Random Thoughts on a Thursday Night: TGIF soon!

Tags

food, LASIK, Movies, personal finance, taxes, travel, Work

I am sick of chicken. I bought a whole roasted chicken from WH last week and have been having chicken for lunch and/or dinner almost every day. At first I loved it: the meat was tender, flavorful and fresh. But then as my room started to smell like leftover chicken, followed by ME smelling like chicken (“You are what you eat” — it almost feels as if the smell seeps out of my pores), I was getting fed up (pun intended). Luckily, I finished the last bit tonight. I think I am going to go chicken-less for a while.

At work there is so much to do it’s hard to keep track. This class is wearing me out and I am thrilled that next term is the last one for me. After that I will, theoretically speaking, have more time to work on “research” (although with this job, you never know, as work always seems to pile up no matter how much you’ve just cleared off your desk; it’s like Sisyphus and the big rock). I woke up this morning at 4am (went to bed around midnight), scared awake by a nightmare. The funny thing is that the “nightmare” wasn’t about anything dramatic (e.g., being chased by a mad dog) — it was about “office politics.” Yes, work stress even manifests itself in my dreams.

For some reason, I am suddenly fixated with LASIK. I read a bunch of webpages and forum postings, and looked at the websites of three practices in the city. I can’t decide. Even though I am just making appts for a free consultation, I am still anxious, because 1) if I am not a good candidate, I will be bummed, and 2) if I am, I am still going to be bummed because I didn’t make enough FSA contribution this year. Ugh! Poor planning from a self-proclaimed planner!

I am planning for a 2-week road trip. Depending on my work schedule, it’ll be either early June (hopefully) or early July. The destination: either SW (Zion, Bryce…) or Canadian Rockies (Banff, Jasper…)!!! Maybe San Juan Islands on my way back? They are such drastically different places, but I love the red rocks and arches just as much as the glaciers and mountain lakes. Unfortunately, they are on opposite directions, and I can only choose one. I am also a bit worried about the gas price. If it keeps soaring like it is now, the trip is going to be $$$$$$$$$$! Darn, I should have bought a hybrid! They must be selling like hotcakes these days. The upside is that I just spent $200 on an iPhone/iPod-enabled CD receiver for my current (and first ever) car — no more FM transmitter statics on a long road trip!

Back to the trip planning: if it’s June, either will do, but if it’s July, Canadian Rockies is the sensible choice, as it’ll be way too hot in Utah. Need to do more research… And gotta save money from now on to pay for the trip.

Must finish doing the tax this weekend. JUST. MUST. I will prob. owe money again. Every friggin’ single year, and I am not even rich! I wish I had learned about FSA and 401(b), like SEVEN years earlier. It’s ironic that I am so financially ignorant.

Hunger Games — I am SO looking forward to it! Can’t wait!!!

The Good Stuff

Tags

diet, doctor who, food, iPhone, running, spring, TV, workout, yogurt

Finally, sunny today! The sky was so blue and cloudless it was almost surreal. After a whole week of rain and gloom, people were ready to get some vitamin D, naturally! Forest Park, despite its slushy grounds, still attracted boatloads of cyclists, runners, and walkers (with or without dogs). I walked to the trailhead (turns out, I live only 0.94 mile away from the trailhead — shame on me for almost always driving there), and saw signs of spring here and there.

I brought my iPhone to take pictures of early spring flowers, but 1/2 mile into the trail, it occurred to me that I actually have a running app  (RunKeeper — it’s free!) on my iPhone that can track my distance and pace. How cool is that? It worked like a charm, but curiously, my average speed was 12:33 minute per mile, which translates to 4.8 miles per hour. On the treadmill I found even 2 miles excruciating (my feet get numb after a while) and my average speed is more like 4.5 MPH, so how come I ran faster outside (even though my cadence was actually slower than that on the treadmill), and felt less tired? It must be the boredom factor (living in Portland, I consider treadmills a necessary evil because most days you can’t run outside), or maybe treadmills are not designed for short people like me (I am 5’3″ so I always envy taller people running at 7-8 MPH on the treadmill without breaking a sweat, and at the same cadence of my 5 MPH!). So… 459 cal — not bad, eh?

