Disclaimer
The ideas you find here are solely mine, but I have made every attempt to give credit to any sources I may have used. You should not associate the opinions or ideas written in this blog with my employer, colleagues, or peers. Nothing that you read here is meant in any way to represent anyone else's opinions or ideas, nor is it meant to cause injury to anyone else.You lookin’ for somethin’?
-
Recent Posts
Archives
Blogroll
Category Archives: Vegetarian or Vegan
Vacation and the Rest of Summer
I just learned that I start teaching at Burris on August 18th, which means I have approximately six and half weeks (not counting the week I will be gone to Nebraska and Minnesota) left to accomplish all of this:
- finish painting the outside of the house (the floor will wait until next summer)
- finish a chapter of my dissertation (or at least get a really good start on it)
- work 20 hours each week in the IEI
- start training for the marathon in November (once school starts add lifting weights and swimming)
- go through all of the Write On! Featherweight stuff and get it together
- plan for the entire school year next year (two seventh-grade, two eighth-grade, and one tenth-grade year curriculum plans)
- play some disc golf, basketball, and possibly soccer (can someone teach me to play soccer?
Here is how I plan to accomplish all of it:
- House painting—WEEKENDS
- Dissertation—AFTERNOONS
- IEI—MORNINGS
- Running—EARLY MORNING before dog walking, must get up by 6
- Write On! and Planning for School—EVENINGS
- Disc Golf, etc.—IN BETWEENS
I am sure there is something I am forgetting. I am not sure I can accomplish all of this in 6 weeks. Say some prayers, breathe some for me.
*
My family (Dad, Mom, Adam, and I) just got back from vacation in Cincinnati. Cincannati is like dissecting owl pellets: you have to wait through the disgusting stuff to find the gems inside it. The majority of the city of Cincinnati, not the suburbs or the outskirts, looks like the worst neighborhood of most other big cities. We wanted to walk to Findlay Market, but the shuttle driver at our hotel said he’d better drive us because the neighborhood was so bad. I agree. Usually, I am unmoved by deteriorating neighborhoods. I am not afraid of loitering people, or run-down buildings, but this area of Cincy was more than just derelict. People had looks in their eyes that were so down-trodden, so forlorn, that I was afraid of them. They looked the way Cormac McCarthy describes people in The Road. That desperate. That carnal. While we were there, each morning the news reported several shootings within a couple of miles of the hotel. My dad couldn’t sleep because of all the sirens, and there were literally 50 or so homeless people sleeping on the grounds of the library across the street.
However, much like other big cities, if we stayed South of our hotel, toward the Great American Ball Park, there were no worries. In fact, there were multiple tourist attractions and affluent shopping malls, complete with Brazilian steakhouses and upscale clothing stores. I wish I could rest one day from thinking about culture. I wish the injustices and inequalities weren’t so blatant to me. Sometimes I just want to go back to not recognizing the painfully obvious way our society is stratified. I can’t though, so my heart hurts. I have a hard time having fun, but I have a hard time identifying how I can do anything to help a system so big and so broken. One of my constant prayers is for God to show me my role in helping to fix our very broken world.
*
Also, I found this amazing graphic to help me plan meals while I am training.
The only hard part about this pyramid is drinking enough water. Our water tastes pretty gross, and even though I know algae isn’t bad for me, I still don’t want to drink water that tastes like organic matter. Ew.
*
Food: banana, juice, sweet potato waffles with strawberries, blueberries, and a touch of syrup, carrots, cherries, tortilla with faux peanut butter and strawberry jalapeno jelly, a few Thai chips, chocolate soy milk, salad, guacamole and salsa and chips, cauliflower, blackberries, peach, veggie burger with bread,
Exercise: walked the dogs,
Sweet Potato Waffles and Some Other Things
This morning I made vegan sweet potato waffles from an excellent recipe I found here. The only things I changed were substituting apple sauce for the oil and upping the amount of clove and nutmeg, and the waffles turned out very well. Frequently, I change quite a bit from someone else’s recipe. This one really worked as it is, but I always under-cook the first waffle every time. I forget that I am supposed to wait for the little red light to go off before removing the waffle. Once I got the hang of the machinery, I made some very nice waffles, which paired nicely with my favorite Starbucks coffee, Africa Kitamu.
