Happy. Healthy. Heathen.

For the second time in 4 months, I’m driving with a daughter, all of her belongings packed in her car, going west to start her post-college-graduation life.

That’s the fun of twinsies!

Off we go!  This time it’s Glenda, and she’s headed to Vegas to see what she can get into with her hoop performing.  If you’ve seen her, you get it.  She’ll hit up the clubs and theaters and send out her resume and watch the magic happen.  She’ll also find a quick cocktail waitress job – follow her Calliope Facebook page for news of dates and places of her performances.

So we started out today at the crack of 1pm.  It took a little longer to finish packing than we planned, but we finally closed the doors of Captain Janeway and off we went for the Delta Quadrant.

Today we made it as far as Russellville, Arkansas (don’t ask anything about it – we’ve seen the inside and outside of the La Quinta).  The total trip mileage is 1820-ish and we’re just gonna drive west til we get there…Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada.

To get us going, Glenda’s mix for the day was the sound track to Ocean’s 11 and 12, and a little Elvis, and some Frank Sinatra, RatPack era.  We had our usual road-trip mother-daughter car-conversation about life, love, family, and the zombie apocalypse.  We had one additional passenger, Glenda’s beloved Mrs. Whiskers:

It is also important to note the mileage of our trusty minivan:

Shooting for the New Mexico state line for tomorrow night, but that may be a little too far.  Amarillo Texas may be more realistic.  Come visit tomorrow and see how far we’ve gotten!

Thanks for reading!

“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”  ~Theodosius Dobzhanksy

This is one of those conferences that are so information-heavy you’re almost glad to see it end.  Almost.  My brain is overloaded, overworked, and overwhelmed.

Today’s sessions included:

Disordered eating in the Modern World – I didn’t attend this because it was in conflict with another session I wanted to hear, but I wanted to include it because I think it’s so relevant.  Dr. Emily Deans used peer-reviewed literature and histories of eating disorders to examine if maybe the Western Diet may be contributing to  this phenomenon.

Diet, Inflammation, and Depression – This is the one I missed that one ^ for.  This session was so interesting, as it linked habits that are far removed from our ancestral health, including nutrition and movement, as a potential cause for the high incidence of chronic depression we are seeing in modern society.  I can’t remember where I first read this statement, but think about how seldom our ancestors would have seen a reflection of their faces, compared to how often we do.  This session was one of those where almost every seat in the room was taken.  The presenter, Amber Dukes, was cautious not to draw conclusions, as the studies are new and incomplete.

The Perfectly Healthy Meal:  How Ancestral and Gourmet Culinary Practices Guide Us to Satisfying and Nourishing Food – I knew when I got the expanded schedule I wanted to attend this one.  I consider myself a rabid foodie, and I grew up and raised my kids eating delicious southern home-cooked food.  Throw in Eliott’s Jewish heritage with its love of all things deli, his Philly connection to Italian cuisine, and we are a train wreck as far as “ancestralizing” our diet.  When we did our 30-day food experiment recently, we found that we loved the whole process of selecting, preparing, and cooking with primal guidelines in mind.  What surprised us was the time involved in all steps of that process, and joining that with the fact that we eat out several times a week (which we didn’t do much on our 30-days), we had to learn to embrace the time issue. This session was wonderful for reinforcing the idea that it SHOULD be taking us time to prepare our food, and it does take effort and forethought (isn’t that one of the things that is troubling about our Western diet – the instant and constant availability of crappy food?)  Dr. Jaminet is doing a book signing later today (an astrophysicist and his molecular-biologist wife writing a nutrition book?   Why, yes please!)

I managed to get a picture of my plate today before I dove right into it.  Tendergrass Farms was one of the vendors, and they donated over 1000 of pasture-raised chicken for the meal.  We have a local grass-fed meat supplier in Murfreesboro; this farm is located in Virginia, and they do ship, so until you find your local source, give them a shot.

