Pie !

Friday, 28 November

I got up before dawn on Thanksgiving morning to bake two of these to take to the feast for 16 we attended. I wanted to make a pecan pie too but discovered I only had two pie pans. So the pecan pie was in cookie bars, which I made a day ahead. And since we ate rather too many of the cookie bars before Thanksgiving, I also made a batch of ginger cookies. So while we didn't have any other (semi-nutritious) leftovers, we did manage to have pumpkin pie with whipped cream and pecan pie cookies for dessert tonight. I'm saving the ginger cookies to go with post-ride tea tomorrow afternoon. But I'm not sure they'll last that long. :)

I failed felting

Friday, 28 November



Today I got around to one of those craft projects I've been pondering for a while. It's time to start thinking about making Christmas presents!

For a long time, I've had a Pendleton wool blanket that used to belong to my grandparents. When I was a child, they were using it to keep apples from freezing in their shed during the winter, so I figure it was at least 50 years old and maybe a decade or two more. It was threadbare in many places, and the binding around the edges was long since gone.

The plan was to "felt" the blanket and use the fabric to make tote bags? vests? slippers? My previous attempt at felting worked exactly as it was supposed to, although it was about 1/200th the size of this blanket. Blanket agitates in the washing machine in hot water and a tiny bit of soap until it shrinks down to the size and texture you want in your felted products. (I did this by accident to my husband's beautiful Irish sweater a few years ago, but that's another story.) I figured the most awkward part would be coaxing a big piece of wool to get dry in Seattle in November.

After two passes through the "agitate" part of my washing machine's cycle, I checked out what was going on. The blanket had escaped its cloth bag (which you use to keep the fuzzies that come out of the wool from stopping up the machine's lint trap), so I put it back in, scooped out some stray bits of wool fuzz from the soapy froth, and set it back to doing its thing. Two more "agitates" and I did another inspection. Hmmm. Gobs of fuzz everywhere. Tape measure tells me the piece of wool is not getting any smaller. I decided to take it outside and hang it up on the clothesline to dry. As I hold it up, I realize the blanket had been gradually disintegrating in the washer, hence all the wool fuzzies. Instead of becoming compacter, the fabric was loosening up and falling apart. Hmmmm. That means this project isn't going to work.

But giving up isn't as easy as it sounds. Sure, the blanket goes into a plastic bag and into the garbage. But my washing machine is full of (surprisingly dirty) water that's full of wool fuzz that I cannot possibly let just drain out. I can capture some clots with my fingers, but there's still a lot in there. I end up scooping all the water out into a bucket and then pouring that water through a strainer to capture fuzzies. Slooooooooow process.

As I picked up some stray fuzz off the floor in front of the washing machine, I realized that it looked a little bit like nylon fuzz instead of wool fuzz. So I let it dry out and gave it the burn test. Wool will turn to ash, but synthetics melt. This stuff definitely melted. That was a very complicated way to find out that an old wool blanket wasn't just wool! I guess the lesson is not to try to felt something that's so old the label has fallen off or worn away. Or maybe it was just a complicated way of figuring out that my family didn't wanted felted wool tote bags from Grandma's blanket?

Giving thanks

Tuesday, 25 November

Please join members of the cycling community for the 5th annual Seattle Thanksgiving Day Ride to benefit Northwest Harvest. Meet at the Leschi Starbucks at 9am for a 9:15 departure and a socially paced ride around the south end of Lake Washington. The suggested donation is $5 per rider, but donations of any amount are welcome. In past years, the cycling community has contributed $600-$800 to Northwest Harvest, and this year a gracious donor has stepped up to match our donation.

And to all of you who can't join this ride: best wishes for a Thanksgiving filled with sharing thanks and joy and being grateful for whatever you have !

Whirl-a-weekend

Sunday, 23 November

Wowza. What a weekend. Hubby goes to Tucson, wifey plans to do a zillion things while he's gone. Here are some of 'em that actually got done.

Thursday evening: new bike build take 1 (lasts til 11:30).

