IN JAMAICA

CLEARLY THE ‘LIFESTYLE’ GOT THE BEST OF ME/US/
NO STORIES TO TELL!
BEEN BACK FOR 2 MONTHS AND STILL CAN’T WRITE A DAMN THING ABOUT IT.
COME OVER AND I TELL U STORIES!!!

Leaving da beach
headed to Ocho Rios, Kingston, and Blue Mountains!
Bye bye beach
more soon

it is really hard to bloggg in jamaica. i feel hella lazy.

Farm trip!!! post coming…

Jamaica post #1…tb continued

I ran the half marathon and those shoes sucked!!!!
I didn’t even use them because they fucked up my feet for 3 weeks…
NOT FOR RUNNING!!!

New kicks for the run
But I sprained my leg(??)-ankle
Clumsy, lame runner!

In less than three weeks I will be running the Nike Women’s Marathon in SF. Thankfully, I am running the half-marathon version. I say thankfully because 1) 26.2 is a long goddamn run, and 2) apparently I sprained my leg-ankle over the weekend while walking with Patrick trying to break in my new shoes. How long will this injury last for??!!

I decided to take it easy and not run today and ice my leg, put some natural ointment on, and wait a day. Tomorrow if this isn’t feeling better then I think I’ll take an Advil, put on my new shoes, and go for a run.

So about my shoes, yes I got new ones. I have been running on my LA Marathon shoes, the expectedly-ugly but totally reliable New Balance 767. Apparently running shoes have a tread life: somewhere between 300-400 miles is what I remember. Since I hardly ever throw away shoes (no matter what state they’re in), it is hard to get myself to stop running on them. Thanks to Nordstrom Rack, I have been introduced to the world of Nike Free 5.0 aka the shoes that make you feel like you are running on bare feet. I found a teeny tiny image of them. Check them out:

They are great, only I am yet to really run in them. Patrick had a little hot dog with him that walked super slow, so I did a lot of up and down to nowhere style jogging, only to get my foot caught in a crevice and turn my ankle out. Now the leg is screwed up and I must wait!

Cookware turned fitness
Do not drop it on your toe!
Thighmaster be gone

Yesterday my sister called me to tell me about her latest fitness craze, Kettle Bells. It is hard to say Kettle Bells without laughing- mostly because I don’t know and don’t understand what it is, but in my mind I have some vision of a Christmas song that includes gonging a Salvation Army donation bucket or something. Anyway, she insisted that I google it so I do, and this is the first (and up to now) and only image I see:

This picture makes my day on a number of levels. First, I cannot imagine working out with an iron ball that I can so easily let go of and drop on my head, and two, that of all people chosen to model what I believe is a kettle bell in action, it’s this guy- he has a mustache (I will post my thoughts on mustaches and other assorted facial hair later) and little to no upper arm definition, and three, the photoshopped slogan of “Kettlebell it up!” on his shirt.

This image is so, so good. The shape of the KB really reminds me of the old Atari Kaboom! game of dropping bombs or the Hamburglar or basically any cartoon-jail imagery, and it makes me appreciate all that Suzanne Somers did to make wacky fitness gadgets part of our normal household lives.

Don’t think that I’m against researching the kettle bell any further, hell, at this point I need to dust myself off and get myself to a class and try it for myself! This is also a good reminder that it’s always important to keep an open mind when it comes to learning new ways to workout and stay fit. For example, look at what the Japanese have to offer!

Honky honk goose eggs
Sunshine almonds everywhere
Little cute grandma

I’ve been back from India for a little over a week now and I’m trying to think about how I might continue this blog. Clearly my life at home is not nearly as interesting as my life abroad- not that I was living some sort of fabulous fantasy over there, but I was in a place to learn and discover something new everyday. The thing with that though, is that it’s all in the mind (hippy talk)!! It’s true though, and when I keep an open perspective, I realize that I learn things ALL THE TIME.

Take for example my trip to the crazy farm this weekend. My friend Sophy’s mom has a crazy, crazy farm = 70 acres of food everywhere! Beautiful, healthy, organic, juicy, delicious, ripe, STUFF. Strawberries, green bell peppers, melons of all sorts, peaches, persimmons, pomegranates, bitter melon, eggplants, tomatoes, yam greens, goose eggs, almonds, beehives (HONEY!!!), on and on till the break of dawn. Waaa…it was beautiful, amazing, exciting, and inspiring.

