Category: Uncategorized
Two Tickets to Trillium Country: A Brazen Apron Relocation
| February 4, 2013 | Filled under Motherhood, Uncategorized |
“I want a divorce,” my husband said, like he might as well have asked me to make some chicken fricassee for dinner. For a moment, the world stopped turning.
I looked up from my knitting needles, but just for long enough to see the validity of the statement behind his tired eyes.
You can’t blame the man. Having a relationship with me is sort of like living with a running addict who has Turret’s and believes all wounds can be healed with the proper application of cupcakes. We’d just been prolonging the inevitable since… oh probably that first stolen kiss in my office over a decade ago. We had a good ride. I don’t regret a minute of it.
After initial falling-to-pieces-of-life/grasping-at-lost-dreams phase, greatly supported by the occasional consumption of valium and frequent sobbing on the phone to, well, anyone who would listen, I decided I was determined to handle divorce with a proud, quiet grace. Of sorts.
There were plenty of options, of course. I toyed with the idea of alcoholism (but it isn’t Paleo), the 20-year-old neighbor boy, a team of cut-throat lawyers, reconciliation, ultra-marathons, and pretty much anything other than the ominous reality of: Reality.
So much for grace – months later I still go blubbering through enough tissues to be single-handedly responsible for the rise in Kleenex stock prices. I’ve learned a lot of things in that time though: Not the least of which is the fact that hemorrhoid cream takes the puffiness out of eyes and that the worth of a good water-proof mascara should never be under-estimated.
Now at the threshold of A Whole New Life, the possibilities seem limitless. If you could wake up one day and do ANYTHING you wanted, what would you do?
Me, I’d move to the Rockies. I’d pack up my kitchen toys, my bike, and my kid, and I would high-tail it to the trees and trails that were my childhood memories and my adult solace.
And that’s exactly what we’re gonna do.
My flat here in Germany currently looks like a Joseph Beuys exhibition only I have fewer moldy sausages in display cases. Boxes upon boxes are sorted and labeled. Pictures in frames lean against walls. And my failure to dust with any sense of thoroughness is shamefully obvious. I swear I haven’t seen the tops of some of these shelves since I hung the buggers.
Trying to pack your life into the equivalent of ten extra large boxes is not easy. Particularly when your offspring is convinced that her entire livelihood relies on the much nurtured bond she’s developed with no less than 13,583 stuffed animals. Which all have names like Pie Star and Bluesy and LateeshaDeVonne (that one must be from New Orleans). But still, Mama, I would DIE if I could not have seven thousand tattered cat stuffed animals.
Divorce guilt made room for about fourteen. Cats. We still have the rest of the animal kingdom to get through. I tried to explain that the import of Chinese-manufactured stuffed animals in the US is big business and that, as she now had to get a paper route to afford her consumption of cereal, she could get some new faux fur friends. She wasn’t having it though and thus most of my packing looks like Hoarders for Toddlers.
I swear to God, if a single freaking Kinder Egg surprise toy makes it into one of those boxes, Mama’s gonna lose what’s left of her frail sanity.
In early March we’ll be setting up our new digs. It will look a lot like our old digs except we can hang unicorn pictures wherever the heck we want, and I can finally realize the full potential of my love of throw pillows. I’m gonna furnish my whole damn house with throw pillows, like some Pottery Barn version of a harem tent. You can never have too many throw pillows. Unless you think you do, in which case, please send them to me.
Some things in our new life will be different though. B will wrack up frequent flyer miles like an international executive. Mama will have to tell her socially unacceptable jokes to house plants. Our appliances will be 120V. Our laundry basket won’t have boy cooties.
Some things will be the same. My daughter will be loved and raised by two caring parents who will teach her to appreciate Monty Python, vegetables, and German soccer culture. I will continue running trails and crashing my bike. I will blog about adventures gone awry (now about single-motherhood, middle-age dating faux pas, and bike trails I probably should not have taken my kid down).
We will still laugh and cry, love and hurt. We’ll still have tradition, home, and family. Christmas and birthdays will still come. We’ll still dream.
And the world will keep turning.
Marathons & Mechanics: Part I-The tale of a life changing run
| October 17, 2012 | Filled under Miscellaneous Prose, Patagonia, Uncategorized |
I’ve been running for over two hours and my face hurts. It seems a rather odd sort of place to be suffering when the last one hundred and twenty minutes have been spent running up hills, down hills, and battling the constant gust of Patagonian winds. Anyway, I haven’t noticed much of anything but the view. Because this land is proof of God.
I woke up this morning to see the sun pour pink flamingo colors over the jagged snow-covered peaks of the Torres del Paine. They stand before me in the cool dawn air like a surreal painting of nature. Surely, only chemicals and acrylic can produce this sort of iridescence. A blanket of gray clouds covers the mountains, as if they too are just waking from a slumber.
Torres del Paine. Photo: Chris Radcliffe
I have none of the race nervousness one would expect before a marathon. I am filled, rather strangely, with gratitude. For the next several hours, I’m going to run through the wilderness of Patagonia, ever approaching these spectacular mountains.
Despite the distraction of Mother Nature, some pesky thing in my head hurts and I apply my usual approach of self-medicating with ibuprofen. I’m aware the levels are reaching near-toxic, but I haven’t had a cell phone signal in days and the closest thing to a doctor out here is probably the Guanaco shepherd, so I figure a little anti-inflammatory will get me through whatever the pain is. Added benefit: No sore knees during the run.
