The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
The Price of Low Fat Chocolate Milk
On the average day, I drink a Milk Chug for breakfast. To be specific, a 16 ounce bottle of Dean’s Low Fat Chocolate Milk. All chocolatey goodness with the required protein and ridiculously convenient. I buy them from the sundry store in my building. Not cost-efficient, but hardly as bad as a Starbucks habit (which will come on in the winter).
Because it is an occupational hazard, I know the price of milk is rising, so I have been waiting for the retail cost of my daily milk chug to go up. Then the other day, when I grabbed a bottle from the store refrigerator, I noticed something off:
The bottle read 14 ounces of chocolate milk.
Now I knew about that kind of cheating on ice cream – same price, smaller container. But I had never seen it with milk before. Gallon, half-gallon, pint, half-pint. But 14 ounces?
Huh. Dennis, the proprietor of the store, said the price had been going up wholesale. He just hadn’t passed it on yet. And when I made the comment about ice cream, he said that lots of other products have been doing that – potato chips and cereal were the two he mentioned. Things that tend to go stale in my house, anyway.
So. Two fewer ounces of chocolate milk are hardly going to kill me. But attention must be paid!
Lunchtime Conversation with My Brother
Me: I was in DC last week and they are still doing construction on the Mall. I asked what they were doing and Stefphanie said, “drainage and plumbing or something.” Well, I call BS. They must be working on the Ark of the Covenant facility.
Scott: The Ark of the Covenant is not in Washington.
Me: (thinking)
Scott: It was right at the entrance of the storage..
Me: Yeah, yeah. Fourth movie. (If we stipulate that as part of the canon.)
Me: That doesn’t mean anything. It was like, 20 years later – so they moved it!
Scott: Maybe. But you are assuming that because Indy was in Washington, the cutaway was also in Washington.
Me: But there was no Area 51 in the ’30s!
Scott: Not that you know of!
Grave Surprise, by Charlaine Harris
Book 46
Even though I am in the middle of two other books, I ran across Grave Surprise – the second book in the Harper Connelly series – at the library and checked it out on a whim. Then today, a tornado siren interrupted what promised to be a fine Sunday nap, so I read the entire thing.
While on a goofy assignment in Memphis, Harper unexpectedly finds the body of an 11-year old girl from a cold case. Nice opening. And much too crazy to be a coincidence. So we have established the formula – Harper does her job, the police don’t believe her explanation (as it involves a supernatural gift) and Harper and her step-brother/partner Tolliver are forced to stay in town while the cops try to work it out. And of course, Harper and Tolliver work it out for them. Along the way, one or the other attracts a member or two of the opposite sex and may or may not have a fling that may or may not end up causing trouble later while dancing around the reality that their extremely tight relationship has formed multiple dimensions that they aren’t quite ready to examine yet. All in all, it isn’t a bad formula.
The cops, FBI and private investigators are particularly annoying- such that I began to have trouble keeping them straight. I also hard a hard time keeping straight the relatives of the victim. Also, for the second time, I had a pretty damn good idea of who the killer was and why the little girl was killed.
My favorite thing is the older half-brother, 17-year old Victor, is sort of a suspect. No one really thinks he did it, but everyone can tell that he is keeping secrets. He’s sulky, and quiet and secretive and you never know where he is going except he is always with that one kid. Yeah.
I think there are two more books in this series. It is total brain candy, but it is also October.
About Exercise
While I have been eating better in the last year, my exercise has crashed and burned. Turns out that having two high energy dogs doesn’t help the program if you can’t keep up with them. So I needed a jump start and I started to do some research. I spent my day off last Monday touring some options.
My friend Kris swears by Jazzercise. So much so that she teaches. Too bad she lives in the city. There are were two studios in my town. The one closest to my house closed down. I visited the next closest, and it was fine, but the cost didn’t impress me. The best deal is $48 a month – if you commit to 12 months. Kinda pricey for so little variety.
Then I went to Dahn Yoga. The studio also offer Taiji classes, which my friend Stefan loves so much that he teaches. Too bad he lives in Roselle. I talked with a great guy at my local studio who asked about my goals and experience and stuff and said they would do a private lesson/assessment before I committed to join. I was all ready to sign up, then I went online and saw the fees. The best deal was $1,350 for a full year.
My town has a great park center with fitness facilities – pool, gym, indoor track and fitness classes. $42 a month seemed much more reasonable, except than no fitness classes are included. The package would be an extra $30 per month.
My local YMCA is newly renovated – Grand Re-Opening is today, in fact. Pool, gym and classes available so I took a quick tour on Monday. The indoor track is lame compared to the park center, but secret is that you don’t need to be a member to use the one at the park center. The cost was higher – $55 per month – but the only thing that will cost extra is yoga classes. A bit disappointing, since that is something I really want to do. But I wanted to try it out so I went to a yoga class this morning.
