Our mutual mural dislike

Sunday was a momentous day, not only because Hook and I ran a 5K* but also because the weather was summery. Non-Californians, I'm sorry: I know you're up to your navels in snow. Minor wars are being waged over shoveled-out parking spots, and Seasonal Affective Disorder is striking down all but the most robust souls. On Sunday, it was 72 and sunny here. After we'd run and collected our swag and walked back through the park to get showered and dressed, Hook and I had lunch at Magnolia. Magnolia is, at best, average: their beers are solid, but their menu lacks and lacks and lacks! I'll explain it like this: most of the dishes on the menu seem alright, but for one (or two) ingredients that are totally offputting. Arugula, baby beets, goat cheese, candied pecans, and dressing? Sure! Oh, with a poached egg? NO! I cannot wait for the poached egg trend to fizzle, let me tell you. Scrambled, fried, even over-medium -- fine. Poached eggs have the texture of mucous.

Back to the story. H. and I sat outside to capitalize on the summery weather, and what did we see but a mural in the process of being painted. How interesting, is what I would have liked to think. Instead, I thought, How douchey.


"I hate murals," said Hook, verbalizing my judgmental inner monologue.

But wait! Before you pigeonhole us as a bunch of asshole haters of public art, hear me out! During the course of our brunch, Hook and I compiled our list of reasons why MURALS SUCK:

1) They incorporate lame themes. This qualm is a tricky one to articulate, so let me say this: I like diversity, friendship, togetherness, cooperation, compassion, empathy, etc. as much as the next lady, but I hate hackneyed representations of these here abstractions. It's not so much that I mind murals' tendency to depict Themes of Unity, but the means in which they do. Really, do you think it's clever to slap up a rainbow of kid-sized palmprints meant to signify the exuberance and joy of Kids Working Together? How many of you really feel that compassion is personified by a lopsided caretaker reaching out to a grandmother whose face sags under waves of bloodhoundlike wrinkles? If you're going to create a piece around a Big Theme, move away from well-established symbolism and make your own meaning. This leads into justification two, which is...

2) The quality of the "art" is middling to poor. When was the last time you saw a mural that made you think, "Whoa! That's awesome -- I'd like to have a print of that!" Or even, "Hey, that's pretty good -- props to the dude [or lady] who painted that." What's that? Never? In my 1.5 years here, I've seen exactly two murals that I've liked enough to considering hanging reproductions thereof in my own home. TWO. It seems to me that many mural artists, carried away by the grandiosity of theme they're stretching to depict, lose focus and let slide their artistic skillz. Or maybe the skillz weren't there in the first place.

3) Mural artists can be self-satisfied. This really only applies to the Mural Artiste we saw on Sunday, who was swigging from a can of PBR and fist-bumping passersby, even though the "face" he'd outlined looked like it had been drawn by a child. A PBR-swilling child.

I wrote this post at the risk of sounding like a massive asshole: I'm aware of this. And as I said, it's not that I don't like what murals (in many ways) represent -- community unification, kids working on projects, togetherness, what have you. I just wish that, in their quest to promote Positive Values, murals could look nicer. Pretty things are what we respond to best, and the only two murals I've seen here and loved are not at all related to unity. One depicts a series of woodland creatures, and the other features a robot. I'm pretty sure that "Unity" > robots, but I want public art to confirm this suspicion. Step it up, mural artists.


***

*And I'd be lying if I told anyone my performance was momentous, unless "momentous" euphemizes "pretty fucking bad."

I'm BA-ACK!

If only to kvetch about a few things(!)

In all seriousness, I've lately been wanting to post about things unrelated to gastronomic happenings -- my recent move, what I'm reading, and Things I Find Annoying. (Note: My plan is to relay the Annoying Things in a manner both comical and straightforward. That's the plan, anyhow. Advance apologies if my kvetching gets way out of hand, but what are blogs for if not to vent one's frustrations to the world, right?)

So like, this afternoon, en route to Borders to pick up my holiday cards (watch yer mailboxes!), I decided to get my eyebrows done. It has been weeks since I've had my brows groomed -- eeeeek! -- and they were starting to look as they did when I was in grade school (i.e., before I was allowed to partake of any cosmetic rituals). No problem, right? WRONG! Not only did my brow lady bruise the hell out of my right browbone -- how? God only knows -- but she managed too to drip wax in my hair. How is possible? This lady grooms brows for a living! I'd assume that her fine motor skillz, after years of waxing brows (and other things), would be more honed, but no. Nope! To remove the wax from my bangs, the Brow Lady used oil -- a ton of it. Which was great, given that I was to leave directly for the mall. There are far worse things than going shopping with grease-slicked bangs, but let me assure you that the grease-haired shopping experience is not a pleasant one. I mean, in case you had any doubts.