Patagonian International Marathon starting line. Photo: Chris Radcliffe
The starting line is deep in the Torres del Paine National Park, located at the edge of the Andes in Chilean Patagonia. In what is seemingly the middle of nowhere, a band of Lycra-clad runners are trotting themselves warm at the edge of a glacial lake. There is a generator-powered stereo blaring warm-up music, audible only when the wind carries it in the right direction. The gravel roadside has been decorated with orange Gatorade flags – the only other indicator that perhaps some sporting event is going to take place.
Marathon Man Stefaan Engels. Photo: Chris Radcliffe
There are interviews around us and conversations. War stories of previous marathons are being swapped. People are openly wondering what the hell to wear. In Patagonia, you can have all four seasons in a five-minute period. It is barely above freezing, but the wind is howling (a light breeze by Patagonian standards), and the clouds can’t seem to decide whether they’ll rain or snow or just ominously hover. We make our way to the starting line. I stand near the back with Marathon Pop Star, Stefaan Engels. He’s run something like eight hundred marathons, but for a moment I thought I saw the twinkle of nervousness in his eyes. Because no matter how many times you may have run a marathon, there is no marathon like Patagonia.
The course map is deceivingly pleasant. Some rolling hills, winding past a few lakes, over a few creeks, and toward the foot of the overwhelming gray towers of the Torres. The race profile shows some elevation changes, including a rather sadistic climb from kilometer 21 to 31. Considering that speed bumps hurt late in a marathon, I’m emotionally prepared for the potential agony of those late hills.
There will not be spectators beyond the excited vans of journalists cruising up the road. And of course, the herds of Guanaco that graze disinterestedly. And a few puma who are eyeing a potential meal shrouded in Gore-Tex.
I watch the leaders round the first bend ahead of me, led by Australian Luke Myers. Not far behind him is fellow journalist, Sean McCoy. I try hard to hate Sean, because he just gave up smoking and started running, and he is planning his marathon debut with something like a 3-hour finish. In white basketball shorts and a gait resembling the hurried scurry of a fast bug, he pulls away with the leaders.
Sean McCoy in runner's flight. Photo: Chris Radcliffe
I pace myself behind Marathon Man and the little group that has formed around him. He runs steady and with as little resistance as possible – cutting all corners efficiently, his feet barely coming off the ground. That’s a dangerous step out here, because the “road” is a mine-field of rocks too large to be called gravel, but too small to be called boulders. I think to myself that the finish line will be a graveyard of toenails.
I would have tried to get serious about my run, but all I could do was gasp in amazement every time I rounded a bend, or summited an incline. Along the course I heard the same thing again and again: Wow.
Nature has been kind enough to load our planet with all kinds of wonders and beauties, but Patagonia has its own special quality of awe sprinkled with harshness that makes it unique. The trees grow crooked and close to the ground, bullied for years by the relentless winds. Valleys with flowing water seem almost lush, but are soggy peat bogs that will swallow shoes (or sheep). The turquoise lakes are blown by winds from the ice fields, leaving them frothy and bitterly cold. The rolling foothills of the Andes are scattered with islands of brown rocks that sing like sirens when the wind whips around them. In the distance, the violent walls of the mountains appear like a gate one may not pass.
The Course vs. The View. Photo: Chris Radcliffe
When the sun comes through the moving clouds, it almost feels warm. In the first half of the race I am chatting lightly in basic English or haphazard Spanish as I run along. I can’t even remember the word for run, but I replace all my intentions of a supportive statement with a wide grin and a thumbs-up, which I assume is the international sign for “you’re lookin’ awesome!”
As the hours wear on, I feel my face more than my feet. Something is wrong but I can’t tell what so I try to ignore it. I pass the only other runner in Vibrams and he looks rather miserable. The terrain here is essentially the most difficult you could find for this type of minimalist shoe. I’ve already kicked a few rocks into my ankles and dropped a few F-bombs for the wildlife to hear. I pass the half-marathon start and see friend and colleague Pete Clayden laying in the dirt and taking pictures. It’s the closest thing to a spectator we’ve had the entire race. It is also the start of a climb that will last more than 10 kilometers.
The start of the big incline. Photo: Chris Radcliffe
It doesn’t matter though, because the higher we get, the better the view. I’ve been running alone for a while now, but I can see people ahead and behind me, moving like florescent game pieces down the road in the distance. I am left with nothing but the sound of my feet on the gravel and the ceaseless blowing of the wind. It blows me left and right. It blows me up hills and down hills. It comes in gusts that nearly lift me off the road. Sometimes I think I could just put on a cape and fly to the finish line. By kilometer 35, I am rather wishing I could.
Marathons are, as a rule, hard. This marathon is, however, in a category of its own. Between the wind, the extreme weather changes, and the terrain, training to run 42 kilometers is not enough. One must train in hills, on dirt and rock, in rain and shine, in snow and mud, possibly while trying to outrun a puma.
Patagonia. Runner: Sean McCoy. Photo: Chris Radcliffe
The last seven kilometers feel like twenty. The road gets rougher, then changes direction and the wind hits us directly from the front, sometimes bringing runners to a complete halt. People look tired. Whenever I feel tired, I lift my chin and stare up at the Torres. They are right in front of me now, forming the stone walls of a half-circle, snow falling down the steep crevices between pillars.
The start of the 10K. Photo: Chris Radcliffe
I can smell the post-race BBQ wafting down the valley from the finish line. Then I can hear the thumping of music, then the cheers of onlookers. At last I see the end, a firewood-lined path through a field that leads to the final banner. I’m tired and dusty, thirsty and hot or possibly cold. My legs want to stop, but for a brief moment I am sad that it will be over, because I feel like I could run toward those mountains all day long. I cross the finish line with a sigh of completion and turn to face the snowy peaks behind me.
And I think to myself, “This was the most beautiful run of my life.”
