Ombailamos

a thousand words

I assure you, this post will not be a thousand words.  I don't write haiku, though, so it's likely to get away from me.  

I was watching Anthony Bourdain's new show and he was in San Francisco, Mr. P's hometown and a city that I love, and I had a little flashback to a breakfast joint that we visited a couple of years ago.  It was one of those "secret" places that supposedly the locals all know, that gets known through word-of-mouth.  One of those places that doesn't take reservations and you might have to wait.  For a while.  

As I recall, we didn't have to wait long because we got out of our Union Square hotel and up the street to the joint quite early.  It was already crowded, though, and by the time we left there was indeed a queue.  But what I chiefly remember about that visit was not the place itself, or the food, or the general experience. No, what I chiefly remember was our waiter.  

This is not something that happens often.  We get good service almost all the time because we are nice to the restaurant staff and we find the good places.  (Restaurants with crappy service generally do not survive for long, nor do they get good reputations.)  But it's usually about the food, or the wine, or the view.  

So anyway, this waiter.  What was it about this guy?  

I don't as a rule take photos of people but I really wanted to do a portrait.  I barely know how to take a good portrait, but the look of this guy suggested such a story that, witness this rambling nonsense, after all this time I haven't forgotten him.  I didn't ask even though I had my camera, because we were out at breakfast and the place was busy and it might have seemed weird and I am not immune to "what will people think?".

His name was Nico and he looked Mediterranean; southern Italian, or Greek, possibly; Cypriot or Turkish, maybe; but he spoke with no accent so that's as far as I got.  Dark hair, dark eyes.  Beautiful eyes, with long lashes, and down-turning outer corners, and a nose like Isabella Rossellini's.  The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up a couple of turns, and I could see the edge of a tattoo showing below the cuff on his right arm.  Not enough to see the design ... just another tantalizing bit of no-information.  And he had the faintest suggestion of a bruise along the bone framing his left eye.  As if he'd caught the edge of a punch a couple of nights ago.  

Yes, he was a good waiter.  He was charming and quick-witted and prompt.  But he looked like someone we should have come across in the context of art or music or a sailboat or boxing, not pancakes; and it's that little fishhook of a story that caught me, and I still kind of regret not asking if I could take his picture.

link of the week: casual kitchen

http://casualkitchen.blogspot.com/2006/12/mastering-kitchen-setup-costs.html

This is an archive post, and I wanted to bring it back into the light because here we are, at the beginning of the year, and people are wanting to make life changes, right? Also there's graduation a few months away, and wedding season, and all kinds of other things that might make people turn around and think "what do I need to live on my own?" So, some ideas here.

Also linking back to one of my own old posts that took the setup costs concept all the way through appliances. Because there really are places where a rented "kitchen" consists of a two-burner cooktop and a sink. What's In the Kitchen

reading roundup: November-December 2011

I had a somewhat unsatisfactory reading pace during the last two months of the year. Just too much going on, and unable to block out the time required to do what I like to do, which is to read (on average) 2.8 books a week ... I managed a mere 2.5 average over the course of the year, tsk tsk.

I plan to embark soon on a binge (to clear a particular collection) which should set me up nicely for the first two months of 2012!

November: 118. Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. 119. The Return of Tarzan, by E.R.B. I love adventure stories and these are typical of the great turn-of-the-19th century style. 120. A Study in Sherlock, ed. L.R. King; short stories, all entertaining, some excellent - especially one by Jan Burke featuring WWI vets in the U.S. 121. The Aztec News, by History News. Graphic-style paperback history of the Aztec empire. Very impressive - as well as entertaining. 122. Helm, by Steven Gould (author of "Jumper"). Well-written SF coming of age story. If you liked "Ender's Game" or "The Chronicles of Prydain" you would enjoy this. 123. Saint Peter's Wolf, by Michael Cadnum. A werewolf story, not actually a whole lot of fun. 124. The Vanished Library, by Luciano Canfora. A scholarly detective work, looking at the various Bronze Age to Medieval stories about the possibly imaginary great library of Alexandria.

