Monthly Archives: February 2014

Six years (The daily commute)

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Note: Six years ago today, I moved to the D.C. area. Six years!

Each day, I take the Metrobus to work. It is my best commute so far in my professional life, a near straight line to downtown.

I know the drill. Wait for people to come off, say hello and how are you to the bus driver, pay with the SmartCard quickly. If you need to put money on the card, have it out and ready to go. You have to press your card against the meter twice after activation.

Walk to the middle back. The seats up front are for those who need chairs and the mothers with crying children. Or the crying mothers with children.

Say hello to the Cuban, a nice fellow who lives near the Giant grocery store on Park Road. He hums a tune, unless he’s talking to someone about how the government is messed up. Everyone talks about how the government is messed up but from him, it sounds poetic.

People will move their legs from the aisle if you step over. Go to the back, find a seat, check your phone. Usually, it’s nice to listen to music or a podcast. Catch up on the news or check the newsfeed on Facebook once again. The goal is to drown out, not tune in. It’s a sad fact that drowning out is the default measure but you need to save energy for deadline.

Sometimes, the drunks come on board. The majority are nice drunks, happy as they can be in that moment. The worst are the lamenters because their goal is to have me join them in their current downward spiral.

All the change on 14th Street! Even in the few years I’ve lived in the District, I’ve seen the neighborhood come and go. That new condo is taking over where the old Salvadoran restaurant used to be. I went there once and it was okay. I can see why it’s gone.

The bus passes through Thomas Circle. I exit on L St. Stop for more coffee but I don’t really need it.

Work, then the shift is over.

MacPherson Square is the best place to wait for the bus because it provides options. The line up 16th Street is faster but more annoying. Besides, the 42 is better. Crazy happens on the 42 often but that’s why I ride it. It’s worth the price of admission. Just sit in the back and be amazed.

Traveling past the bars on Connecticut Avenue, it’s a constant wonder: Why the hell do people subject themselves to these places? I take pride in never clubbing on Connecticut Avenue, except that I remember I did go clubbing once or twice and really, it wasn’t that bad. Kinda fun, actually.

Working late means joining the fellow swing shift workers. We keep the world running. Cooks, dishwashers, waiters, designers. It’s grunt. It’s production.

Get off in Mount Pleasant, stop by 7-11 for water and the extra Clif bar. Man, those Clif bars have become the new Snickers. I haven’t decided whether that’s good or bad but I need all the protein I can get. So back off.

My friends give me a hard time about walking in my neighborhood late at night but that’s the best time to be out. It’s quiet. If anyone messes with me, I go to the middle of the street and stop and dare them to join me. Usually, they don’t care that much and move on.

I’m home. Check my mail, turn on the space heater because winter is still going on and put my stuff down.

Home. That’s the word you’re trying to remember. Home. How did this place, this space become your home?

Who’s idea was it? Yours? God? Neither or both? This is all Malcolm Gladwell’s fault. He was the one who said to blink.

The test, Gladwell says, is simple. Think of your dilemma or situation. Close your eyes and count to five. When you open your eyes, notice the first thing that comes to mind. Try for that.

You take his test. When you opened your eyes, you are on an Alaska Airlines flight, direct to Reagan National. Wearing shorts because it’s too uncomfortable to wear jeans on a plane, you lined up a possible sublet, vague job possibilities and enough cash for three months.

You blink again and you’re standing in front of the White House just after Obama’s election. It was quiet, just you and some kids playing soccer. In about 15 minutes, 3,000 people would fill this space. More will celebrate on U Street and H Street. You text Lys and tell her this is the most incredible moment ever. It was.

Earlier that day, you and Buck stood in a mass of folks, waiting to get in. A sly joke gets you into the Washington Post. Four years later, you’re working election night for them.

Another blink: Twenty-six inches of snow. Snowmeggedon 2010. You’ve never seen this much snow. Huddled in your apartment with episodes of Get Smart and no Internet, you realize this wasn’t the adventure you had in mind. No job, no prospects, just frozen pizza. The storm ends and you join others outside. The city is at peace and strangely, so are you.

You open your eyes to see your friends around you on your 30th birthday at Westminster Presbyterian’s Jazz Friday. 30. Yeah, you can see why people shit their pants over this age. But for now, you’re happy you made it.

One year later, you’re in a HOLE. Your best friends who threw you the party last year are gone. Many of your friends are gone. The calling is gone, the dreams are gone. You try to close your eyes and pretend like it’s not happening but your eyes and life are wide open. This isn’t fast. This is very, very slow.

