Raw for Lent: Days 13-14

Monday, Day 13:

Monday meant some more yoga, but I bailed. I ended up finishing the recording for the LAM! LAM! tour and getting my screens set up and considering paint color, then hit the gym. Food was...a banana. An apple. A noble attempt to eat more kale salad both before and after work, then a grapefruit and a handful of almonds for dinner/pre-bed snack.

Tuesday, Day 14:

Today was a barn day! Sadly, Shep, my trainer, doesn't think Jazz is ready to do lessons, so I rode Newman, my old love. Newman is still a totally awesome horse; just am totally amped on Jazz. Regardless of a little misbehavior (apparently, Newman has not been ridden again since I last rode him!) and silliness, he was a very good boy and listened well.

After riding, I decided to finally pull out my Sun Warrior and made a shake of almonds, water, chia gel and frozen strawberries, which I put in my bag for work and drank there. I forgot how congealed the Sun Warrior shakes tend to get. Or maybe it's the Chia doing it. Whatever, I choked it down but the shake wasn't as filling as I remembered said shakes being, so I ended up stopping at Whole Foods and picking up some new stuff. I got some more kale, zucchini, tomatoes, apples, a little guac and these "Brad's Raw" chips.

So reviewing the Brad's Raw Chips. I decided to go for the "cheddar" version because I wanted something to eat with guacamole and figured the nacho type chip would be the best for my needs. First thing, these chips are EXPENSIVE. Like, $8. Ouch. But, they are good. Some of them are better than others (like, in the same bag), because the slightly thicker ones, while sturdier, have that sort of chewy fruit leather texture as a opposed to the light crunch of the thinner ones. Overall, my impression was that they tasted like slightly spicy, healthy wheat thins. And ya know, that works for me. Hell, it's probably even worth the $8 splurge every so often, like tonight, when I just want something quick and easy and tasty. Or when I'm craving the bready crunch. Also, they supposedly give away free chips and prizes (HELLO I WOULD LIKE SOME FREE CHIPS THANKS!) if you join the mailing list or like them on facebook. So overall, I'd say the company is not totally evil and the product is good, but this is definitely a once-in-a-while indulgence because of the price, so stick to your sun warrior and apples and bananas if you are cheap like I am.

BUT that said, I did just totally splurge on a food dehydrator so I'm gonna make some kale chips and zucchini chips and maybe fruit leather yayyyy.

On another note, I don't often get into politics, but feel it is necessary to start to raise awareness for something that is a really important issue here in the state of North Carolina. The civil and human rights of people in same-sex partnerships in the state of North Carolina are currently under a huge threat. Amendment One proposes to make the same-sex marriage ban in North Carolina part of the state constitution.

Just to be clear, same sex marriage is ALREADY illegal in the state of North Carolina.

This bill would essentially lay the groundwork to invalidate existing same-sex arrangements like custody, estate settlements without wills, visitation rights at hospitals and prison and could even be used to overturn restraining orders or convictions based on "domestic violence."



If you would like to know more about the amendment from a fairly unbiased source, you can see the BallotPedia Page for Amendment One. If you would like to contribute or get involved, Protect All NC Families is an excellent organization doing fine work. The best thing you can do, though, is tell anyone you know in North Carolina about this upcoming issue.

Regardless of how you or your family feels about same-sex marriage, remember, it is ALREADY ILLEGAL in the state. This bill is not about banning gay marriage in NC, but is about the LEGAL marginalization of a minority group. Replace "gay" with any other minority group and you'll know how to vote. We are beyond this as a culture.

Raw for Lent: Day 27

This morning I got up much later than I anticipated (I had hoped to get my car mirror fixed before I went to the gym) but instead just got up, made breakfast:

1 scoop sunwarrior

1/2 T spirulina

1 c chia gel

1/4 c almonds

1 c water

1 c strawberries

I'm finally getting the proportions down somewhat, so I could actually nearly drink it out of a pint glass.

I went to the gym and also brought my trainer a scoop of Sunwarrior so he could use it on the gym's "go vegan" week (since he is anti-soy). We will see, if he's used to protein powder he might like it. For me, it's not terrible, but the stevia flavor really drives me kind of nuts. I am not a huge fan of artificial sweeteners.

