Why am I running to Sleeping with a Friend by Neon Trees? Oh, no reason . . . but seriously, this song gets in your head in the kind of way that's typically reserved for songs by Robert Palmer, or Soft Cell, or Katy Perry. I will often find myself sitting at my desk, flipping through files . . . when I just start humming "ooohh, ooohhh, you got me in the moooood, mood . . ." And then it's all over. So stay in school kids. Then one day, you too can get a job with an office door that closes. And then you can dance with yourself while singing NSFW songs under your breath.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
An Apple Grows in Long Beach; or Local is as Local Does
It's Sunday, February 23rd. I am exactly six posts behind. What happened? Three words. Mercury. In. Retrograde. If you are not hippy dippy trippy, you might have heard that Mercury was in retrograde as you browsed your horoscope on your iPhone and disregarded it the way I do when I hear any news story that begins with the letters DOW. So here's the Reader's Digest explanation. The mechanical details of our lives are influenced not only by the position of our planet in the solar system, but the position of other planets as well. Ever woken up on or around your 29th birthday and realized that your life didn't look anything like you thought it would? Or it did, and you were completely miserable anyway? Most likely you were in the midst of a Saturn return. Every 29 years, Saturn returns to the position it was in when you were born and throws your life into complete chaos. Total f-ing mayhem (for more information, see Lola Versus. It's my fave Greta Gerwig joint.). But I digress.
Mercury is in retrograde 3-4 times every year for roughly three weeks a turn. When Mercury is in retrograde, it appears to be travelling backward in the sky. Something to do with its position to the earth and the sun, blah, blah, blah. Since Mercury is thought to effect communication, mental clarity, truth, travel, and interestingly, writing, Mercury traveling backward (or appearing to, anyway), throws all of those things into a tailspin. If over the last three weeks, you have felt generally tangled, tongue-tied, uninspired, argumentative or stuck, you have felt the side effects of Mercury in retrograde. So what I have been doing during this period of general emotional malaise? Aside from a spirited argument with my Dad that my eternal fate is to be the Gayle to someone else's Oprah, a whole lot of nothing. Okay. I've been binge watching Orange is the New Black and losing horrifically in WordFeud. That's what I've been doing. Mercury in retrograde is also supposed to be the perfect opportunity to slow down, recharge, and reconnect to a spiritual source. Exactly none of those things happened for me, but maybe they happened for you during the last three weeks. In which case, high five! Good for you! Lucky for me, Mercury comes out of retrograde on Friday, February 28th. And I know that the fog is lifting because I woke up this morning and wanted to knit. I know, my brain is like a bad DJ (again, see Lola Versus). So here is my three-week summary of Month 2, my month as a locavore.
"Dad," I announced to my roommate on February 1st, "We're doing something different in February. . . we're becoming locavores."
"Local whores? Kam, why the hell are we doing that?!"
"Um. No. LocaVores. Like herbiVores. Or carniVores. It means that we're going to be eating locally all month. Local whoring might be more lucrative, but that's not what we're doing."
"I eat here almost every night," he said. "It doesn't get anymore local than that!"
"Local eating is about where our food comes from. Not where it's cooked."
"My food comes from the Trader Joe's on Bellflower."
Sigh.
So what is a locavore and why am I forcing my roommate into becoming one? A locavore, or someone who belongs to a local food movement, is someone who has made a commitment to eating foods that are grown or produced within a certain distance from the eater's residence. In general, it means not eating tomatoes from Ecuador. (Pro Tip: when you are talking about joining the local food movement to your friends and neighbors, either really enunciate the "V" in "vore," or use the term "local food movement." Otherwise, your friends might think you are becoming a sex worker. Or you can use my dad's term "living la vida local." Good luck with that.)