December: 125. Sex, Lies & Litigation, by Tyne O'Connell. British chick lit featuring a novice barrister. Fluff, and is drinking too much still considered cute in England? 126. Tell Me Lies, by Jennifer Crusie. Continuing the library clear-out (all JC are now on kindle so I can get them again if I reallyreally need to!). 127. Animal Attraction, by Jill Shalvis. Solid romance. 128. Coming Home for Christmas, by Carla Kelly. Linked historical romance novellas, her usual good work. 129. I Heard God Laughing, poems by Hafiz rendered by Daniel Ladinsky, lovely. 130. The Cinderella Deal, by Jennifer Crusie. One of my favorites of hers. 131. Crazy For You, by Jennifer Crusie. 132. Journals and Letters of Frances Burney. This was, I think, the first thing I bought for my Kindle and I have just now finished it! FB was the subject of my master's thesis and I am reminded just how admirable a woman (and writer) she was.

having a fit

A fit of decluttering, that is.*

I finally updated my library index - even converted it to Excel! - and was both amused and appalled to discover that, despite decluttering literally hundreds of books over the past two years, we still own over 1200 honest-to-goodness paper Books.

Yikes, y'all!

So I am about to commence another purge.  In the first pass, I attacked our hall closet, where I had a stash, and cleared half of it out.  Next is my bedroom closet.  After that, not sure: I have to get Mr. P involved in order to address certain areas, and he is not always receptive to this type of project.  Marriage: it's a process!

In the course of de-stashing those books, I also de-stashed some other stuff that was lurking in there.  It's all too easy for me to not deal with stuff that is not out in the open bugging me.  Hey, it's behind closed doors, it's not a problem, right?

Except it is.  It's not stuff I need.  I'm not using it.  Probably won't be using it.  Why keep it?  Am I more likely to use it next year?  Evidently not, since I've had it at least twice that long already!  I am working on getting to the point of, if I don't have a project immediately in mind for something, out it goes.  I have plenty of projects that are already on simmer, I do not need to hang onto anything "just in case" it sparks an idea.  My idea factory is backed up!  I need to execute!

Decluttering is kind of like self-directed therapy.  Once you get into the decluttering mode, it becomes easier and easier to sever emotional ties to Stuff.  Its nostalgic or sentimental "value" goes to nil when you realize that you've had it in a box for five years without ever missing it.

Books, at least - and DVDs and CDs - have gotten a lot easier in the past few years, what with digital downloads, Kindle, and Netflix.  Many of the books I intend to declutter on this pass are now available for Kindle, so if I absolutely, positively have to read something again, I can. 

Other books are simply out of date, or no longer of interest.  I've had a little bit more difficulty with these categories - as has my better half - since it's sometimes hard to admit to ourselves that we went to college THAT LONG AGO or that we're just not interested in doing that activity any more.  People often self-identify, very strongly, based on what they did in their youth - I certainly have - and it's kind of wrenching to give up that picture of yourself (myself).

But people CHANGE.  Interests change, activities change, everything changes.  And that's okay.  We don't have to hold onto every piece of evidence that we were once an expert on [insert topic here] in order to have value as human beings.

Who we are has very little to do with what we have.

*this post was originally published last summer, and updated for the New Year.

faking out your brain

I don't know about you, but I often get a midafternoon sugar craving. It has nothing to do with hunger. It is just my brain saying "I have been working since six thirty a.m. and I want some sugar now pleeeease."

Most of the time, I just say No. Very occasionally, I give in and have something sweet. In between, there are the times that I use one or another little tricks to con my brain into thinking it got what it wanted.

My most common fake-out strategy is to get a cup of decaf. Even if I am drinking the awful office coffee, which is bad enough that even I will add sugar, a little sugar and cream adds up to about 50 calories. That's a heck of a lot wiser choice than a 230-calorie candy bar.

My second most common fake-out strategy is even better: a zero-calorie peppermint. You know, one of those little white ones that looks like an aspirin and blows the top of your head off if you bite down on it. But they have artificial sweetener so I'm not planning to buy more when I run out.