Friday evening: not enough sleep Thursday night but I race CycleU TT anyway--and go faster than I did any time last winter (I think they must've recalibrated in the interim). Run errands on way home, stop for Thai food, emerge into a monsoon. Go to bed at 8:30.

Saturday: 73-mile ride, remodel the garage to store more bike stuff, new bike build take 2 (it's done; it weighs 15.2 pounds; I'm afraid to ride it outside cuz the streets are still damp and it might get dirty).

Sunday: 69-mile ride, rake leaves, sweep up fir needles, do laundry, make soup, go to the gym, sit in the sauna (ah!!!), go to the grocery store, catch up on email.

Going to work on Monday? Recovery. :)

Gifted

Saturday, 15 November

What a gorgeous November day we were gifted with today in these parts. Warm enough to make the grass grow, sunny, wispy clouds--maybe there is something to that global warming hoopla. We're still drying out from the deluge at the beginning of the week. Really, though, it didn't rain all that much in the city. The damage was done in the mountains: the freezing level was sky high, so all that precip came down as rain, washed downhill as it tends to do, and overflowed local rivers. If you rode to, say, Snohomish today, you saw very little flooding. But just a few miles south (upriver), conditions were different:



I wish this picture had a soundtrack to go with it. In the new lake that stretched a mile across the valley were thousands of ducks and geese, all honking and quacking about their good fortune of a new water feature in their habitat. This flooded road was so convincingly flooded that no trucks even tried to drive through it, and I'm pretty sure it will be under too much water to ride through tomorrow.

Enjoy the gift of these glorious days. You'll be complaining about the weather again soon enough!

Bugs on drugs?

Wednesday, 12 November

I was stung by a bug this morning on my ride to work. Given that we're in mid-November, I expected bees to be dead or hibernating by now. But this one latched onto my neck and delivered a dose of venom that could only be described as "on steroids." The sting site hurt like heck, and I nearly collided with one of those posts in the middle of the trail as I tried to make sure the bug wasn't still under the collar of my jersey. I seemed okay for the rest of my ride (5 miles).

But when I got to work, I was mostly covered in a red rash that itched like crazy. Then I got lightheaded and watched my peripheral vision close in like I was going to pass out. I've never had a reaction--other than "ouch!"--to a bee sting, even as recently as this summer, so I searched for some sound medical advice from Google. Apparently, if you're going to die from a bee sting, it'll be in the first few minutes; at least I was past that worry. A coworker told me to take Benadryl and implied I'd then need to go home to bed to sleep the stuff off. The welts on my arms were getting worse, and my eyes were red-rimmed. Time for "urgent care."

The doctor told me I was having a mild allergic reaction to the sting (imagine that!) and that Benadryl would help (but I thought the side effects sounded worse than the symptoms). However, what he spent most of his time assessing was my low blood pressure (90 over 60-something) and HR (less than 60). They took my blood pressure and pulse SIX times--sitting, standing, lying down. When I explained that I had ridden my bike for 5 miles after getting stung, they figured out that there was probably not a cardiac incident going on.

From the clinic, I went straight for my drug of choice--caffeine--and skipped the Benadryl altogether. But I think I'm going to start carrying it on my epic bike rides out in the middle of nowhere. Bee sting reactions supposedly get worse as you get older, and anything much worse than what I had today would have me sitting in a ditch somewhere for a while.

Watch out for (s)low-flying bugs on steroids!!!

Rally for Ed

Sunday, 9 November

Today was the Rally for Ed, hosted by Wenatchee Valley Velo to show support for Dr. Ed Farrar, who's been in intensive care since being struck by a car more than two weeks ago. Except for the whole reason we were there, it was a marvelous event. WVV had it all extremely well organized, and I think it was the first ride I've been on where a max speed (12 mph) was announced before the start and never exceeded.

We started behind the convention center, did a ceremonial lap of the original crit course from the omnium (I did not get dropped!!), and then rode out past where Ed's accident was and ended at the hospital. A few locals made speeches, and Tyler Farrar finished the event by thanking us all for coming.

