Had a rather interesting revelation of sorts over the previous weekend!  I started the whole30 for a couples reasons all sort of piling up to be like “ok, just try it” – but a big one was to see if I can lessen my stomach aches.  And sure enough, week 1 and 2 I did very well at avoiding All The Things, and I realized that my stomach hadn’t hurt for as long!  I could eat a meal and not be stricken with pain and bloating!  But it was sort of an abstract thought like “yeah actually I do feel pretty good I guess?” – but then on Sunday I ate something that really really disagreed with me – all signs point to something from the olive bar where I picked out a delicious assortment of olives – only ones stuffed with garlic, or sundried tomato or nothing at all – and some marinated artichoke hearts.  And a very short while after ingesting a helping of savory deliciousness, my stomach just blew up.   And I was like oh!  this is surprising. and unpleasant.  The experience was so clearly not normal but the part that really struck me was how, just a few weeks ago this is virtually how I always feel – and I just thought it was normal.  Like “yeah I get stomach things sometimes” or “this is what happens if I don’t eat a regular meal on schedule.”  But.. how does that even make sense?  I’ve done fasts before with no discomfort at all, and I’ve been toying with hunger these weeks, really trying to feel it out, and I don’t collapse in pain/cramping if I don’t eat routinely. I just don’t.   But somehow, I’ve told myself this, and believed it for years? So now I wonder, why in the absence of a very recent meal, but in the greater context of a diet that features something I’m allergic to, would my stomach sometimes just explode in angry pains when I hadn’t eaten anything?  Kind of mysterious.

Anyway, I ate something bad, felt immediate repercussions, marveled over how swollen my abdomen was, and had horrible soft stool again the next day.  :|  So, you know – negative feedback!  But I feel like I’m making steps, like if I can do it right 90% of the time and tell when I mess up, then I’m already doing a lot better than feeling like crap 90% of the time and assuming that is normal for me. It’s like, no – this is normal. Those bad feelings are not. The level of difference in how I feel when “doing it right” vs “ate poison thing” leads me to even wonder if I might not have some sort of actual disorder.  And if that is the case, does it matter to diagnose these things, or if just eating the things that don’t hurt is all I would do anyhow – kind of like my dilemma in wondering if I should pay for an xray of my wrist, knowing that whether the answer is yes: fractured, or no: not fractured, the treatment will be identical - so what do you actually gain from the certainty?  But I’ll mention it to the dr, like I already want to get blood work and cholesterol tests, maybe add the celiac antibodies one as well if she thinks it’s worthwhile.  One thing that I honestly never considered is that if I actually do have something like celiac then that would have come with a host of nutrient absorption issues if I have actually done damage to my insides.  Anyway, not in a rush there, since I have had this kind of pain / response to some foods for as long as I can remember, a few more weeks isn’t going to change anything, especially if I’m actually trying to avoid the bad stuff.  It would be nice to know – for as long as I can remember I have mistrusted my body and never felt comfortable wearing fitted tops because it always felt like for no reason whatsoever and with no provocation my stomach might just swell up hugely and betray me.  So it would be sort of awesome to know I could put on a shirt that fits in the morning and have it still fit later in the day. Dreaming large here.

Another blog I just discovered, talks about how to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time – this is obviously my goal and it’s been working out well so far (in the sense that I’m making very slow gains in my lean mass, while fat mass goes down, even though my overall weight loss has slightly stalled out).  I have not been incorporating strength training to any great extent and I would like to do more of that.  My options are to attend more classes at the wellness center (which means I need to suck it up and drop out as a raider, which I want to do regardless..) or else limit myself to just during or after work on non-raid days.  I would like a workout partner, however – it’s really a shame that none of my derby girls work at the lab.  A bunch of them do spinning at the Y, but a) I loathe the thought of that and b) it would be more money anyhow, and I’m feeling pinched.

This week I’m eating: paleo pumpkin chili and Taos mountain yak sausage. <- this stuff really is the absolute best, I should have stocked up a bit more.  There was a lady who got there right before I did who bought out literally 85% of their stand.  It was pretty amazing. She also got all the liver >:(    Other things include lots of the usual suspects (dark, leafy greens) some purple cabbage harissa coleslaw, shakshouka, vegetable soup, and a parsley pesto.

Next week, I need to get some salmon again, and I think I’m going to try and roast chicken.

Random links and food ideas presented without comment:

why vegetarians are eating meat
eating animals
the vegetarian meal
meat consumption benefits for developing human spawn
Chipotle! <3
THIS ARTICLE yes.

recipes

Chermoula – one thing I definitely need are delicious flavor-packed sauces because god, raw unflavored vegetables get old, FAST, once of the novelty of health food wears off and you just want something with personality to smother them in. ahem. chermoula dressing
cooking with bones
kale with white beans (would need to amend obv)
garlic lemon chicken and one of my favorite snacks, tomato acocado salad
paleo rogan josh – last week’s stew, amazing.
sunshine chicken – see above re: flavorful sauces

Regardless of what you call it, the results are the same.  People who significantly increase the amount of vegetables, fish, nuts, lean meats and fresh fruits in their diet, and who reduce their grain, dairy, and legume intake have lower blood sugars, usually lose weight, and usually have more energy.

From an interview with Dr. C Vicky Beer, posted at Whole Health Source, which is full of synopses on health, obesity, and nutrition studies.

For my patients who have been able to make significant changes to their diet, they too usually notice the impact of deviating from the diet in how they feel, their blood sugars, mood, well being, etc.  Once someone feels well, they have an important point of reference.  If I can help people reach that well being point of reference, then I feel like I have done my job.  It then becomes up to them to decide if they want to continue to work and strive to maintain that state of being.

What she says above is what I’m hoping to achieve at the end of this.  I already feel really good, and I don’t miss the stomach aches, the bloating and inflation of my abdomen and the constantly watery stool at all (TMI? sorry).  So in 18 more days, who knows how I will feel!  Awesome, I hope.  And then I’m going to eat half a pizza and see if it’s horrible.  See if I can tell a difference, or what.   This Dr sticks with a paleo diet about 80% of the time with some indulgences for cream, or buttered bread at a restaurant, but notices if she deviates more than that, she feels worse. That’s about where I’d like to end up, I think.

I’ve also been reading a bit on satiety vs palatability and food reward; and appetite vs hunger. I would say, in short that the greater the palatability of a food, the less satiety it offers.  So the tastier, sweeter, deep-friedier a food is, the less it will actually satisfy (i.e. reduce hunger pangs or lead to a reduction in consumption at your next meal).  The really, really distilled down opposite is that foods with and very high palatability (junk food, basically) signal to your body Hey! We got a lot of really energy-dense food over here get it while the getting’s good!!!! – you actually eat more.  In a sense you might be like, well, duh – it tastes good, but it’s more than that, you actually feel physically hungrier.  And the inverse is true – with a very bland diet, your appetite reduces itself.

Lucky for us, the investigators measured the palatability of each food and compared it to that food’s SI (satiety index).  If food palatability does indeed shut down the mechanisms in the brain that normally constrain food intake, we would expect that foods rated as more palatable would have a lower SI.  Here’s what they found:

The more palatable the food, the less filling per calorie, and the relationship was quite strong for a study of this nature. [source]

And for appetite and hunger, “hunger is not an emergency.” I would say that as a person in a food-abundant culture who overeats, step one is to not eat just because food is available.  Grazing, boredom/sadness/emotion snacking, overeating at a buffet, finishing a giant plate of food because it’s there and mom says you should – trying to curtail all of those habits and only eating when are you actually hungry is probably the bigger obstacle.   But step two - cultivating and appreciating a mild sense of hunger is a little bit different.  This says that even though I’m feeling kind of hungry right now, I don’t need to drop everything to deal with it.  A tummy rumble is not an excuse to go grab a candy bar.  ”But I’m huuuuuuungry!” is not an excuse to make poor decision.  And this plays into appetite which I think of as “do I actually feel like putting something into my mouth?”  As a case in point right now it’s late-afternoon, and I had a lunch with no animal protein component to it because I was in a rush this morning and don’t have anything ready to go, and so – I’m hungry!  My stomach is definitely giving me some complaints but I have some roasted broccoli here, and I offered it to myself, like hey? You’re hungry? Here is some perfectly good food!  And it was like — nah, I’m not actually that hungry I guess.  I don’t really want to eat that.  So, hungry can mean “you are nutritionally-deprived and energy-deficient eat now” but it can also be “hey I would like a treat how about those stale donuts I bet that would do it.”  Bodies!! Untrustworthy!!!! I am looking at you, brain.

