Labyrinth

Boulder Community Hospital has gorgeous grounds and fantastic outdoor spaces. It's so very nice to be able to walk out of the building and just be outside. And breathe. I'm doing a lot of conscious breathing these days.

This is a beautiful labyrinth in the main courtyard. It takes almost exactly five minutes to walk at an intentional pace.

I do love this state

Even under challenging circumstances...

Today is day 13 of the ICU (I've been here for eight.)

Looks can be deceiving

It may not look it, but this is the tastiest breakfast I've had in a week. It's the leftover half of my vegan buffalo wing wrap from the iconic City O' City in Denver, where I had a lovely dinner with my good friend H last night.

Also from Day 9

This is an odd, beautiful rock cairn sculpture on the multi-use path that runs behind the hospital.

Day 9 lunch

We're onto Day 10 in the ICU, but ya know, sometimes your don't find time to blog right away.

This is my lunch yesterday at Native Foods in Boulder. It's the Portobello (Sausage) Burger. The taste was solid, though the seitan "burger" patty was kinda skimpy.

The View From Here: Boulder, Colorado

At least the views from the hospital windows are pretty. (I'm fine, here for family.)

More adventures in sink biogoo

I just can't resist unfucking other people's sinks. Sometimes I even do it in hotel rooms. See my home renovation label for past entries.

This one is in the lovely apartment in Cambridge where we're pet-sitting and house-sitting. It was a little tricky, since the P-trap is soldered copper pipe.

This is certainly not the nastiest one I've ever pulled out, but one of the more satisfying. The sink was taking about a full minute to drain after brushing teeth or washing hands, and now is draining like a champ! Just for funsies I did the baking soda and boiling vinegar trick after pulling out all of the biogoo hair with chopsticks. 

Letting go

Another installment in the "I really don't need to be dragging these back and forth across the continent for another twenty years" series.

These are my high school sports letters, JV and varsity, earned for soccer and swimming. They come from what was once the second oldest high school west of the Mississippi River, which a certain alum and mid-quality NBA point guard bought as a vanity project to help launch his mayoral career and turned into a charter school. Oh, and some really old teabags. 

Still more food porn

This was the first dinner I cooked upon our return to the Boston area (we're actually pet-sitting and house-sitting in Cambridge, having moved out of our Roxbury apartment at 3am on the morning we flew to Nevada for Burning Man. An excellent decision to move out, though given the opportunity I might do the timing a little different.)

Delightfully, the friends we are sitting for have a nice garden in the back and are gone for a month, so they implored us to harvest and eat their garden veggies.

From top left, that's ONIONS!, kale (from the garden), eggplant (from the garden), garlic, hot red peppers (from the garden), lime, and green bell peppers (from the garden.) Unfortunately I don't have any photos after I oven roasted them. While they're more delicious after roasting, they look better raw. 

Travelin' hippie slop!

This was our back to Default dinner in hotel room in Reno after Burning Man. Greasy, delicious, hot, didn't come from a vacuum sealed bag, had tons of vegan protein, and someone else cooked it. CHECK!

These are from Golden Flower Vietnamese Restaurant in Reno, which we could see from our hotel room window. It's a big open room that was populated with a bunch of just-post-grimy Burners, so takeout was a nice option.

After an eleven hour Exodus from the playa, and sleeping sitting up in the compact car on the side of Highway 447 from 2am to 6am, and then running all over Reno finishing up Burning Man returns and errands, this was a lovely dinner. Also breakfast before flying out the next morning.

Refrigeration, reschmidgeration! It's amazing how Burning Man can lower your food safety standards. (Another reason I'm glad I'm vegan.)

Time to get rid of more shit.

This may or may not be the first in a series of posts of stuff I'm getting rid of. After a hectic couple of months (years?), I finally have time and incentive to sit down and go through some more boxes.

There is a part of me that enjoys the memories that some of this stuff stirs up, and there is a much larger part of me that cannot believe I've been dragging this crap around the continent. In this case, since 1987 (okay, my long suffering mother held onto these for a while. THX, MOM!)