Running in Patagonia. Photo: Chris Radcliffe
Sometimes a run is beautiful because you feel strong. Sometimes it’s beautiful because you find yourself winding through trees in autumn colors. And sometimes it is beautiful because it makes you keenly aware of the blessing of life. This was a run of gratitude – gratitude to my body for allowing it, gratitude to nature for providing it, and gratitude to all the circumstances and people involved in creating such an incredible experience.
Luke ended up winning the race by a long shot – his bright blue eyes pioneering the way several minutes ahead of the pack. Sean came in third in his fast-young-whipper-snapper category. As for me, I made a lot of new friends in the middle of the pack and kept all of my toenails.
My face, on the other hand, nearly exploded after tinkering by a gloveless man humming to mariachi music on the radio at four in the morning. Coming soon: Part II – The pirate tooth and other South American urban legends.
.
Marathons & Mechanics: The official report coming soon…
| October 2, 2012 | Filled under Uncategorized |
Coming soon: One Patagonian marathon. One visit to the Chilean tooth mechanic. Two days on a morphine drip. Just another South American adventure…
Photo: Chris Radcliffe
Anesthesia for Beginners: Phones, bikes, and things you should not operate
| August 23, 2012 | Filled under Uncategorized |
Once upon a time, doped up on enough post-operation narcotics to numb at least a third of the Burning Man population, I rode my bike through Hamburg. It started out as a trip to the clinic for what I was sure was a little operation. Like with most things in life, I was overly optimistic about the whole procedure, because when a doctor tells me it will take 45 minutes, I assume I’ll be at the track for speed work by six. And when I asked if I would be able to exercise again “soon” (thinking at six), I guess he thought I meant like… in a few weeks.
“Aber klar!” he said, then continued explaining the procedure to me in German that I apparently understood none of.
If I had understood something, I would have arrived more prepared. Like with pants. Instead, I showed up a week later, pedaling my bike to the hospital in a pair of checkered shorts and flip-flops. Upon arrival, people sort of poked and prodded me, then an angel of a nurse gave me a happy pill (all dispensers of happy pills are angels). Between that and the breezy gown they dressed me in, I was feeling rather like I was on holiday.
They rolled me into an operating room and plugged some machines into me. It felt rather… cold and sterile and sort of… serious because there were a lot of people with face masks on. I was starting to think everything looked rather excessive and I ought to maybe inquire, when a nurse told me I should count backwards. And just as I realized they actually intended to put me OUT, I was actually out (German vocabulary of the day: Vollnarkose = general anesthetic).
Somehow, I had been under the impression that I’d get some laughing gas, a Valium, and maybe a juice box to sip on.
When I woke up some indeterminate number of hours later, I completed the mandatory urination like a champ then put my shorts back on. I was too lit to even notice or care that my legs were covered in that yellow iodine stuff, in fact I thought it looked like a had a good tan, not a very bad case of diarrhea. I wobbled around my room until a nurse found me and asked me who was picking me up.
“I’ve parked my bike right outside!” I blurted as I walked into the food tray, sending it and thousands of peas flying through the room.
For some reason, this seemed to alarm the nurse because she tried to tell me I could not ride my bike home. I carefully explained, while eating peas off the floor, that the doctor said I could walk right outta here as soon as the surgery was done. She said it was too late for that, I’ve been sleeping for eight hours. Note: The night before general anesthesia, a Caipirinha binge is not recommended.
The nurse flat out refused to let me leave on my bike. She said I had to call someone and leave in a car. One that I was not driving. I said, “No problem! I will just call someone.” And then I made a pretend phone call to my mom right in front of her. I’m not sure what tipped her off – the fact that I spoke German to my phantom mother or the fact that I got a phone call half way through the conversation, but the nurse still wouldn’t let me go. She called my emergency contact (my roommate) and told her I needed to be escorted home and that I could not leave alone.
My roommate apparently didn’t have the whole story either because she showed up on HER bike. I was dancing to the elevator music in the waiting room and sipping on that juice box when she came in and asked what in God’s name I had all over my legs.
“I got an operation today!” I said, breaking into a Foxtrot. By this time, my recently operated upon legs were starting to swell from all the commotion, taking on the appearance of a medical anomaly right out of a National Geographic photograph. My rather concerned roommate suggested a chat with the nurse when I ushered her out the front doors in a series of defensive dance moves that would have impressed Beyonce.
Once outside, I whispered that she should quickly retrieve my bike without making a scene and roll it around the corner and out of the sight from the receptionist. At this point, I made about fourteen phone calls to miscellaneous acquaintances informing them of my post-op status: The secretary at the office, a sales-rep I’d never met, my mother, an ex-boyfriend or two, my mother again. The list went on (as my cell phone memory would later prove). I left more than one voice mail stating “Whassup? I just got cuttup!!!”
My roommate returned with my bike and asked who I was talking to. ”I didn’t call anyone,” I said. ”How did you know I was here?”
Now might be a good time to explain the gross motor skills necessary to direct an over-sized antique Dutch bike weighing no less than the Titanic and steering with as much efficiency. This bike was one of those purchases of intent – as in I was intent on purchasing it regardless of how impossible it was to ride. When the bike was originally manufactured, the Dutch had a record national average height of seven feet, and my squatty Norwegian frame barely reached the pedals. This led most of the general public to assume I was commuting to my job at the circus, where I performed as an over-sized midget. As awkward as actually pedaling the bike was, the braking process only made it worse, requiring initiation approximately a half-mile before complete halt. The captain must also sustain a constant bell-dinging at high-frequency to warn traffic and pedestrians should the distance have been underestimated.