Heat and Health; Paleo Myths and the Other Metabolic Hormones, Leptin and mTOR – the title of this one almost kept me out, but the thumbnail mentioned hormones and aging, which caught my attention.  Dr. Rosedale (of the Rosedale Diet) started out with saying that nature does not support a long post-reproductive-age life.  We can alter that, but approaching it with this premise helps us understand what we are working toward.  Thanks, nature.  And modern medicine can counter some of the aging process, but nutrition and exercise is much more effective at that.

Circadian Rhythms:  Their Significance in Human Health, and the Major Factors Affecting Them – This was Dr. Jaminet again, about the mysterious circadian rhythms.  Full disclosure — I fell asleep during this talk.  Dr J’s voice was soothing, and it was just after lunch, and Eliott’s shoulder was soooo inviting, so I do not have a report about your circadian rhythm.  When I asked Eliott about it afterwards, he admitted he fell asleep too.  So we’re old.  We needed a nap.  But isn’t it fabulous that this is the talk where we fell asleep?  Something to do with our circadian rhythm???

The Ancestral Health Society will add all the links after the conference, and when they do, I will go back and post the video links, so if you are interested, come back and listen.  I won’t post all the links to the 2011 and 2012 AHS, but they are available through the AHS or youtube.

Here are my takeways from the conference:

–The Ancestral Health Movement is about far more than eating an abundance of meat, far more than just nutrition at all.  It’s about using evolution as the model for framing every conversation we have about health in contemporary humanity.

–It’s discouraging to see the status of the food supply and nutritional health in our country.  It’s even more discouraging to see that 67% of the population of America does not understand or accept evolution, which is the starting point for understanding how and what we should eat for optimal health.

–Because this is heavily science-based approach, as always we start with a hypothesis.  We then look at the research and see if that supports the hypothesis.  Through observation, empirical evidence, experimentation, testing, results analysis, and other methods we see if the hypothesis is confirmed.  Then, in this movement, it is encouraged for folks to use a N=1 analysis since our ancestry differs in some cases dramatically (if our ancestors were from Fiji, their diet would have been different than if our ancestors were from Siberia due to food availability, and the digestive enzymes, etc, that we would have developed).

–To expand on the last topic:  I think that not only do we have differences in our toleration for some foods based on geography, but we ourselves may find that at some points in our life we are more tolerant of some foods than at other points in our lives due to our age, our hormones, the cycle of seasons, and other factors.

–Because of the above points, we are forced, beneficially I think, to stay deeply in tune with our bodies and our health.  For those of us who are data junkies, this can include written graphs, charts, records, all that (color-coded – squee!).  I’ll say that for most of us in the movement, that includes a pretty closely-monitored blood sugar record.

–As a skeptic, I will continue to learn and research as the science develops around nutrition and movement.  But I will also share that the personal application piece has been hugely successful for me.  It has allowed me to eliminate even minor health issues (heartburn, irregular sleep patterns, energy crashes), AND I have been able to train at a pretty high level (Ironman) eating in this manner.

Heading home tomorrow – don’t forget to drop by and say farewell to Glenda if you are in the Middle Tennessee area tomorrow night!

Thanks for reading!

Crappy internet and late night hanging with the children = no blog yesterday.  I’ll try to cram 2 days into one with this quick post.

Yesterday morning found us waking up in Ft. Reno, Oklahoma, still heading west.  This day we covered the rest of Oklahoma, the tippy part of the hat of Texas, a corner of New Mexico, and then our lovely Colorado.

After a quick stop to see Sam’s new place, we all walked over to the Boathouse Restaurant where we waited for Sam to finish work for the day.

After dinner and lots of Colorado microbrews, we hung out at Sam’s house a while longer, and then finally all crashed after a long day of traveling (us), working (Sam), and playing (Ben and Kirsten).

Morning found us all at breakfast overlooking the Arkansas River.  Sam had to work again, so we got to see his workplace in the River Management Office (although his actual workspace is the 150 miles of the river, since he patrols the river every day).  Then we took a stroll through town, checking out gear stores and art galleries and a coffee shop or two.

