Addiction

Over the weekend, we stayed two nights at the Austin Four Seasons. It's about ten blocks away. It's an interesting thing to do and we had one free night (charity auction) and another at a reasonable price. It's instructive to get away from the normal view of things and to see just how expensive things are. We watched some old movies and one of them was "The Lost Weekend." It kindled something I've been thinking about lately and that is addiction.

First, let's just say that I'm not an alcoholic. Now a perusal of my facebook page might lead one to believe otherwise as I have a habit of putting pictures of food and drink there, particularly Manhattan cocktails. But I don't wake up in the morning craving a drink. In fact, although I may sometimes say at 5 p.m. "I need a drink," that 'need' is more social and metaphorical than a draw of addiction. Seeing drinking doesn't trigger anything and I easily stop. (There is a scene in "The Lost Weekend" where the Ray Milland character sees a drinking scene at the opera and is overcome with the desire to drink. It's "Traviata" maybe?)

Which is not to say I'm not addicted to anything at all. I think we all have addictions. It might be drugs or alcohol or some classic thing like that. But, if not, there is something in everyone's life where resistance seems futile.

I'll talk about three things for me. I've indulged two already this morning and will no doubt dip into the third soon.

Coffee

The idea of my first cuppa is one thing that gets me up in the morning. Two or three cups later or maybe a cup of iced coffee taken to tennis and the desire is more or less satisfied until next morning.

This machine is one of my prized possessions. It is the third one I've owned (the first two were a bit more massive). It grinds, tamps and pressure-brews each cup. It was expensive but it's so worth it. I've probably made hundreds of cups with this one.

Crosswords

Another thing that makes me rise in the morning is my daily newspapers and, I'll admit it, even more the prospect of doing the puzzles. I like the Ken-Ken, too, but crosswords really call out to me. I worked one this morning before we left the hotel (accompanying the activity with a cup of coffee I got from the downstairs coffee bar).It wasn't the one below...this is just an example I found in my picture file.

So, yeah, I find the puzzles irresistible. The empty squares make me ache to fill them in.

Cheese

I like to say that I would consistently weigh 20 pounds less if I didn't eat cheese. I don't know if that's really true but hardly a day goes by that I don't consume some. Either on a salad, in a sandwich, with crackers or just a bite by itself. Or maybe queso or cheese enchiladas. If fact, the husband just asked if I'd like chicken chili for lunch. My immediate thought was, "yeah, with a bunch of cheese on top."

So, addictions. We all have some. Some people are addicted to exercise, I hear. I could use some of that.

Feed the Rich...Desserts

I was torn about where to post this entry. Here in my regular journal (which my husband says makes our lives an open book but I don't really think so)? Or in the Journal of Unintended Consequences, my other blog, which is intended to capture the chaotic results from well-intentioned (or not) actions? I decided to put it here because somehow I thought that would be less controversial. I'm not really raising an objection to feeding the rich. Everybody's got to eat, you know, to sustain life.

The photo is of a sausage-shaped big cheese (I think) at Mandola's Market, posing with some of its sausage friends.

Now, I consider myself rich. I don't have any debt, I can budget for things like 'gifts' and 'donations' and 'eating out.' I don't work. Yeah. The idle rich even. Hasn't always been so, but I was never as poor as my parents or grandparents once were.

I've noticed that, when you donate money to things or you entertain friends or do them favors or people think you are going to do them a favor or donate money, people give you free food and booze.

I have often wondered if you could just live off this free stuff. For weeks at a time. I'm not really trying to do that and, besides, it would probably require lining your pockets with zip lock bags as my friend SuRu points out. But yesterday when I got up I realized that for that one day I could probably get by on what was free. So I decided to try it.

Now first off, I'm not a 'breakfast is the most important meal of the day' person. When I get up in the morning, I'm not usually hungry at all. I want coffee. Black coffee. And lots of it. So in my experiment I decided that I would allow myself unlimited coffee made in my very own Jura-Capresso E8. (See this entry also.) Of course, there are no calories in black coffee. Just a buzz.

During the morning, I went to my club and rode the recumbent bike for thirty minutes. The bike claimed I'd burned 200 calories. Just before I showered I weighed on the fancy-looking digital scales from Sharper Image that we bought when we decorated our remodeled bathroom. (See photo of bathroom in my old journal...the scales fit in with that decor. Hmmm...maybe FFP is right about the open book thing!) My weight was 163.6. Seems like the scale said just over 160 a few days ago. But it fluctuates. Who knows?

