Adventures in cooking: Breakfast for 8 "Oh, no, Julie," I hear my long-time readers groaning. "You can't even manage a simple dinner for two! What on earth made you take on breakfast for eight?"
Funny story about that. You see, Marc's family generally gets together on Sunday morning for breakfast at Belle Provence. The problem is that they take up an 8-to-10 person table for nearly three hours, making the wait staff kind of annoyed at us. Last time, Marc and I were holding a 10-person table for forty-five minutes while we waited for everyone else to show up, and I decided I'd had enough. I (probably foolishly) offered our place for breakfast.
Actually, things worked out rather well, except for a brief incident with the fire alarm going off before the guests arrived while we were pre-cooking the hash-browns. (That wakes you up, I tells ya!)
Breakfast was bagels, cream cheese, and lox; eggs, bacon, and hash browns; oranges; tea and coffee; and cake. Yes, cake, to celebrate Marc's parents' anniversary on Friday.
It all came out quite well, if I do say so myself. The only thing I'd change for next time is to buy less stuff. We wound up using only one of the two packages of bacon; a dozen and a half eggs instead of the three we bought; and only about half the bagels Marc's parents brought. Oh, and the hash browns were kinda on the crispy side.
All told: I vote this one a success! Yay!
(Good Jewish boys get their parents an anniversary bagel instead of cake... just kidding! There's cake too!)
Feeling ill during long runs I ran the Philadelphia Distance Run in September and am currently training for the Philadelphia Half Marathon on November 22nd. While training for the Distance Run (my first half marathon) I experimented with what I ate before, during, and after my long runs. What worked best for me (and what I did on race day) was to have 12oz of black coffee and 2 pieces of whole wheat toast with peanut butter 60-90 minutes before running. I also drank around 8-16oz of water before leaving for my run. During a run of 13-16 miles I'd have around 16-32oz of water or a mixture of 3:1 water and Gatorade. (The amount of water I drank varied a lot because some of these runs were on really hot, humid days while the actual race was not.) I would also consume 2 pieces of GU Chomps around the 4th and 9th miles. In short, this routine worked for me and helped me run my 1st half in 1:52:35, which was way under my goal of 2:00:00.
So now I'm training for half marathon #2 and have been trying to follow what I thought I did right for the first one. The issue I'm having is that just about every time I've run over 9 miles, I've felt sick during and/or after the run. I don't think it's due to the GU Chomps because I didn't eat any during a 10 miler earlier this week and I still ended up feeling like I had acid reflux. The coffee seems like an obvious culprit, except that I don't have any problems when I run shorter distances. In fact, I ran a 10K last weekend after eating coffee+toast+peanut butter 90 minutes earlier and felt fine.
Any suggestions? I really don't want to end up puking into the Schuylkill River in two weeks. The river water's bad enough as it is...
**This is a weekly thread maintained by myself, posted every weekend. Runners of all ages and abilities are encouraged to use it to document their training and goals. Feedback is also encouraged, which helps keep a sense of community - thanks!
As for sequencing, the photos are arranged in order of increasing distance from the street. Think of this series of seven as approximating what you'd see as you ventured inside.
November Books 9) From Genocide to Continental War, by Gérard Prunier I read this book sitting beside its author on a trans-Atlantic plane flight, which is an unusual level of interaction. It is a tremendously detailed account of how, in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide, the new Rwandan government invaded its neighbour Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) kicking off a conflict that sucked in military interventions from Burundi, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Angola, Chad, Sudan and Namibia, and which also entangled Libya, the Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, Zambia and South Africa before it ended in 2002. Roughly four million people were killed. The conflict was complex and remote, and got almost no coverage in international media. The Rwandans essentially got a free pass from the rest of the world because of the genocide, and because nobody like the Zairean/DRC rulers. Prunier details the horror that resulted, and does not spare his criticism of the local and international actors who made it possible. He even criticises his own earlier book on Rwanda, where he admits having believed the government when he should not have. (Interesting to note that his Rwanda book is quoted several times by Jared Diamond in Collapse.)
