Fidget

Once again this year, I ran our local Butte-to-Butte 10k on July 4th. I decided my goal for this year was going to be to finish in under an hour. Last year was so, so hot - I wondered if I should carry a water bottle rather than depend on the water stations which can get congested and cause delays. BN offered to wait along the course with a bottle for me, so that worked out well. He didn’t register for the race but ran on a nearby trail and then the last couple of miles after giving me the water. I could see him getting gradually further ahead of me. There’s usually a guy at each mile marker calling out the elapsed time, and mine were hovering at the 10-minute mile mark - 21, 29, 39… the 5th mile didn’t have anyone. But I knew I would be cutting it close if I indeed made it in under an hour. BN popped out from the sideline near the 6 mile marker and urged me to speed up, I still had a chance! Aaaagh! I put on a burst of speed and caught sight of the finish clock in the middle distance. 59:33… 34… 35… ! Another burst of speed and I staggered across the finish line gasping, oh-my-god-oh-my-god! (There are videos of 5-minute increments of the finishes here but my browser won’t let me see it so I don’t know if I show up or whether I look like a complete idiot. You’ll have to check it out and let me know! I’m wearing a green tank top, black shorts and my white-and-green “track town USA” bandana for good luck (from the olympic trials, left behind on a bleacher near us)

While I was trying to get some breaths of air and waiting for the timing chip to be cut from my shoe (hi-tech this year!) a guy next to me leaned over and vomited. Gross! I looked away and edged to the side. I took some more gasping breaths. I looked to the left again just in time to see the vomiting guy hurl again. Great. I finished level with the vomiting guy. At least I wasn’t the one barfing.

My official time was 59:54! Yay! As they would say at the Trials, that’s a PR for me!

Now that it’s almost been a month, I’ll talk about what we did over Christmas break!

This year we had good academic-calendar luck; so, a nice long break with a whole week of January before school started up again for BN. We drove down to California a good 2 weekends before Christmas. We had time to spend with BN’s family, my family, and quite a few other friends and relations. It was really nice, pretty relaxing for the most part. A highlight was visiting BN’s brother and his wife who very recently bought a house in town. My sister and her husband also bought a house this year, just 2 blocks from my parents’ house. It was nice to see both of those new homes.

We got to meet Toby, the Cutest Bunny in the World.

We got to spend lots of good family time:

BN jammed with the other musical types among my brothers and cousins.

We drove home on New Year’s Eve, an uneventful drive.

PS: to see more pictures, click here.

… beautiful Tahoe sunshine! And our big, crazy family. It was great to see everybody and hang out. I, for one, did not really mind that there was no snow this year. The weather was beautiful, and we found other fun things to do, like ice skating at Northstar and hiking. Thanksgiving dinner was a scrumptious success as usual, with MH and CAP doing the turkey and the rest of us chipping in a dish or two. This year, I discovered how easy it is to make cranberry sauce at home. Seriously, almost as easy as opening a can - just simmer a packet of fresh or frozen berries with sugar and a little juice or water … you can also customize with exotic flavors (citrus, spices, chili pepper?) and reduce the sugar content. Leftovers are welcome, try it stirred into yogurt for breakfast. Yum!

Last night was the Harvest Party at Willamette Bible Chapel. It went quite well - we had a good turnout with lots of guests invited by church people. We served chili and cornbread (that magical combination!) and had games, prizes, candy, candy, candy. I did some face painting, which was fun, and I didn’t go into the “funrooms” - ie scary rooms! But I heard they were really awesome.

I dressed up as a princess. I don’t have much experience putting my hair up in curls (OK - I’d never done it, actually) and apparently “spray gel” doesn’t sub in well for “hair spray” because my big curls on top wouldn’t hold. So I left the velcro rollers in and said I was a princess with a bad hair day. Good tiara day, though - I made the thing myself in about 15 minutes, with a dollar’s worth of silvery pipe cleaners. Sweet! My purple gown was from my role as a bridesmaid in JI’s wedding in October 04. I paid good money for that dress so I was happy to have an opportunity to wear it again, and to very good effect. I wish I felt that pretty every day!

BN went as… drumroll please… a sock monkey!!! He did the whole thing himself, from concept to execution. He looked great. The big stuffed head made quite an impression at the party! Most people didn’t know it was him under there. Some people never found out… Like one of the haunted-room actors got a scare in return when BN came out of nowhere and tackled him with his sock-wrapped arms. Freak out!

Yesterday I had a birthday party. I really wanted to do something significant because my 30th birthday is this week, coming up on Thursday. I haven’t had a party for a few years, not since I lived in the bay area and we had picnic birthdays at Vasona park. But up here you can’t count on nice days in mid-October, so we planned a drop-in party in our apartment. We were really worried that too many people would come at once and it would be uncomfortably crowded. But, everyone came in tidy little groups. BN’s mom was here, on a Thursday-to-Tuesday visit, and the most we had at one time was 8 of us. We served brownies, (baked with love by BN himself) and various kinds of ice cream with bananas and toppings for sundaes and root beer for floats. GK gave me beautiful white roses, and GC brought me the last of her homegrown flowers and a butternut squash from her garden. I got some lovely soaps, and a bottle of gourmet simmer sauce, along with various cards. It was a very pleasant day, and even the weather was quite cheerful.