Trying to stay awake, you strain to keep your eyes open. It’s 2012. Adrian is still reading. When you started, he was in the second grade and one of the best readers. Man, you lucked out. You blink again: It’s June 2013 and he’s off to junior high. You give him a copy of The Westing Game. That was your favorite book when you were his age. He says it’ll be his favorite book too.

You blink once more and you’re on 14th and Euclid in the dead of winter 2012, with the instruction that you’re going to run a marathon soon. Marathons, in fact.

You blink to get the sweat out of your eyes. Running in a D.C. summer is a pain in the ass. You stop at Meridian Hill Park. You just ran 20 miles for the first time in your life. This is the spot where you did your first run. That time, you barely made it through one lap around.

Thirty is now 33. According to the calendar of the Middle-Aged Young Adult, this is the last year you can claim your mistakes on being young and stupid. After this, you’re just dumb.

Lately, you’ve been trying to blink extra hard to see the future. Certain things show up: Athens, Capetown. More words. Family, wife, children. …blurry and abstract but very much there.

Otherwise, it’s the same image over and over again.

Open.

That’s it, just open.

But that’s what to come. And sheesh, haven’t you learned your lessons about knowing before leaping, yet? Pay attention. Stop with the sentimental. Work is to be done.

The District is home. Somehow, this foreign spot became my walking, my knowing. I know this place now.

I know where to go and what to do. That knowledge is automatic and routine but every so often, I will remember how painful it was to gain that knowledge. It almost didn’t happen.

All the thoughts about leaving, all the phone calls about staying, all of it. I remember.

I’m not a native and not establishment but I belong through hard elbows, perseverance and semi-dumb luck.

Every walk to get coffee, every time I went to church and every time I’ve longed for Church and Community but it just didn’t happen, I belong.

People like to say you’re either in or you’re out. That’s not true. That dichotomy is false and really a point of insecurity on that people’s parts. The truth is you’re in because you choose to be in and made your case of worthiness in a successful fashion.

Besides, this city was built on the premise that no one could belong here so that everyone belonged. It just worked out for some to build a house along the Potomac to keep their lack of belonging in an influential spot.

It still doesn’t answer the word: Home. No matter. It doesn’t need an answer now. All that matters is that the word isn’t a question or a resignation; it’s a sigh of wonder. And God.

D.C. Training #5: The water’s just fine at the Mandarin Oriental

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2/19: About 5 miles, about 9:00/mi
2/20: 9:33 miles, 9:12/mi
2/22: 8.03 miles, 8:10/mi
2/23: 20 miles, 9:55/mi

Total mileage: 42.33 miles

It didn’t take long to go from too cold to too hot.

The too hot is mostly my fault. I wanted too long to run my 20-miler on Sunday. It was a rare day off so I had grand plans to attend church before but that didn’t happen. My co-worker joined me for half that run and she did a great job.

Once I hit mile 12, I ran out of water. Conditions were sunny, about 60 but when you’re not used to sunny and 60, the body freaks out. Combined with the water fountains not on on the Mall yet (darn you sequester!), I was freaking out.

Mercifully, I got to the Mandarin Oriental, one of D.C.’s finest hotels. Snuck in the front door, headed straightaway toward the water fountain and CHUGGED. Two busboys came by, asking if I was okay. Oh, I’m doing just great, I responded.

I must say, the water there was fantastic. Maybe because I was dehydrated and starting to deal with mild heatstroke but damn, that water was impressive!

The heat and lack of hydration slowed me down and by mile 18, I was hurting. My phone was about to die but I forced myself to make it home. It hurt but it was worth it.

The tendons on the top of my feet cooperated on the 20-miler, unlike the other runs earlier this week. I think it has to do with my changing my shoes and my feet getting used to new laces and such. Years of wearing ill-fitting shoes (not because of style but because of laziness and a lack of knowledge on my part) cause perpetual sensitivity with the top of my feet. It flares up from time to time and came back with a vengeance this week. A change in how I laced my shoes did the trick and I’m hoping it stays this week. We have about 3 weeks to go until Rock and Roll and I feel good. Tapering begins next week and I hope to maintain the fast pace when everything is going well.

This week, it’s cold, again. Winter makes one last push before exiting, stage left. Finally.

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Passed by Nats Park during the 20-miler. It’s empty now but won’t be in about 6 weeks. Baseball is almost here!!!

