I Guess We Are There... Kind Of?

More gym equipment.

In one of the posts from last year, I posed the question “Mom & Dad, are we there yet?” in reference to getting through this phase of our lives known as COVID[-19]. It appears in Seattle and in most of the places Marc and I frequent, the answer is “yes”. We’ve been vaxxed, have been able to take a couple of trips via plane, resumed seeing people and I have been able to complete the rehab on my hip (still a little bit of work on the knee/calf, but that’s minor). My sister and a couple of close friends convinced us to buy a Peloton because as regular followers of this space know, the Becks’ need more gym equipment. All positives.

As for many, COVID took a toll on me mentally and emotionally. When I had a chance to look back, I realized it started last fall and it wasn’t until late winter that I really identified that I needed to take some steps to deal with it. True to form, I had to understand the who, what, where, when, why and how. This led to me seeking some professional help on the mental health front as I did not have the tools to figure it out.

Look at those crazy kids on Patmos in 2002.

Long time readers of this space know that I saw the 2nd plane hit the World Trade Center almost 20 years ago. At the time, I was working for a global investment bank which did not really tolerate “weakness”. Sure, they had counseling circles where employees could commiserate about the trauma they experienced, but no one actually trusted the system. We all likely thought that the facilitator would “rat us out” that we were “soft” and would get managed out of the firm. And especially as a ‘she/her’ on Wall Street, I was expected to “tough it out”. I did that and, by sheer luck, I ended up being ok and somehow met Marc less than a year later.

When I realized that I was feeling “off”, I realized that shame on me if I make the same mistake that I made all of those years ago knowing what I know now and not get some assistance. Fortunately seeking out mental health counseling does not have the same stigma as it used to have and I was able to find someone via referral to help figure things out.

I was going through my sessions and doing some homework via reading, etc. In the midst of all of this, Marc and I were able to go visit my family back in New York after not seeing them for 14 months. It was a wonderful weekend and really recharged me personally, which I was not expecting. [Random tangent: My Mom showed me this article, which made me laugh because my Rabbi used to give me these while I was prepping for my Bat Mitzvah back in the day.] That said, on the plane ride back home I had a sense of dread about returning to work that was more than the normal “ugh, it’s work tomorrow after being away.” In looking back, I realize that I had this feeling previously in the past few months but blocked it out because that was what I had always conditioned myself to do.

Hurricane Ridge - May, 2021.

The frustrating part was that I really liked the team I was on, enjoyed the work I was doing and had good leadership support behind me. It didn’t reconcile with the feelings I was experiencing. We were getting out for regular hikes, which I know has a positive impact on my mental health. I started examining my typical work day and seeing if I could identify any triggers. I was annoyed that I did not recognize this decline sooner so I could nip it in the bud. But that’s the thing - you’re living in the micro, and it is so easy to miss out on the macro things going on in your life.

What I was able to discern was that I switched roles in mid-October and that led to a steady cadence of 6am (sometimes earlier) meetings because the organization is more east-coast centric. By the time I would have dinner with Marc, I would be thrashed and was not good company because I had been working for 12+ hours. The schedule also made it more difficult for me to get my workouts in, which definitely impacts me mentally and physically. I also realized that I was pretty burnt out from doing 3 months of daily rehab from my hip surgery on top of my workouts and everything else. And I missed seeing my friends and having laughs in person.

My PT conjured up lots of games to keep me engaged with my rehab.

Right. OK. Fortunately more and more of our “people” were getting vaxxed so that was helpful in addressing the lack of social contact over the past 15+ months. The gatherings that I have been in have brought me true happiness. Hip rehab concluded in late April and I’m breaking records for mid-life career professionals hula hooping. Marc and I were able to resume a couple of traditions that had to be suspended due to COVID. That left addressing the proverbial elephant in the room - my current role, most of which I truly enjoyed except for the daily very early morning starts. That was the biggest issue out of all of it since it impacted my time with Marc.

With that, my last day at PwC is on Friday and I will miss the people I met at P-Dubs, who were generous with their knowledge and their time. They are smart and funny, and my last team, in particular, brought me tons of joy. I had the opportunity to influence many folks during my tenure at the firm in terms of teaching people about ‘product’ and mentoring a few people along the way on their career journeys.