Whereas I know that when I actually am ready to have dinner, I’ll be totally into eating it, even though the composition won’t be all that different than my roasted broccoli.  So, I feel ok just hanging out with my hunger.   It’s also a bit empowering, not going to lie.  It’s like, when I know that so far in the day I’ve consumed a little over 1,000 calories already, it’s all from eggs, vegetables or local meat with a bit of coconut milk, and I haven’t done any activity besides hang out at this desk, I know I am not energy or nutrition deprived.  So I don’t need to worry. And in the time it took me to type all those boring, non-rewarding words my hunger gave up and retreated anyhow.  Me:1, tricksy brain: 0

“The RDA … for protein is 0.80 grams … of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. That’s an RDA of about 54 grams of protein a day for a 150-pound adult, or approximately 1.5 chicken breasts and a 7-ounce steak.  The Institute of Medicine recommends we get at least 10% and no more than 35% of calories from protein.”  ”If you’re an exerciser, however, your protein needs may increase since resistance training and endurance workouts can rapidly break down muscle protein. A position statement published by the ADA, DOC and ACSM recommends that endurance and strength-trained athletes have between 1.2 and 1.7 g/kg of protein for the best performance and health.”

So for people who are actively stressing their muscle tissues (…. hi, I can still barely walk) you’re looking at an increase of 50 to 100% over the base recommendation.  So if I take the low end of that protein range since I’m not currently bodybuilding, I’d be looking at 70kg x 1.2g/kg = 84 g per day.  This feels reasonable to me, since when we did the roller derby workout challenge (RDWC) last year in august our daily protein goals were more like 100g and I found that difficult to maintain without turning to protein powders, and possibly excessive for my actual workout intensity. So, 84g falls somewhere between “super active” and “sedentary.”

Taking out the contribution from meat, say I eat 2 eggs a day (pretty reasonable for me) at 6 each that’s 12g.  A quarter cup of almonds is another 6g.  There is nominal contribution from fruits and vegetables, say around 10g a day if I’m really eating a lot (and that estimation may be high, and doesn’t take into account the composition of incomplete proteins).  So I’ll be lucky to hit 30 from non-meat sources on a given day (but I will continue to track this, to see how it actually shapes out).

So to make that I’m going to need another 56 grams (!??).  So I had 2 turkey sausage links in the am for 8g protein.  A normal chicken breast is, say, 6oz which equates to 33g protein.  3oz of wild caught atlantic salmon is going to have 21.6g. So that sort of establishes the volume required for eating every day, to make it. That seems pretty crazy, at least in terms of starting from zero.  I guess that would be not a lot to a different person though.  I found a calculator from well fed that is obvious but really helped me understand – say if I want 3oz serving of animal protein per meal, and I need to cook 20 meals a week, then 3oz x 20 / 16 oz/lb = 3.75lbs of meat for me, per week (for shopping purposes).   Ok! So if I stock up on a sunday, then I will know that I have to eat everything I bought by next sunday to be on track.

In trying to develop a routine that is easy enough to follow, for breakfast what I have found to be simple / repeatable /tasty is to cook 3oz of chicken sausage (the links from the coop are 4oz each so I just slice off a quarter and eat the ends on day 4) and an egg and half of a sweet potato.  That amounts to a 383 calorie meal, it’s very filling, and I’m looking at around 33g protein (including the egg/yam).  For lunch I find that packing in a salad or leftover vegetables works.  I can fill a big tupperware with greens, I keep EVOO/vinegar dressing in a jar at work, and whatever crisp things are around I slice up a bit in the am.  With that, I try and have some sort of pre-cooked stew, or a slow-cooked thing, or an oven-roasted .. basically, just bulk meat that I cook on sunday and can dish up for lunch over the week.  I didn’t do a very good job of tracking the amount per “serving” because I think the portions were not consistant but I cooked 32oz lamb last week which has lasted me till Wednesday of the following week (out of town over the weekend).  A 3-oz serving of lamb gives you 20-30g protein per 3oz serving, depending on the cut (I forget what I got). It hasn’t been a perfect week in terms of tracking exactly what I eat just because it’s been a little stressful.  But I think if I extrapolate 2lbs/week lamb + 2 meals out and at least one morning (or 2?) of chicken sausage I think I’m basically on track.  I’m hoping to exert more control over portion size/pre measuring/protein content the next time I cook.

Let’s assume that eliminating grains is non-controversial. After all, lots of people do it, and they offer up literally nothing that you can’t get from other superior sources.  So really, it all comes down to what do you choose as your protein source?  (sidebar: Mark’s top 10 protein sources and their weak-ass common alternatives)

If we assume that I’m consistent with egg/vegetables, then I need as stated about 56g protein in addition to what I’m normally just eating.

Anyway the worst thing to be said for beans is probably how horrible I feel after eating them, but pretending that my physical well-being doesn’t matter; it’s simply how calorically dense they are, relative to the amount of protein they contain.  A day’s ration, in order to meet the balance of protein required, at 800 calories is already two thirds of my caloric intake (less extra food for exercise-related expenditure) and that’s before I’ve had any vegetables, any eggs, any healthful fats – quite simply, you can have a choice: eat enough macronutrients from various sources and enough beans to hit your protein goals and overconsume, OR stay on target in terms of the calories you eat and come up short in terms of nutrition in one area or another.  I’m talking “beans” on average here to generally mean black beans, as that’s a pretty standard reference.  But, getting a different source of nutritional data from a Vegetarian advocacy group shows similar;

lentils.  30g protein = 385 calories in 1.7 cups

black beans = 30g protein in 2 cups, 460 calories

chick peas = 30g protein in 2.01 cups, 556 calories

Keeping in mind, those numbers represent a single serving equivalent, not even the total I would need to eat ever day.  Another issue, albeit one that can be handled with proper planning and nutrition science, is the fact that beans and grains both offer an incomplete protein in of themselves.  By that, I mean they do not offer a good proportion of each of the 9 essential amino acids that the human body requires to form a protein molecule. These essential aminos include:

• Histidine*
• Isoleucine
• Leucine
• Lysine
• Methionine
• Phenylalanine
• Threonine
• Tryptophan
• Valine

* only for kids?

WHO recommended daily amounts of the essential amino acids:

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_amino_acid  (it’s nice being exactly 150lb at this point in life, since so many tables have 70kg built-in as a standard reference point)

So, if a complete protein is one that offers the correct balance of those amino acids for human nutrition, what do less ideal substitutes look like?

Generally, proteins derived from animal foods (meats, fish, poultry, cheese, eggs, yogurt, and milk) are complete.

Vegetable sources of protein are almost always* lower in one or more essential amino acids than animal sources which is why they are known as incomplete proteins.  In the case of grains, lysine is the limiting essential amino acid, but lysine is relatively plentiful in beans. So adding beans to rice works out, and this is why rice and beans are so commonly touted as vegetarians complete protein.  Beans by themselves are limited by their relatively low amounts of methionine and threonine. (lentils contain 0.07g of methionine per 100g vs 1.4g for egs and 0.7g for fish). However, methionine and threonine cannot be made up for with grain consumption:  50 mg Threonine per 20g brown rice vs 120 mg Threonine per 15g mung bean (131g mung req’d to hit minimum which is presumably based on a sedentary adult = 454calories)

This is great and all as far as knowledge goes, and I find it interesting to learn how to combine vegetarian protein sources for maximum benefit because I know I have never personally executed that level of care in my diet.  But even WITH the knowledge, I would hate to eat cups and cups and cups of rice and beans every day – been there, done that, have the degree now so those college days are over.  Moreover, I know I would certainly fail when it came down to eating the sheer volume required.  To this end I think that high-performing athletes actually have it slightly easier!  When you burn 3000-4000 calories a day, you have to eat SO MUCH that inevitably you will get the balance of amino acids that you require.  If you are a person of moderate energy expenditure who is trying to build muscle and tone down, having to add several hundred grams of carbohydrate calories every day will make that all but impossible.