Confessions of an accidential Caveman #2: Running toward a new border

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Growing up, we Plunketts were a fast food family.
In fact, one of our hallowed religious traditions involves fast food.
At one point, we lived six houses from Taco Bell and running for the border was a favored pastime. One Easter, we were low on funds and time, so we went off to Taco Bell for a quick Easter lunch. We were the only people in the restaurant but it was one of our better Easter lunches. Our family maintained that tradition for many years. It’s a good reminder of how things were and the constant renewal of life.

My mother is a great cook. Self-taught, she figured out how to make fantastic pasta dishes and her chicken enchiladas and albondigas soup is to die for. Whenever she could cook dinner, she will. Even now, weeks before I’m set to arrive for a visit west, my mother texts to ask what I want to eat while I’m staying with my parents.

Dad is an expert omelet-flipper. Really, it’s pretty impressive. I have yet to master that skill; hence the constant scrambles for breakfast.

Sometimes (actually, it was every and often), he mixed up his spices, putting poultry seasoning on toast and putting ginger on well, everything. He’s also a fan of chocolate pudding and potato chips, together. In one bite.

I guess that’s what happens when times change, but values don’t. (Sorry, inside joke.)

Otherwise, we ate fast food, a lot. Both my parents worked long hours in our middle-middle class upbringing in the quintessential suburban neighborhood in California, which predicated on lots and lots of fast food.

The High School Athletic Wall of Fame is located at the McDonald’s on Woodruff and Del Amo. Allegedly, One of the first McDonald’s is up Lakewood Avenue in Downey, it’s art deco signage still in use.

After church on Sundays and youth services on Wednesdays, my friends and I were either at Taco Bell, In ‘N Out (God Bless the Double Double!) or Fuddruckers. Our pastor’s signature line to encourage fellowship was, “Now, everyone go out and have a cheeseburger!” We Evangelicals were big into literalism, so cheeseburgers it was.

Mind you, this is the 90s, before Starbucks went public and the coffee shops started popping up all over the place. In college, our group was at the Buck or the “holy sanctum” of coffee, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (I’ll provide the sacred and profane sermon regarding coffee shops another time).

Nevertheless, it was fast food that ruled the day.

I write the above noting that fast food restaurants have changed and continue to evolve. This was before Fast Food Nation, Food Inc and much of our growth in food awareness. Anyone who was a vegetarian, a vegan or god forbid, trying a paleo diet would have gotten stares or in the case of my childhood, the verses in Scripture about how it’s perfectly acceptable (thus Biblically mandated) to eat meat.

Also, it’s an indictment against our consumer industrial complex and how much of the fast food industry disenfranchises the poor, who can only afford fast food to get through the day. While it’s “cheaper” than most food, you don’t truly know how your food is made or produced. While it’s a good starting job for those entering the work force, it bumps corporate profits at the expense of employee health and well being.

What I want to focus on is process, specifically, the joy of cooking your own food.

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Apropo of nothing, hot dogs are a delicacy in Chile. This was lunch one day in Santiago. And I wanted a photo of hot dogs in this post.

For years, food preparation was a necessary evil

My cooking skills are elementary. My spaghetti sauce is well known among the circle of friends and former roommates. The Plunkett specialty is chicken and dressing. Chicken and dressing consists of chicken, sour cream, cream of chicken, dressing and Chinese noodles. Add butter, lots of butter, and there was the best I offer, food-wise.

The night work schedule added to the lack of time and convenience to cook. Partly my desire to get out of the newsroom for any moment (Rule #1 to work: Leave as often as possible!), it was a stop for fast food. In downtown, D.C. the options were Subway, pizza that is nothing close to being authentic, Cosi and Five Guys.

Fridays were reserved for Five Guys, so I ate fresh often. As you can see, my eating patterns weren’t the gold standard of healthy eating. My eating consisted of about 20% of my own cooking and 80% of eating out.

Everyone has his/her own reasons for how they eat and what they eat. In my instance, fast food was convenient but more so; it was a comfort and perhaps a sense of security. It buffers against the stress of the job and provided a sense of a home from which I am far away. Fast food also was an opt-out against a deep-rooted fear, the inability to take care of myself. I’m on my own and have grown past the typical bachelor stereotype of empty pizza boxes in the corner. (Now, it’s empty Whole Foods bags in the corner but I digress.) Too often, I allowed that perception to rule my life. If I don’t have anyone else to cook for, which should I put in the time and effort? No one is going to care, so why should I?
The biggest change in switching out was changing the default mode. As the majority of food decisions are automatic and semi-conscious, it takes mindful effort to adjust the process of eating. For me, it was addressing those fears head-on.
Three Christmases ago, my parents gave me Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. That book saved my bacon. Two Christmases ago, my parents also got me a slow cooker and that has been my faithful friend and companion.

