Lemonade

Ava has been wanting to have a lemonade stand all summer. And all summer I've been a bad parent and have come up with excuse after excuse to not have one....it's too early/late/hot, we don't have any cups/sugar/lemonade/ice/water. Today I just ran out of excuses and decided to quit being a shitty parent and just have a lemonade stand already. Mom was going to handle baby patrol so Ava and I were free to exercise cool-drink-based capitalism. I had anticipated this somewhat, so we already had makings for the actual lemonade on hand. We lacked cups and ice, so we sprinted to the store and dropped $7 on supplies, returned home and scrawled some signage together, then pitched the foldup table and lawn chairs out front and waited for the masses. And waited. And waited. It was probably an hour before we had our first customer, and he was a cool older dude driving his handyman truck around. We were selling cups of lemonade for $0.25 and he hooked Ava up with a cool dollar bill....keep the change. Thanks man. You've made the last hour sitting in 102 degree heat worth it to make my little girl smile. After that we had a nice steady stream of the same. I still truly believe that people generally suck at heart, but who can project their suckitude on the world when you have a five-year-old girl and sweet cold lemonade on a hot day. The only thing missing was a bottle of gin and nothing to do for the rest of the day. Most people that stopped by just dropped a buck into the cup, or at least threw an extra quarter her way. At the end of the day, we actually recovered my initial investment of $7 for cups and ice, plus the lemonade and sugar we already had. Ava made about $16 total, which I suppose I'll let her keep. Even I am not such a prick that I would take my venture capital out of her day's wages. Call it an investment.

Lately

Lately I've been trying to HTFU (see Rule #5) and it's been catching up with me. I've been getting up at 4:30-5am and running 5-6 miles or riding 25-30 miles before work every other day or so. At the same time it feels great as I have the exercise endorphines going for a day of work, but then at the same time I'm also wearing myself out for the post-work routine of getting home / make dinner / do laundry / clean house / hang out with kids / do dishes / get ready for tomorrow / repeat. It's exhausting. I keep trying to refer back to the HTFU rule, but I suppose some days that's just beyond me. HTFU is great when it applies to pro cyclists that don't have to take care of their house, watch their kids and otherwise keep a household running. I don't think Jens Voigt has to worry about doing laundry in between stage races or keeping groceries in the house so his kids can eat. Regardless of how I'm feeling, at least I feel like I've been eating healthier, limiting portion sizes and trying to cut back on bad stuff. That said, a man still has to have a vice or two. They've started up Thursday night cyclocross rides at a park nearby, so hopefully I can hook up with the locals and knock out some miles on the CX bike aside from getting groceries...and not get my ass handed to me at the same time. HTFU.

The best 2:48 of your life

I can't ever explain it. This will always be the best song ever written by the best band to ever exist. Just accept it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmlZD7ZksaY

All clear

I had my annual work physical this morning and passed with flying colors, with the exception of the spirometry test which I'm always a little lacking. I've never quite been asked if I have asthma or am a heavy smoker, but I'm always having to do them over. I didn't see my numbers but will get them soon enough...

Aside from that, my cholesterol is good and my blood pressure was 100/60. As my lunch was a container of leftover frozen soup from months ago (I can't even remember what it is...) I treated myself to an all-fried lunch from Sonic. Not a vegetable for miles....

This rant brought to you by the annoying chick two tables away

I've tried to make great progress in not being an arrogant judgmental prick the last couple years, and I think I've done fairly well; even to the point where for the most part, I don't even think some of the things I used to much less say them. My progress suffered a severe setback this evening though and the thought-dam burst was devastating....washing out everything in its path. After a less than successful day back to work after a nearly two-week break over the holidays, I needed to get out of the house. If it hadn't been dark and 20 degrees, a quick bike ride or a run with the dog would've been in order, but tonight I opted to grab a book I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to read and head to the coffee shop (or to Bread Co. which passes for "the coffee shop" here). I got a half hour of distracted half-hearted reading in before this young couple sat down two tables over. I'd already sized them up before they sat down and made many assumptions about their character which only proved to be truer as the minutes racked up.

I put them about early-mid 20's, dating, not living together and at some point in a taking or in-between community college classes state. But that's irrelevant. Normally most conversations in restaurants or other public spaces are white noise to me but for some reason, perhaps the volume at which the girl was speaking; as if to say "listen to me...what I have to say is of critical importance to our relationship so I'm going to say it very loudly and punctuate my sentences liberally with 'OK', 'ya know' and 'like'".