Something I want to get in the rotation this year is mint tea. My palate reads mint as sweet, so it satisfies the brain, which apparently cannot tell the difference between fake sweet and real sweet. It's also a fluid, and that's always good in this desert.

Even better, for me, a strong taste of mint (this applies to the peppermints too) effectively kills food cravings. I suspect this is not unique to me, as the advice to brush your teeth after every meal is quite commonly given to those trying to lose (or just manage) weight. I can be truly hungry and a cup of mint tea will settle things down - between the flavor and the fluid - for quite a good while.

I don't know anyone who never has to worry about their weight. I'm in favor of using small, painless tricks to keep our body chemistry from sabotaging us.

how to do what's important FOR YOU ... and still be a team player

I would like to quote from Havi's Friday Chicken (check-in) at The Fluent Self:

“Setting boundaries.

One of the many useful, true and eternally frustrating things that
I have learned from being consciously alive is this:

Intentionally setting strong, healthy boundaries is the most
compassionate and important thing that you can do. And not just for you, but
for everyone in your world.

However, rigorous scientific study by me has shown that most
people don’t like it when you do it.

Even when it’s best for them and for the greater good and for
everyone involved.

So that can be uncomfortable and not fun, which makes it kind of
unappealing. Except that if you don’t do it, then everything gets even worse. ”

I am involved in a lot of different stuff, and as others before me have learned, the
more stuff you are involved with, the more stuff tends to stick to you.

And if you are good at organizing stuff, as I am, then oftentimes the other people
involved with that stuff will tend to assume that you are in charge.

I just want to say, to my friends and colleagues, I am not in charge. :-)

I am doing what I do because I enjoy it, not because it's my job or because I want that project to Belong To Me. I don't have much of a personal stake in anything I do that happens outside my own home.

So if I ask you a question, it's because I believe the information I am seeking is pertinent to the project that we share, and typically I ask when I ask because I need the information at that time. Not next week.

There is a certain level of seriousness that I expect my colleagues to share. Not to take ourselves seriously, and not to take our projects so seriously - we are not obliterating polio or world hunger. All we are doing is some mostly-recreational dance stuff. But we still have to approach it seriously, because each of us is giving up our own time to do this and all of us are worthy of respect.

Also, we are representing a larger organization. If we flake out on our team and don't show up and participate, that's a shadow on the organization and not just on our own personal reputations.

Each of us can only do what we can do. None of us should be expected to do more than we willingly volunteer to do. But once we have made a commitment, we need to follow through on it.

If there is part of a project that we cannot participate in for whatever reason, we need to be very clear about that. We don't need to apologize for it, but we have to let the others on the team know so that they can find someone to fill the hole. And if we possibly can, we need to help fill that hole before we bow out.

We are at a point where the team can't cover all the necessary tasks without some members doing more than they really want to.

There are three options at this point:

• cancel certain projects;
• recruit more people for the team; or
• suspend operations altogether until the absence of activity stimulates more people to volunteer.

Obviously option 3 is not desirable, but it wouldn't be the first time a chapter has had to resort to it.

Options 1 and 2 are not mutually exclusive. Ideally we recruit more people so that we don't have to cancel any projects, but it might prove more beneficial, in the long run, to cancel some projects so that we have breathing room to recruit and train more volunteers.

Our projects are not rocket science, but they do require a little bit of know-how about the organization (what it is and why it exists) and the local structure (what we've been doing and how we've been doing it).

The truth is, some tasks have been neglected for nearly the entire life of our chapter, because there just weren't enough people on the team. We're going to have to make some decisions - and some changes - very soon. My personal boundaries require it.

fundraiser for High Desert! January 8

In addition to my series at Ballroom by the Bay, I'll be participating in a "boot camp" fundraiser for the High Desert Dance Classic and Dancing Feet (a program that brings ballroom dance instruction to 5th through 8th grade classrooms throughout the Antelope Valley, and now in Los Angeles!). Attached is a flyer! Download HDDC_Fundraiser_2012

$30 for three hours of instruction - hard to beat, even if it's a little ways out of town.

hurts so good

Let's talk about a primary physical-therapy modality that is now being used a lot in personal training: Soft Tissue Mobilization. What does this mean?

