Key Lime Kream Bars

Yes, "K" as in AmeriKa, as in Kosmic, as in some facsimile of "Kream." I've caught the "I-want-to-revolutionize-my-diet" bug. Sometimes (like now), it's when my vertigo starts being a more regular visitor that does it, or even more motivating: when I can't get the entirety of myself into my summer pants.

Step 1: put down caffeine. CHECK. (I could just stop here and call it revolution won. Coffee is mi amor. I judge people who take their coffee weak. And if I find myself without it--and accompanying half-and-half--I can find myself in the midst of a morning cry.)

Step 2: put down sugar (and simultaneously find sweet things that satisfy); the former I am working on, the latter: CHECK!

I found a recipe that I now know is going to serve as the doorway into my continuing diet revolution:

Ani Phyo's Frozen Key Lime Kream Bars

4 cups cashews (I used roasted because I couldn't find raw in bulk)
1/2 cup liquid coconut oil (I got the solid stuff, y'know cuz that's really the only kind you can buy in the store, and I warmed it at the lowest possible temperature--it melts at 76 degrees)
1/2 cup agave syrup
1 cup lime juice
1 cup water (as needed)

Blend. And put into a pie dish and freeze (approx 3 hours). If you have a regular blender like I do, I'd do it in two batches.

Note Ingredients en total are a tad on the pricey side. But they do keep for weeks in the freezer.

And I think of what Thich Nhat Hanh says to people who complain that eating "healthy" and organic is too expensive: Simple. Chew slower. Eat less.

I tried a small square this morning and I'm now going to put more trust into Ani Phyo (she's got a YouTube cooking show, too!). That tart lime taste. The consistency. The cold.

YUM!!!

Breathing

So, I've started going to a personal trainer (piggy-backing on a workmate's sessions). Ah, to be so sore between your shoulder blades that you can't take a true deep breath--now that's working out.

Seriously, I didn't even make it half-way through the weighted jump roping before I had to go stand over the sink in the bathroom because I was sure something was going to come out of me. Even thinking of the Biggest Loser finale didn't help this time. My tough-chick workmate told me "just work through the nausea, Chas [trainer] will clean it up." If I hadn't felt so bad, I would have laughed.

Now it's Saturday and the breeze is coming in through the window and I'm trying to get my mind around creating a website for myself, which I'm noticing is the perfect distraction for sore upper back muscles and for actually writing the book that I hope to eventually publish and put on the website.

So I better go do some actual writing...but I'm stuck with the thing, and not feeling a lot of faith, which is usually when I start getting other ideas, for whole other books I should write TODAY. But I digress, and I procrastinate; off I go.

Recession 101

So I'm driving East on I-90 on Friday night to pick a friend up from the airport and glance up at the swanky digital billboard that's right after the State Buildings Exit. Here's what I see:



Then when I'm driving West on Sunday after dropping my friend off at the airport, there's another version:



So I did some research. I googled "Recession 101" and nothing. I added "digital billboards" to that search, nothing, then "Albany, NY"...nothing. Finally I google the whole "stop obsessing about the economy" phrase and wa-la, a link to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. Here's a link to the full slideshow.

This blogger says: AWESOME.

drink up

This is in the Price Chopper in Great Barrington, MA, where I shop. I always find myself drawn to this sign, to the colorful drinks on the shelves beneath it, even though I'd never buy one. I'm sort of in awe of the sign I think. I keep being surprised it's still there. That no Price Chopper manager has walked by the aisle, glanced up and thought "hey...what the hell? Who put that sign up there?"

(A guy, not a manager, walked by right after I took this picture. He was wearing a black t-shirt. On the back was a picture of Osama Bin Laden. The headline above the pic said "Dying Fetus" and underneath the pic in smaller writing it said, "one shot, one kill." That guy could use a keg or two of the New Age beverage is what I say.)

Bag Head

As long as we're on the theme of animals. F(*k. This made me laugh.

Quimby the Mouse and Andrew Bird

From the This American Life: Live! stream they broadcasted this and last month in movie theaters throughout the land.

Inarguably dark, but it's a beautiful song, and Chris Ware's work is something.

Quimby The Mouse from This American Life on Vimeo.

Sunday Sunday...da..da..da..da...

Have not successfully fought off cold. Am surrendering to bed. With my laptop. Started reading Proust Friday night. Remembrance of Things Past.

But my grandmother, in all weathers, even when the rain was coming down in torrents and Francoise had rushed indoors with the precious wicker armchairs, so that they should not get soaked, you would see my grandmother pacing the deserted garden, lashed by the storm, pushing back her grey hair in disorder so that her brows might be more free to imbibe the life-giving draughts of wind and rain. She would say, "At last one can breathe!"

Go grandma. And, of course, there is the genius of controlling a sentence that long (and this is a short one for Proust); look at everything that comes across in that short space: image, character, weather. It seems so natural it's easy to miss. I know I'll miss a lot of what's referenced throughout this book--I'm guessing...wars, historical leaders, cultural dog-ears--given my spotty study of literature, especially non-American, and especially because most of what I've studied has been out of context of historical narrative. Here's a book. Here's another book. And another. Disconnected dots. But I'll forge ahead with Proust's story. I've stayed away from some tomes long enough thinking I won't get all there is to be gotten. Here I go. Proust on a late Sunday morning, with a cold. Then I'm going to watch me a really bad Michelle Pfeiffer movie. Cuz that's the way I roll.

Saturday list

The roommate made delicious banana pancakes this morning for breakfast. I can't remember the last time I had pancakes.

Clothes are in washer (a washing machine in the next room!).

More coffee to come.

A cold to fight off (the coffee ought to help).

A decision to make about whether or not to go to New York City tomorrow (considering cold and late-night return and big week ahead).

An essay to work on (where is it going? and how long will I go on? and how will it end?)

Dreams last night of unlikely friends pairing up in strange cities and getting married ("But you guys don't even really know each other!" I'm saying, in a cafe somewhere in the Middle East. I'm thinking: he is already married and reads philosophy and can't stand the New Age and she likes to burn sage and says things like the "four directions" and "Earth Mother." "You should at least live together first!" I'm shouting. But I'm like the person who returns from the afterlife...no one can hear or see me.). In the dream, I become more interested in life outside the cafe, all the browns and bustle and dust. Rickshaws. There were definitely rickshaws.

More boxes to sort through.

An ailing orchid to save.

But first, more coffee for that cold.