Cheap Date Wednesday: Hollygrove Market and Farm

I know, I know. Hollygrove is a rough neighborhood (and someone got shot there yesterday, blocks from my work. Gosh the crime in this place is out of control!). But there is a cute little market and farm there with a sort of CSA arrangement. I just found out about it, so this past Saturday the hubby and I put on Deva cloth and Birkenstocks and hopped into the Subaru to go support our local farms (we forgot the cloth grocery bags, though, so we officially suck at saving the earth).
You pay $25 for the weekly grocery bag, and get to select your own produce. My weekly haul included a watermelon, okra, clover sprouts, eggplant, cukes, peaches, shitake mushrooms (YUM), fresh herbs (YUM), mustard greens, peppers, and tomatoes.

The market is just adorable. There are homemade breads, fresh cheeses, and produce; everyone is in a good mood; the employees are helpful and happy. The produce quality is excellent - I made an asian chop salad with shitake mushrooms, sprouts, cukes, scallions, and bok choy that was heavenly (lime and peanut dressing), and used fresh herbs on my pizza. I loved the fuzziness of the peaches, too - I find that peach fuzz is inversely proportional to pesticide use, haha.
If you live in New Orleans, make this your Saturday date, preceded by a late wake-up and a leisurely walk to the Maple Street Patisserie for croissants that will make you slap yo' mère.
If you don't live in NOLA I can't very well direct your weekend, but let's just say you're really missing out on the croissants and skitake mushrooms.
Do you have a CSA? Or have you tried one?

Late to work

Not me. Other pharmacist. Here's the deal: One of the other pharmacists is late every single day. She's usually 15 minutes late but recently it has stretched to 30 minutes. It's starting to be a problem because on days when we overlap I really need back-up by the time her shift rolls around. I mean, I've got shots to give, patients to counsel, drug-heads to turn away. I'm busy! It's also kind of unfair to the company. She gets paid for 40 hours of work, but she works 38.
I've been considering how to handle this and came up with a few approaches:
1. The tattle tale approach: I discuss this with her manager, and deal with her accusing eyes and barely contained anger for the eternity of our working relationship.
2. The passive-aggressive approach: Every time she's late I scatter my lunch crumbs across her keyboard, in proportion to her lateness. Once she hits the half hour mark I start leaving whole pepperonis and blobs of salad dressing.
3. The revenge approach: The later she comes in, the later I come in! As she responds, our shifts get shorter and shorter, until we only work for minutes a day, practically revolving around each other as we rush in and out of the door.
4. The self-incrimination approach: Every time she walks in the door ask her, "What time is it? My watch broke/phone is at home/cataracts are preventing me from reading the wall clock." Allow a pregnant pause to follow her admission of, "It's ten thirty."
5. The aggressive approach: Put my jerk hat on and bellow, "WHY ARE YOU LATE AGAIN?!"
6. The dishonest approach: Tell her even salaries employees must clock in now, and provide a special time clock that one of the genius brothers rigged up to *look* real. Hope it scares her.
7. The criminal approach: Hack the company paycheck site and dock her pay for time missed. Use cash to buy loads of frozen yogurt, just because it's fun.
8. The Pavlov's Dogs approach: Only wear deodorant on days she is on time.
9. The on-time-is-the-fun-time approach: Every time she shows up late be just licking donut crumbs of my fingers, then say, "Oh, the donut guy came by at ten. Sorry you missed him." (We don't actually have a local donut guy, but we do have a local pie man who brings his wares to local businesses. Isn't that cute? And fattening?)
10. The spineless approach: Do nothing, say nothing, and secretly feel affronted.
Hm, guess which one I'm choosing???

Moving Day

If you haven't already, you can read my 20 mile recap here at Higher Miles. And we eagerly await Abbi's 20 mile recap coming up soon!

