Yes we can, but do we want to?

I have always straddled the desire for equality for women and the desire to have someone buy me dinner. Of course, this specific example doesn't apply to me because I have been married for 4 years and Jerome and I have shared everything since but generally speaking; I am a little old fashion. A few weekends ago I was loading about 16 bags of manure in my Subaru and this homeless man looking for money/job approached me and said, "You don't need no help, do you?" And I thought, why no I don't. I was feeling super accomplished and strong. Yes I can. But today I was unloading all of these sodas off of a cart, it's silly, I work in an old building and there are no ramps from the parking garage. So, when I am unloading a bunch of stuff for my office, like today I have to wheel it to the stairs, unload it, move my cart up the stairs and reload it. So, I am doing this and this man passed me and didn't even offer help. Not that I would have accepted but the offer would have been nice.

I actually said something to a few of the security guards in my building for not helping me with the door. I usually ride my bike to the office, and use the handicapped button to open the doors. On the weekends they are deactivated (ADA violation, hello? Jones Lang LaSalle- 621 17th Street) so I learn of this and am trying to move my bike over to the other door that is not locked and open the door, so frustrated, meanwhile 2 of the security guards just watch me... They got a piece of my mind that day. I am sure I said something about chivalry and it being dead. Some feminist I am.

One other weird gender equality thing that just makes me laugh is elevator etiquette. I don't know if this happens everywhere but in Denver, the men almost always let women on and off of the elevators first. I think it is so strange, I can literally be all the way in the back, and people will move to the side before stepping out to let me out first. Just go ahead, really, I don't mind.

a sad day

An incredible sad day in American politics. I suppose we all knew this day was coming but I had hoped that he would somehow pull through. I feel there are very few politicians who truly have the people's best interest at heart.

This is Obama's statement, he has said everything so eloquently:

I wanted to say a few words this morning about the passing of an extraordinary leader, Senator Edward Kennedy.

Over the past several years, I've had the honor to call Teddy a colleague, a counselor, and a friend. And even though we have known this day was coming for some time now, we awaited it with no small amount of dread.

Since Teddy's diagnosis last year, we've seen the courage with which he battled his illness. And while these months have no doubt been difficult for him, they've also let him hear from people in every corner of our nation and from around the world just how much he meant to all of us. His fight has given us the opportunity we were denied when his brothers John and Robert were taken from us: the blessing of time to say thank you -- and goodbye.

The outpouring of love, gratitude, and fond memories to which we've all borne witness is a testament to the way this singular figure in American history touched so many lives. His ideas and ideals are stamped on scores of laws and reflected in millions of lives -- in seniors who know new dignity, in families that know new opportunity, in children who know education's promise, and in all who can pursue their dream in an America that is more equal and more just -- including myself.

The Kennedy name is synonymous with the Democratic Party. And at times, Ted was the target of partisan campaign attacks. But in the United States Senate, I can think of no one who engendered greater respect or affection from members of both sides of the aisle. His seriousness of purpose was perpetually matched by humility, warmth, and good cheer. He could passionately battle others and do so peerlessly on the Senate floor for the causes that he held dear, and yet still maintain warm friendships across party lines.

And that's one reason he became not only one of the greatest senators of our time, but one of the most accomplished Americans ever to serve our democracy.

His extraordinary life on this earth has come to an end. And the extraordinary good that he did lives on. For his family, he was a guardian. For America, he was the defender of a dream.

I spoke earlier this morning to Senator Kennedy's beloved wife, Vicki, who was to the end such a wonderful source of encouragement and strength. Our thoughts and prayers are with her, his children Kara, Edward, and Patrick; his stepchildren Curran and Caroline; the entire Kennedy family; decades' worth of his staff; the people of Massachusetts; and all Americans who, like us, loved Ted Kennedy.

You better hope Blue Cross doesn't consider ugly a pre-existing condition

I heard that some of the protests were getting pretty ugly but I didn’t realize that the proposed health care plan was being described as a Nazi policy. WTF?!? Seriously, what does that even mean? It seems as thought these words or catch phrases like; Nazi, Hilter, Fascism, Socialism, Communism get thrown around and they don’t have any real meaning or relation to the actual argument but there is overall connotation that these things are bad. I am no historian by any stretch and I typically steered clear of the political sciences in college, but I never heard anything about the Nazi Health Care Plan, maybe I missed something.

If I were this woman I would be embarrassed. Barney Frank was probably not the best politician to say this to. He is absolutely right though, how can you argue with her. It’s illogical. There is no basis for this argument, what could one possibly say? I am so glad that someone finally said something to these people. Awesome.

Well, Hello...