Talking about exercising, I was very “good” last week. Not only did I hit the gym four days in a roll, I also checked out a few more group classes, and decided to stick to three of them: Step Plus Ab (still kicked my ass but my legs were not nearly as sore afterwards the 2nd time around), Kickboxing (it is high intensity aerobic workout, a bit silly with all the boxing moves, but still fun), and Yoga (wonderful stretching after the Kickboxing class on Wednesday).

Credit: Chobani Website

Oh, I also rediscovered my love for yogurt! For some reason, I can never get into Yoplait and a whole bunch of other brands, but a trip to New Seasons Market got me hooked on Liberte’s Méditerranée and Chobani (both are ultra creamy, smooth, delicious, filling, healthy, and yet low in calories). Granted, they are not cheap ($1.5 each), but I usually just eat it as an afternoon snack (better than a $4 Starbucks latte!) or part of dinner (better than greasy pizza, despite my undying love for it). Other recent favorites in my diet include: Imagine Potato Leek Soup (dinner) and Trader Joe’s Organic Herb Salad Mix (lunch). And I am even starting to enjoy apples (you know, the fruit)!

Credit: BBC

I borrowed from a coworker the DVDs of last season’s Doctor Who with Matt Smith as The Doctor (the new season starts tomorrow, in UK only I suppose). It was brilliant, a perfect blend of science fiction, social criticism, campy adventure, and heart-tugging drama. It made me laugh, cry, and think. “Vincent and the Doctor” (Doctor and Amy met Vincent Van Gogh) and the “Lizard Men/Women” story (the two-parter “The Hungry Earth” and “Cold Blood”) are the best. Now that’s what I call high quality TV.

Book: 8 Weeks to Optimum Health

Tags

books, food, health, lifestyle

8 Weeks to Optimum Health is a good book, especially considering that it was published over 10 years ago, and was possibly one of the “seminal works” that started the whole “health-conscious, natural healing” lifestyle movement. Most of the things covered in the book have become common knowledge today (e.g., salmon’s health benefits), even though we may not be able to follow religiously (e.g., eat broccoli regularly). Some of the things can be overwhelming and might even be overkill to most healthy people (e.g., the supplements).

Torchwood Season 2 / In Defense of Food

Tags

books, food, health, nutrition, sci-fi, torchwood, TV

Torchwood Season 2 is brilliant! It’s original, exciting, funny, and poignant. The deaths of Tosh and Owen broke my heart. Heck, I even cried when I saw the suffering of the “space manatee” in the episode Meat. It’s not just about weird creatures and space travel. Like all good sci-fi, it has a very “human” heart, and the characters have such great depth. I think this is the best sci-fi TV series in recent years, or at least on par with the new Doctor Who.

In Defense of Food reads like a lightweight sequel to The Ominvore’s Dilemma. While TOD is a delightful page-turner, IDF isn’t. It chronicles the past and present of “nutritionism”, exposes the mercurial and reductionistic nature of food/nutritional science, criticizes the evils of “Western diet” (it’s a misnomer actually, as France and Greece are both considered “West” – “modern, industrialized” would be more befitting), and enumerates “rules of healthy eating.” The content is just not as compelling or engrossing, as at least 90% of the things he painstakingly elaborated on were old news. Ironically, his “rules” read like a collection of “latest research shows that…” that graces the media in different shapes and forms, and with vastly contradicting and perplexing conclusions for that matter, every day. Not to say that the suggestions are not sound – they are just largely… “common sense”, or at least for now. If you don’t have the time to read the whole book, here is the short version; if you just want the “advice”, here you go: (** italicized are quotes from the books)