It was upon this steel horse I mounted for the rush-hour journey home. I say “mounted” but I mean something more like clambered because it took about three attempts and eventually a boost from the roomie before I was actually sitting on it, clinging to a light post with which I may have had an intimate moment. My roommate came rolling by and told me to follow her and she’d lead us home. Easier said than done.
Hamburg’s population of 1.7 million not only all ride bikes, but from behind they all look like my roommate riding her bike home. A bike would go whizzing by and I’d try to catch up – no easy feat when your weave requires you to cover twice the distance – and then suddenly my roommate would appear from behind. I was pretty sure she has some sort of cycling magic.
Occasionally alarmed strangers would look at my bizarre state of wobble and color and I would try to comfort them with a nod and a simple informative statement of , “Dysentery.” This meant most of the light posts were left for me to lean on and intersections were cleared for me to ride ahead.
In this fashion of slalom and dodging, we made our way through the neighborhoods until my surgeon saw us at a traffic light. I tried to outrun him but the Mercedes I’d just paid for was faster, and he caught up and insisted that we push our bikes the rest of the way home. By the time I got home, my shorts were operating as compression tights for my elephantiasis legs. I declared this curable by ice cream, as ice creams cures all things, but I was passed out in my bed before I got any. I’m not sure if I actually fell asleep or my roommate took a frying pan to me just to be sure I stayed down.
In any case, I’m not sure where the bruise on my head came from. Or what exactly I said to the mail room guy when I called him, because from then on, always delivered my post personally with a wink and that creepy crooked grin of a guy who might know what you sound like when you try to have phone sex in German.
Tribal Warfare and CrossFit: The BA Explores Alternative Fitness Approaches
| August 12, 2012 | Filled under Uncategorized |
I have this sort of elitist obsession with avoiding things that I determine are too trendy. I know it’s ridiculous because… honestly… who can really be original these days except for a few starving Bohemian artists on Etsy? However, it’s the only thing that has kept me from ever seeing Titanic, reading those damned sexless vampire novels, and feeling compelled to say things like “I’m so PUMPED about that Flying Fran I just did!!!” I never want my workouts to potentially be confused with an LSD tab or an easy girl at a frat party.
Right now, the only thing more trendy than CrossFit and Paleo nutrition is planking on miscellaneous landmarks, and since I’d done that, I figured resistance was futile.
I was not a complete rookie. I once went to a CrossFit gym with my friend in Redmond, Oregon. They told me to jump up on a big box and do some push ups, so I stuck a two by four on the ground and laid on it. Then I watched a bunch of petite women bench the equivalent of a double-wide trailer with a carport, so I faked injury and sipped water in the corner. My brief but rather intimate relationship with a kettle ball that day led me to a three week hiatus from coffee because I could not lift my cup past my elbows without a complicated system of ropes and pulleys, and sitting was out of the question anyway.
For those of you who are not yet exposed to CrossFit but wondering what sport is awesome enough to allow the pretentious positioning of a capital letter in the middle of their name, a few observations that may or may not be representative:
- CrossFit is for real. This is no Jane Fonda in spandex and legwarmers people. These are real men and women. Sure, they’re wearing compression socks, but they probably just threw a tractor tire across the parking lot, so it’s safer not to judge them.
- CrossFit turns librarians into that dude from Indiana Jones who wants to eat the beating hearts of victims – or at least bad ass enough to do it if it were on the WOD. 5 times in 15 minutes.
- CrossFit expands your awesomeness lexicon by at least 50 terms, including: PSYCHED! ANIMAL!! OWN THAT! and much more. Yes, all capitalized and always with at least one exclamation point. Followed by high-fives and knuckle-bumps. Because…
- At CrossFit, everyone is your fan. You are awesome. Everyone is psyched for you. You’re an animal. Now pull that damn laden sled across the parking lot like you OWN IT!!
This place is not for people who need mirrors. It’s a place for people who want to feel their potential. And there’s some sort of juju synergy that happens, some kind of humanoid gene of success that is triggered, and a tribe of collaborative animalistic back-slapping is formed. And I want to stay there because it feels nice and warm and safe. At first.
Don’t be fooled.
Optimistic as I am, I show up at CrossFit Wiesbaden because I met their owner at a bike race and he made a bunch of pleasant sounding references like “good time” and “so much fun” and “anyone can do it!” There was no mention of tractor tire lifting, sled pushing, or shirtless men running around with glistening abs. Obviously if he had just mentioned that last part, I would have been there months ago.
Gonna be just like Fenton the dog.
We warmed up with a brief jog, misleading me into a the belief that I had a chance of survival. Then reality showed its pretty face and I was left pumping iron with two women who consistently lifted the equivalent of fully grown livestock (which I assume is what they actually do on rest days). This was followed by a series of crazy things that seemingly have nothing to do with working out. Like throwing around concrete balls, flipping tractor tires, and pulling sleds across parking lots. It made me want to go Rocky and chop trees in Montana or something, then run down a deer for dinner. I think they actually have that WOD. It’s probably called Baggin’ Bambi.
I heard Stephen Glover (owner, in high school voted Most Likely To Climb A Rope with Car Strapped to Back) mention that it was a slow day. I assumed that meant only half the group would vomit and maybe a third would get nose bleeds. If they had gyms in medieval times, it would have been like CrossFit (minus the boils). In fact, I half expected to see some swords and skins on the wall, or at least some Scottish highlands bloke throwing bare-breasted women over his shoulder while log-running. And yes, CrossFit is that cool.
Overwhelmed by the moment and clan support, I hauled that rope in as fast as I could, and thrust that giant ball onto my shoulder no less than 18,000 times. By the time we were done, my muscles had turned into a sort of gelatinous mass of trembling fear. Humbled and impressed, I declared the next day exercise-free and food-plentiful.
