The Easy Loop

The Easy Loop is my little lie. Three or four mornings a week I get up, slide on a pair of running shorts, tug on a t-shirt, pull on socks, lash my running shoes to my feet and walk out the door. Most mornings I run the same loop, the Easy Loop. I’ve got increasing time constraints. I’m often on the Easy Loop before sunrise but can already feel the coming days pressures mounting. Or the unfinished business from the day before chasing me. The Easy Loop gets me out of bed when it is raining, when I’ve stayed up too late, when I’ve too much to do or just plain old don’t feel like running. The Easy Loop is my first cup of coffee. The Easy Loop is a little lie I tell myself. Not unlike those who set their clock 15 minutes fast so they can be sure to get out of the house on time. Do they not remember that they set the clock ahead? Is the Easy Loop ever easy?

We split out our minds in various story lines. We build homes with many rooms in our head and fill them full with clutter. I’ve a friend who has every upstairs clock in their home set 15 minutes fast. The downstairs clocks are set 10 minutes fast. I’ve tried to understand the logic but I can’t. Instead I call their stairway the Wormhole for its capacity to warp time and space. I never know when to arrive; upstairs time, downstairs time, or on time. But when I enter or exit their home I grab the door jams and shoot myself thorough to the other side. The entire house is a vortex, a time travel machine.

I have another friend, a wanna-be chef, who calibrates his oven down 25 degrees so it is never set too high. It is a slippery slope. I’ve cooked with him on several occasions and am never sure when he says “sauté over high heat” or “beat until firm”, exactly what he means. Which high? Which firm? I’ve told him that the whole mind game with the oven makes him slight untrustworthy in the kitchen. There is a precision in our language and our math and our sciences and our lives. Then we get involved with our personal games and our trickery. And all this would be fine so long as we kept these things to ourselves. But we don’t and we find ourselves time shifting and eating under-cooked meat. It’s a mess!

My fastest time for the Easy Loop is 17 minutes and 45 seconds. This wasn’t easy. My slowest time for the Easy Loop is 26 minutes and 53 seconds. This wasn’t easy. This is a huge range for a set run and distance. I can still run really fast and I can still also run really slow. The Easy Loop is the run I do regardless how I’m feeling, what shape I’m in, or what else is going on. Admittedly, about 25% of the time I don’t wear a watch. I’m sure I’ve never gone faster than 17:45 without a watch and I’m very sure I’ve gone slower than 26:53. Timed or not I’ve always got time for the Easy Loop, and I named it that for that specific reason. Most days I trot, shuffle or gallop around the loop in about 20-23 minutes. If I’m in that window of time, breathing moderately, and not feeling any odd aches or pains I figure I’m doing well.

The Easy Loop starts in front of my house. It heads up through the tree lined college terrace streets. I always run in the street and not on the sidewalk. At the top of college terrace it intersects with a bike path at the base of steep short hill. The bike path crosses Peter Coutts road and winds up along an elementary school. It crests another short hill and turns left along a row of Eucalyptus on one side and suburban backyards on the other. The bike path ends at a dirt path where you start a series of right turns. The path is quiet and protected by shrubs, trees and 12 foot high concrete barriers. The barriers end and to your left you can see the Stanford dish and the Santa Cruz mountains. The path turns right and right again intersecting back at the Eucalyptus trees and the bike path. From there you reverse your steps home detouring near the end to climb a shallow knoll for a views east, north and south of the bay, Mt. Hamilton, Moffet Field, San Jose, the bridges, San Francisco and the yawning pressure of the sunrise.

The Easy Loop isn’t long or demanding. But it isn’t really easy either. It is never easy. Running is hard. It is enjoyable but it is hard. I’ve been doing it my whole life, so I relax doing it. Stress fades away, my mind clears, and then sometimes I even think clearly. The big home and all its rooms and clutter clears away. The easy loop is what I do to my mind, the little lie I tell myself to get out the door.

All good things,
Wig

Pork, the other white vegetable

Did you ever see or hear that catchy pork commercial that went “Pork, the other white meat”. Who didn’t? Pork is the other white meat, isn’t it? That means it must have been a darn good advertising campaign. It is right up there with “hold the pickles hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us…” I hum the jingle every time I walk into a Burger King. But that is another story…and it’s a musical.

Back to pork.

A few years ago Jesse, Jonah and I were traipsing through an east Javanese jungle at the base of Mt. Semeru. Semeru is Holy Mountain to the local Hindu Tengger people who live on its slopes and in the highlands around it. We had been hiking for a couple of hours and as one will do out on the open trail, I asked the stupid theoretical question. I avoided the one about being on the life raft and having to choose which family member to save and the one about alien abduction. Those are good ones but I opted instead for; if you were on a dessert island what three vegetables would you choose to have? They dove into a lengthy discussion while I asked probing question about the selections, logic and recipes behind each selection. Eventually after debate and rigorous defense of veggie choices Jesse asked which three I’d take. I loudly pronounced potatoes, onions and BACON.

Bacon isn’t the other white meat, it is the other white vegetable. I adore bacon. Pigs are more vegetable than chickens could ever hope to be (not that I've ever seen a hopeful chicken). Chickens peck at the ground; pigs, onions, and potatoes live in it! Sometimes I’m embarrassed to say or admit how much I enjoy pork. Something about that claim feels slightly incriminating. Of course, that has to have something to do with Jehovah and Allah (both of them). If it wasn’t so good why make it off-limits? It’s like that apple, forbidden fruit always tastes better. Tell me I can’t have it and I know it must be good. If the twin God’s of Abraham hadn’t made bacon taste so good they wouldn’t have any problem with us grinding down a rasher now and again. But they did and so they do.

Bacon is one food you eat and don’t even consider saying that it tastes just like chicken. I know people who claim they don’t enjoy bacon. But that is like not liking salt! Still not convinced? Then take it from Quentin Tarantino via John Travolta (both of them) as Vincent Vega “Yeah but bacon tastes goooood. Pork chops taste goooood.” Well put gentleman, well put. I’m sure the big boys upstairs agree. I know I do.

In recent days I think Jesse and Jonah might be coming around to my way of thinking. Maybe they are not ready to call it a veggie but there is no doubt their love of pigs. Jesse recently wrote an article/blogpost over on Organic To Be .org, entitled My Son, The Pig Farmer (with Pork Chops and Cherry Port Sauce Recipe).

Then the other night at jZ Cool Eatery and Wine Bar, Jesse and Talia’s suggested I try the new pork dish on the menu. I bit into the slow (slow) braised Niman Ranch pork roast topped with a meltingly juicy pork belly and served on a bed of greens. The second (slow), is mine because to say “bit into” is a statement made true only by the bed of hearty summer bitter greens. The pork melts in your mouth, creamy, soft, sweet and savory. There was a time when you would only find piglet bellies in China Town…or China. But I’ve seen it on menu’s with increasing frequency. God bless those pork-loving1.2 billion! In this new dish at the jZ Cool Eatery the greens add a counterpoint in flavor and texture that makes every mouthful something to relish.

Don’t eat pork? Try sushi. The closest sushi comparison is a great cut of toro. Don’t eat sushi or pork? I recommend a Red Delicious apple.

All good things,
Eric