These are first place ribbons from a single season of swim team, 1987. For the record and posterity, there are:
5: backstroke (this was my best stroke)
3: freestyle
1: breaststroke (I'm honestly baffled by this one)
3: freestyle relay
3: medley relay

And one from 1986:
1: freestyle, heat winner at championships.
This was after another swimmer's parents told me to breathe less, and I learned to do the 25 yard freestyle at a sprint without breathing.

Well done, Boston Fire Department MAINTENANCE IVISION

I hope you maintain Engine No 43 better than you maintain your building.

Hippie slop!

Tempeh, ONIONS, Anaheim peppers.

It's Planning Man O'Clock!

Tubs packed for tomorrow's container load-in. Whee!

ONIONS!

ONIONS! ONIONS! ONIONS!

this is what $30 in quarters looks like

When your landlord doesn't want you to move out.

We'll see. 

vegan Philly cheese steak!

Yup. That.

Smells

Smell is such a powerful memory trigger. I'm working with 3-IN-ONE Oil, and the distinct smell is making me kinda nostalgic for my childhood.

UPDATE: I was just looking through previous posts, and pondered how old this can (of still completely good) 3-IN-ONE oil is. I realized the pricetag is a hint. Woolworth went out of business in 1997. 

food porn!

It's been a while since I posted, but mostly I have to beg your pardon, dear readers, for how long it's been since I posted FANCYPANTS VEGAN GRILLED CHEESE!

This is mostly leftovers: tidy, broccoli, caramelized onions, and pepperjack Daiya on whole wheat.

I'm packing to go to a couple quadrennial shindigs to provide medical support to protesters. Should be interesting.

I'll likely be quiet for several weeks here. Get in touch directly if you want!

Onion O'Clock

PAGING A1, PAGING A1: onions available in Boston. Repeat: onions available in Boston. Please advise.

Pickle In A Blanket, Fancypants Vegan Gourmet Style

Going way back here: A1 and I shared an apartment in Denver. There, the (in)famous Pickle In A Blanket was born. This culinary revolution consisted of a bunch of cheap shreeded cheese melted onto a flour tortilla, with a half Claussen dill pickle on top, a pile of mayonnaise unceremoniously plopped on top, and a shake of black pepper.

Now (back) in Boston, we have a more refined, grownup, vegan version:

That's Daiya vegan cheeze on a tortilla warmed in a skillet, caramelized ONIONS and garlic, Just Mayo, sri racha sauce, and still the star of the show: a half Claussen dill pickle. As much as I gobbled down the originals by the dozen or so per week, I gotta tell you, this ones tastes better.

Radish greens!

These are radish greens about to be sauteed with garlic and olive oil. They came (attached to radishes) from Daily Table, dailytable.org, an  awesome nonprofit grocery store in Dorchester that sells perfectly useable and safe and tasty food that isn't picture perfect for the corporate supermarkets, or is past its silly and arbitrary "best by" date. It was founded by the former head of Trader Joe's.

Example? Sure: how about a half gallon of Cedar's brand hummus, or baba ganoush, for $3.99?!? For the record, they both freeze in smaller containers just fine.

Orange juice price comparison at Boston Logan airport

Because everyone's hair is on fire over allegedly long security lines at airports, I showed up to Boston Logan airport 2.5 hours early. I then had one person in front of me in the security line, so I have some time to kill. The really intensive patdown and bag check after TSA's piece of shit machines flagged my bag for "explosive residue" did eat up about five minutes. Breakfast burritos strike again? I did receive excellent guest service from the lead TSO.

Anyway, I now have a couple hours to fill. I wanted some orange juice. But I didn't want to pay the outrageous prices. So instead I'm entertaining myself comparing the cost of bottles of orange juice in terminal C at Boston Logan international airport. For consistency's sake (and because this IS science, right)?), it is all 100% orange juice. All per ounce prices rounded to the nearest penny.

