Next Year is the Year

As we approach the end of the third quarter of 2014, I'd like to take a minute to plan for 2015.  Here are some ideas. 

 

Learn to Sing:  Is this even possible?!?   I bet there is some kind of an app you can buy for your phone to teach you how to sing on key.  If not, dibs on that patent.  

Learn to Dance:  I love to dance at weddings but wouldn’t it be cool to really know how to bust a move?

Take a Vacation: It’s been a long time since I’ve been somewhere I’ve never been.  I’m going to Canada for a few minutes when I run a leg of the Detroit relay next month, but other than that I’ve already been everywhere I’ve been lately.        

Break 20 in the 5k:  This year I’ve been asked TWICE--that is, ON TWO SEPARATE OCCASIONS--what grade I’m in.  But the truth is these old lady legs aren’t getting any younger and if not next year it may never happen.  Talk about pressure!  

Eat at the Casino Buffet:  #YOLO

Connect with my Spiritual Side:  I like to read ancient texts that remind me about the divinity of the universe.  And listen to “On Being.”  I should do both more frequently.  

Study Wine:  In a classroom.  I have already completed my homestudy in reading Two Buck Chuck labels and acting like I know what a “floral note” tastes like.   

Give the Dog a Bath:  Zola Budd hasn’t had a bath since we lived on Cinnamon Street.  Two years ago.  To say that she hates getting a bath is an understatement.  The last time I tried it she clawed me so badly I had welts on my thighs for weeks afterwards.  To say that now she smells like Fritos is an understatement.  

Any other ideas?


-K.

A Lil Yoga a Lotta Pumpkin

#12 Buy in Bulk:  Pumpkin, finally! For the past two weekends I’ve bought four cans of this stuff on my Saturday trip to Trader J’s, with the expectation that if I continue this trend every Saturday between now and Thanksgiving I’ll have forty-four cans to get me through the year.

 

However this strategy is not “buying in bulk” as much as “stockpiling” so I made an attempt to correct this by asking the guy at Trader Joe’s whether I could buy it in a case.  He went into the stockroom to check, and when he was gone I got cold feet about having all that pumpkin.  I had images of eating pumpkin oatmeal in June 2015 and started to feel a little pukey. Luckily when the guy came back from the stockroom, he had clearly forgotten about my request because he saw me and didn’t say anything.  

Anyway, when it starts to get cool out I like to put pumpkin in pretty much everything. It adds a ton of nutrients not to mention a nice fall flavor. But Donnie doesn’t like to be caught off guard so he insists that I announce, “THERE IS PUMPKIN IN THE OATMEAL” before he takes a bite. Picky!

 

Yesterday he told me he was getting burnt out on oatmeal, which could be a real crisis.  

#8 Go to the Dentist Every Six Months: See that postcard with the green frogs? That’s my dentist appointment reminder card that I filled out in February when I made my appointment for six months from then.
 

 

At my appointment a couple weeks ago I was pleased to remember that when you go on a regular schedule, the cleaning takes a LOT less time.  The dentist even told me I had the cleanest teeth he’d seen all afternoon (true story). I’ll never have the prettiest teeth or the straightest teeth, but clean is within my control! I am addicted to Crest “Glamorous White” mouthwash, which costs a small fortune but is worth its weight in gold.  

Actually, it only costs $8 so I guess it’s worth its weight in a footlong Subway sandwich with chips and a drink.  

Or a haircut from Great Clips.  

#6 Study Yoga:  I’ve been doing this thing where I’ll make a video of myself on my laptop doing yoga and watch it afterwards to check my form.  The other day I came downstairs after making one of these videos and Donnie said:  “Were you leaving someone a voicemail at 6:00 AM?”  

 

Now, I can’t imagine why he would think this except that I started the video by saying, “Hello! It’s Wednesday morning, thought I’d do a lil’ yoga.”

 

 

And what the heck is a “lil’ yoga?”  Why would yoga make my Minnesota twang come out? I've never even been to Minnesota. Maybe it was all the blood rushing to my head after too many downward dogs.   
 

#1 Run a Half Marathon:  My training has been going great and my goal now is just to not get injured!!  Here’s what I did this week:  

Sunday: Queen Bee course + 1 mile with Janet

Monday:  OFF!

Tuesday:  7 miles easy pace + 10 minutes strength training + vinyasa flow yoga video

Wednesday: 9 mile tempo run at 7:15 pace + lil’ yoga

Thursday: 5 miles easy pace + 10 minutes strength training

Friday: Started to do yoga, quit after 15 minutes

Saturday:  7 miles easy pace + 10 minutes strength training

It was great to see the Queen Bee course last week and fun to run that far with Janet, although we got a little silly towards the end. 

