine. My own. My very own.

I find myself STILL getting amped, buzzed, wired, scared, elated, and a whole lotta sappy as I gather in the starting line with a growing crowd of runners. Young, old, tall, short, fat, thin, slow, fast. These are my people. This is my tribe.

I find myself STILL getting a little verklempt when the National Anthem is sung right before the race begins. When those notes reach those famous crescendos, what gratitude I have to be able to live where I do.

I find myself STILL getting this ginormous goofy grin when that starting gun goes off and then WE --the tribe -- goes off, embarking on our quest to compete against each other, but mostly, to compete against ourselves. What gratitude I have when the wind sings by and my feet move over that pavement. I can run.

Stats for Race #9: Chip time 42:32. Average speed 4.5mph (hilly!), max speed 8.0mph (sprinting that last quarter mile). Not my best, not my worst. Yet enthralling and full of all of those crazy-wonderful-emotional “oh, holy gee” moments.

STILL.

Long live The Stoke.

Monday’s Mood: “I’ve got chills, they’re multiplying”

2011-03-28T19:13:00.001-05:00

The aches that turned to fever have now turned to … chills. And if you were to mosey into my family room right now, you should be very, very afraid. This is what would await you:

The Thing? A fuzzy green mummy? Someone who clearly needs to get her roots done? I don’t think Blonde Bomber would be shocked at this point to see me in a ski hat and mukluks.

On the plus side, I have discovered the color of my blankie really complements the color of the Nyquil next to me. I’m all about the color coordination factor.

Dratted flu/cold/whatever-the-hell-you-are. Go away!

Pity party, table for one?

Spring (?) in Missouri

2011-03-26T15:39:00.001-05:00

After a whacked week of business travel that included an entirely unplanned overnighter in Dallas (thanks American Airlines), I awoke yesterday with the unwelcome and tell-tale sign that I was getting sick – a sore throat. As the day wore on, the throat got scratchy and my bones started to get achy. And then I started sneezing. And dripping. LOVELY.

I grouched and whined, ranting such things as “I don’t have TIME to get sick! Argh”, until around 3pm when one of my ever-so-patient employees suggested that I (read: they) might be better off if I went home.

So I did, popping Vitamin C gummies like they weren’t making any more (on a side note, how COOL is it that they make vitamins as gummies??) This morning, things were not better. I grumpily concluded that my planned Saturday run was not going to be and instead decided it was a good day to stay home sipping tea, watching every premium channel I pay so dearly for, and swaddling my drippy self in a big fluffy blankie.

Hot, steamy chamomile tea with honey. Ahhhhh.

Around noon, I was already getting stir crazy, so I roamed around outside for a few minutes and decided I had to snap a picture of my beloved plum tree so prettily in bloom:

Purrty flowers, soon to become plums! I always have to battle to beat the critters for them, though. Squirrels are nothing but thieves with cute bushy tails.

So back to my comfy sofa and warm blankie I go, feeling at least like I got a little fresh air. Not an hour later and guess what I spy out the window -- big, fat, fluffy snowflakes coming down. WTF? Come on! Don’t get me wrong, I like the snow – in WINTER. It is SPRING. Does my environment not understand how badly I am jonesing for sunshine and warmer weather? Aw, man.

And so, only a few hours after I snapped my pretty plum tree blooms, here’s what they look like now:

Pretty plum flowers in their own fluffy blankie – of SNOW!

Ah, well. Such is life. I guess it was a good day to stay curled up on the sofa after all.

Off for more tea. And kleenex. Drip, drip, drip.

The Care and Feeding of Cranky Feet

2011-03-20T13:30:00.001-05:00

This post may go down in history as the day when ‘Dee officially jumped the shark into “oversharing” land.

I was cutting up my moleskin supply earlier this morning, in a regular Sunday ritual (more on this later), when this thought occurred to me: “Please tell me there are other runners out there who must put this much effort into keeping their feet happy.”

So ~~considering I have nothing better to blog about~~ in the interest of sharing what works for me with all of my 1.5 readers, here goes nothing.