Green Express, gate C32
Tropicana 15.2oz, $2.99 ($0.20/oz)

Hudson News, gate C29
Simply Orange 11.5oz, $3.99 ($0.35/oz)
Minute Maid 15.2oz, $3.19 ($0.21/oz)

Go Go Stop, gate C29
Tropicana 12oz, $2.79 ($0.23/oz)

Wolfgang Puck Express, food court opposite gate C27
Simply Orange, 11.5oz, $2.79 ($0.24/oz)
Naked Juice, 15.2oz, $4.39 ($0.29/oz)

Johnny Rockets, food court opposite gate C27
Simply Orange, 11.5oz, $2.79 ($0.24/oz)

Hudson News, opposite food court / gate C26
Minute Maid 15.2oz, $3.19 ($0.21/oz)

Starbucks, mini food court near gate C10
Naked Juice, 15.2, $4.39 ($0.29/oz)

Hudson News, sorta near gate C8
Simply Orange 11.5oz, $3.99 ($0.35/oz)
Minute Maid 15.2oz, $3.19 ($0.21/oz)

Potbelly Sandwich, b/n gates C11 and C15
Tropicana 12oz, $2.35 ($0.20/oz)

Hudson News, gate C15
Minute Maid 15.2oz, $3.19 ($0.21/oz)

UFood Grill, gate C19
Tropicana, 10oz carton, $2.99 ($0.29/oz)

Dunkin Donuts, gate C20
Simply Orange, 11.5oz, $2.19 ($0.19/oz)

Conclusions? Well, you can draw some of your own. In short, Dunkies wins it, closely followed by Green Express, which of course has way shorter lines (or usually no line at all.)

And fuck you, Hudson News, since despite your virtual monopoly of airport convenience stores all over America, and the massive purchasing power you have as a result, you nevertheless sell the most expensive orange juice, by far, of anyone, including for crying out loud Starbucks.

And since 100% orange juice is regularly available at Boston area supermarkets (Star, Stop & Shop, etc) for $2.50 for a half gallon ($0.04/oz) and is rarely more than $3.99 for a half gallon ($0.06/oz) let's just call this all a gigantic ripoff facilitated by the asinine TSA prohibition against bringing in more than 3.2 fluid ounces of liquid toiletries, and more than 0.0 ounces of orange juice.

Baltimore, here I come!

Kids

Things I had to explain to a seven year old recently: the U.S. role in Nicaragua in 1984, and what a Ghost Bike (ghostbikes.org) means.

#BostonMarathon #MarathonMonday

I've never seen so many day drunk 18-22 year olds in one place at one time. #BU #BostonUniversity students, good luck with Boston Marathon Monday!

Boston Marathon Monday

As long as you're nowhere near Copley Square, or Beacon Street, or Commonwealth Ave, or trying to walk, bike, or drive anywhere in central Boston, and not taking the Green Line or the Red Line, "Patriot's Day" / Marathon Monday is quite pleasant.

Too bad I still live on Comm Ave, near Beacon Street, and have to take both the Green Line and Red Line today.

Related: the MBTA really dredged the bottom of the pond to find overtime staff to wear high-vis vests and filthy jeans and play Rent-A-Cop for a day with constantly chatty radios to meanmug people for their outrageous temerity to bring newspapers or Dunkin Donuts coffee cups into the T system. Really, residents of Boston, who actually live here, and pay taxes here: HOW DARE YOU?

Checking off the list

Totally gratuitous pic of the Rhode Island State House. And ominous clouds.

Shiggy

Just did some moderately intense shiggy after geocaching. Well worth it.

Providence, I kinda love you, and kinda don't. Let's talk.

My hotel in Providence

I've lived in apartments with just barely more square feet than this hotel bathroom I got with points.

Tasty Burger

Who would have thought Tasty Burger at the Back Bay Station would have such a tasty vegan option? Turns out the veggie burger is vegan if made as a lettuce wrap, as explicitly stated on the menu.

It's more like a salad than a burger, which is fine, and for six bucks, was quite tasty, and a nice alternative to just eating cashews and peanuts on the commuter rail to Providence.

Moving

Yep. That.

Farewell, friend

I bought these soccer shorts at a Big 5 Sporting Goods in Colorado Springs in late 2001 or early 2002, along with an identical lighter blue pair. They both served well, and now as I'm packing up for another move (this time just across town) I'm purging clothes.

