Coffee.

Posted on Posted in Deliberate ConsumptionTagged

I’ve been pregnant for 9 months. Well, 40 weeks. In other words, this is my due date.

One of the things I’ve had to give up during this time is caffeine, specifically, caffeinated coffee. This is not because anyone told me to, but because I realized about 4-5 months in (after finally getting over coffee smelling disgusting) that coffee seriously increased my anxiety level to the point where panic attacks were sometimes an issue. I’ve never been fond of medication to counter uncomfortable emotional states, and over the years, I’ve found that if you can cut something out, and make your life better (or add something, like exercise and sleep), then I’m much better off in the end. Pregnancy seriously limits your medication options (even with pain relief) so decaf was the option.

There is a shortage of quality, delicious, freshly roasted decaf available. I like Stumptown Coffee, for instance, but the bag of beans last purchased from a local business was stale before I brewed them. I have a history of working at Starbucks a decade ago, and while their decaf options are more limited now, I picked up a bag of Decaf Verona (a guilty favorite of the Starbucks blends). This was about 5-6 weeks ago, and I still have some beans left.

Here’s the miracle – they really don’t taste that stale, though they definitely are old (and definitely a bit on the stale side). They’re drinkable in the way the Stumptown stale decaf was not.

I don’t know much about coffee. I leave that expertise to Tonx and his coffee roasting genius. If memory serves, the reason that the Starbucks beans have miraculously stayed drinkable (yet stale, and who knows when they were originally roasted) is due to their over-roasting for consistency.

Meanwhile, my husband has been receiving his 2x/month shipments of Tonx Coffee, and I’ve been lucky enough to have a smell and a sip when it first comes to my house. We’ve given away a few extra bags (since he can’t drink it all himself) and friends have come back saying it’s the best coffee they’ve ever had. One friend said she and her husband couldn’t stop smelling the bag.

There was a great write-up of what Tonx is doing in LA Weekly (seen here). I’m hoping one day I’ll get a bag of decaf from Tonx OR that my tolerance for caffeine will come back. Either way, Tonx Coffee is the coffee I want to drink.

Nitrogen Narcosis

Posted on Posted in Fitness and DietTagged

I have been thinking a lot lately about stuff I should post on a blog. You know, those deep thoughts that you think, “I should share that with other people.”

I just got back from vacation in Maui. It was our 5th wedding anniversary, and we spent 4 days diving, and the rest of the time playing in the ocean, eating good food, and taking a lot of walks.

We have only dove together in Kona before, which is a lot of diving just offshore, that stays fairly shallow. Looking at my log book, almost every dive day started with a deep dive at at least 85 ft. We were lucky that we had a great dive crew, and fairly advanced people on the boat with us, which allowed us to even do a deep, drift dive!

I’m definitely more a fan of dives around 60 ft, if only because it means I get more bottom time. However, all of the diving we did was pretty spectacular, even if brief. It’s the end of whale season, so we could hear whale songs under water. They were still a bit far off, as that our bodies weren’t vibrating (a sure sign, I’m told, that they’re near.) From the boat, we saw a whale tail, false killer whales (like giant dolphins!) and dolphins. Under the water, we saw so much! White tipped reef sharks, flame wrasses, tons of turtles (that was one dive), and so many other fish, nudibranchs, morays, garden eels – it was awesome.

Most noteworthy, though, was my experience of what had to be narcosis on our deep drift dive. My dive instructor, GirlDiver knows from my PADI Advanced Open Water dives that I’m a bit stupid when I’m narced. At 95 ft, I realized I didn’t under stand how my computer worked. Rather, it’s not that I didn’t understand, it’s more that I didn’t understand that I didn’t understand. I was completely without self-consciousness, and looked at my tally of bottom time so far, and the timer that tells me how long I can stay at that depth, and was confused. I wasn’t worried – not at all. That little voice that makes sure that I’m doing the right thing, though, was just really quiet. I was looking for it, and it just wasn’t there.

I showed Jon my computer. He was worried I was going to ascend too fast, meanwhile, I was completely unconcerned, but just wanted validation externally because I couldn’t find it within. He tried to explain to me, in crude diver sign, how my computer worked, and that I was OK. I decided, cleverly, that since I knew that the number allowing me to stay under water INCREASED when I ascended, I slowly started ascending. At about 87 ft, I realized – “oh hey, I’m stupid because I’m narced.” I spent the rest of my diving trying to make sure that even if I went below 85 ft, if I started feeling funny, I’d ascend back to 70-85 ft.

For me, narcosis starts around 65 ft, when I start relaxing a little more and get loopy thoughts running through my head. Those thoughts are met with that inner voice that knows I’m narced, and is able to point out to myself that I need to take care of myself.

The key thing I’ve learned here is what narcosis REALLY does to me – which seems to mainly relax me by taking away that ego that sits by and judges my every waking move. I think we all have that bit within us that helps us navigate the world, tells us what the “right thing” is to do, even if we don’t do it. It’s freeing not to have that critical voice, however, the down side is that when you’re diving, you need to have a bit of that critical voice to tell you “hey, if you want to be safe, you need to do/not do x,y,z.” You also need to be able to remember how your dive computer works.

This is why diving with a buddy is a good thing – and also, why diving with other advanced divers and a dive master is good. Then there’s the understanding what happens to you when you’re narced. It’s not something you can truly avoid, except by not diving past your threshold where you experience narcosis.

All in all, we had some great dives. I think I can appreciate deep dives, but prefer shallow ones more. We wouldn’t have seen the flame wrasses in shallower waters, though. The 65 minutes of bottom time I got on our shallower dive (last dive), was awesome. I got that long time, though I was chilly (77 degree water), thanks to a loaned hood coupled with my 5 mm Cressi wetsuit, and a 3 mm Henderson vest.

