Goals 2019 -- April Recap

Food!  One of my favorite things.

I have to say, being a vegetarian for a month was WAY easier than not going out to eat -- and we even had three birthdays and a wedding that were "special exceptions" to the no eating out rule!

Actually, the wedding was also an exception to the vegetarian rule, but mostly because I was a little bit drunk and busy telling a story to someone else in the buffet line, and didn't even realize I had eaten chicken until it was completely gone!  To be fair, there wasn't a lot else to eat -- it definitely wasn't a buffet for vegetarians.  I wonder if that had to do with the fact that the whole event took place on a working dairy farm?  Fun fact: I milked a cow for the first time ever!  And possibly had some unpasteurized milk.

But really, vegetarianism is pretty darn easy, as it turns out.  At least for a month.  No restaurants?  Not so much.  Especially since S's favorite comfort fast food, the P'Zone, came to St. Louis this past month, and he's been waiting (not so) patiently for May 1st.

K's update:
So, here we are at the end of April and I have managed to meet a goal that I never set in writing (always a safe choice) and that I wasn’t even sure I needed. However, this month I learned that even small changes make a difference and sometimes a little life tweak is better that a whole life overhaul. Although, I guess that is sort of the point of our year experiment.

When M proposed a food-focused goal for April, I panicked. See, I don’t really cook. Ever. So I am at the mercy of those who are willing to cook for me. Now, mom and I probably could have managed some food-focused goals together, but add J into the mix and all bets are off. So, since he cooks fifty percent of the time at our house, nothing like M’s goals were going to work for me. Luckily, my co-worker D was working on following his trainer’s orders to stop drinking coffee, so for fun, I jumped on that bandwagon. Goal set! I also got back into the yoga groove, which always makes me increase my intake of water. Goal set! Finally, I thought that since it was the end of the semester, I needed to fight the “eat and run” mentality that usually overtakes me when life gets a little more hectic than usual. To that end, I would make a focused effort to eat a fresh fruit or veggie at every meal. Goal set!

And, I must say that I did a really good job at meeting these goals. I only had three cups of coffee this month, though please note that I did not give up caffeine, just coffee. The water goal had to be met or I would have died of dehydration at the feet of my yoga teacher, and since that would have made a scene, I drank my water like a champ! The one that required the most effort in the form of willpower was eating fruits and veggies, but since I had to eat anyway, I just added a little extra crunchy stuff to my dinner or had a clementine for dessert instead of ice cream. The moral of the story here is that if you pick goals that you’re already basically meeting, you can move the needle from “basic” to “exceptional” pretty easily so that you can brag about how you met your goals. On to May!

BANFF 2019 Tour

S and I ventured back to the touring BANFF Film Festival when it came to StL this year, but unfortunately one of the two nights was sold out by the time we got our tickets!  Nevertheless, we managed to see some great stuff on Day 2.  Here's what we saw:


Rogue Elements: Corbet's Couloir (full film): a daring descent of icy ski slopes - on a mountain bike.  Props for the good music.
RJ Ripper (full film): the story of a poor but dedicated mountain biker living in chaotic Kathmandu.
Grizzly Country (full film): one man's quest to protect American grizzly bears.
This Mountain Life (trailer): a Canadian mother-daughter team spend six months traversing mountains in British Columbia.
The Mirnavator (full film): an unconventional untrarunner doesn't let the doubters stop her in her quest.
Surface (full film): a dedicated photographer looks for just the right angle.
Fast Horse (full film): one team tries their luck in the original Native American extreme sport.
Viacruxes (trailer): a stop-motion animation piece about two friends and the travails of climbing.
The Frenchy (full film): an 82-year-old skier and mountain biker just doesn't give up.  This one was both of our favorite, for the quotable comedic value, to say nothing of the inspiration.

NYC

S and I took a trip to NYC back in February.  NYC!  Can you believe it?  And even more shockingly, it was S's idea (obviously because he knew it would make me happy, but still)!