Thinking about coffee brings me to another point: I need to cut back on my extraneous spending again. I was at the point during last school year where I was going to Starbucks several times each week. I wouldn’t mind spending so much money if it was going to an independent coffee shop, but I don’t go them regularly. I should. I need to remember to focus on the mom-and-pop places instead of using big, national chains. I just think it’s good karma to support people who are trying to make a living in a honest, controlled way. I realize that most big companies started with this same ambition, but companies like SBUX have lost site of their original vision and don’t pay as much attention to the little guys as the smaller businesses. For example, my friend Kellie and I went to a local smoothie place and didn’t realize they only took cash, so the woman let us have our smoothies and pay her later. All of this after they were already closed; we didn’t see the sign on the door that said 4PM.
Right now, I am sitting here waiting to go over to the 505 for Izzy’s birthday party. She is 3-years old today, and it doesn’t really seem possible. How does time go so quickly? I always used to think people were crazy when they talked about their kids growing up so fast. Izzy’s not even my kid and I am amazed at quickly three years has gone by! Anyway, Becs and I got here these really cool little books about four famous artists, and we were going to get her some art supplies and stuff to go with them. However, my mom got her art supplies and things like that, so we are just going to put our gifts together, or at least they will seem like they go together. My brother’s gift is the best, though. He got her this fantastic lady bug laboratory that comes with lady bug larvae that she has to feed and watch grow. It is really a fantastic present. I hope she likes it.
I am hoping that once I get back form vacation, I can make some headway on this dissertation. I also need to make some headway on the house painting. I really want to get it finished this summer, but I also need to plan for next school year. Those are the big three things that have to get finished this summer, along with my work for the IEI and training for this marathon. I have to keep telling myself, “You can do it!”
*
Food: banana, sweet potato waffle with Earth balance and pure Maple syrup, juice, coffee, baby bagel with faux-peanut butter, ten baby carrots, grape Kool-Aid slush, whatever I eat at Izzy’s party
Exercise: walked the dogs, bike ride to the 505 and back
It’s a Muddy Mess.
The tag line for the race my brother and I ran today is “It’s a mucking good time.” 
Sometimes tag lines match the event they’re publicizing and sometimes not. In this case, the motto matched clear up until we were waiting in line to get rinsed off. We were covered in muck that smelled a bit like pig shit, and then had to wait almost two hours for the Anderson Fire Department to hose us off. For some reason, when our group of four (Adam, Zack, Heather, a woman I met in the race, and I) got up to be hosed off, this peach-shirt-clad jack ass took over the hose because he didn’t think things were going fast enough. Instead of leaving the hose on stream, he opened it so it sprayed. We were still filthy when he declared, “That’s it. You’re finished. Get out.” Yeah, right. I am not getting in my car like this, even if I do have clean clothes to change into. I can’t even change into clean clothes because I don’t want to ruin two sets of clothes with pig-shit-mud! Seriously. I am hoping they ask for comments, because I have a comment. Get rid of Mr. Peach-Pink, Salmon Shirt, and figure out the post-race stuff!
Post race is just as important as the rest of it, which was absolutely fantastic. One of the best times I have had in a long time, aside from the fact that I look like I’m packing a kid’s swim float ring under my muddy shirt in the picture below. Awesome.
Okay, make that two swim float rings, situated one on top of the other. Doubly awesome. I have to say that for a fat, old kid, I hoisted myself over those obstacles with reckless abandon, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I wish I could do the one in Chicago in July, but I will be on my way to Nebraska!
On the way home from the race, we stopped at Hacienda in Anderson. Every time I eat there I get seriously bloated and tired, so I think they must put lard/animal fat in their beans and rice. And, I ordered my taco salad with no cheese, but it came with a huge dollop of sour cream. Tasty, but decidedly non-vegan. Their chips and salsa are probably the best I have ever had. I also had an new beer: Bohemia. I thought it was an excellent beer for a Mexican beer, but the beer advocate folks only give it a B-. Compared to all beer, I agree, but compared to Mexican beers only, I cannot support the B- grade. This beer blows out of the water every other Mexican beer I’ve had, which is most of them. My grandparents used to live 10-ish miles from Mexico in Harlingen, TX, so for my 21st birthday or maybe just for a birthday, my cousin Paula and I drank a variety of Mexican beers and drove our grandmother’s golf cart until the battery ran out. Grandma kept saying, “Don’t go too fast. You’ll get a speeding ticket.” We had to push the thing home.
*
I need to work on my dissertation and the stuff for the IEI. One will wait until after family vacation, the second will be done tomorrow and emailed before I leave on Monday. I just have to finish revising the assessments I have written, get the okay, and write the other two versions of each one. I am really enjoying the challenge of all of it.