After I got home, I worked on some financial stuff and then had a raw bar because I had another appointment this afternoon; Pole Dancing class.

Yeah, that's right. I caved on a $15 deal on living social and bought a set of 6 classes at a studio here called Vertical Tease. So I wandered around looking for this joint for like 10 minutes, finally found it and joined into the class. We warmed up pretty easy, just a lot of bending and stretching and a little light strength stuff, then we got into it. We learned:

"sexy walk" - parading around the pole and dragging yr toes on the ground behind you (which gives you gummy toes)

"pirouette" - a slightly more complicated move where you pivot on one foot and end up with your back to the pole

"drop" - where you fall backward down the pole and land on your back (holy fuck, I got some bruises on my ass, thighs, shoulders, back and head from this bad boy)

"legs up" - which is basically propping yourself up in plow or neckstand in yoga, then bicycling your legs slowly. the teacher also did this thing that made her legs look like sea anemonies, which we all laughed at but she was like "dudes don't care what looks stupid, they are looking at what is between your legs."

"feet in" which requires you to do some kung fu, pick yourself up and get from your knees to your feet quick-like

"sexy up" which is basically standing up really slow from a touch your toes position

"fireman spin" where you grab the pole with your ankles and spin around to the ground (I have bruises on both of my feet as well as pole-burn,)

"leg wrap" where you spin around the pole, plant a foot then lift the other foot.

So what I learned is that pole dancing is way more painful and awful than I expected. The rolling around on a wood floor I always expected to be painful and bruising, but the amount of skin I left on that thing, especially off weird places like the tops of my feet and toes was truly unexpected. I have to be honest, the sort of sexy parading around and painfulness of it remind me altogether too much of what I would imagine a slave in a Dom/Sub relationship would be. So the place also offers Zumba and Kickboxing, so I'll pole dance maybe one more time in this "intro" class, but I think that it's back to kicking stuff for me. Horseriding provides me with enough stupid bruising and death defying stunts, thanks.

After class, I was basically in CH, so I went to Whole foods and got some more kale in order to make more of that awesome kale salad. It's marinating as we speak, although I may have used too much because it didn't have enough room to bruise when I shook it, but hey, I'm sure it'll still be tasty.

When I was driving, I noticed a gaggle of protestors lined up outside Planned Parenthood. I drive to Chapel Hill at least 2 days a week, usually 3-4 though. When I see a bunch of people there on Saturday Morning, it bothers me some, but I guess I'm just used to seeing the two women with no life protesting most of the time, at 4pm on a wednesday or 8 pm on weds. Seeing like 30 people outside of PP really irked me today. Women have a right to a yearly pap smear that they can afford. Women have a right to reasonably priced prenatal care. Everyone has a right to STD testing. Just imagine what it would be like if you were someone without health insurance, going to get cancerous cells burned off your cervix and a bunch of looney tunes yelled at you, spat at you, while you were going in to do what was probably the scariest thing in your life. Hell, imagine if you were getting an abortion (which, btw, I'm not even sure PP Chapel Hill provides in house. Every PP I've ever been to refers patients to private clinics for abortion services), it would still probably be scary and horrible. But for many women, so is the prospect of having a kid, especially when they are in circumstances where they need to go to planned parenthood (either because of insurance issues or age issues) to talk to someone about that kid. I swear, one day I'm gonna lose it, pull over and start a counter protest. /rant

Before prepping Kale, I went to pubquiz at the James Joyce, which is definitely not my fav pubquiz in the world, but it's better to get out of the house than watch primetime TV.

For dinner I rolled up some avo and cukes in nori, then ate some kimchi as well. Snack was some passionfruit juice.

I also ran across an amazing raw blog today...Raw on $10 a Day. Granted several recipes rely on a dehydrator (and I feel like the vitamix is a more realistic year round kitchen investment, which is why I bought it!) Some of these recipes look AMAZING though, like the pies. Holy balls, I want pecan pie.

For today's meme answer

day 06 - a song that reminds you of somewhere

This song will forever, in my mind, be linked to the S-Bahn, particularly overlooking the hotel Construction between Hackescher Markt and Alexanderplatz, overlooking huge construction projects in 2005. Whatever it was is probably finished by now. But goddamn, did I love this song.