Snowshoeing on Rainier - April, 2021.

I’ll be starting a new role at the end of next month, which I am really excited about. It also coincides with being back in the office in a hybrid capacity, which also makes me happy. More on that once I start up there with my new set of colleagues whom I am looking forward to learning from and partnering with to achieve great things.

And with that, onward!

Becoming Bionic and Being Thankful.

So you are working through a sports injury for a couple of months and in a matter of 3 days, you go from “hey, it is probably something that can be solved through cortisone shots” to “you need a total hip replacement”. Whaaa…..

The results came in before I had a chance to consult with the surgeon. I saw the MRIa (it’s a “special” MRI) report and while I couldn’t understand 50%+ of the words, any time you see the words ‘extreme’ and ‘severe’ in this context, it can’t be good. I decided to send it to 7 different medical professionals and they all independently came back with some form of “uh yeah, that’s a total hip replacement”.  Extra bonus for those professionals who were around me on a somewhat regular basis who made comments around the fact that I had no business functioning at the level I was in terms of hiking, weightlifting and cardio. Uhm, ok.

Lake Ollalie hike in between Christmas and New Year’s - 3 days before the news that I would be ‘becoming bionic’.

It took me about 12 hours to come to grips with this news, which included copious amounts of wine, frantic texts and manic web searches. I was fortunate to get an appointment with the person who is known as “THE” surgeon for hip replacements about a week later, and he was able to confirm that my hip was, in fact, in deep sh**. What was hysterical was that in the surgical consultation, he was trying to “sell me” on the replacement surgery with this gradual story and I just interrupted him to say “Hey, doc…. I’m already in. I talked to people and I know how bad it is. When can I go?”

[You can take the girl out of NYC….]

After some back and forth, I was able to get scheduled for surgery in 2 1/2 weeks. I am beyond fortunate that I work for an employer that was very supportive and has very established policies for taking time off for this kind of thing, and be fully compensated. So off to surgery we went and likely my inaugural step, in many to come, in “becoming bionic”. I did my research on devices - woohoo. I was fortunate to speak to a few people who had the surgery and I trusted. Two people in particular were a huge help. One is a cousin and one is a friend. Their feedback on the unwritten things was and continues to be so helpful. 

Torta Setteveli - if I only bought enough chocolate to cover the cake…. because enough chocolate wasn’t already included!

In between, we had to celebrate Marc’s birthday. I was trying to behave myself for 2 weeks in between the holidays and the surgery and that pretty much went to hell. Oh well, Marc’s birthWEEK celebration was fun and worth it, even with COVID - particularly on January 20th with a particular focus on the events of Washington, DC. PS - If you haven’t heard of Goldbelly, you should check it out. It’s not the same as going to that favorite restaurant for a special occasion, but it’s pretty awesome. I cooked and baked for Marc’s birthday knowing he was going to have to take care of me so here is my rendition of Prue Leith’s GBBO “Torta Settevelli.” Let’s give it up for finding a way to temper chocolate that didn’t make me insane.

January 20th - early am PT. If you don’t have anything nice to say….

Fortunately, no hiccups in any pre-op work (passed the COVID test) and I was rolled into the surgery suite where I saw lots of tools that you might see at a hardware store. They started “medicating” me pretty quickly so I didn’t have time to think about that…. Anyway they do the surgery and release you the same day. In between, they test you for walking and a few other basic life tasks. 

Enter stage left: Marc (aka Mr. WaterClown).

For the past month, Marc has been taking fabulous care of almost everything as I have recovered from surgery. And somehow I managed to NOT need to ring the literal cowbell to summon him to my beck and call (as opposed to ‘beckOn’) that we have from my running days. We were also so lucky to have a great support system to help the both of us - near and far with all sorts of “creative” gifts and food deliveries that made us laugh. Obviously with COVID, support is very different than under other circumstances. I put a strict no-chocolate/no sweets rule in place, but somehow that was circumvented because everyone figured Marc, the chocoholic, would need it since he was taking care of me. No comment.

One of the many crazy exercises that our Physical Therapist assigned me for rehab. Getting the left leg up is harder than it looks.

