This Lady
I'm exhausted! I just had an 11 1/2 hour day. Kate woke up at 5:30. I tried to put her back down but she didn't want to go back to bed so I just stayed up with her.
Which was, of course, very fun. Kate is very very fun. She plays in her exersaucer or with her toys on the floor, and squeals with delight and laughs uproariously while watching her signing DVD. You really can't do much of anything else when you're with her except enjoy her. Which is not such a bad thing. I'm a pretty lucky lady.
That is what Alla always calls Kate: "This Lady". As in, "What are we going to do with this lady?" Say that with a thick Russian accent and you have our Alla. The other expressions she uses are equally adorable: "OK babies!" and "Mamma Mia!" (said with the requisite amount of Russian angst). And she calls a bottle a "sippy cup".
I can't tell you how much we appreciate and love her. It goes very deep.
Anyway, by 5 pm, when I got her down for the night (I know, early -- that's what time she likes to retire), I was wiped. I did the dishes and the laundry and cleaned up the kitchen and put all the groceries away. And sat down to rest and have a glass of wine and some raw goat cheese and whole wheat crackers and get on the internet. Finally. It's been out all day. Something is wrong with our AirPort.
I'm making some rice now in the rice cooker. Picked up some tuna at Whole Foods for dinner. I am going to marinate it in some rice wine vinegar and scallions and soy sauce and grated ginger, roll it in sesame seeds, then sear it in a cast iron skillet. With steamed kale and edamame.
In addition to Whole Foods, Kate ("This Lady") and I went to Rawesome today. Rawesome is a "private buying club" in Venice. It's $25/year to join and they make you sign something that says you basically disagree with the government and it's rules about food (I guess about pasteurizing everything).
Anyway, it's kind of funny. I feel like I keep taking This Lady to all these back alley places to buy food. Organic Pastures Dairy with their truck pulled up into a parking lot, Rawesome with their railroad car next to the organic coffee shop in Venice -- just several blocks from the beach.
Rawesome has all kinds of great stuff -- tons of raw, organic produce (including fresh coconuts and pineapples) as well as organic pastured eggs, raw honey, ceviche, raw milk, cream, butter, yogurt, cheese, and a wide selection of organic pastured beef (bison and cow) and a fantastic array of wild-caught fish. It's very hard to find wild-caught fish even in Whole Foods -- most of it is farm-raised.
Which, incidentally, you do NOT want -- I heard they are now feeding CORN to farm-raised salmon. Yes, CORN! Can you imagine? Of course it is genetically modified industrial grade corn -- ugh! At least Whole Foods tells you it is farm-raised -- unlike most stores, where you typically have no idea where the fish came from.
There was this guy there at Rawesome, shirtless with long hippie hair, delivering food. I forget what he was delivering -- something he raised or grew or made. Anyway, when he was done unloading his merchandise, he took out a coconut, stabbed it with an implement (some kind of large pointy steel thing), and poured the juice over a strainer into a mason jar. Then he stirred in some organic barley grass powder, and sat down to drink it.
He was super tan and in perfect health. He looked like he lived on an island.
This was in the middle of Los Angeles. On a warm Indian summer afternoon.
I love it. I love the diversity. Love that people feel free enough to be who they want to be.
I guess I am a bit of a hippie at heart. I did usher for the Grateful Dead at one point. And I lived in a clothing-optional vegetarian co-op in college.
I'm not a Deadhead anymore, nor am I a vegetarian. Nor am I a hippie. But I still appreciate people who strive to be better, closer to the earth, connected to community.
Like Alla. She could be back in Russia, but she chose to come here -- seeking a better life. And of course she is totally into natural health, always lecturing me about opening the windows for fresh air and organic foods and exercise.
And I suppose if you added up all my various things -- kombucha, beet kvass, organic vegetables, raw milk, homemade earth-friendly cleaning products, tooth soap (I haven't even told you about that yet!!!), cloth diapers, Crocs (which, except for the plastic, are basically Birkenstocks), -- you very well could call me a hippie.
Eh. In the words of Albert Brooks, "Call me a hippie, send me to Hell."
On the way home from Rawesome (where I picked up two dozen pastured eggs*, cultured raw butter, raw goat cheese, and some fresh ginger), I drove past Venice High School, also known as Rydell High (it's the set they used for Grease). There were all these kids in the front of the school -- and all these seagulls flying around. It was an amazing sight. That, coupled with the coconut hippie guy -- it just made me grateful to live such a different kind of life. I could be stuck in the suburbs somewhere.
Maybe one day I'll have my cow and some chicken and even a vineyard. For now, this is pretty fun.
