Health and Food: Walking Week Two, Plus Recipes

At the start of 2012, I am taking a very big step back from many of the performance activities that I am currently part of to focus on writing. Stepping away from performance work means much less physical movement. To avoid any possible spreading of the derrière while I spend more time sitting on it, I have devised a plan!

About a week ago, Jess and I began a walking routine that put us on a six-mile circuit through town. I am excited to say that despite the early morning hours (6:00AM typically) and the enormous blisters on my feet because I am not used to wearing anything more than sandals, it is pretty easy going. Once it becomes too easy we will have to increase something, speed would be the simple answer. On the days that Jess cannot walk due to her school schedule, Frank has offered. Just as with Jess, we meet at half way. The route in his direction happens to bring us directly to a nice park with a racquetball court. A half hour game sounds like a plan to me!

I have been trying to work on my diet choices as well. I am not going to say that any of the food I am eating is the healthiest but it does keep me away from fast food, sweets and most things that come in a bag or box. This week:

Breakfast: Virgin Bloody Mary

V8 Juice (or tomato juice)

Dash of Tabasco

1 tsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. Worcestershire

Pepper to taste

Lunch: Tuna Sandwich with Homemade Potato Chips

Tuna Salad

(makes 6 servings)

3 cans tuna

½ block of cream cheese

1 tblsp. lemon juice

Mayonnaise to taste

2 cloves garlic crushed

Salt & pepper to taste

Soften cream cheese and mix all ingredients until smooth.

Homemade Potato Chips

Thin sliced red potatoes

Olive oil

2 tblsp. White truffle oil

Parsley (to taste)

Parmesan cheese (to taste)

Thinly slice red potatoes, he thinner they are the better this works, too thick and they may as well be home fries. Bring olive oil to temperature (about 300 degrees). Toss in potatoes and cook until they begin to turn brown and curl up. Some may bubble, it happens. Allow potatoes to cool on paper towels. Toss with truffle oil, parsley flakes and parmesan.

Dinner: Pork Chops with Broccoli in Cream Sauce

This is a crockpot recipe. I am not a fan of cooking so if I can manage it only once a week I am very, very happy!

1 – 2 lbs. thin sliced pork chops (I use the ones without the bone)

3 large heads of broccoli or one bag frozen, cut florets

1 large can cream of chicken soup

1 large red onion

3 cloves garlic

Salt & pepper to taste

Brown pork chops. Cut broccoli or thaw if frozen. Add chopped onion, crushed garlic, salt & pepper to cream of chicken soup (do not add water) in the crockpot. Stir in broccoli and browned chops. Cook on low heat 4 – 5 hours.

I did not add any desserts or snacks this time, but I admit that I love Lorna Doone cookies!

Fall Yard and Gardening Day One

I am so grateful to have Frank helping in the complete overhaul of my yard into a functional raised garden and zombie apocalypse, preparedness zone. The goal is to have four garden boxes, a hanging plant awning, and a narrow herb garden by November, winter planting season in Arizona.

The compost is evolving wonderfully! It is turning into a bit of a habitat, which is much more than I expected. I assumed an open compost pile would attract flies and ants, but it did not cross my mind that the garden lizards that roam the yard would also get fat on the spoiled vegetation and the insects. I think we have the largest lizards in the development. The most difficult part of using an open plastic storage bin as compost in Arizona is the consistent need to water it. I save jugs of water in the shed in case of a not so rainy day, and typically have to pour six gallons every other week into the bin. The pile fortunately does not smell as bad as I expected from rotting vegetation. The most exciting part, I began with very little actual soil and now the tub is nearly full to the top with rich black dirt!

With a ten gallon tub of fresh made planting soil I need a place to use it. The ground in the yard is incredibly hard and not conducive to growing at all. Add to the soil issue, the former home owners installed a sprinkler system that has fallen into complete disrepair. Without large sums of money the system is neither going to be repaired or removed. So, I have a large hard surface that I cannot feasibly till into even if my compost is the natural born Miracle Grow. Time for higher thinking and rocks.