Root Cause Statement: I have very flat feet. I mean, you don’t even have to do the “wet test” to know I have flat feet – all you have to do is look at them. Flat as a pancake. I also have one annoying “hot spot” where I can tend to blister. It does not matter what shoes I wear, what socks I wear, or how I tie my shoes. That one little spot, if subjected to a rainy run or a very long run, is 90% sure to produce a blister.

Cranky Foot Tip #1: Find Your Best Shoe

It has never made much sense to me – seems counterintuitive in fact – but we flat-of-feet folk seem to need more arch support than the average bear. I tried a lot of shoes out as I became a regular runner and suffered through sore arches, strains, you name it. Until I got properly fitted and found these beauties, lovingly referred to by the Blonde Bomber as my “gunboats”:

They are Asics Gel Foundations – pretty much the blockiest running shoes on the planet, but these and these alone allowed me to become a long distance runner. No more strained arches, no more practically running on the insides of my ankles. I had to quit lusting over the sleek little racing flats that other runners could wear and instead pick something that worked for my own feet. Heavy as hell, not the slightest bit glamorous, and I shall never look like the lithe, lean, soaring gazelles as do other runners, but doggone it, they keep my cranky feet happy.

There are five identical pairs of these brick-imitators in my closet. I have three pairs for indoors (for treadmill workouts, plus one pair that stays in my wheelie bag for travel) and two for outdoors. This allows me to keep the indoor ones free of mud and rocks and to rotate my pairs so that I never wear the same pair of shoes on consecutive runs.

Cranky Foot Tip #2: Blister Prevention

Here’s a glimpse into how I spend my Sundays:

Yep, cutting moleskin down to size for my cranky little blister hot-spot. I found that I would use the time it took to wrap my hotspot as an excuse to not run. Between strapping myself into my upper body sausage casing (two sports bras plus a shirt), lower body sausage casing (compression shorts to prevent chub rub plus regular shorts to protect the public from the mind-searing vision of me in compression shorts), cutting moleskin down to size, and then taping up my foot, I found it was too easy to say “it takes too much time, gee, I think a glass of wine on the couch sounds like more fun.”

Until I lose about a gazillion pounds, I can’t do much about the sausage casing routine, but I figured I could shave some time off my running-readiness window by pre-prepping all my foot-taping supplies for the week on Sundays.

I cut the moleskin into strips and then into a rectangle size with rounded corners to fully cover the hotspot:

When I’m done, I have what looks like an explosion of Pringles potato chips on my bathroom counter:

Enough for all my regular runs plus extra for some two-a-days if I’m feeling frisky.

Then before every run, my cranky-foot taping routine looks like this:

Moleskin on hotspot
Tape around arch over moleskin (to keep in place)
Bodyglide (or other squishy stuff) on heel and other rubb-y kinds of spots

When I first started this routine, I invariably got the tape too tight, too loose, too creased, you name it and either wasted time re-wrapping or cursed my faulty taping skills all through the run. Now I’ve got it down pat and it does not take more than one minute to apply the moleskin and the tape.

Now there, aren’t you all so delighted that I shared these photos of my cranky feet?

PS, yes, that is a long scar on the length of my big toe on the photo to the right. That would be from bunion surgery #1. Well, heck, since I’ve gone this far into over-sharing land, why not share all three scars! This is what happens when a flat-footed person shoves her feet into toe shoes during her youth and then swaps them for a life in high heels on pavement for too many years in corporate America. I’m going to count it as a cautionary tale – my version of a public service announcement.

C’mon, you know you’re dying to see this, if only to think to yourself, “Man, that chick has ugly feet. I’m so glad my feet don’t look like that.”

Bunion surgery #1: This was my first surgery and they used staples for wound closure. Worst scar, tough rehab, but by far the best result of all surgeries.

Bunion surgery #2: Different state, different doctor. They used dissolving sutures, so it is difficult to actually see the scar. The skin just looks a little “shinier” than the rest. Even tougher rehab, I actually had to resort to official physical therapy on this one. Still not as flexible in the joint as the left foot, so I would argue we traded aesthetics for function. If I had to vote again, I’d go with function, scars be damned.