40 46 Days of Raw: Day 44, or Urumbo

So, today marked the slump. Urumbo was described to me as Shona (a Zimbabwe and South/East African language) for "the troubles." I think they meant it more in the way the Irish say "the troubles," but I'm taking both, man, because I am seriously facing my worst time right now, on the last mile. Number one, my brain is all over the place.

Got up this morning (had the day off) after getting a wonderfully unfulfilling 5 hours of sleep only to find out that my hairdresser is sick and couldn't come. I then failed to accomplish the one thing I was supposed to do today besides get my hair cut. But y'all don't want to hear me gripe, so let's talk food, gardens and veg*n, shall we?

After my stop at the bank, I hit up whole foods and picked up some snacky-poo for myself. I lazied out and got some pre-made guacamole (made in store, the only kind I find bearable as far as premade guacs) and seedless cukes to dip in the guac. I cut the bad boy up and had a mighty filling lunch, then set about my major task for the day, gardening.

As you can see, I got my garden turned over and some of my crops held over from last year (lavender and rosemary) and my bulbs are coming up and making life a delight, particularly on the walkway up to the front door, which is lined with Daffodils and paperwhites, creating a beautiful stink of spring and a splash of color, too. The paperwhite smell, for those unfamiliar, is most similar probably to the Easter Lily (one of my students just gave me a plant for the holiday, it is living in my room), in that it's pervasive, somewhat treacly but overall pleasant.

I believe I mentioned that I'd put in two raspberry bushes last Thursday and over the weekend, they really took! The foliage increased, the plants seem to be in good shape. Granted, the bushes I planted this week were a little more robust straight from the store, but I think you can still see the difference (newbie plants are the two on the left, week-olds on the right). So, if you, like me, have soil that's full of clay and essentially destroys anything but the heartiest of plants (seriously, my lawn is half dead because my yard is totally overtaken by trees, ivy and crabgrass). I also put down a couple of fig tree-lets (that are literally 6" tall right now and absolutely darling).

The real challenge of the day was that my vegessentials order came in today and the temptation to eat something, anything out of that box of joy was great. There were the cookies. There was pasta. There was chocolate and there was fake cheese. There were 3 fake meats I am really excited to try. There are 2 more days. I'm trying, and everyone says they're proud right now but I am JONESING for some processed wheat with partially hydrogenated soy involved. It's taking a lot of will power to pour myself a bowl of Chia with fresh cut strawberries with local honey* or pour myself a glass of grapefruit juice and a handful of cashews (that was dinner and evening snack respectively) instead of just going downstairs and tearing through a frozen bagel. I've had NY bagels in my freezer since early march =/. /rant

Anyway, I'm getting my plans together for the rest of the garden. I just found out that planting basil and rosemary side by side is bad news, so I think the rosemary side of the garden will be for brassicas, since I recently learned that rosemary and basil hate each other and battle it out underground, as do their counterparts. For those unaware, rosemary is a good compliment to things like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and brussels sprouts. Rosemary and the brassicas should be kept away from tomatoes, peppers, basil, oregano and carrots, apparently. Oregano is also supposedly good for cukes. As far as eye-candy to help yr dirt candy, the 3 big reccs are geraniums, marigolds and borage (new to me this year, but I'll sniff some out).

Any gardening tips out there in the blog world? I've had a heck of a time keeping my brassicas alive, hopefully this year with the division they'll at least get a fighting chance to battle it out with the evil squirrels (seriously, I've had squirrels eating my cucumber stalks before they even reach a decent size through like, 3 attempts last year. I don't want to sprout my seeds only to see them become very expensive sprout feed for squirrels.

Gosh, there I go again. Just trying to resist Liz Lovely's cookies. Til tomorrow, kids.

*Yes, I know honey is not considered vegan. NC has one of the highest number of indigenous flora of any state in the US. People who never had allergies move here and are debilitated by sinus pressure, snotties, sneezies and so forth. I try to work about 1 tsp of local honey into my daily diet at the beginning of the season and have just had some slight itchy eyes. Plus, I'd totally eat a bee, or a wasp. It is one of my secret desires to get a fig that has eaten a wasp. You can fight me on this, but honey (and, for that matter, insect byproduct in general) is not something I get up in arms about. Obvs, when I find out if things are truly vegan for YOU all (like beer) I get that info to pass along, because we all draw our line in the sand in different places. :)

40 46 Days of Raw: Day 36

So...it was an interesting day. As you all probably know, Wednesday is sort of my personal "hell day," in that I work 11 til about 3 at the Fed, then go directly to my first of seven lessons at the studio, then drive direct from Chapel Hill back to the dirty D for some pubquiz, my respite and joy for the day.

