anne

I am going to copy Ingrid’s idea and chronicle the highlights of 2011 for you. Sorry I haven’t been writing. There is no excuse.

January 2011

Last January I was wrapping up my time in Japan. I spent two transformative years living near the beach in Kobe, Japan and teaching at a university. Today I was cleaning out my closet and found a silk blouse I made out of discarded kimono remnants. Seeing the muted orange and grey pattern made me remember how the silk would stick to my skin in the humidity. I would often race down the hill to jump in the ocean before work in the morning, just to have a moment of relief. I remember how my mom came to see me in the peak of the summer and we wandered through the narrow streets of Kyoto looking for the bundles of fabric tied up with pieces of string that were always sitting outside of the kimono shops. I’m selfishly relieved that no one else wondered what stories those pieces of kimono would tell us about the world they saw.

My goodbye parties were so touching that I almost didn’t leave.

February

I returned to Portland in February. Waking up in Ingrid and Brad’s basement felt like Christmas every day. I would wander upstairs to see all sorts of delightful people eating breakfast, and I knew that the next day I would wake up and they would still be there. I spent the month catching up with friends and walking kids to school. Or dressing up in pirate wear for my nephew’s third birthday party.

I discreetly celebrated my own birthday as well. Uncle Rick had an amazing cake made for Tuyen and myself, as we share a birthday.

March

I could finally move into my apartment on King’s Hill. I remember jumping up and down (literally) because I couldn’t touch the ceiling even if I tried.

April

I spent an absurd amount of time socializing in the spring. None of these people held it against me that I left.

May

I got mono.

June

The early summer in Portland tends to be a time of great disappointment. The weather teases with glimpses of sun followed shortly thereafter with flash floods. This June though, was magical. I tried to wear as little clothing as often as possible, which was made easier because I was an active part of a running club which shared my goals. One of the highlights in June was the annual Toga hash, where hundred of us dressed in home-made togas and ran through the streets of Portland, stopping only to dance in the streets and drink beer. It was a beautiful day.

I ran into my friend Kevin at the end of the day. He wasn’t participating in the festivities.

July

I spent July failing to get a job. I wasn’t too distressed by it though. I joined an indoor soccer club where I got in the way of my teammates. Sometimes I got in the way of my opponents. Our team was better looking than most of the other teams. We didn’t win.

The loss of my grandmother was quite poignant. Her passing seemed to have reignited the bond that the Parmeter family shares. Spending time at my grandmother’s house in her final days, I remember helping address my cousin’s wedding invitations. It is nice to know that I’ll spend my entire life with such lovely people as my family.

August

As I was headed to Coos Bay for a weekend of running and camping, I got a call about a job I had applied for months prior. They were finally ready to interview me.

September

Alas! I had a job writing training and professional development materials for the second largest privately held company in Oregon. The transition to working again was challenging, and working a desk job/corporate thing was new to me. I work with amazing people though, which is wonderful.

I’m actually only pretending to work in this picture.

October

October was a hard month. I’m glad it’s over.

November

I celebrated the first Thanksgiving with my family since 2008. I love holidays!

December

December was great. I was finally figuring out how to do my job, and continuing to develop my friendships. I took a quick jaunt over to Hawaii with a girlfriend. This is the only picture I took, and I have no idea who this guy is.

I’m excited about what 2012 holds. Sometimes I stop and think about what I was doing a year ago, and I can’t even believe where I’m at right now, and how I never could have predicted what I would be doing a year into the future. I’ll keep you updated.

A friend of mine is transitioning to a vegetarian diet for her health, and I love talking about food, so I volunteered to help her with this new way of eating. I decided I would put this info on my blog in the hopes that someone out there will finally appreciate the pictures I take of my food.

For the last few months, I’ve been eating a lot more fat and fewer carbs as I’ve learned more about how poorly our bodies handle sugar. I’m not very strict about it, as I can easily get talked into beer and ice cream, but I try to eat well about 90% of the time. Below I’ll chronicle three days worth of meals. I tend to have coffee with whole milk a couple times a day, and eat snacks like cheese and apples.

Day 1 Breakfast

I seem to remember having leftover enchilada filling this day, so I put it over an egg and served it with half an avocado and a salad. It was a memorable breakfast.

So Uncle Rick decided we should all post something new to our blogs, which is funny because he hasn’t written anything for 16 months. But, Uncle Rick, you should totally post the recipe for that fabulous curried squash you made for Thanksgiving.

