Workout, Eat, Navel-Gazing (which could be the "pray" part)

I attended my second BodyFit class on Sunday morning. I am familiar with the instructor from previous Sunday mornings on the treadmill, when I had to turn up my Fire Kindling to drown out the sound of her growling and gnashing and ululating enthusiasm. "That lady," I thought to myself, "is a freaking nut."

But as a person who needs guidance in the world of strength building, I am glad she was there to growl and gnash and ululate on my behalf. It was encouraging when I was doing three-count tricep curls with a bar that I could do it (according to her) and wouldn't die on her watch, regardless of how much sweat was pouring down my scalp (implied... I think). I'm not hurting as much as I did after the first class, but that seemed to come on gradually.

I also attended a yoga class at LadyGym on Saturday morning. I think I'll stick to going over to Bloom Studio  if the yoga bug strikes. While I'm certainly no yogii (yogurt?), the class at LadyGym seems to be a little too slowly paced and gentle for my goals/needs. I want all the granola-sprinkled breathing-and-self-realization-positivist malarkey*, but I also want to know I'm making my muscles work.

*Positivist thought and breathing really aren't malarkey; if anyone's malarkey, I'm malarkey.

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On the food front, I've been using Pinterest to try and track down more fast-and-take-to-work friendly recipes, not only for work, but for my home, which has been microwave-free for nearly a year. So I made this curry tuna salad (Greek yogurt instead of mayo) and put it in a wrap instead of on spinach, then finished the schrapnel with pita crackers, and also made a big ol' Crock Pot full of quinoa chicken chili. So if anyone has any delightful suggestions as we transition out of chili weather, hopefully, and into spring, I'm all ears.

I also spent Saturday on a mini-Chicago restaurant feeding frenzy: Little Goat for lunch with friends as a thank you for playing airport chauffeur and Ethiopian Diamond for a traditional pre-St. Paddy's Day dinner. It was a significant cheat day, largely due to the half slice of blood orange meringue pie I consumed--no regrets, because it was heavenly and magical--but I made sure I went to the gym both Saturday and Sunday, despite a nearly last minute chickening out inclination about BodyFit, so I don't feel like my day of gluttony got the better of me.

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I'm closing in, slowly but surely, on a loss of 40 lbs overall. I had a moment or two last week where it didn't seem possible or logical that I'm where I'm at. My general line of logic around starting a diet in the past was to:

1. Recognize I was significantly overweight
2. Buy a bunch of lettuce
3. "Forget" my homemade salad lunch
4. Get Noodles and Company instead
5. Get McDonalds for dinner
6. Throw out wilted lettuce four days later
7. Give up

I have a pattern of this sort of short-sighted self-sabotage in several areas of my life. I let myself see the situation as impossible and frustrating, requiring too much effort and too much time. I've done it with job searches, my personal budgeting, and my self-care.

This time around, I can't tell you what's different. I mean, it seemed to start on a sort of whim, because a friend was enthusiastic about using the Lose It app. But after the inital adjustment period--you know, where your body is convinced it is trapped on a mountaintop in a South American country and that cannibalism isn't so morally reprehensible as you originally thought--I didn't feel overwhelmed. I didn't feel driven by the initial goal number I plugged into the app either. I guess somewhere in my subconscious, I decided to take it...

Don't worry, Kristen: I won't buy this at Amazon and add it to my running playlist :-)

Anyway, all jokey jokes aside, I'm enjoying and participating in the process more than I ever have before, even more than my first time around before my mom died. I am looking for structure and guidance and ways to measure and improve, and I want to talk about it allllllllll the time. I worry a lot that it makes me insufferable, but at the same time, I'm so super jazzed by what I've accomplished and what potential lies ahead-- my first 5K! maybe being brave enough to take Turbo Kick one day! progressing from 3.5 lb hand weights to 5 lbs! -- that I guess I'm willing to be a little insufferable to keep on moving forward.