As you can see, I've mended nearly every seam on the garment, by hand. I use what is essentially a double threaded, somewhat excessive overcast stitch that I sometimes refer to as the "hippie stitch". It holds!

These shorts have played soccer, coached youth soccer, run half marathons, and served as sleeping shorts for over a decade.

They've lived in three countries, and ten US states (and visited most or all of the others). For the last couple years, they've mostly been in semi-retirement status, out to pasture except when I can't find their replacements, or am going somewhere where destroying or losing my clothing is a reasonable possibility. Now the elastic is completely shot, I have backups, and, well, it's just time.

Travel well and dream big, friend. Go hang out with all of the other well loved shorts in the sky. If you see my dad's famous orange shorts, say hello for me! (And please tell them I'm sorry about that April Fool's incident. And that mom was in on it.)

p.s. the quilt in the background also dates to 2002, made for me by my lovely friends B and R. It's in much better shape! 

Hippie slop food porn, Cleveland edition!

Yep: In Cleveland for a few days, so it's potatoes and... wait for it... ONIONS!

Fancypants vegan grilled cheese

On fresh local sourdough, with Daiya, grilled onions, roasted red peppers, Tofurky "roast beef", pesto, dijon mustard.

Delicious!

Sinks, drains, and downright nastiness

Longtime readers of my blog know that I have a special hobby of cleaning out sink drains and p-traps. Check out my home renovation label for some earlier examples. This time around, though, it wasn't just a random whim to go hunt some biogoo: our apartment bathroom sink was starting to empty scarily slow.

I have now far surpassed my previous record for grossest nastiest yuckiest foulest thing pulled out of a drain or p-trap:

For size reference, those (in)famous needlenose pliers are just under six inches long.

Our apartment building was built in 1935, but I would roughly place the pink sink (and toilet, and bathtub) in the 1950s era pink bathroom craze, during which this delightful website, Save The Pink Bathrooms, estimates that perhaps one in four bathrooms built in the era had pink bathroom fixtures.

Anybody want to hazard a guess on the last time this sink drainpipe was cleaned out?

dinner!

Today's installment of last night's dinner:

Cauliflower, tempeh, carrots, fried polenta, and fresh basil on brown rice. Simple but delicious. 

FOODPORNPALOOZA!

I had a bunch of food porn shots on my phone that I finally got around to dealing with. Usually this is just cropping, but the blogger app for android sucks, and often fails to upload for no apparent reason, and with no explanation.

So, without further ado, here is a bunch of backlogged FOOD PORN!

Miso seaweed noodle soup, and fried tofu. I'm not gonna lie to you: this one was damn delicious.

Fiore's Bakery in Jamaica Plain. This is the "Steak Bomb" sandwich. Tasty, but kind of uninspired for $9: it's essentially a pressed panini with a scattering of salad greens and a basic balsamic vinaigrette.

The Buffalo Bomber from Veggie Grill in Portland, Oregon. Yes, this place is a (small) chain. Yes, there are local vegan options in Portland (though relatively few downtown, where I was staying.) Why do I consistently go to a chain, when I could choose local? Because Veggie Grill just does it right: all vegan, tons of choices, ridiculously friendly staff, great pricepoint.

Tempeh Reuben and tempeh skewer at Cafe Yumm, Eugene, Oregon. Eh, fine. A reasonable go-to when you need vegan options, but not a place I go out of my way to go.

Vegan pizza from Sizzle Pie in Eugene, Oregon.

Some random Asian noodle stir fry with puffed tofu and fried wontons. Basically Asian-themed hippie slop. It did the trick, but wasn't all that amazing.

Springtime salad

It's been in the 60s and 70s in Boston: 76 a couple days ago, which shattered the record for the earliest that temperature has been reached in the year. #globalclimatechaos?

With the warmer weather, I'm beginning to move away from the soups, stews, and chilis I've been making (despite how mild the winter was.)

This is an Asian tofu salad, with blanched Chinese spinach, other Asian greens (I forget which I picked up), scallion ribbons, soba noodles, and carrots.