Yesterday my little brother Abe moved in to his college dorm down the street. He's literally in walking distance and I'm excited to have him close by. I know I shouldn't play favorites, and I don't really, but Abe is one of my closer brothers. When we were younger and there were a million* little kiddies running around, each of the older kids had a younger sibling "assigned" as a permanent babysitting charge. We'd make sure they were fed, bathed, behaved. Abe was my charge, so we used to hang out a lot. It's funny how core personality traits simply don't change with time. Abe as a 19 year old still has the same mannerisms as Abe the 2 year old.
We welcomed him to New Orleans yesterday with a quick tour of the Uptown area, followed by a forced grocery trip. Abe is in the dorm early because he's on the cross country team, so the cafeterias aren't really open yet. I made him get some canned beans and tortillas to make my personal favorite college meal, bean burritos. Fast, easy, cheap, filling.
This morning I met Abe for a run in Audubon park in which he handed me my butt on a platter. His normal pace FOR LONG RUNS is 5 minutes. He was trying to stay at my pace, but it was too hard for him to hold back, and we ended up running 7 min miles for about 3.5 miles. The child never opened his lips. I mean, this did not elicit any heavy breathing whatsoever. I, meanwhile, was ready to keel over. Then when we were finished he said I could improve my speed if I did "one or two runs like that a day". Whatever, I can barely finish my speed work once a week. I guess that's why he's fast and I'm slow.
I realized I missed the boat in school by not being very athletic. Abe and I were talking and apparently the cross country team supplies their shoes. This is good for Abe because he runs over 100 miles a week and replaces his shoes every 5 weeks (That stat floored me and gave me nightmares about spending over $1000 a year on shoes). You know what being on the debate team got you? Nerd status, that's all. They didn't even supply us with legal pads.
So now a little discussion on homeschooling and athletics. All of us grubby kids were homeschooled, mostly because we moved a lot and changing schools all the time can't be fun. But my dad was concerned that we wouldn't have proper athletic opportunities. Abe is an example of why that would not be true; he's not only really fast and winning lots of local races, but he's on an athletic scholarship and will be running college track and cross country. However, I can certainly see my dad's point if one of us excelled at, say, basketball. You can show an athletic director race times, but it's pretty hard to get a recruiter to come watch a backyard pickup ball game.
What's your take? Can homeschoolers get equal athletic opportunities? Or should we just stick to what we do best, like spelling bees and math problems that involve symbols I've never seen before?
*Nine, actually.

I sure won't be dancing on Saturday night.

Mostly because I can't dance, I'm too old to dance, and all my friends are finally married off (no more sappy slow dance receptions).
But also because:
- I did 20 miles last night in the rain and my feet are all blisters and rubbed-raw spots
- I did cardio kickboxing today which was a double-whammy for the ol' quads
- I broke a glass and got a sliver in my left heel; I also managed to swipe a large shard over my right toe, slicing it open deeply. I bled everywhere. It looks like I butchered a pig in my kitchen.

I am a mess of bandages, gauze, ice packs, and shredded skin. I guess I can officially scratch "foot model" off my list of future careers.

20...ugh, gasp, gasp, miles.

I managed a twenty miler in the pouring rain, dehydrated, with low blood sugar, and major stomach cramps. Ugh. Sometimes you just have to run through it!
AND AFTER THAT WAS THE FREAKIN' SAINTS GAME, I am so glad football is back!!!! They lost, but it was close. And it's just pre-season. And Hartley can play basically any position that involve kicking a ball.
Why no long run recap? Especially when it involves paramedics, a salvaged water bottle, and another classic Grace get hopelessly lost move?
Well, because...I'm recapping it over at Abbi's totally cool blog Higher Miles. Abbi is running the Freedom's Run marathon this year, too, and we found each other blogcidentally. Since we're training for the same event, we'll be trading our fist twenty miler stories! Kind of a check up on training. Aren't we too cute?!
Of course I don't know when she's posting the recap because I actually haven't, you know, written it yet. I'm too busy eating everything in the house that is not actually integral to the structure of the building (David is keeping a safe distance from my voracious appetite).
But go ahead and check out her blog anyway, 'cause you'll like it, and then stop back by and read my very blistery run recap!
Back to my food. FYI there is caviar in my keyboard now. Don't ask.

Cheap "Date" Wednesday: Book club and Dirty Linen

For those NOLA readers, don't forget that this weekend is Dirty Linen, the French Quarter version of White Linen. Participating art galleries place hampers of dirty laundry outside like OPEN signs. Read more here. That is the only time I'll ever link to Ask.com, which is usually a pit of non-information.
Dirty Linen is, of course, free.

