Unorthodox

I was this close to backing out of sprints with the running group. Motivation is melting these days, but in the end I joined them and had a great run. I overdressed out of fear of feeling chilled, but when pratice was over it was cold enough for the jacket that had been laughably extraneous an hour earlier. It wasn't the easiest workout - 2(600m x 4) - but it was mercifully short, and in no time we were stretching to finish off the workout, and then I was pedalling home in the dark, no bike lights and tons of traffic, gritting my teeth and hoping for the best.

Along the way, I rode by the house where in summer guys linger on the concrete step and smoke sheesha. The air is perfumed with apple tobacco, sweet and unusual to me, fooling me into believing I am elsewhere for a quick second.

This summer in Hamilton I sampled an unorthodox ice cream flavour created by a girl with an ice cream machine and a dream: white chocolate, vanilla and apple. My tongue continually stumbled upon tiny apple pieces buried within the creamy white chocolate. A heavenly combination.

peanut butter cup

More rain this morning. Droplets of rain clinging to my glasses. Hordes of delighted ducks squawking on the bike path. The pungent smell of wet dog lingering in the breeze....

I bought a different brand of protein powder and road tested it in a Peanut Butter Cup Protein Shake.

• 1 scoop of powder


• 1 banana


• heaping spoonful of good quality cocoa (Dutch processed is best. Yo, Richard!)


• a tablespoon of peanut butter


• a drop of sweetener (honey, agave, etc)


• splash of chocolate milk

This new powder is very dry and soaks up more liquid than previous powders I've used, so I added a lot of water while mixing. Cold coffee would probably also work very nicely.

Jiggles

I dig morning runs, but I can only manage to wake up in time once a week at best and I'm comfortable with that. But now, after being on vacation in a different time zone for the last few weeks, my body clock is sufficiently re-wound to allow - nay, force - me to run at a very early hour. So, being awake and soon out of bed, I get on with the chore of getting ready to run. While doing so, I can't stop thinking about the staggering amounts of cheese and beer, etc, I consumed in Europe, shudder, consider the resulting jiggles, grit teeth, and tie the running shoes a little tighter. All of this emotional and physical self-abuse to run in the rain. As this grey scenario illustrates, my mornings have been torturous.

Some items that jiggle naturally and beautifully are shiny tea jellies.

















The exact nature of these entities is a mystery to me, although I have grasped that they contain tea and possess a, uh, jelly-like consistency. Do jelly fish have a similar texture? I ask because I will never actually eat an animal that seems more like a thorny rose bush than a delicious sea morsel. (The vulnerability of the scallop is much more endearing, isn't it? They just lie on the plate, relieving you of any worry of retributive stinging.) Anyway, I was given these two jiggly lumps by my server at the Affinity veggie resto in Hamilton as the final course of my Texas-sized meal. My dinner mostly consisted of burdock root, which was new to me and as mysterious as I would later find the jiggling lumps. Breaded, deep-fried, swathed in a thick sauce and dotted with sesame seeds, the taste of the burdock root was overpowered, but who cares, that dish hit the spot.

Gateway

This morning I went for a run in the fog before work. The early hours are not as light as they were earlier in the summer; still, there will be even less morning light later, so just enjoy it, ok Atlantica? Today I ran as fast and hard as I could. Couldn't keep up with the cyclists.

Last night I took a yoga class. Our teacher has returned from teacher training with a new bag of tricks which made for a challenging class for my quads and shoulders and basically my entire body. It feels marvelous to be in touch with my muscles and endorphins after a winter of couch potatoism brought on by persistent knee pain and, let's face it, relationship-motivated laziness. Yep, I'll admit my relationship motivated me to do almost nothing. I like to push myself, which meant rising early Sunday morning to run while dude complained about my leaving him alone in bed. At times, when the sadness and disappointment ease up, I wonder what I ever saw in him.

I giggled this morning when I heard the radio guy call bacon a gateway meat. A gateway to what? Bacon double cheeseburgers? Bacon bras?

Sushi FAIL

We stopped at the Superstore in Espanola to pick up camping groceries and dinner. We bought some salads and trays of premade sushi.

Back at the car, T. ate one roll and laughed, saying this was the worst sushi she'd ever tasted! Gummy rice, weak wasabi, flavorless ginger. Looks delicious though, right? Maybe we ate the plastic maki models by mistake.

Pearls

I joined the running group for some speedwork today. On the path, weaving between other runners, walkers and cyclists, we ran 500m 8 times with 2 minutes of rest in between, and my speed fell within 4 seconds each time, proving not my speed but surely my consistency. How to run faster is a mystery to me, as are good poetry, love, and how pearls are created.



Actually, the origin of pearls is relatively easy to explain: at the center of each pearl is a speck of dirt that irritated the shell inhabiter, and their hard beauty is the cure; the coating. Maybe there is a center of difficulty to everything.

Forehead on the mat

Yesterday in yoga class I rested my forehead on my purple mat for the first time. I think the pose is called the pigeon, and I find it incredibly challenging because it wrenches apart my hips that someone, somewhere, crazy glued together while I was sleeping or looking the other way. As if the hip opening portion of the pose is not sufficient torture, the pose also requires you to bend forward over your twisted hips to test your spine and posture, too, and of course your patience. I've been attending a weekly class and the teachers always include the pigeon. Usually my forehead needs to rest on something higher than the ground, like my stacked hands or a block. Maybe my hips are finally giving in to the pressure to relax.

Love Advice #384: When love goes sour, steal the organic lemons from your ex-lover's refrigerator and make sweet lemonade.