Outside my window stand barren trees.  It looks cold, even here in the deep south.  The sun is coming up, and all the strength it can muster is not enough to push away the chill in the air.  And it is so quiet this time of year.  The lull between happy laughter of Christmas and the raucous celebration of the new year.  It is almost funereal. But that, that is age talking. And I know it. When I was younger, and life was not limited, I rushed headlong into the new year. It was another year of school done. Another unsolved mystery, another challenge, just another year.

There’s a cold mist hanging in the morning air.  Within it I can see the ghosts of my past year drifting silently past this icy pane of glass. Drifting by as quietly as this year, whispering into nothingness.  A panoramic reflection of another year playing against the silver screen of wintry desolation. The haunting phantoms of things not accomplished. Of errors made. Of failures and disappointments.

Now that life isn’t so cheap, I tend to look at things through a different lens. The roads that pass beneath my feet aren’t so easily forgotten. The highway markers rushing by with the audible ticking of a clock. Once, I’d live forever. Now, I’ve outlived friends. Family. colleagues. They’re out there too. Those ghosts haunt me too.  In that mist.  Watching.  That’s a weight I carry too, Can’t disappoint, can we?  I realize I tend to give them voice.  The disappointment is mine, I’m sure.  I’d really know what they do think, now that they are on the outside looking in.  I bet I’d be surprised.  I bet I’d be amazed.

I bet they know a lot I don’t. I wonder if they feel like I do right now. I don’t think so. I’ve no way of knowing. I just don’t think so. I imagine it is a lot easier to see things. On that side.

I bet somewhere out there, they’re smiling.  As they did when I was a child.  Those times they taught me things. Seeing that I was on the verge of figuring out the solution to some perplexing adolescent issue.  That supportive smile when they realize you’re on the cusp of realization.  I do it to my children, when I lead them logically, step by step, to a conclusion.

Symbolically, January 1st is a new beginning. Realistically, it is a fresh start. Some will argue that every day is. Standing here, though, in the quiet bliss of a winter morning, I realize now why the New Year begins in the frosty grip of the barren winters. The world is wiped clean of color, the slate has been cleared once more. What I write upon it will be of my choosing. Last year is written and today I will turn the last page in that volume of my life. Volume 2012. I’ll close the book and slide it upon the shelf where, inevitably, some of the lessons learned will be lost as it gathers dust as I begin a new volume.

As I walk outside and stretch my hand forth, I begin to etch this new story into the ethereal parchment of this frosty mist. I’ll plant the seeds of what this year might become, and then I will watch. Soon, spring will come, and these seeds I plant will burst forth from the winter hardened soil. Color will once more spring forth upon the canvas of life.

It is in the darkness we best see the light. It is in the ugliness that we can best witness beauty. It is in ending that we can best see a new beginning. This year wasn’t the greatest, but I’ll count it a win. I tenuous victory perhaps, but I will count it one nonetheless.

As the sun rises higher, the mists retreat into the trees. The ghosts? They’re still here. They always will be. But I think they’re smiling.

Photo credit: ecstaticist / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

Photo credit: blmiers2 / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

It’s been a while now since my last post.   I’m still alive and well.   Work and life and stress and a thousand other things have kept me from writing.  I need to adjust my priorities  I think.   In the span of the last few months life has taken some huge turns for me.  I’ve changed a lot.  More than just my eating and diet.  More than the way I do things.

To call it change really is to do it grave injustice.  Semi organized chaos is more like it.

This week I’ve taken a long drive, from San Diego up the coast to Goleta, California.  A small little town north of Santa Barbara.  For a day I was given relative peace.  Californians might laugh at that, calling a drive up one of the most congested coasts through Saturday traffic peace but it was.  After loading up the rental in San Diego, I sat down, adjusted the seat, pushed the start button on the dash, plugged in the iPhone and rolled down the windows.  I departed that lovely little town accompanied by Keith Urban’s “Who Wouldn’t Want to Be Me?”

Who indeed?