An excellent final chapter reflects that probably there will not be another African conflict that is as far-reaching geographically, although the basic conditions for future smaller wars remain. Prunier also analyses the failure of international policy-makers to get to grips with the realities of African political life. I found this point particularly compelling (it should be read as if all in the present tense):
These states were universally weak because they lacked both legitimacy and money. Legitimacy was the biggest problem because even those states that did or could have money, such as the mining states, were also weak. Loyalty to the state is not an internalised feeling in today's Africa... Internally states are seen as cows to be milked. But because there is little milk and the cow can go dry at any time, it would perhaps be better to say that the state is a cow to be bled quickly before it slips into somebody else's hands. The state is an asset for the group in power, but that asset is fragile, there are no commonly accepted rules for future devolution of power, and things have to be grabbed while they last... The state is always somebody's state, never the State in the legal abstract form beloved of Western constitutional law. It is the Museveni dictatorship for the Acholi [Uganda], the Arab state for th southern Sudanese, the mestiço state for UNITA [Angola], or the Tutsi state for the Hutu [Rwanda]. When tribes are not the main problem, pseudo-tribes or other groupings will do.
There is nothing deterministic about conflict: these wars begin because of rational choices made by individuals in leadership positions, reacting to the set of circumstances they find themselves in. Ending them, however, is much more difficult.
November Books 8) Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive, by Jared Diamond A totally fascinating book looking at how the human impact on the environment can cause societies to collapse or disappear. The particularly memorable chapters are on Easter Island and the Viking settlements on Greenland, both cases where the natural resources were exploited to the point of mass death. There are lots of other case studies as well, mostly dealing with larger societies or states, but none quite as dramatic or as detailed.
The final chapters are an excellent synthesis of the message of the book. Diamond has a not very profound but interesting take on the nature of political decision-making, and why it goes wrong; on business and the environment (I would like to know more about the Marine Stewardship Council, and why it has had so little impact in Europe), and finally on future prospects for saving the world, where he is cautiously optimistic but not complacent. He is clear that our current patterns of environmental exploitation are not sustainable, but hopes that a sufficiently conscious public will be able to pressurise its leaders into taking action. The book will certainly help.
Anyway, Freda Caron is a botanist working on some strange flowers from a newly discovered planet. That's basically the plot. Boyd appears to be trying to say deep things about sexuality and sexual politics, and the nature of humanity, but it really doesn't work. I was surprised to discover that the book dates from as late as 1969; it feels of an earlier 60s vintage. The ending, where ( spoiler ), is particularly silly.
When I did my last half marathon I was determined to get a good time. So I actually said it out loud to people, instead of claiming the false modesty that I, and others tend to.
You know the sort of thing " Oh, I'm not expecting to do too well in this 10k.." and then blasting 36 minutes!
Well I realise that this can be a form of a defense mechanism and I've used it myself - until the last race, when i thought that for once I would think positive. I'd worked hard, trained consistently so why not?.
So I put it out there.
'I want a sub 1:30 half marathon'
...and I got it.
So in light of the above diatribe (sorry!) I would just like to say this...
'Next year, in April, at my first marathon (Stratford) I would like to go sub 3:20.'
Update from the lame one. All of your comments have meant so much to me. I'm pretty much an emotional wreck so every little bit of encouragement to keep trying really helps a lot... be it a response to a facebook post or responses here. I told my folks about how I got hit by the car and I was expecting them to be mad at me since they have always said I was not careful enough when running-- But they were really nice and supported my desire to see a sports doctor! I think they *do* get how much running means to me after all. But, honestly the only people who really get it are you guys.
I'm going to see this clinic: http://www.nypodiatry.net/office.php I'm told a few of the doctors there are runners, and I hope they can explain how aqua-jogging works since that looks like my best bet. The fractures are in the 3rd and 4th metatarsals the doctors said it was a "hairline" fracture and I read that is the kind that heals a little faster... But I want to get another set of X-rays.