So, to sort of chronicle where I’ve been and where I’m going.. two years ago I was decidedly not a vegetarian, but I was at least a person who tended to eat a lot of vegetables, and Geoff has been vegetarian for years. But what do you do when you’re dating someone whom you want to impress / garner favor with / spend time with? Well, you do things they life, of course! Which isn’t to say that I immediately threw out the steak knives and went full-vegan, but I did cook for him, and it was obviously vegetarian. So, as time passes, you get into habits. I put a pretty high value on sharing meals and cooking together, as does he – and it’s clearly .. if not easier it’s at least possible to remove an ingredient that offends one person and have a meal that you can both eat. So things continued that way for a while. I did not ever tend to cook a huge amount of meat at home so it wasn’t a huge change for me, just a lot of little adjustments and tweaks to recipes, and regretfully giving up a few things that just wouldn’t work. So, so home cooking was relatively easy because I could selectively pick recipes that appealed to me and avoid difficult situations. Dining out, however, was a much different story. I never .. stated my intention to become a vegetarian although I did try and follow the ethos. The problem is, my heart wasn’t in it. I thought well, this the only way we’ll be able to share meals and that is something I am into, and I love this guy, so it’s worth it. But I missed my old food! I felt restricted. And I grew increasingly resentful. I was angry that I had never agreed to this lifestyle but now I was implicitly bound to it because if I strayed from the path that geoff deemed ok, I would be punished with sullen moods and silence or lectures. So I found myself in a place where I started to feel really anxious about having to go out to dinner and have some bullshit salad or pasta but not being able to do anything about it. For me, forgoing meat doesn’t give me a moral glow of satisfaction that overrides those feelings of missing certain foods. I completely agree that factory farming is horrible and I try not to support it, but I don’t agree that humans are herbivorous or should live that way. I think you can sustain life without meat but not optimally.  I am incredibly blessed by my life, that I am healthy and I have the means that I actually can eat however is best for me, so there isn’t a financial restriction that leads to needing to eat only beans and rice.  I don’t know.. I look at the shelves of supplements and think that’s silly – we can get everything we need from the food we eat.

I also place a lot of emphasis on food as culture. To that end, it REALLY bothered me to go some place that is known for a certain kind of food or local cooking styles or regional produce or game or whatever – and bypass that to eat a bowl of pasta covered in butter instead. I feel such a sense of loss and the stupidity or futility of gestures like that. This is the only life I get and I would like to experience as much as I can, so willfully cutting oneself off from a significant portion of the bounty that the world has to offer just seems like a shame to me. That is one point at least, that I was able to convey so we made some progress there when I was able to stress how important this is to me. At first it was a really awkward and untenable situation where geoff would give me permission to eat some meat with the promise of not getting mad if he knew I would be upset otherwise – and yes that’s kinda messed up. But I appreciated it, because he’s making strides as well.  It’s just really not healthy for either of us, though, that dynamic.  And one time I dared to ask if I could have some bbq and would he not get mad and that obviously backfired because he felt put on the spot.  So ok, I won’t ask and we’re sort of back now to where if it’s a special occasion then .. I can have some seafood or whatever. And I don’t want to belittle his compromises here because like I said, this is all pretty personal and we all have very deeply felt beliefs. But I am essentially still in the position of treading on tiptoes around the issue if we are dining out and basically waiting for him to give some sort of signal that he won’t get all upset. And I wish I had never tried so hard to do things his way, because now look where I am. Even though that’s pretty fucked up too, I’ve certainly given a lot of thought this past year and done a lot of soul-searching and that’s all good I still wish I didn’t end up feeling quite so trapped by my own implicit actions. I think my low point was breaking down in tears outside of a restaurant, looking at a long list of tempting delicious foods that I wouldn’t be allowed to eat, and facing down the prospect of yet another cheese quesidilla. I know that it’s not easy, choosing a path and staying strong to what you believe in – it’s even harder when you don’t believe in it. Does love conquer all?  For me at least, I just ended up feeling really sad at where I’ve ended up, and I’ve gotten here because of love and trying to do the right thing and trying to minimize conflict at home.

As for what I do enjoy and want to support – local farmers and ranchers. I really enjoy trying to live seasonally – we get most of our food from a local CSA that has a radius of farms, a lot is grown in-state, and some from neighboring states all very fresh and organic. I support the local co-op with a membership for supplemental vegetables and stuff. And during the summer I try and get to the farmer’s market weekly. So that’s what I do in terms of trying to walk the talk. I think a really fun sort of “challenge” would involve trying to buy only seasonal produce and living each moment as it plays out in the fields around us.  I read food books exhaustively, along with fitness and nutrition discussions, trying to make sense of what we should be eating and how we should be eating it, and how much and when and from where. I have been coming more and more to embrace the idea of whole foods, eschewing processed items. Which is easy enough when we have so much in the way of vegetables around at all times, but challenging when it comes to finding a protein. On the one hand you have actual, real meat. A bountiful supply of natural protein, vitamins, minerals, natural fats. On the other hand you have.. beans, and textured soy protein. And I just look at fake meat products and feel sad, thinking about how far removed they are from actual food sources. A substitution that is configured in a lab. And – I get it. Two things, actually. One is the stories we tell ourselves to reinforce our decisions. The other is the information we choose to take in to feel good about those choices. Confirmation Bias. I am not immune to it, even if I’m aware that doesn’t actually change much. So I now look at fake chicken patties and sure they taste ok – they taste fine, like all foods that have been processed to appeal to human senses. It’s not a giant industry for no reason, I will not disagree that those food scientists can produce things that taste good. But, I’m now hung up on the ‘fake’ aspect of then.  In the grand scheme of things, are they do different from a “burger” patty that is like 60% grain filler and preshaped and frozen for your convenience?  We got some facon a while back, I thought .. good will effort, right? But I just ended up really sad and depressed because it’s like, I know how good bacon is. And this is like, steam-rollered vegetable protein that’s been dipped in liquid smoke as some sort of weak approximation – and I have to wonder what is the point? Why not just find a local hog rancher who pastures his animals locally and buy some pork from him? That’s what I WANT to be doing. I just don’t find any joy in choices that come out of a box from a factory. Especially if one’s main concern is animal welfare – we can actually do things about that that don’t compromise our health at the same time and require shipping all over the world. I would much rather support a restaurant that is a member in the santa fe alliance farm to restaurant project where I can talk to people who know where their food comes from. We attended a charity dinner they put on at aztec cafe last year, and the menu options were a vegetarian enchilada, or chicken tamales. We were among the last to order and I was like “… I hate to be that person, but.. ” – asked if they knew where the chicken was from. And the other attendees around us were so receptive and many were like “I was wondering too!” and the server went back to the kitchen and they were able to tell me the name of a farm – and it’s like, that’s one of the highlights of my last year of eating along with seafood in vero beach probably, in a year that has been very fraught with either conflict or just swallowing my feelings. That is how I want to eat. Geoff is willing to at least consider meat that has been locally and humanely sourced but I still get the sense that this is supposed to be a once a year treat, not a sustainable way of living. I think what is the most hurtful is it’s like .. we talk about “compromise” a lot but I don’t know how to apply it to this situation because the thing is, I don’t feel the need to change how he eats. I just want to be able to eat my way without getting the guilt trip.

And so that is what brings me here. I’m trying something radical and taking a stand to support my own self-interests, because there is something that I have long been intrigued by, but it’s always seemed too hard, or too scary, or too full of conflict. And that last part is still true. But I’m tired of suppressing my own feelings for peace. I wonder about what is the “right” food for humans to eat. I wonder if I am maximizing my workouts. I wonder if I get enough close to enough protein.  I wonder if I could be healthier. I wonder if I actually need to live with the semi-constant stomach aches and digestive system in disarray. In the process of studying up on techniques and workouts for derby I have become really interested in crossfit, and hand in hand with that comes those crazy paleo people. It’s sort of an affectation, perhaps “what would a caveman eat?” and I almost hesitate to even mention these things because of the inevitable eye-rolls and arguments about grain.  So I don’t really want to identify with that movement, or become a spokesperson but perhaps coopt some of their theories?  A friend recently gave me a gift of a book I’d tagged for future reading, Meat: a benign extravagance by Simon Fairlie, and I thought his brief disclaimer in the introduction was very to the point: “‘Nor do I take any interest in the diet and dentition of our remote ancestors.” Heh.  The book primarily deals with the sustainability of raising livestock for food compared to our alternatives.  I of course am very interested in dietary health and that’s mostly what is driving this, but if it feels like a good thing for me, then sustainability is really the next big question.

So, at some point this “whole30” concept caught my eye. The premise is extraordinarily simple – and deviously hard. Eat only vegetables and meat, eggs and some fruit, and nuts/seeds. That eliminates: grains, sugar, legumes (beans,soy,peanuts) dairy, potatoes, processed anything, chemical additives and preservatives. And leaves everything in the world that people should be eating. The catch of course is that the food that is readily available and easy doesn’t fit those categories. What I hope to gain from this is basically proof of concept. I’ve read a hundred and one positive testimonials from people who are excited about their energy, their clear skin, their lack of stomach pains, their PRs in the gym and on the track, their ease sleeping. What I’m hoping is to gain enough in terms of these tangibles and intangibles that I don’t miss the things that I’ve cut out. It’s entirely possible that I will view them as unnecessary and inefficient forms of intake. And in a world where you only get the one body I think that a month is not that much in the grand scheme of things.