Over Christmas, my Aunt Carol and I were discussing where I was at so far--I think I was down 20 lbs or so--and I mentioned I had been successfully working off weight before Mom's suicide, to which Aunt Carol said, "She was so proud of you for that." Which is true, I know, as hard as it is to acknowledge without second-guessing it, e.g., "Maybe if I had continued being an unhealthy mess, maybe she would have stuck around to take care of me." And it was so gratifying and touching to hear from my dad after I sent him a text about being halfway to goal (just because I like it so much: "I wish you the best. I was going to say good luck but it is not. It is hard work and determination. You have stuck with this program I am very proud of you. You should be too."). The reaction and acknowledgment by others is important to me, in spite of my awkward shyness about it all. But I think the thing Dad said at the very end of his text has been a critical difference this time around: I'm doing it primarily for myself. It's important to me to be focused and positive and acknowledge success as I'm in the middle of it. I feel like it makes me a more engaged overall citizen of the world (positivism!!!) and more likely to succeed at the other goals in my life, like taking the PHR certification test, going on my crazy trip to Iceland, continuing to find time to volunteer, and being a better friend and family member.

I've been thinking about Mom more lately. Not in any profound way... just thinking. I worry sometimes that when she committed suicide six years ago, I changed so much, so fast, so profoundly... I don't know, I worry that I'm not the person I was, or that I wouldn't know that person if I met her, and maybe she's the person with more potential, better ideas, braver and smarter. I also worry that if I give my grief too much power, let it drive my life choices or existence, I will stagnate, become sad, or sadder, and negative. And Mom really has nothing to do with a lot of that: I tended towards impatience and moodiness while she was alive. I'm snarky and intolerant of what I perceive to be condescension or mediocrity. And with missing my mom in constant competition with being very angry and very confused, I see the potential to become a grouch who holes up in her apartment with three cats, content to love guys on TV and visit friends when it suits me.

But all of the stuff about being sad or snarky or intolerant is only part of it, only part of me, and I know I choose how I go forward. I can be positive and honest and courageous and try just as often as I can be sad or frustrated (but probably not as often as I'm snarky, because let's be honest...). So I try, and if my instinct is to say "I give up," I let it be just a feeling and not some kind of overarching life philosophy. I try to miss my mom and remember good things without being a fibber and not recognizing the hard or sad things in their turn. I try to be honest, or at least be kind.

And if I lost the better version of me six years ago, time is linear. No use crying over spilled milk (I am the milk in that metaphor).

I try. In the end, I try. Every day, even just a little. That has to count as some kind of victory.

Couch to 5K Update

Last night, I ran my week 5/day 3, which set the goal of 20 whole minutes, unassisted by walking or a chair or oxygen. I did it, though I had to scale back from my 11.5-mile pace to 12.0 for about five minutes or so. My proudest moment was checking in with my heart rate after it was over and finding:
1) that my heart had not exploded or melted, and;
2) that my heart rate was around 161, much better than my early days of 170+... I don't know, that seems better; I'm not a doctor.

I also had a moment of self-directed frustration with my running playlist, which I normally feel feeds me what I need at the exact moment I need it ("Why, yes, Running Playlist, hearing 'Tik Tok' midway through this portion of my jogging helps me imagine being a more vital being, a young club kid with glam eyeshadow who can pull off fishnets and can put my hands up at 3:00 AM in a club, when in reality, that is far past my bedtime, and clubs are too loud."). However, in a moment of jokey joking wokka wokkery, I put Vangelis's theme to Chariots of Fire in the mix. This is a track I purchased long before I started all this exercise nonsense in order to illustrate a visual gag, not the first or the last time I've purchased a song on a whim with my Fire Kindling.

Needless to say, when you just bleep-blooped the treadmill down several pace units, it's not the time for the gradual majesticness of the opening strains of the theme to Chariots of Fire. I appreciate where you're coming from, Jessie, but the joke doesn't really land when you're straining to believe that you have the internal fortitude to get through the next 10 minutes of perspiration and redface.

I skipped over to "Two of Hearts" by Stacey Q instead.

And those eggs were probably uniform because they were powdered...

I bought hot dogs.