During our forage around the garden Sophy and I found a big ass winter melon hiding underneath a big green leaf. It was obvious to us that that shit needed to be eaten so I put on some gloves, got the scissors, and snipped the umbilical cord connecting it to the earth. It is a heavy (a two-hander) and long (foot and a half style) tuberous beast with almost invisible yet potently spiky hair. We were satisfied with our find of such a ripe and ready fruit-vegetable (which one is it??) that I at least, felt a growing sense of smugness towards my natural farming abilities.

When we brought the fruits of our labor into the house for some good eating, Sophy’s mom spotted our winter melon trophy and immediately asked us, “Why did you pick such a small winter melon? It’s not ripe yet!” Turns out we picked a puny f-v. As they ripen they lose their spiky fuzz and can grow to be 1-2 meters!!

So…turns out my ‘natural farming abilities’ is just a non-stop wack attack. So much to learn! Anyway, if anyone wants to come over and have some winter melon soup from a non-ripe fruit-veg, feel free…Below are just a few photos from the cornucopia of splendor- I had to get my nature photography on.

CRUNCHY APPLES

PLUOTS- Super Juicyfruit! Shhh…they are actually PRUNES

ALMONDS- unripe in the fuzzy pod, open on the ground

Now go get your fresh fruit-veg on and listen to the Wax Poetics Record Rundown

Sudoku Contest
Crazy shopping everywhere
Nonstop mega mall

Greetings from Changi Airport, the most amazing place you can lose yourself in and lots of time. I’m here for the day, and am tempted with all sorts of things around me. Giant XBOX to my left, Fendi and Burberry to my right. The real temptation here is the desire to miss my flight to SF- there’s a Sudoku Championship Contest later today but that’s when I have to board! The setup is SERIOUS!

I really have to give it up to the Singapore Tourism Board- they provide free rides (and a bus tour guide with a microphone!) to the city, and pick you up too. It’s a great way to see the city for a few hours and uh…do a LOT of shopping. Since Singapore just celebrated it’s birthday (I forget which #) on August 9, there is tons of pride in the air, flags everywhere and NONSTOP SALE MADNESS. Every store has something on sale, and there are more stores that I can even count in Singapore.

Today I went to Little India-already homesick (for India), so I went straight to a South Indian Pure Veg restaurant to get my daily chai and rest for awhile. After that came shopping madness, so much that I am back at the airport a few hours earlier than I planned because my feet do not work anymore and I am out-shopped. Imagine SF’s downtown shopping zone Union Square madness to the 100th power, and you are close to what Singapore’s shopping experience is like. IT IS MADNESS!!

One thing I love about Singapore is hearing people talk the many languages that buzz around here. My favorite is the interchange between Malay (which sounds like crazy Spanish, Chinese, and Tagalog to me) and English. For example, I walked into a cheap jewelry store where the lady working was so involved in her heated phone conversation that she did not see me the entire time. I could tell from her body language and hand gestures that she was clearly upset, but her language definitely confirmed it to a certain degree. What she was speaking was a Malay+English hybrid, often referred to as SINGLISH.

Singapore people say LAH all the time, like “This what you want, lah?” Lah before everything and at the end of everything. It is useful in many situations, just like the Indian Bobblehead! One girl tried to tell me that she did not understand what I was saying today by saying LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH until I got it- she didn’t get me!

Cheap jewelry store lady’s conversation went something like this:

LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH MUKTI LAH
YOU BACKSTABBED ME AGAIN AND I CANNOT TAKE IT
LAH LAH LAH MUKTI MUKTI LAH LAH
GREEN TEA MILKSHAKE LAH LAH LAH LAH
LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH MUKTI LAH
BECAUSE OF THIS I WILL NEVER SPEAK WITH YOU AGAIN LAH MUKTI LAH
LAH MUKTI LAH LAH IT IS UNREASONABLE, ABSOLUTELY LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LA ROTI PRATA MAYBE SHRIMP CURRY LAH LAH LAH LAH
LAH LAH LAH HOW DARE YOU DON’T EVEN THINK YOU CAN DO THAT LAH LAH LAH LAH

I’m sure you get the idea- either way, I figure it was some sort of conversation about infidelity/commitment issues and what they were going to get for dinner tonight. Now I have time to rest before the flight. I went to The Body Shop and put some perfume on so the poor person next to me will not suffer (hopefully) with my India-Singapore Summer Heat Shopping Inferno B.O.!!