This does leave us in an awkward position, however. As part of this experiment I am eliminating in one stroke virtually every source of vegetarian protein. At the same time I am really committing to ramping up my exercise routine with lots of derby and now also going to be attending mid-day classes at the wellness center with a focus on strength building. I want to be stronger, and I want to be able to lift heavy things. I want dense bones and faster recovery time from illness. I was endurance, and stamina, and sprint-happy twitch muscles. I want to look really good when I’m older!  And so I need to feed all that activity. I am going to be unable to turn to my standbys of frozen lunches, of yogurts and protein/cereal bars. That leaves a gap of 2 full meals a day where I have no real plan. So I need to figure out a meal plan for a week that involves things I can pack for lunch or prepare ahead. These things are obviously going to need to involve meat. It’s not my intention to use this as an excuse to over-indulge – I want to find the ratios and amount that suit my needs, treating food as a fuel in the most basic sense. fuel in = results out. I am approaching this as a grand science experiment basically.  But like I said, confirmation bias is everywhere and by really diving deep into the sort of reading that I’ve been seeking out, I am conditioning myself to view certain types of food as “filler.” Which is just what my brain has come up with, to help me not want those things. I am actually a little surprised at how strong that way of thinking already is, considering I haven’t even started this program! It’s really just a factor of how much I have been thinking and obsessing about this for many, many months. Who knows, maybe my stomach continues to hurt anyway, and at the end of this month I don’t feel any different and I can chalk this up as something that didn’t pan out and go back to a diet heavy in carbs and grains and soy. I don’t know. But I am determined to try. I was originally going to start this for the month of March, but I was just really excited to start sooner, apparently?  Also I have a doctors appointment for my annual physical in 30 days so that will tie in nicely as I can get some professional feedback.

I hope to not turn into some sort of evangelizing priest of diet, but I do have some links, if someone was interested in reading what I have been reading.  One of the topics that is most interesting and possibly controversial is the elimination of all grains and legumes.   The former, perhaps, would be tenable – after all we know many people with gluten intolerances, and it’s entirely possible that that alone is responsible for my gastrointestinal distress.   But legumes..  humans have been eating beans and rice for years! Together, a complete protein! So, why those 2 things.

Why no legumes?  Well, my staring point for reading was the whole9 folks:

we don’t think we need to make a lengthy argument that legumes are an inferior source of protein compared to meat, seafood, and eggs, and that regularly consuming animal protein is yourbest bet to supply dietary protein (i.e. those amino acids that your body builds into your structural “stuff”).  Just in case… legumes offer an incomplete amino acid profile, meaning that they do not supply all essential amino acids in biologically useful amounts.  In addition, some of the proteins that are technically present in the legumes are poorly digestible, and thus not available for use in your body.

I recommend reading the whole page since that’s one of the biggest sources of contention. Likewise, they have a “manifesto” regarding grains; in short both of those categories (legumes & grains) do not offer a good ratio of nutrients to carbs, nothing as good as you’d get from regular old vegetables.  And the protein component of beans is not as good as what you would get from animal protein and also hidden in a lot of carbs.  I’m not going to pretend like I’ve read every article every published on these very controversial topics, but enough to give me pause.  My bottom line is .. what is going to be best for me?  And once again I feel like hey I can always just try it. In theory I will be getting a lot more healthy stuff in denser packages, and cutting out all the stuff that we don’t actually need anyhow which is probably hurting my insides.  But right now I’m mostly just feeling scared because this is going to be hard and it’s already tense at home. So, we’ll see.  I need to come up with a meal plan for real though.

What I want in a home …. definitely open floor plans.  Probably all one level, or if 2 I would have the bedroom suite separate from everything else, maybe a partial loft.  The current home feels very restrictive in how all the little rooms have their own function, so it’s hard to blend uses!  This is mostly a media issue.  Want to listen to music? the good speakers are downstairs.  want to use the computer? office. want to watch tv while playing a computer game? We actually just dragged the tv upstairs for that reason, so really the office is where we do 95% of our lounging around.  In probably 15% of the available space.  But now, of course if you’re downstairs (where the comfy couch is ….. ) there is no tv!  So we have to watch movies in the office, which is fine except there are only office chairs so we can’t cuddle, so then we talk about adding a loveseat to the office… this sort of repetition of devices drives me crazy.  I want to have ONE comfy couch, ONE epic music center, ONE wall of computers, ONE media station/TV.  And be able to combine then depending on mood!   So, we’re looking at spaces that have a central “core” that is open to all those things, basically.  With a wall o’ kitchen, and cooking island, so the kitchen isn’t totally removed from the fun things that are happening.

Also, because the weather here is so nice most of the time, I want to be able to open some doors and have patios and decks and covered or semi-covered outdoor living areas.   I want lots of light and clerestory windows and skylights and glass.

Construction materials … I want steel beams.  I want siding material that isn’t painted, but will weather naturally and last forever. Cement board maybe? steel?  I want polished concrete floors with radiant heating.  I want a living roof, or PV panels or both.  I want rainwater collection, and passive heating and cooling.  I want clever shade in the summer and sunlight in the winter.  I want lots of open windows and fresh air movement.  I want a really really tight building envelope and smart HVAC so that I can finally actually be comfortable at home in the winter instead of freezing downstairs and sweating upstairs.  I want pathways meandering around the otherwise-natural landscape.

Is this something that I can have right now?  How much would I be willing to give up to have it? Would I be willing to take out a 30 year mortgage to make it happen? How much of a monthly payment is reasonable?  How much do we gamble on Geoff getting a staff position?  If this had come along in , say, 3 years from now, we would be in a much better place to make these decisions. Alas.

So, I’m piecing together ideas.  I really love the floorplans and fun modules from Studio 101.  And I’ve been reading through posts from Michelle Kaufmann, who works with 101 a great deal.  The catch here, of course (because there always is one) is they are based in CA.  Sure, you can truck modules out to NM but is it worth is?  As of yet unknown.

Even though I’ve been spending a lot of time there, there are certainly many other potential options.

Marmol Radziner Prefab

Resolution:4

Alchemy WeeHouse

Ma Modular

Rocio Romero

Method Homes

Blu Homes

I also stumbled over a link to passive solar in northern new mexico, while researching Trombe walls.  Handy!

Another thing that’s been going on is I tend to mute myself to avoid unpleasant confrontations.  This hasn’t been working out well, since I end up feeling frustrated anyhow and things have a way of coming to a head no matter what I do or don’t do.  And I really miss having a record of my life, and a place to talk through things with myself. And maybe if I treat it as a one-sided soliloquy that will be easier than an actual conversation.  I was scrolling back through my own archives to earlier in 2010 and the start of that year was very rough.  But the upside was that Geoff and I started talking a lot more about a lot of things, and overall it was good.  And I see now I’m doing the same thing, so I guess this should be a lesson to myself to not shy away from the hard things, and also look at the patterns of my own life rather than being blind to them.

So .. July 2010.  What’s happened since then. Facebook has this thing now, called Timeline, maybe you’ve heard of it?  Since I’ve  been so terrible at life, maybe that can help me fill in some blanks. In the summer of 2010, my friend Cinder was living here, and that was basically awesome. Did a lot of cooking, had lots of fun.  Geoff was in and out on visits and maybe we lost a little bit of private time but it was totally offset by lots of fun! I finished building coop V2.0 which was a huge improvement over V1 which was an unstable stack made of rotting lumber and found items. The chickens didn’t care much but it was literally falling apart. V2.0 featured such improvements as: actual new lumber, framed construction, and a peaked metal roof!

I also flew across the country to spend a day or 2 in PA with Andrew and Austin prior to departing for Europe.  This included highlights as: visiting an awesome old abandoned penitentiary and drinking a lot, and also passport madness – I was really confused about the passport rules for travel to EU as concerns the expiration date.  Apparently just having a valid passport isn’t enough, it also needs to not be expiring in the next 3 months.  But maybe it doesn’t matter for Germany? but maybe it does? I’m not bad at the internet I just couldn’t find a straight answer to this very basic question and then as the trip got closer I got nervous about sending my passport off in the mail.  And so it ended up that the day of the trip I was standing in a long line at the agency in Philly where it was confirmed that it was Not Good and I got a rush job with a few hours turnaround on a brand new passport.  So, props to the passport agency people! It was stressful but we made the flight and all was well.  Germany was awesome and deserves a post of its own!  Which I will do. Promise.

Later in the summer I had a fridge death (bad smells) got a new fridge (it’s awesome!) reserved Cataclysm, continued to poke at my very frustrating thesis / deal with school people / try and get a new advisor, and visited Ojo Caliente with my best friend’s parents where a few ideas got planted in mah head, and read the Hunger Games books in approximately 1 day.

