power breakfast
March 29, 2012
Over a typically inadequate hotel breakfast in Kentucky last week (at which I generally eat nothing but a bagel and coffee, as even the yogurt in such places is unacceptable to me) (especially in the States, where conventional dairy production involves chemicals that are banned in Canada and the European Union) (adjacent parentheticals FTW) (which apparently means “for the win” and not “fuck the world” as I originally thought, but whatever) I mentioned to Peter that on our return home I was planning to switch to eating salads for breakfast.
In my early twenties I never ate what are considered typical breakfast foods, instead preferring to eat whatever was in the fridge: leftover curry, rice, soup, pasta salad. In middle age I’ve lost that early morning tolerance for strong flavours and spices and have become much more set in my breakfast ways, eating one of two possible breakfasts every day: fruit, yogurt and two tablespoons of kasha OR fruit, whole grain hippie cereal and soy milk. In trying to cut back from eating yogurt (the only dairy to which I’m not allergic) every day, this past winter I’ve become much more reliant on the cereal option. But: I’m also trying to cut down (again!) on wheat. Last year when I was working out way too much and keeping a food diary I severely limited my wheat consumption, and began to notice when I did eat it that I not only felt sluggish and achy afterwards, but that even while sluggish and achy I craved MORE wheat. And generally that sort of spiral is something I’d like to avoid, so: cereal, even the hippie kind, not the best option for me anymore. In planning our trip and looking ahead to a week of hotel bagels, I thought about the things I like to eat most: salad. Fresh and lightly cooked greens.
The problem, then, is getting enough protein into my breakfasts when I don’t eat meat and don’t like eggs and want to cut back on yogurt. Tofu is a good option but not for every day; same with soy milk. I’ve been thinking about making some pickled beets so that I can then use them to make beet-pickled eggs, as I’ve been able to stomach eggs prepared this way before, but that’s a weeks-long process and also might not work. Sprouts are a good complete protein, but I can’t get it together to always have sprouts made so that’s not an every day thing either. At a lunch date with Carrieoke at The National in Athens, I ordered the “power lunch” and a light bulb came on: the power lunch is all greens, some fresh and some lightly cooked, with quinoa salad. I tend to forget about quinoa as an option because Peter doesn’t care for it, but there’s no reason why I can’t have it just for me.
So! Now that we are home from our trip and those horrible hotel breakfasts are behind us, I’m two days into my new routine. Today is the first (okay, the second) day of the rest of my breakfasts!
day 1: quinoa; sautéed rapini and shredded collard greens; fresh arugula and radicchio and shredded raw Brussels sprouts; fried tofu. SO GOOD.
day 2: quinoa and the same greens with leftover chana and peas, just to see if I still have the stomach I had in my twenties. The chana wasn’t as successful as the tofu, and tasted a little weird next to those bitter greens. Ah well.
YES OF COURSE I’ll be taking pictures of my breakfasts, at least until I get bored with it. I’ll be posting them up on my new tumblr, just to break up the inevitable stream of cat pictures a bit.
Posted by jodi on March 29, 2012 at 9.53am
motown fan bag
March 28, 2012
This lovely, orphaned inner sleeve was found in the record bins at The Thrift Store Formerly Known as Potter’s House, in Athens, Georgia. Being close to downtown in a college town full of music geeks and hipsters, the records here are always pretty picked over, and this day there was nothing we’d even consider buying (plus there were tons of sleeves with no records, tons of records with no sleeves, and much mildew and water damage: why do thrift stores put that stuff out at all?). So I was unable to slip this sleeve inside another record and bring it home, and had to be content with taking a photo. But check out these seven groovy gifts! A mobile with pictures of your favourite Motown artists with attractive Op Art designs on the back? Yes, please.
Posted by jodi on March 28, 2012 at 2.13pm
workout/derby update
March 20, 2012
So, I passed the Minimum Skills Requirement test last week. By the skin of my teeth, but that doesn’t matter, because the difference between a fail and even a barely-pass is the difference between having to continue training with Fresh Meat and being able to scrimmage with full contact. My subsequent performance on Sunday night, in my first ever full contact scrimmage, showed pretty clearly how much I need that full contact play if I’m going to get better from here.
