Fisch Food

Ever bought an album for one song and ended up liking another one better?  One that wasn't playing on the radio and that no one you knew had ever heard of?  That's Turtle for me.  Actually, it's Alana Davises entire premier album.  She came around just over 10 years ago, way before Norah Jones and Colby Callait made that jazzy almost-hoarse thing popular.  Don't get me wrong - I love it.  Anyway, this song is a plea for children to not grow up too fast. Enjoy.

Turtle

Alana Davis

What do you daydream about? Is it something far-fetched, or something that might actually happen?
Submitted by lost_in_eternity2207.

What don't I daydream about?  It's probably a shorter list.  But as for what I do daydream about...

1. What it's going to be like being a Mom or what it'll be like to be pregnant (which actually kinda freaks me out).  Soccer games, dance recitals, parent/teacher meetings, driving a minivan, tiny socks, plastic cereal bowls...
2. Singing in a bar band or at an open mic night.  Hey at least I'm somewhat realistic, right?
3. Throwing fabulous parties at our house.
4. Owning my own bakery business - and disregarding the fact that most people are more health conscious than a self-starter bakery could withstand.
5. Moving back to Illinois and living small-town life again.
6. Being old, retired, and touring the country in an RV with the husband.
7. Becoming a high school teacher.

There are so many things I want to do in life. 

What's the best thing about your mom?

She is freaking hilarious but she'll only let you know it if she wants you to.  Otherwise you'd pretty much think she's really quiet and keeps to herself.  I love that about her.

The husband and I bickered a lot this weekend.  It came to a head after one comment that he made at the dinner table.  Nothing nasty.  If I'dve been in a different mood, it might have been funny.  Probably not, but perhaps.

Either way, I stewed and he stewed.  He finally stepped outside for a cigarette.  I know him well enough to know that this is the step he takes ultimately before coming in to initiate 'the talk', where we hash it all out and resolve everything.  We have completely different fighting styles.  He's a "talk this out" and I'm a "leave me alone".  So when he went out for a smoke, I thought, "I'm not ready for this to be over."  So I left.  Just for a drive.  I didn't even take my purse.  I wanted to just BE mad for awhile, and I knew he'd bring the thing to a quick resolve.  Petty, I know.  It was just one of those kinds of days. 

Anyhow, what does this have to do with the song I picked?  It was on the CD in my car when I stormed out.  If you're not familiar with the Foo Fighters, this is on their "In Your Honor" album.  A 2-disc'er.  The 2 discs have distinctly different styles.  Disc 1 is loud and passionate.  I love it, and I listen to it often.  When the album was released we listened to Disc 2, like, once before we wrote it off as quiet and boring.  Eh, we were in college, and we apparently needed music that hit you upside the head a little more.  In reality, this is the acoustic disc that is supposed to be complementary to the electric, produced first disc.  ::shrug:: They're both good, just depends on what you're in the mood for.

I busted out Disc 2 the other day, because I realized I didn't know any of the songs on it.  Last night, as I drove out in the early evening, windows down, sunroof open - the music was perfect.  I was angry and the music was mellow.  Kinda like a bomb diffuser.

So, I drove north and north and north listening to this.  I finally got out to the Texas country I was looking for.  Farm highways and rolling green pastures.  Overcast skies and 73 degrees.  Getting away from civilization is like tonic for me.  And this was playing.

Still

Foo Fighters

I made the radio last night.  When I was in my car about 5 minutes from home, the DJ was talking about how she only had butter in her house because it was natural and she felt like it was better for her and her family than margarine.  Trans fats be damned, I'm going back to natural.  I sped home the rest of the way and wrote in - couldn't find the station number.  The DJ talked about my email on the air.  Nothing too exciting, but at least I got the message out.