The dressing was also the marinade for the baked tofu, which was more or less just randomly pulling things out of the fridge and shelves, and putting them in the blender: apple cider vinegar, the liquid from pepperoncinis, pickle juice, mustard, soy sauce, tahini, white miso paste, canola oil, sesame oil, garlic powder, ginger powder, lime juice. Kinda random, but it worked out well. Having a rocket powered blender helps.

Today is looking like bike rides.

Hello spring!

Food porn!

After almost a week in Oregon, with almost entirely takeout and restaurant food, I was really excited to get back into the kitchen last night. We ended up with a four part one bowl meal that was damn delicious, and pretty too!

This is a spicy two bean stew with eggplant and tempeh;
fried polenta hearts;
pesto with broccoli and scallions;
and a (homemade, of course) kalamata tapenade.

YUM.

We ate this while watching the first episode of season four of House of Cards. I have to say that I wasn't as impressed with it as past seasons. It is, of course, still smart, beautifully produced television. But it felt a little more... affected? We'll see. 

Irony

I'm emailing a friend about irony now, and it reminded me of this great comic from The Oatmeal (one of my favorite webcomics, but tread carefully, it can easily wipe out an afternoon if you start reading the archive...) 

Long before I had a blog, I saw this wonderful flyer posted at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (yes, my millennial friends, back in the dark ages, when people put up photocopied dead tree to advertise events, rather than create a Facehole event.) 

It read, completely un-ironically, something very close to "UMass-Amherst Anarchist Club Monthly Meeting: Student Union Complex, downstairs, Room 123, next to the ATM." 

Thai tofu red curry, veggie broth, and pineapple broccoli

With fresh Thai basil as garnish, ave brown rice. Nom. Nom.

ONION RINGS!

Delicious vegan onion rings. What else to say? Sufficiently filling and heavy that we could only finish about half of them. So I'm about to re-fry them for lunch.

Yum!

Tools

As any of my readers who have ever watched me painstakingly clean one of my leatherman multitools (with rubbing alcohol and Q-tips and occasionally chopsticks) I really love my tools, and try really hard to take good care of them. I have hand tools that date from the 40s, 50s, and 60s that are still in good shape (not to mention my collection of manual hand tools that can stand in for power tools when, ummm, there is no electricity.)

With all of the moving I've done in the last couple of years, sadly, a few things have fallen into the void.

I had a bunch of drill bits and driver bits, as well as a beloved pair of needlenose pliers that had gone the rusty route. (And some of you know the biggest story behind the history of these needlenose pliers. Hint: it partially takes place near an alma mater of both of my parents as well as my sister.)

So I soaked them in a vinegar and water solution for a few days, then scrubbed them with 0000 steel wool, then neutralized the vinegar in a baking soda & water solution, then scrubbed them again with steel wool, then wiped off the excess, then wiped them with 100% acetone.

I guess many people would have just thrown most of this stuff in the garbage (or thrift store donation pile.) Not me.

Cookie baking party!

Yep, pre-staged cookie ingredients, for molasses ginger cookies, that we're taking to a cookie baking party. How adorable is that? 

An end of another era

I bought my Camelbak Blowfish in spring 2002, to go on a mountain biking trip in Moab. I have loved this pack close to death. It has been to six continents, and on countless adventures.

You can see the places I've sewn it, and can't see other places that I've repaired it:

The Playa is a cruel mistress, and both main zippers failed in August 2015. I cleaned and lubed the everliving hell out of the zippers, but they continue to fail. I sewed a new zipper into the smaller exterior pocket, and made the expansion zipper for the main pocket the primary zipper (by sewing the main large pocket shut with dental floss) but alas, this wasn't meant to last. At least not for more than 14 years.

After a bunch of ebay'ing with a bunch of packs that really weren't what I wanted, and without bladders (~$30 to replace) I realized I should just suck it up and get the new version of the same pack. Other than the candy apple red, I'm super happy with it. 

Vegan pizza

That... kinda looks like Australia.

Right?

You see it, right?

"Quick" pasta

Fake chikn, fried artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes and garlic, fried onions and Serrano peppers.

ONIONS, DAMMIT.

What else to say, other than it's the beginning of a vegan hot dog bar extravaganza?