So why live la vida local? Perhaps you would like to lessen your carbon footprint. Maybe you are concerned about GMOs, and want to know more about where your food comes from. Possibly you would rather see your hard-earned money going to a farmer in your area than lining the pockets of a Monsanto executive. All perfectly good reasons to become a local foodist. Here's why I was local food-curious: I don't know a lot about farm bills, or agricultural policies, or why, if GMOs are not harmful, companies like Monsanto would throw so much money into fighting GMO-labeling bills. What I do know is that I live in a world that is growing increasingly toxic. And I while I know (and begrudgingly accept) that we will never know why most young, otherwise healthy, people get sick, I can't help but wonder what role the typical American food supply plays in our overall health and longevity. It's hard enough trying to eat an apple instead of the heavily-marketed Snickers bar. I don't want to wonder if the GMO-spawned, pesticide-covered Granny Smith I am putting into my mouth is just as likely to make me sick as all of those heavenly layers of milk chocolate, caramel, and nougat. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Anyway, here's what we're doing and how we're doing it:
Step 1: Join a CSA. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. If CSA is too difficult for you to remember, do what my dad does, and call it the mystery box. Seriously. Some CSA's are delivery services, others deliver your subscription to a certain location on a certain day and you have to pick it up. Read the fine print. We subscribed to Beachgreens, which is local to Long Beach, Seal Beach, and parts of Sunset Beach. After discovering that we weren't making it through all of the parsnip in the half fruit, half vegetable original box every week, we downsized to the mostly vegetable studio box, and found that it fits this Goldilocks just right. The Beachgreens Studio Box is $29.99 per week, and this week we received two heads of lettuce, beets, carrots, parsnips, Italian parsley, Swiss chard, kale, about two pounds of oranges and a pound of kiwi.
Step 2: Supplement your CSA with Farmers Market finds. The timing of our CSA delivery every week really couldn't be better. Our mystery box is delivered to our doorstep every Friday afternoon. We take inventory of our local veggie booty on Friday night (exciting, I know. Don't be jealous.) and make a list of anything else we need for the week. Any fruit, vegetables, cheese, fish, bread, nut butters, or herbs that we need for the next week, we pick up at the Southeast Long Beach Farmers Market on Sunday. We spend, on average, about $40 at the Farmers Market every week (Note: my dad LOVES buying wild Alaskan king salmon from the Fish Guy. At $21 per pound, this makes up about half of our farmers market total).
Step 3: Buy any remaining items that you absolutely must have at the grocery store. For us this includes coffee, cream, baking items like flour, baking powder, and yeast, and wine and beer, mostly. For my dad this also includes bananas. Every week he asks if I have seen bananas at the farmers market. Every week I tell him no, because I go to the farmer's market in Long Beach, California, and not the farmers market in Antigua. Bananas grow in tropical climes, which means they are never going to be local. But I would rather he buy his bananas at the grocery store and stay on our local parsnip and cabbage diet than have him completely veer off course and start buying cucumbers from Guatemala again, so I let that go. We spend, on average, about $25 at the grocery store each week.
Here's how it's gone, so far:
Week 1:
Dad: "How am I supposed to plan what to make every week if I don't know what's going to be in our mystery box?!"
Me: "Look in the box first, and then plan your menu for the week. You're on an adventure. This is how the pilgrims did it."
Dad: "I don't think the pilgrims got mystery boxes."
Me: Sigh.
Week 2:
Dad: "This is how I like to cook; quality ingredients made with minimal preparation. And look, I cooked fennel!"
Week 3:
Me: "Did you try the honey? It's good, huh?"
Dad: "Yeah, that is really good honey."
Me: "It's from Inglewood."
Dad: "You mean it's inner city honey?"
Me: "Yeah, but I don't know if the bees were Bloods or Crips. That's not a problem for you, is it?"
Week 4:
Dad: "Guess what kind of pasta sauce this is?"
Me: "I dunno."
Dad: "It's PARSNIP sauce!"
Me. "Wow, Dad. Who knew you could make pasta sauce from parsnip?" (Aside: did I mention that we had to get REALLY creative with the parsnips?)
Dad: You know, I think this experiment has actually made me a better cook!"
And also, flowers. Every week, I look through the buckets of flowers the flower guy has at the farmer's market. Flower Guy now recognizes me and points out what he has that is new, and what plants are better quality with firmer buds and stronger stems. My roommate has not noticed the flowers once, but my days are now scented with French lilacs and white lilies.
My so here are my grades for the last threeish weeks: A solid B+. I can't give myself an A because I still eat most of my weekday lunches at the La Salsa a couple of blocks from my office, and I'm pretty sure that there are no black bean burrito trees in Orange County or its surrounds.