This is such a hot button issue for me.  The whole natural thing.  If you look at any food on a molecular level EVERYTHING - from butter to margarine to sugar to aspartame - looks like a bunch of scary chemicals.  And it's very hard to tell them apart.  Now I'm not - and have never claimed to be - a nutritionist.  That's not my bag.  But, I can look at a food's molecular structure and get some sort of idea of its properties and how it will behave in the body.  In fact, hell, I won't use sucralose (or Splenda) because it's chlorinated sugar.  I don't believe that I need to be consuming chlorine on a regular basis.  That is a complete gut feel that is not backed up by any human study data - it just gives me the skeeves.

Long story short, I'm not going to judge anyone for making the food choices that they do.  You're putting it in your (and your family's) bodies, and that is one of our most basic human rights.  What I want to try to avoid is the general population being afraid of the food they eat or otherwise making unnecessary or incorrect choices based on some half truths.

So here we go.  A few years ago, the FDA had gathered some very conclusive data that trans fats are bad for you.  Walk down a busy street and ask anyone about trans fats, they'll tell you the same.  The world has gotten the message - hallelujah!  Except... it seems we can only remember a few food-related health facts in our brains at once.  So now, everyone has seemed to have de-throned Saturated Fat as the major evil-doer and has put Trans Fat in its place as Public Enemy #1.  As such, we as consumers have been making a MASS exodus from things that contain trans fat and have lovingly embraced Saturated Fat once more.  So for once and for all:

Saturated fat is STILL bad for you.  Or rather, trans fats and saturated fats are equally detrimental to your health.

Okay?  Choosing butter over margarine gains you nothing.  Both potentiate heart and other circulatory disease.  Both have the same amount of calories.  Oh and here's a kicker, butter has cholesterol and margarine doesn't!  Plus, nowadays a lot of margarine companies are reformulating to yield little to no trans fats in their finished product, making it much better than butter ever could be.  Well, healthwise anyway - butter is still yummy, from a culinary standpoint of course.  That's an entirely different issue.

The moral of the story is this:  Choose heart healthy oils - like corn oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, or olive oil - when cooking and all will be well as far as your heart is concerned.

Hit a swarm of bees driving home yesterday.  No kidding.  Plowed right into the middle of a cartoonish-looking black cloud in the middle of a four-lane road.  Then it sounded like heavy rain for a second.  Then silence and 79 (yes, I counted) splatters on my windshield.  And three honeybees stuck in the wiper blades.

Two more keys went out on the piano (:::shakes fist in the air:::), so I called our awesome piano guy who is going to pick my baby up on Friday for a complete lube job on the action.  He'd diagnosed that this may need to be done when he was at our house for the tuning, but wanted to wait to see it we had problems first.  I'ma be without her for a couple of days.  Unfortunately it's over this weekend, when Andy was going to be gone and I would've had the piano allll to myself.  Blast it all.

I lifted weights while watching the Biggest Loser finale.  Hated the lifting weights part, but loved that the winner of the show weighed something like 125 pounds, when she started at over 220 lbs!!  I know I didn't get her weight(s) exactly correct, but I really don't care enough to go look them up.

I observed that now that I've cut chips out (remember they were like 10 - 20% of my daily caloric intake??) and have subsequently replaced them with fruits and vegetables (hey, you know that pickles actually make a decent substitute for chips because they're salty and crunchy?  Once you get over the juiciness.  Someone should really dry those suckers down and make pickle chips.  Anyway...) I'm actually having trouble eating a sufficient amount of calories for the day.  Having trouble.  That has never happened before.  See, told you I wasn't really overeating on anything else...  Plus, my fiber count for the day has gone way up.  That's gotta count for something.

If you're getting one, how are you planning on spending your tax refund?

Um, we had to write a check this year. 

Our financial planner was excited about that.  He said that this is the best scenario - having to write a check under $1K.  I understand that I got to draw interest on that money instead of government and all... but it still doesn't feel that way.  Somehow it just feels like I'm writing a check, and I'll be $x poorer.  Meh.

