Mishaps and other haps

I may have finally found a brand of tasty decaffeinated coffee that will sub as normal coffee for me. It’s organic, I think it’s free-trade, it’s water-decaf (not chemically decaffeinated), and various blends are available. I bought about 2/3 lb. of it last week to mix with the caffeinated coffee remaining in my freezer and so far am having good results with the half-half (or thereabouts) mixture.

I will use part of the mixture, buy and add more decaf to it, and slowly ween myself from the caffeinated version of morning happiness.

Most days I don’t have any caffeine in the afternoon, so morning coffee is my last holdout. If I can drink a cup or two of decaf coffee in the morning and water the rest of the day (with some milk and juice thrown in), that will be great!

I feel like I just had a three-day weekend or a vacation this weekend and I don’t know why. It was a very relaxing weekend for no particular reason.

I was actually pretty tired Friday evening. I did not stop at the gym and I did not go out to dinner with people at the Plaza. I went home, ate something, took a warm, soapy bath, and sort of napped.

Later in the evening, we finished up character creation for our Friday night game. People were kind of tired and it was late, so we didn’t actually start playing. I admired the many fish and snails growing in Mlitiagrl & Inle’s aquaria. The baby snails and fish are so cute! And Zuul has grown a lot, too. She is huge!

There were other good things about Friday. Something important happened.

Saturday was a total kick-back day. My roommate was out of town. I was up pretty early and took care of laundry and shopping before playing Orgrimmar Auction House … I mean WoW. Seriously, though, Montanni (lvl 27 now) put up his first auctions this weekend and they were more successful than I thought they would be. I could totally get into the vicious cycle of killing, looting, and auctioning– but I guess I should continue completing quests so that I will level and catch up with the rest of my party/guild.

In the evening, I demanded ice cream and Mlitiagrl, Inle, and PhysOrg all supported this plan, so we made a trip to Michael’s Frozen Custard before meeting up with The Deacon and watching Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy at my place. During the movie, I struggled to contain myself. BANANA SHAKE! SUGAR! WOO! Then I fell asleep.

Sunday there was a trip to the gym and more WoWing. Later in the day I headed over to the House of Luscher to visit one last time with Theta, who is currently (at the time of this post) on his way to O’Hare Airport to escape … I mean leave … the country.

Theta headed to bed around midnight GMT Monday morning (6 PM Sunday night for those of us in WI) and PhysOrg and I picked up Mlitiagrl and Inle, went to dinner at the Parthenon, and headed over to the King Club to hear the Voodoo Organist play. Yes, that was the organic experience. I noticed this morning that Mlitiagrl’s blog picks up from there, so I’m gonna wrap up for now.

Mlitiagrl teases me when I talk about organic foods– she is quick to point out that by definition, food tends to be organic

But foods produced according to standards set by the National Organic Standards Board are becoming more readily available at local grocery stores. Even Woodman’s recently expanded and rearranged their produce section, which now includes a bunch of organic stuff.

So I have been buying more organic produce lately when it looks delicious and isn’t beyond my budgetary means.

I have recently been buying organic milk about 50% of the time. I worry a little about growth hormones and antibiotics added to non-organic cattle feed (which becomes more concentrated in both milk and meat). Also, I have somehow become convinced that organic milk is creamier and tastier than non-organically-certified brands.

However, I didn’t know much about the standards set for organic milk in the U.S until yesterday. Apparently, although cows are supposed to have access to pasture land, it does not necessarily mean that they are free-grazing cows. It is acceptable for them to remain in stalls for long periods of time and actually do very little or no grazing, as long as they are fed organic feed. Grain-fed cattle tend to produce higher milk yields than those that primarily graze.

This is a little disconcerting. I did not become a vegetarian for animal ethics reasons, but it would be good to know that animals who provide food for humans are as well-treated as possible and healthy. I can’t see how it would be healthy to keep an animal in a stall and not let it out to exercise and graze.

So some folks are pushing for changing the organic standards for milk so that only milk from grazing dairy cattle (or those that primarily graze) can be considered organic.

I think I am in agreement with this idea, even though it might make it harder for farmers to make up for the difference in yield. Then again, organic milk in Madison is currently $5-6/gallon, compared to about $3 for non-organic milk. Seems like you could keep the prices the same and reduce your costs because you don’t have to buy as much organic feed …

It’s interesting how the definition of “organic” is still a work in progress.

(BTW, I was reading about this in the NY Times online– article should still be there if anyone is interested.)

Yesterday I was reading an article in the NY Times about the Promise Academy in Harlem and that kind of made my day.

One of the principles of the school is that nutrition is important for academic performance and general health and well-being and that kids should learn about nutrition by eating well at school.

Also, the school is trying to tackle the growing problem of childhood obesity in the United States by setting an example for other schools and educating parents about good nutrition.

While it’s pretty clear that nutritious school lunches are more the exception than the norm right now, it’s good to know that awareness is growing and that maybe, just maybe, kids will have better options in the future.