Sorry. I've tried to start this post at least six or seven more writerly, interesting ways, but that's what it all boils down to (ha ha, boils, which is what you do to hot dogs? No? I'll keep working on it...). I was at Trader Joe's on Friday, picking up far healthier groceries, and I decided I had a craving for hot dogs. Trader Joe's has an uncured beef hot dog with cheddar, which sounded perfect. The only problem is that once I've had a hot dog, I've got an open pack of hot dogs that are just biding their time until I throw them out because I'm not sure how long they can last when they're uncured and also, is it normal for them to get a slimey outer coat? Probably not?

So I pondered, as one does with problematic hot dogs, and I figured out a second use for the wieners.

I vaguely remember going to YMCA day camp one summer in my youth, and naturally, my one memory related to it revolves around food. I remember eating uniformly perfect lumpy scrambled eggs with hot dogs cut up in them. Like any chubby child--I imagine--I longed to go back into the breakfast line in a series of disguises to get seconds, thirds, fourths, and fifths. When I described the dish to my mom when she picked me up that afternoon, I believe she said, "That sounds disgusting."

Inspired by nostalgia, but also feeling pressured by my participation in a Lose It challenge to eat more veggies in March, I moved ahead with a modified version of the dish I remembered by sauteing a cup of Market Pantry Italian Vegetable Blend (broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, green beans, maybe?).

I don't know that Mom was 100% with her assessment, but like Hostess Snoballs, I think eggs and hot dogs lose their appeal once you've passed age 12. I don't think I can blame it on the vegetables, though on second thought, I don't know that Italian Vegetable Blend with large hunks of cauliflower floret were the best choice.

This morning, like a reasonable grown-up, I had oatmeal with berry mix.

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On Monday, I attended my first BodyFit class. I've been looking for a way to challenge myself and increase my strength training, and the class description promised it was good for beginners. It was, I guess, if you don't mind spending the next two days feeling like you've been pummeled in your arms and legs. My first experience with an exercise ball, and at one point, I wanted to kick it across the gym in a fit of pique. STOP TELLING ME TO KEEP MY BOOTY OFF THE GROUND! I HAVE TOO MUCH BOOTY! IT HAS NOWHERE TO GO AND ALSO MY HAMSTRINGS ARE ON FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE!

I'm going back Sunday morning. I hope by then my triceps have recovered--when people speak of "shredding" their muscles in a workout, I think my mental picture of running my tender, noodly muscles over a box grater is apt--and I've somehow managed to forget how horrible the verb "pulse" can be.

(But really, it was great--I was exhausted by the end, and my legs were jelly, but it was exhilarating to be challenged and, despite some whimpering, keep up with the class.)

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Day 3 of Otter the Kitten and just as I predicted, Trumper gave him a sample bath last night. This morning, they were running back and forth through the apartment like cuckoo birds. E. Edward joined in every now and then.

Plum retreated to the space between the couch and the slipcover again. Her response when I pet her and said goodbye was probably the cat version of an expletive. So this is probably the first and last kitten I will be fostering.

It would have been the BEST if Michelle Obama had shown up during the "Stronger" number...

Do you remember the Presidental Physical Fitness test? The one you took in middle school, particularly the one you took after you'd blossomed into a C cup and you were more concerned with trying to control the wild undulations of puberty's gift than with making any kind of time for a mile?

I know that wasn't just me. Sometimes it feels like it was just me, though.

I wish I could run it again. Not only because I've had 20+ years to adjust to puberty's gift--thanks, Gaia of Lilith Fair, they got even bigger; not necessary--but because I managed to run almost 2 miles yesterday, and I feel as though I deserve a certificate graced with the signature of the President of the United States.

I would have even settled for everyone busting into a choreographed dance to Britney Spears's "Stronger" (what was on my Fire Kindling as I walked into the locker room afterwards), to be honest. Instead, I just got a good feeling inside. I guess that's an okay reward.

(I would have preferred a choreographed dance number...I've always wanted one of those.)