Next, because it’s Memorial Day weekend, there was Bluegrass in the Park for most of the day.  We laid out a couple of quilts, and talked, and drank, and read (I really and truly studied Evidence), and listened to music.  We had Ben and Kirsten’s two honeys with us, two black labs, River and Suzie.  Lying there in the sun, listening to my children’s voices, at the base of the mountain, in the quaint little town of Salida, Colorado, I just don’t remember being so happy.

After Sam got off work, he and Ben played in the river with their kayaks while we enjoyed a libation in the restaurant overlooking the play hole (their words, not mine).  Then it was off to a fabulous pizza place, where we all agreed to the phone game, so I have no pics of that meal.  (8 phones, ringers on, stacked face down on the table; first one who responds to a text or call pays the check.  No one lost.)

Tomorrow is another day in paradise.  No agenda yet, but does that even matter??

Thanks for reading!

Our day started around 5:30 with coffee and showers, and we hit the road by 7.

I started out driving, we stashed Glenda in the back, and off we went.

Our first 4 hours was spent just getting to the western edge of Tennessee, past Memphis.  We chatted about their childhood toys, crazy-ass drivers, feminism, the US criminal justice system including prison, traveling and its importance, our weird affinity for airport terminals, drunk-sobbing, the Lewis and Clark expedition, the deplorable state of our food supply and America’s eating habits, mainstream advertising, the horrifying nature of tarantula hawks, and that was just the first leg.

After Memphis, we took on Arkansas.  We stopped for gas just outside Little Rock:

We hit a lull just as we were getting to the Oklahoma border.

Conversation picked back up again on the last push into Oklahoma City.  New topics included guinea worms, philanthropy at what price, death by drowning in the context of Noah’s Ark, the surprising audacity of a billboard for a buffet at a restaurant called “Chair Crushers”, the Swedish chef, child discipline techniques, the absolute magic of books, the concept of checking your privilege, and school lunches.

We came in to our hotel to the sound of Busta Rhyme, checked in, and headed right back out to the nearest restaurant.  We’d been snacking on nuts and cheese and fruit in the car all day, so we were glad to sit down to chips, salsa, and beer.

I can’t end this entry without telling about the experience we had just as we were finishing dinner.  All 3 of us saw, well, really, one of the biggest bugs we’d ever seen…crawl across the floor at the restaurant.  To be fair, it was NOT a roach – it was a giant beetle, with long legs, rather slow, black – not exactly a rhinoceros beetle, but big and black and shiny.  We tried to get his picture, but he scurried under a high chair and we lost him.  Remember the family motto:  Life is an adventure.

Tomorrow – our boys!  Eliott is flying in to Denver and driving to meet us, Ben and Kirsten are already at Sam’s house.  Next blog from Salida, Colo-rippin-rado!

Thanks for reading!

And just like that, Road Trip!

Sweet daughter Amy has her summer work lined up:  she’s been hired as the sea kayak instructor at Camp Orkila on Orcas Island in Washington.  She has moved out of her college apartment in Johnson City, packed her car full of her stuff, and she’s gotten as far as Murfreesboro on her way.

Brother #2 is located, for his summer work, in Salida, Colorado, where he is employed as a River Ranger on the Arkansas River.  Handily, Salida is on Amy’s route to the great northwest.

Brother #1 is between semesters at CU Boulder, and will be in Salida with his girlfriend Kirsten for a few days of recreation.

See what’s happening here?  When any two of my kids are together I pine to be with them.  When 3 of them are together, I can’t be kept away.  And when all 4 are together — fugeddaboutit.  And with sister Glenda on the Memorial Day weekend break, this is one of those times.  Away go the textbooks, out goes the call for the house-sitter, pack a quick bag, and off we go!

6am departure time tomorrow.  3 Jordan women, 1300 miles (to Salida).  Friday night:  Oklahoma City.  Saturday night:  Salida, where the boys will be waiting.

Look for an update tomorrow night, from somewhere in the midwest.  We’ve done the St. Louis/Kansas route so many times on the way out to snowski, that this time we think we’ll take the southern tour across Oklahoma.

Here we go!  Thanks for reading!

Of all the subjects I’ve written about, plumbing may very well be one I’ve avoided.  No more.