I haven’t written in a couple months. Sorry. Consider this my warm-up blog post. I’m learning that 40 hours are so many hours. It’s remarkable you all do it. Once I find a wealthy man to support me, I’ll write on here a lot more.

My big news is that I have a couch now. It’s like the most adult thing I’ve ever purchased. I suppose that I bought a couch in Japan, but it was so small that it barely counted.

Now that I have a couch, I do everything on it. I’m writing from my couch now. This morning, it was where breakfast was served.

Hey everyone! (does anyone read this anymore?) I became employed! I’ll start working on Monday in a position that is an excellent fit for me. I’ll be doing Instructional Design, which is basically writing materials for whatever internal training needs a large company might have. My coworkers seem like really nice people also, which gives me a good feeling about it all.

It’s funny, since I found out that I got the job, I’ve been frantically trying to complete every project that I have ever started. I’m also trying to have my life totally organized, as though the world is about to enter apocalypse or something. I’ve heard that pregnant women do this before having a kid, they want everything to be perfect.

Recently I’ve also fallen into this mindset like, “This is the last time I’ll ever go to the gym,” or “This will be the last time I meet friends for happy hour,” I think I’m so intimidated by the idea of having an office job that I forget that I’ll have a couple hours free in the evenings (with any luck). People have been reminding me that I used to have a job, and I managed to have a social life as well. I suppose I didn’t really count that as a job, just like I don’t count being fabulous as a job, or being a pisces. I suppose that I just have to figure out how to meld this new career into what I “do”.

Dear readers, please tell me how you do it. I am open to advice or words of wisdom.

I accidentally made the most delicious thing ever. I had to take a picture. “Wait, Anne,” you say, “How did you know this was the best thing ever at the point when you took this picture of uneaten food?”

“Well,” I would answer, “It was so good that I made another serving just like it so that I could take a picture for you”. I was merely utilizing some leftover enchilada filling that I had made out of chopped onions, konnyaku, and enchilada sauce. I put an egg in there and used the Japanese method of steaming the egg, by just putting a lid on the pan and allowing moisture to cook it.

In other news, I’ve been working on several house projects recently. Mostly lighting. I’ll have ya’ll over sometime to check it out.

Last week I hosted a raw food potluck at my house. It came about after speaking with a few friends about raw food, and how we were intrigued and curious to see if we could make stuff taste as good as Blossoming Lotus. A potluck seemed like a good place to start.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, the raw food movement is based on the idea that heating foods above about 110 degrees starts to kill the nutrients and enzymes. I don’t think I would make the switch to 100% raw foodism myself, but I do think that we should all be eating a lot more raw fruits and vegetables.

If you plan on trying out your own raw food night, you should invite my friend Niaz over. She is a fabulous cook and adventurous eater. I like to keep these people in my life. She made a fantastic raw pasta out of spiralized zucchini tossed in a pesto of pureed basil, garlic, walnuts, and olive oil. It was truly brilliant.

My friend Tess made a really great coleslaw out of sliced apples and carrots. She dressed it with “just some random stuff”, which I think included some lemon juice and oil, maybe salt and pepper. My dish had a lot of character, but fell short in all other ways. I was trying to make a Korean style lettuce wrap, but it ended up being impossible to eat. I seasoned sliced mushrooms in my take on Korean marinade (soy sauce, garlic, sesame oil, brown sugar, orange juice, and siracha sauce) then wrapped them up with vegetables. Really only great in theory. I decided what I’ll do differently next time.

Dessert was more of a success. I blended blackberries with frozen bananas and almond milk in a mixer. It was like a little berry smoothie. Next time I’ll run the berry pulp through a sieve before adding the bananas, because it was quite seedy. Strawberries might have been good too. 

I’ve had that question quite a bit in the last couple months of my disemployment (unemployment sounds so desperate). It’s a fair question, as most of you spend at least 40 hours of your week doing things that you probably wouldn’t do if you weren’t compensated somehow. I was a bit lost when I ventured into this lifestyle myself, but I believe that I have optimized the experience at this point. If unemployment was a a job, I would be getting a raise right now.

Basically, I do all of the things that you would like to be doing, but you don’t have time for. You know that list of things that you should do? I totally just did them. I ironed my shower curtain. I wrote letters to my old coworkers in Japan to say how much I enjoyed working with them. I volunteered with refugees. I took part in a marketing survey about bread (I don’t even purchase bread).

