February 2008 Archives

Thing the first:

I ran 7.3 miles! Ok, to be honest, I probably ran six miles and walked the rest, but I covered 7.3 miles total. Running seven miles this weekend was part of my training for the ten miler, and for some reason I was convinced I wouldn’t be able to do it. I’ve just been dreading it. In fact, I sat around on Saturday fretting about going to the gym (yes, the gym. It was too icy for outside running. I fell while walking Seamus that morning) for like two hours before I decided to just suck it up and go. Things looked grim when I first got to the gym, because all of the machines with TVs and good fan placement were taken, and I ended up in the corner with no air circulation and absolutely nothing to distract me. The first half an hour was actually the hardest. Luckily, a prime machine opened up, and I was able to switch treadmills after the first 2.25 miles.

I think I finally figured out something about my running. For now, I should worry less about trying to run faster, and just focus on building stamina. Let’s face it, I’m short, and my stubby little legs can only cover so much ground per stride. I’m never going to be able to run all that fast anyway, and it really does seem to be much, much easier for me to run at 5.6 or 5.7 miles per hour than it is for me to run at six miles per hour. Plus, it took me 1 hour and 22 minutes to get to 7 miles, so it stands to reason that I should be able to make my goal of completing the ten miles in under two hours if I’m running 10:30 to 11 minute miles.

Thing the second:

I successfully recreated an appetizer I’ve only ever had in restaurants…and even better, it was really easy. While poking around on the Internet, I found a recipe for spring onion cakes on this blog . I’d put up the recipe, but I followed the one that is posted exactly, and she’s got step by step photos that make the assembly process a snap to follow. If you’re looking for something delicious, simple and Asian themed, I highly recommend them.

Thing the third:

I experimented with a mushroom barley soup recipe, and came up with a version that is nice and healthy and so flavorful that I think even a dedicated meat eater could enjoy it. Here is my new and very yummy mushroom barley soup recipe:

3 Tablespoons olive oil
½ medium onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
3 medium stalks celery, roughly chopped
3 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
10 ounces fresh mushrooms (I used half cremini and half shitake, but Portobello and white button would probably also work), washed and stemmed, then roughly chopped
1 cup pearled barley
1 teaspoon thyme
4 cups stock or water (I used 2 cups of mushroom broth and 2 cups of veggie broth)
2 Tablespoons soy sauce

Heat oil in deep saucepan or stock pot.

Sautee the onion, garlic, celery, carrots and fresh mushrooms over medium high heat until they start to brown.

Add in the barley and thyme and cook, stirring frequently until the barley starts to brown, 5 to 10 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste, then remove from heat.

Simmer the dried porcini mushrooms in 3 cups of water for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, strain the liquid and set aside. Roughly chop the porcini mushrooms, and then add them to barley/veggie/mushroom mixture and cook over medium heat for one minute. Add in the reserved mushroom liquid and the 4 cups stock or water and bring to a boil. Then cover and lower heat. Simmer for 25 to 30 minutes or until barley is tender. Stir in the soy sauce and cook of a minute or two longer.

I had a bowl with a slice of nice crusty wheat bread this afternoon, but the soup was so hearty I barely needed the bread. I did notice that the barley continued soaking up liquid as I let the soup cool, so you may need to add more liquid to keep it soup-like when reheating.

Special bonus thing the fourth:
I’m very happy with Jon Stewart for bringing Marketa Irglova, who won an Oscar for best original song, but who didn’t get to give her speech because the stupid orchestra started playing too soon, back out on stage. I didn’t even listen when they played the song, so I don’t know if it is any good, but she deserved the chance to give her acceptance speech.

A while ago I wrote about how I’d gotten “generation gapped” at lunch with my co-workers. Well, in what is probably a sign of my swiftly approaching decline into senility and being completely out of touch, it happened again yesterday.

One of my team members was telling me about how she read on some blog somewhere that they are developing fancy computerized limbs so that amputees will “have cool new arms like that science fiction guy Luke something.” “You mean Luke Skywalker?!” I said. “You’ve never seen Star Wars?” And no, she never had. And then it turned out that one of my other team members has never the Star Wars movies either. Never seen one! This is inconceivable to me. Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back and yes, even Return of the Jedi were such a HUGE part of my childhood. I was Princess Leia for Halloween in 1st grade. I remember very clearly being excited to go see the sequels. Apparently not so much for girls who were ten years younger than me.

Now, my brother is around the same age as a few of the people on my team, but he’s seen the movies. Of course, he’s related to me. And evidence from the rest of my team seems to indicate that the younger guys did see the movies, although some of them may be more excited about the Transformers. I do remember watching the Transformers with my brother when he was little, and I have to say, it’s no Star Wars. Although it probably is better than Episodes 1-3, burdened as those movies are with Jar Jar Binks, Hayden Christensen’s leaden acting, and horrible writing. As one of my co-workers put it “After watching those movies, I actually thought Natalie Portman was a really bad actress until I saw her in something else.”

