“poor food”
My eating habits changed drastically when I came to Sacramento. Because I’ve been on a strict budget since I got here, I haven’t been building a pantry with my shopping; almost everything I buy is a subtantial meal item, for consumption within the week. This means I don’t ever sit down to partial meals, because everything needs cooking and heck if I’m going to cook less than I’m hungry for. It also means I don’t have baking supplies like cornmeal, sugar, or canola oil, or oatmeal toppings like nootch and molasses. I went out of my way to get cumin, though. And I’ve been using the “house” soy sauce even though it’s Kikoman. The long and short of it is that I’ve been (mostly) off of processed sugar, and you could set a watch by my mealtimes.
I go a little wild at the farmer’s markets, which are wonderful. I was suprised to be able to get (cheap!) walnuts and almonds, and there are some great apples (Winesaps, plus the best Golden Deliciouses I’ve ever had). Some pretty frilly purple basil caught my eye once, and I was eating greens-and-basil for the next two weeks. There was this great green thing that was kind of like broccolini but not sharp and disgusting; it had a crisp sweet stem, much less cabbagy than most brassicas. The only time I’ve bought a vegetable at the store was on the Monday I got paid—it was broccoli, which I haven’t seen at the farmer’s markets.
Anyways, I thought I’d share this graph of the main/non-vegetable components of my meals over the past three weeks (about 63 meals total):
Why so many lentils? Because they don’t need to be soaked before cooking. Also because they’re really, really good with plain yogurt. And did you know that steel cut oats take over half an hour to cook? I’ve had plenty of thinking time in the mornings. A few times I ate steel cut oats in place of rice, because Safeway was out of short grain brown rice until recently (and if I can only have a few things in my pantry, I’m going to be picky about the rice).
4 days, 4 new posts
Sorry to go all million-posts on you, but a lot happened this Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon. I’m worn out, just in time for the rest of the work week.
Monday paperwork
I went to apply for food stamps today. I’ve been told all along that it would need two different days; one to turn in the paperwork and get an appointment, which would just take a morning, and one to go to the appointment, which would take all day (the waiting, not the actual appointment). I showed up, did the paperwork, had the appointment, and got the EBT card all in about six hours of one day. Heck if I know why, except maybe because I’m a first-time applicant. And because I excel at waiting in line. More like, because my needs are not far-reaching or tangled up together, so they fit easily within the lines of the paperwork. I just have to bring my pay stub in to my caseworker tomorrow… and then I’ve got $152 a month for food. When they come through, I’m buying some ice cream.
more biking on Sunday
I slept late and watched a movie for breakfast. I wanted a donut but 12ยข doesn’t buy even 1/4 of one. In the afternoon I rode back down to the Bike Kitchen to tighten my seat bolts, but it still kicks up and knocks me in the crotch when I sit on it over a bump. There are plenty of bumps here in Sacramento, railroad tracks being the most obvious. I think the teeth are stripped. Possibly I can get a new seat-bolt when I go back Wednesday; I’m also hoping to switch out my pedals for some pedals with “rat-traps” (uh, those toe-basket-things).
At night I went to hear my roommate Ian play at a coffee house. He predicted it would be lame, but it was actually awesome. I got free beer, and missed Ian’s band but arrived in time to hear a band called the “Punk Necks”—as in punk-rednecks—play punk-bluegrass music. Plus there were multiple hotties there; I was beginning to think that Sacramento had some restriction on Freedom of Assembly for attractive people (then again, I haven’t hit the coffee shops yet).
Saturday spins
The first Netflix movies arrived. My queue is a jumble of 90s movies that everyone references, scifi old and new, and name-brand classics: Bond, John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe. I’m more excited than I expected to be about near-nightly movies, and I hope I don’t get dependent on the shiny spinning entertainment. Not that I don’t have a bad Battlestar Galactica addiction as it is.
I got out of the house around noon, though, and walked down to the Bicycle Kitchen to finish my bike. I was hot and tired and almost even grouchy after the hour-plus walk down there. So I walked in and didn’t see my bike, looked out back didn’t see my bike… and here I was just being blind, because it was on the stand in the shop and I had walked right by it. The guy who I had been working with last week had been working on it without me. In my head I threw a tantrum—I was definitely imagining ripping parts off the bike and throwing them at the floor, yelling, stomping out. Wicked immature, right. But fuck, if I just wanted a bike, I would have waited another week and just bought something ready-to-ride off of Craigslist. Or gone to the bike swap that was happening on Sunday. Anyway I didn’t manage to keep my tantrum entirely inside, because I was pissy and stormy-faced for a while, and grouchy all afternoon. I said directly to him that I wanted to be the one working on the bike, because I wanted to know how to do things. It was really frustrating to have this guy, who doesn’t know any more about bikes than I do, working on my bike with me standing right by. I’d rather have been working on it alone, and ask for direction and help when I needed it.
Anyways she’s mine now. I rode her home with a huge grin. On top of being quick and a perfect fit, she has this crisp white handlebar tape. Good thing I did that myself, because it’s in my sight whenever I’m riding. I took her out on the American River bike trail, and whenever I saw another cyclist since they were underlined by those white handlebars I felt totally qualified to bike among them. I named her Toes, and I am crazy about her.