I literally stop to smell the roses. I’ve been to Washington Park like three times this week, and the Summer Brewfest twice. I try to just appreciate this great time of freedom,  and think of how lucky I am to have a few months to be gainfully independent. I might be singing a different tune in a few months, but at the moment I still have a long list of tasks to give me a sense of purpose.

Picnic in the rose garden last night. It was excellent.

I’ll use today as an example of a day in my life, as Mondays tend to be quite typical. I wake up when I feel like it, then I toss on some clothes and run to the gym. Today I ran there completely barefoot to toughen up my feet. I did about 30 minutes of resistance training, then headed back home, by way of my community garden. My plants are doing well, thanks for asking. Uncle Stan’s tomatoes are loving city life. Upon my return home, I showered and got pretty, then made a huge salad for breakfast/lunch. I have to admit that I spent some time catching up on gossip blogs while eating lunch. (It is in our faults and failings, right?)

This brings me up to the present moment, where I am sitting at an outdoor table under the shade of trees Cloud Seven Cafe in the Pearl. After updating my blog, I plan on heading downtown to do a bit of shopping. This afternoon I should tidy my place up a bit, then work on some household projects. It’s a rough life, but someone has to do it.

It did take a while to make the adjustment to being in the US and not working. My job in Japan was really wonderful, and I felt like a productive member of society. The best I can do here is just stimulate the economy as best as I can, and when that fails, I find solace in the fact that I’m not ripping a job out of any one else’s hands. In the meantime, brunch will be at my house.

This is a common scene.

Man, I totally intended to blog. You can now stop checking this blog, for at least like the next two weeks. Until I come up with something to say. Sorry.

It’s easy to take Portland for granted. I’ve lived here a while, and sometimes I forget how neat it is. A couple weekends ago, my friend Tom from Australia/Japan visited. He was seeing his girlfriend in Seattle and decided to take a day trip down to Portland to see the city. It was a lovely day, so we walked around NW enjoying the scenery. Tom was in awe of the trees and the weirdness. He had a ridiculous smile on his face the whole time, which reminded me that I really do love this place.

Here is a picture of Tom talking to a guy who is taking his “pet boa constrictor for a walk”.

Last weekend I went to Orange County to see my friend Cerina graduate from her MS Clinical Psychology. She had a few days off work, so we did a bunch of shopping and running around outside. It did make me appreciate how small and walkable Portland is.

How awesome are these plants? This jar was like four feet tall. Think this could grow in Portland? Below is Cerina and her husband John, right after her graduation.

I’ve been on this personal optimization kick recently. Maybe it’s just because I have time. Anyway, I’ve been enjoying focusing on things like making sure I have enough molybdenum in my diet and studying the British Monarchy. In my last post, I addressed my “running” habits. And honestly I would probably run more seriously (than I do currently, which isn’t saying much) if it weren’t for knee pain.

Several months ago, my father raved about this book called Born to Run, which covered many aspects of running, such as nutrition, evolution, and footwear, among other things. The author found that a major problem in how we run in the US is actually our bulky footwear, and that barefoot runners have almost no incidence of running related injuries. I would highly recommend the book to anyone with feet or legs.

If you would like an example of the impact of falling on our heels versus allowing our legs to act as a shock absorber, check out this youtube clip of a few finishers of the Boston Marathon. You can easily pick out which of the three finishers was trained as a heel striker.

I, of course, had to run out and buy “minimalist” shoes since I wasn’t ready to brave the dog crap on the sidewalks by going truly barefoot. I had expected that as soon as I put on my Vibram’s, I would stumble into perfect form, but I guess I’ve been heel landing too long. I actually have to be conscious to land on my forefoot. And my calves have been killing me from working out new muscles. Some people say that it takes their feet a while to adjust to being used, but I have really only felt it in my calves. I figure that it’s a good thing to work new muscles. And I guess that my knees haven’t hurt, but I really haven’t been able to go more than a mile yet. It’s really tiring to run with proper form.

I have enjoyed biking in the shoes too. It’s oddly refreshing to be able to articulate different parts of your feet in motion. Overall, I feel better about moving in a more natural and gentler way.

I’ve recently been reading Barefoot Running, which goes into ridiculous detail of running form and anatomy. It is a good read for people looking to making an entire lifestyle switch to barefooted-ness. I’m not quite there, but I am motivated to strengthen and toughen up my feet. I’ll let you know how it goes.