• Avoid eating processed “pseudo-food”, even if they make “health claims”
• Shop more in the produce areas (again, avoid the processed food aisles)
• Farmer’s Market is better than supermarket
• Eat mostly plants, esp. leaves
• Eat food that grows in (or feeds from) healthy sources
• If you have the space, buy a freezer (to freeze good pastured meat)
• Eat like an omnivore (the greater the diversity of species you eat, the more likely you are to cover all your nutritional bases)
• Eat wild foods when you can
• Be the kind of person that takes supplements
• Eat more like the French. Or the Italians. Or the Japanese. Or the Indians. Or the Greeks.
• Regard nontraditonal foods with skepticism
• Don’t look for the magic bullet in the traditional diet.
  
• Have a glass of wine with dinner
• Pay more, eat less (quality over quantity)
• Eat meals (savor the food; pleasure over speed/convenience)
• Do all your eating at a table
• Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does (“convenience food = highly processed”)
• Try not to eat alone
  
• Consult your gut (instead of external cues such as empty plates)
• Eat slowly
• Cook, and if you can, plant a garden

A night out

Tags

food, friends, Music, restaurants

Went to the Alejandro Escovedo show at the Aladdin Theater last night with GS, her (sort of) date, and her son. We started out with dinner at the Americanized Indian restaurant Vindalho. This place looked a bit out of place in the modest neighborhood of SE. The high ceiling and exposed beams make the space look open, vast, and airy. The clean and chic bamboo tables, the cute and elegant wait staff, and the well-dressed but somewhat sedate clientele are what you expect to see in a fancy “loft restaurant” in The Pearl, and the price level matches the impression perfectly. The food was good, but not great. The dishes we ordered (Chicken Tikka and Black Pepper Prawns) didn’t taste “Indian” at all, although I am no expert in the cuisine as this was only the second time I have tried Indian food and I didn’t like it the first time around. In fact, they looked and tasted just like any “Pan-Asian/Asian-Fusion” dishes, and were not even “fusion food” of the highest caliber. I ordered the non-alcoholic drink Coconut Cooler and it was too weak and bland for my taste. Oh well. It was a rather pleasant dining experience but I won’t feel compelled to go back, at least not for the food.

It was funny hanging out with the other three. L is an adorable 12-years old and was dragged to the concert by his Mom against his will as all he wanted to do was hang out at home playing video games, so he was having one of his “tempers”: looking sulky and bored, answering questions with monosyllabic grunts, asking constantly if he could just go home or sleep in the car. GS was trying to be very patient but seemed a bit embarrassed, as D, her date, witnessed her son’s “episode.” D was… weird, but entertaining if you are patient, and definitely the most eccentric guy I have ever met (in social settings anyway). He tried to bond with the boy and looked lost and helpless. I constantly wanted to burst out laughing just observing them.

After dinner we trooped out and headed for the Aladdin’s. This was the third time I have been there (the first for the Andrew Bird show, the second time for the OPB Livewire a few months ago). D seemed to be pretty well-connected with the local music community (or a part of it anyway, as I am sure he would be fish out of water in the “hipster sector”) and during intersession told me some interesting anecdotes (e.g., according to him, the theater is in the Guinness World Record as one that had the longest run of a certain notorious film).

Carrie Rodriguez kicked off the show with an amazing performance of songs from mostly her new album. I have never even heard of her but was absolutely blown away. Her voice had an unaffected raw power, and yet when she was cooing the ballads, she sounded sultry and tender. She is also a multi-instrumentalist (electric mandolin, guitar, fiddle), and plays everything with great flair. Her songs were a bit country, a bit bluegrass, a bit rock, and anywhere in between. I have since listened to her album twice (and liked it), but there is just something about live music that makes songs sound so much better (the volume, the lights, the crowd, the atmosphere, the indulgent and fabulous guitar duel between Carrie and the lead guitar player, or maybe all of the above?) She seemed a bit self-conscious but grateful to be opening for Alejandro. She didn’t do much of the “bantering with the audience” stuff but her talent was undeniable.