A brief stint on the 5 (I have lingo down already) and then I hopped onto the 1.  I’ve been here before, in my somewhat misspent youth, and to my eternal regret I didn’t appreciate it then as I do now.  The feeling of letting off the gas coasting down the ramp in Dana Point, a lovely and quite vibrant little city.  Perhaps they call it a town here, I have no idea.  Though well-traveled it’s huge to me.  Most of these little towns have more people on their beaches than I have in my entire county.  It’s both disconcerting and amazing all at once, to be around so many people.

Past Dana Point rounding a curve I glimpse the first real view I’ve had of the beach, the waves rolling up onto the sands. These are Pacific waves and I’m sure you’ll find plenty that will argue about the superiority of the Pacific’s larger waves, the excellent surfing conditions and the beautiful blue waters.  Out of pride I’d argue for the blue-green Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic.  It’s a loyalty thing.

But still I find there’s something about the beach, no matter where, that refreshes the human soul.   Just the sight and smell of it.

Past Dana to Monarch and on to Laguna Beach into the congestion of Huntington Beach.  Many won’t believe this but the public parking lot in Huntington Beach is larger than my home town.  By a fair margin.  I crawled through Huntington and Long Beach.  I sat in bumper to bumper traffic through Redondo and Manhattan Beach.

Honest to God, and I spent many, many years in Atlanta, it was the most awful traffic I’d seen in years.  Just crawling along the coast, people searching for parking spots.  Tourists and locals in a seething, crawling smog choked mass of humanity winding slowly up the seaboard in search of the same and yet uniquely personal experience.  For some it was to simply lie on the beach.  For others it was to paddle out and surf the waves.  For others it was the shopping.

For me, it was for the experience.  Nothing else but.  In a practical sense it was to travel from one job site to another.  On paper it was business trip.  In fact it was a pleasure.

No.   It was a pilgrimage.  I’ve gotten hemmed up and stressed out.  Over a million things I shouldn’t.  Writing has been hard and I took it out of my life in  deference to the things I thought I needed to be doing.  I lost the inspiration and the will.  And I honestly thought the drive would help find that.  I wasn’t wrong.  Only now, writing this, I’m realizing I need to write to be inspired.  Not the opposite.

North of Santa Monica the road eventually opens up. The every spreading waistline of suburban LA is held at bay by ever increasing cliffs and state parks.  Traffic begins to hum along at a faster pace.  The salty ocean breezes sweep through open windows with the soothing calm of a mother’s touch.  The radio continues to kick out my ever increasingly eclectic mix of music.  Some old.  Some new.  And some just perfect for the moment.

On my left there was nothing but deep blue seas.  On the right the cliffs soared into a bright blue sky.  The sun bathing everything in the brilliant light of what had become the perfect day.  My left arm stinging and reddened and hanging out the left window.  The pain would come later, I knew, but for this it was worth it.  It is almost sinful to roll up the windows against the majestic views and the sounds and the smells.  It’s an experience that is worthy of immersion.  Remove an element and it lacks something.  Like the perfect dish minus the key ingredient.

Some would argue, especially the political pundits on both sides,  that you won’t find God in this state.  I, for one,  would have to disagree.  I hope their people forgive me for my many years of ragging on their state.  My youth, as I said, led me out here.  It was not the greatest trip of my life.  My adolescent follies left me detesting this state.  And everything I thought it represented.   I was wrong.  And I humbly admit it.

I’m older now.  A lot.  Twenty odd years have passed since the last time I was truly in California.  Last time I left I hated her.  This time, I admit, like so many others, I have fallen in love with her.  She’s lovely and seductive.  She’s a thousand different things to a million different people.  But there can be no denying that I will depart this state with some commonality.  I’m a proud Southerner.  A Georgian by birth and now by choice.  And now, I am a bit Californian too.  I thank them for accepting me in ways I never did them.

Twenty years.  Another trip down.  It took 8 hours for me to crawl 215 miles through traffic.

Honestly, I wish it had taken longer.