Everything we know about Ed was affirmed by how many locals turned up--on everything from Cervelos to BMX bikes. And more than a few of those locals were amazed to see so many of us "westsiders" on the ride. If there truly are healing powers in the positive thoughts of so many caring people, then Ed's recovery should have made major strides today. Thanks to WVV for making it possible for so many of us to express our concern and good wishes!

Small boxes are nice too

Friday, 7 November

Some people get as excited about the stuff that came in the mail yesterday as I got about the new frame that arrived on Tuesday. Parts! Really new parts. I've got to get this stuff home so I stop opening the boxes back up to drool while I'm at work!

Epicness

still Tuesday, 4 November

OK, I can bear pouring rain and lashing winds on the 4th day of November. The extra bonus of a thunder and lightning show was unexpected--but I paid it hardly any attention because I was busy trying to figure out whether I could ride across a layer of hail on top of mulching leaves on top of wet pavement (slowly, eventually, yes--remember I have less traction than some of you). When I stopped to take this picture of white stuff at the beginning of November (see Henry, it's not just in Bend!), I happened to look up at the houses on the hill above me. I thought the weather was pushing the envelope of the season just a tad, but then I saw a Christmas tree. Two miles down the trail, there was just a little light rain and the trail was dry under the trees. Microclimates? Maybe a nanoclimate?

Good things in big boxes

Tuesday, 4 November
Election Day


I brought my camera to work today. I wanted to take some leaf pictures while there are still leaves left. There's a Japanese maple outside my building, and all the different colors of its leaves on the ground were gorgeous this morning. And then the leaf blowers came and by the time I went out with the camera (after it stopped raining), the leaves were gone. :(







But mostly I knew I wanted to try to take pictures of something that was supposed to arrive in the mail today. Sometimes good things come in big boxes too, at least in ones that say this on the outside.






It was really fun to pull this out of the box because I had requested the general idea for the graphics but had no idea how John would put them on the frame. It's beautiful, and more subtle and nuanced than I thought possible. It also weighs just about a kilo.



Unfortunately, my camera and office lighting just don't do justice to the complexity of the blue-black paint. Hopefully some of the depth will come through if you click on the pictures for a bigger image.


I can't wait to get it home and built!

October diet summary

Sunday, 2 November

I survived 31 days without sugar or flour. You can too. Your body needs neither. You will feel better without them. I lost 4 pounds and 1-2 percentage points off my body fat. My rain bike still feels like a fat slug, however. :)

My celebratory feast included (my half of) an amazing plate of antipasti, all of which I could've consumed under those dietary restrictions (but not the nice foccacia that went with it). The pumpkin and goat cheese ravioli were a little too much pasta and not enough pumpkin and goat cheese. But the German chocolate cake (from Whole Foods) was definitely a good choice for getting a sugar and chocolate buzz. With my head still not quite screwed on tight after the chianti with dinner, I was kinda loopy (but happy) for a while.

And this morning we had pumpkin muffins! But I used almost no sugar and substituted whole wheat flour, soy flour, and a tad bit of corn meal for 2/3 of the white flour in the recipe. And they came out better--a finer texture--than usual. I discovered, however, that my organic molasses is a product (are a product?) of Paraguay. Now really, has the United States lost the ability to produce organic molasses?

On the subject of Whole Foods, did you notice the juxtaposition of articles on the front page of the Seattle Times today? The one at the bottom notes that the rush for organic foods is fizzling and companies like Whole Foods are hurting. But while people are expected to cut back on good food, they are likely to have no trouble finding millions to spend at the new casino built by the Snoqualmie tribe, as noted in the feature article on the front page. Maybe that's why molasses are from Paraguay?

I wanna believe

Thursday, 30 October

Of all the athletes brought down for use of performance-enhancing drugs, the one who disappointed me most was Marion Jones. I thought it was beautiful to watch her race. She had so much poise, such a race face, so much emotion....and speed. So when the voice across the room last night told me she was on Oprah, I had to watch.

Marion the arm-chair interviewee was a much different person. Maybe she was trying to be a much different person. I think six months in prison certainly gave her time to put together her story and repeat it like a mantra until it was her only story and the one she believes 110%.

