Our wonderful wellness weekend
Every year BB's employer sponsors a 4-week "Wellness Challenge." This is week 2. I played along at home last time and it was fun so I'm doing it again. The employees who want to participate form teams of 4 people each, and keep track of points in a little pamphlet. You get points for things like eating fruits and veggies, getting 8 hours of sleep, drinking water and exercising. You can also get weekly points and one-time points. For example, I'm getting points for going to the dentist during the challenge. BB and I got 40 points each for being non-smokers, but you only get 50 points for quitting smoking, which we both think is a huge rip-off. Quitting smoking is worth 100 points, minimum. Maybe more like 500.
Anyway, life at our house these days is all about the points, baby. Yes, we are wellness nerds. We're eating tons of veggies and trying all kinds of new exercise activities (10 points a week for trying something new). I have broken a very long-standing pattern and am now getting 8 hours of sleep a night (5 points a day!). This has led to weirdness like waking up spontaneously at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning. Actually it's kind of wonderful. Yesterday I woke up, fed the cats and gave them fresh water, folded laundry, emptied the dishwasher, ate breakfast, and then waited around until 8:00 to call my mom and wish her a happy birthday. It was still kind of early for that. BB says I need to watch cartoons in the morning and let the grownups sleep.
Yesterday was the first day of the season for the downtown farmer's market. The Waverly farmer's market is year-round but the downtown one is a) bigger and b) within walking distance. We're much more likely to blow off Waverly, although in some ways it is a cooler market and BB got me a fabulous Women in Black t-shirt there for Chanukah last year.
Our favorite way to spend Sunday morning when the market season is upon us is to walk to the market (it's a longish walk for Amerikans, maybe a mile and a half to two miles each way), get our produce, then walk home and eat some of what we bought for lunch. Tomato sandwiches were very big with us last summer. Yesterday was absolutely clear and sunny, not hot, fantastic weather for walking.
The only gloomy spot was BB's fucking electric wheelchair, which has been acting like a real dickhead for a while now. BB got the chair when she had rotator cuff surgery 2 years ago, because before the surgery it was really hard to push her wheelchair and after the surgery she wasn't supposed to push at all for a while. We were psyched to have the chair because one of the best things about our neighborhood is that we can walk to a lot of stuff -- movies, museums, the main library, restaurants -- and we are also right near all three kinds of public transportation (bus, subway, and light rail). We figured the chair would make going up hills easier and enable us to go a lot more places without driving. This has sort of been true, but the chair isn't nearly as excellent as we'd hoped.
I'm not in terrific shape, and I think this chair should be able to go at least as far as I can. Instead, I feel like John Henry, except I beat the machine and don't even die at the end of the song. By the time we were on our way home from the farmer's market, it was conking out on us, and this is after BB got the battery replaced. We've actually had it die on us a couple of times and I've had to push BB home, which sucked because the chair is incredibly heavy and doesn't have any handles to hold onto. This time we did make it home ok, but I just think it's bullshit that the thing can't hold a charge as far as a fat chick in her 30s can walk. I want it to be able to go for a full day of fun and excitement, like to the farmer's market and the museum both, or something wild and crazy like that. Grr.
The other thing that sucks about the chair is that when you use it you get absolutely no exercise, unless you count moving your joystick hand as exercise. I got something like 30 points for our walk yesterday, and BB didn't get any. But she'd never make it to and from the market in her manual chair with those giant hills. So while we were walking home I invented a wheelchair that can be used manually or with a motor, and is as light and portable as the regular manual chair BB uses when we are traveling by car. That way she could push herself until she got to a big hill or got tired, and then switch over to the motor. Kind of like the moped of wheelchairs. I want everyone who is working on the latest and greatest mp3 player or cell phone to switch over to working on this. Maybe NASA needs to get involved. Oh yeah, and the motor needs to last all day.
I was pretty excited about asparagus season. We ended up with 6 bunches of asparagus, which isn't all that much because each of us will eat a whole bunch at a sitting. Also got some cute little pink potatoes, a bunch of scallions, and a bunch of parsley. Ah, Spring! Went home and fixed us a really terrific farmer's market lunch, so simple. I boiled the lil potatoes whole for about 20 minutes, then drained them and left them to steam in the dry pan while I cooked the asparagus -- into my biggest frying pan of boiling water for exactly 3 minutes. We ate this absolutely plain, with no seasonings of any kind, and it was so good. I think both of us are gaining an appreciation for simpler tastes.
On Saturday we had a choice of 3 or 4 festivals to attend, and we ended up going to something called Ecofest, in Druid Hill Park. All different sorts of environmental organizations and businesses had information tables. Whole Foods was there and we got yet another free cloth shopping bag, and a free mini Lara Bar. We didn't bring lunch because we thought there would be yummy food. I did bring two apples and I was glad I did. The main food booth was Chipotle. Chipotle was bragging about how it is all about the sustainable farming. Now I actually eat a black bean burrito at Chipotle every once in a while, but to say that any form of commercially viable animal agriculture is "sustainable" is just bullshit. Lagoons and lagoons of bullshit, in fact. But the worst part is, they had brought some guy along as an avatar of sustainable farming, and he had brought some adorable baby turkeys with him. They were very cute and fuzzy, and people were petting them -- and then next to them is the Chipotle booth serving up the dead animals. It was sick. The thought of a black bean burrito after that was just too gross. Those were some damn good apples, though, and I got some cool trail maps and an article about how oil palm farming is destroying orangoutang habitat. Good times.