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One of the first meals I made. Slow-cooked pork and a kale dish that includes cashews, onions and cranberries. ENDORSE.

Now, I own a cask-iron skillet, a Dutch oven, some pots and pans and a steady stream of olive and coconut oils, cumin and pepper. While I enjoy a fine dining experience now and then, my food passions reside in finding hole in the walls and unlikely spots, a la Fast Gourmet (which was a heartbreak in not eating there multiple times a week).
Cooking is still a process, with bits of enjoyment and pleasure. Mostly, I appreciate the chance to make something I know I’ll enjoy. Fast, well, faster food is still an ongoing issue. It’s come to the point where the food ratio has flipped: I cook about 80% of my own food and eat out about 20% of the time.
To this day, I still eat Taco Bell for Easter lunch. It’s the only time in the year I’ll eat Taco Bell. As an adult, the tradition means more to me now than the food.

Sometimes, it takes a 99-cent burrito to celebrate renewal.

Let’s talk: How much does fast food dictate your eating habits? Is it a joy or a struggle? And any great fast food options that are healthy?

D.C. training #4: Too much cold

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2/11: 6.67 mi/ avg, 9;27/mi
2/12: 6:88 mi/avg. 9:26/mi
2/15: Gym workout: round the worlds, free weight squats, push press, bench press, dips
Approx 2.5 miles running
2/16: Approx 7 miles, 3 walking.

About a foot of snow fell this past week in D.C., the most since Snowmeggedon four years ago. Temperatures are above freezing, which is good but Old Man Winter is making his final push before we start to move to spring.

Sunday’s run was awful. The running app wasn’t functioning, I slipped on ice and almost face-planted. I re-injured my right foot and to top it off, my phone died and I forgot my wallet. So, it’s walking three miles home.

I’m hoping a few days’ rest and some RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) will do the trick. We’re at t-minus a month or so before D.C. Rock and Roll. My times have been good and I’ve been running the best I’ve ever ran. Perhaps the over-exertion got the best of me this week. That and trying to avoid all the tourists in town for President’s Day weekend didn’t help.

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My Wave for runners are great for running, bad for mud. Very bad for mud.

Speaking of my shoes, they got broken in nice and good. What I thought was a shortcut to get by the Capital pond was just mud, ice and a near face plant on the grass. The battle scars are a nice touch but to avoid continued pain with the tendons on top of my foot, I need to figure out a better way to lace these bad boys up.

Talk back: Any tips or methods to lace the shoes so they don’t exert direct pressure on the top of my feet?

 

Sunday sermon: Holy and broken

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This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled but there are moments when we can transcend the dualistic system and reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that’s what I mean by ‘Hallelujah.’ That regardless of what the impossibility of the situation is, there is a moment when you open your mouth and you throw open your arms and you embrace the things and just say, ‘Hallelujah! Blessed is the name…’
The only moment that you can live here comfortably in these absolutely irreconcilable conflicts is in this moment when you embrace it all and you say, ‘Look, I don’t understand a fucking thing at all–Hallelujah’ That’s the only moment we live here fully as human beings.”

The quote is from Leonard Cohen, speaking about his famous song, “Hallelujah.” I’ve been reading Alan LIght’s The Holy or the Broken, a history on that song. For years, it languished in obscurity: Columbia Records didn’t release Cohen’s album with that song and most people who heard the song (or in the case of Jeff Buckley, initially sung the song) didn’t know that Cohen was the writer.

Cohen is a poet by trade, and a damn good one at that. He summarizes my feeble attempt at explaining my current state of things better than I ever could. Cohen’s “Hallelujah” deals with spiritual resignation and irony but ends with a tone of hopeful triumph that other versions of the song leave out. “Even though it all went wrong/I’ll stand before the Lord of Song/With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.”

Confessions of an accidential caveman #1: Break all your fasts

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Note: I’m coming close to one year of switching over the paleo food template. Amazingly enough, it’s stuck and really become a life-long mindset. These posts deal with how I got here and how my life has changed.

For years, I didn’t eat breakfast. Because of a second-shift job, my breakfast was usually lunch.

