Wednesday, September 26, 2007

It's a Smart Start

I've been inspired by a Cookthink post on healthy sweet snacking. As they put it, "The three o'clock sweet hour" and I know you all know it well. 3:00 comes around and you decide to wander by your office's front desk to see if there may be any of those m & m's left. Sometimes you get lucky, other times you need to run down to the corner store for a Snickers bar. What is it about 3:00pm?

Cookthink provides a healthy alternative and from reading this post, I've decided to give it a try. For a month. It is inevitable that I need a snack around 3:00 to get me through the rest of the day, but from here on out, I'm going to make it healthy. I'm not trying to lose weight, but I am trying to regain some energy, to feel a little less lethargic by the end of the day, and boost my blood levels of the all of the important things that blood tests check for due to an impending annual doctor's appointment (that I still need to schedule).

Now, I'm not going to lie. With October around the corner and Halloween on the horizon, I'd be kidding everyone if I said I was going to cut chocolate out of my diet completely. Besides, aren't there studied health benefits of chocolate? But, for the most part, I will be replacing my 3:00 sweet fix with more generally accepted, healthier options such as fruit, whole grain crackers, and natural peanut butter. Hopefully just what I'll need to make it through the work day and a short evening work-out at the gym.

I even bought cereal and oatmeal as options to start my day with. As we speak, I'm eating SmartStart (appropriate, huh?) with soy milk and banana.

It is the dawn of a new me.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

The Local Flavor

I had a cold. That is my excuse.

But I'm back, now.

I've lived in D.C. for 8 years and had never visited a local winery until this past Sunday. I can't believe what I had been missing! I mistakenly thought that all the good wines were made in California or France and to have a true vineyard experience, I would have to hop a flight to Napa. Not so!

We set out on Route 66, about an hour and 15 outside of the city. Destination: Linden Vineyards in Linden, Virginia. The scenery was breathtaking. Atop the Blue Ridge Mountains, we passed through rolling hills and valleys en route to the winery. The parking lot, surprisingly, was packed although we decided later that the guests must have been on the tour, because once inside, we felt like we had the place to ourselves.

Our afternoon started with a tasting of the five wines that are manufactured at Linden:

A dry 2006 Seyval with the aroma of white grapefruit and lemon zest tinge. Citrusy and fresh.

A medium bodied 2004 Chardonney. Crisp and very pleasant with hints of pear and vanilla.

A delicious 2005 Cabernet Franc, full of flavor. Raspberry and truffle aromas.

A hearty 2003 Claret that would be great paired with a dense stew. Notes of mint, sage and blackberry.

And finally, a sweet, but not too sweet, Reisling (2006). It almost had a spritz on my tongue and had a fruity finish of grapefruit, peach and orange peel.
We settled on a bottle of Chardonnay and retreated to the porch, overlooking the rows and rows of grapes in the vineyard. Linden Vineyard offers a selection of local cheese and sausages to pair with your wine selection, with the most delicious, warm and crispy baguettes.

Good food, good wine, good company. It added up to the perfect Sunday afternoon.



Wednesday, September 12, 2007

My Plant


My mother-in-law bought me a plant for our condo. She assured me that it only needed watering once every two weeks and was very easy to care for. I do not have a grand history of keeping plants alive (I think I once even killed a cactus) so I was a bit skeptical, but once every two weeks? I could handle that. She also told me that the plant produces little babies. The only thing I could deduce from that was that this plant was some kind of fertility plant. So, at the same time, this gift was more than just a gift. It was a test. I had to prove to my mother-in-law that I could keep this plant alive because if I can't keep the plant healthy and strong, how am I going to care for a baby? Right?

Diligently, once every two weeks, I watered the plant. I let the soil dry out between waterings as the instructions stated. I gave it light (and love). And still (!) it slowly began to wither and shrivel and die. Then, I gave up. I stopped watering it and just left it on the window sill to
eek out its last days.

Last night I got frustrated. At why I can never keep plants alive. I cut some of the leaves back and immediately jumped on the internet. Googling "plant with pink center" until I figured out exactly what I had (a bromeliad.) I visited bromeliad care sites, bromeliad society sites, and even found some doctoral thesis on the little buggers.

And you know what I found out? The plant is SUPPOSED to die! Yes, have you ever heard of such a thing? Once the plant flowers, it completely shuts down - giving all of its energy to the birth of a "pup" or offshoot, or as my mother-in-law put it, a "baby." I inspected my plant and low and behold, it had produced a pup.

See that offshoot, above? That's the pup.

Now the question is (according to the myriad of websites on the topic) - do I transplant the offshoot, or do I leave it there, allowing the "mother" plant to produce more pups?