The next day I couldn’t move. Rather, I could, but not without the defeated whimpering of a girl who owned it yesterday and is paying for it today. Those mountain biking legs of mine? Wrecked. Those marathon-running quads? Shredded. That climber’s back? Has about 15 new muscle groups and they all hurt. However, my testosterone levels have surged by no less than 40% and my Kong chest-beating form is greatly improved.
And I’m psyched. And I’m going back for more.
As soon as I can stand up straight again.
Fuel for Fun: Energy Bars from Things You Probably Have at Home
| August 5, 2012 | Filled under Uncategorized |
Ingredients, and the famous BA cookbook.
I have this sort of pet peeve about cooking. I should take it up with Jamie Oliver, because he does it to me every time I see one of those fabulous natural, simple looking spreads in one of his misleadingly basic-looking books. I am thoroughly disappointed when I find a tempting recipe only to discover that it requires at least 14 obscure ingredients, most of them obtained at a black market in Morocco from a man who runs guns.
So in my attempt over the years to make my own energy bars, I’ve tried various versions with miscellaneous cupboard debris, from oats to flax, leftover cereal to stale nuts,
Dry ingredients.
recycled bananas to black beans. This recipe is a sort of basic guide to homemade energy bars and you can easily change out ingredients (I’ll provide some examples).
I started making my own bars back in the Vegan Years (also known as The Dark Ages), and now I make them because I like to be able to pronounce the ingredients of the foods I stuff in my pie hole when I am on a ride or run. Along with the challenge of making a bar that doesn’t turn to mush in a backpack or pocket comes the challenge of creating sustainable fuel sources – the right balance of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and minerals to keep a body moving. If you don’t know what this is, don’t worry, science changes it every year. This particular bar has about 200 calories per serving (for comparison, a PowerGel pack has around 100, a Clifbar has around 250).
The Recipe: Coconut Cranberry Bars
This is a sort of large grain salt that will not dissipate in your bar - it shows up late on the flavor palette and is delicious!
Dry Ingredients:
100 grams ground hazelnuts (or almonds or walnuts)
100 grams cereal flakes (corn, wheat, bran, etc.)
50 grams coconut flakes
80 grams cranberries
1 tsp Fleur de Sel
Wet Ingredients:
300 grams peanut butter
150 grams honey
25 coconut butter
Instructions: In a small pot, on low heat, melt wet ingredients together, stirring frequently until you have one gloriously sweet, gooey mess. Set aside. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Pour your warm goo over the dry ingredients and combine thoroughly. You’ll want a uniform sticky, clumpy mixture. Consistency is a trick in these bars (or they’ll fall apart) and it depends on what kind of flakes you use, how ground your nuts are, the peanut butter texture, and more. 
If it feels too dry or crumbly, crushing it down with a wooden spoon might help. If you need more moisture, use small amounts of melted peanut butter and honey.
Dump mixture onto a square pan or baking tray, cover with wax paper and flatten evenly. This is a good time to put a lot of pressure on and crush the flakes together to help bind the bars a bit. Form into a large square or rectangle and let cool. I do this outside or in the fridge until the bars are hardened (between 30 minutes and an hour).
Remove, cut into a size you like, and package.
Caught without an apron!
I pack mine in wax paper and plastic wrap. The wax paper keeps them from getting too soggy. These will keep for about two weeks in a fridge without a problem.
Some notes on ingredients: You can replace coconut butter with real butter, or if you prefer, just add more peanut butter. I use coconut butter as a nutrient-rich fat source and find it easy to digest while in motion. In general, you can replace the ingredients (dry or wet) with alternatives of a similar composition. Any dried fruit, oats instead of flakes (flakes make it crunchy and light), rice syrup instead of honey. If you want to add chocolate chips, these must be mixed in the dry ingredients and your wet mixture cooled before mixing, or the chocolate chips will just melt and spread. Experiment with what you have around the house, foods you like, and come up with your own delightful energy bar!!
Bikes don’t make good tents and other reasons to not get stranded in the wilderness…
| June 29, 2012 | Filled under Miscellaneous Prose, Uncategorized |
My dad is sipping coffee from across the diner table, an Oregon map in front of him. He hands it to me and says “When plans don’t pan out, the adventure begins.”
It doesn’t feel like an adventure yet. I’ve been sitting in a truck with a five year old for hours and if I hear Raffi sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star one more fucking time, I may drive off a bridge. We’re heading to Mt. Rainier in what is becoming an epic journey of gas station food bribery. It’s amazing what a kid will do for a bag of Cheetos.
The only bit of preparation: A photo I took of the lake trail map.
The weather on Rainier has turned and a storm is coming in. Anyone who knows mountains knows you stay off them in sketchy conditions. We’re sitting in this Eugene, Oregon diner trying to figure out what to do with two days of bad weather delays. We decide to head east and visit family, driving through Oakridge. This depresses me. I can’t just DRIVE through Oakridge.
Oakridge, Oregon is a little gem of a town. Population 3,300. Streets: 2. Trailer parks: 17. Trails: 500 miles of some of the best mountain biking in the country. I see cars laden with bikes as we head east. I have fantasies about telling B to just crack a window and lock the doors, Mama’s gonna ride for an hour. But I know if I leave her in the car, she’ll just eat all my camping food. As we pass more bikes and head into Oakridge, I can hear the tears of my ibis on the rack.
Then I see my dad waving me down. He’s pulled his motorcycle over and he’s got the map out again. He tells me to drive up to Waldo Lake, where he’ll hike with B and I can go for a little ride. You know, check out the trail for an hour. I should have known better.