Well, it means pretty much what it says - it's mobilizing the soft tissues of the body. Why do we want to do that?

Because the soft tissues are where the action is - literally. If you want your body to be able to move, you have to move it.

Let's say you do a hike and the next day your calves and feet and thighs are sore and stiff. What do you do to speed up your recovery and help your muscles get stronger? First, you warm up. Second, you stretch. And third, you employ some STM techniques. Most commonly, these are self-massage and the application of a foam roller.

The foam roller is becoming ubiquitous in gyms, and that's a good thing. It's hard - but not impossible - to actually hurt yourself using it, so your first time should be supervised. The idea is that you place a body part on the semi-resilient foam cylinder (usually about six inches diameter and 40 inches long), adjust your position so that part of your weight is supported on the cylinder, and use slow pressing, rocking, and rolling motions to let the cylinder massage tension and metabolic waste products - like lactic acid - out of your muscles.

This is desirable because just stretching often doesn't put enough pressure on the tissue to move fluids through it - and the more heavily muscled you are, the more true this is.

If you think about your soft tissues (muscle, tendons, ligaments, skin, nerves - all soft) like a sponge, and think about using the foam roller to wring it out, you'll get the idea. A tight muscle, moreover, is like a dry sponge - and this is why you want to warm up and stretch before applying the foam roller.

This is not fun and games. If you are tight, if you have micro-tears from a heavy workout (and this is how muscle grows, by being stressed and then responding), if you have lactic acid buildup from muscle fatigue from endurance work, using the foam roller is going to hurt a little.

It shouldn't hurt a lot - if it does, stop and get some advice from an expert (preferably a physical therapist or an ACSM or NASM certified personal trainer). But a little bit of hurt means you are accessing the exact areas that need to be worked into.

The body heals, and muscles grow, by moving stem cells into injured or stressed areas. STM is extremely beneficial to this process. Injured or stressed tissue that is never relieved will develop scar tissue, and once you have scar tissue the mobilization process gets difficult - or impossible.

Better to hurt a little bit as part of your post-workout recovery, than to hurt a lot from surgery later on.

variations on a Foxtrot theme

Last night at Ballroom by the Bay we covered three variations of a combination using the twinkle and twist in Foxtrot. As I mentioned not long ago, the twinkle is a foundation element in ballroom dancing, and perhaps especially in Foxtrot - where it can be forward, back, open, closed, linked, alternating, or parallel.

It is well suited to the "slow-quick-quick" timing of advanced foxtrot and is a great tool for changing alignment or dance position - usually both. In this series, we are using the twinkle to change alignment from diagonal wall to diagonal center and back to line of dance.

The three variations we explored were:

1. twinkle and twist to open left box;
2. twinkle and twist to forward chassé into back twinkle;
3. twinkle and twist to 8-count grapevine. And, just for fun, we added a check at the end of the grapevine for the leader to give the lady a chance to do a styling. We'll play around some more with that next week!

The keys and essentials to the twinkle and twist, from the leader's side, are:

• begin diagonal wall, use the twinkle to change from closed position to promenade position*; and
• check through on the inside (right) foot and hold foot position, turning the frame to the left to lead the lady forward around you;
• then finish with a slight compression of the frame to change the lady from her promenade walk position back to closed position.

This sets the partners up with the leader facing diagonal center, and ready to move to the right down the line of dance. Which all of the above variations conveniently do.

The foot positions for the open left box, from the leader's side, are:

1. step one is straight forward on the left foot;
2. step two is to the side and slightly forward on the right foot;
3. step three is back on the left foot;
4. step four is back on the right foot;
5. step five is to the side and slightly forward on the left foot;
6. step six is forward in contra-body position on the right foot.

The keys and essentials of this figure are: the figure turns to the left between steps 1-3 and between steps 4-6.

That is, step 1 is directly forward but the frame begins to turn at the end of step 1. The entire apparatus turns on step 2 and the turn is complete at the beginning of step 3.