Later on, at home, when I tried to do a side plank, I felt far less triumphant. Damn the planks! Damn all the planks!
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I am fostering a kitten for the first time. His name is Otter (profile here). He's a snuggler, first and foremost, and while he's playful, he's not as berserk as I was fearing a kitten might be. Trumper would very much like to groom him and roll him around, and I believe in Trumper's powers of persuasion, so hopefully there will be cute snuggling pictures before my 1.5 weeks are up.
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I wish one of my real-time friends were watching Justified. Because this season has been so crazy good, and I want to talk to someone about it. More specifically, I'd like someone to listen to my theory that Ron Eldard grew his hair out for Super 8, decided it looked really, really cool, and just started showing up to auditions with his modified Shaun Cassidy 'do. If I were a casting agent, I'd be like, "Ron, when you return to your Shep-on-ER haricut circa mid-'90s, then we'll talk. Until then, you will only be qualified to play weird, violent drug addicts. Best of luck to you."

This is not a food blog; however, this is a food post

First of all: Martha Stewart was wrong. Traditionally, I roll my eyes at any commenters who have to express how disappointed they are in a recipe, because I'm mean and tend to think that all of those people are terrible cooks. But the lady who talked about how the Martha slow-cooker roast turns out dry and disappointing was dead on. I questioned the logic of a roast sitting in a Crock Pot for 10 hours, even on low, with no liquid other than a few tbs of cornstarch water, and I should have followed my instincts (the cooking ones, not the ones that Romany Malco indicates in The 40-Year-Old Virgin).

I will say this: the drizzle of Worcestershire gave it a nice crust, and my one creative addition--a buttload of Coast-to-Coast seasoning--made it flavorful. But it was indeed dry. And it was $13 of meat, so I didn't want to waste it.

So I did what my dad would do and made up a soup.

Jeff's "What the hell is quinoa" Beef and Quinoa Vegetable Soup

semi-charred remains of a beef roast
1 can of beef broth
2 cans of chicken broth
8 baby zucchinis, diced (I steamed them in the microwave at lunch so they were parcooked)
1 can of diced tomatoes, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 c Trader Joe's Soycutash (edamame, corn, and peppers)
3/4 c Trader Joe's Fancy-Schmancy Green Beans
uh, the rest of the quinoa I cooked to have with leftover roast and zucchini for dinner

It was liberating, if I'm honest with myself. I just kept chucking things in the pot in between rounds of pulling apart the roast with two forks to make string-a-lings of beef. I froze several baggies of it and poured the rest into a big container. I figure I can make it a main course or a side cuppa with my lunches.

When I told Dad that he was right and Martha was wrong, he said, "Good, then she can go back to prison."

Cooking (but not with kittens)

Sometimes I look to my dad for cooking advice. It's partially because I look to him for advice on anything that's practical and based somewhat in math, but it's partially because I enjoy the comedy routine that grows from it.

I learned to cook in my mid-20s, after I had finally, finally, finally left the nest. As with most things in my life, it started with a love affair with TV--specifically the Food Network, in this instance. This was back in the early days of 30 Minute Meals, back in the early days of Good Eats... not to get all nostalgic, but before reality TV got ahold of Food Network and engulfed it with its many wars and challenges and Guy Fieris.

The only way I can ever learn hands-on skills is to:
1) read;
2) follow directions exactly; and
3) obsess and dither over every step to the point of sucking all the joy out of it.

I've gotten better as I've grown comfortable with my skills and knowledge, but at heart, I'm still very much a rule-and-recipe follower.

Dad is not. Dad is a "hmm, what do I have in the pantry" cook, a "I'm going to dump this in there, see what happens" cook, and a "well, I had leftovers of this, so in they go" cook. He is less interested in perfection and more interested in economy and the general vicinity of edibility.

As you can imagine, this leads to some jokey jokes. Also some mock(?) frustration on my part. After all, how can a guy who is all "measure twice, cut once" also be the same guy who puts canned sliced mushrooms in everything? They don't belong in a bowl of Cheerio-s*, Dad! Eew!

But never let it be said that he has low standards:
Me: Also, I think you would like this recipe; I made it as a casserole rather than a pie, and it was very, very cheap to make.
Dad: But was it worth a shit?