Yoga: 8 classes in February so far. I'm kicking ass in the yoga challenge. If only they could all be this easy. . .
 |
| I'm gonna call you Dandelion. |
 |
| Vision Board Mandate: Eat Whole Foods --not to be confused with Eat at Whole Foods |
"Local whores? Kam, why the hell are we doing that?!"
"Um. No. LocaVores. Like herbiVores. Or carniVores. It means that we're going to be eating locally all month. Local whoring might be more lucrative, but that's not what we're doing."
"I eat here almost every night," he said. "It doesn't get anymore local than that!"
"Local eating is about where our food comes from. Not where it's cooked."
"My food comes from the Trader Joe's on Bellflower."
Sigh.
So what is a locavore and why am I forcing my roommate into becoming one? A locavore, or someone who belongs to a local food movement, is someone who has made a commitment to eating foods that are grown or produced within a certain distance from the eater's residence. In general, it means not eating tomatoes from Ecuador. (Pro Tip: when you are talking about joining the local food movement to your friends and neighbors, either really enunciate the "V" in "vore," or use the term "local food movement." Otherwise, your friends might think you are becoming a sex worker. Or you can use my dad's term "living la vida local." Good luck with that.)
So why live la vida local? Perhaps you would like to lessen your carbon footprint. Maybe you are concerned about GMOs, and want to know more about where your food comes from. Possibly you would rather see your hard-earned money going to a farmer in your area than lining the pockets of a Monsanto executive. All perfectly good reasons to become a local foodist. Here's why I was local food-curious: I don't know a lot about farm bills, or agricultural policies, or why, if GMOs are not harmful, companies like Monsanto would throw so much money into fighting GMO-labeling bills. What I do know is that I live in a world that is growing increasingly toxic. And I while I know (and begrudgingly accept) that we will never know why most young, otherwise healthy, people get sick, I can't help but wonder what role the typical American food supply plays in our overall health and longevity. It's hard enough trying to eat an apple instead of the heavily-marketed Snickers bar. I don't want to wonder if the GMO-spawned, pesticide-covered Granny Smith I am putting into my mouth is just as likely to make me sick as all of those heavenly layers of milk chocolate, caramel, and nougat. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Anyway, here's what we're doing and how we're doing it:
 |
| Inside the Mystery Box |
Step 2: Supplement your CSA with Farmers Market finds. The timing of our CSA delivery every week really couldn't be better. Our mystery box is delivered to our doorstep every Friday afternoon. We take inventory of our local veggie booty on Friday night (exciting, I know. Don't be jealous.) and make a list of anything else we need for the week. Any fruit, vegetables, cheese, fish, bread, nut butters, or herbs that we need for the next week, we pick up at the Southeast Long Beach Farmers Market on Sunday. We spend, on average, about $40 at the Farmers Market every week (Note: my dad LOVES buying wild Alaskan king salmon from the Fish Guy. At $21 per pound, this makes up about half of our farmers market total).
Step 3: Buy any remaining items that you absolutely must have at the grocery store. For us this includes coffee, cream, baking items like flour, baking powder, and yeast, and wine and beer, mostly. For my dad this also includes bananas. Every week he asks if I have seen bananas at the farmers market. Every week I tell him no, because I go to the farmer's market in Long Beach, California, and not the farmers market in Antigua. Bananas grow in tropical climes, which means they are never going to be local. But I would rather he buy his bananas at the grocery store and stay on our local parsnip and cabbage diet than have him completely veer off course and start buying cucumbers from Guatemala again, so I let that go. We spend, on average, about $25 at the grocery store each week.
Here's how it's gone, so far:
Week 1:
Dad: "How am I supposed to plan what to make every week if I don't know what's going to be in our mystery box?!"
Me: "Look in the box first, and then plan your menu for the week. You're on an adventure. This is how the pilgrims did it."
Dad: "I don't think the pilgrims got mystery boxes."
Me: Sigh.
Week 2:
Dad: "This is how I like to cook; quality ingredients made with minimal preparation. And look, I cooked fennel!"
 |
| Local Lilies |
Me: "Did you try the honey? It's good, huh?"
Dad: "Yeah, that is really good honey."
Me: "It's from Inglewood."
Dad: "You mean it's inner city honey?"