I came home Thursday evening from work to a huge puddle of water near a corner of my house.  As I walked around the yard to see if the recent rain had left a standing puddle anywhere else, I discovered what I knew and was dreading – that, no, there weren’t any other areas that still had water visible.  I went into the house and to my relief there was no water in the inside, but if I leaned in closely toward the hot water heater/dishwasher area, I could hear the sound of water running.

I know a little about home construction and repair.  I have learned a lot of that since living in this beautiful, charming, quirky 75-year-old house.  I knew this:  I had a plumbing leak, under the house, on the kitchen end.

One of the charming things about this house is the way the construction of it tells a story.  In the beginning there was a three-room structure, and over the years another room was added, then another, and another.  From the outside you can’t tell this – the roof, while multi-gabled, is shingled uniformly, the siding covers all the seams, but underneath the house it’s a different story.  The subflooring reveals different materials, different levels, even different construction techniques.  The most contemporary end of the house has a cinder block foundation; the oldest actually has stacked, flat stones, the stones that are found all over this area of middle Tennessee.

The access hole to the crawl space is 2′ x 2′, which while not comfortable, is manageable.  Like all crawl spaces, there are pipes and cables lines and electric lines.  In the summer there are also scads of creepycrawlies.  What happens under this house however, is that the crawl space diminishes as you scootch toward the kitchen end of the house until you can scootch no more.  There’s a beam that cuts across the entire width of the house that is about 6″ off the ground – enough to shine a flashlight but not enough for an adult person to clear.  Ask me how I know this.

So back to the leak.  After my initial exploration and information gathering, I know it’s beyond my basic skills to figure this out.  I call a couple of plumbers early Friday morning – one can get to me Friday afternoon, one Saturday, and I schedule them both.  The first guy and I talk through the issue, he agrees with my assessment, scoffs at my “you-can’t-get-to-it-from-under-the-house” statement until he sees for himself.  He comes back into the house and proceeds to tell me that we will have to go through the kitchen floor, one area at a time, until we find the leak, and then possibly tear up a bigger area to repair it, depending upon what the circumstances are.  So of course the flooring will be sacrificed; the subflooring could probably be reused afterward, but obviously the covering would have to be replaced.  He said we’d want to use a carpenter for that work, and an installer for the flooring, and then whatever was necessary for the actual plumbing repair.  His estimate was $3000-$5000.

After I regained consciousness, I saw them off with their promises of beginning the repair on Monday, after having gotten their carpenter lined up.  I spent a Freaky Friday worrying about the cost and the repair and the mess.  I called my resident plumbing expert, Big Jesse, who talked me through his ideas all the way from Los Angeles.

Then Saturday’s plumber came.  After my insider talk with Jesse, he and I remembered the possibility that there may be a “scuttle hole” under the dishwasher or stove or sink or something.  So when Heath from Advantage Plumbing started looking around, we took a panel off the hot water heater, looked in and beneath the dishwasher, and what do we see?  Let’s let the pictures tell the rest of the story…

It was right there, right in the middle of the access hole!  Woohoo!  A little copper sleeve, a little soldering (what’s known as a bandaid repair), and we’re done!  Turn the water back on, shove the dishwasher back in, one hour of plumber’s fees, and I’m back in clover!

I think this is less about trying to learn a lesson or takeaway, and more about, in this case, I was just dumb lucky.  Btw, that’s the actual plumber and company if you have a need in the future.

So this post isn’t the most exciting or important, but it’s a day in the life.  Now if I could just learn to build bookshelves.

Thanks for reading!

In the Facebook age, there’s a phenomenon that occurs on one’s birthday that has created the awkward moment of wanting to accept each person’s well wishes, which one would do individually IRL, and feeling a little silly going to everyone’s page one at a time and saying the same thank you over and over.
In my case, my birthday was so delightful, and the sentiment from friends was so overwhelming, I need to express it with more than just a one-click effort.

The morning started with a skype call from my guy, on a business trip to Vegas, before the sun even came up.  Next was son Sam calling before he headed out on an all-day raft trip.  Then, my best study buddy and her wife call and serenade me with the Birthday song from 3000 miles away.  I’m not even out of bed and already the day is perfect.