The burnt forests on the north shore...
Waldo Lake is an alpine lake in the Cascade Range. At 1650 meters, it sits in some of the most picturesque landscape overlooking Mt. Bachelor, and surrounded by a 38 km trail. This is where the adventure begins because it is genetically impossible for me to ever go out-and-back. I cannot ride, turn around, and take the same trail back. There is some kind of physio/psychological defeat associated with turning around. It is 4 pm, I’m on my bike, and I’m going to try to tackle this loop in two and a half or three hours. The trail cutters I ask on the road tell me they haven’t cleared the south end of the lake yet, but it was not a bad year for tree falling. They were wrong.
The map made it look so small...
The lake, though beautiful, appears to be the breeding ground of the world’s most aggressive, giant form of mosquito. I cannot stop even to pick my bike up over logs without twenty of them attacking me. In fact, they are so numerous and insistent, it’s starting to freak me out, like some scene from The Birds. I hear them buzzing all the time.
I am pedaling as hard as I can through a burned forest landscape. It is like being on a different planet. The trail is pristine, except the tree fall. The trees are like standing gray needles, the forest dead but somehow alive as new grass begins to grow. Determined to get around the lake, I throw my bike over and under logs as fast as I can, pedal through creeks, and crank up the hills. It is perfect and I can’t stop smiling and catching mosquitoes in my throat.
Which is how I first realize that my Camelbak is actually not full of water, but weighed down by bike tools and a rain jacket and a single sports gel. Apparently some small five year old has been sipping on my bag.
Lots of water crossings due to... snow melt, although it appears not much snow had actually melted.
I think it is not a problem because there’s lots of water here but I underestimate the mosquitoes, who try to carry me away if I even slow down to check a creek out.
I am making good progress despite the fallen trees, and all the while curving around the shore of this incredibly, pristine lake. The water is a cool turquoise and I can see right through it to the bottom. About half way in and an hour fifteen on the watch, I hit the first patch of snow. Critical decision point here. I made the wrong one.
Do you turn around and lift your bike over all those logs again or assume that the trail ahead is probably logged and a few snow patches are easy enough to walk through? You turn around.
I do not. Because, like I said, stupidity, determination, and at this point, dehydration, are making decisions for me.
The snow patches get deeper and longer. I’m pushing my bike more than riding it. And I am doing this at break-neck speed because I realize that the sun will set, that I don’t have a light, and that the mosquitoes will have sucked all the blood from my dad and daughter if I take too long. For a while I can still find the trail between snow berms. And then I can’t find the trail anymore.
Some of the last evening sun... and me thinking I still had time for pictures.
I’m standing in the middle of a thick forest. I can’t see the lake. I can’t see the trail. The last sign I saw said 8.7 miles to a bay. And I can’t stop moving because the bugs are eating me alive. Part of me wanted to cry and part of me wanted to eat some snow because I was hungry and thirsty.
I kept finding the trail again, looking for cut logs or any sign of opening, and working my way around the lake as fast as I could. Running in snow is hard. Running in snow in bike shoes is harder. Sometimes I’d fall in pockets up to my thighs. Some of the bridges were broken and bike and I had to wade through the waters. Sometimes I just rode through swamps and snow. Sometimes I crashed and got wetter. Sometimes I’d see enough trail to almost be able to ride, but a fucking tree would be in the way.
A brief section of rideable trail... I stopped here to drink water only later to notice the creek came from a still water pond of perfect Giardia breeding size. Great.
I came across a shelter that had a stove and firewood in it. And fourteen billion million trillion mosquitoes. I checked it for matches, found none, swore at my unpreparedness again, and told myself I’d have to camp there in the cold if I couldn’t find my way out tonight. Maybe I could build myself a firewood force field to ward off mosquitoes. Probably, I’d need a blood transfusion the next day.
Three and a half hours in, and having run the last eight miles or so, I finally ran up a snow bank and onto, hallelujah, a road. A paved, snow-free, easy to follow, ROAD. I pulled out my little picture of the area map and figured out where I was, and started to pedal. The sun was behind the mountain, dark clouds were looming, and it was getting cold. I thought it was just a mile or two to the parking lot… it was six. Plus the two miles I got lost in the wrong camp ground, because, as we have firmly established, I can get lost really good.
Exhausted, bruised, hungry and muddy I finally saw the truck in the waning light. I figured I’d see worried looks of relief and hear stories about rangers being sent out for me. Instead, B was showing Dad how to play games on the iPad, safely shielded from bugs in the cabin of the truck. My dad nonchalantly asks, “What time is it?” as if I’d just left, as if I had not just spent over four hours expending every bit of energy I had in a race against the dark, fantasizing about the cougars that were sizing me up for dinner.
I collapsed onto the front seat, a soggy, scratched pile of mosquito bites and mud, thinking, “And so the adventure begins…”
Birth of a Bike: A Story of Love at First Ride
| June 12, 2012 | Filled under Miscellaneous Prose, Uncategorized |
Bike Conception: When certain parts have to come together at the right time and the right place to actually form a bike.
I am standing in the kitchen making my husband his favorite meal and batting my eyelashes so much it’s making me dizzy. My husband is a smart man, and it’s going take more than a few logical arguments to convince him that what would be really good for our marriage right now is if I bought a new bike.
No really, bikes make everything better.
If you’re a mountain biker, or any kind of biker, bikes are sort of like babies. You may have been fine without one, or fine with the one you’ve got, but some unknown force compels you to need one, a new one, another one.
She said, "All those things have to go on this?