Restaurant job was good (and I made some decent scratch) but failed to pack any food besides a banana and was worried that I was going to have to wait until 8 to sneak into whole foods and grab something or worse, order a salad for dinner...but I had a cancellation and was saved. At whole foods, I picked up some kombucha, fruit salad, kimchi and a Raw Organic Food bar...the fiber one. Apparently, the chocolatey ones are only 80% raw (then why do you call yourself raw, food bar?), and the only one that is seemingly totally raw is this "generic" fiber food bar. It tastes like every power bar I've ever eaten in my entire life and that is to say: edible, but sort of disgusting. Kind of what I imagine soylent green would taste like. After I opened up the kimchi, someone made a comment that it "smelled like cabbage" in the studio, at which I giggled since I'm totally becoming creepy smelly food person as a raw foodie, more so than I ever was as a regular vegan...and as a regular vegan I was creeped out by most smelly foods that did not involve garlic (yes, that includes peanut butter, yes, peanut butter kind of creeps me out).

I ran home, packed some of my homebrew kimchi up for my friend Mississippi Steve and skeedaddled over to pubquiz. He and my buddy Rusty both enjoyed it, so again, kudos, Yummy Vegan Dinners, for posting an idiot proof recipe. While Steve and Rust ate the kimchi, our team totally ate it at pubquiz. We headed over to Whiskey for our friend Jay from Red Collar's birthday. One bar turned into another when we popped back to the fed for a very late dinner and lo and behold, there was John Edwards. Yes, the senator who cheated on his cancer ridden wife with like, everyone PLUS a documentary film maker. He was chatting up two age-inappropriate girls who left in a hurry and about 40 seconds later, he was out the door. Beth commented that it was weird that nobody had bothered him and we all decided that it was likely because nobody who drinks at the fed actually gives a shit about John Edwards. Although I will say that he looked rather thin and pretty dapper. Sort of like one of those aging 80s icons (there's one in particular in my mind but I can't think of him, so I'm just going to give you Don Johnson, who is a fine approximation).

And suddenly we were on our way to Teasers.

For those of you unfamiliar with Durham, Teasers is the "nice" stripclub in Durham. We've also got the slightly less-nice Diamond Girls, then the out and out sketchy Quality Bathhouse and Cabaret Royale. Don't mistake these for the whorehouses (Tomcats and whatever the hell that place is on Rigsbee). For those of you unfamiliar with me, check my goodreads. Sex work (and stripping in particular) is a pet passion of mine as a regretfully not-women's studies major in college. I think my life might've been different if I spent about 60 hours a week in college talking about gender instead of just the 20 I spent working at the Women's Center. Man, I worked at a women's center in college, I *am* a cliche.

It was a pretty hilarious evening, given that Rust was our strip club ambassador, helping us see how to tip correctly, what you can buy with a dollar etc. A lot of funny things were said and done. A few highlights:

Goth-y dancer: Come on man you're gonna get me in trouble.
Jay: How do you know I'm not a high roller?
Rust: The HIGH ROLLER in a denim jacket!
(everyone laughs)
Rust: He likes to play it down.

Jay (re John Edwards): Motherfucking white wine.
(ed note: Jay took serious issue with John Edwards' decision to drink white wine as opposed to beer, liquor or red wine. This was said about 16 times over the course of the night.)

Otty: Jay, we've never shared music, but we shared many nipples tonight.

Justine, the very nice stripper: Never bite a nipple in motion.

Creepy Strip Club Regular waiting outside after the club is closed: Y'all take your demented selves out of here. My dick is hard, now move on.

After all that, I came home, fixed myself some chia goodness with raspberries and attempted to make guac using a storebought salsa called fresh cuts, which was VILE and caused me to waste an avocado, I fell asleep. Thanks for joining the adventures.

Oh and I decided to go to 9pm Holy Saturday. :) So it'll be 46 days of Raw from now on.