Tonight I'm heading over to Banquets and Books, my book club for people who are obsessed with food. I love that this group gathers people who are so in love with food that they read about it for fun. Growing up in a restricted-diet household (my parents were food fad people...we were alternately organic, vegan, macrobiotic, juicers, junk food eaters, gluten-free. Add to that my mom's inability to cook.) I used to read cookbooks just to stare at good food, and this club allows me to continue that as an adult.

Next week another group is meeting at the Columns to discuss Amanda Boyden's Babylon Rolling, a book that covers the peri-Katrina time on one particular street in New Orleans. This meeting is going to be fabulous because the author is joining us for a few drinks!
I actually haven't finished the book yet because I just got it in the mail. My library's copies were checked out, but I found it online - hardcover - for $3.99 including shipping (don't tell Ms. Boyden). I'm a major prude, so I don't love the amount of language and sex in the book. But certain passages resonate with me so much, especially the way newcomers to the city are confused with how things are done here.In the prologue, the author describes the choice to live in New Orleans beautifully:
"But, oh, the comeliness. We have fallen for snowy egrets and high ceilings as naturally as we would our own mothers on the days of our births. Weak-kneed, we lunge for oysters and must authors and mean tongued rappers with gold and diamond teeth worth more than our homes. We swoon for the glassy surface of our shallow lake, the one that appears in photos taken from the moon; traipse, loopy, behind brass bands on the street; slurp crawfish heads fr their yellow fat, our favorite. It is more than enough of, the flooding of, everything that we must have, even though not all of us know this. Out want wears out our sleeves...We love a place that cannot be saved by levees. We are brilliant losers. But, of course, those of us living Uptown on Orchid Street do not know this yet. Katrina is a year away."

I'm leaving the hubby home for both of these "dates" but that's the beauty of book club. You can go alone or with other(s) and have the same amount of fun. And usually there is yummy food (and wine). Do you book-club? Does your club have a theme? What are you reading?

I'm thankful...

That yesterday and today were inexplicably quiet at work, allowing me a few moments to catch my breath. I prayed for that one!

That it's a rest day. It's 98 outside and the poor hubby is slogging away in it, getting his four miles in. I'm so proud of him for getting his runs in every day!

For magenta nail polish, which is cleverly camouflaging my bruised toenail. You can't even tell!

That tomorrow is Banquets and Books, my food book club, for which I read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, and for which I am making vanilla ice cream with flaming cherry brandy sauce. The sauce is made with fresh cherries, meaning I have really ugly purple nails right now.

For a hurricane-free season. August brings memories, nostalgia, and unrest; the air smells like Katrina; the silent, hot days are all too similar to the afternoons following the hurricane. I find I spend moments of August in reflection and sorrow. So many lost so much!

That my tech brought me an apple today. I forgot to bring a piece of fruit. She rocks.

For the reasonable doctor who allowed me to substitute a low-cost generic in the same class as a pricey name brand for one of my patients. Her copay went from $70.00 to $5.00 and she thinks I'm a magician.

For Abita's seasonal beer. I can't wait to try Satsuma this evening. Will it hold a candle to their amazing strawberry?

That my landlords are replacing our kitchen A/C. This has been the summer of dead kitchen appliances: I broke the food processor, microwave, stove, and A/C in short order! We were checking the serial number for the unit we currently have so the electrician could order a unit of the same size and learned that the unit we have was installed in 1981...before I was born!

For FOOTBALL SEASON! I believe that February through August is at least a year...or it feels like it when there's no football on. At least this year the winter Olympics cushioned the blow; I almost expire when there's nothing to watch but baseball.

For the post office on Loyola's campus. Finally, finally, finally, a PO with no line! At our local post office the wait is often over half an hour. Lately I've been going to the student post office and it's so much more convenient.

For Pine-sol. It takes the stinky out of technical T's and ipod straps after an overnight soak.

That Audubon park is so close to us. I literally spend hours a week there. What a fabulous and beautiful resource for runners and walkers!

Doesn't my mood sound improved from yesterday? It's like I popped a fistful o' Xanax! But all I really did was do a fun "alpine run" program on the treadmill and felt a billion times better.
What are you thankful for today?