The cure for anything is salt water — sweat, tears, or the sea. ~ Karen Blixen

Portobello, Portabella, Portabello are all acceptable versions of spelling the name of these large fungi, proving that if you cannot spell something correctly, just keep doing it that way and eventually it’ll be accepted and added to the dictionary.

As well as making tagging a post triply difficult.

Judging from the fact that crimini and portabella can be spelled multiple ways, feel free to come up with your own version since apparently it really doesn’t matter to fungi what you call them.

Or you can call them champignon de Paris if it makes you feel smarter.  You can woo people to your house with the French.

However the Mushroom Council (explain that career path) maintains that Portabella is the official name of the mushroom.  Never one to defy authority, I have thusly titled this post with the double “A” version.

Ingredients:

1 large can of Alaskan wild salmon

1 bag of frozen spinach

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 large tomato diced

1 chili pepper (green) minced

2 teaspoons of garlic salt

1 tablespoon garlic (minced)

2 portabella caps

salt and pepper to taste

some grated parmesan cheese

Remove the stems from the mushroom caps and discard.  Brush the caps with olive oil and set to the side.

Add the rest of the olive oil to a large pan and saute the spinach until limp.  Add garlic, tomatoes and chili peppers and saute for a few moments more and then stir in the salmon (water removed).

Put the caps in a small pan and load them with the sauteed vegetables and salmon mixture and top with the parmesan cheese.

Cook in a 400 degree oven for approximately then minutes, until cheese is thoroughly melted.

Eat

Today was a much-anticipated day by my daughters.  All week we had been planning to stop by and visit with a local animal foundation, who was having an event at one of the local stores here.    If there is a way to a child’s heart is through puppies and kittens.  Nothing so grabs their attention as wagging tails and purring furballs.  I was looking forward to it too.  Meeting the folks involved with the process was rewarding, though I don’t think they’ll be upset when I say they were upstaged by the litters of puppies crawling all over themselves in a desperate bid for attention from all the fawning shoppers.

I went with no intentions whatsoever other than meeting the people who were putting on the event as I had promised earlier in the week, and get to see how the operation worked.

It all went awry after about thirty seconds in the door.  One of the nice ladies grabbed me and said, “Did you see the Golden?”

“No I didn’t,” I replied.  Somehow he had passed me going out the door on a bathroom break as I was coming in.  We missed each other.

The conversation continued until, some minutes later, came this gorgeous (there is no other way to describe it) Golden Retriever, led by a kind gentleman who introduced himself (I think) as I was struck by what was later described as ‘that look a little boy gets when he finds his first bike under the Christmas tree.’  Truthfully, I don’t really remember what happened.  All I know is that in short order, paper work was filled out, a leash was handed over, and a new member of our family was being driven home.

Let me be clear.  I made no plans.  And I had resolved myself to going and being a part of it, and enjoying myself, and meeting people.  And of not, NOT, bringing another animal home.

I had no intention of having my heart stolen by a dog.  But it was.  And so today my family welcomes a homeless boy into their home.  A three-year old beautiful Golden who has made himself at home already and, apparently, abducting the hearts of everyone else around too.

Except for Cheyenne who is having none of it.

As I mentioned in a couple of my previous posts it has been years since I had a dog that I was personally attached to.  After the deaths of the previous ones I kept putting it off. I kept denying it to myself as I knew that I’d inevitably get too attached to them as I always do.   I remember that hurt all too well, the loss I felt losing two of my best friends.  How it ripped my heart out as I stood there, shovel in hand, burying them as everyone stood at a distance and either wept with me or unable to figure out how to console the usually stoic and unemotional man they knew that was turned into a sobbing mess.

I had neglected to consider that it wasn’t always a choice.  Sometimes a twist of fate or timing puts something in your way and it just happens.  And so it did.  Maybe it was timing.  I don’t know. I knew in the instant I saw him though that he was coming home with us.  All those reservations were swept aside the first time he nudged my hand.

So I am sitting here watching as that wagging tail and those imploring eyes work their magic on my daughters.  As they fawn and swoon and play and frolic with him.  I watch as a simple little creature woos two innocent children into falling for him. How without them knowing he is working his way into their hearts and lives.