If I was up for breakfast, it was donuts. Lots of donuts. And coffee with cream and sugar. That was it: Sugary, creamy coffee and donuts. One would think I was a cop but I was a journalist (a far worse predicament).

I always heard that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. I never believed it. When my energy levels were low for the day and I required more and more sugar to keep going, I didn’t give a second thought to how I ate. I just ate. That, combined with a stressful job in a stressful city, leads to major problems.

I can’t tell you how many boxes of Pepto Bismol I’ve consumed. The stomach-aches, lethargy, continue struggles with acne and being overweight, all constants for most of my late 20s and early 30s. It was a given that after eating wheat, my throat would seem to close in, making it difficult to breathe and swallow. This would last a few minutes before I would finish eating whatever pasta or burritos I purchased.

A week after starting at the Post in summer 2010, my body was in extreme pain. After checking into the emergency room for fear of appendicitis, the doctors asked me about my high blood pressure and struggles with digestive issues.

Look, I just started a new job after months of unemployment; of course I have high blood pressure! I joked the doctors. I was fine but they told me to think seriously about changing my diet.

I didn’t. I walked home because I didn’t want to pay for a cab. I didn’t have any money and because my new health insurance hadn’t kicked in, it would be some time before I had money again (and that’s worth multiple posts but I’ll leave that for another time).

It wasn’t those issues that began the change. For me, it was staring in the mirror that I realized something: I don’t look the way I feel. When I had energy, felt alive, I saw one version of myself. But what was staring back at me was another version. It was that disconnect that was a trigger for needed change. I wanted my outside to match how I felt on the inside.

The Whole30 challenge was the first time I had to think about eating and how I felt about it. One of the biggest realizations was I wasn’t giving myself the right tools to start and complete the day the way I wanted. Much of my concern was about time. I didn’t have enough time to make breakfast, sit down and eat it, then go about the business of the day. The issue was that I didn’t make time for it. More so, I didn’t want to make time for it.

It was difficult at first. Making breakfast means getting up earlier or accepting that getting up late means time is lost on the back end. That mean going to bed earlier, which meant stopped the caffeine intake earlier the previous day, which meant eating breakfast earlier the previous day.

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breakfast of champions

My go-time breakfast meal is the scramble. The dish is super easy, consisting of chicken sausage or bacon, yellow squash and zucchini, broccoli, onions, tomatoes and mushrooms if I have them, with two brown eggs. Some pepper and garlic powder, maybe some turmeric to spice it up.

It leaves me full and very happy. In the midst of marathon training season, the scramble combined with a Clif Builders Bar (not shilling for them but they are fantastic) and a banana or some mixed nuts satisfies all the cravings.

It has come to the point where my body craves breakfast. If I don’t have breakfast, I feel it immediately.

Eating a complete breakfast daily is still a difficult task. Irregularities in the schedule make it difficult to get up at the same time every morning and after a tough shift the night before, the last thing I want to do at 8:45 is get up and chop up onions.

As much as I love the scrambles, I crave a little more variety. Being a creature of habit to the point of rigidity, it’s hard to break out and yet feel like I’ve had “breakfast.” For me, it’s not breakfast if I’m not having eggs in some capacity. Goofy, I know but hey, years of seeing those egg commercials paid off somehow from them!

Let’s talk: How do you spice up your breakfasts? Any ideas on variety?

 

D.C. training #3: Winter is still coming

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Feb 4: 5.02 miles, avg 9:19/mi
Feb 5: 6:85 miles, avg: 9:18/mi
Feb 7: 8.01 miles, avg: 8:25/mi
Feb 8: 18.01 miles, avg: 9:11/mi

Winter is a good time to keep still. Stillness is the default measure. The world longs to be barren for a season. Give it a rest, let the winds blow before it’s time to grow again.

Winter makes running a challenge. In a way, it becomes the real marathon. Contending with the forces of nature while preparing for a race leaves windblown eyes, a constant runny nose and more problems trying to take a breath.

This winter has been the most active in my nearly six years in the District. Multiple polar vortexes, goofy snow storms and lots of wind has made training quite the challenge.

But it’s working. I’m getting faster, averaging close to 9 minutes per mile and feel more confident about keeping that pace throughout the course of the entire race.

We start what I call the summit: three weeks of heavy running. Nearly 40 miles a week and the long Saturday runs. I hit 18 miles this past Saturday and while I retired my Buenos Aires shoes and my feet are still sore as hell, it went well.

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Rock Creek Trail, straight out of a scene from “The Road.”