So, about my first full contact scrimmage: it was a weird, off night where everyone had the jitters or couldn’t concentrate or just sort of collectively forgot the last six months, or something; the packs were all elbows, people were falling awkwardly and backwards and spread out all over the place, and there was an alarming number of injuries. Our pack control was nonexistent and at times it seemed like all we were doing was racing for no reason. Perhaps it was the effect of St. Patrick’s Day having been the night before, or upcoming bout jitters, or the moon, I don’t know. What I do know is that in amongst all of this I was essentially ineffective, unable to even hold the inside line (hold the inside line is what Fresh Meat are always instructed to do, right? because it’s relatively easy?), too unaware at times to know when it was my jammer tapping me from behind and not an opposing blocker (UGH), and pretty much completely not in control of my elbows. Even with my league mates having a bad night and playing below their usual level, I was massively outclassed.
I did manage to get past some skaters a couple of times, and to positionally block effectively a couple of times, and the one time I got goated I was lucky in that the opposing team fell down in their communications and the player who had me isolated at the back was abandoned by her teammates to try and keep me there herself, and I was eventually able to get around her. But all of that is just barely playing, and really I struggle just to keep up most of the time. I joke about changing my derby name to “The Goat” because as the slowest skater I’m destined to be made the goat A LOT in games (and, surprisingly, the name’s not taken!). I get the sense that my teamies consider this a defeatist attitude, but you’ve got to admit The Goat is a funny name. My dad used to have a cat called The Goat. < /tangent>
The things I need to work on, then, are mostly the most basic of things: awareness. Elbows. Counter-blocking. But also, since I’m going to be the goat a lot, I need to work towards getting really good at breaking down walls. I think I mostly understand the concept of how to break down walls well: arms up so as to avoid a penalty call; wedge a shoulder between the players and then wiggle your body in there, hitting with arse and shoulder until a space opens up; stepping through instead of skating, using toe-stops to gain an extra push instead of trying to glide through with the leading skate on the floor. But of course in practice I’m unable to do any of this. So purely for the purpose of breaking through walls, I need to work on getting more comfortable stepping around on toe-stops, practicing moving on my toes with quick stops and starts and changes in direction (and, damn it, get over the fear that moving around on toe stops is going to result in a broken ankle). And at the gym: balance board work; box jumping exercises; core strength. Same old, now with more of the same old.
Posted by jodi on March 20, 2012 at 8.36am
good news, everyone
March 12, 2012
Just put up several pints of everybody’s favourite chutney for cheese-and-crackers, in time for the 2012 social season.
Posted by jodi on March 12, 2012 at 8.10pm
workout/derby update
March 11, 2012
These don’t come often enough of late, in part because I’m bored with my workouts, and bored with writing them down here. I wrote a whole long boring blah blah blah about it but that’s all deleted now, and we’re all better off for it, believe me. So! Onward.
Last spring, my most important workout concern was strength training and building bone density, but now my workouts need to be tailored more towards training for roller derby. The most important change is this: no more distance running. It’s not the right kind of conditioning for short, two minute bursts of intense work in a jam. From now on if I run at all it will be intervals. The routine I do on the stationary bike, a random hill programme at a relatively high intensity, is good and I will continue with that. On days when there isn’t time for my full cardio warm-up on the bike, I will row 1000 metres (which takes about six minutes, and in which I sprint all-out for 100 metres, rest for 100 metres, repeat) or do two minutes on the ladder machine (which gets your heart rate up very high very FAST and two minutes is about all I can take at one go and bonus! that’s the length of a jam!).
As for weights, I’ll still do my kettlebells routine at least once every two weeks, and once a week if I can fit it in, because it’s fun. Pushups will continue as well, along with more core work so that I’ll have the power to deliver a killer sternum blow to a lady when I need to. Dedicated upper body weight training will mostly go on hold for now and be something that gets thrown in for fun when there’s extra time. Generally when I’m feeling uninspired to come up with a workout I’ll just do the circuit of 6 weight machines, which provides enough arms and shoulders work that I won’t lose ground.