Around 12:20 we headed downtown. We got into a huge traffic jam at 5th and Lamar caused by the city's urge to close a couple of lanes of W. 5th every weekend. Still we found a parking place and found a bus that was taking the media around for a tour of markets as part of the Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival. I figured...free food! While we waited for the bus to depart I took a quick swing through the Saturday Downtown Farmer's Market. (I imagined when we were living downtown how I would stroll through the market and buy some vegies and greens and goat cheese for the week.) I got a free taste of some delicious Hibiscus Tea. I saw that the goat cheese and honey people had those tiny plastic tasting spoons. But I figured a small taste would just send my juices up too high.

The bus headed out to Mandola's Italian Market near our house. For some reason they used the surface streets. As we drove by the University I saw some homeless guys digging in a trash can. I was feeling a little hungry myself. Several eateries on Guadalupe (Milto's, Ruby's Barbecue, Zen, NeWorlDeli) suddenly seemed very attractive. As we filed into the market to get a talk from one of the owners we walked by outside tables where people were scarfing late lunches (it was 1:15 by now) of pizza and salad and anti-pastas and all manner of stuff that was looking increasingly delicious. But there were no samples! The best I could do was to grab a little bit of cranberry walnut bread out for sampling by the general public. I listened to the owner talk about the operation (their own winery, imported Italian groceries, baking almost all their own stuff, very interesting actually, etc.) and tried not to feel too hungry. We were given a goody bag. It contained a jar of artichokes and olives and stuff in a tomato sauce, a pack of three or four baked crackers and some biscoti and cookies along with one of those napkin/cutlery packets you get with takeout. On the way out I looked at the bread sample basket...but all the samples were gone. Darn! In the bus, I ate one of the crackers and a little cookie of some sort. That took the edge off.

We drove back toward downtown and over to South Congress and were soon at Cissi's Market. This was feed the rich nirvana! I took a glass of the offered white wine but fortified myself before drinking much with chips on sample. They had some Austin Slow Burn Salsa Verde out, too. Then they started circulating with platters containing tiny bite-size hors d'oeuvre. Ah, heaven. Vanilla-poached lobster with Shiraz grits. Little pulled pork sandwiches on cornbread the size of pill boxes. They had a lot, too, so we were encouraged to have multiples. I began to think I'd survive on my free food diet. I sipped a little wine. I had one bite of lemon bar dessert. I'm not much of a dessert person. That would be my downfall on this regimen. A peek inside our goodie bag from Cissi's revealed a sack of coffee beans, giant home-style cookies and chocolate!

Next we went to Farm To Market Grocery. It's been there on South Congress for a while. A tiny space stocking a lot of food and a few gift items, it has 30% local products including flowers out front that are from the Hill Country. The people there were really nice and were passing out goat milk ice cream, sodas and water. And they gave us goody bags with a private label chocolate bar and a Butters Brownie. Now, as I said, I'm not much on sweets. I actually had eaten a Butters Brownie a few nights ago. (There was a sample in the media bag we got.) The goat milk part tempted me on the ice cream but I just ask others how it tasted.

We headed west of W. Mary and located the P&K Grocery. This place was ultra funky and hip at the same time. They had taken an old building, used antique fixtures where possible and had some antique glassware and china and collectibles for sale. They had a deli counter with hot sandwiches and other stuff. They make their own pimento cheese and hummus and hot dog condiments. They sell goat cheese on a stick (lolipops!). That made my stomach rumble. But they weren't giving them away. They were giving away little square pimento cheese sandwich samples and freshly made lemonade. Also deviled eggs but for some reason I didn't get one before we got on the bus. I'd regret that. That 1.5 inch square sandwich wasn't going to hold me long. And their goodie bag had samples of their hot dog condiments. Which would have been great if someone was giving away hot dogs!

When we got home, I had some coffee and water. I was actually a little hungry. The only free thing that wasn't sweet was some of those plain crackers and that artichoke concoction Mandola's gave us. So I opened it up and had a little of that with the crackers. Later a bag of caramel corn Cissi's gave us (a private label product with a light hand on the coating, not at all like Crackerjacks) called to me. As I always do with such products...I checked the calories in the entire bag...about seven hundred and eighty! They were pretty good, sort of salty and sweet, but I stopped eating after only a couple of hundred calories.