I spent the day with my niece but as we drove around town I kept seeing streets that I loved to run on and thinking "I love running on this street" -- and then I'd feel so sad and trapped. Yesterday I biked about 25 miles and was only way to running 7... when everything was just stopped. I guess life just gives you a sucker punch some days. I mean it's only 4-6 weeks... I've just gotta remember that-- it's not forever... but it FEELS that way.
I don't know why I feel like I need to tell you guys all of this.
Cyberpunk Diaries Today Kyn started his new Cyberpunk game. We're playing members of Japan's "Section 9," an agency devoted to dealing with domestic crimes, especially those involving cybertech and cybercriminals. Players so far are:
1. Marc, playing "Killswitch," the group's combat expert who (rather uniquely in today's day and age) abhors cybertech and refuses to have any installed.
2. Pat, playing "The Lieutenant," from a military forensics background and the group's spooky-creepy guy.
3. me (Julie), playing "Bones," a cybertech doctor with underworld connections.
As always in my games, I can't let good and quotable lines pass me by, so we've got lines of the night! Here we go!
[FORUM] What are low-prestige accents or dialects in your speech community? Many of the people who meet me are surprised that I don't speak with very much of a Prince Edward Island accent, or with a Prince Edward Island vocabulary. I was born on Prince Edward Island, they reason; I presumably have a long heritage on the Island (I'm fifth-generation, actually). Why, then, would I speak in a manner not indistinguishable from that of urban central Canadians?
There are reasons for this. Perhaps the most important reason for this, the one that underlines the others, is that I'm glad not to speak that way.
Why? It's a non-standard version of Canadian English, not the variant that's spoken in prosperous and culturally not-quite-dominant urban central Canada. A week after I moved to Kingston in 2003, in fact, I finally realized that one thing that had been nagging at me was the fact that I was in a place where the people spoke the way that they do on Canadian television. They speak--we speak?--the variant of English that's the public face of Canadian English, the way that the people in power speak.
Prince Edward Island English? Not nearly so much. It's one of many non-standard dialects of English spoken in the Maritime provinces never mind the very unique English of Newfoundland. What marks these dialects? Unusual accents, unusual vocabularies, and their speakers' association with poverty and isolation and a general lack of cultural capital outside of very narrow bounds, like the folkloric or the anti-modern generally. Take the English of Tignish, in the region of West Prince westernmost Prince Edward Island.
Tignish has one of the most distinctive location–specific accents and original eastern Canada. It is often etymologically described as a blend of English, French, and Scots/Scottish English, and there are many actual English words that possess a unique alternate definition in Tignish, such as "slack". Some of the time a comma, and the word "too" is added after some terms (i.e. "slack, too") to provide emphasis. While English–speakers in nearby towns such as Alberton and O'Leary have an accent and dialect similar to many other communities across the Maritime provinces, Tignish dialect is often described independent from this dialect, and is sometimes not even comprehensible by non–locals.
It's worth noting that the people of West Prince with their English are the subject of jokes told by other Prince Edward Islanders, much like the "Newfie jokes" told about Newfoundlanders, often founded in a genteel-soundingbigotry about these strange people who seem to be generally incapable and stupidly literal-minded, at least in part because they don't speak "proper" English.
I'm not at all sure that other Canadians really distinguish that much between Newfoundland English and a similar-sounding Prince Edward Island English, at least insofar as these speakers' being able to be taken seriously. I quite like being taken seriously. So, at least in large part because of my very strong interest in things and cultural products and events outside of Prince Edward Island, perhaps because of the tendency of women and gay men to have their speech conform with standard norms, and perhaps because a Charlottetown that's home to migrants from across Canada doesn't have as strong a traditional accent as Tignish, I speak something pretty close to standard Canadian English and, I believe, am taken seriously. There's a few people who joke with me about lobsters and potatoes and Anne of Green Gables, I joke about the family of tourists ritually sacrificed every May to ensure a good tourist season and the death fight versus giant lobsters that all adolescent Islanders must do to demonstrate their right to live, and the (hopefully) low likelihood that I'll be taken as an unserious yokel is diminished accordingly, and I get to define myself the way that I want. In an ideal world it wouldn't be this way, but my relationship language-wise with the current unideal world works for me, too.
