The Yoga Mat

The yoga mat.

Every Monday, me and a group of retirees (I'm the youngest attendee so far, surprisingly) do an entire hour of basic yoga FOR FREE. That's right, free, at our local library. I'm pleasantly surprised by the exercise, but also grateful. As a middle-aged athlete who is also currently un-insured, I have to be very careful. At the height of my brief dojo career at two big name gyms in the city, I often rolled BJJ and sparred MMA with 20-somethings who practiced various forms of these extreme full contact supports without any health insurance whatsoever. When I asked them what they did when they got injured, they often shrugged their shoulders, and said "Just wait, I guess. And heal."

And so it happened to me, except I was still covered under the policy I was paying for. I found out that, in addition to the two pins put in place years ago after a knee surgery that was the result of an injury I got when walking my dog, I tore my ACL and also had a medial meniscus tear, along with bone, ligament, and tendon bruising. Well, at least I didn't fracture anything this time, I guess.

The yoga mat and me.

I decided not to have expensive (and somewhat risky) ACL surgery, because I did not have the ability to undergo a lengthy PT process while I struggled to keep my head above water in these uncertain times (and because no one can do the work I do with my own hands), so since then, I've had the dubious challenge of staying physically fit while enduring fits of employment coupled with lingering fears about homelessness and starvation. Quite the potent cocktail.

Last year I found a cut rate Tai Chi class that met outdoors, and then went up gradually in price as the teacher felt she could get away with. Understandable, but also, not my thing. I get bored with Tai Chi quickly, and I still have a lot of energy. So, it's now yoga, the tai chi form I learned last year, with a lot of walking thrown in for good measure, and right now, it's exactly what I need. Many of the stretches we do in class are the same ones we do in martial arts during the warm up and cool down phases, anyway.

Plus, I've met a great group of people who I share a lot in common with, something that's always occurred between me and the generation above Baby Boomers; blessings all to me. Stay fit, America. We need our strength, now more than ever. Have a great week.

Bargain Apple Turnovers

My broke ass has been shopping on the cheap ever since I can remember. Hunting through a store for the best deal is something I learned at my grandparents' knees. A Great Depression isn't something one is apt to forget, and I learned those lessons well from their stories about how far a dollar can stretch if one is savvy enough to do it well.

It almost goes without saying that we love food in this town. We have an incredible abundance practically on our doorsteps, prepared by the finest cooks the world has to offer. But that doesn't mean I pay through the nose for it. Oh, I love going out occasionally to savor the slowness of an osso bucco that's been simmering on a back burner for days, made by someone else because I don't have time to prep a meal like that, but I learned how to find food and cook it a long time ago, whether times are lean or fat.

And so I do. When my local store had their brand name biscuits on sale, I bought them in bulk. After my autumn apple adventures began (as detailed here: http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-doctor-is-in.html ), I hit that bag hard. Combining apples with pastry for dessert or breakfast is as easy as pie. Buy that tin of biscuits, you know the ones you carefully pop open along the line on the cardboard tube that's been vacuum-sealed like a friggin' MacGyver bomb that explodes scarily and randomly on contact with the edge of the spoon? Yeah, those.

Fill them with a mixture of apples cooked with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon, like the topping we've already covered here on this blog (see link above). Got it? Good. Fold 'em over and crimp them, poke some air holes on the tops so they don't explode like said MacGyver bomb, melt some butter and baste the tops to get golden brown tops. Part of the charm of homemade tarts like these is that they don't look perfect and choosing them based on their shapes is part of the fun. "I'll eat the fucked up looking one first and save the best-looking one for last!" That's how I do it, savoring the sweetness.

When I'm not in training for the sport of MMA, I revert back to my more typical feast or famine mode, like the beastie I am. I can go hours without thinking about food when I'm working on my art, stopping to eat only when my appetite is triggered by someone else's cooking smells, like those from an open window of the apartment next door or the wafting aromas as I climb the stairs past a neighbor's apartment, as it so often happens in the tight city quarters that comprise our communal living style. Or I'll go so long as to actually hear my stomach angrily rumble—then I have to stop working and feed.

We've touched on my Italian-American heritage here on this blog before, as it breaks down mathematically into one very simple easy equation: food=love. I do not understand the sicknesses behind eating disorders, though I do get that it is comprised of certain key factors like a feeling of helplessness that needs to assuaged by a sense of control, but as empathetic as I am, I do not turn away from succulent abundances when I am starving. I do not understand the human creature who cannot or will not eat my grandmother's recipes for meatballs and sauce and macaroni. To this human computer, it does not compute.

So it is with an utter lack of shame that I can relate to all of you now, that on a certain day captured here in photos, somewhere between the hours of 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., I ate an entire batch of apple turnovers that I made, siting down to my repast in white karate pants and black plastic dojo sandals, eating them pleasurably one by one. I ate them all, dear readers. I ate them all.