"Go at your own pace. That's what it's there for." --Dodgeball

[feldman]

So I'm haunting Craigslist for cheap exercise equipment and I come
across half a page of ads for riding stuff; bits, English saddles,
boots, jodhpurs, you name it. Apparently I'm not the only one
intrigued, as the last ad is
for this:

*******WHERE'S THE HORSE?*******


Just wondering.

Speaking of horses, or in this case draft pony physiques and my
chronic engagement with the topic of fitness, I'm totally looking to
cash in on other people's misguided New Year's resolutions. I got a
Nordic Track for $30 at an estate sale this summer and I'd like to
outfit the rest of a kickass gym for Casa de Feld for similar chump
change. Hopefully I answered soon enough on those weights for $65
(Olympic bar and standard set of plates, normally $300). In the
meantime, I snagged a jump rope and a small weight bar from Target for
twenty bucks.

Things I've learned from Craigslist:

1. Do not set up your exercise equipment in the basement. Even if you
have a finished basement, they just don't build them tall or airy
enough to want to spend time down there doing anything but laundry,
especially in the winter. Laundry is different because I think it
reminds us of freshening the nest, all those piles and baskets of warm
clothing. All those camera phone pics of exercise gear infesting dank
basement corners is depressing.

So the Casa gym is going to be in a spare bedroom until spring, and
then in the garage during warm months. I'm also thinking about
decoration and inspiration; paint, photos, art, and speakers for
music.

2. Don't buy anything that implies it will do the work for you, or
that it's relaxing or easy. There are a ton of squat machines, ab
loungers, mats, chairs and bullshit available and it goes
really cheap (if it sells at all) even if you keep all the DVDs
and extras it comes with. If you can't tell from the picture how it
works, people aren't going to buy it because they don't see the
Bowflex music video of oiled and sheened curves that made you buy it
in the first place. Some of the names alone are creepy and a lot of
them look like Farscape chairs.

3. Dude. No one wants your jumble of curl bars and unmatched plates.
What the hell am I going to do with one 45 pound plate, keep my
papers tidy during a tornado? Brain the next dumbfuck who blows their
snow out into the street? Use it as a pizza stone? Give it up
already. Sell it for scrap iron and stop posting it every damned day.
Or at least take a picture of the mess where it doesn't look like I'd
need a tetanus booster just to touch it.

In other news, I've been experimenting with whimsical produce
shopping: I wander through the market, pick out the things that look
pretty or yummy, and then figure out how to eat them when I get home.
I'm 35 years old and I just had my first persimmon. Of course, now
I've had quite a few persimmons, for lo they are delicious and one can
eat everything but the little calyx on top and the occasional huge
seed. The crotchity old coot eyeing me snidely as we picked them out
was right to be so territorial.

This weekend I made fried plantains (they were so emerald! and the
inexplicable band of strapping tape around each one looked so
naughty!) and baba ghannouj (aubergine! the official fruit of
Scullyfic!). The fried plantains are mild but starchy, next time I'll
cut them thinner. Baba ghannouj, on the other hand, is one of those
things that rewards the effort of making it at home, even if you're
too lazy to dig out the processor and just mash it ineffectively with
a knife and fork.

Comments

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

I've missed your posts. *g*

Good point about basements and gym equipment, and also persimmmmmmh!ons. (Just--aubergine? Not a fan here; they soak up grease like a sponge.)

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

Scrolling through Craigslist I've seen such a depressing litany of crappy subterranean gym failures. Concrete block walls and bare bulb lighting. I really think atmosphere is a huge but hidden component. Not that one needs a gazebo or solarium, you could be spare and functional, but it can't be musty and furtive.

You could succed in the basement, if you took inspiration from the Bat Cave or the Peacekeepers in setting up your space.

For the baba ghannouj I halved, lightly olive oiled, and oven-roasted the eggplant. Then drained the flesh and smooshed it with minced garlic and fresh lemon juice. I think it would be better roasted over open flame.

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Concrete block walls and bare bulb lighting. I really think atmosphere is a huge but hidden component. Not that one needs a gazebo or solarium, you could be spare and functional, but it can't be musty and furtive.

Wordy McWord. When my parents invested in a home trainer--one of them stationary bikes--I told them to NOT put it in the basement, for father would loathe to go down there (even though it is quite nice and was a good party room during my adolescence) and solitarily do his exercises.

Now, it's in the parents' bedroom, and lo and behold, my father does go on it for the Tagesschau, the public channel news at 8pm, for about 12 minutes, about every other day.

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

For the baba ghannouj I halved, lightly olive oiled, and oven-roasted the eggplant. Then drained the flesh and smooshed it with minced garlic and fresh lemon juice. I think it would be better roasted over open flame.

I like this idea; oven-roasting is quite a new fave of mine, anyway.