Finally around 9:15pm Alejandro came on stage and took the audience by storm. We were thrilled by his energy and world-weariness, the angular sound from his guitar(s), and the perfect blend of his forceful voice (he doesn’t have the best voice, but it has character) and the wall-of-sound created by his backing band. Being an ex-hippie, GS was dancing almost throughout the show, but the three of us weren’t that brave. I said to L “look at your Mom dancing” and he groaned “I am soooo embarrassed… she moves like a penguin!” in that typical teenager “I am embarrassed by my parents” way. D was just nodding vigorously with the beat but he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) dance. As for me, I would have bounced around if no one was looking (in the darkened theater I am sure no one would be looking at ME, but psychologically I am still too painfully self-conscious to dance in public). There was a huge gathering right off the stage but only 1/3 of them were shaking and gyrating, while the rest just stood there nodding or occasionally waving their arms with the index finger out (or with the “PEACE OUT!” gesture). The audience was markedly different from that at the AB concert. While at the AB concert I felt remarkably old and different, as most were 20-something hipsters, Alejandro drew mostly the crowd of 50 and up (nostalgia at the good old days of rock-and-roll?). I don’t feel “too young” or “unhip” to like his music, as I like what I like and never care about the “labels” people put on things (either to justify or deride).

After the show D proposed a trip to Dairy Queen (maybe to please the boy that loves ice cream?). We drove through the “criminal flats” and gawked at the Apostle Faith church (which looked like something out of Disneyland, only in the dark night, the garish green color looked a tad eerie), and the gigantic wall that said “Jesus, Light of the World.” Unfortunately the DQ was closed so he drove to another one (I wonder how he came to be so familiar with the locations of DQs…), and I commented that we were like a foursome of Harold & Kumar in search of White Castle (only in this case it was a DQ). Of course the second one was closed too. By then we were sufficiently beat and decided to finally head home.

Pizza, drink, The X-Files

Tags

food, Movies, restaurants

Went to Ken’s Artisan Pizza Friday. OMG, this is a wonderful place! The pizza (fennel sausage and onion) is fresh, flavorful, and yet not greasy. The size is perfect for two. Add a refreshing glass of Stella beer and the delicious berry gelato, the meal is complete, and perfect. The atmosphere is lively and relaxed, the wood-burning stove is fascinating, and they have the most friendly (genuinely friendly, w/o a trace of hipster arrogance) wait staff I have ever seen. It’s on the small side, the line is long after 6pm, it has limited hours (closed on Sunday & Monday), but the experience was so satisfying I am already plotting when to go back for an encore.

After that went to Clyde Common, a rustic-looking restaurant/bar with an upscale yet laid-back feel. Was it the clothes we wore, or that our dining stars were finally aligning, or was it just pure luck? In this city I am by now used to bracing myself for overpriced food and underperforming service, and surprisingly, shockingly, the wait staff, esp. the guy standing at the door directing traffic, was again, extremely polite and friendly. Anyway, I ordered an interesting drink (Maiden’s Blush), partly because of its evocative name, and partly because of the “absinthe” listed amongst the ingredients. ABSINTHE!!! The mysterious liquid that created and ruined oh-so-many poets and artists. The genius! The madness! And of course, it didn’t have any effect on me. Hmmm… Guess I am neither a genius nor a madman (or a man, period), or perhaps the drop was too tiny to exert any control over me.

Watched the new movie The X-Files – I Want to Believe. It’s kind of an inane mishmash of psychic/God meeting Frankenstein. Despite being an Xphile for the longest time, I have to admit that it’s a mild disappointment. It’s time Mulder & Scully retired once and for all, growing old in each other’s company.