That fall, Geoff and I visited the Trinity Site which is only open to the public for 2 days of the year, had more beers at Socorro Springs brewery, went to the Bosque del Apache bird refuge and attended my first (not his first) Blizzcon together!  It was nerdy and very fun, highlights including Cinder smuggling approximately a sixpack of beers into the convention center in her pants (what?) and extremely dorky photos on the frozen throne with a sort of smelly foam lich king helm.  And then the woooorrrrrst, most hungover flight back home EVER. At one point we were literally wandering around the tarmac, squinting bleerily trying to figure out how to get back inside the terminal and how does that even happen?

Thanksgiving that year, Geoff and I traveled to mom’s house in Ohio for deliciousness and hung out with my brother, new sister angie, and earl & cindy.  It was a lot of fun, we made handdipped beeswax candles in the garage with dan, sipped on tequila like responsible adults and posed for family photos.  All while proselytizing about vibram fivefingers which by this point has become kind of a thing. December was nice, as Geoff was released from the semester of school, so we relaxed and played wow and opened presents.  That segued into the season of unseasonably cold weather where NM dropped below 0 F for multiple days, combined with gas shortages.  While my house retained gas delivery, my 1981 furnace was unable to stand up to the barrage of unending cold and some pipes froze and broke in the crawlspace, and indoors I watched the thermometer struggle to keep the overall temp in the 50′s.  When it dipped below to 49 is when I started to get concerned but it’s really not pleasant when it’s that chilly inside! Aspen and I spent a lot of time in a small room with a space heater. NM declared state of emergency and the lab closed.  I spent a lot of time in the miserable crawl space. At one point I was showering at work for several days because even once water was restored, it was unable to get upstairs to the shower and no one likes sink-bathing in the kitchen. no one.  Geoff left just in time to miss this particular disaster, a trend that was to repeat..

In March I undertook a project to re-do the bathroom counter and sink upstairs, a project made very exciting by “non-standard construction” aka you can’t buy that size counter and also these walls aren’t square.  In the end, once the counter and sink were ripped out, it became clear that there was no way to buy a counter that would just work and my only option was to build a counter, so I got a lot of plywood and cement board and cut it to fit the not-square spaces and then tiled it.  Tiling was a bitch, but it looks pretty nice and the new sink and hardware is suuuuuuch an improvement.  In April Geoff and I took delivery of a shoe-box sized parcel from the post office, on a sunday no less, full of 27 peeping peeps.  I had raised 3 young silkies the year before, but clearly this was a whole new level of chickens.  My dad and brother came out for a visit which was awesome and fun.  During this visit Geoff sort of hinted at things to come.  And a belated christmas present came to fruition – Geoff and I converted my old 20D camera to be full-time IR only, which was something he had dabbled around with, but only through very long exposure filtered shots.  He was very pleased and remained hooked on all things IR!

In May, Geoff proposed, on the 10th.  We went out for margaritas and quietly reveled for a little bit before calling everyone Domestic life continued with the peeps getting ever bigger and more dusty as we were brooding them in a pen in the living room.  NEVER AGAIN. By this point we were in a pretty solid routine of travel where Geoff would spend 2 weeks in los alamos, and then 2 weeks in florida.  It was predictable and enough to get by, but we were both definitely looking forward to him finishing his phd and moving out here, and to that end he was really ramping up his contact with lanl people to find the right person to get an in. Also in May, I traveled to WPI to present / re-defend / meet my new advisor.  I stayed with a friend in Boston, who was awesome enough to loan me his car for the drive to Worcester.  The flight out was terrible, I spent several hours in TX, and didn’t arrive to my friend’s apartment till almost 5am, and I was presenting an hour away around 11am I think.  So it was a terrible bad morning and I was exhausted and loopy and delirious BUT it went well, and my thesis cover sheet was officially signed.  We had a delicious celebratory dinner and I headed back to NM.

I started dipping my toes into wedding planning towards the end of the month. We decided that sooner rather than later was the way to go, and I decided that water and trees should be involved, preferably turning golden yellow. So: fall it was!  From engagement to wedding we had 5 months to plan which I understand is a bit on the low side? What with everything going on, it was more like 4 months by the time we got started.  And 3 months by the time we settled on a plan??  We took a little mini-vacation to Ojo Caliente where I had had a thought all those months ago, to scope it out for a possible wedding and also do some soaking and relaxing.  It was nice, and the round barn was awesome but I got sticker shock and had family that thought it might not be convenient.  At that point we scaled back our thinking to doing something casual in the woods and having a reception locally in a small lodge and self-catering but then I started feeling a deep paranoia that that wouldn’t be awesome enough to justify family and friends flying across the country.  Expectations! Weddings!  In the end, after a LOT of agonizing and making spreadsheets and budgets we decided on a place in Albuquerque.

In June the peeps were finally big enough to get kicked outside, so that meant a massive amount of work on Coop V3.  With 20-odd birds, an expansion was in order, so I took the V2 coop and essentially tripled it.  So that involved building out another 2/3 of framing onto the original 1/3, all of which is elevated 3′ off the ground. Added a second window, and a whole new array of nest boxes.  Around the time that the framing was underway, Geoff departed back to FL land, so I was left to finish my grandiose plans on my own.  To bring together the two sections of coop, at the frame level I used some massive carriage bolts to bring joists together below the deck, but the real masterpiece was the unified roof.  I eventually settled on a single-slope type roof, with a large amount of overhang front and back for shade and weather protection over the doorway and the roof eaves which are open for ventilation.  I agonized over roofing material for days before settling on some pretty basic metal corrugated sheets. Bringing those home along with some 10′ lumber all strapped to the roof of my car under some extreme wind conditions by myself was not an experience I would like to repeat.

So I spent a lot of time crawling around the roof framing, wrestling with flashing, nails, screws, joist hanging hardware, roofing screws and cross bars, generally just winging things! It was instructive and while things aren’t perfect for a coop it’s pretty awesome I think! One the ladies were kicked out of the house into their new home they underwent a lockdown period, to try and brainwash them of all previous memories of where home is, and get them in the habit of returning there to roost. Most take to it, but sometimes a few get adventurous and make us find them.

June also saw my introduction to the Los Alamos Derby Dames, a local start-up derby league.  I skated with santa fe some 2 years ago, but then that team dissolved and I segued into only derby photography and no skating.  Santa fe came back, but my dedication to driving an hour one-way multiple times a week for practice, and 200 miles roundtrip for a scrimmage did not.  So this had me very enthused to be able to skate locally, make new friends, and be able to get involved in a new league building and doing things on our own terms!  In June I also ripped up the entire living room carpet and also in a frenzy took down the shitty old vertical blinds, because it seemed much easier than cleaning everything.  The underflying floor is maybe ok to refinish and I put that on my list.  In June we also kill and process a rooster (to the left in the photo above) who was one of two that came in our box.  The other one, a handsome guy we gave away but the little gray bird didn’t find a home in time before he started make a huge ruckus.  The kill was messy and a bit traumatizing but I find the processing very enjoyable.  Aspen enjoyed the organ meat, the feathers got composted and the rest of the bird was plucked, cleaned and frozen.

At the end of June, Geoff flew out of town, I went home to a derby practice… and billowing black clouds of destruction loomed over the town.  Yep, day one of the Las Conchas fire.  The long and short of THAT tale is, I built a 5-gallon waterer for the birds, packed up the car with camping stuff, valuable electronics and … waited.   Eventually the evacuation call came so Aspen and I left town and drove north.  I was going to just camp it out, so I went to Carson Nat’l Forest, but I did not anticipate just how hard it would be to be alone and isolated, but still relatively close to the action.  And yet cut off from information feeds.  Also they closed the forest. The morning of that second day a ranger came by to collect camping fee/ check in and I just started crying I was so overwhelmed.  After that, I drove east into Taos and stayed one night at a dog-friendly hotel.  It was ok, except I felt like I was spending too much money and still feeling miserable.  Also it was raining ash in Taos.  After that, I took up some lovely friends on their offer to stay at their place which was south of Santa Fe.  On the way I tried to talk my way back into the town, but was stopped by guards and turned back.  I was feeling very depressed and helpless even as well meaning family and friends wondered what I was doing, during this big moment of fire – after all, that’s my job? It was disheartening to say that I was useless and got kicked out of town even while some of my coworkers remained there, doing useful tasks.  If I could have done things differently I would have never left, and I’m still pretty sad about everything I missed.  Which I realize that may sound strange to some people, it’s like, wildfire and emergency management is what I am more interested in studying than anything else and I completely blew this chance. Sigh. Anyway I moved into this newly purchased home, in a rural area.  There was no furniture and no potable water, but it was still a huge improvement, I could go into santa fe and get some internet on, and had company occasionally as ang and ro came by to do things.  Eventually the hellish week ended and I was able to return home but man, if I could change one thing of this past year, it would be that.  Not that it happened, just what I did. Probably the best thing to come out of this week was a nice boost to a friendship that was based on derby and had lapsed over the year, and my discovery of Joe’s Cafe in santa fe, which is an awesome proponent of local foods and healthy living.