Perhaps I have been confused all these years. I thought all my peers had seen the Star Wars movies, but I could be wrong. Maybe it was just me and my particular group of friends. So I ask you: Did you see Star Wars and do you know who Luke freaking Skywalker is? How old are you (a range is just fine for those of you who don’t want to be specific)? And are you male or female? Now I'm curious about whether it is a generational thing or a gender thing. Either way I'm still the odd one out, but I'd like to know!

My uncle Tommy died yesterday. While it is sad – it’s sad when anyone dies – it’s not for the reason you think. The truly sad part is that I didn’t really know him very well. I could probably count the number of times I spent with him on two hands, or at least very close to it. Uncle Tommy was one of those Vietnam vets who never made it all the way back from the war. All three of my uncles were in the military during the ‘60’s and ‘70’s. I’m not sure if they were drafted or what. Their dad, like most members of his generation, had served during WWII, fighting in the Aleutians and then going to Europe at some point after D-Day, and my grandma was a nurse in DC during the war, so maybe joining the military was just what was expected of them. Tommy was the only one who got sent to Vietnam though. He was a gunner on a helicopter. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I always picture it kind of like the air cavalry scene in Apocalypse Now.

Of course, he physically came back from Vietnam, but he struggled with alcohol and drugs and PTSD for years, and drifted in and out of VA institutions. I remember hearing my mom and my grandma talking about him being all drugged up on Thorazine but not really understanding what it meant. He married a woman who was involved in some weird cult, and had a son who we only ever got to meet once, although my grandma did get to see him a few more times. Tommy lived a pretty tenuous life, renting rooms, spending time homeless. My mom can’t pass any guy who looks like a homeless vet without giving him money, because they always remind her of Tommy. In the last few years he had settled down to a certain extent. He hooked up with a girl my age (yep, a little weird) who seemed to make him happy. He still struggled with alcohol, and was on disability and couldn’t drive, but they had a place in Manchester together and brought each other some stability. He’d be fine for a while, but he’d always fall off the wagon or get belligerent or just be difficult, so no one in my family had much regular contact with him. His health has been poor for a long time though, and the VA medical care was all he ever really had. At some point last year they figured out that he had something like three different kinds of cancer. My mom is convinced that he was exposed to Agent Orange or something bad during his time in Vietnam. They told him he didn’t have long to live. He made it through Christmas, New Year’s and finally the Super Bowl, and then I guess he just ran out of milestones to keep him going. He wasn’t even 60 years old yet.

I went looking for a photo of him to post here. I thought I had at least one because he came to my college graduation, but I don’t seem to have any. He looked a little like Jerry Garcia, only more New England-ish. One of the clearest memories I have of him is from the family graduation dinner, which both he and his twin brother attended, probably because my grandma was paying. It was at this awesome Chinese restaurant outside Boston called Kowloon, which looks kind of like a temple from the outside and has outrigger canoes and tiki bars and palm trees inside. Because we were all smokers at the time, I ended up down at the end of the table with Tommy and Teddy and Teddy’s girlfriend. They all knocked back Mai-Tais and traded jokes, and I tried to fit in with the grownups. My brother and my cousins ran around, and I chatted with my mom and dad and aunt and grandma and got to see what it was like to be part of a big family for once. It was nice. I’m glad I have one nice memory of him.

As I said earlier, what really makes me sad about this is that I never really knew my uncle. He went off to war as a bright, promising young man, and it totally ruined the rest of his sad, too-short life. And that, more than anything, is why I am against the Iraq war. Why are we doing this to more of our young men and women? What are we accomplishing by being there? Iraq hadn’t attacked us. Do I have to point out again that they didn’t have anything to do with 9/11? They didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, and their vaunted army really wasn’t all that much of a threat. It’s all such a stupid, pointless waste of lives and talent, and I don’t want one more person to have to go through what my uncle Tommy did.

I've been trying to hold off and only post when I have the time and energy to spend on carefully writing something that might actually involve creativity and improving my writing, rather than the quick hit type posts I can put up without too much effort...

...but I had a filling removed and refilled today, and I'm kind of in pain and tired, and this one was just too classic to skip.

As I'm sure I've mentioned a time or two, I am not a morning person. I've been trying to improve on that, and get up a little earlier each day, in hopes of eventually being able to get up early enough to fit in 20 to 30 minutes of exercise time. It's not going very well. I am not meant to be up early! Mostly it seems to be adding to my general sleepiness and crankiness, rather than making mornings easier to deal with.

Take today, for example. I got up a little earlier than usual, took Seamus for his walk, checked my blood sugar, packed up a snack to take to work, and then put all my stuff in my gym bag. Or so I thought. Imagine my surprise when I went to get ready for spinning class tonight and realized I had no towel, no water bottle and two mismatched shoes, both of which were for the right foot. Thank goodness I keep a pair of sneakers in the car, and that they'll let you charge a bottle of water to your account at the gym.

Perhaps I should start organizing my stuff at night.

…You really should be.