I had a pastor once give a sermon where he gave this illustration: he'd borrowed a friend's book.  Some book on some topic of life discipline.  [With two brothers in the ministry, I'm realizing that pastors read these kinds of books.  A lot.]  In the margins, his friend had jotted the same three letters over and over.  YBH.  When he asked his friend later what the letters stood for the guy said, "Yes, but how?"  Like - I agree with this statement, but how do I accomplish it?  Love thy neighbor: Yes, but how?  Eat healthy: Yes, but how?  Live an active lifestye: Yes, but how?  This post isn't about faith.  It's about those pesky 5 lbs.

I love food.  In fact, I'd venture to say that I have a slightly unhealthy obsession with food.  I'm not hungry most of the time, but I do get some sense of release when I'm stressed and I can just exercise my jaw on something crunchy.  Or if there's something in the house that I know I love, there are times that I will casually think about how something tastes.  Then I can't stop thinking about how good that whatever-it-is would taste right. this. second. until I finally give in and go eat it.  See?  Told you.  Obsession.  I actually think it's pretty textbook.

As such, it is a constant battle for me not to throw the pantry door open wide and just gorge myself on everything inside.  It is also a battle for me to simply maintain my weight.  Like the majority of my gender, I'd be happy if I could lose 5-10 lbs.  [Did you hear that?  That was the sound of all the men Voxers hitting the "back" button to exit this post.  ;) ]  But why is that?  Is it because we're narcissitic?  Unrealistic?  Or is it possibly because 5-10 lbs means the difference between constant deprivation and actually eating some things that we love when we want to?  I don't know the answer, but that's my educated guess.

I have lived a happy, active lifestyle most of my life.  Until I graduated with my Master's, got married, and started my full time job.  I packed on 15 lbs in a matter of months.  I took about half of it back off immediately, but now I want to lose the other 8 lbs.  So here we are again.  Yes... but how?  I've come so far as to realize that I can't do what I used to do to lose weight.  My lifestyle has dramatically changed compared to what it was 2 years ago.  Now, I sit most of the day.  I have to prepare meals for my skinny husband, who might just blow away in the wind if I prepare calorie-restricted meals.  So yes, how do I take off those last 5 lbs, keep it off, and not feel like I'm constantly on a diet?

I had an epiphany last night.  And I think it's going to work this time.  I've finally gotten past just the "Yes"  I think I've figured out the "How".  Of course, only time will tell, because I haven't started yet, but it should be interesting to see if it works.  There are two facets to the aforementioned epiphany:

1. Know Thyself.  Where are the excess calories coming from?  For some people, it's soda or other empty calorie-ridden soft drinks.  By just switching from your 3:00 Coke to Diet Coke, some people can lift 250 calories out of their diets.  Well, I hate soda.  For some it's chocolate or other sweets.  Not for me, I mean - hey I love chocolate, but I'm pretty self-limiting and I only have it once in a blue moon. 
   
   No, for me, it's chips.  I have ZERO self-control when it comes to chips.  I'll sit down and eat half a bag at a time if I'm not paying attention.  I've been journaling my eating habits over the last week, and I've been brutally honest.  Anywhere between 10% and 20% (on a bad day) of my caloric intake comes from chips.  How sickening is that?  Another culprit?  Cheese.  And at restaurants, I blow a ton of calories on french fries.
   
   Another facet of knowing 'myself' is that I can't do moderation.  I have to have hard an fast "do's and don't's".  Black and white.  So you want to know how I plan on losing 8 lbs?  By completely cutting out chips, cheese, and french fries from my diet.  Not really limiting myself for anything else.  Because, after monitoring my calories, I found that I don't really overeat anywhere else.  This should be interesting.  But I did say there were two parts, so here's the second.
2. Move Thyself.  There's really no getting around it.  Anyone who looks great works out in some way, shape or form.  If not, they are a freak of nature and should be studied in a lab somewhere.  This will really play into #1 too, because you have to know how to make your workouts enjoyable - otherwise you'll quit, right?  I hate gyms, and I loathe treadmills.  So I've joined a running club that will get me outside and moving, and it will make me accountable to others.  I have block off time on my work calendar to participate in group exercise classes.  That's what I like to do.  And I use "like" very loosely, as I really despise working out.  Actually that one sentence should read "That's what I can tolerate."