As I wrote about earlier I have recently lost over 10 pounds. And of course, I am really happy about it but I am finding that none of my pants fit me! I think because I was feeling self conscious about my weight I was already buying clothes a tad big and now I am just swimming in them. So as I was pulling pants from my closet that need to be altered and dollar signs are swimming around my head I decide that it is time to learn to sew, an idea I have been throwing around for a while. I am 4’10” and always have to have my pants altered, so this is really something that I should have learned a long time ago. And because of my height I really have a hard time finding pants that fit right and new pants will of course have to be altered too. So, today I just went for it and bought this lovely machine. Though I am not really into Hello Kitty, It is really a Janome machine, which is awesome. My favorite craft store Fancy Tiger recommends this brand. This is going to look so cute in my craft room/studio! I am so excited!

Nevernude

My husband loves loves loves David Cross. He is currently on tour and I just bought tickets. I am stoked!

Tonight I am hoping to go to this. I love this kind of stuff, but my husband hates it so we'll see.

Things I Don’t Get: Fake Bake

I am pretty hardcore about sunscreen and limiting my exposure to the sun. Despite my Hispanic ancestry for most of the year I am pretty pale. During the summer months when I tend to run outdoors, work in the yard, etc. I tend to get a little color but mostly I am pretty pale.

In this informative article I found it states that some 30 million people are tanning indoors. What?! I just don’t get why people want to look like they have been lying on a beach for the past five days in the middle of January (unless of course you really have). I just don't think it looks good and I don't get it. I suppose it speaks to a larger issue I have with a serious artificial beauty going on these days. I think women are, and men too becoming too fake; fake hair (extensions, color, perms), too much makeup, tanning, plastic surgery. I don’t think any of these things per se are bad but when you put them all together and people stop looking real and start becoming scary it’s bad. I suppose everything in moderation.

According to my A&P professor we do need 15 minutes of unprotected sun exposure per day for the proper Vitamin D production. So, happy sunning!

Book Review: Prozac Nation

I recently finished reading Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America: A Memoir by Elizabeth Wurtzel. I wanted to read this book initially because I saw the movie and that some drama was added (like most movie adaptations), and I wanted to get the real story. What I found was that a lot of the drama was left out. I thought because of the book’s subtitle it would shed some light not only on Wurtzel’s personal experience but in the young depressed in America; stats, history, etc. It did not shed any light on depression in general.

I had a seriously hard time reading this book. I myself having struggled with (I wouldn’t say depression, because I have never been diagnosed or seen a therapist so don’t want to give an insincere impression) bouts of sadness or whatever you want to call it. For one I kept thinking; divorce – check, single-parent – check, low-income – check, absent parent (father) – check. Wurtzel leads readers to believe that her depression had everything to do with her circumstance, and I am reading and thinking that’s me and a huge portion of the rest of the country. How many poor people do you know grow up in Manhattan, attend after school programs, summer camp, go to Harvard…? I just don’t buy it.

For the most part I just thought of her as a spoiled brat. Her fits were constant and unbelievable. She went to London for a summer and spent it in a basement crying, gave an accidental blow job, only to brag about the incident later. Her friends would visit her and bring her gifts but it never seemed to be enough. She described her actions but her actions but just really didn’t describe depression well. I never really got a sense of why she was behaving so badly. Many times she repeats feeling a black wave, or not wanting to get out of bed, and I ask, who does? I just couldn’t feel empathy, and because of my personal experience this was very strange. I just couldn’t get over what an egocentric brat she was.

Initially in the book her therapist is adamant about her feelings are psychological and not biological. That with enough therapy, etc. she could be cured for a lack of a better word. In the end she ends up with a prescription drug remedy, which I just didn’t get. She never went into how the doctors changed their mind about her depression and the cause.

There was a prologue and an epilogue. In the epilogue (written after the publication of the book) she mentions that she received many letters about why she read this book. That in her words; why would twenty-something that hasn’t really accomplished anything. I never did get a clear answer on that one.

All roads lead to the kitchen

Julia Child (Meryl Streep) and Julie Powell (Amy Adams) are featured in writer-director Nora Ephron's adaptation of two bestselling memoirs: Powell's Julie & Julia and My Life in France, by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme. Based on two true stories, Julie & Julia intertwines the lives of two women who, though separated by time and space, are both at loose ends...until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible. From IMD

Last weekend I went with a friend to see Julie and Julia and absolutely loved it! Meryl Streep was so amazingly funny and lovable. The movie was heartbreaking and heartwarming, my favorite movie combo. I must say that I thought the Julia part of the story was much more interesting that the Julie part but unlike some reviews I read I thought they did a good job of mixing the two. I am a bit too young to have grown up with Julia Child so I really didn’t know anything about her. It was so amazing to watch such an adorable, friendly woman love and be loved. Her relationship with her husband was so beautiful. I think it says a lot about her determination that she was able to work pretty much exclusively on cooking and writing for several years, especially when you consider the woman’s place in the world at that time. A feat, I believe, largely accomplished because of the support of her wonderful husband. I would love to say that the movie inspired me to go out buy the book and cook beef bourguignon, unfortunately, I don’t think that is going to happen, although, I do love butter…. something to think about. I did however add a le creuset dutch oven to my Amazon wishlist. A must for every kitchen, I have been told.