Me: "Yeah, but I don't know if the bees were Bloods or Crips. That's not a problem for you, is it?"
Week 4:
Dad: "Guess what kind of pasta sauce this is?"
Me: "I dunno."
Dad: "It's PARSNIP sauce!"
Me. "Wow, Dad. Who knew you could make pasta sauce from parsnip?" (Aside: did I mention that we had to get REALLY creative with the parsnips?)
Dad: You know, I think this experiment has actually made me a better cook!"
And also, flowers. Every week, I look through the buckets of flowers the flower guy has at the farmer's market. Flower Guy now recognizes me and points out what he has that is new, and what plants are better quality with firmer buds and stronger stems. My roommate has not noticed the flowers once, but my days are now scented with French lilacs and white lilies.
My so here are my grades for the last threeish weeks: A solid B+. I can't give myself an A because I still eat most of my weekday lunches at the La Salsa a couple of blocks from my office, and I'm pretty sure that there are no black bean burrito trees in Orange County or its surrounds.
Yoga: 8 classes in February so far. I'm kicking ass in the yoga challenge. If only they could all be this easy. . .
Friday, January 31, 2014
January Wrap-Up
Well January, it's time to part ways. We laughed. We cried. We saved. $283.50 to be exact. While this is significantly less than my original January goal (see set backs and missteps 1-3 below), it's $283.50 more than I would have otherwise saved. And if I happen to have 11 similar less than stellar months in 2014, I will have saved $3,402. Now that number isn't so shabby. $3,402 can buy many, many handbags . . . or a little piece of mind. Strangely, I'm starting to think that I'd actually like the piece of mind more than a new piece of black leather with gold-toned hardware.
Time out. What is happening to me?! Am I actually becoming a saver? Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Unfortunately for my carefree spending habits, however, I do feel compelled to continue this painful paper experiment into next month. So while I won't be reporting every week on my life in Lincolns, know that I will be imperfectly carrying on with my cash diet. At least through February.
Here is my final January report card: Cash Diet Challenge: B-, not terrific, not terrible. January yoga total: 17 classes! I doubled my goal of attending 8 classes this month, which puts me way ahead of schedule. I may have to re-evaluate my 100 class goal if I maintain this pace.
January, it's been real. February let's go local.
Time out. What is happening to me?! Am I actually becoming a saver? Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Unfortunately for my carefree spending habits, however, I do feel compelled to continue this painful paper experiment into next month. So while I won't be reporting every week on my life in Lincolns, know that I will be imperfectly carrying on with my cash diet. At least through February.
Here is my final January report card: Cash Diet Challenge: B-, not terrific, not terrible. January yoga total: 17 classes! I doubled my goal of attending 8 classes this month, which puts me way ahead of schedule. I may have to re-evaluate my 100 class goal if I maintain this pace.
January, it's been real. February let's go local.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Party Like it's Your (Grandma's) Birthday
Happy birthday to my Grandma, a very Unique Highly Sensitive Person. What is a Unique Highly Sensitive Person, you ask? You may want to ask Google. And you may want to ask Google about "feeling uncomfortable on your birthday." That's what my Grandma did. What she discovered is that she is a Highly Sensitive Person. And that there are other Highly Sensitive Persons also feeling uncomfortable on their birthdays. Some of them even blog about it and put their high sensitivity on display for all of the Internets to see. This is seems a little counter-intuitive to me, but maybe it's like some kind of therapy. Like aversion therapy, but the opposite.
Highly Sensitive Persons aside, here's how I did this week. After my trip down the TJ Maxx rabbit hole last week, I started the week with my resolve stronger than ever. But by Friday, my mood was tanked due to a particularly stressful week at work, poor sleeping patterns (confirmed by my Jawbone), and application disappointment. Despite my best effort to convince myself that this episode of professional rejection was for the best, I was still disappointed that I had gotten my hopes up and my application was not permitted to pass through the pearly gates manned by the selection committee. I sought comfort in the warm welcoming glow of the Maxx. I know what you're thinking, Wha?! Wasn't this the birthplace of this week's shame spiral? Yes. But unlike last week, I came in prepared. Ish. I'm not going to lie, I walked in intending to shop for my Grandma, and left with three items for me. But, come on, on the real tip, you know you do that too. So I left the store with my wallet about $100 lighter. But unlike last week, I paid in cash. And it hurt. Counting out the bills for the cashier, I was barely able to resist the urge to pull the bills back from her and return them to my yellow Rebecca Minkoff. I think I just may be growing as a person. Damn.