* why you need pastured eggs instead of just "free range": http://www.hbmag.com/story_eggs.html
Which was, of course, very fun. Kate is very very fun. She plays in her exersaucer or with her toys on the floor, and squeals with delight and laughs uproariously while watching her signing DVD. You really can't do much of anything else when you're with her except enjoy her. Which is not such a bad thing. I'm a pretty lucky lady.
That is what Alla always calls Kate: "This Lady". As in, "What are we going to do with this lady?" Say that with a thick Russian accent and you have our Alla. The other expressions she uses are equally adorable: "OK babies!" and "Mamma Mia!" (said with the requisite amount of Russian angst). And she calls a bottle a "sippy cup".
I can't tell you how much we appreciate and love her. It goes very deep.
Anyway, by 5 pm, when I got her down for the night (I know, early -- that's what time she likes to retire), I was wiped. I did the dishes and the laundry and cleaned up the kitchen and put all the groceries away. And sat down to rest and have a glass of wine and some raw goat cheese and whole wheat crackers and get on the internet. Finally. It's been out all day. Something is wrong with our AirPort.
I'm making some rice now in the rice cooker. Picked up some tuna at Whole Foods for dinner. I am going to marinate it in some rice wine vinegar and scallions and soy sauce and grated ginger, roll it in sesame seeds, then sear it in a cast iron skillet. With steamed kale and edamame.
In addition to Whole Foods, Kate ("This Lady") and I went to Rawesome today. Rawesome is a "private buying club" in Venice. It's $25/year to join and they make you sign something that says you basically disagree with the government and it's rules about food (I guess about pasteurizing everything).
Anyway, it's kind of funny. I feel like I keep taking This Lady to all these back alley places to buy food. Organic Pastures Dairy with their truck pulled up into a parking lot, Rawesome with their railroad car next to the organic coffee shop in Venice -- just several blocks from the beach.
Rawesome has all kinds of great stuff -- tons of raw, organic produce (including fresh coconuts and pineapples) as well as organic pastured eggs, raw honey, ceviche, raw milk, cream, butter, yogurt, cheese, and a wide selection of organic pastured beef (bison and cow) and a fantastic array of wild-caught fish. It's very hard to find wild-caught fish even in Whole Foods -- most of it is farm-raised.
Which, incidentally, you do NOT want -- I heard they are now feeding CORN to farm-raised salmon. Yes, CORN! Can you imagine? Of course it is genetically modified industrial grade corn -- ugh! At least Whole Foods tells you it is farm-raised -- unlike most stores, where you typically have no idea where the fish came from.
There was this guy there at Rawesome, shirtless with long hippie hair, delivering food. I forget what he was delivering -- something he raised or grew or made. Anyway, when he was done unloading his merchandise, he took out a coconut, stabbed it with an implement (some kind of large pointy steel thing), and poured the juice over a strainer into a mason jar. Then he stirred in some organic barley grass powder, and sat down to drink it.
He was super tan and in perfect health. He looked like he lived on an island.
This was in the middle of Los Angeles. On a warm Indian summer afternoon.
I love it. I love the diversity. Love that people feel free enough to be who they want to be.
I guess I am a bit of a hippie at heart. I did usher for the Grateful Dead at one point. And I lived in a clothing-optional vegetarian co-op in college.
I'm not a Deadhead anymore, nor am I a vegetarian. Nor am I a hippie. But I still appreciate people who strive to be better, closer to the earth, connected to community.
Like Alla. She could be back in Russia, but she chose to come here -- seeking a better life. And of course she is totally into natural health, always lecturing me about opening the windows for fresh air and organic foods and exercise.
And I suppose if you added up all my various things -- kombucha, beet kvass, organic vegetables, raw milk, homemade earth-friendly cleaning products, tooth soap (I haven't even told you about that yet!!!), cloth diapers, Crocs (which, except for the plastic, are basically Birkenstocks), -- you very well could call me a hippie.
Eh. In the words of Albert Brooks, "Call me a hippie, send me to Hell."
On the way home from Rawesome (where I picked up two dozen pastured eggs*, cultured raw butter, raw goat cheese, and some fresh ginger), I drove past Venice High School, also known as Rydell High (it's the set they used for Grease). There were all these kids in the front of the school -- and all these seagulls flying around. It was an amazing sight. That, coupled with the coconut hippie guy -- it just made me grateful to live such a different kind of life. I could be stuck in the suburbs somewhere.
Maybe one day I'll have my cow and some chicken and even a vineyard. For now, this is pretty fun.
* why you need pastured eggs instead of just "free range": http://www.hbmag.com/story_eggs.html