Adding to my general bitchiness was the group of guys smoking a blunt at the back of the bus. (Note: I was sitting in the last row of seats; these duders were a seat ahead of me.) Don't get me wrong: hypothetically, I have nothing against blunts. Do what you feel, right? Just don't do it on the damn bus, especially if the weed you're smoking is skunky and terrible and clouding the rear section of the vehicle. ACK.

OK, I'm better now. Those were my two main gripes. They're over now. Thanks for reading, if you made it this far. (Note: If you made it this far, mad props. I almost didn't make it through that bitch session, and I'm the aggrieved!)

Here's some good news: I registered for the Kaiser Permanente 5K, to be held Sunday, February 6th at Golden Gate Park. I've only run one 5K so far (the one associated with the SF Marathon), and while I achieved my goal of completing the race without stopping to walk (DER), my time wasn't what I'd have liked. My goal for this race is to shave 2:30 off of my previous time (which shall go unnoted). Lofty? Yes. Achievable? I think so, especially considering the amount of time I spend biking (cross training is good, right?), my renewed enthusiasm for strength training, and Hook's and my New Year's resolution to actually start the Insanity program. (Note: Since receiving my Insanity DVD set in the mail, I've done two workouts. OK, one. The other "workout" was the fit test, which I pretty much bombed.)

That's the scoop here. My plan is to reinvigorate this blog while continuing to update Garky Eats. Lofty? Yes. But lately, lofty is my MO.

The Tot Trot and other running adventures.

I realize that, in my last post (or my last post that mentions running), I presented a less-than-positive outlook re: my participation in the SF Marathon's 5K. Man, was I a curmudgeon! It is true that I injured my leg (though not debilitatingly) and that the doctor I saw advised me not to run on it (perhaps to prevent angry followup communication via email?), but I'm so glad I decided to run on Sunday.

When I woke up at approximately 5:40, I was more nervous than I'd been in months -- which, for me, is saying a lot. It took all the effort I could muster to make semi-normal conversation with Hook during our bus ride downtown, and prior to the race, I had a look of terror on my face (according to Hook). As soon as the gun went off and I started running, though, this fear dissipated. Miraculously, it seems, I made an instantaneous transition from a mindset of timidity to one of total enjoyment: it was fun running with a big ass crowd of people! The mix I'd prepared the night before was varied and upbeat and awesome! There were actual spectators, cheering us on! I picked another runner to keep pace with, kept my arms loose (i.e., as loose as I could), and made it through the race with minimal calf pain. I finished in 27:45, which -- while not super-fast -- is pretty respectable, all things considered.

I'm looking forward to my next 5K: on first allowing my leg to heal fully, and then on getting my time down. Meanwhile, I'll continue with bike commuting, ellipticalling, and yoga.

America Party!

Happy Fourth! Growing up, my family celebrated this holiday somewhat inconsistently: sometimes, we'd cook out (albeit in the backyard) and see fireworks; sometimes, we'd just do whatever else we were going to do that day (albeit with the addition of those red/white/blue popsicles). Consequently, I never get as excited about the Fourth of July as I feel I should; this lack of fervor always inspires a slight guilt -- am I not patriotic enough? Why am I not more excited for cured/grilled meats? -- which, in turn, usually prompts me to get off the couch & do something, mostly so that I can say that I got off the couch and did something.

That being said, I'm legitimately excited for this year's Fourth. Hook and I are having a picnic (w/pals) at Alamo Square Park, and we spent the better part of yesterday making an assortment of homemade treats. Hook made an entirely from-scratch strawberry rhubarb pie and also some ginger candy (which, oh. my. god.) and, with the syrup leftover from the production of the candy, some homemade ginger ale. I made a ginormous loaf of bread whose taste and texture somewhat mimic that of a pretzel. (Note: I accidentally added too much yeast to the recipe, hence the textural abnormalities, and I also brushed the loaf with olive oil/sprinkled with salt before baking, hence the pretzelness.) No matter, though: I will happily eat that pretzel bread to celebrate the occasion of our country's birth.

Re: homemade pickles, Eating Well has not posted on their website the recipe we used, but they do have this very similar/almost identical recipe. Check it out!

Here is the recipe Hook used for making his ginger candy and ginger ale. The homemade ale tastes more like a commercially-prepared ginger beer; the concentration of ginger syrup also increases as you near the bottom of the club soda bottle, so the last swigs are actually the best part. Haven't tried the ginger ale float, but that, undoubtedly, is next on our list.

Enjoy Independence Day! Wear sunscreen! And, if you're prone to that sort of thing, raise a lukewarm can of domestic lager to celebrate this great land of ours! I'm off for a run, and then begins the stretch of picnic greatness.