July was actually a comparatively low-key month! I think we all needed that.  Geoff was in town to talk with T division about a post doc position! And then in August I flew out to FL to pack him up and drive him across the country for good  Let me just repeat that for good measure: August. In Florida.  Packing up a cramped second-floor apartment. Loading a moving truck. Oh god it was so terrible ;;

We met Geoff’s mom (first time for me) and Dad who had going-away gifts and family furniture that we also loaded up, managed to get the saturn onto the car carrier, and the carrier attached to the truck, we hooked up PARTY CUBE for iphone mp3 action in the truck and started driving. 2 days later we were home! unpacking was a breeze compared to loading, especially with a well-timed arrival (for us) of our neighbor’s daughter/fellow skater and her husband.  The next day we returned the moving truck and went on to ABQ for a wedding tasting at Los Poblanos!  August also saw the first-ever los alamos derby skate clinic which was awesome and fun.

September was intense.  We sourced a local winery at a wine festival (Anasazi Fields) for the wedding, adopted a pot-belly pig, I visited with alpacas and got a new haircut, followed by a new driver’s license, found local chocolates for the wedding favors and in general engaged in a massive frenzy of wedding stuff.  The pig only lasted a week, as it turns out she was HELL SWINE.

And then.. October.  It started out THE WORST but ended up kinda ok. The WORST part was my sweet dog Aspen was running around the yard and in that very same corner as the picture above, hidden in all that uncharacteristic overgrowth in the wake of monsoon season, was a rusty metal horseshoes pole that I had never been able to get out of the ground.  Aspen has run around that metal spike for 5 years now on an almost daily basis, but this one day.. she ran over it instead.  And ripped her leg open.  The most horrible sounding yelp and whimpers and I see her skin just hanging open while she wailed. it was awful.  It was also 6pm.  The local on-call vet wasn’t up to it, and neither was the head surgery-capable guy.  So we had to load her into the car and drive to santa fe to the emergency animal clinic.  The vet said that she would be put under for the surgery to put her leg back together, so we went home.  Around 11pm I got a call that said once she was under and they started looking at the leg, it appeared there may be a puncture wound and would I okay a scan?  After the scan they called back to verify that she did indeed puncture her abdomen on the metal which meant they would need to do a full abdominal exploratory surgery to make sure no organs or digestive tract was shredded and also do a full cleaning of the abdominal cavity to prevent systemic infection.  After the surgery to check things out the good news is that her internals were ok, the bad news was that she ripped the abdominal muscle clear off of her pelvis and they weren’t sure how well it would reattach.  All of this a week before the wedding!

She spent a few days in the ER under constant monitoring of BP, heart rate, temperature etc, while receiving a constant IV of antibiotics.  We went to see her and she was so full of tubes and wires and probes and drains, all of her legs terribly swollen.  On thursday I bought her home but she still had drains in her, constantly leaking blood, unable to go up or down stairs.  We had to restrain her for her own safety but she would freak out and go into maximum psychotic mode if we tried to crate her.  I ended up picking up some prescriptions for sedatives but I’m not sure who needed them more. On Friday I took her to the local vet who would board her on their hospital level while we were busy getting married and honeymoon’d.  That was probably the best possible decision, I was agonized at the time, but she made it through the weekend, and never did show any signs of infection, and we were able to focus on the whole wedding thing.

The wedding!  It was awesome. I’ll probably make that a post unto itself as well!  Also Honeymoon!  And right after that, I officially graduated with a MS in FPE, some 9 years after I started. The rest of the month was a frenzy of preparation and crafting for the derby dames halloween party that we put on downtown (great fun!).  November followed up a momentous month with the successful defense of Geoff’s dissertation, and final release from the protracted, drawnout, unceasing, neverending, unfunded work he was doing long after he was supposed to be done >.<  Glory be, all done!  November also took us on a roadtrip up to Denver for the Derby national championships.  So much good derby! wow!  Thanksgiving this year we celebrated at home with friends, and a Tofurkey.  It was delicious and fun! I would like to make the house cleaner and nicer overall, things like refinishing the floor are still on my list, which is now make exponentially more challenging by the addition of a lot of furniture when Geoff moved in.  There isn’t really any “extra” space to temporarily relocate anything so I don’t know how to proceed with that.

December was full of snow days (AWESOME), regular life and then christmas at home, followed by travel to FL.   We flew into JAX and visited with Geoff’s dad, mom, and step-dad (all at once!) and watched Girl with a Dragon Tattoo with his dad. They we drove on down a ways to Vero Beach to visit my grandparents.  Sadly my grandma was having a rough few days and wasn’t able to spend much time with us.  We hoped to go out to dinner but grandpa showed up and gave us some money and said to enjoy but he had to go back home  So it was really nice seeing them and I’m glad I got out there, just too bad we didn’t have more time!  After that we drove south to Miami and struck west to visit the everglades.  It was cool and all, but …  well, it was really crowded for one.  We’re talking crowds of people and cars parked up and down the highway roadside.  I did see a lot of alligators!  But we missed / it was sold out the tram ride with a ranger so all we could do really (at this particular entrance) was wander around on our own for a bit.   Oh well.  I’m not sure it was worth the hellish drive down the FL expressway but I can say i’ve been there now.  Then we visited with some friends in Miami and probably kept them up far too late, and met a cool cat, a Bengal.  Flew out of Miami the next day!  With a lot of delta skylounge food along the way, which is probably still the coolest thing of flying.  We got back and proceeded to play SWTOR nonstop for a long weekend until sadly, blearily, it was time to go back to work

And here we are.  I didn’t set out to write a recap post, but it just seemed weird jumping into my actual topic with this year and a half long gap just sitting there.

I’ve been reading about SAR a bit, again.  http://www.mc2sar.org/ is the local canine SAR group, and while I think Aspen is probably too old (sadface!!) to invest the training in, being as it takes 1-2 years to get mission-ready I could totally be preparing myself.  I haven’t emailed yet, but .. might be just the sort of activity for me.  Outdoorsey, survival, hiking, service oriented.  It would have a set schedule of 2 field trainings per week (sun/thurs) that are legit enough for me to feel ok being afk for raids, but still present the other nights.  And I’m much more likely to stick with things that are scheduled.  So, if I go for it, could start attending trainings and picking up on how the dogs are trained while also being a contributing support member.  With the long-term goal of getting a young weim to train at some point maybe next year, depending on life.   I’ve been a little too nervous to actually contact them yet though, still.. thinking on it.

So far, living with a roommate has been pretty fun.  Have someone around to chat with, go on hikes, cook for!  Last weekend, on the 4th we were pretty active – went to see Twilight (…) and then on to santa fe for the wine festival!  Spent about 2 hours sampling and wandering, and untold dollars on purchasing some choice bottles and other local delicacies.  It was really great!  I was pleased to be able to sample so, so many iterations on themes, there is nothing like a wine festival to expose you to countless flavors and develop a sense for what you like, or don’t like, and why.  Also, since it was towards the end of the last day, and well into 4th of July evening, a lot of the tents were underpopulated and we got to chat with the vendors.  Fun!  After that we headed up the santa fe mountain to Ten Thousand Waves – I picked up my NM residents discount card for future spoiling, and we did a soak in the communal women’s tub.  A lovely shower to clean off all the dust from the day, slipped into the robes they give you and padded up to a nice outdoor deck.  It was about 106 which is hotter than I keep mine, but with a 60-degree dip tank right there to cool off  After a while i was so relaxed it was all I could do to slump mostly upright in a deck chair with the evening breezes rusting the leaves overhead.  Ahhh.

Other than that, life has been pretty routine.  Work, play, hike, read, rinse & repeat.  Today is exciting because waiting at home for me are a pair of Women’s KSO Treks, and a brand new m’fing imac!  holy shit!  My trusty laptop is now 3.5 years old of almost constant use, and even with a logic board replacement its really been struggling lately.  I told myself I could have an imac when I finished grad school but it’s been like 5 months now and I still haven’t gotten comments back from my advisor, so like … I jumped the gun.   Very excited to go home and gently caress it.

Last weekend there was a derby match in Taos, it was Taos vs noobs and Dallas came to skate against the munecas.  So I have a lot of photos from that day to process, I’ve been waiting to install LR3 on the new computer to get started on the processing though.   Disappointingly, my Canon 40D stopped working last week. The shutter doesn’t … quite do what it needs to, and the camera throws up Err99.  Which is sort of a catchall for communication woes, but I checked the lens, no lens, the CF card, no CF card, different battery – all to no avail so that pretty much leaves the shutter.  Naturally it’s 5 months out of warranty so I need to call Canon and figure out what the next step is for repair.  What this meant for me last weekend for derby was ..  my only option was to bring my old 20D along to use.   At first I was really angry about that (it’s so outdated! the ISO capabilities are crap! the shots per second is slow!) but I decided to look at it as an opportunity.  The first derby game I ever shot was in Taos, using that camera (different lens, granted) and the results were pretty bad!  So this will be a chance to see how I’ve improved since then (with the addition of A) a Sigma 50-150 lens which I do love and B)LR3 noise-reduction voodoo  which let me brave shooting on “H” iso mode).   So not an exact comparison but should be interesting to compare when I get some photos up.