I hope to post more in the coming weeks. I’ve got a lot of posts percolating, but am also super busy. We’ll see….

Spring Training

Posted on Posted in Fitness and DietTagged

To say the least, I’ve been slacking. I’ve made excuses: busy at work, cold and wet outside, treadmills are boring, no training buddy. Meanwhile, I’ve gained 7 stubborn pounds and 1.5 inches on my thighs! Thankfully, the rest of me seems the same measurements, but I’m definitely feeling softer.

The big issue is that I’m adjusting to my new career and ambitions, new house, and enhanced social life. This had led to many lunches and dinners out, and delicious beers and cocktails. Then there’s the caloric granola that I sometimes eat in the morning. It’s not that breakfast is bad, but I’m starting the day eating for pleasure and not necessarily need. It’s not that eating for pleasure is bad, but I’m lacking the key moderation. Sometimes I’m not hungry in the morning, but eat anyway. Same goes for sizable dinner and drinks after a heavy lunch.

I’m using the Runner’s World iPhone app to set a new training schedule, and hoping that if I start small, I can get back into half-marathon condition. I started this morning, 2 days later than intended, with a morning 2 miler. Jon came with, and did an inaugural run in FiveFingers.

Almost at work, so I’m ending this post for now.

Picasso, SAM, and Passive Art

Posted on Posted in Arts and Crafts, Deliberate ConsumptionTagged , , ,

One of my big things, still, is deliberate consumption. Us humans are great consumers. We do it so effectively, and we do it so unconsciously. I really want both myself and others to be conscious of what they consume – because if you’re not conscious of it, why are you doing it? If you’re not putting food in your mouth for nourishment or pleasure, what are you doing it for? I ask this, yet I and others know the distraction from watching TV, or interacting with someone else, and having a once full bowl of food dwindle to nothing in no time.

This post is not about food, though, but about art.

Last night, Jon and I went to see the world-class Picasso exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum. It was a members-only night, which meant the crowds were less thick, but it was pretty crowded anyway. I noted what another blogger had noted, which was that people were hesitant to get close to the art work. What I noticed more than that, though, were WHY people were not getting close. Many people were standing back about 10-15 feet from a painting, listening to a large cell phone-sized device telling them how to feel about the art. This caused a few alarming problems, as far as I could see.

1. People stood back, away from the art for long periods of time, blocking the flow of other viewers. This means that it was hard to get close to the painting, to move around the space, and to interact with the painting on my own terms.

2. People listening to the devices were not interacting with each other, though they were there with at least one other person. This meant that there wasn’t a discussion between individuals over the paintings, like “How do you feel about all these phalluses that are to make up a woman’s face?”

3. People were not interacting with the art.

I’m going to go off on this third one. My cousin and I had a discussion this past summer when I visited an art gallery in Houston. He has problems controlling himself in public, and has problems minding the signs of not touching the art. He said that he wanted to interact with the art – something that I agree is important – but our fundamental disagreement was how to interact with the art without touching it.

It’s hard for me to describe in words how I interact with art. I do a lot of thinking non-verbally, and my discussions with art often happen in colors and shapes, vs. words and sentences. Some art, like some people, I can have a conversation with (again, not verbal), where some art I’m more than happy to just walk by in a crowd.

Maybe that’s the thing about Picasso. I don’t feel like his art is something you can just stand back and view passively. While there might have been interesting factoids within the audio, I doubt that it did anything to enrich the personal experiences of the novice viewer. I believe that art has to be experienced on its own terms. While there is definitely something great about understanding the history and creation of a work of art, as well as the artist, there is the final experience, the viewer and the work itself, that is also vitally important. I could try to paint out my feelings on a work of art, and that might end up an interesting work in itself. It is part of the conversation. Another person, more gifted with words, could write an essay on their experience of the work. Yet another could compose music, or dance, or argue, or have a long talk over cocktails into the night.

We know the dangers of talking on our cell phones while driving. Our attention is so split, it’s as if we’re driving drunk.

Do we know the dangers of individual audio devices and viewing art? After last night, I’d prefer them to be thrown in a recycled technology heap never tobe seen again. I believe they’re fundamentally bad for art, and bad for humanity.

Drinking Game? Maybe not…

Posted on Posted in Food and DrinkTagged , , ,

I’ve been slowly not-adjusting to the new Weight Watchers. It’s still the same basic system, where you count points (PointsPlus) and it’s deducted from your daily/weekly allotment, but it’s all calculated differently. Most of the real-foods I eat haven’t changed in cost (proteins and fats mostly the same, whole grains just a little more), and fruits and a good number of vegetables are free! This, plus I get more to deduct from per day. What’s the killer, though, is that now my 12 oz beer costs twice as much as eating a banana! A glass of wine? Three times! And the banana is now free! It’s almost like they want me to stop drinking and just eat healthy!

So last night an out of town friend told me of a drinking game that she and her friend were planning on playing. It included large quantities of alcohol and – gasp – cheap, tasteless, light beer was the only way to survive the game.

I realized then something that my Weight Watchers leader, Phil, has said that he made the choice years ago in favor of food over alcohol. Last night, I realized I’ve made the same choice. No matter how much I like to feel tipsy, if I’m not drinking something that tastes good, that I enjoy, I’ll save those calories for something I *will* enjoy – something that looks like the glass cupcake necklace I have around my neck.

Plus side – I find that I can easily cure a sugar hangover with a brisk run!