One more day and a wakeup!

If this were a military training scenario, we'd be happily saying, "one more day and a wakeup."  Tomorrow I have a very very full work schedule followed by a walk-through of my apartment followed by a final "mid-week run" (this to be importantly distinguished from Saturday's last "long run"); today was my last day to really get stuff done.  Of course, I could always add another day on in Chicago to *get stuff done*, but I don't really want to do that, and, knowing how I tend to operate, the last days would be the same whether they are now or 3 weeks from now.  

Matt and Sara came over to help clean, sort stuff, provide moral and mental support (I have a tendency to get really distracted like a honey bee when I'm trying to do this sort of stuff by myself).  But, first, we got bagels!  I really wanted bagels from the New York City bagel place on North Ave. and Sheffield, but that was too far away, so we settled for Einstein's in Andersonville.  There's a certain appeal to eating on the floor when you have no furniture:

How many addictive substances do you see pictured here (below):

 

(We came up with: Hemp milk (kidding! it's not really, no THC here), chocolate (in the hemp milk), carbohydrates (a la bagel), poppy seed (kidding!), dairy via cream cheese (serious about this one), coffee (obviously true)...which is a slightly humorous total of 6.  Now, that's a ways to start the day!  Green smoothies?  Heh, not on a day of cleaning.) 

Then we had a little Sig-in-a-basket photo shoot:

Me and Siggy-boy.  All this moving has been really hard on him; he's a smart, curious, and sensitive guy.  Being in this little basket seemed to calm him.

And then we got to work.  Sorting storage-crap into To Peoria (very small pile), Joey, Sara, Matt, Thrift store, Free/alley, garbage...  Things like this I find so much easier with friends.  I sold my scuba fins and the butcher block (finally!).  A little estimation challenge:

Me (sorting through my fridge):  When do you think this Miso expired?

Sara:  2004

Matt: 2004.  No...2006.  

Me:  Actually, you guys were right with 2004.  What month?

Sara:  May!

Me:  Holy sh*t!  You're right?!!  May 2004.  

Which means, I moved this expired Miso into my place 3 years ago.  It wasn't moldy or anything, just really potent smelling.

Sara and Matt spackled my nail holes, I cleaned the bathroom, vacuumed floors, cleaned out the fridge, etc., etc., until the apartment looked like this:

So as not to end this blog on a sad-ish note, I have a funny-ish story:

Matt & Eric and I were discussing our run for tomorrow night.  For almost 3 years Matt and I have talked about getting french fries from the White Castle that's 2 blocks from my place after a run, but never have. Tomorrow's run has got to involve some fries! I also have about an inch of tequila that should be imbibed before I head off to Peoria.  So...is White Castle BYOB?! I consult my supercomputer (a.k.a. iPhone), and proceed to call White Castle System Inc (that's the official name, according to my phone).

White Castle Employee #1 (male): Hello?  White Castle.

Me: Hi, um, I was wondering, are you BYOB?

WCE #1: Uhhhhhhh, I don't know, just a sec...

(At this point I realize this sounds sort of like a prank call, though I started out with perfectly good intentions.  And I start to feel the need to do the potty dance as I am trying very hard to not laugh out loud out of semi-embarrassment, and this is very difficult...)

White Castle Employee #2 (female):  Hello?  Can I help you?

Me (completely now aware this sounds like a prank): Um, yeeeaaaa, I was wondering if you were BYOB...?

WCE #2:  (silence)  Uh.  No.  This is *White Castle.* (which I'm sure was followed by a tacit "dumbass")

The Final Countdown!

This is where I am:

This is where I want to be:

Oh, the agony!

But, in the interest of tying up loose ends, I used a gift card a client had given me a year and a half ago to this cute boutique-y store in Winnetka called Randoons.  I used it to purchase this delightful bag:

Oh, and Matt and I ran 6 miles last night.   It was good.  Steamboat, here I come!

An Egg Experiment

The Egg Experiment

(Note to people concerned about the welfare of animals:  They are "cagefree" eggs.  I'm looking for a good source of locally produced eggs.)

Frank and I made a pound cake the other day.  Very dense stuff is pound cake.  However, Frank momentarily forgot this at one point and cut off a big honkin' piece.  Halfway through he realized his mistake: that pound cake is not angel food cake.  No, I said, angel food cake has 14 egg whites (according to Joey though a google search suggests 12 egg whites is common) which makes it very fluffy, whereas poundcake has 4 whole eggs.  Frank, ever frugal-minded, wondered, maybe a little concerned, "how much of the egg are you throwing out when just using the egg whites?"  I thought maybe 50%?  We had to see.  