Also, I think a Bat Cave or Peacekeeper Basement would grow tired quite soon, don't you think? Perhaps not if you're a certain subset of geek. *G*

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

Speaking generally, not like a kind of shrine.

The Bat Cave was underground--but was well-lit and techy. It was a lair *and* a lab! The PKs have all that metal and red to relieve the black--gets the aggression up, gets the body stoked to work hard and sweat, booyah!

Like the difference between a quick oil change place next to the doughnut shop and a high-performance custom garage.

[krispyxf.livejournal.com]

Fried plantains! Yum! You're making me hungry. :)

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

Bwahahahaha!

[cofax7]

I love winters: persimmons and pomegranites! Yum!

I'm inspired by your fitness adventures. Not enough to buy any equipment: I have no place to put it, especially since I got TNG and her bed and crate take up space. But it's still inspirational, sufficiently that I shall head to the gym in a few minutes.

Oh, the glory days of the Scullyfic aubergine jokes. Heh.

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

Why did no one tell me about persimmons! Honestly!

The thing about my fitness adventures is that one of my motivators is fear and loathing. I fear how my genetic profile will play out in today's human veal environment, and I abhor the thought of being medically beholden to the people who are already pushing stylish and sexy glucose monitors, salivating at the predicted groundswell of Type II diabetes that's to come.

I just don't want to ride that ride. I'd much rather have full use of this body as long as I'm here, and that means working at upkeep. That's what keeps me climbing back on the wagon.

[kernezelda]

We have, or more likely, had a persimmon tree, and I vaguely recall tasting one when I was a teenager, but it was tart and I left them alone after that.
We had a banana tree, peach tree, apple tree, fig tree, Japanese cherry trees, and my dad experimented with growing chayotes, but they're all dead or overgrown now. We still do have scuppernong, blueberries, dewberries, blackberries, an orange tree and a pomegranate tree. Oh, and pokeweeds. Dad would boil the leaves in spring to make poke salad. Mom sometimes attempts to make jelly or jam or some such from the oranges, but they are incredibly bitter.
I confine my attentions to the berries, happily.

Mmmm, eggplant! Fried eggplant is terrific.

Good luck with getting inexpensive gym equipment.

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

The variety of persimmon I'm getting is "Fuyu" (snerk), which is sweet and rather seedless. Regular persimmons apparently need to be soft, dark and ripe to be sweet (at least, according to my "Joy of Cooking").

Your dad left quite the edible landscape, there. I'd never heard of scuppernong before, they look interesting.

[kernezelda]

Dad grew up in the country, and even after moving down here from Mississippi wanted to be a farmer.

He had a garden in the upper yard near the house where he grew corn, tomatoes, green onions, eggplants, collard greens, and Mom's flowers. There was a lower field with potatoes, watermelons, snapbeans and peas. In what is now the meadow, there were rows of okra and sugar cane.

The pond was full of catfish and brim and mullet (and the occasional moccasin or cottonmouth - fun!) and the ducks swam there (but we did not). We could fish from the side of the pond, and that's where I once caught Daddy in the ear with a fishhook when I was trying to cast. Eeeep!

At one time, we had pigs (Pork Chops, Mudpuddle), a bull named Bob, three heifer calves, turkeys, ducks, chickens, and rabbits. Unfortunately for Dad, neither Mom nor I were about to let him kill the rabbits for a Sunday dinner. On the other hand, I was all too eager to eat the pigs we'd raised, but Mom made us trade our big, fat, healthy hogs for someone else's when it came time to slaughter them. :(

FYI, watching a pig being slaughtered is both gross and fascinating, and makes a fairly indelible memory.

The scuppernong are a variety of muscadine, and are about the size of grapes, but thicker-skinned. We have the bronze-green variety, and I always view them with suspicion, because they make me think of my maternal grandmother's wax grapes, which were a nasty surprise to a tiny hungry child.

The persimmons Dad had were the tomato-shaped ones, and kind of mushy, but I suspect they were probably a few days overripe when I came upon them.

BTW, I love my copy of The Joy of Cooking. Mine was my grandmother's, dating from around the mid-seventies, and still has a recipe for green turtle soup, which is now illegal.

[rydra_wong]

and then figure out how to eat them when I get home.

I have got a lot of mileage out of Googling on "name of item" and "recipe" OR "recipes".

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

Exactly! Recipe google is also a good standby for when the pantry is running low or eclectic.

I also have a copy of "Joy of Cooking", and while many of the recipes are so-so, it has a very good encyclopedia of ingredients.

[scorpy808.livejournal.com]

That's interesting about the persimmon .... there's a persimmon tree out in our garden but one 1 tiny little thing came out on it last summer. I'm hoping for more this year so I can actually try one.

And you must try baked plantains as well ... just slice them, put them on a cookie sheet with a little olive oil at around 350 and check them in 10-15 min. Yummy.