Then, step 4 is directly back, but the frame begins to turn at the end of step 4. The entire apparatus turns on step 5 and the turn is complete at the beginning of step 6.

Turning the frame continuously even when the feet have been placed helps ensure the smooth movement that is characteristic of good foxtrot.

Another key to the success of this figure is that step 2 must go slightly forward, and not simply to the side, in order to cross the follower's line of movement and bring her into closed position on the new line. The leader is on the outside of the turn, so he has to go around the lady.

Likewise, step 5 is slightly forward, and not directly to the side, to change the direction of movement from straight down the line to diagonally toward the wall. The leader is now on the inside of the turn, but he does not want the lady to go all the way around him; he wants her to come only so far around as to stay in position at his right shoulder. Moving into step 5 on the diagonal also assists the leader in completing step 6 in an outside partner, or contra-body, position. Furthermore, step 5 must be relatively small or the lady will be left behind.

The open left box is the most technically difficult, for the leader, of these variations. However, when it's mastered it becomes an extremely useful figure that travels well, is easy to follow, and works in nearly all ballroom dances up to and including samba and tango.

*A final note: it's important for leaders to understand that in leading to promenade position, the leader's frame does not change. What changes is the relationship of the frame - the rib cage, shoulders and arms - to the hips and feet.

In leading to promenade, gentlemen, what you are trying to achieve is changing the lady's position so that instead of traveling backward while facing you, she is traveling forward in the same direction as you - while still maintaining a beautiful, closed ballroom hold. So don't think about promenade as something you do. Think of it as something the lady does.

link of the week: the happiness project

http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2011/12/every-wednesday-is-tip-day-or-list-day-or-quiz-day-this-wednesday-five-questions-to-help-you-make-effective-new-years.html

My big, sparkly, key-to-it-all pick from this list is No. 4. "Are you starting small enough?" Gretchen is so right to say that many people set goals that are too big, too high, too difficult.

Saying on January 1 "I will go to the gym for an hour a day!" is delusional if you have been to the gym only twice in the past year.

In fact, if you haven't been to the gym at least once a week for the past year, you probably ought to cancel the membership ... because your history is telling you that you don't like going to the gym. There are hundreds of ways to exercise and get fit. Only a few of them require a gym. Save your money, or put it into a fitness-enhancing activity that you actually enjoy.

Then there's saying, "I will lose twenty pounds this year!" There are so many problems with a "resolution" like this. First of all, you're giving yourself a whole year to meet a goal that is best met in small increments over time, meaning that you could, very probably, get to October without losing any weight at all and then go into year-end panic mode. Or year-end giving-up-till-next-year mode.

If you have twenty pounds to lose, it's highly likely that your daily habits are to blame. So rather than putting a number on what you want to lose, resolve to figure out why and how you gained the weight. The process of figuring this out is highly likely to show you exactly which daily habits require small changes in order to stop and reverse the weight gain.

I'll give you an example from my personal history. When Mr. P and I were in that first honeymoon phase, like a lot of people, we both gained weight. We were fat and happy, eating fine meals and, a couple of times a month, mowing through a pint of Haagen-Dazs on the couch together. Now, eating fine meals is not necessarily a destructive habit; but mowing through a pint of premium ice cream most definitely is. Because that's not, of course, all we were eating. It was on top of everything else we were eating. And we gained weight accordingly.

Stopping the ice cream habit was something simple and relatively painless that we could do. We didn't have to change a thing about our daily lives. I just had to stop bringing the ice cream into the house. And with that extra couple thousand calories not coming in every month, we lost weight.

It's okay to have big goals. But don't underestimate the time, energy, and maybe even money that you'll need to put into meeting those goals. And don't overestimate the speed with which you will see results.

Whether it's establishing a true, daily fitness habit; establishing a reliable, daily breakfast habit; establishing a consistent spending plan; or establishing a daily housekeeping routine that will free your weekends, odds are good that the changes that will stick are the small ones. The painless ones. The ones that don't make you dread the morning.

Find a small habit that isn't helping you get where you want to be, and change that habit. Before you know it, the big changes will tend to take care of themselves.