I’ve been busily cooking lately.  Last night was some stuffed calabacitas from the farmers market produce haul and tonight or tomorrow I want to attempt gluten-free homemade pizza.  hee.  Some other recipes I want to keep in mind:  Rice noodle dishes for the summer; Tacos de Papa which has me wanting a tortilla press;  Summery cakes for a special occasion; and a peach or plum crumble that looks divine.  And nothing says summer to me like a nice Gazpacho!  I’ll have to make that and see if Geoff eats it when he’s not trying to impress me lol (I made a nice lunch before I knew he hates tomatoes and he was totally smooth about it) Lastly, more science in the kitchen: homemade ginger ale looks fun!

The visit so far is progressing well!  The plan on Friday was to drop off the baby rooster in santa fe, perhaps load up some free pallets if they are still there and then on to abq.  Pick up some food at Annapurna and be at the airport at 9!    It actually all worked out quite well.  The rooster is re-homed, and the lady was really delighted with him!  She drove off smiling with little dude sitting on her lap peering out the window.  The 2 girls seem to be adjusting to being down a member.  I next swung by a nearby neighborhood in santa fe and managed to load 5 free pallets into my car, and then on to abq.  Got some delicious food and picked up geoff.  We just hung out on the roof level of the airport parking garage and ate looking out over the city.  I got a present!  A folder of 100 CDs that he burned from his collection! This is awesome because: new music! but also my XM radio (and even FM radio) have ceased to function in my car, so CDs are my only form of musical entertainment and i was getting REALLY sick of my old ones.  So, it’s been fun flipping through and picking one at random, never know what I’ll get.

So, yeah.  We stayed up late on Friday, and slept in Saturday blessedly rooster-free.  Sat/Sunday were like breakfast, did some construction work, got some plants from a greenhouse in white rock.  Built an amazingly ghetto compost bin from my free pallets!  It’s possible I’ll add some refinement later (like, oh a real hinged lid, and maybe a way to open it from the front. or maybe not) but for now it works to keep the animals from digging and making a freaking mess all over.  And started working on the coop V2.  I have a hard time with framing because – there is no level surface anywhere for me to work!  I could really use like… a garage or workshop or basement – someplace with a floor? a giant table?  So it’s hard getting things square, or cuts that are straight so I have to repress my urge to fiddle for perfection.  Just telling myself it’s good enough, I can can fill in those gaps with caulking no problem.

My car is still making troublesome sounds and feelings of vibration.  I don’t entirely trust it, but I feel spread very, very thin these days like spending many hundreds to diagnose and fix whatever is going on is just beyond my reach.  It’s like there feels something wrong with the suspension, or steering/wheel connections… plus an .. exhaust leak?  Something is causing it to shake at idle.  And the transmission, when I let the clutch out, thrums in a way I find disconcerting.  So, anyway driving lately hasn’t really been reassuring.  Has slowed me down, though.

So apparently cinder may be driving down here tomorrow! goodness gracious.  At least the room is pretty much ready to go, just need to clean some stuff out.  I have to also clean off at least half the office to find usable desk space (this mostly involves a lot of filing and judicious trashing) and provide internet up there for her old G5.  I bought …. this.   An apple airport express.  My hope is that this will latch onto the existing wireless network and .. make it better.   For the upstairs.  And also provide an ethernet port to plug in ancient machines of yore that lack the wireless capabilities.  I believe this is possible.

Other things to do:

Finish painting closet door / rehang.
Find new storage for geoffs stuff (closet?)
Install floor trim
Empty closet (rehome linens and towels, clothes)
Clear out office/organize/file
Set up network

Make dining room into a place more fit for dining, and less workshop.
Finish drywall??? ugh
Transplant new plants
omg coop

Not much else, the week has been pretty normal – work, come home, eat delicious dinners, and either raid or completely bail on raiding as the case may be (Tuesday night REQUIRED pizza and beer in santa fe).  We’re up to the final season of The Wire – it will have taken us almost a year watching off and on during visits to get through it!   Will have to find a suitable follow-up.  It’s nice just playing at leading a life, I suppose – the time between visit this round seemed very very long.

I did end up making those yak burgers! Although not the sausage.  Grilling, always fun.  The spicy ketchup is fun, and I thought the meat had a very nice flavor.  Geoff actually had some too – I’m eating less meat overall as mentioned, and he’s open to eating it for “special occasions” – not more than a few times a year I’m sure.  It was a little odd, to be honest!  I had mentioned that I got some local grass-raised Yak meat from Taos, and that I thought I’d make a burger to try it out (he’s been positive about my goal to limit meat intake to local/sustainably raised non-factory sources so I had no qualms there) and I figured I’d make a gardenburger for him, but he offered to just have a yak.  I was like … ok!  I suppose because it was rather recently that I’d inquired how he would feel about the occasional meats (which was itself spurred by the menu for a special dinner that I wanted to attend).  Anyway, I was sort of uncertain how to feel (guilt? pleasure?) and he was a little reserved as well.  When I cook vegetarian stuff as is the norm, I can be like How do you like it?? is it good? are you pleased??? But with this, I didn’t know what the right attitude was!  So I was quite hesitant in asking what he thought, because, such a loaded question.

Ended up not really talking until the following evening, he said physically he felt mostly fine although certainly the digestive track changes over time with a vegetarian diet – that could have been worse.  Didn’t seem quite sure how he felt about the experience, though he’s not ruling it out or anything.  Still processing. Talked a bit about the morality of killing miserable animals in horrid conditions for food, vs animals that have had a pleasant existence comparatively grazing in the mountains – it’s like, ok well its clearly better. But, then vs eating animal flesh at all – is it necessary?  And yes, the beeve or whatever may have been happier in its life up till that moment of death, but in the end it still died for you so is it really a huge difference, or merely an improvement on an undesirable situation?  I tend to come at it from a slightly different angle – I’m fine with the idea that humans are omnivores; I do not believe that a person needs to have meat with every meal (far from it); and I think that just because it’s morally acceptable to eat meat, that doesn’t give us the right to be cruel about it.  I tend to be somewhat more concerned with the impact that one’s diet has on the environment and in that sense, eating vegetarian isn’t necessarily and obviously superior just because you forsake meat.

It’s not like our farming policies and practices are benchmarks in sustainability and good practice whereas factory (meat) farming is all that’s wrong with the country.  Far from it … so where I struggle is, how do you weigh the impact of a vegetarian meat-substitute (like this one – and these are fucking delicious, I must say. But click on the drop-down list of ingredients) vs a grazed and locally slaughtered animal like my Yak (where the ingredient list is literally just yak).   So, on the one hand you’ve got a product where, it’s true nothing died for your meal directly at least, but it implicitly supports the crazy corn/soy farming subsidies, it’s highly processed and full of additives, and who can calculate just how much refined oil products were consumed in the manufacture, packaging and shipping all over the country to get it to your freezer – vs some meat in a simple vacuum-sealed package that traveled under 100 miles to arrive at your farmers market.  For me, if I were to be tipped into making an even larger lifestyle change than I already have, to feel good about myself and my actions, not to mention healthy, I would be a lot more inclined to say that being careful to eat locally and seasonally would have a much larger real-world impact than going vegetarian in a careless way.  I’m sure my opinions are flavored a bit by all the lazy vegetarians I’ve known over my life.  By which I mean, those who eschew meat, and subsist on kraft mac n cheese and toasted white bread.  I’m sure they have their reasons, and that’s fine, but it definitely does not speak to me.

So, along those lines, I was very pleased to create a few meals last week that were 100% local from the farmer’s market with eggs from my very own chickens.  I find that a lot more satisfying, on a personal level, than “just” making a vegetarian dish using ingredients that have been shipped to me from mexico.  Although to be fair, it’s just another example of how standards change – for instance “just” making a vegetarian meal from scratch even if the vegetables aren’t necessarily seasonal is way way more pleasing than eating something already prepared, processed, and frozen for my convenience.  So, you know. I guess in general I feel like I’m doing better, but there’s still room for improvement! Todays farmer’s market haul was another huge sack of greens and onions and peas and mushrooms and herbs and the first cherries of the season! Exciting.  If I can find my muffin tin, I am thinking some mini-fritatta could be the way to go for some of it!