My mom came over and watched the Super Bowl with us last week. Fox pushed its own programs pretty relentlessly throughout the game, and one of the shows they were really leaning on was The Sarah Conner Chronicles. My mom looked over at one point and said “I hope you’re not watching that.” to which I replied, “Of course I’m watching it! You know I liked the movies.” My mom just shook her head and smiled, no doubt wondering for approximately the one millionth time how she ended up with a daughter like me. My mom is relentlessly optimistic and outgoing and cheerful (well, aside from the obsessive worrying) loves Mary Poppins and My Fair Lady and books with happy endings. She doesn’t like things that are dark, or sad or scary. If you think I’m a big sap who cries over everything, well she’s 10 times worse than me.

And somehow her daughter turned out to be a dressing-in-black, science fiction loving, post-Apocalyptic story enjoying fan of depressing music. Yes, there’s way more to me than that, but I was definitely hooked on the Terminator movies from the first time I saw the original Terminator at some point during high school. Laila and I went to see T2 something like the first night it opened. And I even liked Terminator 3. But then again, I’ve had a soft spot for Claire Danes since the My So Called Life days.

So I was predisposed to like the series, although liking the movies actually made me a little suspicious that the TV show could suck. Luckily, it does not. So far, it has been well written, well acted, and totally engaging. John and I have been fans of the actress playing Sarah Conner, Lena Headey, since seeing her as Ruby Ryder in the BBC show the Long Firm. Another actor I’ve always liked, most recently from Rescue Me, is Dean Winters, who plays Sarah’s former fiancé. The fabulous Garret Dillahunt, who was the creepy Francis Wolcott on Deadwood is the Terminator who is after them. The kid who plays John Conner as a teenager, Thomas Dekker, and the female Terminator (named Cameron, in what I assume is a tip of the hat to James Cameron) who is helping them, Summer Glau, are the real standouts of the show though. You can actually see the potential that John Conner has to be a leader in the future, and Summer keeps the old robot learning to understand humans thing interesting. It even features Brian Austin Green (yes from 90210) in a very un-David Silver like role.

So far the show has combined plenty of action and ass-kicking with thoughtful storylines about what it means to be human, to have compassion with others, and struggling with the balance between the greater good and individuals lives. They haven't gone with a predictable story yet, and I'm really caught up in the series. I highly recommend it!

Yesterday as I was driving to the gym, they said an Arctic front would be moving through the area today, and the temperature would drop pretty dramatically. Then they followed up with “there will be wind advisories for most of the metro area, with the exception of Frederick County (my county) where there is a high wind warning.” At the time I wondered to myself if a warning was better or worse than an advisory. Well if today is any indication, I’d say a warning means more wind than an advisory. Holy crap is it windy out today! I saw shingles flying off roofs. I actually got pushed around by gusts of wind. Seamus paused to smell the wind on our afternoon walk, and not only did his ears stream back from his head like a scarf, but at one point, they stood straight up.

Seamus has had quite a day actually. The poor guy has an infection in a rather private area. We ended up at the emergency vet this morning because it became clear that something was wrong. He’ll be fine, but we did have to put a cone on him for a little bit to keep him from licking off his medicine. We took pity on him and got rid of it after a little bit though because he was so miserable. Now we just have to keep a vigilant eye on him, but luckily he’s being very good. Behold one very unhappy puppy dog:

In other news, the Maryland primary is coming up on Tuesday, and I still haven’t picked a presidential candidate. The problem is that I don’t like Hillary or Obama. You’d think I’d go for Hillary, what with us having the same name and having attended the same school, and of course there is the whole woman president thing. But unfortunately, I feel that Hillary has made too many compromises to get to where she is. I used to like her, but she’s strayed too far from her liberal base for me. I think she could do the job, but that doesn’t mean I agree with her.

Then there’s Obama. I don’t know as much about him as I should, but so far, he has come across as kind of a lightweight. Does he have the experience necessary to be an effective president? One of the many, many, many, many reasons George Bush is such a crappy president (worst president we’ve ever had!) is that he was not prepared for the job.

Got a favorite candidate? I can’t vote for a Republican in the primary, and I like John "I love war" McCain and Mike "I want the Constitution to reflect the Bible" Huckabee even less than the Democratic candidates, but if you want to argue for anyone who is running, I’d be interested in hearing your opinion in the comments.

Everyone I know seems tired and cranky and generally out of sorts lately. They are grumbly and defeatist and glaring at strangers. I’m blaming February. Sure it has Valentine’s Day and President’s Day and the birthday of one Mr. Penguin, but by the time February rolls around, people are tired of short days, grey skies and cold temperatures. And really, Valentine’s Day has the potential to make people more bummed out that excited.

Something is certainly making my coworkers cranky, although there are probably many reasons for that. You hear about how I work crazy hours, but I’m not the only one. All of us are pushing hard these days. Today was particularly fun because we didn’t have Internet access for most of the day. Do you have any idea how hard it is for people on the e-business team to do anything when there is no Internet? I got some copy written, which was good, and spent some time messing around in a spreadsheet. Does enjoying spreadsheet time make me an absolutely unredeemable geek?

Anyway, I’ve got to find a way to fight off the blahs. I think I’m going to get donuts for my team tomorrow morning in hopes of cheering them up. Good morning Krispy Kreme! Donuts are but a fleeting joy though, and frankly, one I won’t be sharing (perhaps I’ll get myself a donut hole).

Tell me, how do you deal with the blahs?