A few hours later, we dressed up and went to a house over near Lake Austin. The party was free. Well, if you don't count the hefty annual donation that had yielded the invitation. When I saw plates of food, I found the dining room and filled a plate with tender beef, roll and butter, green beans, roasted root vegies, roasted purple and white fingerling potatoes and rice. The offerings seemed a bit odd...no chicken or fish and a lot of starch but I wasn't complaining. I took some of everything and polished off all the carbs and a few ounces of the beef with a glass of free red wine. (I had finished a glass of white I'd gotten coming in.) Later I had a coffee and three mini madeleines.

At home Forrest ate some of the caramel corn and so I finished the bag. I was tempted to grab a cheese snack from the fridge, but true to my word, I stuck to coffee and what the world fed the rich today. Which seemed a little heavy on the sweet side. Let 'em eat cake, I guess.

As I finish this entry I'm waiting for FFP to come home. We might go to the Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival Fair. There would be lots of free food. And we have press passes. But jockeying for free food with thousands of other people and drinking wine outdoors on a hot day sounds less and less fun now that I think about it. I haven't eaten so far today. I've had my coffee, a bottle of water and a walk around the neighborhood. I'm feeling a little hungry. But not hungry enough to go for the chocolate and cookies left over from the free stuff from yesterday.

Exercise

My not so fit legs in my comfort-fit jeans (Men's 560 34x30 if you must know) reflected in a shop window. We hear so much about it. Exericise. And diet. The cure for so many things. But. Still. When we talk about health care we are talking about drugs and hospitals and such.

In my recycled resolutions (made four years ago in this entry) I said I should "continue my workouts and start playing tennis and maybe racquetball."

I'm in a bit of a rut with my workouts, I guess. But I probably have continued pretty well. Tennis doesn't do much for the fitness as played by me, but I enjoy it. And racquetball? Forget it? No one to play with and no desire to play. I spend too much time on the recumbent bike. Which is to say I need to also spend minutes on the rowing machine or treadmill or stair climber. And I need to get a trainer to jump start my weight work. And, you know, do more ab work. Always more ab work. I no longer really feel like I've done much when I workout although I am probably usually doing more than I was when those resolutions were written. And I weigh fifteen pounds less. But no, so far little progress on the lose five pounds front. Think cheese. On nachos. With fatty chips. And more cheese. An avocado Reuben. And last night, to celebrate a day in which I didn't have to take any decongestants (for our local scourge of cedar fever) I had two cocktails.

I'm really going to exercise in better ways. Honest. Just as soon as I can be at the gym without worrying that I should be taking care of something else. Which is never I guess. But I have to be glad that I have, indeed, continued my workouts at all. I know occasionally when I'm doing things around the house or have to climb some stairs that I feel much more fit than I did back when I made that resolution. That's something. But, since I'm still fretting about my health, not clearly enough. This is one of those things you never acomplish. You just wake up the next day and face the need again.

Resolutions Past--Measuring Up

I reviewed some of my public Resolutions Past. I went through some of my public declarations of resolutions in my journal and I have to say that creating new lists is hardly necessary. Some items from the old ones will do fine. Life is funny in that accomplishments can be pushed aside by failures. Achievements can be minimized by a 'what have you done lately' mentality. As always, The Visible Woman has these thoughts about measuring up out in public. In case you don't want to slog through a search of my old journals, here is a representative list that I'll examine over the next few days.

• Lose five pounds. [This is a easy goal, it would seem. The spam says '32 pounds in three weeks' or '12.5 pounds in three days' but, no, my goal is to lose five more pounds and stay there.]
• Drink more water.
• Eat more healthy food. Fruit! Vegetables! Every day.
• Write! Not just this journal. All the short stories I've outlined. All the essays. Start on the novels and non-fiction books.
• Find an appropriate volunteer activity.
• Travel and, when I do, take the time to prepare by reading books.
• Pay more attention to investments and our budget. Save money.
• Continue my workouts and start playing tennis and maybe racquetball.
• Take Bridge lessons and learn more about Bridge.
• Cook more. Start making crêpes again.
• Get the closets, garage, drawers, shed, yard, storage room clean and keep them that way.
• Learn to make a movie.
• Learn more about photography.
• Geez, this list is too long...make shorter lists.
• Ride the bus and write about it.
• Get my mother's things sold or given away or packed and sent to my relatives.
• Read more books.
• Do some Windows programming and JavaScript and learn Linux.
• Hmmm...it's the same every year, isn't it? Why don't I make one list for all time (work harder, read, write, exercise, eat better, learn stuff, save money, lose weight, be a better person).