Above are four separated eggs.  Just under 3 ounces of egg yolk, 5 ounces of egg whites.  When you're throwing out the egg yolks, you're throwing out 3/8ths of the egg.  So, if you're making an angel food cake and using 14 2-ounce eggs, you're throwing out 5.25 eggs by volume per cake.  Now, we didn't weigh the egg whites and egg yolks.  If we have a sensitive enough scale, I think we'll have to do this next time.  How much denser is the egg yolk than the egg white?  And/Or, if you beat egg whites versus beating a full egg, how much less dense is the result?  Are the four eggs in pound cake denser than the 12-14 egg whites in angel food cake?  Certainly they would be once you beat them, right?

Not having cooked with eggs for years now, I'm newly intrigued by the properties of these little guys.

*****

Bodhi kitty cuddling my hip in my sleeping bag

I'm back in Chicago now for a week.  Had a going away "party" with some of my co-workers last night: they are all so sweet and kind and I will miss them.  Sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor in an empty apartment.  No food in the house except some frozen fruit and tator tots.  :)  My cats seemed somewhat stressed out by it all (me being gone for awhile with no furniture in the house, I presume), but after some hardcore cuddling and massaging, they've calmed down a little.  Massage is so great for calming that sympathetic nervous system.  

I guess tator tots are potatoes.  I can have them for breakfast, right?  

Fare Thee Well, my Chicago dears!

Three years ago I returned from a trip to Sri Lanka, moved into a one bedroom apartment in Chicago, and said to the universe, while slicing a papaya and squirting it with key lime juice, "in three years I want my life to be different."  Well, it's three years later and my life is changing.  I'm moving from Chicago to East Peoria in central Illinois!

I've lived in Chicago proper for almost 8 years and it's been wonderful: getting my first "real" job out of college, painting crazy designs on the walls with my first roommate, making friends at massage school while learning to cultivate "unconditional positive regard" for people, saying good-bye to the Army.  

I learned it's kind of fun to have an apartment that faced the Redline train, to feel like a fish in a fishbowl on display to the world, but pausing conversations when the L rambles by does get annoying.  Having a yard in Logan Square is fun for playing bocce ball, grilling tofu, and playing fetch with the dogs, but not fun when someone steals your new brass fire pit because the price of copper just jumped, or you learn that you've not been hearing fireworks but gun shots.  

I learned about raw foods and wheat grass, and then how disgusting it is when you drink 6 oz of the stuff.  I learned that trying to have a community garden is a huge commitment.  I learned how to play the cello, then turned it on its side, added two strings and frets, called it a guitar and have struggled ever since--what an infuriating instrument.  I sought out independent coffee shops, dog-friendly dog parks, vegan restaurants, and outdoor eateries and beer gardens in the summer that are somehow distinctly Chicago.  I re-found martial arts in the way of Aikido after a 10 year hiatus and had a love-at-first-beat experience with West African dancing and drumming.  I got over my fears of biking in the city and swimming in the lake at Oak St and Ohio St beaches.  I finally trained for and started doing triathlons and my first marathon, though I ran it in Rome, not Chicago.  I will miss these things and the people with whom I've done them. 

When I first moved to Chicago, I described the city and the earth as wearing a corset of asphalt and concrete.  This is how I felt when I first moved here, like I couldn't breathe, like I was suffocating under tall buildings and sweaty bodies and an endless expanse of road and sidewalk.  I was frustrated that the only "nature" that existed was what we planned or what scavenged our rubbish:  squirrels eating tossed out pizza crusts, birds eating berries in trees we planted, rats in our dumpsters. 

I finally found a sense of peace and connectivity on the running path, my niche in this city, on the lakefront when the temperatures dropped below freezing.  Yes, we can probably manipulate the earth's temperatures and weather patterns, but so far we don't do it on purpose.  Despite every carefully manicured detail of Chicago's lakefront path, the power of Mother Nature's majestic muscle commands respect and awe when temperatures drop.  When you're outside and alone in a city of 3 million with a foot of snow and ice on the ground burying man's landscaping, when your eye lashes have frozen together and you become numb to the pain in your sinuses, when it takes a hot shower and fluffy socks and an hour and a half for your bones to thaw out, you are humbled.  That's what it takes to feel connected to nature in a city like Chicago.  Though admittedly fun to feel so uniquely adventurous, it seems like a lot of pain for a little spiritual connection.  

I have decades of friendships in Chicago that will never be replaced.  Vegan potlucks, oatmeal w/ yogurt and bananas and cranberries, massage trades and almond butter and banana toast, adopting dogs from and then volunteering at the city pound, eating Thai food on the roof deck after a mile swim in a choppy Lake Michigan, post-run cornmeal pancakes, slide shows after someone returns from a vacation, legendary New Years Eve parties, hearing new bands at various small venues...  I love all of you. 

But life is about making choices, and having experienced an amazing re-connection with someone I knew from high school, I'm choosing the possibility of a life with him.  

Stay tuned, my dears.  :)