They are different from babies insofar as you have to sell a kidney outright to pay for a bike, whereas children bleed your money out of you slowly. Until they want bikes too.
I had been looking for a bike for months and reading bike magazines like porn, including drooling on the pages and groaning. I think my husband was getting jealous as I eagerly flipped pages in bed. I promised him that if I had a new bike, not just any new bike, but THIS new bike, things would change. I would love him more. The sex would be mind blowing.
Greasing things up. Strangely, I did not need much instruction here.
That last part did the trick.
I had been trying to find my dream bike here in Germany but was greeted by the standard German customer service that repulses most people from ever buying anything. This is a sort of magic force in Germany, similar to the one that discourages anything but sausage and bread from the plate.
Germans are so effective at repelling potential buyers from actually spending any money, they have managed to create the most stable economy in Europe. They act like it’s the result of financial planning and prudence, but really it’s just bad customer service. Conversations with bike shops would go like this:
"Take a picture of me with a tool, so it looks like I helped!"
Me: So do you sell bikes?
23 year old stoner on a scooter: Uhhhhh.
or
Me: Can I test ride one of your bikes?
Shopkeeper: Not unless you buy it first.
Me: Then it wouldn’t be a “test” really, would it?
Shopkeeper: Go avay, you are not gut enuff to be ze customer.
I was getting ready to give up on my search when I read that there was a shop called tri-cycles in Wiesbaden selling ibis bicycles. I rang them up only to discover that owner/manager
Stefan: Standard pose - Bike Building for Peace.
Stefan Hartrampf was like a German version of your neighborhood California bike shop owner. He was even… friendly.
Days later I arrived at the Wiesbaden main station to meet Stefan who was awaiting me with a cup of coffee in his hand and an ibis Mojo behind him. The coffee wasn’t for me (room for improvement there, Stefan), but coffee drinkers are sympathetic. I decided right away he must be trustworthy if not a kindred spirit. He gave me the scenic tour of the beautiful city that his gallery calls home, and then we hit the trails on the sweetest bike I ever rode.
One test ride on the ibis and I was in love. This crisp, nimble bike had a geometry that simply fit. The power transferred so immediately with each downstroke that I had the feeling I flew up the mountain. How would it handle coming back down?
If the ibis Tranny is anything, it is competent.
As it starts looking like a bike, I start getting more excited about riding it...
That’s what makes it such a versatile bike: Light and stiff for cranking up hills, agile and responsive for ripping down trails.
A few weeks later Stefan called to tell me all my parts were in, and if I wanted, we could build my bike together. When I arrived, all the parts were laid out on a table like an organized puzzle. I recalled the time I took a bike apart only to discover all the parts fit in a shoe box and I’d never be able to put it back together again. Fortunately, tri-cycles knows how to build bikes better than I.
One Saturday afternoon and several cups of coffee later, I had learned a lot about carbon
Done. Now where's my helmet?
frames and shifting cables, and Stefan had learned a lot about English swear words. Once just an idea, then a few parts, and suddenly a bike was born.
Which of course we had to take for a ride. It’s all part of Stefan’s incredible customer service package: cappuccinos and test rides. And he gets something that few shops seem to understand: It is not just about buying a bike – it’s about buying happiness. It is about knowing where your bike came from, how it fits together, and why you chose a specific frame and components. It’s about creating the foundation for miles of dream riding.
Bike + Dirt = Happiness
Apparently, the ibis was a good choice. Every time I race it, it rides me straight to the podium. It is the perfect bike for me, with the perfect fit and the right components for my style of riding. These are things you can only discover with time, experience, and a bike shop that knows their product.
And every time I ride it, I feel like calling up tri-cycles and thanking them for helping me build not just any bike, but my bike.
God help me if I try out road cycling… I only have one kidney left to sell. But I bet it would be worth it.
God, and Other Things I Like to Play
| April 19, 2012 | Filled under Miscellaneous Prose, Uncategorized |
It is creeping up on midnight and the residue of my over-stuffed day is still dripping down my face in the form of impossibly permanent mascara. I throw back the covers of the bed, and adorning nothing but the sexiest of flannel pajamas with a toothpaste smudge, flop with a thud onto the mattress. My capacity for conversation is comparable to an amoeba in a vegetative state. The Man peers up from his I-Read-Smart-People-Books Helmut Schmidt biography and casually announces the following:
“Did I tell you I believe in God now?”
His timing is impeccable, but I’ve known this since he interrupted a perfect appetizer with a marriage proposal.
A little background information on The Man. He attended the Technical University of Berlin and got some smarty pants degree in space ships or interstellar propulsion or star mechanics or something. Prereq: Being an atheist. He grew up so close to socialist Germany, he’d be asked to pass the toilet paper under the stall to the commie side (and as we know, all commies are unbelieving heathens). The last time he went to church, he was probably in utero. And back when we were dating (in the kitchenette at work mostly) and still interested in the ideals of each other, he very clearly told me that we’re all dust and matter and return to dust and matter in the end. God, he said, is just a crutch. Or something like that.
Now, he explains as I begin drooling on my pillow, he believes in God because otherwise the whole universe would really just be pointless. (I’m thinking “like this conversation” but I’ve been married just long enough to know we’re not supposed to say our thoughts out loud.) Meanwhile, I am trying to understand why the existence or non-existence of a god makes the universe more or less pointless. At midnight. In my pajamas.
Of course, I’m a good wife, so I throw myself at this new challenge like any good partner would. First I got to be the mid-life crisis, now I get to accompany The Man through his spiritual infancy and development. If neither of those things land him in hell, then nothing will.
The J Man: Known coffee connoisseur had the wisdom to understand that sometimes even forgiving required a little extra motivation.