Oh yeah, and the wheelchair accessible port-o-janes were on the grass, which was up a curb, and there was no curb cut. Grr.
Anyway, life at our house these days is all about the points, baby. Yes, we are wellness nerds. We're eating tons of veggies and trying all kinds of new exercise activities (10 points a week for trying something new). I have broken a very long-standing pattern and am now getting 8 hours of sleep a night (5 points a day!). This has led to weirdness like waking up spontaneously at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning. Actually it's kind of wonderful. Yesterday I woke up, fed the cats and gave them fresh water, folded laundry, emptied the dishwasher, ate breakfast, and then waited around until 8:00 to call my mom and wish her a happy birthday. It was still kind of early for that. BB says I need to watch cartoons in the morning and let the grownups sleep.
Yesterday was the first day of the season for the downtown farmer's market. The Waverly farmer's market is year-round but the downtown one is a) bigger and b) within walking distance. We're much more likely to blow off Waverly, although in some ways it is a cooler market and BB got me a fabulous Women in Black t-shirt there for Chanukah last year.
Our favorite way to spend Sunday morning when the market season is upon us is to walk to the market (it's a longish walk for Amerikans, maybe a mile and a half to two miles each way), get our produce, then walk home and eat some of what we bought for lunch. Tomato sandwiches were very big with us last summer. Yesterday was absolutely clear and sunny, not hot, fantastic weather for walking.
The only gloomy spot was BB's fucking electric wheelchair, which has been acting like a real dickhead for a while now. BB got the chair when she had rotator cuff surgery 2 years ago, because before the surgery it was really hard to push her wheelchair and after the surgery she wasn't supposed to push at all for a while. We were psyched to have the chair because one of the best things about our neighborhood is that we can walk to a lot of stuff -- movies, museums, the main library, restaurants -- and we are also right near all three kinds of public transportation (bus, subway, and light rail). We figured the chair would make going up hills easier and enable us to go a lot more places without driving. This has sort of been true, but the chair isn't nearly as excellent as we'd hoped.
I'm not in terrific shape, and I think this chair should be able to go at least as far as I can. Instead, I feel like John Henry, except I beat the machine and don't even die at the end of the song. By the time we were on our way home from the farmer's market, it was conking out on us, and this is after BB got the battery replaced. We've actually had it die on us a couple of times and I've had to push BB home, which sucked because the chair is incredibly heavy and doesn't have any handles to hold onto. This time we did make it home ok, but I just think it's bullshit that the thing can't hold a charge as far as a fat chick in her 30s can walk. I want it to be able to go for a full day of fun and excitement, like to the farmer's market and the museum both, or something wild and crazy like that. Grr.
The other thing that sucks about the chair is that when you use it you get absolutely no exercise, unless you count moving your joystick hand as exercise. I got something like 30 points for our walk yesterday, and BB didn't get any. But she'd never make it to and from the market in her manual chair with those giant hills. So while we were walking home I invented a wheelchair that can be used manually or with a motor, and is as light and portable as the regular manual chair BB uses when we are traveling by car. That way she could push herself until she got to a big hill or got tired, and then switch over to the motor. Kind of like the moped of wheelchairs. I want everyone who is working on the latest and greatest mp3 player or cell phone to switch over to working on this. Maybe NASA needs to get involved. Oh yeah, and the motor needs to last all day.
I was pretty excited about asparagus season. We ended up with 6 bunches of asparagus, which isn't all that much because each of us will eat a whole bunch at a sitting. Also got some cute little pink potatoes, a bunch of scallions, and a bunch of parsley. Ah, Spring! Went home and fixed us a really terrific farmer's market lunch, so simple. I boiled the lil potatoes whole for about 20 minutes, then drained them and left them to steam in the dry pan while I cooked the asparagus -- into my biggest frying pan of boiling water for exactly 3 minutes. We ate this absolutely plain, with no seasonings of any kind, and it was so good. I think both of us are gaining an appreciation for simpler tastes.
On Saturday we had a choice of 3 or 4 festivals to attend, and we ended up going to something called Ecofest, in Druid Hill Park. All different sorts of environmental organizations and businesses had information tables. Whole Foods was there and we got yet another free cloth shopping bag, and a free mini Lara Bar. We didn't bring lunch because we thought there would be yummy food. I did bring two apples and I was glad I did. The main food booth was Chipotle. Chipotle was bragging about how it is all about the sustainable farming. Now I actually eat a black bean burrito at Chipotle every once in a while, but to say that any form of commercially viable animal agriculture is "sustainable" is just bullshit. Lagoons and lagoons of bullshit, in fact. But the worst part is, they had brought some guy along as an avatar of sustainable farming, and he had brought some adorable baby turkeys with him. They were very cute and fuzzy, and people were petting them -- and then next to them is the Chipotle booth serving up the dead animals. It was sick. The thought of a black bean burrito after that was just too gross. Those were some damn good apples, though, and I got some cool trail maps and an article about how oil palm farming is destroying orangoutang habitat. Good times.
Oh yeah, and the wheelchair accessible port-o-janes were on the grass, which was up a curb, and there was no curb cut. Grr.