Yes, I have half a lawn filled with river rocks! I cannot stand to look at them there are so many. But, rocks are great for potted plant gardening. Placing rocks in the base of a pot allows the water to drain away from the dirt and not over saturate plants. Who needs a pot though when I have plenty of rocks! The plan: lay out a grid of rock bed rectangles. Each bed in this case is about five foot by seven foot. Once the bed is made we will place a fencing stake at each corner and frame the bed with chicken wire. I am not certain on height yet, maybe two feet. Six inches from the internal frame another stake and frame will stand. Now the fun part – use more river rock! Sandwiched in the wire walls we will stack more river rock and create a stone box to fill with compost, soil and tasty, tasty plants!

I am very excited to see this project finally coming together. Granted, Frank and I barely created a single bed of rocks this afternoon, but it is a start and I am proud of it.

Admiration Update

In early March of 2005, I wrote a short journal entry on admiration. This was likely due to a prompt drawn from a bowl of papers with questions on them.

The one person in the world that I admire more than anyone else is.... I really do not know. I mean there are a lot of people in the world who are doing a lot of good things. I admire all of them. At the same time I cannot stand them, because they stand up and say, look at me, I am doing something worth while in the world and you are not. Then they want you to follow them. I guess the people I admire more are the parents of the litters of children. I mean I realize they are getting gads of financial help from doing interviews and ads, but what about the emotional support? I mean, they have to deal with the raising of their kids and making them look and act perfect in front of the world. I can not even raise one emotionally stable child, no less six. If the world were watching me raise my kid I would be the poster child for every abuse case I am certain of it. I am worn out, and stressed out by one kid. I could never, never live through six.

I was knee deep in preschooler troubles at this time and of course, all the cool and collected parents awed me. Admiration ideals have shifted since then. I still commend anyone able to properly raise a functional human, or several, but my son is twelve and very self-sufficient. I must have done something right. Today, I admire anyone willing to risk it all to make dreams happen. This economy especially makes dreaming difficult. I am lucky in many ways. I have an aforementioned well behaved child, a husband willing to take the lion’s share of the bills and friends who support and assist in all ways possible.

I admire those who support me even more than other artists in my position. Zane Grey said something about how he married as any writer should, into money. He was right in that artists need a steady income coming from somewhere. I admire anyone willing to put up with the unstable paycheck, and equally unstable mental state of creative types. I spent my share of time stressed over budgeting, jobs, groceries, and I still do stress, but over the years I have developed a support system that makes it that much easier. Without people to believe in dreams as much as the creator trying to make them solid where would the dreamers be?

My parents never saw the work side of what I do, whether that is writing, dancing or entertaining. They enjoyed the finished product, but never understood that more hours go into that than the final polished piece. It is something taken for granted by many who consume rather than create. It is not their fault, no artist wants the rough cuts out on display, but maybe it would be beneficial. Those who are supportive have seen the work. The late nights, up all nights, and early mornings that lead to a strange sleep schedule and often a moody artist, it makes us hard to live with. It is probably rather like living with a temperamental teenager.

I admire artists who do the dreaming on their own too. Working eight to ten hours per day, sometimes more than five days a week, and drawing up the energy and the will to spend remaining conscious hours doing that work no one will see or understand. We produce what we can, when we can and face the rejection letters, vacant gallery shows, small crowds and cruel reviews of others who have no idea the blood that went into that morsel they devoured and spit out. When it is all over, we return to our offices and workshops and try again. Why do we try? Why do we try to impress people who do not understand? For that dollar, that is why.

And, after we impress the masses enough to make our living through god given talents that will never make us gods, what then? Then, it is still Monday morning, all that we worked so hard to make ours, to live our dreams and make a living doing what we love, it is all drudgery again. We work longer hours, for less pay, doing that which we always wanted to do! Some days, just like those who work the mindless, soulless cube jobs or hard labor, we do not want to get out of bed, but no one understands that. The artist who wants a day off is lazy, a prima donna, possibly strung out. No one ever thinks that for so many years this sleep-deprived individual used to work overtime hours, take care of children, and still made time for his dreams. Can you really blame him for wanting a weekend? There is no such thing as a paid vacation or sick leave in this line of work.

I still admire parents, especially parents still supporting children who grew into artists, but even more, I admire the artists, and more still, those who stand by them. Thank you, from one of those crazy artists.