Here are my grades: Cash Diet Challenge: B. I faced my tempter and almost resisted temptation. Almost. TJ Maxx, why can't I quit you?!!!
Yoga: 3 classes due to extreme hiking-related sore calves. This brings my monthly total to 14. So far I am killing the yoga challenge. My friend Jorts says that if I actually want to see any of my unhappy lawyer weight detach itself from my hips, I need to quit the "sauna stretching" and do some cardio. Spoken like a true hot vinyasa flow virgin. My hot vinyasa flow class burns about 590 calories in 60 minutes. Check that, runnerboy.
Highly Sensitive Persons aside, here's how I did this week. After my trip down the TJ Maxx rabbit hole last week, I started the week with my resolve stronger than ever. But by Friday, my mood was tanked due to a particularly stressful week at work, poor sleeping patterns (confirmed by my Jawbone), and application disappointment. Despite my best effort to convince myself that this episode of professional rejection was for the best, I was still disappointed that I had gotten my hopes up and my application was not permitted to pass through the pearly gates manned by the selection committee. I sought comfort in the warm welcoming glow of the Maxx. I know what you're thinking, Wha?! Wasn't this the birthplace of this week's shame spiral? Yes. But unlike last week, I came in prepared. Ish. I'm not going to lie, I walked in intending to shop for my Grandma, and left with three items for me. But, come on, on the real tip, you know you do that too. So I left the store with my wallet about $100 lighter. But unlike last week, I paid in cash. And it hurt. Counting out the bills for the cashier, I was barely able to resist the urge to pull the bills back from her and return them to my yellow Rebecca Minkoff. I think I just may be growing as a person. Damn.
Here are my grades: Cash Diet Challenge: B. I faced my tempter and almost resisted temptation. Almost. TJ Maxx, why can't I quit you?!!!
Yoga: 3 classes due to extreme hiking-related sore calves. This brings my monthly total to 14. So far I am killing the yoga challenge. My friend Jorts says that if I actually want to see any of my unhappy lawyer weight detach itself from my hips, I need to quit the "sauna stretching" and do some cardio. Spoken like a true hot vinyasa flow virgin. My hot vinyasa flow class burns about 590 calories in 60 minutes. Check that, runnerboy.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
What I'm Running To: All Eyes on You by St. Lucia
Full Disclosure: I'm actually not running to this song right now. Because I'm not actually running. In related news, you know what's deceptive? Hiking. Hiking is a liar. It seems like it should be easy and meditative because its WALKING. Guess what? 3.6 miles uphill is not walking. That's a death march. And now I can't pick up my legs. If, however, I wasn't clunking around like Shrek, I would be running, and I would be running to this song. Because it's awesome.
If you're now seriously deja vu'ing, and not sure why, you've probably heard this song in the first trailer for HBO's new comedy, Looking.
If you're now seriously deja vu'ing, and not sure why, you've probably heard this song in the first trailer for HBO's new comedy, Looking.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Oops, I did it again.
I had a cash diet cheat meal. Like a major cash diet cheat meal. Like a full-on-cheese-enchalada-combo-with-refried-beans-and-rice-and-a-basket-of-chips-with-guacamole-and-a-large-blended-margarita-or-two cheat meal. Oops, I did it again. I'm not that innocent. Cash diet blown. Here's how it went down:
I got paid on Friday. Rather than finalize my budget and promptly transfer my savings money into, you know, my savings, I spent the day running around like a chicken with her head cut off. I spent Saturday in the office, alternately working and feeling sorry for myself for working on a Saturday. My Sunday plans included buying yeast for the bagels I was planning to make, investing in a new tube of mascara, and writing about how well I was doing on my cash diet. Then I had an idea. I would just pop into the Maxx (that's TJ Maxx for those of you who aren't in the know) and take a look around on my way to Sprouts. Just a look. Just for a second. Just to see what was new.