Neuroma Surgery: Done at the same time as I did Bunion Surgery #2 – to remove a Morton’s Neuroma. Painful as hell. They can recur but I wish to never, ever, ever do this again. As such, any time I get feeling twingy from too many pointed-toe high heels, I resort to wearing flats and granny shoes for a few weeks until the inflammation resolves.

Did I mention that I never, EVER, want to do this again? To get an idea of what it’s like walking around with a Morton’s Neuroma, stick a shard of glass into the bottom of your foot, put on your very tightest high heels, and walk for ten miles. That’s it, right there. Now, to get an idea of what it’s like to rehab a foot after surgery to remove said Neuroma, just take the above description -- times a kabillion. After they removed the inflamed nerve, all of that dearly departed nerve’s friends showed up to throw a mosh-pit party, zinging and firing and zapping at random until they finally figured out how to normalize and settle back down.

I thought I had a pretty high pain tolerance factor. What it took to earn this little half-inch scar proved me to be terribly wrong about that. Argh.

And now I realize that I have no good way to end this post. There are pictures of my feet in it. Hmm.

OK. That is all. Thanks. ‘Bye.

It’s time.

2011-03-13T12:54:00.001-05:00

While I really, really (really) wanted to run the Go! St. Louis half-marathon this spring, I realize that my on-again-off-again running habits prompted by a really crappy start to the year translates into my being woefully under-trained.

But I do have race fever. Bad. I found myself wistfully brushing the salt-crust off my trusty iPod armband. I am jonesing for D-tags and crowded water stations and race bibs that you can’t quite get straight no matter how many times you jigger with your safety pins.

I miss the odd comfort of feeling that I am “in my tribe” when I am shoulder-to-shoulder with fellow runners in the starting corral. I am hungry for that super-amped, heart-in-my-throat, gut-clutching thrill that fires through my nervous system in the last few seconds before the starting gun goes off.

I even miss that maddening point in the middle of every race when I wish I’d trained more, trained harder, because I just can’t get more MPH out of this 40-something body. The point that hardens my resolve to do better “next race”, to do precisely that.

And I crave the satisfaction of the inevitable sail over the finish line, where after every race, I am distinctly of two minds -- an odd combination of “oh, thank God that’s done!” and “I want to go again!”

But I am not in half-marathon shape, and hell, if I’m honest, I’m not even in 5K shape. But the beauty of the 5K is that if you have any running base at all, even if it’s been inconsistent, you can be in decent 5K shape in a matter of weeks. And it just so happens that the Go! St. Louis fitness weekend includes … golly gee, a 5K. The same one that I did last year.

And so it is that I have just under 4 weeks to redeem my tarnished training and boost my (badly) eroded fitness level in order to ~~rock out~~ not embarrass myself. I am putting no pressure on myself in terms of a PR goal (or at least that’s what I’m saying out loud). My goal is to get my ass back in the game and just run.

‘Dee is back in training.

(Man, I really wanted to run that half.)

Watch Me.

2011-03-06T20:25:00.001-06:00

A couple of years ago, one of my longtime friends finally convinced me that I was missing out by not watching “The Amazing Race”. So, I did. And I have been hooked ever since.

Tonight, the Blonde Bomber and I got into a discussion on this show. I made the remark that I thought we’d be a great team if we ever were to do this show. We complement each other. After a few minutes of general agreement, he said something that turned on my “watch me radar”. You know what I mean. The antennae that go up when someone tells you that you can’t do something, or that you would be somehow inferior if you tried.

Am I alone here in having the “Watch Me Radar”? I am betting not.

So here’s what I said: “Is there anything they’ve had to do that you don’t think I could do?”

He said: “No. At least not yet this season.”

Me: “What do you mean? So if you think they haven’t done something that I could not also do, well, what have they NOT done that you think I could NOT do?”

BB: “Well, they haven’t done much yet that’s very physical.”

Me: ***Must. Resist. Urge. To. Eradicate. Spouse.***

Instead of eradicating such a fine specimen of blonde attractiveness, I instead asked, “What physical challenges do you think I could not do?”

BB: Sensing he has traversed into dangerous territory but evidently determined to forge ahead … “Well, they haven’t had to run much yet.”