Then I smile.  Because I know the feeling. And I am glad it is back.

Welcome home boy.  Welcome home.

Grab one out of the fridge and warm it up. Instant breakfast.  Or snack.

Kind of like I just did.

Ingredients:

8 eggs

1 cup of diced tomatoes

1 cup chopped mushrooms

1 cup of diced ham

1 cup diced red pepper

1 cup diced green pepper

1 cup chopped onion

4 strips bacon, crumbled

salt and pepper to taste

parmesan cheese

Beat the eggs in a large bowl and then stir in the ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Fill the cups of a muffin pan almost full.

And then bake for 30 or so minutes at 350 degrees until they’re ready to go.

I could use one now, which explains this post.

Please do go away!

I am talking about naps. Please.

I used to nap a lot. A habit of being in the military and sleep being at a premium, I am able to sit down most anywhere and doze off at a moments notice. Even now, when I can, I will find a quiet spot, even on the road, and pull the truck under some shade and take a quick one if I can get a few minutes of sleep in. I always feel more refreshed, more energized and more alert after a quick thirty minute nap. Stigma aside, napping seems to me to be a healthy activity. It’s often associated with laziness, but what do those people know, they’re just tired and grumpy.

And studies have shown that napping has some definite positive effects.  Keep this article to show to your boss when he gets angry.

As part of my new found healthier lifestyle I am reintroducing the power nap.  An old friend that has been gone far, far too long.

As I said, napping has some definite physical benefits. Studies done on military pilots and astronauts have shown marked improvement in alertness and overall performance when they were able to take short ‘power naps’. Studies in Greece have shown that people who napped suffered 37% fewer heart attacks. And almost counterintuitively, a nap during the day allows you to sleep better at night. Some stunts even hint at napping leading to a longer life span.

There are also some psychological impacts as well according to the National Sleep Foundation (BEST……………JOB…………EVER). Napping reduces stress. I’ve found that if I am in the middle of something particularly stressful or up against a problem I cannot solve, taking a short nap relaxes me enough to where I can focus on the task at hand. Sometimes I’ll even arrive at the answer while I am settling down and the peace and quiet of the nap itself wipes the clutter from my mind and allows me to focus. And studies do show that napping increases cognitive function and creativity. Napping increases memory function and learning ability.

As opposed to passing out which only increases bail amount and spousal irritation

Ideally, a nap should last between ten and forty-five minutes. Longer than that leads to fogginess and interrupting your sleep patterns. So, as with everything else, the key is moderation. Naps are, in no way, a substitute for getting sleep, but they do allow us the time to recharge our batteries and give us a temporary boost.

Speaking of naps, it’s about time for one.

Have a great weekend folks.

Sources:

National Institute of Mental Health

NASA

National Sleep Foundation

First, Vidalia Onions.  If you’ve never had one you’ve been robbed of one of life’s pleasures.  The only grow in Georgia and are a sweet onion, owing to the unique soil qualities here in South Georgia.  They are, perhaps, the most delicious onions you can find.  Of course, I am biased.

I love all things Georgian.

And especially this, since I believe I have created something totally unique.  Which I have tried to do since I started this paleo journey.

Yes, it is a keeper

Anyway…………to the recipe.

Take one large Vidalia Onion, and slice it.  1/4″ slices work well.  Then bake the onion.  If I am baking a Vidalia all I use is a little butter, some salt and pepper and, behold, you’ve got deliciousness already.

But hold on!

Then, in a large bowl, mix 6 plum tomatoes diced, one diced red onion, a large handful of parmesan cheese, some fresh basil (6-8 leaves), chopped.  Stir in a half tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and a half tablespoon of olive oil.  Put it in the fridge to chill while the onion bakes (approximately thirty minutes).

Remove the onions and place them on a plate and top them with some of the now chilled and mixed (bruschetta?), sprinkle with a little more basil and a bit of parmesan cheese and you’ve got something awesome.

