Pre-race Jitters

I thought that I'd use my night-to-myself in my own hotel room to kick back and watch a sappy/corny movie and instead I am of course obsessing over tomorrow morning's race. I've worked out my wardrobe issues--I think. And I've also unearthed a couple of packets of GU (a food-like substance for running an exception to 2010's "real food" rule) which is lucky because I forgot the Clif Shot Bloks (other food-like substance) that I usually use. So, I will sort of be breaking the "nothing new" rule tomorrow--I've used GU but not frequently and I like the bloks bettter--I'm hoping that doesn't backfire. My various electronic gadgets are charging and I've worked out the always tricky pre-race breakfast dilemma. Now I just need to turn off my brain a go to sleep. Sigh.

Anybody Have a Recipe for Cheetos?

Michael Pollan is such a considerate guy that when he heard that one of my New Year's resolutions was to only eat real food, he published a book called "Food Rules" which provides 64 straightforward rules about how to accomplish that very thing. Some of the rules I already had a pretty good handle on: avoiding things with ingredients I can't pronounce, avoiding fake sugar, avoiding "food-like substances"--foods so processed that someone visiting from, say, 1945, wouldn't recognize them as food. Michael Pollan uses "Go-Gurt" as a prime example-is is food? toothpaste? lube for your go-cart? Eat fruits and vegetables.
The rule that I really liked, and am going to attempt to embrace is: "make your own junk food." Meaning that it's okay to indulge in dessert, french fries, etc., as long as you make it yourself. The idea is that if you make it yourself, you're probably not going to go through the effort to make it all the time and it becomes what it's supposed to be -a treat. I like this idea. Although I know myself, and knowing that I can only eat a dessert that I made will really just mean that I will be making dessert more often, not that I will necessarily eat less of it. My sweet tooth is totally strong enough to overcome the problem of not enough hours in a day. That is its super-power.
When I told Garion about this new household policy, he was immediately on board: "Let's make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies!" That's my boy, always using his head. So that's what we're doing today--making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and a couple of other easy things (split pea soup from scratch and fresh bread in the bread maker) to get us through the parts of this week where we just won't have time to make real food.
I realized that although a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie is still a cookie, making them myself lets me tweak the recipe. I replaced some of the fat with applesauce, replaced some of the white flour with wheat and coconut flour and used dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate (I'm sure that change right there will add at least a 12 days to our lives). Still a cookie, but maybe a not-as-bad-for-you cookie. And this is how making my own junk food will be better for me--my junk food will not be as bad at the junk food that comes from the store in a bag. The major hitch being that I don't know how to make Cheetos.

Coming Soon...

Over Christmas, we went to visit Moses's oldest brother and his family. My sister-in-law is a veterinary technician and by virtue of that profession, she rescues a lot of dogs. Right now they have six. Just to be clear: six dogs is a lot of dogs. It's pretty much a herd of dogs. I suppose "pack" is the technical term, but "herd" seems to describe it better.
Of course Garion and I fell in love with one while we were visiting:



This is Harley. He is pretty much just as sweet and friendly as he looks. He's also the world's most laid back dog. Garion hugged him, laid on him, and decorated him like a Christmas tree, and I don't think that dog even batted an eye. Harley also knows how to fetch and shake so that pretty much covers the necessary dog tricks. Harley's best trick? He is not-intrusive enough that Moses said "ok." Moses might also have succumbed to the dreamy look in Garion's eye whenever Garion talked about Harley and told us that Harley is the only dog he would ever have and wasn't Harley funny and if Harley lived with us he could sleep in Garion's bedroom, etc., etc. However, Moses is tough, so that is probably not at all what happened.
We could have brought Harley home after Christmas, but I wasn't prepared for Moses to actually agree to dog ownership and I wasn't quite convinced that I wouldn't be in the dog house (ha!) for the rest of Harley's life if we brought him home. And also the Prius was so packed that Garion had to stuff his kneecaps into his ears for the two day drive home, so I'm not really sure where we would have put the dog. This means Harley is still in California and we had a little more time to think.
This week, my sister-in-law told us that somebody else was interested in Harley, but that we could have him if we were willing to make a firm commitment because we have the family in. So Garion and I had a long talk about poop scooping, and taking care of animals, and how we will not be able to change our minds once he comes to live with us and about how pets will eventually die and how you feel sad about that and how we cannot have other pets like tortoises (or, ahem, chickens) if we have a dog. And Garion's eyes were so huge and hopeful at the possibility of a canine buddy that I knew we were in for good. Moses said that he would drive out to California to pick him up, and I am taking this as a good enough sign that he is actually ok with this dog. That, and Moses told me that this is about the only dog in the world that he can live with. Not that Moses is excited, just that Moses won't require prescription medication to dull the reality of his home life after it includes this dog. I think Moses will make the trip sometime in February or March to pick up Harley-- Garion and I are so excited!