Lower body work is where things will be switching up, and the focus will now be on plyometrics and balance work, developing those fast twitch muscles in tandem with the interval training. So, lots of jumping on and off of boxes, jumping side to side, quick ladder work, squat jumps (yeah!). And a squatting sideways crossover walk back and forth across the gym, to hopefully force that backwards crossover, left over right, to feel natural. As for balance, our gym has a very wobbly wobble board and a not wobbly enough wobble board, so for now I’ll be working on just maintaining balance, and a slow controlled side-to-side motion, on the very wobbly board (it’s so hard, you guys!), and high reps of weighted squats on the not wobbly enough board. These exercises all carry a pretty big bang for your buck so the sessions can be shorter, making it easier to find time for working out every morning. All will help with the quick stop-and-start of derby, with reaction time on the track, speed in getting from one side of the track to the other, confident footwork both in blocking and in breaking down walls, agility in moving around on toe stops. All good things!
In skating practice we’ve been doing a drill lately where we alternate core work (burpees, planks, situps) with track skating (skating backwards, skating clockwise, skating sideways or coasting on one foot in the corners) in two minute bursts, which is nice in how it spreads the burn from quads to abs and back again, but also because I can count that as a partial core workout in planning out my morning routines. We’ve also been doing an exercise where small groups of skaters come up with drills to lead the group in, which results in more standing around than I’d like but the drills end up being a bit more varied. During available moments of free skating I’ve been working on my crossovers, focusing on getting that push with the left leg and trying to find that sweet spot in the lean where both legs are doing the same amount of work. It feels like I’m getting that, more than ever before, although I have no idea what my form looks like at the moment. If it’s shite I’m sure someone will tell me. Tonight I tried crossovers in the opposite direction (skating clockwise) for the first time; it’s terrifying, and the urge to put the right skate’s toe stop down while crossing the left leg over is strong. That’s not something I ever did when first learning regular crossovers.
Skills testing again this Thursday. I feel like I’ve improved quite a bit since last time, when I only failed the test by 1.2% (you guys I went around for a week with a giant thought bubble over my head alternately flashing the word EXCRUCIATING and the number 1.2% in glitter block caps, for real). Obviously the bare minimum is not a goal to strive for, but when that bare minimum, a minimum 1.2% improvement, is the only thing standing between where I am now and finally being able to train with FULL CONTACT, just for this week I will be happy making the bare minimum. Next chance after this isn’t until June.
Posted by jodi on March 11, 2012 at 11.02pm
a bunny in a bee suit peeing rainbow glitter onto a baby’s face
March 9, 2012
Uh-huh that’s what I said.
Posted by jodi on March 9, 2012 at 8.55pm
in which we are twelve years old
March 8, 2012
This has sat outside a business in my neighbourhood, unfixed, for I don’t even know how long.
I did not do this. If I had, I would not have passed up the opportunity to make it say “69″. OBVIOUSLY.
Posted by jodi on March 8, 2012 at 6.51pm
today in the studio
March 5, 2012
Making future heirlooms! Photoshoot tomorrow at the grocery store. It’s going to be a fun one.
Posted by jodi on March 5, 2012 at 11.59pm
basement progress
March 4, 2012
Next up: connecting the blue to the blue, sealing and painting the section to the left of that line of hockey sticks. Covering up all the grossness with a blue paint lagoon.
Posted by jodi on March 4, 2012 at 8.54pm
daragh sankey in store trailer
March 1, 2012
Check out this trailer for a series of documentary shorts by Daragh Sankey about the artists and projects that made up Broken City Lab‘s Storefront Residencies for Social Innovation series in summer 2010. During this residency I gave my Sweater Factory project a trial run (and learned some important things: the sweaters I was making were such a pain to put together that they’re still not finished, a problem that needs a solution before I can take this project on the road).
In Store Trailer from Daragh Sankey on Vimeo.
Posted by jodi on March 1, 2012 at 8.35am