I ate 4 myself.   None left.  Go get your own.

One of those I tried today was chocolate covered bacon.  It sounded interesting, but I think I must’ve messed it up quite badly since mine wasn’t all that good.  I had to have messed it up because it was, well, BACON.  And bacon always tastes good.  So I am calling that one my fault since the recipe I linked to above sounded quite delicious, and it is worth a try.  If you make it and like it let me know.  Love some of the ideas on this guys page anyway, so check him out.

I also got another idea from him.  Roasted fruit, which I had never had, or even heard of.  So I rushed to the store and grabbed the following (brace yourself this is going to get scientific):

4 nectarines sliced

4 peaches sliced

Blueberries (big handful)

Blackberries (big handful)

Strawberries (two big handfuls) sliced

and then added a little white wine (about a 1/4 cup and baked it at 400 degrees for about thirty minutes, topped it with some paleo whipped cream, and ate.

No, I don’t have a lot of experience with any kind of ‘diet’.  And at first I was a bit put off by the fact that I’d have to restrict myself.  I think anyone is a bit reticent and hesitant when they first consider having to restrict their diet.  But what I’ve found is that I am actually eating a wider variety of foods.  And I am eating them in a more ways than I used to.  Looking back I realize now that I was eating very restrictively and repetitively.  Paleo has forced me into a trying new things.  I’ve rediscovered the taste of food.  The nuance of spices and flavors and the way they are enhanced with different cooking methods.  Paleo has made me branch out.  So what had initially been considered a restrictive diet has, indeed, become more of a relaxing of rules that I had unconsciously enforced.  I’m off the hamburger/junk food/fast food/ treadmill and I am discovering food.  Real food.

5) MORE ENERGY-

The first thing I noticed going primal/paleo was the amount of energy I had.  I need less sleep than I used to, I wake up faster and I am ready to go when I do wake up.  I don’t have that dragging feeling I used to have in the mornings.  Some people I’ve read about don’t experience this, but I can say I can tell a massive difference.  I don’t get that mid-afternoon dip in energy I used to get.  I don’t get sleepy during the day.  And I  have plenty of energy to make it through the day.

4) NO HUNGER-

I used to notice that if I skipped meals, or was late I would get this gnawing hunger, and have to stop and get something to eat.  That has disappeared.  I can go longer between meals.  I don’t get those peaks and valleys.  The high after the meal then the inevitable crash as my body compensates for the massive intake of crap that I used to eat.   I can eat a little and be sated for a while, or I can eat a lot.  My meals don’t have to be as large, but if they are it doesn’t matter because:

3) NO MORE BLOATED FEELING!-

I don’t get that bloated after meal feeling.  That alone is worth it to me.  That ugh! feeling after you’ve eaten is gone.  You know what I am talking about.  That uncomfortable fullness that you get after you’ve over eaten a little bit.   Even if I have a large steak and some vegetables I feel like I could  go right outside and play football.  Which is aggravating to everyone else, I admit.  Since I jump up from the table and I am ready for anything.  Let’s go!

Yeah, you go ahead Joe, we will catch up.

2) EXPLAINING PALEO-

Every day you encounter someone that is beginning a new diet or wants to talk food and inevitably it will get around to me admitting I eat primally and discussing the above facts along with the resultant weight loss, the energy, and some other things.  Those that know me and see me often have noticed that, and the gain in muscle mass, and that what I had is more clearly defined.  But there is nothing I enjoy more than the confusion of some as I explain the concept of paleo.  It does, in ways, fly in the face of conventional wisdom as far as dieting and weight loss goes.

Wait, you get to eat what? (stockfree)

1) STEAK!  SEAFOOD!  -

Yeah,maybe it is a repeat of number 6.  But it deserves two places.  There isn’t much fault to be found with being able to eat the finer things in life.  It’s almost sinfully wonderful to sit across from someone munching on a salad and struggling (I’m sorry, I am evil I admit) while I eating a 16 ounce ribeye and explaining the above points.  Especially the weight loss part, while they stare forlornly at the huge slab of deliciousness sitting on my plate.  So what are you having for dinner?