I wholeheartedly recommend this movie, don’t go hungry!

Salt of the Earth

The other day I was cooked some edamame and my husband said these need Sea Salt and I said we only have Kosher and table Table Salt and he said we need Sea Salt. So this made me really want to know the difference between the salts. So today I found this:

Table Salt and Iodized Table Salt

This is the type of salt that most of us use at home and the type that we find on most restaurant tables. Our basic table salt is made by sending water into salt deposits then evaporating it – only the salt crystals will remain. The salt goes through a refining process that removes the other minerals from it. Table salt has a fine grain texture which makes it ideal for baking – it can accurately be measured. Iodine is not naturally in table salt – Morton Salt Company started adding it back in 1924 to decrease the chance of goiters. The majority of table salt is iodized in the United States these days, and, indeed, the occurrence of goiters has gone down greatly!

I learned about Goiters (inflammation of the thyroid) in my A&P class, and we do need iodine in our diet in order to not get Goiters. Very interesting.

Kosher Salt

Kosher salt is made in a similar fashion to table salt – the difference is that kosher salt is raked during the evaporation process. This type of coarse salt is generally evaporated from brine. This creates grains with a block-structure, this structure better allows the salt crystals to absorb blood (Jewish law states that you must extract blood from meat before you consume it). Kosher salt is less salty than table salt.

Sea Salt

Sea salt is harvested by evaporation, also. Sea salt is not quite as salty as table salt is. You can find both fine grain and coarse grain sea salt. Many sea salts include trace minerals like potassium, magnesium, and iodine – these minerals are naturally present, not added.

Fleur De Sel

This is a type of sea salt – to harvest fleur de sel, you must take the early crystals that start to form across the surface of salt evaporation ponds – this is generally done during the summer months, the time when the sun is strongest. Fleur de sels have a higher mineral content than basic table salt. Fleur de sels can smell like the ocean, and it tends to be grayish in color. Other types of sea salts include sel gris, esprit du sel, and pink, black, and brown sea salts from India.

Rock Salt

As its name implies, rock salt is not fine-grained. In fact, rock salt is unrefined and therefore has a grayish hue. It is sold in large crystals. This is what people use to make ice cream in traditional hand-cranked ice cream makers.

This is a really basic explanation of a few salts that I found here (what I was really looking for), but in my search I found that there are a lot of different types of salts. I thought this website was particularly comprehensive if you are looking for more.

My weight loss reality.

For a long time now I have really wanted to lose weight but have never been completely honest about my habits and as a result have not lost any weight until now. I think I struggle because I am not obese, I have always been within a normal/healthy weight range so I never though I was unhealthy or out of shape but that is totally not true. About 2.5 years ago I started working-out in what I would call a regular basis. Going to the gym somewhere between 3-5 times a week but not with much consistency. I Though I have had a gym membership pretty much since I started HS (Fall 2002) I have never really worked-out with any regularity. In high school I took raquet sports, a complete joke of a gym class. It is exactly what you think raquet sports class would be; we played badminton, tennis, and raquent ball but of course not very well and not with much seriousness. It has been since the first of the year, 2009 that I have truly made an effort to lose weight. My start weight at that time was 132, I don’t really watch my weight but my all-time high was inching towards 140. According to BMI calculations I should be within 99 to 124 pounds. I keep telling myself that I really don’t have that much weight to lose, that I couldn’t really lose much but that’s not true either. I can literally grab handfuls of fat on my thighs, waist, smaller handfuls on my arms, back, etc. I keep telling myself that I just need to increase my work outs and that I should be able to eat whatever I want but this is completely not true. I don’t think I really eat bad things, which is good but I have a huge appetite. I can pretty much always eat, it is rare when I am completely satiated after a meal, I snack before I eat a meal, if I am invited to a friend’s for dinner I eat before hand because I don’t know when we will actually eat, I eat before I am invited over to a friends if I am not sure there will be food, I never leave food on my plate, if my husband doesn’t finish his meal I usually will or can… I can go on and on. To be fair I am not a complete pig but my body is very sensitive to food. If I don’t eat something by 6:30/7pm I and everyone around me knows. My body is very food driven. I have been telling myself for so long that this is just me and that I don’t have control over it but I do and my next big goal is to decrease the amount of food I take in.

I like to weigh in the first of each month, as of Monday the 3rd I weigh 121 pounds. I am pretty stoked about it. I know that the number is not the most important factor but I lots of my older clothes are fitting better, and lots of my newer clothes are not. I still have a ways to go before I am completely happy with my body but I think I am finally on my way. I don’t really have a weight goal in mind but I think I could lose another 10-15 pounds and be where I want to be. J and I last night after trivia, 121.

Goals:
1. I want to look good in a bikini
2. I want to be in good shape in my golden age
3. Run at least one mile in 8 minutes
4. Finish a half marathon by the time I am 27
5. Finish a full marathon by the time I am 30