The Home Stretch

NOTE: The pea soup recipe is at the bottom of this post.

Wow, tomorrow is the last day of NaBloPoMo! Don't worry, though, I'll still post on December 1. (You were worried, right?) I have had so much fun doing this month's NaBloPoMo. I have really felt a change in my writing this month. And it's good to have goals that force you to do something. Like when I vowed to go to the gym every day in March 2009, that was good because I felt like I had to go. This whole "all or nothing" approach is good for me. Perhaps I should have joined the army.

Anyway, yesterday was heavy around here, wasn't it? So I thought today I'd post a few lighter updates.

First off, RE: last week's audition, I still haven't heard anything. The cast list is supposed to be up on the park district website today. I'll tell the whole story when I get a definite answer.

And speaking of the gym (3 paragraphs ago), I have invented a new treadmill workout for myself. I warm up with 4 minutes of fast-walking, and then my goal is to do the following intervals:

• run 6 minutes
• walk 3 minutes
• run 5 minutes
• walk 3 minutes
• run 4 minutes
• walk 3 minutes
• run 3 minutes
• walk 3 minutes
• run 2 minutes
• walk 2 minutes
• run 1 minute
• walk 1 minute
• fast-walk 5 minutes with 2.5% uphill grade
• cool down

Notice how I made some of it red. Those are the parts I could. not. do. today at the gym. (See, it's like my workout deficit, "in the red.") I thought I might die if I continued. To be honest, I feel pretty sad for myself that I started the Couch to 5K 11 weeks ago, and I still have to walk about half the distance. You're supposed to be running it all within 9 weeks.

But really, who cares? I have the heart-rate monitor, and I know I'm working at an aerobic level for a full 45 minutes. And afterward I feel pretty good (minus the whole "wanting to die" part).

Also, on Friday when I was doing that 5K out in the frigid cold, I was thinking about how I am not the fastest or the thinnest or the most athletic, but I was the one who showed up, dammit. This one girl at the other 5K had on a shirt that said, "The miracle wasn't that I finished. The miracle was that I had the courage to start." Now, I'm pretty sure her shirt was referring to a marathon or some other run of great distance, but for me, it's a miracle that I even started running a 5K.

Yay for me.

The working out with the trainer is going well. Nothing to complain about there, which means I can't really tap that source for any blog fodder.

We got the train tickets. Which means I also got the iPad! No cookie runway yet, though.

And now that I'm going to be playing with the iPad, I probably won't read any more books, ever. But I did finish a book yesterday, The Imperfectionists. DISLIKED. It was one of those books that is just a bunch of short stories about different characters, and in the end the characters are supposed to intersect in some meaningful way. Except, the author forgot the part about the characters needing to intersect, which means there was no moment at the end where the book redeemed itself.

After finishing that gem, I started The 19th Wife, by my hometown's most famous author, David Ebershoff. (Actually I don't know if he's my hometown's most famous author, but he is an author from my hometown. And anyway, I went to elementary school with the kid who played Urkel, which trumps any author anyday.) So, The 19th Wife tells the parallel stories of the wife of Mormon head honcho Brigham Young and a modern-day polygamist woman accused of murder. Let me note that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Mormon church. (In case the frequent references to wine and coffee didn't give that fact away.) Mormonism isn't really my thing, but I do find stories about them interesting. And Mormon studies are totally hot right now! The creators of South Park actually have a Broadway musical coming out, entitled The Book of Mormon!

I probably won't be seeing that musical. But I do have tickets for another show in a large theater in December ... Jerry Seinfeld doing stand-up! Now, as I'm sure you know, I am a huge Seinfeld fan. What you may not know is that I watch Seinfeld DVDs every single night. And sometimes I just watch the same episode over and over, even though I mock my kid for doing the same thing with his DVDs. (But seriously, Seinfeld is a way better choice than Wow, Wow, Wubzy ... right?)

So, I had to find a babysitter for Nathan for the night of the Seinfeld show. In the three years of my parenting career, I have more or less sucked at leaving Nathan with a babysitter. And it's not even really so much that I don't trust anybody else to watch him. It's that I feel awkward asking people to babysit. I know that sounds dumb, but I find it uncomfortable to be anybody's employer. So, my friend from the gym gave me a referral for a babysitter, and I seriously had to psych myself up for several days before I could call the girl. And then I stalled on making the call. I was actually nervous. And then I was grateful I got her voicemail, except that I knew this would lead to phone tag and the whole process would never end.

The thing is, I used to babysit a lot in high school. And I always felt like the parents had the upper hand in our relationship, because they were my employers. But in actuality, I had a lot more power than I thought, because these people were so desperate to find somebody who could babysit for them. You know how it is. You're invited to some event, or you get tickets for something, and it's like, oh crap, I have to find a babysitter. And you're just so glad if anybody says yes to watching your kid.

Anyway, I felt like I had to do the whole quasi-interview with the girl before she came over to watch Nathan for a long, late night, so she's coming over Wednesday afternoon for a couple of hours. So at least I can table my awkwardness until then.

And just to bring it full-circle, let me say that when I used to babysit, one of the parents I babysat for had been a writer for Seinfeld. And he had VHS tapes of Seinfeld Season 4, commercial-free, that I could watch after the kids went to bed. And of course now I have every season of Seinfeld on DVD, so I can watch several episodes commercial-free anytime I want, but back then that VHS tape was cool. Plus that family bought Trix yogurt, and I took full advantage of the babysitter refrigerator privileges there. There is just something so awesome about a sugary-sweet, unnaturally-colored yogurt. And so even though I can now watch my Seinfelds back-to-back in a much better digital medium, I have to do it eating my boring, low-fat, grown-up yogurt.

And since we're talking about healthful, unpleasantly-colored foods, I give you the split pea soup recipe:

Vegetarian Split Pea Soup
from Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook

• 1 cup dried green split peas (I actually used a 1-lb bag)
• 5 cups water
• 2/3 cup chopped shallots (2 to 3 medium-size)
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
• 1/4 tsp. dried sage
• salt to taste (I find that in this particular recipe, "to taste" = a buttload)
  
• dash of cayenne pepper
  

1. Put the split peas in a colander and rinse under cold running water. Pick over, discarding any that are discolored. Put in the slow cooker along with the water, shallots, carrots, celery, bay leaf, thyme, and sage. Stir to combine. Cover and cook on LOW until the peas are completely tender. (Note that this recipe says that it takes 12 to 15 hours. I find the recipe is completely done in 8 hours.) Remove the bay leaf.

2. Puree the soup, using a blender, food processor, immersion blender, or the fine blade of a food mill. (WTF is a "food mill?) You may need to do this in batches. Season the soup with salt and just a bit of cayenne pepper.

Original recipe serves 4 to 6, although you can get more servings if you use a whole bag of peas. And really, who wants a half a bag of peas in the pantry? And again, let me emphasize that you have to add a lot of salt. I think I have average taste when it comes to salt, like I don't automatically add salt to everything I eat, but I don't pick off all the salt from pretzels, either. But the split pea soup will be gross and bland if you don't add a good amount of salt. And then you'll be all, "How could that Shannon say this was a good recipe? I don't trust her. I'm never reading her blog again."