From an e-mail exchange earlier today in which I bothered him with the latest thing I'm obsessed with: this one Kraft recipe for spaghetti squash "pie" (whatever, it's a hot dish).
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My original intention for the e-mail was not to pester Dad about cooking, but to pester him with a demand that he go and support a local cat rescue/Trap Neuter Release program.

I know my family and friends sometimes/often worry about my involvement with cat rescue and volunteering. I'm not worried, if that counts for anything. I sometimes ride a bit of an emotional roller coaster, it's true, but in the end, I feel passionately about it, it makes me happy, and it makes me feel like I'm doing something worthwhile. I don't earnestly say that about too many things. I wouldn't even say that about TV (don't worry, TV...I still love you, baby). I feel that way about family and good friends. I used to feel that way about work (eesh).

Also, I know three cats is enough, and I swear that no one is going to have to unbury me from a mountain of cat dander and kittens.

Anyway, the point is, I e-mailed that to Dad with the subject line "Please go buy an and/or pie at this."

His initial response: "Oh, good grief."

Heh heh heh.

But we got to do something he likes--namely, talk about the geography of Western Wisconsin, to which I seem to remain largely ignorant (I guess this isn't so much "in New Richmond" as it is perilously close to Minnesota, which means it is distasteful to Dad's idea of travel), even though I grew up in the area; and make jokey jokes:
Dad: I thought the pies would be made from kitties.
Me: No, kittens don't make good pie filling. They're made of rainbows and whiskers, and if you put them in an oven, you get gored by a unicorn.

*Slight...ever-so slight exaggeration (I almost wrote "hyperbole," but then Dad would e-mail me to say "What the hell is 'hyperbole?'"

I hope it says Snicjers in his meticulous address book

Dad: Send me your new address.
Me: [Blah blah blah street address+ZIP]
Dad: Chicago?
Me: Yep.
Dad: America?
Me: I knew you would ask that.
Dad: Planet Earth?
Me: No, Ork.
Dad: Milkyway [sic] or Three Musketeers?
Me: Snicjers [sic]
Dad: Got it.

I was trying to be funny and write Snickers, but my phone has been all wonked up since I spilled water on it--I was moving, okay, and the water bottle I selected to keep me from heat stroke is missing its top, and I'm a dumbo--and so I have to hold it a certain way to see the screen and...this is all a very roundabout way of saying I mistyped "Snickers."

Then today, I received a package addressed to my old address. Inside was an envelope addressed to my new address. Inside that envelope was an envelope addressed thusly:

He sent me a suncatcher that belonged to my mom. I'm pretty sure it was a gift to her from someone--Aunt Shirley? Beth? Shannypoo?

I have great big south-facing windows in my living room and dining room. I'll have to find somewhere nice to hang it. My urn is already at the apartment, along with a few photos I unearthed: one of the two of us hugging at the airport after I returned from my semester abroad; one of her facing the ocean on a trip to Mexico with Dad.

Moving reminds me of her. It was a hard business when she drove Plum and I down to Chicago. A policeman yelled at her in front of Wrigley, and she snapped, "Do you really want to live in this place?" She hated the apartment Kate and I took over from friends. It was too dirty for her liking, and it had bars on the windows facing the fire escape. And she told me she cried all the way from the Addison Red Line stop to Midway Airport.

Sometimes I think of our mother-daughter relationship as one of leaving and returning: I often waited up at night for her to come back from her 3-11 shifts or from her leaving the house in a fit of pique to see Grandma Winnie; she waited for me to come back from England, only to take me to Chicago four years later. Maybe that's why the sensation of missing her hasn't hit me; maybe I'm still waiting.

She always told me that the first thing you should do in a new place after you've moved is make the bed. Since this move has been gradual, I have done many things before even bringing the bed over to the apartment. I'm torn between petulance and obedience: part of me wants to continue putting books on my bookshelves in an open act of defiance to her rule; part of me wants to make the bed as soon as the movers drop it off, if only to see if she gives some sign of approval.