Friday board meeting
I went to a CCRH board meeting. I was excited to see the big shots talking, but it turned out to be a bunch of dudes in button-up shirts sitting around a purplish plastic wood-grain veneer table, talking in to a teleconferencing setup with its wires splayed everywhere. I think they talked about some stuff that was happening, but unfortunately I was much more fascinated by socio-cultural aspects of it all. Lessons: 1. When asked if you know how to set up teleconferencing equipment, say “yes.” 2. Print the flyers in color.
CTC VISTA Project
The government is secretly made of alphabet soup. This is all the VISTA members at my Pre-Service Orientation.
Also, I have a blog for things relating to my service as a CTC VISTA.
latest aquisitions
I try to pretend I’m not materialistic. I am materialistic. I’m the kind of materialistic that is happiest in a world of $4 burnt pots, dump bikes, homemade t-shirts and perfect melting nubianna plums from the farmer’s market. I love walking home with my arms full–literally–of Sunday morning finds. That said, I will try to stop listing out every thing I aquire. Today I got a laundry rack and a burnt spaghetti pot. And some plums.
Bike news
Bike co-ops have been something of a fantasy for me over the past year. There were people in Portland working towards building up a set of shared tools and an occasionally-staffed space, and there was a friendly and affordable community-oriented bike shop, but I never quite felt comfortable getting involved; I’m no bike geek, and have been too time- and money- poor to become one. My Portland bike, though quite functional and much appreciated, was a junker rescued twice from the dump. Because it was very functional and very comfortable, I pushed all thoughts of other bikes to the back of my mind.
But then in August I borrowed a blue roadbike (make forgotten) and felt quick and sporty. And the move to Sacramento gave me the perfect opportunity to get a new bike. So I’ve been scouring craigslist and scoping out local bike shops, lusting after older road bikes, especially the shiny green ones. Meanwhile my bank account has run too shallow to buy a bike while waiting for that first stipend check. Today I went to the Sacramento Bicycle Kitchen to see if they had anything rideable that I could trade for. They didn’t.
So we went out into the pile-o-bikes and picked out a frame! And started to build one! Which was really the best case scenario going on in my head. (worst case: offer me a cheap dumpy mountain bike for $20. I would have felt ungrateful refusing and unhappy accepting.) My frame is a 1980s Univega (like the one halfway down this page, closeups here), about 56 cm, and had just wheels and gears. It is all scratched up but somehow the awesome doesn’t chip off with the paint. So far we’ve added a saddle (but the bolts are backwards), pedals, a stem and handlebars (TTT: one of the shop guys got really excited about it), brake cables, and a front derailleur. Next week we’ll do the shifters and a whole bunch of tuning, and wrap the handlebars. And then I’ll give some money, and ride away on my frankenbike! I hope to get involved with the bike kitchen beyond this, though.
Also, my roommate is playing the harmonica while washing his hands.
new, new, new
Sacramento is a world of new. Yesterday I went walking, looking for the health food co-op and the farmer’s market. Instead of rice and vegetables, I ended up with a new $20 bike helmet and a bunch of plastic crates, new-to-me furniture. As you can see, there is a pretty green one and a pretty blue one.
Today I started my job, which keeps getting better and better. It will have to level out (and possibly even take some dips) at some point, but at this point I can’t even begin to list everything good about it. Even my work computer computer is pretty sweet, and I don’t think I’ll die from using Windows, especially with Firefox (A+ to whoever pre-loaded it!), Crimson Editor, PuTTy, and FileZilla.
And last night, I finally had a relaxed conversation with my roommate. Until then our conversations had been pretty forced and matter-of-fact. On Sunday night he had band practice in the living room, and I sat with my door open and listened. His band, which includes a mandolin, is playing tomorrow night, and I am going. Also, he lent me a guitar, and “Guitar Method Book 1,” so that goal is now much closer. I am sorry to be so disjointed, but I am really tired.
Dog Nights
Tonight I’m alone in my new apartment with the dog; roommate A’s dog is an issue between my roommates. When A said that roommate B didn’t like being home alone with the dog, I figured that either B felt some unrealistic level of responsibility, or just didn’t like chasing the dog when she got out. But I judged the dog too fairly.
The dog ate all my chocolate. I left the door to my room open while I made dinner, and the dog ate the chocolate off of my bed and out of my bag. Ok, annoying dog. I closed my door, called the roommate, and watched the dog for signs of death. All seemed well: dog happy in a chair, me happy with lentils and yogurt.
I went upstairs, pretending to go to bed but actually looking for Sacramento addresses: a thrift store, a grocery store, a bike shop, a place I could get a not-used pillow. There is a crash downstairs. The dog has knocked the sheet cake A baked earlier today from a mix (”I do a lot of baking,” A said). The lid is by the kitchen door, the pan by the fridge, the cake still in a sheet but three quarters eaten and sticking to the floor. So that gets cleaned up, and I write a note to A with an frowny face. I put the dog in A’s room.
At this point I am sitting down to blog an introduction to my new home. The place isn’t dingy, it’s not crusty, it is carpeted. And the dog is scratching at A’s door. Or, as I open the door and find out, tearing up A’s carpet and the padding under it. Does A get the deposit back? For the next two weeks (until the dog leaves), should I make a point of developing a nightlife? Or would it be worse to come back to messy mischief?
Room Cleaning
I moved out of my apartment in May before I travelled this summer. Everything went in to one room at home, but before I moved to California yesterday that room had to be emptied. I did it! The enthusiasm-infusion I got from turning it into a movie definitely helped. Check out the movie.
on my way out again
15 minutes until Mom arrives to drive me to Boston. Still packing.
Update: the hotel has free wifi.