A newspaper column this morning said that Oprah only asked "softball questions," but I thought the one that Oprah kept coming back to, kept not fully believing Marion's answer, was "how could you as an elite athlete not know what you were putting into your body?" On the surface, that seems like a valid sticking point in Marion's story. But embedded in our society, it's totally plausible.

Marion wanted to believe her training was making her better, faster, stronger. The "supplements" she was taking would help her recover faster, build more muscle, all those things that we take supplements for. Her job was to focus on herself; she had coaches to help her with the details. And maybe, just maybe, at some level she just didn't want to know what it was exactly that she was taking.

Still don't believe it? You wanted that $875,000 house, even if it was beyond your means. Your lender said "I've got this great adjustable rate mortgage and we can make it happen." Maybe you asked what happens when the ARM "adjusts," but look how many Americans did not. Or you hear that eating fish is good for helping to prevent heart disease. And look how much fresh fish is available at the supermarket. Those reports that it's laced with flame retardant and heavy metals and other toxins? You don't worry about them; fish is good. It's so much easier not to ask questions, especially if you are otherwise getting something you want or like.

Marion does not deny that she took performance-enhancing substances but says she did not "knowingly" take them. She knew something she was doing was making her faster, but wouldn't we all like to believe that good training was bringing the promised results? I'm not trying to defend her or say she was unjustly punished. I'm just sorry her career ended the way it did. The saddest moment during the interview for me was not when said she'd missed her children's birthdays while she was in prison but when she said she'd never run again. She was a cover girl, and she could've been a role model. If she finds the right theme, maybe she still can be.

Excitements

Wednesday, 29 October

[ This is my 360th blog post. Does that mean I've come full circle? ]

Here's what passes for excitement in my world today.

I have only two days left on my bizarre, ban-the-refined-white-stuff diet. It really only seems weird when you try to "eat out." I've learned how to make cheese sauce and pie crust without flour and many, many things without sugar. I'm trying to restrain my excitement so that when I get up on November 1, I don't immediately consume all the leftover Halloween candy for breakfast and then go for a bike ride to a bakery where I'll have to have two 16 oz. cups of coffee to go with at least two white-flour pastries. For the WSBA meeting that afternoon, all that white stuff would either leave me with such an incredible sugar buzz that I would get, um, passionate about some very obscure item of discussion or send me crashing from the aforementioned sugar buzz to sleep through everyone else's passionate discussion. Since the venue for this year's meeting also offers retail therapy, I need to stay awake.

I have, however, already done my part to stimulate the (relatively) local economy. My brand new, custom, handbuilt frame is in the mail. It weighed less than two pounds pre-paint. I think this is my first new single bike in four years. At Ring of Fire in September, Brian said "I can't believe you're still riding that K2." It was the perfect follow-on comment to the initial contact about a new frame just a week earlier. It's supposed to arrive on Halloween, and you can be sure I'll post pictures.

I am thankful that my excitements are on the happy end of the scale, and I wish for good news today for Michele, Ed, and Amy, each of whom could do with a healthy dose of happy excitement.

Planning ahead

Thursday, 23 October

Eight more days and I'm done with my diet of no refined white flour and no refined sugar. So where should I go to celebrate (?) a month of healthful eating? In the entree department, I miss pasta the most, but that's an easy fix. The more challenging question is where to go in Seattle for the best dessert? Not the biggest, but the best. Not the fussiest, but the tastiest celebration of flour, butter, and sugar (sorry, TB!). While the Sweet Life in Eugene is calling my name, even I can't drive that far for dessert. There has got to be something similar in Seattle, something I have so far successfully managed not to learn about for good reason. Suggestions, please!

Newspaper surprises!

Wednesday, 22 October

I was pleasantly surprised this morning to find not one but two items connected--if remotely--to cycling on a single page of my PI (that's the Seattle Post Intelligencer for you non-locals).

The front page of the Life&Arts section has a blurb at the very top about expansion at the Garage--more bowling lanes, pool tables, etc. Congrats to the Garage crew for their success! Good to know that the business is growing just like the cycling team!

And in the bottom right corner are some extremely nice props for Craig Hetherington at Taste restaurant at SAM with many kudos for his great October all-local menu. When was the last time you saw such a laudatory restaurant review? Way to go, Craig!