For vacation, we are going to Cincinnati. It will be the first time we have been to the Great American Ball Park, and I am pretty stoked. They have veggie dogs. 🙂 We are stopping on the way in Dayton, OH, to eat breakfast at the Golden Nugget. I hope my dad orders the buckwheat pancakes, because he will love them! He has a thing for buckwheat. And, we are going on a Riverboat cruise, to Jungle Jim’s, and to the Cincinnati Zoo. I hate zoos, but I can tolerate it to spend time with the family doing other things we love. I am hoping to get in a couple of good morning runs while we are there, too. Marathon training officially begins on Tuesday! Woot.
On a totally unrelated note, I found a new writer/spiritual contemplative to think about. Her name is Pema Chodron, and I got turned on to her because of this quote: “If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.” I could use more advice like this. And then, it would help if I took it to heart.
*
Food: banana x 2, bagel with faux-peanut butter, juice, chocolate soy milk, chips and salsa, taco salad, beer, popcorn, slushie
Exercise: mudathlon, bike ride to slushie place, dog walking (1 mile)
Greek Church and Indians. Vegan Things. Running.
Last Sunday I went to Holy Apostles Greek Orthodox Church in Indianapolis. I would go there for every liturgy if I could. As it is, they don’t have church every single Sunday yet, because they are a fledgling congregation started by a handful of Greeks who are trying to maintain their faith in a different way. I respect it. Though I can read Greek (not well), I cannot speak a lick of it. What keeps me interested in the Orthodox Church, particularly in which the liturgy is delivered predominantly in Greek? What keeps me coming back is the very old tradition, the way link it provides to the early church, and the way the ceremony of it relates to what I imagine Jewish culture to have contributed to my faith.
Sunday, I noticed a few new facets of the service that speak to me. One is the fact that even if you don’t understand what is being said, you can understand what is being said. I don’t know what the priest intones over the Eucharistic elements, but I can tell by the actions he makes that the moment is sacred and should be revered. I can tell that he is giving great respect to the wine and bread, while also making them holy. How can I tell? He bows his head and covers them with incense before proceeding with any words.
Nothing is done without incense, which brings me to another new thing I learned.Incense is very important. So important that the priest would not even mix the wine and water or bring out the bread until the incense worked. He had to light the charcoal himself because the altar helper couldn’t get it to light. Once the incense got going, the priest, Fr. John, returned to the table of elements and fragranced them in order to continue the liturgy.
The incense difficulty made me think of Saturday night when Adam and I went to Mounds State Park to a summer solstice celebration. We didn’t know when we decided to go to it that the point of the evening was to learn about the Miami Indian culture and to be spectators for their personal tribal summer solstice ceremony, which was held on the Great Mound, an ancient ceremonial mound. Before the ceremony could begin, the mound had to be fragranced with sage. The sage served two purposes: to cleanse the area and to provide a sweet smell to welcome the ancestors. I am still trying to understand the connections between sweet smells and the way they affect our ability to worship and contemplate. I do know that certain smells can instantly transport me to memories, to ideas, to experiences I have had. The smell of Greek Church is a familiar and likable place.
I love Holy Apostles because it is new and is held in the back chapel of another church. It’s young and things get messed up. Fr. John intoned that the readings came from the Gospel of Mark and they really came form Matthew. Those of you that know the liturgy know that the second most important part of the service is when the gospel enters and then is read, so messing up right there is kind of a big deal. However, Fr. John said at the beginning of his homily that sometimes mistakes happen in liturgy, because it is performed by humans. We mess up. “What is important is to keep the peace in the face of mistakes,” he said. Yeah, I agree. It’s important to keep the peace.
*
I am giving this vegan thing another whirl, but I am trying not to be an ass about it. I did make a fantastic pasta dish the other night: whole wheat pasta, acorn squash, tofu, a teeny bit of maple syrup, Italian spices, salt and pepper, and a teeny bit of cinnamon and clove. It was delicious. I am hoping to lose a little bit of weight by cutting back on fats and calories through not eating cheese and eggs. We’ll see how long it lasts.
*
I ran two miles today and it went well. My heel hurts, but I am still not sure what’s wrong with it. I don’t think it’s an achilles injury, but it could be. I can tell you that as soon as I get health insurance, I am going to get it checked out. For now, though, I am trying a new style of running that seems to help.
*
Food: banana, juice, smoothie (tofu, soy milk, strawberries, blueberries, wheat germ), two baby bagels with soy peanut butter, chick pea patty frozen dinner, naked PK breadsticks with pizza sauce, mango smoothie
Posted in Food, Ren, Running, Vegetarian or Vegan
Reason Breeds Insanity 