Now as I stated before I haven't started either of these two things yet.  That means that today is Day 1.  And yes, we'll see how it goes.  If I had to guess?  I think I'm going to miss cheese most of all.

Got the piano tuned on Wednesday, after two and a half painstaking weeks of acclimation to our home's climate.  The thing was out of tune when we got it.  It grew shriller and more discordant as time grew on.  Oh, and the Middle C stopped working too.

Thus, my beauty became the beast.  So much so that it sat lonely in the foyer for days at a time without being played.  I'd sit down and try once in a while.  The Forrest Gump theme, my go-to, gave me a headache, most of the notes running around high in the upper register.  I wasn't able to really, really learn anything new because syncopations, funky rhythms, and, oh hell, just basic runs are clunky and awkward when you hit a key like Middle C and you don't get any sound in return.  I squeezed Lennon's "Imagine" for all it was worth, being a pretty simple and straightforward song in the lower register where the tuning had stayed fairly stable.  There's only so far you can go with one song, though.

I just about kissed the piano tuner when he showed up at our house Wednesday night.  Not that I don't love seeing the guy anyway.  He's about our age, and a total musician.  Restores pianos for a living.  Not too many 20-somethings in that field.  He gave the piano some much needed TLC and now it not only sounds phenomenal, but it's easier to play.  The keys don't take as much force to depress, and I'm making fewer mistakes than ever.

I've got a half day Friday today, so I'm going to head over to the music store and peruse.  I'm shopping for two different kinds of classics.  Classic piano-heavy songs that my friends would know - think Elton, Lennon, etc - and Classical.  Except I've never had to pick my own classical before.  I've always had it handed to me, so I've played it, but never by choice.  My mom always loved Chopin and she had some Tchaikovsky stuff too.  Hmm, maybe I'll have to commiserate with her.  Then there's Gershwin and the like, older than Classic, newer than Classical.  Anyway, should make for a good discussion with the Friday afternoon music store clerks and clientele.

Last night, I tried my hand at a Ben Folds (Reinhold Messner) book that Andy bought me once upon a time.  I've been too chicken to play anything out of it before.  I quickly remembered why.  The guy is a mad kind of piano genius.  He doesn't read music.  Nor does he write it, on paper that is.  He hears it and his hands translate it.  Hal Leonard, aka a sheet music company - for those who aren't familiar, gets a big fat Kudos from me for even attempting a theoretical translation of Ben's art.  Slides, trills, 64th notes that you need to hammer with two pointer fingers, triplets comprised of 32nd notes, key signatures were you play all black keys except one.  The repeated measures aren't even true repeats.  They have one set of notes in a measure and a second set of notes in parentheses contained in the same measure.  The idea is to play the parenthetical set of notes on the repeat.  This makes me want to tear my hair out.  That is NOT a repeat.  Anyhow, enough gibberish.  There are probably no non-piano players still attempting to read this paragraph of nonsensical jargon.  ;)

So I'm off to the music store.  Wish me luck!  And if you have any suggestions/requests - shout em out!

What have you lost that you wish you still had?
Submitted by gunderson bee.

Two things. 

1. My charm bracelet from when I was a child.  My mom and I had collected a charm from every place I had traveled to. 
2. My original digital camera that has pictures of our engagement on it.  I left it in a cab in downtown Chicago.  Almost ruined my night.  Almost.  But it did have priceless pictures on it - and I mean priceless - that I will never get back.