Next is morning coffee, birthday coffee that arrived the day before from one of my brothers, and sunrise on the porch.  I know it’s freezing, but the view from the front porch of the sun coming up through the now bare tree branches across the pasture is compelling every time.  I get my fuzzy robe, a quilt, my coffee, and the dogs and I go out and watch the planet turn and bring the sun into view.  Waiting, waiting, and then finally, where just moments before you could just make out shapes and outlines, rays of sunshine so bright you can see them through your closed eyelids.  Another morning, another day to get to be here in this place and time.

Then it’s back into the office for a day of studying.  2L is coming to a close, finals are in December, so it’s wrapping up Constitutional Law, Criminal Procedure, Civil Procedure, and Real Property.  Another moment of gratitude for the chance to go to school, to have this academic challenge, to get to know all my classmates and professors, to explore this ever-fascinating field of law.  I keep my Facebook window open and watch the Happy Birthdays come in, each one a birthday present of friendship, each one a reminder of how so very fortunate I have been to know and love this fabulous person and this fabulous person and it goes on and on and on.  The phone call from first, brother, and then, mother and dad come through, along with the chit-chat of who they saw at church, and what they said, and what they had for lunch…the poignant, ubiquitous trivialities that today touch me as a indispensable connection to my hometown community and the family I still have there.

After study, it’s time for my present to me – a couple of hours out on the bike in the last of the fall’s pretty riding days.  The sky is as blue as I’ve ever seen it, the sun feels warm and delicious, even the shuffle setting I have on the iPod seems to be cooperating to create this perfect moment in time.  I’m singing along in my euphoria, not even caring that I have forgotten how one’s singing sounds when one has earbuds in, presuming one can carry a tune in the first place, when I realize I’m at a stoplight, and the passengers in the car next to me are enjoying the weather too, with windows rolled down.  As the light turns green and they roll past me, they give me a little applause and a laugh out the window, and because I don’t know what else to say, I shout “It’s my birthday!”, and I get a “Happy Birthday!” in return.  Child #4, twin B, is heard from, and we chat for moment, until I hear her chastise me like I’ve chastised her repeatedly:  Don’t talk on the cell phone while you’re riding your bike!

As the sun is setting, the beautiful inverse of the morning’s performance, with the brilliant rays getting lower and lower til they are no more, and the temperature drops instantaneously, I pull in to the restaurant where I’m meeting friends for a little celebratory brew and socializing.  We’re loud, obnoxious, and opinionated, a mix of men and women, young and old, secular and religious, and I’m enjoying the food and the beer and the company more than I can describe.  The Squeeze even makes it in from the Las Vegas trip, gifts in hand, in time for dinner and merriment.  We’ve instituted a phone rule for our get-togethers:  ringers on, 3 minutes to send whatever texts you need to prepare, then in a pile on the table they go, and the first one who responds buys the beer.  So I miss the call (you think I’m going to lose THAT deal?) from child #3, twin A, Glenda, but get the Birthday voicemail she leaves.

After much food, drink, laughter, and general carrying-on, the evening is over, I strap the bike to the car, and on the drive home I hear from the last child, who’s actually the first child, and his birthday message.  He tells me when his flight is getting in for Thanksgiving, and we talk about how excited we all are to be getting everyone together.

Finally it’s time to collapse into bed and catch up the way you do in a love affair when even hours apart is too long.  Cold night, flannel sheets, electric blankets set to Infinity, heat turned off, dogs across our feet.  Life is not just good.  It’s spectacular.

I know it was just an ordinary birthday.  I heard from old friends and new friends and Tennessee friends and out-of-state friends and old church friends and law school friends and young friends and not-so-young friends and every one meant something to me.  Some were just Facebook posts, but the relationships that those posts, and the phone calls, and the gathering, represent what makes up my world.  As they came in through the day, I spent a moment reflecting on friendships and how grateful I am to have this particular set of people in my life.  Hokey and cliche?  I’m good with that.

“For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only though love.”   Carl Sagan

What a beautiful way to lead in to this season of Thanksgiving.

Thanks for reading.