So, how do I feel about turning 30? Well… I guess I might expect to feel upset, like my life is passing me by, but I really feel fine. I’m married to my best friend, we have the things we need, and I’m keeping busy with work and projects. I’ve basically spent most of my life (until recently) feeling like I was behind in growth. I always, always looked young for my age… and now that is starting to be a blessing rather than a curse. I make a better grownup than a kid, I was always struggling to “catch up.” Now, I feel quite caught up, thank you.

Well, I ran the Butte-to-Butte 10K again this year. I was a little anxious, because I really didn’t train as well as I had last year. But I really wanted to beat my previous time. I had done a 4+ mile run, the last mile uphill, a week or so ago and I felt good at that point. But I hadn’t run 6.2 miles since last year!

It was a lot hotter this year, too… whew!

But… my bib number was 7. How lucky is that? It’s my lucky year, after all, a 7lb-7oz baby born in 1977!

The race felt tougher, some combination of being less trained, hotter, and pushing myself a lot harder. But I did it - my finish time was 1:04:33. That’s a 10.4 minute pace, a whole minute per mile faster than last year! Woo-hoo!

Note to self: don’t try to go out to breakfast on race day. I had to wait what felt like several hours for my egg-topped-bagel breakfast and as BN can tell you, I’m quite the cranky camper when I’m starving!

I felt a little better after I ate, but after my shower all I could do for the rest of the day was lie helplessly on the couch. I was so, so, tired! I’ve never felt so exhausted. It was like a concentrated exhaustion, different from how I felt after 52 hours of being in-the-air-on-the-road in transit to Nepal. Different from how I felt after hiking in the High Sierras all day with BN. My mind wasn’t exhausted, but my body felt like it didn’t want to move.

I did manage to make buffalo burgers with sweet potato ‘fries’ for our 4th of July dinner. They turned out yummy!

After that we drove up a back road and walked a little ways (fortified by red meat) to a somewhat tree-blocked but fairly good view of South Eugene. Everybody and their brother was setting off fireworks, all over town, many seemed larger than legal. Also the minor-league baseball stadium had a medium-sized show that we could see.

We had some fireworks left over from two Forths of July ago. It was very cold outside - probably below freezing, and I’m supposing it was the cold (and possibly moist?) air that caused the fireworks to produce these amazing smoke rings… Gandalf would have loved it! There were single big ones that would hang in the air. And tiny ones, in lacy trails coming out of the firecracker’s glow. It was so cool that we ran back inside to get the camera, but we didn’t really get any good images of the smoke rings.

One of my Christmas projects - an inkjet/rubber stamp card with origami ornament and photo of the two of us. The theme was Light.

How was your HolyDay? Ours was really very nice… Too short, really, for all the things we wanted to do. We started our day by singing some worship songs together. We had played Santa for each other and filled up the handmade personalized Christmas stockings that my Mom had loaned us for our away-holiday. I got lots of candy, protective goggles for chopping onions (they really work - no more tears) and Napoleon Dynamite chapstick! I’m just like ND when it comes to being obsessive about chapstick…

Then we cooked a big breakfast. I made Crepes for the first time and they came out really yummy. They’re so easy, and so good! We enjoyed them with fruit sauce made from frozen mixed berries, whipped cream, and side orders of hash browns just like my Dad (the breakfast expert) makes, and sausages (with maple syrup of course.)

Next was presents. We had lots of boxes that had come in the mail from various family members. What a wonderful batch of gifts! Thank you so much, everyone. BN and I had decided to get ourselves a big shared gift this year - we are looking to get one of those kitchen “island” carts - for storage and use as extra counter space. But we did give each other several small gifts. By far the most special gift I received this year was the solid teak hand-carved comb that BN designed and made for me. It’s elegantly shaped and wonderfully smooth - he’d been sanding it every day while waiting for the bus. The wide teeth are perfect for detangling my damp hair (which is approaching waist-length after growing for 2.5 years!) and the teak wood is water-resistant by nature. I’m quite a lucky woman to have such a skilled and creative husband.

Our afternoon was spent talking on the phone with family & relatives, playing a favorite board game, Settlers of Catan, and before we knew it the time came to go to the K family’s home for Christmas dinner (with Figgy Pudding for dessert!) We had a great time and stayed up very late playing Pictionary and “speed Scrabble” with the K’s and their 2 teen daughters. It was a blessing to be with church “family” friends on Christmas.

