Going Ons

Not too much new too write about. I've found new gym locations downtown and now that my cough is better I'm going back to the gym after a couple weeks off. The new gym, right on St. Catherine, is small but it was empty in the morning last week so that works for me. I also went to a gym near Kate's work, which was bigger but further away, and it's right beside a food court full of suits so I'll probably stick to the St. Catherine's gym.

I'm actually the same weight now as when I started but I like to think I'm adding muscle while I lose fat, and I've never been concerned with my weight anyway. Kate has also started driving us down a food path that avoid meat. We still eat meat of course but we try to restrict the frequency of our meat ingestion. It's mainly for health reasons, I know we don't need to eat meat every day if we replace the protein and as long as we're not cutting it out completely we shouldn't need to worry to much about things like iron intake although we still do to a small degree. It also gives Kate an opportunity to try out difficult dishes, it's hard to make something taste good without that delicious substance call animal fat but of course Kate is very successful.

As much as the decision to cut back on our meat intake is for health reasons I must admit that I often feel bad about the treatment of animals in the food production sector. I think some of the things that people say are exaggerated. It's a proven tactic to convince people of things; exaggerate the hell out of it. Still there is some truth in it as well. Some of the points made I think either don't really matter or are just untrue but there is no denying that there are a lot of people on the planet to feed, a lot of money to make doing it and as always the lowest end of the totem pole gets the worst of it, in this case the animals. It's also expensive to buy humanly treated meat, many places don't even sell it too, but if you're not eating it every day the price is moot. I don't mean to preach either and when I go down to Texas this month I intend to consume large amounts of meat. It's just surprisingly easy to cut meat back in your diet. We eat it maybe 2-3 times a week from 7 times a week and I barely noticed. Of course it helps to have a young Julia Childs cooking for you. I think Kate is like the MacGyver of cooking, if MacGyver had a sidekick that ran out and got all the missing parts of whatever it is that he was making out of a paper clip and cigarette butt that week, that of course is my job.

I'm reading a great book, it combines my two favorite genre's of book: 18th century fiction, although I'm more partial to Poe, Hawthorne, Irving rather than Jane Austen, and zombies. The book is called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It's basically Pride and Prejudice but with the added factor of zombies, quite funny, quite entertaining. I hear there is also Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters which I will look for. The book is written in the style I enjoy reading but instead of boring topics, like marriage and gentlemanly conduct, this book covers such topics as marriage to zombies, and gentlemanly conduct in regards to the dispatching of zombies. I love that everyone else loves zombies now as much as I always have. The early Romero movies are one among those memories that I cannot remember not having, like I don't remember the first time I ate chocolate, I also don't remember the first time I watched Night of the Living Dead. I guess that's some insight into the reasons behind my constant desire to protect my brain from the teeth of those around me.

I joined a flag football team. My shoulder seems to be completely healed after a suspected rotator cuff injury. I'm not the Quarterback so I shouldn't be aggravating it if it isn't completely healed. The season starts in January. I went to a practice last week to sort of try out for the team. They want to make sure you don't suck and that you're not a jerk so I guess I was a shoe in but of course I was still a bit nervous. The only other guy I know on the team, the guy who hooked me up with the team, Mitch, wasn't at the practice so it was me and a bunch of people I don't know. At the end while I was considering the QB said he'd like it if I played so it was an easy decision. I don't know what position I'll play, probably a receiver but maybe defense, I'm fine with any position of course, and from what I hear there may be a couple games we have to play ironman, both sides of the ball. It should be good exercise and maybe I can score a couple touchdowns this season. I played 3years of football and 4 years of rugby in high school. I never started in football and I started maybe half the games in rugby. I never had the joy of scoring a touchdown playing football, once I was talked inside the 5 on a 40 yard deep pass, but never in the endzone. I have no idea how many trys I scored in Rugby over the years, somewhere between 15-20 I suspect including 3 in one game once and twice in a 7 aside game. Anyway I'm hoping to make up for some lost scoring in this league. People take it pretty seriously so it should be good. I'm pretty excited to play actually, I never though I would be memorizing plays again.

Well I best get to my French, I have an oral on Tuesday and my final on Saturday.