I've got to think this one over a bit. With my history, though, I'm sure that whatever I decide for the fate of this pup, the poor plant will eventually die. I'll keep you posted.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

9/11: My Story

It's been six years. It's already been six years and it's only been six years. I was actually surprised that the Today show this morning wasn't overdoing its "America Remembers" series. Or maybe that's CNN? Maybe we're moving on?

Since 9/11 will be one of those days that we recount time and time again, as in a "where were you when..." story. Our parents had JFK and the landing on the moon. We, and they, have 9/11 (and the Challenger explosion.) This is how I remember and will retell my 9/11 story:

I was in a job at GWU that I hated and had a hard time pulling myself out of bed. As usual, I turned on the Today show while I was getting ready for work. The usual stories of the day were on and somewhere around 8:45am, when I needed to leave for work, Katie Couric announced that they would be back with breaking news. I thought it had to do with Chandra Levy, so I turned off the TV and headed to work.

The next day, September 12, I had a doctor's appointment to go to. I hadn't been to the doctor in years and I was worried he would find me unhealthy. So, on September 11, instead of taking the elevator up to the 2nd floor for work, I opted for the stairs. A last ditch effort to break up any cholesterol I had and to get my heart pumping healthily. By taking the stairs, I bypassed the bank of TVs that would have certainly been tuned to the breaking news story of the day.

Up in the gallery, I was hanging the last of the artwork for our exhibition before my boss came in. The phone rang, and it was my Dad. He told me that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. It can be amusing, in hindsight, what the first reactions are to a tragedy. We both knew it was bad (although we didn't really know how bad at the time) and our conversation went something like this:

Me: Wow. So, I guess a lot of people died?
Dad: I don't know. I would guess. It's crazy. The World Trade Center is so big that the plane didn't even come out of the other side.

In hindsight, neither of us knew how to react to this news, nor did we know that our comments would be recounted for years to come. We did not know how big the plane was and there is history of small planes crashing into the World Trade Center. I was thinking it was a small plane, and couldn't really understand why my father was calling me. Then my dad ends the conversation with some reference to hearing that the Pentagon was on fire and I assured him I was headed down to the TVs to check it out.

I go down to the TVs and the area is mobbed with students. It was there that I watched one of the towers fall, but I can't remember which one. A security officer ordered all students back to their dorms. I asked him, "what about staff?" He said, "If I were you, I'd get the hell out of here." Someone lived in Pentagon City and asked him what she should do. He told her to head north.

Panic mode hit. I tried calling my friend who worked on the Hill but since cell phones were so overloaded, I couldn't get through. I tried to call other friends in DC, but had no luck, so I headed home. The streets were completely clogged with traffic, cars were getting nowhere. I looked toward the direction of the Pentagon and could see a little smoke. I lived right across from the State Dept. and feared that it, too, would be a target. Back at my apartment, I could get through to people on email, letting them know I was ok. My mom somehow got through to me and told me that I needed to get out of the city. She didn't realize that that was pretty much impossible.

I was able, though, to get up to Van Ness to seek refuge at a friend's apartment. It just seemed safer up there. Another friend joined us and for hours, we watched the news coverage. We watched the events unfold, be recounted and analyzed. Too stunned to really talk. It wasn't until hours later, that our one friend informed us that her dad worked at the World Trade Center. He was in England, though, and was not harmed. I couldn't believe it took her so long to tell us. She must have been in shock.

Eventually we felt the need to get out of the apartment and away from the TV. Chadwick's, in Friendship Heights, was pretty much the only thing we could find that was open. We just wanted a quick bite to eat. Our waiter told us that all appetizers were half off. My friend asks, "Is it because of the crisis?" He says, "No, it is happy hour." It was 5:00pm. And, technically, happy hour.

I had a lot of bad dreams that night, basically of being trapped inside falling buildings. The next morning I went to my doctor's appointment. I was pronounced healthy...

Sunday, September 09, 2007

What Goes Around Comes Around

Can you believe it? Ok, you don't know what I'm talking about yet. If you haven't read my last post, Life's Little Lessons at the Safeway, you should read it now before proceeding any further... then come back!

This afternoon I drove over to Trader Joe's to get the ingredients I need for our Island dinner tonight (I'm making spiced island shrimp over jasmine rice with pineapple "island" cornbread). I loaded up my basket, waited through the winding line and as I approached the check-out counter, I realized that I didn't have my wallet. No cash, no credit cards, no ID even to buy the three bottles of wine I picked up.