Productivity!

I find that I'm productive in bursts: that I'll accomplish a lot for like, a week, and then the following two weeks are far less impressive. This isn't to say that I'm slothful during the post-productive stretch - I'm just...I don't know, more average. What I'm saying is, this week has been ueberproductive!

I've made my reentry into the world of running. Hook and I went running twice last week in the park, and I did a 5K (without stopping!) this morning on the treadmill. (Note: I feel like treadmill runs are "cheater" runs, but this morning I didn't feel like holding my giant-ass keyring and my iPod as I ran, so I opted for the gym instead. I'm paying for a membership, you know? Might as well use it once in a while!) I'm trying to take it easy & not be overly-zealous, but I have a good feeling about the the coming months and finally entering some races.

Despite my lack of formalized plans, I'm pretty excited about the summer. My dad and Donna and my cousin Matt have (tentative) visits to SF scheduled, and Ali might also come out for a weekend. Dan and Alison are taking a trip to Portland, and I hope that Hook and I will meet up with them there. I'm hoping too to go back to Minnesota for a few days (during the State Fair, ideally), possibly road trip to Galesburg. I can almost smell the green of the cornfields. As much as I love CA, there's something so perfect about late summer cornfields, their rustle and sway.
That said, I am never going back to Cincinnati.

Also: I love my Chacos. They are possibly the best shoes I've ever owned. One of the best pairs of shoes I've ever owned, anyway.

ALSO: anyone want to go to the Grand Canyon during the next few months?

Editing time.

Happy Sunday and happy Mother's Day ! Looks a bit overcast but I think the clouds might clear out before 9:00...

It was a good week, weatherwise and activity-wise. The first declaration mostly explains itself, but I will expand on the second. To start, I went running twice with Hook(!) This is notable not only because I'm not a huge fan of running outside (I know, I know: it's better than using a treadmill, but treadmills are easier on the knees - plus I like being able to regulate my speed), but also because I hadn't gone running in about four months. My knee seems to have healed satisfactorily: it didn't hurt at all after the two runs, though my right Achilles tendon was a bit twitchy. I'm going to sign up for the 5K (on marathon day); keep your fingers crossed that no further harm comes to my knee.

Continuing with the trend of revisited athleisure activities, yesterday Hook and I bought tennis racquets and spent a few hours playing in the park. I played as a kid - with my family and on school teams - but it has been a good decade since I've played at any sort of regular intervals, and it felt really good to start again. (Aside: did I really just say that it's been a decade since I've done a certain activity? OLD PERSON STATEMENT!) I'm glad that Hook had as much fun as I did, and I predict that post-workday tennis will become a trend. It is awesome that the courts are like, four minutes from my house! And that there are so many courts! Yass!

In other news, we went to TARGET yesterday. Score! (Aside: now that I'm living in a place with limited/restricted access to Target, trips to said store are most certainly blogworthy news. Oh, how I mourn the bygone days of recreational Target shopping.) Since I stocked up on granola during our trip last week, I didn't go too nuts yesterday, though I did get a 2-pack of Bumble & Bumble hair lotion. Bumble and Bumble, I heart you.

On the schedule for today: spinning, bronch, chamber music concert, a little shopping (perhaps), and some tennis! Oh, yeah, and maybe some laundry and grocery shopping, those lesser-but-necessary weekend activities...

Goals

It is that time again: the time to make resolutions for the new year. In the past, I've been a bit curmudgeonly about the process of resolution making, denouncing it as nothing more than the result of overzealous optimism (which is usually depleted by early March, if not sooner). This year, perhaps owing to my cultivation of a brighter outlook, or perhaps due to my setting my sights on more realistic achievements, I have a different take. I'm not as crabby! I've already started working on these projects (or goals, if you'd like)! Here, then, is a list of what I'd like to accomplish in 2010:

1) Run a 10K by late fall

This seems doable, right? I think so - as long as my left knee and/or right foot don't give me any trouble. I'm planning to run two (three?) 5Ks prior to running a 10K, beginning with the Kaiser Permanente 5K in early February.

2) Read 50 books

Reading 50 books was a goal of mine this year and I'm SO CLOSE to finishing. (Note: as of this writing, I've read 48 full books and am working on the 49th. The 50th is going to be short, though the 49th, Tom Perotta's "The Abstinence Teacher," is loooong.) Fifty doesn't sound like a lot, does it? This year, between finishing and defending my thesis, moving x-country a few times, and plunking into the "real world," I decided otherwise. Maybe next year I'll aim for 75.

3) Make my own cheese

A goal inspired in part by a chapter in "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," in part by my growing fascination with learning to cook everything and using local ingredients. My sister is skeptical about the quality of my yet-to-be-made cheese, but I am so stoked! I just ordered my cheese making manual on Amazon; until its arrival, I will fill the dairy void with Babybel and selections from the Haight St. Market.