We headed up there on Friday morning, located our hotel in Chelsea, and stopped in a the nearby Forager's for lunch.  That was one of the early weekends of the Six Nations tournament, so we then went on the hunt for a bar which (1) opened early, and (2) planned to show the games.  We found one, in the Jack Demsey on 33rd.  Since we were there, we figured we should probably have a beer or two.  (Why not, right?)

 A classic image.

From there we made our way to the Morgan, a museum that I love almost as much as the Frick for all its old books, but which I was especially excited about on this particular trip because of a Tolkien exhibit they had on.  No pictures were allowed, but S snapped one of a J.R.R. doodle over a very funny newspaper article.

We had our first (though not our best) round of pizza that evening, followed by a quiet (and glitter-filled -- that's another story!) evening at the hotel drinking wine and watching movies.

Saturday started off with what could be a disappointment; despite our prior day's search for a Six Nations bar, it was a bye week!  So we were out of luck there, but luckily we have previously popped into Brooklyn Bagels and Coffee, so we were set in that department.  We wandered up to Bryant Park and had a lovely hour or so watching the ice skaters before wandering through the 42nd Street NYPL building and enjoying some more beautiful architecture.

Then it was down to the Battery, where we began a "Haunted New York" tour, which was more interesting for the historical information it provided than the supernatural, but for that alone it was a worthwhile way to spend an couple of hours.  We visited some of the city's original wells, the remains of the first City Hall, also known as Lovelace Tavern, Fraunces Tavern, Bowling Green (whose crown-topped iron fence was de-crowned by angry mobs after independence was declared), Trinity Church and the nearby St. Paul's Chapel, City Hall Park, the Tweed Courthouse, the abandoned City Hall Station.  We ended the tour with lunch at Katz's Deli, which I had (despite all my previous trips to New York) never been to.  Having now been there, I don't feel the need to go back.

We had a few minutes before the start of our next tour, so popped into Taco Dumbo to have a very non-Prohibition-era cocktail, though it looked quite delightful:

Then, it was on to our second tour of Prohibition-era speakeasies and cocktails!  We opened our tour at the 21 Club (which we were not classy enough to enter), but did stop for drinks at Flute. We did our due diligence sampling the cocktail menu, including the Antoinette, Gabriel, Marko, and Intime.  I also very much enjoyed a PSA in the ladies' restroom.

We walked Restaurant Row (which, for those of you who are interested, is 46th St. between 8th and 9th Aves.) where our guide identified two "restaurants" (including the Swing 46 Jazz and Supper Club) and a speakeasy for future trips, had drinks and snacks at Lillie's Victorian Establishment (which we had been to before with E!), and ended our tour at the Landmark Tavern.  It was a really fun tour.

After a long walk back towards our hotel, we stopped in for some late-night pizza (and the best pizza of our trip), at Joe's on 8th Ave.

Everyone who knows me knows I love brunch, and we had our Sunday brunch at Le Grainne Cafe, followed by a sunny stroll through the Village before stopping once more for pizza, heading off to the airport, and home.

Many thanks to S for a great weekend!

Fall in Love for Life: Inspiration from a 73-Year Marriage -- Take 2

I finished reading Fall in Love for Life as the weather finally warmed for spring.  (Nevermind that it snowed again this past weekend....)  But there is nothing like warm weather after several months of unusually cold temperatures to make you feel optimistic.  And there is no better way to bolster those feelings than with love stories!

This book is sometimes unrealistically dismissive of problems, with general advice like, "just get over it."  But the real focus is on preventing problems before they really get to be that way, and that seems like the best advice of all.  In a nutshell, it says, "recognize what a wonderful thing you have, and remember it."  Seems obvious, but often I think can be difficult.  Still, excellent advice.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the occasional gems of wisdom, often buried somewhere in the middle of a chapter where it would be easy to skip over them, since it's such an easy book to breeze through.

Skiing!