The new fall schedule is starting this week for my health club, so I picked up the schedule today and looked it over to decide what class to go to tonight.

I decided to go to the 5:35 class so that I would have an hour or so to do my routine on the equipment and generally warm up.

I sort of read the description of the class, but my eyes failed to process the following important words: “sports conditioning for all athletes.”

I think if I had seen the word “athletes” I would have just waited for the next class, which was a 6:40 Sculpt class. Maybe I need a new contact prescription. Or I should just simply read words when they are in front of my face.

I did notice that there were a number of young, fairly fit men hanging around while I was waiting for the class. A little bell went off in my head, but I dismissed that bell.

When we warmed up by running laps around the gym, I started having doubts about the class. We did not stop moving for the next hour.

Every sort of equipment was used for approx. three minutes. We were in and out of the classroom about three times in the course of the hour. In the classroom, we used the normal workout equipment in new, more vigorous ways. Outside the classroom, we ran up and down stairs, jumped hurdles, did a version of the tire run, and ran forwards, backwards, and sideways across the gym.

I would say that there were hurdles for me in that class. My legs have never felt so long and incapable of graceful motion in my life.

There were a few things I liked about the class. First, I sort of learned how to slide. For the uninitiated, you put soft, slippery booties over your shoes and slide left and right on a shiny, slidy mat. The goal is to propel yourself so that you slide all the way across the mat. We did this for three minutes a couple of times.

We also worked with weights and the fitness balls a little and I liked that.

However, overall it entirely kicked my ass. My ass had to stop its motion several times.

There is good reason for this, relating to that blurb I failed to read properly. I have been described with a variety of adjectives over the past 30 years, but never once has anyone used “athletic.”

Just got back from the farewell dinner for Theta at the Claddagh.

Mlitiagrl organized it and called people yesterday. She wisely realized that Sunday evening would probably be the last opportunity to get most of our friends together to have dinner with him before he leaves the country.

Eleven of us were there to eat, chat, drink, and generally hang out for close to three hours.

And he is leaving for England in a week. I still cannot believe we won’t have him around to game with, even though we have known this change was in the works for a year now.

He just bought a laptop to take with him and hopes to occasionally play WoW while in England, but working on that MBA (and dating English women) is probably going to suck up most of his time. I played WoW with him for 6-7 hours Saturday night and for a few more hours this afternoon, which was neat.

We will probably try to do a few more quests and things this week. A Settlers of Catan game has been organized for Wednesday night at our place.

When you know that you don’t have much time to spend with people, you realize how important it is to spend time. I was thinking about it again last week– time is really the most important thing you can give another person.

Harry Potter collection and special edition iPod

It’s a crying shame that I don’t have $550 to spend on a toy right now.

The health club activities are going well so far. I made it to the gym every day this past week except Sunday and I expect that I will be able to continue with this frequency for the forseeable future.

I guess it helps to have a monetary commitment– the fact I am spending money every month on this amenity will ensure that I use it frequently. There was a workout facility at my old apartment complex, but I did not use it regularly (in this case, the fee was not separate from my rent). Also, the health club rebate from my health insurance requires that I workout at least 60 times in a 6 month period (which is a pretty easy goal).

I had looked into yoga classes. My work even offers a discount for one of the yoga places in town. However, the health club was about half the price and offers classes that are included in the price of membership. So I think I made the right choice. Plus, one location is near work and convenient for weekday evenings and the other location is near home and convenient for weekends.

It also helps to have other people engaged in this activity. I have been mostly alone while working out so far, but I think that most weeks I will have more company and it is good to know that other people are working toward similar goals.

(Oh, noes! Cover yer eyes, omnivores!)

I.

Some days, the food is worth writing home about. I’m not sure whether that means it is really excellent, or if I am just used to expecting less when I don’t bring food from home for lunch. Anyway, today was one of those days. The salad bar at work was so happy! Unfortunately, I did not discover this until I had picked up something else, so I had a small salad, rather than CONSUMING THE ENTIRE SALAD BAR!

Fresh cherry tomatoes and chickpeas TOGETHER was neat because I usually don’t expect both. However, there was tabouli + white bean salad + pineapples and melons! All in one day! The salad bar may never be this great again!

I have often wondered lately how an all-vegetarian restaurant would do far out on the east side. I actually have better results finding a healthy vegetarian lunch in the work cafeteria than on the east side of Madison.

I have 45 minutes for lunch, which is not long enough to drive downtown. It would be nice to know that there was a place nearby that I could reliably go to to find some warm, healthy veggie grub. I do not know for certain, but I think that a sizeable number of people at my workplace would be interested in more non-meat options that were substantially nutritious.

That being said, I think this would be a great business plan in the makings for some skilled/talented individual.

II.

I have decided that I probably won’t raise my children as vegetarians. Not intentionally, anyway. If they decide to become vegetarians, OK. I think it’s probably more crucial that I don’t raise them as junk food fanatics. Meat isn’t terrible, alongside high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils. Particularly lean, organic meat. Nutrition is a lot more important than I used to realize.

I really like having opposable thumbs!