Hmmm. Yeah, sorry about that.

Today I had the honor of meeting with some people who do the great and admirable job of trying to save stray animals from a sad and untimely death by euthanasia. I’m a dog guy, I’ve said that I think a half-dozen times in posts. I think dogs are wonderful creatures. Over the years we’ve had I think, as an adult, ten or twelve dogs. We’ve got one now. Max. For years, since the death of my two last ones, a gorgeous Golden Retriever and a Mastiff, a gentle giant who stole the heart of anyone who took the time to know him, I’ve fought getting another. I get terribly attached to animals. I loved those dogs. They were family. It was a hard thing getting over them. Their pictures hang with those of our children. Some might think that silly. I don’t feel that way. In fact I pity those that cannot understand that a pet is capable of an unconditional kind of affection that you’ll never find in a human. No matter the mood, no matter the time, no matter what, a dog is glad to see you. I wish I could see them again. I still miss them. Terribly.

I got home tonight, out of curiosity and pulled up the adoption database for strays.

My God.

Not hundreds. Not thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Dogs. Cats. Horses. Birds. Reptiles. Slaughtered by the thousands, every day. It’s always been there in the back of my mind. Once about ten years ago, we got a dog from the pound. I’d stopped by to do service work on something and they were carrying one out to be euthanized. We gained another dog that day. Bisquick. Because he was five minutes from being done. Dark humor I suppose, but still, he lived a comfortable and full life at home with us even if he was terrified of adults. He would only come to my children.

But, I, like so many others tuned it out. I sit in front of my plasma television. With my thousand dollar laptop, with a nice vehicle in the garage. No, two. I’m wearing nice clothes, I just ate a fine meal, and my biggest gripe today is that, well, I had to get a little dirty.

As I was riding with my youngest heading home and I hear this tiny voice. She’s reading the booklet I got from them highlighting the problem.

“Can’t we do something, Daddy?”

And I think for a moment. The hard but convenient answer is to try to explain the enormity of the issue. The overwhelming numbers. The statistics. But children don’t understand statistics. They don’t understand numbers. They understand instinctively the thing that we, as cynical and weathered adults forget. That ignoring it is a travesty.

So as I turn all these thoughts over in my head, all I keep coming back to is the only real answer.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes we can.”

So today I formulated a plan, and spoke to my family, including my children. No, I cannot save them all. We cannot. But we can save some. And we are going to. Because that, of all things that we, as humans, do is the most noble. Making a difference. In the life of another human. In saving the life of an animal. In saving life period. In doing something.

It’s easy to throw your hands up and say it’s impossible. It isn’t. It’s easy to look at the numbers and sigh and believe it’s impossible. It isn’t. It’s easy to look at hunger statistics and think, “we cannot save them all.”
Maybe.

But we can try. The biggest crime is not that these things occur. It is that they occur under our noses while we pretend they don’t happen. It’s in us pretending that we cannot make a difference. We can.

In Macedonia, a vast (not) country of two million people, after their country was ravaged by wildfires, the citizens united to plant 6 million trees in 2008. In a day. IN ONE DAY! Since then, every year they’ve banded together and in total they’ve planted almost 50 million.

And you have to ask, if a tiny country like that can band together to make a difference like that. What does that say to the rest of humanity?

It says that by getting your hands a little dirty once or twice a year, you can make a massive difference. It says that if a citizenry, if properly motivated, can accomplish what looks on paper to be impossible.

It says that if we say “No more,” in a collective voice, then we will destroy the problems that face us. It says that if we all stood up and said “No child goes hungry again.” Then they won’t. It says that if in a united effort we decide to leave this place better than we found it then we will.

It says, “Yes, we can make a difference.” It is not the duty of the government. It is not the responsibility of our elected officials. It is not the job of the charitable organizations. It is our job. It is the responsibility of humanity.

And as I sit looking at the querying eyes of my daughters, I realize that, in truth, that’s the only answer there ever really was.

“Yes, we can.”