One of the things that Geoff has been sort of going in circles around, is the idea of eating some animals but not others – like why some are “pets” and therefor sacred, but others are ok to raise for slaughter.  I have some thoughts there but I guess that’s a topic for another day.

Not feeling super hot today.  A phone call with the debt collectors left me in tears but scared off the collector, at least temporarily.  The saga to date – on a $2500 loan, I didn’t realize it existed, got sent to collection, hated hated hated hated the slimy fuckers with a burning passion, didn’t want to pay, finally paid down $2000 of it, but they insisted I owed way waaaaay more than the last $500 so I stopped returning their calls.  It got bounced around some more, and a hold was put on my WPI account which would prevent me from registering for further classes (unknown if it will prevent graduation).  The latest bill to arrive claims I owe $1900 – I call bullshit and ask for an itemized statement of there the hell that extra $1400 came from.  The company is unable to provide this, claiming a “principle” of $1300 + $400 in fees and $200 in interest.  I offer to pay $1500 to make the whole mess go away.  I’m told they will submit this settlement offer – a few weeks later, the lady gets back to me and says no, and furthermore claims I had previously contacted the lender (ECSI) and offered a settlement which they turned down.  I did no such thing!  The collection agency, being unable to tell me how it is that I owe $1300 on $500 told me to contact ECSI to get that information.  I called them up and was told in no uncertain terms that they no longer handed the loan and would be unable to give me that information.  That was the full extent of the conversation I had with a rep – I don’t even have an account number with them, no money was discussed and there’s no way I could have made an offer to this underling on an account they claimed no access to.   It’s all just … preposterous.

Flash forward one day and I am talking with the collectors again.  The lady is telling me over and over to make a payment of $1500 (since I stated I could pay that in lump sum as part of my offer) and work out a payment plan for the remaining $400.  I was like no until you tell me where that $1300 came from!  She was like hang on.   And I got elevated to her boss.  I explained once again, I’ve already paid down $2000 so what’s the deal.  He has asked me to send proof of this payment – so …. I’ll see what I can find.   I’m pretty sure the answer is going to be that I’m fucked, and that I made that payment to a different collection agency and they took $800 of my money for themselves, gave $1200 to wpi, and then passed on the loan to someone else (Security Credit) who added their own $400 fee and $200 in interest.  And they are going to tell me well golly that’s just too bad but you still owe us $1900.  Fucking cocksuckers, all of them.

But – good news. Geoff is coming out for a 2-week visit tomorrow!  Ah, I’m so excited to be able to relax and enjoy some summer with him   All sort of grilling and hiking and refreshing alcoholic concoctions.  And my little chicks are doing well, at 2 months old now.  I found a home for the baby rooster, who has been getting me up at 6am for the last week with his baby vocal cords!  So, on the way to the airport tomorrow making a detour outside santa fe right off the highway to meet up with a lady who has “three acres with goats sheep and a cow.  Yes, one cow. ” – she used to have peacocks, and so had a coop already, and wants to pick up some chickens to teach her daughters responsibility.  She thinks the silkie is adorable (he is) and will have no problem with the crowing.  Perfect!!  And we’ll be able to sleep in Saturday, haha.

Geoff can help me build the coop which I have all drafted out, and lumber bought just need to start applying saw and nails.  I hope to frame it out Saturday, and then on Sunday tear down the ghetto old coop to scavenge plywood and the roof structure.  After that, young and old will need to be integrated into the new house!  We’ll see how that goes – the 2 pullets are likely to be missing their boy, and they are much, much smaller than the adult hens so I hope they don’t get picked on too badly.  They have all had plenty of free-range mingle time these last 2 weeks, but in the giant yard it’s not a problem.  Sometimes Peggy Sue gets a gleam in her eyes and goes after one, but they are fast.  I hope that at twilight everyone will be confused about the new coop situation and I can stuff them in – sleepy hens are generally peaceful hens.

So, this 2 week visit is a sort of a trial run to see if Geoff can be highly productive while out here.  If it goes well, his advisors have okay’d him spending 50/50 time split between here and FL.  Since he can do all his research work from anywhere, the only change would be the weekly meeting- so more updates, or teleconference or something.   So I need to get my ass in gear and clean out the office (filing. so much filing to do).  Anyway!  That would be awesome.  One visit per month or 5 weeks is livable and I’ve been holding up ok but more would be better.  Especially if there’s no physical requirements for him to be on campus.  At the end of the (school)year, it’s possible he might be out here more to sort of start to integrate into the (possible) postdoc position at the lab but that’s all still up in the air at this point.

MEANWHILE a good friend in CO is probably going to come down to spend a month or 2 living with me this summer – perhaps within the next week?  Not 100% sure when!  So, there will be visit overlap which will make for a crowded little house  But they know each other through our wow guild.  I’m looking forward to having a temporary roommate though, should be fun!  In October the 3 of us will probably all be at Blizzcon as well.   Super geeky amg.  I need to book rooms for that.  Thinking … roadtrip!

Eating/diet – continue to sort of pare meat out of my diet, but it’s just been a natural byproduct not something I’ve stressed over.  I don’t cook it for myself very often these days, limited to when I pick up some local grass-raised pork or bison from the farmers market.  This week, I got Yak from Taos!  Excited to see how that compares to the santa fe bison which was SO GOOD.  For lunches, I’ve long been a fan of lean cuisines “spa” line of healthier frozen meal offerings.  But like 95% of them contain chicken.  Thinking about factory raised chickens makes me very sad.  But vegetarian frozen meals tend to cost twice or more as much! Arhg!  It’s very odd how we subsidize things.   But, we’re sort of meeting in the middle, where I’m eating less meat overall for health and ethical reasons, and he may be open to eating happy meat on special occasions.  Which is sort of how I’ve started thinking about meat (for special occasions).   I’m really not really into absolutes like complete denial.  If I really want something, I can have it – but it doesn’t need to be every day of the week.  Also seafood stays!  mmmmmm sushi.

Diet wise, I usually have about one week a month where I slip, and progress levels off, and then picks back up again.  Down about 25lbs to date since February.  If I can hold this pace I could be almost at 150 for my birthday which was sort of a private goal.  In the 170s it seemed impossible!   Potential-roommate cinder has also been talking about weight loss, so might be able to rope her in as well.  She’s also a gluten-intolerant vegetarian, so cooking at home will be slightly more complex (But not hugely so.  Bread is wicked NOT diet food).  Probably the biggest change for her will be the lack of late-night food options here!  It’s not like you can run out at 10pm and hit up Qdoba or something.  So if that happens, will have to carve out office space for her as well!  Been thinking on how to move stuff to the shed and in general open up space in the house to work all this out.  Which had needed to happen anyway.  Exciting times!

Some guidelines for feed:

Approximate Ages (weeks)     Crude protein %     Calcium %     Phosphorus %
Starter 0 – 6 weeks                        18                       0.9               0.45
Grower 6 – 16 weeks                     16                       0.8               0.45
Pre-layer 16 – 19 weeks                17                       2.0               0.45
Laying > 19                               17 – 19             3.8 – 4.0            0.45

Came across some relatively unknown national parks in NM that look like possible fun to visit – Capulin Volcano, Gila cliff dwellings, and Aztec ruins!

I went to a talk this weekend given by Caballo Blanco, which was basically him recounting the story of his experience with the Raramuri, basically as the book details but a different perspective.  Slightly less embellishment – or perhaps simply the embellishment that he chose to include!

Chatted a bit with him after the talk about safety traveling through mexico, and he reaffirmed what I had personally come to believe – stay out of Juarez, cross the border zone as rapidly as possible and then you are just .. in a country with regular people.  The two towns that came up the most relative to conversations about the book, and copper canyon in general,  were Urique and Batopilas – in my original plan I think I was a little apprehensive about these base of canyon towns, because access is via a somewhat dodgy cliffside dirt road so I sort of wrote it off, but now I realize that this is where I must go It’s all very clear. I could start in Chihuahua as planned, maybe stay at this hotel. And then on to the canyons, and look at this place to stay!  Entre Amigos.  It’s like it was designed for me.  I am thinking however that taking my car is not the way to go.  It’s just too damn loud, and loud. And obnoxious.  I mean, I always thought that, I just couldn’t come up with a better plan – but now I feel that bus and train is the way to go!  Just do it backpacking style. So, back to the drawing board on the best way for that to happen.  I think hiring someone like caballo to be guide would be very nice.  Have dreams of hiking through the canyons and ending up at this one amazing lodge, the Have no idea at this point if Geoff will ever be open to the idea.  I was once again thinking dreamily about a christmas break trip, but Kelly just posted on facebook that they are considering a family trip to Spain.  Hell yeah!