 

 

 

We finished off our morning by doing happy baby pose in front of the casino parking garage, and I swear if anyone had walked by they would have probably thought we had lost our gd minds. They wouldn’t have been too far off base.  
 

 

 

Just a little off base.  Or a lil. 

-K.

 

#13: Take an Official Cincinnati Tour

 

 

I put this one on the list because I’ve always meant to go on a Cincinnati ArchiTREKS tour, which is an architectural tour of Downtown.  However, this year these tours are only being offered to groups by request.  This is a perfect example of why you should not put things off until “someday”. Seize the day and stuff.  Because like canned pumpkin season (more on that next week), all good things must come to an end.  

So I’ve been scouting Groupon for a suitable alternative.  I had heard good things about the Cincinnati Brewery Tours and found a two-for-$16 deal for the Prohibition Resistance Tour. This is put on by the Brewery District Community Urban Redevelopment Corporation and starts at the Moerlein Malthouse Tap Room on Moore Street.  

The tap room is in a cavernous space with long “beer hall” style tables and benches.  Moerlein will always hold a special place in my heart because their “OTR” is the first craft beer I had when I learned WHAT IS UP and traded in Coors Light for the finer things in life.  

The tour starts with the usual stuff: Cincinnati was founded in 1788, formerly known as Losantiville, Over-the-Rhine gets its name from the canal which ran along present day Central Parkway and reminded the German immigrants of the Rhine river, Italianate architecture is characterized by its decorative cornices and lintels. The stuff all good Cincinnatians have heard one time or a hundred.  

But that’s where my prior knowledge ended and things got interesting.  

The theme of the tour is that Over-the-Rhine’s rise and fall and current rebirth are all linked to the beer industry. Mike, our tour guide, started by painting a striking picture of a neighborhood originally built for 50,000 people.  He had us imagine residential, industrial, and commercial uses co-mingling on streets teeming with people, animals, carts, and carriages.  

He then outlined the importance of the neighborhood’s breweries to the economy.  All told, Cincinnati had 36 breweries--half of those in OTR and half of those on McMicken Street, or “Brewers’ Boulevard.”  Much of the beer brewed in the city was consumed locally.  While the average per capita beer consumption in the United States was like 18 gallons a year, in Cincinnati it was 40 gallons.

These figures are based on my recollection--I wasn’t taking notes although I should have been knowing that I would need to repeat these details here.  

Also, I just did the math and calculated that I drink approximately 30.66 gallons of beer a year, which is almost double the national average but not even close to local standards.  

Mike talked about the tough conditions for the brewery employee which included long work days, dangerous conditions, and low wages.  Although the beer barons were known for being philanthropic, they weren’t so generous with their own employees.  Some of the workers were paid in beer, which made the working conditions even more dangerous.  

As we descended below ground into an old lagering cellar, we learned a little bit of “beer science”, which unfortunately for me went in one ear and out the other.  I just asked Donnie if he remembered why the lagering cellars needed to be built so far below street level and we couldn’t agree about whether it was to prevent or promote fermentation.  We know it needed to be forty degrees, but why?

Obviously, we will never be home brewers.  

I do remember that the invention of refrigeration made the lagering cellars effectively obsolete and most of them were covered up and are now being rediscovered as the neighborhood is redeveloped.  

We also learned that the bottling operations were required by law to be across a public right-of-way from the breweries.  This is because it was easier to tax beer by the keg than by the bottle. Eventually, an act of congress allowed brewers to connect their bottling facilities to their breweries and so many of them built tunnels like this one to avoid having to cross the busy streets.  

And then Prohibition.  Imagine what happens to a neighborhood built around an industry that is suddenly, well, prohibited.  But today, Cincinnati is practically the epicenter of the craft brewery boom.  Rhinegeist, Hudepohl, Rivertown, Mad Tree, Fifty West, Rock Bottom, Listermann, Mt. Caramel, Blank Slate, Sam Adams.  And those are just the ones I can think of without Googling.  

Rise up, Cincinnati!  And cheers.



-K.

Riding the Bus with the World's Worst Vegetarian

#27: Ride the Metro:  All week I  had been looking forward to the International Dinner Club’s Friday 5:45 PM meeting at Amerasia in Covington.

What I was not looking forward to was having to meet Donnie there right after work and then take two separate cars home.

Because this place is known for its craft beers and I was looking forward to having one or three.  

So I took the bus to work.