Talk about "pay it forward." No one jumped to my rescue, just as I let the man in front of me leave without being able to take his groceries with him. There is justice in this world, isn't there? The difference, unfortunately, is that I did have the money to pay for my groceries, it just required a 10 minute ride home to get it. (Which, by way of postscript, I did. And returned back to Trader Joe's where they had so thoughtfully put my grocery cart full of items in the cooler to wait for me. Then, as luck would have it, I wound up being directed to the same guy behind the cash register who tried to ring me up a half hour earlier...).

What goes around comes around.

Life's Little Lessons at the Safeway

I had a moment the other night. It was one of those moments that requires a split second decision to be made and in that split second, you waffle back and forth about 100 times, make your decision and them immediately regret it, but then it's too late.

I stopped at the grocery store after work on Friday, to pick up two steaks and a pint of ice cream as a reward for our hard work in painting the bathroom. With just three items, I scanned the 15 items or less check-out counters but the lines were long. I'm convinced that it is quicker to stand behind one or two people with 30 items than behind 8 people with five items each. So, I wound up behind an older man, who gingerly and deliberately placed each of his items, one by one, on the conveyor belt. A few blocks of cheese, some milk, meats, slowly one by one. But, I wasn't annoyed, in fact I was surprisingly calm as I considered his age and the fact that I had nothing going on that evening other than a quiet night at home - I had some time to spare.

Finally, the check out man got to this gentleman's order and swiftly scanned and bagged each item. The shopper swiped a card, but seemed to have some trouble. I assumed it was just an older generation thing and their aversion to the do it yourself era of modern technology. The check out man reached over to help out his customer and asked "food?" A strange question I thought - typically it is "debit or credit?" - until it hit me that he must be referencing food stamps. The customer nodded silently. Then some confusion ensued, the check out man printed out a receipt and informed the customer that he only had a balance of 37 cents and they must not have made the deposit yet. The customer grunted, the man asked if he should cancel the order, the customer nodded and walked out of the grocery store. Three bags of groceries were packed, but they weren't going home with him. The check out man reached to his intercom and announced "bagged groceries for restocking, checkout 3" and proceeded to scan my steaks.

For a moment, somewhere around the discovery of the 37 cent balance, I almost - almost - offered to pay for this man's groceries. It was only $30 - he would have gone home with food and I would have gone home feeling like I made a selfless gesture. But, I didn't. Something stopped me. I guess I didn't want him to feel embarrassed, but I'm sure he didn't feel so great learning he didn't have enough money for his food. Then again, I don't know much about food stamps. I don't know how they work, I don't know how or when money is deposited. I didn't know whether he just needed to wait until the next day or wait an entire month. My ignorance basically rendered me powerless to determine the appropriate course of action.

Since, I've read up on food stamps. Here is the low-down. I still don't know if I made the right decision and I'll probably never know what happened to the man who tried to buy his groceries. But, at the very least, I'm a little more educated than I was and the next time I find myself in this situation perhaps I'll waffle the other way.

[Read the related story, What Goes Around Comes Around, where I find myself in a similar situation later the same weekend.]

Thursday, September 06, 2007

On Facebook

A few weeks ago the cover story of Newsweek was on Facebook. There were two articles in particular - first person narratives - on "Why I Love It" and "Why I Hate It." The final verdict is still out for me, I mean, I haven't even completed my profile yet. I have profiles on Friendster (in the days was I was so innocent to the social networking world) and MySpace (when I played up my alternative art side and, initially, decided to add every musician/ punk rocker/ band member who sent me a friend request. Ultimately, I received too many concert solicitations to deal with and let go). And here, yesterday, I started over on Facebook.

It is a blank slate. How do I want to convey myself to the world? It is a new era of first impressions... connecting with old high school classmates, neighbors, co-workers who haven't been privy to my daily trials and tribulations. Do I want my old friends from high school to know that I sometimes still watch The Real World? Or that I am still driving my 1994 Toyota Celica that I drove for the first time into the Junior parking lot 13 years ago? Or how about my camper who I just reconnected with after 10 years. She was 12 when I was her counselor, now she is 22 and seeking her first job. What does she need to know about me?

I'm working on getting it all together. Stay tuned to my Facebook page. That, is of course - as all Facebookers presume... that you care.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

It's been a month...

and I have no excuse. Well, other than I was on vacation for 10 days, got back, got a promotion, work load has increased, end of summer social scene is in full effect, painted the bathroom, am glued to the US Open - you get the picture. I promise I'll get back to regular posts soon, though.

I joined Facebook today and people have been checking out the blog. That's just the impetus I needed.

Welcome all and we'll chat soon.