Good sign – a teacher from a different class was attending the class this morning. She was very nice and gave me the rundown on the different teachers that work on other days. And apparently, the 10:15 class is easier than the 8:45, so I will remember that next weekend. The class was 75 minutes and it felt that long. I confirmed what I already knew – my flexibility is good, my balance is decent and I have zero muscle strength.
I tried to enroll this morning, but found the membership specials advertised for the Grand Re-Opening were not available until the party actually started at 2pm. So I had to go back. I think we can tag that an administrative fail. I bought a series of passes to yoga classes that I expect will give me a jump start. And if I decide to commit to an 8-week series of a specific class, the cost goes down a bunch. I am satisfied that when the novelty of yoga wears off, the variety of other options will keep me going for awhile.
And then we will know the truth – am I easily bored or easily lazy?
More Food in DC
I was back in Washington this week and tried two more food trucks:
I was ready to walk right by DC Taco Truck when I saw the sign that said, “Fresh Avocado”, for which I am a total sucker. They offered chicken, steak, shrimp, vegetable..and I am probably missing one. Also, there were two types of sour cream. I ordered two chicken and one steak, with the milder sour cream. And they also came with a lime wedge:
They look awfully green, but that is because I asked for no pico de gallo. Luckily, Stefphanie brought back two small containers of hot sauce and I used some of that. OK. Five drops. On each taco.
We agreed that the chicken was better than the steak, and that DC Taco Truck is worth visiting again. Three tacos were $9 and they take Amex.
Across the street from the taco truck was a cupcake truck I have not tried before – Cupcake Joy. Lemon was on the menu that day, so I tried it:
The bright frosting made me a bit nervous, but it was very tasty. Incidentally, the flavor of the day was Sweet Potato, which doesn’t interest me in itself. However, I am always encouraged when a bakery is doing the southern thing and if I see them again, I will go back.
Finally, we went back to Central Michel, my new favorite place in town. I remembered that I’d had a fabulous dessert, but didn’t remember what the heck it was, so I ordered the Celebration Cake:
Yeah. I would have remembered ordered a flaming dessert. We thought about it while we were eating, and determined there must have been an apple tart of some kind that wasn’t on the menu just then. (A review of an earlier blog post confirmed.) But we totally demolished this:
Credit to Stefphanie for the cake pics. We agreed that it is completely acceptable for us to go to this place and order exactly the same things every time we are in town together.
Run for Shelter – Wright Way Rescue 2012
Yesterday Fiona and I continued our tour of the pet rescue walk circuit with Wright Way Rescue’s Run for Shelter event. In addition to the 5K, there is a picnic that is also billed as a bit of a family reunion. Since so much of Wright Way’s work is with litters of puppies, there is an opportunity for a dog to come back and run into a littermate. For that reason, I felt a bit guilty about taking Fiona instead of Gibbs. But seriously, Gibbs would not have enjoyed himself. It was also a very chilly day – I was dressed in multiple layers and we saw several dogs like this:
The fabulous news is that I did really well with the fundraising. My co-workers in particular really came through and I worked my employer’s charitable match.
I remembered to take Fiona’s picture when we returned to the car to drop off some swag.
This was registration. Big turnout:
We had seen this dog from Sit Means Sit at another event. I think Fiona has a crush:
And we saw the awesome van donation by the Petco Foundation.
There was a DJ and a bouncy house and lots of dogs of all shapes and sizes. But I must say that I have never seen so many black labs in my entire life. As the day began, Wright Way had raised $16,000. I have no doubt they reached their goal of $20,000. The event fundraising pages are open for awhile longer, so if you are interested, this is a link to my page.
Fiona and I left early so race back to Northbrook where Wags on Willow hosted Second Hand Snoots. They were raising funds by taking pet portraits. I received a sneak peek of Fiona’s pics on Facebook and they are freakin’ fabulous.
So it was a big day. I am thinking of doing a recap of my experience this first year attending fundraisers. But right now I want to lie around and do nothing.
Grave Sight, by Charlaine Harris
Book 45
I hadn’t thought to dig in to the rest of the books from Harris, who writes the Sookie Stackhouse novels. But Grave Sight, the first in a somewhat shorter series of books, was in the free book exchange at the library, so I snagged it. Grabbed it off my shelf when I changed out handbags and needed something smaller. Because that’s how book decisions are made in my house.
Harper Connelly was struck by lightning as a teenager and left with the “gift” of being able to find dead bodies and “see” their last moments. As an adult, she earns a living that way, with her trusty sidekick – step-brother Tolliver – acting as business manager.
They take a job in small town Arkansas that involves looking for a teenaged girl. Her boyfriend had been found dead in the woods of a gunshot wound and there are rumors that it was a murder-suicide. Harper finds the body straight away, and confirms that she was murdered. It is also clear that the boyfriend didn’t do it. Two murders.
Boyfriend’s father recently died of a heart attack. Girl’s sister recently died in her bathtub. Girl’s mother is murdered a few pages later.