Shortly after our trip to NYC, we headed off the other direction -- out to Colorado for some fun in the snow.

Snowshoeing, followed by lunch, in some very deep snow!  (That building in the distance is one of those National Forest outhouses, so you can get a pretty good idea of how deep the snow was out there!)

 

Skiing in Telluride, views of town and the mountains surrounding, and a very healthy dinner.

 

Snowmobiling (my first time on anything even resembling such a machine - so fun!), and a very snowy drive back to town.  S managed magnificently.

SLSO Show #6

S and I had a make-up symphony show last weekend.  It was a beautiful day and a bit of a bummer to be sitting inside, but at least we had some upbeat music to keep us company.

On the dance card were:
Three Studies from Couperin (Thomas Ades)
Concerto in C major for Flute & Harp (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
Suite from Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (Richard Strauss)

Thomas Ades is alive and well.  This piece of music, though, is an ode to three movements from Francois Couperin's Pieces de Clavecin, a beautiful French baroque composition, which is why it fit with the theme.

The Mozart piece was written for a one-time potential patron of the musician's, the Duc de Guines, and the Duc's daughter.  He was an amateur flautist, she a harpist.  Imagine how disappointing it was for WAM when, after working with the two, including giving composition lessons to Marie-Adrienne, the Duc stiffed Mozart on his fee for both the piece and the lessons.

After intermission, it was time for Strauss.  "The Would-Be Gentleman" had a curious beginning.  Back in 1670, Moliere wrote a satirical play of the same name, which Strauss and his librettist revived in the 19-teens and renamed "The Middleclass Nobleman."  The first performance was combined in a four-hour theatrical marathon with Strauss's opera, Ariadne auf Naxos.  It proved to be too much, and the two pieces were split -- one now well recognized in the operatic canon, and the other slightly less well recognized in the symphonic realm.

What I Watched -- The Highwaymen

S's dad and stepmom took a trip to San Antonio recently for L's birthday.  They commended to our viewing the (apparently quite historically accurate) Netflix-original film The Highwaymen.

I never knew much about Bonnie and Clyde.  I knew they were a couple of outlaws, and I think they robbed banks.  That was about it. 

Having now seen the film and done a bit of additional reading, I understand that they were adored by millions during the Great Depression, revered as Robin Hood types, although it's not clear that they ever did a whole lot of giving of the money they had taken.

In any case, Bonnie and Clyde are not the central figures of the movie (as its title suggests).  They are the objects, but not the subjects.  The subjects are two retired Texas Rangers, called back into service -- specially deputized as members of the Texas Highway Patrol, and specially tasked with capturing or killing the renegade duo.

Kevin Costner plays Frank Hamer, a historically controversial figure.  Accounts generally agree that the Rangers (a group which was originally formed primarily for border protection) was a terribly racist group, but some accounts indicate that Hamer did not necessarily share those beliefs.  He is almost universally acknowledged to have been a bit of a cowboy though, using unorthodox and often brutal methods of information extraction.  The latter is clearly portrayed in the film; the former is not addressed. His partner and comedic, smooth-talking sidekick in this adventure was Maney Gault, played by Woody Harrelson.  There is much less readily available reading about Gault (he doesn't even have a Wikipedia page!).  As for the actors, I was struck by how well they both, but Costner especially, played his age in the movie.  He wasn't trying to be some swashbuckling youngster.  He is old as an actor, and his character was old in the movie, and he uses that.

Bottom line: thoroughly enjoyable, and somewhat educational.

Goals 2019 -- March Update

K's report from March:

My reflection on our March goal is delayed perhaps because I did not want to admit that I failed at the one of our goals that I really wanted to do well with. I’m now at the Phi Theta Kappa International Conference and just listened to Mel Robbins talk about how you have to stop thinking about what you have to do and start doing it. So, here I am.