So I’m taking applications from religious groups so that he might expand his spiritual horizon. It’s fantastic because usually I’m turning away those Mormons and Jahovahs and Scientologists from the front door with warnings that I have Turrets/Leprosy/Compulsion to Expose Myself. Generally I do this while swearing and pretending I just lost my thumb in my bra. Apparently, some people just aren’t worth saving. But now I’m going to welcome them in and wait to tell them all that stuff until they have a fresh cup of coffee (which, by the way, I’m not wholly convinced is not a deity itself [double negative, I'm from Idaho]).
Obviously, while I want to support his philosophical inquest here, mostly I want to direct him toward a religion from which I would benefit. On this matter, I’m a little torn.
- Mormons have a lot going for them: That whole multiple wife thing has some serious perks. Just as long as I’m not the house cleaning wife. I want to be the cooking wife and the shopping wife. Con: Coffee isn’t in the cards. That’s a deal breaker for me.
- Catholics are just pagans in disguise: What with all that ritual, costume, and icon worship, they are quite possibly the funnest religion out there. Con: Orgies less popular than with the pagans.
- Scientologists: An impressive roster of followers. Con: They’re obviously crazy.
- Jahovahs: No birthdays? WTF?
- Buddhists: Weird haircuts.
- Toaists: Good poetry.
- Jewish: Bagels. Need I say more.
The further I consider, the more confused I become. Try as I might, I cannot find a religion that supports the copious consumption of coffee, the worship of the housewife, and the generous sharing of all credit cards.
So I said, “Honey, now that you’ve come to this conclusion, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you and it might come as a surprise. I am god.”
It was worth a try.
Spanish for Skeptics: How to linguistically humiliate yourself in any circumstance
| January 30, 2012 | Filled under Miscellaneous Prose, Patagonia, Uncategorized |
I am pretty sure my Spanish teacher believes in magic. Which is why he has one of those impossibly long names like Luis Daniel de la Burrito de Pollo del Casa con Quesa. You never meet a person with a simple name, like Bob Smith, who believes in magic.
When I was looking for someone to teach me Spanish, I had few requirements: The person must know a plethora of swear words so that I may accurately articulate in an authentic representation of my personality, and they should pretend to be very impressed with my progress, no matter how limited. For this, I pay a small fortune. Actually my kid’s college fund because she said she’s going to be a tiger when she grows up and tigers don’t need to go to Ivy League school.
I should have known something was amiss the first time Luis Daniel de la Bodega del Tequila de Rio Grande asked me if I had done my homework. I don’t pay the equivalent of a Saudi princess’ dowry so that I can do homework. For this price, I could have a Spanish chip implanted into my brain. For the first three lessons, I tried to impress him with my vocabulary of cocktail ingredients and Taco Bell drive-thru negotiations. It failed and I left each class with haphazard conjugations of verbs and the ability to request the next bathroom/rescue helicopter/posta medica (uh, three things not as related as they appear here).
Somewhere along the way we had one of those Spanish get-to-know you conversations. I came across as a wholesome American girl because I am linguistically incapable of saying anything true about myself in Spanish (except my propensity for tequila consumption shines through). I did come out with “yo soy caliente” which I was promptly informed is considered the standard hooker greeting on the streets of Mexico City. At least I know that if I run out of money, I will have the language skills to make more. During this unwitting conversation about the state of my libido, I learned that el Senor likes to paint and I was glad to know we had something in common besides our height.
And then things got interesting.
El Senor likes to paint bodies. I don’t mean portraits. I mean bodies. My respect for him jumped from 5’3″ to 6’1″ in less time than it took for me to recall that Jerry Garcia bush-as-beard image I can never erase from my brain. I’ve seen some far-out body painting in my day, and not just at the Rainbow Barter Fair in Eugene, Oregon (where 50% of the visitors wear paint, and the others just wear piercings and tattoos). But upon further inquiry I was informed that we were not discussing the sort of painting that puts a pair of airbrushed jeans on Heidi Klum. Suddenly, a string of descriptive adjectives came flying across the table – word combinations that remind me of my spiritual infancy. Like,
“Mind body connection”
“Collective consciousness”
“Spiritual oneness”
“Intuitive healing”
and the one I fear most:
“personal growth.”
The latter sounds a little better in Spanish: crecimiento personal. But it likely has the same horrible connotations of introverted self-processing and other things I do my darndest to avoid. Which is why I am a virtual Peter Pan of emotional maturity, forever stuck at twelve years old and having a crush on the last boy that made eye contact with me.
So my Peruvian Spanish teacher is immersed in the world of juju stuff disguised with words like “holistic” and “sustainable.” Usually in some alternating combination. At first I was alarmed and concerned about this discovery. What if he tried to convert me or encouraged spiritual growth? Or worse… what if he convinced me to go to a yoga class?!
My concern was exacerbated by our lesson on the six senses.
I thought I heard wrong. There are only cinco sentidos. Unless you consider the Latin American ability to dance a sixth sense for which we have no English word. But my Spanish teacher conjugated it for me:
yo intuyo
tu intuyes…
I humored him and when he left I did some banal Western Civilization sort of thing like play Mah Jong until my eyeballs were sore.
Eventually I got around to doing some of that homework he had told me about. Apparently there is a theory that if you sit down and try really hard to learn something, you might actually learn something. And there I was sitting at my table writing down the future tense of something, my brain totally stuck on some question I had about infinitive verbs, thinking… I better not call and ask because technically I pay like five dollars a minute for his time… when…
He called me.
Creepy synergy brain wave stuff happened. El intuye. He’s pretty good. But if he was really good, I’d have learned Spanish telepathically by now.