Me: “Um, sweetie? How far have you run? Like, um, ever?”

BB: **Crickets chirping** then, “OK, fine. You’ve run further. But I’ve run FASTER.”

And this is the point at which I fired up the notebook, opened Live Writer, and began to blog

Moral of this story? My husband will always naturally think of me as the weaker sex of our union. If you have a significant other, does this happen to you, too? For some reason, it does not matter that he couldn’t drive stick shift to save his life while I can operate one on the level of a NASCAR pro (exactly how many of the vehicles do they drive on this show that are automatic? Um, none? Oh, right.). It also does not matter what feats of endurance I have achieved, he will always think they are “girl things”. In his mind, the male of the species are automatically superior in physical prowess to the female. Logic need not apply.

I just smiled. And then resolved to sign up for my next half-marathon, my first marathon, and my first triathlon. Because what happens to me whenever someone (anyone) sniffs at my ability to do pretty much anything is this: Watch. Me.

Am I alone?

Living is Easy With Eyes Closed: Five Books That Formed ‘Dee

2011-03-05T21:08:00.001-06:00

I am a tree hugger. Some say that with derision. I wear the badge with pride. And I am an omnivore. Which means I eat many things. Plants, grains, fungi. And animals. I love animals. I am one. I eat animals. There. I said that, too.

I am also a human being who strives to live in harmony with her world. To live a life of integrity, kindness, and ethics.

I may be a predator, but I do not have to be cruel. And this has been my challenge, and my charge, for many years.

In addition to the above, I am a reader. And a writer. And, as my personal Obi Wan (Stephen King), once said, “books are a uniquely portable magic.”

Along my journey of tree-hugging and omnivoristic life, in aspiring for my land to be healthy and vibrant and whole, and in aspiring for those plants and creatures who formed my dinners to have led happy lives, there have been five supremely formative books that have ensured I have not, in fact, been “living easy with eyes closed”. (That’s a Beatles lyric for those who are going “where have I HEARD that before?”) I have been, for a very long time, living with my eyes very (very) wide open.

So I thought I would share the top five books that have helped my eyes to be wide open. Their publication dates range from before I was born to my 4th decade on this planet. Their information is true. The wisdom I have gained from them is timeless. Any bookshelf and home in which these titles reside is richer for having displayed them.

If you ever feel too far away from our human connection with the natural world, read this.

Whenever you question whether one person can change the world, read this.

Whenever you question how you can personally make a difference to our modern impacts on the environment, read this:

When you look at that package of shrink-wrapped meat and ponder how humans and animals have collaborated over time for it to be there, read this:

Whenever you feel the calling to understand modern-day agriculture, or, if you ever find yourself asking “where did this come from?”, read this:

If ever I wish to check that my human-omnivore-self is indeed living in harmony with her planet, all I must do is pull one or more of these books from the shelf, go sit outside in the wind and the sun and the elements, and read.

And I discover that I have all the gauge that I need.

Project 2011: Mind, Body, Soul, Surroundings

2011-02-13T17:47:00.001-06:00

I’m later to this party than I intended. The month of January threw me a curveball with the loss of my beloved Ripley. I’m not going to act as though I’ve recovered – I have not. I have escaped into mindless pursuits, I have drunk more wine than even I find normal, and my outlook on life has swung wildly some days, moving from depression to anger in the blink of an eye or the click of a playlist. The anger feels better. At least somewhat productive. And when I’m angry, I want to run. That’s a nice pairing, actually.

But, though the human heart can go dark in our times of pain, life moves along with or without us. In my later years, I have tried to live my life fully and with mindful presence -- not wishing away the time, realizing how precious every moment actually is. And though I will admit freely to feeling buried in a well of grief more often than not right now, I know I cannot stay there. I may fall back in from time to time, but I need to make the effort to climb out.

So I’ve tweaked the half-finished “Project 2011” list that I began after the first of the year. I decided to take what began as a list of disparate goals and organize them into themes. What did I want for my life in 2011? Where did I wish to focus?