 

When I lived in New York I took the bus or the subway every day. But since moving to Cincinnati I have yet to use the Metro. I know this is ridiculous, which is why this item was on my list.  But here’s the thing:  my parking situation downtown is very affordable and when I do the math it’s cheaper and faster to drive.

 

Granted, this does not include the cost of the car itself or maintenance, but not having a car is not an option and if I’m going to have one I might as well use it and save a few minutes and bucks on my commute.  

 

Donnie drove me to the bus stop on Friday morning. It’s a half mile from our house-- I should have walked.

 

When I got to the stop, one of my work colleagues was already there waiting and I confessed to him that it was my first time riding the bus and felt like a little kid on my first day of school.  He said that if it really were my first day of school I would need a bigger backpack, which was funny because I wasn’t carrying a backpack.  

 

The bus is great--it’s an express route that jumps on the highway after several Pleasant Ridge stops. It was nice to sit and look out the window.  

The drop-off is about a mile from my office, so there’s a little bit of a walk which is fine on a nice day.  

 

The only downside of this experience was that I had to leave earlier than normal to get on the bus, which meant I had to bring my oatmeal in a jar and eat it at my desk.

Saddest oatmeal ever.  #gramminoats

#11: Join Toastmasters: I’m working on a speech called “How Not to be a Vegetarian” which is about how when I gave up meat I just replaced it with starch and cheese and it took me a full decade to learn that vegetarians really should be eating vegetables. Duh.

#5: Plant My Own Herbs: Speaking of vegetables, these eggplant and goat cheese tacos were YUMMO with my backyard basil.

To make these, I just roasted a yellow tomato, garlic, and jalapeno and mashed those things up to make a spread for the corn tortillas.  On a separate tray I roasted the eggplant and then assembled the tacos with lots of basil and goat cheese.  It's not hard to be a vegetarian, it just takes a little creativity.

#31: Get Rid of Cable:  We lasted exactly one week without television until Donnie decided he had to watch some kind of sports thing today and went to Target to get these rabbit ears:  

Personally, I was perfectly content not having any form of television, as evidenced by this text exchange with Danielle:

 

Danielle:  How is life without cable?

Kayla: Haha no more productive.  I’m sitting on the couch looking at the internet on my phone.

Danielle: You’re going to miss the birth of Jill Duggar’s child.

Kayla: Is she delivering it herself? That would be worth seeing.

Danielle: Have you ever seen kourtney kardashian pull her own babies out?

Kayla: Ahhh no!!!!!! They show that?

Danielle: I mean it’s not real graphic but she pulls them right out. Both of them. They showed it on their show.  Her sisters freak out.  

Kayla:  Lol I didn’t know that was an option. can’t even imagine how she got that idea.

Danielle: Lol!

 

And then she sent me a picture of it happening.  

Which is way too graphic to post on this family-friendly account of my year but I guarantee you can find it on Google if you’re interested.  

Which you should be. 



-K.

Cable, Basil, & a Flea Bag Motel

#31: Give Up Cable:  Well, we finally pulled the plug.  I knew it was time when Jenelle from Teen Mom 2 got a new lawyer and I barely noticed.  So far I’m not missing being able to veg out on the couch, but I’m not the only person who lives in this house so we’ll see how long this lasts.

 

Caption: Feeling smug about our cancelation paperwork.

 

I should point out that this is not our first time being a cable-free household.  We didn’t have cable when we lived in New Mexico, and sometimes we would go stay in a hotel just to watch “LA Ink” and “Flip This House.”

 

I use the word “hotel” lightly, by the way.  At best, these places were “motels”. At worst they were “flea bag motels.”  But they had cable.  

 

Don’t worry:  the first time I’m tempted to go get a room at the roadhouse, I’ll be back on the horn with Cincinnati Bell.

#1: Run a Half Marathon: I registered for the Queen Bee, which is October 11th.  I’ve been in FULL TRAINING MODE, which basically means I’m eating everything in sight.  Last night I found myself in the kitchen at midnight, eating half a jar of peanut butter with a spoon.  When I finally came to bed, Donnie asked what I had been doing and I had to admit that I had been “smashing.”  This was after I had eaten TWO black bean burgers and a peanut butter brownie for dinner.  

If anyone tries to tell you that distance running will make you lose weight, don’t believe them. Running just makes you hungry.  

The good news is I feel great, especially considering that in May I was limping from a phantom stress fracture.  And last weekend I ran farther than I’ve ever run in my life: 13.25 miles.  This is longer than a half-marathon so I feel half inclined to go ahead and check the box next to this one, but it wasn’t in a race so I don’t know if it technically meets my “This is the Year” goal.  