I must say that I had pegged the primary killer and primary motive pretty quickly. Several of the threads were rather complex, which made it interesting all the way through. The heroine didn’t irritate me too much, which is a big plus. And one can already see how there is a series in the making.
Brain candy, but totally readable. Like Sookie Stackhouse – with less romantic nonsense.
No Bully Walk & Party – Second Hand Snoots
Earlier in the week, I saw..somewhere that Second Hand Snoots, a rescue based in Gurnee, Illinois, was holding a fundraiser in Northbrook. While I couldn’t spend the day with them, Fiona and I participated in their morning walk. This was our third charity walk this year – I’d say we are officially on the circuit now.
At 9am, people and dogs gathered. These are some of the adoptable dogs that are currently in foster homes, with their volunteer handlers:
They were a bit barky in the beginning, but seemed to settle in nicely as we got moving. Which means they did better than Gibbs would have. Fiona was very happy to meet everyone, albeit startled to see what must have been her first Great Dane:
She also met the famous Payton, a dog I had learned about through Trio Animal Foundation. Payton is available for adoption, the Dane is not.
The walk was led by Ed and his pack. I can’t manage my two as well as he managed these four.
Fiona and I spent most of the walk with Chuck, an 8-month old Golden, and his people. Chuck did very well in the crowd:
Upon our return, the party started. There was a bouncy house and agility course and other fun and games. I wish we’d been able to stay. However, it was a great morning and a fine introduction to another rescue doing great work in our area. You can find Second Hand Snoots on Facebook or their website. And one more picture of an adoptable dog. This charming puppy was playing with a basketball when we arrived. I believe his name is Johnny and he is here meeting a Great Dane:
Up next is the Run for Shelter event for Wright-Way Rescue next weekend. One more plug for my donation page!
State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett
Book 44
The other day at the library’s Used Book Store, a lady came in all excited to find us and ended up selecting two books: Saturday, my favorite of all the Ian McEwans and State of Wonder, which I was halfway through. I told her that she had totally scored. She asked about State of Wonder, thinking there was a supernatural element. I hadn’t thought so. More like science and hallucinogens. I told her that the reviews seemed to think it was Heart of Darkness for girls.
It also reminded me of an old Sean Connery movie – name escapes me – where he was in the jungle searching for a cure for cancer.
Dr. Singh is a divorced pharmacologist working in research on statin drugs. The story opens with her CEO (and lover) telling her that her lab partner has died on an expedition to the Amazon. He was there to check on the progress of a Dr. Swenson, who had been working on a fertility drug for the firm and gone off grid many months ago. Dr. Swenson had been a teacher of Dr. Singh many years ago in obstetrics. So you see where this is going.
Dr. Singh heads to the Amazon at the behest of the widow, who is holding out some hope.
There are a whole bunch of layers to this story and a blog post isn’t going to cut it:
- The fish out of water thing
- Confronting the career-changing drama
- Is Dr. Swenson right or is she crazy
- Ethics of experimenting o the natives
- What the hell happened to that guy, anyway?
- What does the boyfriend/boss really want?
But the most totally awesome thing is this – SPOILER:
In the course of searching for the fertility drug, Dr. Swenson finds a correlation between women eating this certain bark (infested with the poop of a certain moth), fertility through their 70s and immunity to malaria. The big reveal SERIOUSLY GOING TO SPOIL THE ENTIRE STORY is that the fertility research is complete and the scientists are stalling so the corporate behemoth that thinks it is funding the biggest money-making thing since Viagra will continue to fund the group while they develop a vaccine for a disease that can save a whole lot of lives in the third world.
There is an interesting commentary regarding fertility treatment in general. While I think most of us agree that having a baby at age 70 is not the best idea – both for the strain on the human body and the fact that one isn’t likely to live long enough to raise a child through to adulthood – the question of “how long is too long to wait?” is pretty compelling. Because I have never wanted children, I have never struggled with the question. But I have seen plenty of women that do. I remember, when I was 23, talking to a vendor that had recently had triplets. She was older than my mother. But such things aren’t rare.
I don’t love the way everything in this book went down. But I will tell you what I told the lady at the book store: Patchett gets better with every book, which is saying a whole lot. Some novelists get lazy (or sloppy, or run out of ideas or I don’t know what) after a success like Bel Canto. Not a problem here.
Being Productive
Since leaving work Friday afternoon I have done the following:
- Bathed my allergy-ridden dog, Fiona.
- Took Gibbs to the dog park (twice).
- Purged sock drawer.
- Purged underwear drawer.
- Purged nylons drawer.
- Purged t-shirt stash.
- Finished a book.
- Made three blankets for Project Linus.
I also got a massage, spent too much money on a new bag, watched the Bears game and nearly caught up on Copper.
Didn’t manage to take a nap, though.
Edit: I forgot that I did the grocery shopping, went to the pet store, did three loads of laundry and upgraded my blog!
The Next Dark Age 