And just like that I was sucked in. Like an overeater who just needs one more bite of cheesecake. Just one more scoop of the Ben & Jerrys. Just one more potato chip. I had a handbag on my shoulder, a pair of black pointy-toe flats in my hand, and three tops and a pair of silk pants slung over my arm in less than 45-minutes. If shopping is my crack, the Maxx is definitely my dealer. And deal it did. Long story short, I decided to tempt fate. And I decided to do it without my cash and without a plan.What I have to show for it is several cute tops, a pair of silk pants, a pair of black pointy-toe flats, and a guilty conscience.
As a drove away from the store, I felt bloated and overindulged. I was confused. I had been so good for over two weeks. I deserved a treat, right? But instead of feeling like I had rewarded myself for a job well done, I felt like I had floated farther away from the goals I had set just over two weeks ago. Could my budget handle the overindulgence? Yes. Did I want it to? No. For the first time I could remember, no part of me felt satisfied. Just guilty. But what I could do? I realized that I had three choices: I could turn around, walk back into the store, and get my money back. I could beat myself up about it. Or I could enjoy the items that I had purchased and climb back on the wagon.
So I went home, hung my new items in my closet, and took another look at my budget. I transferred less money than I was intending into my savings account, but my resolve is stronger now than it was two weeks ago. I know now that I wouldn't have spent so much money at the Maxx if I had had to hand over cash rather than swipe my debit card. Handing over my hard-earned Lincolns really does feel different; more deliberate, more painful, than it does to use my debit card. And maybe that was the lesson I needed to learn this week.
So here are this week's grades: Cash Diet Challenge: Monday-Saturday: A. Sunday: D+.
Yoga: 3 Classes this week. This brings my monthly yoga total to 11 classes, which puts me over my monthly goal of 9 classes. Grade: A+.
And because today I got lost in the game, oh bay-by, bay-be, here's a pre-breakdown breakthrough Britney:
I got paid on Friday. Rather than finalize my budget and promptly transfer my savings money into, you know, my savings, I spent the day running around like a chicken with her head cut off. I spent Saturday in the office, alternately working and feeling sorry for myself for working on a Saturday. My Sunday plans included buying yeast for the bagels I was planning to make, investing in a new tube of mascara, and writing about how well I was doing on my cash diet. Then I had an idea. I would just pop into the Maxx (that's TJ Maxx for those of you who aren't in the know) and take a look around on my way to Sprouts. Just a look. Just for a second. Just to see what was new.
And just like that I was sucked in. Like an overeater who just needs one more bite of cheesecake. Just one more scoop of the Ben & Jerrys. Just one more potato chip. I had a handbag on my shoulder, a pair of black pointy-toe flats in my hand, and three tops and a pair of silk pants slung over my arm in less than 45-minutes. If shopping is my crack, the Maxx is definitely my dealer. And deal it did. Long story short, I decided to tempt fate. And I decided to do it without my cash and without a plan.What I have to show for it is several cute tops, a pair of silk pants, a pair of black pointy-toe flats, and a guilty conscience.
As a drove away from the store, I felt bloated and overindulged. I was confused. I had been so good for over two weeks. I deserved a treat, right? But instead of feeling like I had rewarded myself for a job well done, I felt like I had floated farther away from the goals I had set just over two weeks ago. Could my budget handle the overindulgence? Yes. Did I want it to? No. For the first time I could remember, no part of me felt satisfied. Just guilty. But what I could do? I realized that I had three choices: I could turn around, walk back into the store, and get my money back. I could beat myself up about it. Or I could enjoy the items that I had purchased and climb back on the wagon.
So I went home, hung my new items in my closet, and took another look at my budget. I transferred less money than I was intending into my savings account, but my resolve is stronger now than it was two weeks ago. I know now that I wouldn't have spent so much money at the Maxx if I had had to hand over cash rather than swipe my debit card. Handing over my hard-earned Lincolns really does feel different; more deliberate, more painful, than it does to use my debit card. And maybe that was the lesson I needed to learn this week.
So here are this week's grades: Cash Diet Challenge: Monday-Saturday: A. Sunday: D+.
Yoga: 3 Classes this week. This brings my monthly yoga total to 11 classes, which puts me over my monthly goal of 9 classes. Grade: A+.
And because today I got lost in the game, oh bay-by, bay-be, here's a pre-
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