A slacker's wednesday

Tags

fitness, food, Movies, shopping

It started as just another “normal” weekday. I woke up with an unfinished and angst-charged dream – that I went on a trip and after arriving at my destination in the middle of nowhere I realized that I forgot to bring my camera. Aaarrrggghhh!!! What does that say about my current state of mind? Then I got up, trying to shake off the grogginess despite the 8 hours of sleep, walked to the kitchen, and suddenly weariness welled up and swept over me like a crushing morning tide. I didn’t want to go to work. I really didn’t.

So I emailed my boss and asked to take a vacation day.

After a little bit more dilly-dallying I fixed my usual breakfast (oatmeal and soy milk), surfed the Web for no particular purposes, then lay down and took another nap till 9am.

Took a shower then headed out to LC. Made a round without buying anything. All those interesting prints and babydoll blouses (or pregancy flocks?)! I looked at all those people strolling around on a Wed morning and wondered who they are and what they do. Then I wondered if others wondered about me too.

Hit the theater. There was a whole bunch of people in the lobby. Looked like some kind of group, although I couldn’t figure out what kind, because they all looked so different. Housewives/husbands Alliance? Anyway, they split up after buying the tickets because some wanted Wall-E, some TDK, and some Wanted, which was the movie I “wanted.”

The previews were boring, even the one for The X-Files. If not for my being an Xphile, I prob. wouldn’t be all that interested. Scully being blonde? Wow! She looked a lot older…

Wanted is great. It’s prob. one of the best action flicks this year. The stylistic violence is very cool, and sometimes rather disturbing as well. The “curved bullet” thing is the only new thing I hadn’t seen already in other similar movies. I saw the “twist” coming (after all, his father shot him in the shoulder when he could have killed him directly), but still was stunned when it was revealed. I thought the city must be Chicago (or based on the image of Chicago – the grayness, the oppressing skyscrapers, the trains, the gritty and grim…) before noticing that the license plate was the familiar “Illinois – Land of Lincoln.” Angelina Jolie is her usual Lara Craft-esque self, and she is good at it (I can see why Brad Pitt dumped Jennifer Aniston for her – nobody can resist her, NOBODY!) Morgan Freeman plays a bad guy, for a (good) change.

Went on my first post-surgery run (last time was just “walk”), 5 miles ( 3 miles running and 2 miles walking). Felt great. Saw a bunch of “walkers”, including Creepy R, a guy I met a couple times on the M hikes. Why is Portland so small?! The weather was perfect – none of that life-sapping heat a couple of weeks ago. For some reason I felt a bit blue that summer is going to be over soon. Then I hated myself for slacking off doing mind-numbing trivial things when what I really need to do is sort things out, make up my mind, and start looking/applying for jobs in BC. Ugh!!! Block it out, block it out… if just for today!

Got home, did some deep stretching Yoga moves but didn’t have the stamina to finish the whole set. Made crispy kale (yum!). Started reading a couple blogs by my (once) favorite blogger.

The omnivore's dilemma

Tags

books, food, health, science

Finally finished reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I don’t remember the last time I actually finished a book this thick (I tried The World is Flat multiple times but never got past the first 30 pages), prob. at least three years ago. However, it’s an utter pleasure to read such an informative AND entertaining book, a rare specimen in a world of lengthy boring tomes. It did take me some time to get into the first part (corn, corn, and more corn…), but part II and III are just amazing. The book makes me laugh, gag, sigh, and ultimately, think. Part II reminds me of Fast Food Nation, after reading which I became a temporary vegetarian out of sheer disgust. I didn’t even know what “organic food” was all about before coming to Portland (I stayed in the corn-covered Midwest for four years after all). I dismissed the organic food movement as a big fuss about nothing and just another “yippie (hippie, yuppie, hippie-turned yuppie…) fad”, until I read this book. I might not become vegetarian (although I remain staunchly anti game-hunting/fishing) or declare “I won’t eat anything non-organic”, I am surely more aware of the connections between food, the world we live in, and the conscious choices we can make.

Next to read: MP’s The Botany of Desire