What's sad is that this list was made four years ago. And what have I done about all that? Not much. I think I lost five pounds that following year. In fact and think I lost twenty and gained ten back. These resolutions came a few months after my mother's death and a few months after I retired. So it was time to make some changes.

The thing about weight is that it is not, in and of itself, an indicator of health. But I do think that, compared to my 2002 self that I not only weigh less (about fifteen pounds less than when that was written) but am in better aerobic health, more flexible and have more muscle. Still, I think the pundits would say I am overweight if not obese. I should probably lose 15 or 20 pounds. However, I think I'm going to just make a resolution for 2007 to lose five pounds again. And I will do this by eating one less piece of cheese each day!

So we have the first resolution for 2007. Lose Five Pounds. In the coming days we will examine the rest of the list above and construct a new set of bullet points for the coming year.

Say Cheese!

People are told to say 'cheese' because that word is supposed to get us to show our teeth if not smile when it's pronounced.

Frankly, I stare shamelessly into shop windows, not saying anything to myself, when I take my self protraits. Mostly you can only see a bit of an outline of the head (with hair spiking uncontrollably) in these pictures but I detect a frown in this recycled (2005) self protrait.

Over at Holidailies, the writing prompt of the day is "What's the one food it simply wouldn't be [your winter holiday of choice] without?"

Nothing about Christmas (my upbringing was all birth of Christ and Santa) causes me to bust a gut to get some certain food. As a kid growing up I loved my grandmother's homemade rolls and cinnamon rolls. Also her dressing and gravy. The gravy was giblet gravy with bits of boiled egg and, well, giblets...the chopped up liver, gizzard, heart etc. that used to come with your turkey. I wish I could have gravy like that, but I don't think it would make the holiday. I'd need my grandmother or mother around making the gravy and the homemade rolls to really kick me into a holiday mood, I guess. I think about them making that stuff all the time, too, not just this time of year. My grandmother baked chicken and made dressing and gravy year round. She always had the giblets because she had taken the chicken's life that day and had all its edible parts.

I can live without giblet gravy and cornbread dressing. I can live without homemade bread or rolls.

The food I can't live without? The food that I gotta have every day? Cheese. Yeah, cheese makes me smile because I love it. I live on it. I have the extra twenty-five permanent pounds to show for it.

But if you are making that giblet gravy...let me know. I might drop by.

You Really HAVE to Sleep!

It's funny but your body really needs sleep. It reaches a point where it is HUNGRY for sleep.

Our trip home from Paris had a little glitch. It was caused by lightning and rain throwing the Chicago airport into complete chaos. It meant a long layover turned into a much longer one, followed by a cancellation, a desperate phone call to rebook, about ten phone calls until we found a place with a room, a search for the hotel van pickups, a wait, a twenty minute ride, three hours sleep and a shower, more airport, flying to Houston and having to change airlines (read: go through security again) and getting home about fourteen hours late.

I will say, though, that otherwise the trip bordered on perfection.

The very first picture I took on this trip was of the cheese store a block from our hotel. We never actually bought anything there, but we did eat some wonderful cheese in restaurants. I had an idea we would have at least one picnic. You know picque-nique. But the scattered showers that persisted during our stay squashed that idea. But we had so much great food that missing out on buying it ourselves and carving the bread and cheese with my Swiss Army Knife wasn't so bad.

I returned even more caffeine-addicted than ever, if that's possible. I saved a lot of the add-ons for our little cups of espresso since we don't indulge in sugar and rarely the little bits of chocolate offered. It was quite a pile and represented a huge investment as well as lots of cafe table-sitting and people-watching. And, yeah, we did museums. And did I mention we dined? Not just ate, mind you. Dined. Ate, too, of course. I may tell all in time.

All of this is to say that I'm not quite up to a travelogue that is more extensive just yet. But I have pictures. And notes. And I'm drinking coffee and getting back into exercising so there's hope.

There are various possibilities that the visible woman will start being, well, visible again. Or not.