But as long as I can stay injury-free (and stay off Web MD) until October I should be fine.  

 

Caption:  Feeling smug after a long run.

 

#6: Study Yoga:  I forgot to mention that when Donnie and I went to Michigan at the beginning of this month, we put on a running and yoga camp for ourselves. The way this worked is that every morning Donnie would accompany me on a training run and every evening I would lead a 30-minute yoga flow.  Except while I was leading the yoga flow, Donnie would be sitting in the bedroom drinking a beer and watching the tube.  
 

This was my view during evening yoga:  

 

 

#5: Plant My Own Herbs:  Since I moved my basil to the back porch and let the sun apply its mystical powers of photosynthesis, this bush has really blossomed.  Here is a photo progression:  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last two photos are two of the things I’ve made with my homegrown basil:  zucchini-basil tacos and basil-gouda snacks for our Sunday block party.  

 

#15: Join a Book Club:  We had our August book club meeting at Ashley and Tony's house by their pool.  The selection was, appropriately, “We are Water”.  

 

Donnie kicked some book club butt by providing a detailed analysis of the allusions to Greek mythology.  It’s great and also slightly irritating to have someone with two degrees in English Literature/Creative Writing in the book club.  Sometimes I just want to give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down and throw one back.  

 

Just kidding.  

 

 

Sort of.

-K.

#10: Get a Week's Worth of Groceries at Findlay Market

 

 

To me, shopping at a market is like eating a food truck: great concept, hard for me to execute.

 

When it comes to food trucks, I struggle with standing in line and waiting for my food while standing up. What am I supposed to do while I wait, pace?  It makes me feel impatient. I also really dislike eating while standing up. Because where do I sit my wine glass?  Strangely, I also hate eating while reclining. Call me old fashioned, but given the choice I prefer to eat in a chair at a table.

Markets are tough because of having to lug around your purchases and pay for things in multiple transactions. I could never buy a watermelon at a market because, hello, who’s going to carry that thing?

 

Let me just say, I fully support markets and food trucks and know that in many ways they each embody the kind of vibrancy that cities have to have. However, I am sort of a freak about creating efficiencies in my day-to-day.  And there isn’t much efficiency in hauling watermelons through hoards of people.   

 

Which is why I’ve never bought all of my groceries at Findlay Market even though I know the prices are great and the food is fresh and the vendors are local and it keeps my cash in town.  And all the cool kids are doing it.  

Donnie and I arranged to meet Maggie and Carol in the biergarten, and although it was way too early for a bier, it is never too early to chill in your jorts:  

 

 

Now, typically my grocery list looks like this:

 

 

This is two weeks of dinners laid out on top and my frequently purchased items listed on the bottom.  I knew this wouldn’t work at Findlay Market, namely because I made this template to mirror the layout of Trader Joes (see “efficiencies in daily living”, above).  

 

 

I was going to have to improvise at the market, so I drafted this little list of things I absolutely had to get to survive the week:

 

Of course, before I could look for any of this, I was distracted by the Market’s new chocolate shop, which is the city’s first “bean-to-bar” chocolate company.  The owner of Maverick gave us samples and talked to us about how the beans made into chocolate bars.

 

 

Not a day goes by that I don’t eat a couple squares of dark chocolate so I was hanging on his every word.  At $7.95 a bar this stuff isn’t cheap, but I splurged and bought a bar of the Fahrenheit 513, which is a dark chocolate with a spicy finish.  Here is a shot of where the magic happens:

 

Next, we wandered through the farmer stands, sampling tomatoes and apples and loading up on what seemed like a dozen different kinds of kale.  

 

 

We couldn’t have picked a better morning to give it a shot:  a mid-August day that felt like October, the summer produce at its peak.

 

 

 

Inside, I bought a pound of fresh cottage cheese from Gibbs but wasn’t able to find any yogurt or almonds.  I also skipped on buying the only bag of coffee beans I could find because I had blown my budget for luxury items on chocolate and balked  at the $17 price tag.  

 

 

I also left without bananas because I was worried about bruising them while carrying so much other stuff.  I will undoubtedly regret this when my potassium-deficient legs cramp up in the middle of the night.    

 

When we got home, I unloaded our haul on the island so we could see how we made out:

 

 

All of this for about $45, including the chocolate, not including the cat.  Good thing I like salads.  

Emer was interested, but Donnie said that he cannot survive on kale and is worried he will be hungry all week.  

 

 

 

 

He must have forgotten that I keep enough oatmeal in my cupboard to feed an entire summer camp.  I’m sure we’ll be fine. 

 

 

 

-K.