I thought I could manage to squeeze in reading four books in March because I thought I would have more time since Spring Break was in there. I was wrong. But, I did finally finish a lingering read, Poet X, and I blew through Where the Crawdads Sing, which reminded me why I love reading so much. And, while I might not have met my goal, I learned that I am a much happier person when I am in the process of reading a book, and that is something that I will carry forward from this month’s goal. Even if I’m not reading as much or as fast as I would like, I will try to make sure that I am reading something that I enjoy and that I have a book that I can carry with me to read in whatever spare minutes I can find.

SLSO Show #5 and a Great Weekend

S and I had a great weekend a couple of weeks ago.  It finally felt like spring, and it happened to be our 6-month anniversary as well.  S told me he was picking me up at 11:00 on Friday from work, and off we went -- I wasn't sure where.

Turns out that the destination was the spa at the Four Seasons, where we had a lovely afternoon using the fitness center, getting massages, enjoying the jacuzzi, and reading our books.  We headed over to Planter's House for dinner, which is where he had our first date!  Since that time, they have expanded their food menu, so instead of only eating appetizers, we got a full meal!  S had the steak and frites -- I tried a couple of his fries, and they were delightfully covered in gravy.  I had the pork belly and white cheddar grits, which was so good I couldn't stop eating it even though I should have saved half for later.

Saturday was a busy day!  It started out with my trip to the Maplewood Coffee Crawl with some girlfriends.  While I did that, S got himself some breakfast and ran an errand or two.  He picked me up at the appointed time and then took me to my cousin A's bridal shower in Kirkwood.  He took that time to finish up the book he had been working on the previous day and do a bit of shopping.

Once the shower was over, we continued the shopping with trips to Global Foods and Alpine Shop -- two places we really like but don't visit very often because of their location.  We then took our first bike ride of the spring!  We rode from the Alpine Shop parking lot over to the Grant's Trail trailhead, and rode it to the end and back.  It was chilly starting out (it didn't get quite as warm on Wednesday as they predicted), but turned out to be a good temperature once we got moving.

We had a healthy dinner at Frida's -- the Frida's burger for S, and the falafel for me.  We finished up the long day at the Symphony.  The first piece was Paul Dukas's The Sorcerer's Apprentice, which is probably most well-known from the segment in Fanntasia where Mickey Mouse brings the broom to life.  That piece, predictably, I loved.  Second was Edouard Lalo's Cello Concerto in D Major, which was a mixed bag.  I loved the first movement, found the second movement terribly sad, and was moderate on the third.  After intermission, the final piece was Cesar Franck's Symphony in D Minor.  I can't say much about this one because I slept through a lot of it.  Oops!

Sunday I had the chance to do some much overdue work in my garden.  I had mulched over all my beds with leaves in the fall, and hadn't had the time to clear them out yet.  Some of my poor plants were already poking up through them, desperately trying to find sunlight.  I hope I didn't do too much damage by leaving the leaves on for too long, but such is life, I suppose.  On the next nice day, I'll do my planting!

Goals 2019 -- April Edition

Food is the name of the game in April.

S is joining me this month, since our food lives are so closely intertwined.  We have a couple of goals to improve our diets, habits, and general food intake, after months of eating whatever we felt like.  Our rules have lots of exceptions, but they're there because we're also (somewhat) realistic about what we'll actually be able to accomplish.

1. We will be vegetarians for a month.
Almost.  We have a few meat-based leftovers in the fridge, so we can finish those rather than wasting them.  We will not be obsessive about things like broths and bases that may contain animal-based products.  But we will not buy, make, or eat any dishes with meat at their center.

2. We will not go out to eat.
Except for cocktails and special occasions.  (Let's be serious, folks.  There will still be cocktails.)  Where this is going to be especially difficult is at lunch, because I often go out with my coworkers and S often goes to the cafeteria at his office.  But we'll see what we can do.  There are a couple of special occasions that we will make special exceptions for -- S's mom's birthday, a dinner for my grandma, and a friend's wedding come to mind.  So we will really enjoy those special occasions and some restaurant-prepared food!

K's food goal is coming up shortly!