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/food/384321_dining22.html

Tandem fun

Sunday, 19 October

Another fun day on the tandem. Coincidentally, we ended up in a group with three other tandems. It was cold at the start and took a long time for the sun to come out. But another good day for riding nonetheless.

Dessert

Saturday, 18 October

Dessert. The most important meal of the day. Also the most difficult one to prepare when you're on a no-flour, no-sugar diet. But what I assembled this evening was pretty tasty.

A handful of late blackberries hanging over the back fence this afternoon was my inspiration. I spread them in the bottom of a small baking dish (the perfect size for serving two people--found at Avoca Handweavers in Kilmacanogue, but I digress) and sliced two apples on top. The usual topping for apple crumble definitely includes flour and sugar (brown sugar, in my kitchen) plus some sugar on the apples. I finely chopped some oatmeal and pecans, added a little cinnamon and about a tablespoon of finely cubed butter, and then bound it all together with maybe 2 tablespoons of maple syrup. I poured a tiny bit more syrup over the apples, put the topping--you guessed it--on top, and baked it until the apples were done. It was definitely not overly sweet, but it wasn't tart either. There was no maple flavor, and the pecans and the oatmeal held together perfectly. You could make this fancy by putting some maple-glazed pecans on the top before serving, but it was also pretty good with nonfat vanilla yogurt on top.

This was definitely better than the broiled bananas with honey and walnuts that I tried last night. Not sure what tomorrow night will bring, but I know lunch has some butternut squash and carrot soup. No curry in it this time, just leftover fried rice.

Tandem ride in the sunshine tomorrow. That's almost good as being 5 years old and knowing that tomorrow is Christmas!

Demises

Friday, 17 October

I was greatly saddened yesterday to learn of the demise of not one but two of my favorite establishments in the town of Monroe.

Years ago I made so many stops on training rides at the Fiddler's Bluff coffee shop that the baristas would have my order started before I even spoke. I bought a framed piece of art there once, done in chalk, by a local artist; since I was on my bike, I couldn't take it with me, and the shop owners eventually delivered it to my doorstep (32 miles away). It was hard for them to compete in the baked goods department with the Sky Valley Bakery across the street, but they were a local source for Fidalgo Bay coffee, and in their heyday, Fiddler's Bluff was a perfect stop on a 65-mile ride.

Just a few years ago, the Wicked Baking Company opened out on the west edge of town in an old yellow house. Their cinnamon rolls were to die for. It was many visits before I could forgo one of those in order to try something else. It was (as far as I could tell) a women-owned and operated business. All the pastries were amazing, and they did wedding cakes and bread too. My sources tell me the building is now a BBQ joint. So sad.

Another sad demise yesterday was the demolition of yet another perfectly nice house on Riviera Place in northeast Seattle. Odds are that it will be replaced by a garish, ugly, 3-story box with no redeeming features that stretches from one property line to the other. Is this progress, or just greed?

Daunting

Wednesday, 15 October

It's a good thing I have to watch where I put my feet when I run stairs. If I kept my eyes on where I was going, I think it would be a little daunting/discouraging/demoralizing. On the stairs I run, you can't see the top from the bottom. This photo makes them look like something out of an Indiana Jones movie: covered with moss and leaves, and ivy vines creeping over everything. Hadn't noticed that in person! The view from the top is wonderful, and it's so quiet in this neighborhood that you can hear the wind blowing off the lake and rustling the trees--before you start breathing hard, that is!

Last of the . . . .

Monday, 13 October

Grapes. For lunch today, I had the last clusters of fat, juicy, purple grapes out of our garden. About half a pound of them, I think. And they are just about the last things to be harvested out of the garden this year. There are still the herbs, which go on forever and would take over if I didn't clip them back, and some green lumps on the tomato plants which might be induced into ripeness with a few days in a paper bag. Oh, and one of the raspberry canes set some late raspberries that will probably never get ripe. But the days of meals with mere minutes from plant to table are gone. We now select from the summer harvest stored in the freezer, which is just not the same, or hidden away in jam jars.