Those are my main goals. There will be others, yes, smaller and subtler and less public than the ones just presented, but if I accomplish these three things in the coming year, I will be happy.

Happy upcoming 2010, friends!

I did not sign up for this weather package

(and other tales of New England meteorological discontent.)

What a week! What a weekend! Highlights (chronologically, not in order of importance):

1) Thursday, Ali and I made an awesome batch of blueberry muffins. Alright: I did the prep, baking, and cleanup, but Ali kept me company and later taught me the basics of needlepoint, so we're even. I'd be remiss if I didn't include the recipe for said wundermuffins:

Blueberry Oat Muffins
(Yield: 18 muffins)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup old-fashioned oats
• 2 cups fat-free or low-fat buttermilk
• 1 2/3 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 Tbs. vegetable oil
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 tsp. grated orange zest
• 1 1/4 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, optional

1. Combine oats and buttermilk in mixing bowl. Cover; let stand 30 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 350F. Spray muffin pan cups with nonstick cooking spray or use pleated paper liners.
3. Combine buttermilk mixture, flour, sugar, oil, baking powder, baking soda, salt, eggs and orange zest in second mixing bowl. Beat with an electric mixer at medium speed until smooth. Fold in blueberries and walnuts. Spoon batter into prepared cups, filling them 3/4 full.
4. Bake 20-25 minutes, or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in center. Remove muffins from pans immediately; place on wire rack to cool.

(Recipe taken from Vegetarian Times, January 1, 2005. And yes, we did use walnuts.)

Not only were the muffins ueber-easy to prepare (I grated orange zest and measured the other ingredients while the oats and buttermilk sat, undisturbed), but they're healthy, too - 130 calories each without the nuts, about 155 with. They are also unstoppably delicious.

2) Also on Thursday, I began my first ever cross stitch project: a small hamburger! I only have a few rows of stitching thus far - packing has sort of taken over my life - but I think I can finish the project by the end of the week. Maybe.

3) This weekend, Cecily and Chris got married. The ceremony, held in an orchard at Quonquont Farm, was simple and beautiful. Congratulations, C & C!

4) Today I started a RunningAHEAD account so I can track my runs (and bike rides). I was hesitant to open an account before, mainly because I was running like, 1.5 miles and felt (perhaps inaccurately?) wusstastic. But today I overcame this mental block and joined the site. My name is Garky. If any of you all are on the site, friend me! (If that is an option.)

A small, mid-year goal of mine is to update more frequently, rather than having these giant, dump-truck posts. But when there's so much happening, it's difficult to find the time, yes? Excuses!

Another week almost gone: six weeks left of summer. I haven't accomplished as much by this point as I'd hoped, in terms of the independent study and assembling/beginning revisions of my thesis. But I've made progress in other areas, namely running. Yes, that's right: I've decided to take up that former pursuit of mine, a decision that surprised even me, as I'd proclaimed (throughout college) that I'd never run again, that only crazy/masochistic people run, and so on, and so forth. I [re]started about two weeks ago, alternating two minutes of running with two of walking, then moving to five of running/two of walking. Now, I'm working on a sequence of ten minutes of running, three of walking. Baby steps, for sure, but a pleasant re-learning.

Saturday, Eric and I spent the day in Brattleboro. Superficially, it seems similar to Northampton: both have a lot of cafes, "quirky," independent shops, pedestrians, strange vagrants lounging on the sidewalks, etc. But, Brattleboro feels decidedly like Vermont: there's a mountain overlooking the town, a cooler breeze in the air, and something else that I couldn't quite identify. Went to a few thrift stores, a bookstore, and a three-story antique center that vaguely reminded me of the Galesburg Antique Mall (but wasn't as good). Attempted to visit the Farmers' Market, which was open as we drove to lunch, but closed as we returned. Walked & bummed, looked at expensive bike gear. Drove home around five and refreshed ourselves with freeze-pops. Farmers' markets always close too early! And freeze-pops have been one of my favorite parts of summer since I was like, six.

Ali arrives in a week! Sooner, possibly - she sets sail on the 22nd. The apartment is mostly organized, the kitchen and living room walls left blank for Ali to decorate. A. shared her recipe for tzatziki with me last night (am planning to make tomorrow evening, to go with falafel):

Ali's Tzatziki
1 lb. Greek yogurt
1 cucumber, grated and drained of liquid
4-5 cloves garlic
3 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. lemon juice
salt, pepper, and chopped mint to taste.

Combine yogurt and cucumber; mix well. Add garlic, then oil and lemon juice. Season with salt, pepper, mint or dill. Chill before serving.

***
To the weekend: cheers.