This sort of thing is common to every speech community, of course, with some accents and dialects being privileged about others. Penelope Eckart's 2005 paper goes into this phenomenon in detail and breadth. In smaller scales, think Received Pronunciation versus working-class language forms in the United Kingdom, say, or standard French against the langues d'oïl of northern France, or Putongua over China's regional languages. I'm sure that you can think of many other examples. In fact, that's what this [FORUM] post is about: what speech forms in your language community are low-prestige? Are they common or relatively rare? Are they diminish or remaining stable, seen as embarrassments or as representing a regional pride?
Fail Day - anybody else ever have one? So I woke up this morning to a beautiful, clear, warm, sunny day - which in November in Barrie, Ontario is a rare and wonderful thing. Had breakfast with my neighbour and did the laundry, all the while looking forward to going for a run. Got decked out in my "cool weather running" outfit and headed out along the Lakeshore downtown here looking forward to my favourite 10K route. 2K's into it I still hadn't caught my pace or breathing and was hot and tired. Decided to walk back home, take off the fuel belt & jacket and try again in the opposite direction along the trail beside the lake. 1K into that my chest was sore, my legs were tired, the cold wind was annoying me and I just could.not.get.into.it. Turned off the tunes, walked back home and curled up on the couch with my cuddling cat and slept for an hour. :(
Apparently it's supposed to be nice again tomorrow, if so I'll try again for just a 5K.
In case anyone cares to peek... ... I made a running blog today! I want to blog about all the runs I have from today til my marathon in May. Because I really like reading about my runs and now I can talk about them all I want without boring all my friends!
Question for the westerners Should I put "a majority Wildrose Alliance government running Alberta" as one of those contingencies I should be ready for or will they probably peak and decline before the next election?
[PHOTO] Some Thursday Leslieville photos Thursday afternoon with my friend Erin was spent on an enjoyable photobloggish stroll along Queen Street East through Leslieville, an east-end Toronto neighbourhood on the far side of the Don from the downtown that's slowly gentrifying but retains a pleasantly quirky individuality. Here's some of the trip's photos.
This Chinese puzzle cube is available for $C 8 at the fantastic Ethyl (1091 Queen Street East), a furniture shop with a very Mad Men theme that has an excellent owner-manager to boot.
I started my day with a nice, relaxed 10 mile run around North Point. The sky was crystal clear, the sun was bright, and the temperature was crisp -- exactly the sort of conditions I picture when I think about running in November, perfect. The first few miles I noticed some ROTC members also making use of the park road. It looked like some sort of training or test or something, there were cones every quarter mile and a guy with a stop watch. The rest of today will be spent doing some cleaning around the house, elevating my legs, and I might do another 3-4 miles in the early evening. Tonight I'm slow-cooking some BBQ ribs and drinking a lot of really good beer.
So what is everyone else up to today, training and otherwise?
I also want to wish a BIG GOOD LUCK(!) to all those runners who are racing this weekend, or otherwise going for some sort of PR! Swift thoughts your way!
Multimedia for the day: This is a stretch but it's got the word "November" in it. And <3 Regina Spektor <3
What this says to me is that the target audience isn't people like me but people in the environmental movement (both activists and passive supporters). Fair enough.
Whole Earth Discipline shatters a number of myths.
That should appeal to the contrarians. Here's hoping he diverts some money that would otherwise go to Superfreakonomics.
I do have one tiny quibble: Yes, we're in the middle of a massive wave of urbanization, yes, the climate does appear to be changing but I question the tense of biotechnology is becoming the world’s dominant engineering tool. Surely during the 10,000 years when farming and domestication were a dominant human activity biotechnology was our major tool? Entire continental ecosystems have been reshaped by humans with what are by our standards pretty basic methods of creating and encouraging lifeforms suitable to our needs. He's probably using the term in a narrower sense than I would.
Wouldn't it be fun to put Schroeder and Stross on a panel together to discuss the future of crewedspaceflight? Although ideally such panels should have two or three other panelists and I'm coming up blank on amusing ideas for the others. Not Eric S. Raymond.
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