I realized after thinking it through that my goals have aligned into the following themes:

Mind: Read, Learn, Write
Body: Be Healthy, Eat Well, Be Strong
Soul: Find Peace, Play, Enjoy
Surroundings: Be Comfortable, Be Calm

In the “Mind” category, I have goals such as “read history” and “learn to sail”. The goals in this category are all about the sentient part of my existence - - exercising my brain, expanding my experiences, broadening my knowledge, and testing my point of view.

In the “Body” category, I have goals such as “nail a sub-30:00 5K”, “run another half-marathon”, and “learn to deep-dive (again)”. This category is about the physical part of my existence – getting strong, enjoying the benefits that a healthy body has to offer, and testing the limits of my endurance.

In the “Soul” category, I have goals such as “devote one outdoor activity a month to music-less enjoyment of nature” and “take at least one vacation that lets me dive in the ocean”. This category is about the spiritual part of my existence – partaking in activities and experiences that feed my soul. For the record, I am an agnostic, which means that while I am open to belief in a higher power, I am unconvinced. I hope that does not offend. But … when I am in nature or when I am on the ocean, I am much closer to being convinced. I cannot gaze into the eyes of a humpback whale and question that there is a God. It’s all the other times that … well, let’s just say this is an area of particular focus for me.

In the “Surroundings” category, I have goals such as “declutter my home office” and “renovate my camp”. This category is all about making the places where I live or to where I escape stress-free, calming, enjoyable, warm, and welcoming. The daily stress of life and work is enough – I want my non-work surroundings to be my sanctuary. I appreciate beauty and orderliness as beneficial to my state of calm, hence clutter, unfinished projects, and disorganization need to get the boot!

So there we have it, my themes and areas of focus for Project 2011. In future posts, I hope to demonstrate that I am successfully climbing out of that well.

Proof that it is true love

2011-02-05T17:29:00.001-06:00

True story: While my husband and I were dating and knew things were serious, he was talking to his parents on the phone one day and finally let them in on it. They’d known he was dating and were happy about it, but we had not met yet. So as he was describing me to them, he said the usual things like what I look like, what I did for a living, etc. And then the conversation went something like this:

BB: “Hey, here’s the best part – she’s a football fan!”

BB’s Parents: “Honey, that’s AWESOME! So, what’s her team? Is she a PACKER fan?”

***Crickets chirping***

BB: “Um, no. She’s, um. Well. She’s a COWBOYS fan.”

***Crickets chirping LOUDLY***

BB’s Parents: “Well. Honey, that’s all right. Hey, it could be worse! At least she’s not a BEARS fan!”

And so, tomorrow on this Superbowl XLV, I will earn a special place in heaven when I make the favorite Superbowl eats of my dear Blonde Bomber (guac & chips, sliders, and hot wings in case you are wondering), while having to watch these guys:

… play in the SUPERBOWL in MY HOUSE. While my beloved COWBOYS simply watch.

Erk. This is only slightly less than torture, but I will suck it up in the name of true love.

And I have made a deal with BB: I will happily swallow my pride and cheer for the Pack as long as they (and he) promise faithfully to beat the LIVING DAYLIGHTS out of …

Because, I mean, really. It could be worse. He could be a STEELERS fan.

“It’s just one of those days …

2011-01-29T12:29:00.001-06:00

when you don't wanna wake up
everything is f****d
everybody sucks
you don't really know why
but you wanna justify
rippin’ someone's head off
no human contact
and if you interact
your life is on contract
your best bet is to just stay away motherf****r
it’s just one of those days”

Break Stuff – Limp Bizkit

It’s been a rough couple of weeks, but I thought I was keeping my mask on pretty well, at least at work.

I was wrong.

I am normally a nice person – a KIND person. Someone who does not snap or snipe. Someone in management who believes in the rule, “Act like a leader, even if you don’t feel like it.”

I was joined in a meeting by one of the smartest, funniest, nicest people on my team yesterday. After we ended the conference call, she looked at me for a second, and then quietly asked me, “You’re not running right now, are you?”

I said, “Well, no. Not since … since … you know.”

Her eyes were kind when she gently said, “We can tell.”

Point taken.

It looks like a beautiful day out there. I think I shall run.