They hadn't even gotten their food set firmly on the table before she started talking. The guy hadn't even gotten his jacket half unzipped. At least let a man take his coat and hat off, sit down and get his chair in before you start yammering so he can focus on pretending to pay attention to what you're saying. The topic of this particular oral thesis was what she had to eat today. Being the beginning of a new year, she of course had made some unachievable dietary goal which was to be strictly adhered to at all costs and was to be the primary focus of their relationship until six weeks from now when she realizes she hasn't been sticking to it anyway and some new crisis will invariably trump this goal until the next time she sees a new diet book on Oprah or one of her friends reads a new food scare or diet trend on the internet. The goal was simple enough in theory: lose a few pounds through limiting calorie consumption. For a guy, this conversation would have gone something like "I'm 25 and have a beer gut...I need to quit eating bratwurst and pizza six times a week and remember what a carrot looks like. I have some really nice $200 running shoes I bought six months ago that I used once. Maybe I'll try going for a jog some day." And that would be it. End of topic and on to the next equally uninteresting story.

This girl wasn't going out like that though. She spent almost five solid minutes talking about how excited she was that she found her new "favorite" crappy snack food in 100 calorie packs and about how some other processed artificially sweetened not-even-real-food dessert item she adores only has 70 calories. Five minutes may not sound like a lot of time, but it was a freaking eternity, especially to her boyfriend I'm sure. This guy was a champ. He hung in there like a true veteran. I was so unbelievably aggravated by the pointless waste of oxygen and syllables taking place at this table, but I kept hanging on, hoping she'd redeem herself with something of the slightest interest or some insightful gem. Goose egg. My brief and short-lived sliver of optimism this conversation could be revived was squashed. She yammered on...and on...and on.... I found it nearly impossible to not deliver the irony to her that her achievement of limiting calories for the day, and likely for the next day as well, was erased by the bowl of broccoli cheese soup she was eating. My patience was further tested when she started moaning about the carbs in the bread bowl the soup came in. If you don't want the bread, just order it in a regular bowl. Sourdough is for eating, not aesthetics. Eating a meal with this girl has to be the most trying test of patience this guy has to endure each day. It's just soup, please just eat it and be quiet, it doesn't need to be talked about....it isn't that interesting. God forbid you come up with something curious to talk about or maybe even quit talking for 30 seconds so your boyfriend can chime in with something other than "uh huh". I'm sure you already told the same story to your twelve closest and equally uninteresting girlfriends today, so can you take a rest already and get on with life? Does every banal detail of your day have to be shared with all of us in a four table radius? I realize I'm in a public space and that comes with baggage I should be prepared and equipped to handle these aural affronts, but this non-conversation; perhaps moreso the fact that this same non-conversation likely takes place hundreds of thousands of times a day across the country...really irked me.

Maybe I've just been really good for a long time and needed a good session of mental judgement. Maybe I needed to practice my general dislike for a majority of the population to make sure I haven't lost my edge in case it's a skill I need at the end of days. Whatever the case, there was no action on my part to inform this girl of the degree to which I did not enjoy her storytelling. They finished their meal and headed out of the coffee shop, the girl still talking the whole way out the door. I went back to my book, trudged through a half page then got a coffee refill to go for the way home. Lesson learned, next time I'm headed to the library. I hear people read books there.

Ava starts dance lessons Monday

I'm biased of course, but this is about as cute as it gets. Celia has been running around getting tap and ballet shoes and little outfits for Ava to wear...it's freaking adorable.

Bone marrow revisited

About this time last year, I tried making roasted bone marrow for the first time after reading about it in a few cookbooks an online foodie spots, seeing TV chefs gush over it as their "death row meal" and other various sources. It's about as easy as easy gets, requires no real culinary skill whatsoever, and costs next to nothing. My first attempt was relatively naive, as I more or less rushed into it without knowing a few hints as to how the dish should be prepared. This time, I planned ahead and tried to make an actual meal of it rather than just a science project to see how it might taste. I procured the bones from the butcher, hand cut to order, and brined them for a few days, changing the water each day in order to draw out some of the blood. I also picked up some good crusty bread and makings for a light salad to cut the richness. If you search for 'roasted bone marrow' online, my dish mirrored most of what you'd find mentioned by Bourdain, Ruhlman, and that set talking about how they've eaten it. Simple roasted bone marrow with grilled bread and a parsley salad with capers, shallots, lemon & olive oil. A bit of sea salt and cracked pepper to top.

Olive knew something was up. She wouldn't leave my side the entire time I was making this. I think she could sense a new bone was in her future...and just a day late from Christmas. The resulting dish was much better than bone marrow v1.0, but I still think overall it left some level of satisfaction unfulfilled. Don't get me wrong, it was still very good....think really rich beef concentrated butter, with a hint of gelatinous ooze. I know that likely doesn't do it for most, but it *is* quite good. I guess for me it's just not one of those things that's over-the-top "death row meal" level for me. I'll still reserve judgement in case I ever have the opportunity to have a real pro make this for me, but for now I think I've done as best I can on this one. You're welcome Olive.