Compared to this one…

…The scene in A Christmas Story where they go to a Chinese restaurant on Christmas Eve and have whole roast goose and are serenaded by a quartet of waiters mispronouncing the chorus of Deck the Halls may not be the most memorable. But I sure was reminded of it this Christmas Eve. I had spent the afternoon in the kitchen making Figgy Pudding so BN suggested we go out for dinner. A perfectly reasonable and good idea, other things being equal. But it was Christmas Eve, and not very many restaurants are open then. And this is Eugene, where there really aren’t very many good restaurants to begin with. BN called and found that “Kabuki Japanese Steakhouse” was in fact open. We hadn’t been there before, but we like Japanese, so we hoped for the best. It turned out fine except:

1. We were the only ones there, which felt sort of dismal - it’s one of those chef-cooks-at-your-table kind of places, where you’re supposed to have a crowd of friends in a busy restaurant with lots of excitement.

2. As a result our waitress was very attentive, and there was a 1-to-2 chef-to-diner ratio. That contributed to the awkwardness. Plus, the two of them were identical twin sisters and probably about 19. (Not Japanese, of course.) They were chatty and friendly, but it wasn’t our idea of a romantic date to make conversation with a couple of people waiting on us hand and foot. Something about the whole thing felt really surreal and like, are we being filmed? isn’t this a scene in a movie?

3. Because of the service-intensive nature of the restaurant, the food was very expensive.

4. But, it was not at all what I would call Good Food. Certainly not worth what we paid for it. The portion sizes weren’t even large. The rice was chewy, not fluffy. The vegetables were boring. The chicken and shrimp were not impressively flavored or textured.

On the whole, we wished we’d taken the money and bought groceries and cooked our own dinner. I coulda stir-fried way better than that.

Nevertheless! Our Christmas Eve was far from ruined. I will block yet another restaurant fiasco from my mind with memories of sitting cozy on the futon, lights dimmed except for candles and our tiny tree, playing Trivial Pursuit with my dear husband. We eschewed the board and chips and just took turns reading the cards to each other, if you get three or more right you keep the card. Everybody wins. We even had cocktails - BN invented a mix with the brandy bought for the Figgy Pudding, pomegranate juice, etc. Life is good.

My family is very tradition-oriented. Not that we do everything in a very culturally traditional way (though in some cases we do), but rather we tend to do the same things the same way every year and feel a bit sad if something’s different. This year was pretty different since BN and I stayed in Eugene for the holiday. But, I was mostly very glad for the chance to break out of the mold and try new things this year. I thought, I should find some classic Christmas food that I’ve never tried and make that, and what more obvious choice than Figgy Pudding. “Oh bring us a figgy pudding…and bring it right here! We won’t go until we get some…” When I was little I always thought it was Piggy pudding because Piggy was a real word, whereas Figgy? not so much. Though a pork-based pudding doesn’t appeal to me, then or now. Anyways. Whenever I want to find a recipe for something like this, I look online. I can pick and choose and even combine recipes. (I also tend to check Joy of Cooking so I can see if there is any Definitive American Way to prepare the food in question.) So I discovered that the thing to do is base one’s Figgy Pudding on a carrot-cake mix and go from there. The whole thing seemed quite straightforward and also, figgy pudding being British, “pudding” really means more of a cake-like substance. So there was no tricky milk-scalding, egg-white-stiffening, or gelatin-firming to be done. Just baking, or rather steaming, for a very long time. (and yes, GC, it’s baked in a pudding basin!) I have to confess I haven’t had a very good track record with baking recently. I used to bake cakes and cookies quite a bit when I was a teen, with reasonable success, but recently I have gotten way over into the other camp, of gourmet cooking, mostly savory Asian entrees rather than sweet European desserts. Which is all very fine for our waistlines. I just like to experiment and substitute ingredients to suit my taste or convenience, and that doesn’t always work out so well in baking. Another thing is, I don’t even own an electric mixer. (I got a lot of mileage out of this Figgy Pudding thing talking to ladies at church and they all gasped and said you have to have an electric mixer to make cake!!!) Luckily I actually ended up making a figgy muffin, which doesn’t need much stirring at all, let alone beating in a mixer… See, I was in the grocery store (actually, the grocery palace - more about that another time) and the Betty Crocker type of cake mix had trans fats and high-fructose corn syrup. And I needed carrot… the only other carrot option was an organic, all-natural muffin mix. So I figured, I can adapt and substitute. It’ll be fine. I took note that the cake mix called for more oil and eggs than the muffin mix. And off I went. Christmas Eve was Figgy Pudding day, so that afternoon I got right down to work. I brought dried figs and water to cover to a boil, took them off the heat and soaked several hours until softened. Chopped the figs and boiled the fragrant liquid down a ways with some sugar. I used 3 eggs and whirled the liquid ingredients in my blender because I figured that couldn’t hurt. But I stirred until just combined with the muffin mix (plus golden raisins soaked in brandy, orange zest, sliced almonds and spices.) I also used melted butter rather than oil, cause it’s way yummier.

The trickiest part of the whole process was lining my large metal bowl with foil. I tried to use one piece to go all the way around but it was just not working. So I had to use several pieces. What a concept. The main thing is to have a “collar” of foil around the top of the cake to fold down over it and steam rather than just dry out your pudding.

And it came out great - not soggy, not dry or hard, but just a nice dense, fruity cake. Served warmed with the fig syrup drizzled on and whipped cream, it was a unique holiday treat to write home about.