In the interim, I have been fastidious about rehab and rest, along with taking care of some Beck projects. I’m doing lots of cycling on the assault bike and making Rocky montage videos. (DRAGO!!!!!!!) OK, I have watched a ton of TV shows too, which is not a normal thing for me. But the comedy was a much needed relief for me so it was the right call (thanks, B(J)S, for keeping me on task there). We received so many well wishes along the way via text/email/DM from family, friends and colleagues — all of which were really appreciated. Some of the text threads have really kept me laughing in their absurdity… in a good way! We also have our outdoor COVID friendly set-up, which has helped a lot with people coming to say hi. 

I head to work on Tuesday with much to do from a rehab perspective, but THANKFUL that I was able to build a base on which to continue my progress from, as well as have the support of so many folks. Ups and downs will continue throughout the process. With respect to COVID, I hope that we are closer to the end than we are the beginning but if you know of someone going through a situation that would normally be helped with some hugs and human contact, also know that regular engagement also makes a huge difference when you can’t be together in person. Onward with a pic from a video that I recorded this evening for a good friend’s birthday.

Keeping it classy, as always.

Mom & Dad, Are We There Yet?

Me and/or my 2 siblings: Mom and Dad, are we there yet?

Mom and/or Dad (sometimes simultaneously): You ask me that one more time and I am turning this car around NOW! And I REALLY mean it this time!

When all of this started, I do not know what I envisioned but I am pretty sure that I was not planning on this lasting for as long as it has. This being COE-VID. [Side note: I have a friend who has somehow made it 2 words and she has hand gestures to go with it.] We are now coming up on 7 months into this very frustrating situation and I am guessing we have another year to go before things remotely get back to whatever “normal” will be “post-COE-VID”. It’s tempting to ask the question “are we there yet” or even “are we ALMOST there yet” but that seems to be a fruitless exercise at this stage for a variety of reasons. So off we go as life goes on….

I hope this finds all of you and your loved ones relatively happy, healthy (in all facets) and sane. If you are not in a good place for whatever reason, then PLEASE REACH OUT TO ME NOW and I WILL HELP! Remember that “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

How are we doing and managing COE-VID? As regular readers of this space know, we tend to be, uhm, very sports oriented and don’t get into episodic TV. Given that it took awhile for the respective professional sports leagues to figure out how they were going to manage player safety with competition, Marc and I needed to figure out a new post-dinner strategy. And I definitely needed to create a hard barrier between work and personal given the long-term work from home situation.

One day, Marc just compiled a list of shows that he thought might be interesting to check out. We came up with a plan where he would pick a show to watch and we would watch a season, I would pick a show and then we would jointly pick a show that we were interested in. Rotate through until we finished the series. It’s been entertaining as it’s been years since I cared about a show on an episode-by-episode basis. The plan has somewhat worked out.

Marc’s choices, which have actually all been very good, were Altered Carbon (I liked 1st season better than 2nd), The Umbrella Academy (I liked the 2nd season better than the 1st), The Americans (about to start season 5 and Keri Russell might be one of the more underrated actresses of our day), Veep (as much as I love and adore JLD, I had to stop as it was making me think of reality too much), Dear White People (overall very good) and I’m probably missing something else. Next up is Watchmen.

The ones we choose together tend to be cooking or travel related. We’ve watched Ugly Delicious, The Chef Show and Great British Bake Off. GBBO has LOADS of seasons so it is going to take awhile to get through all of them. But I actually like GBBO the best of all of the cooking shows that I have ever watched. The drama is purely about the end product and if the cake will collapse or not. It’s not about manufacturing BS between the competitors. We tried to get into Somebody Feed Phil and we both found it rather annoying. Loved Salt, Fat, Acid and Heat, but technically that was pre-COE-VID.

I’m still doing the podcast thing and I continue to suffer from having too many on my rotation. This one by Scott Galloway on “Algorithms and the Threat to Democracy” was a really good listen. The podcast subjects are mostly a mix of sports, entrepreneurship, fitness/health, tech/product, food and news. Many of them crossover into some of those other lanes. I’d say my faves are as follows:

• Sports (The Old Man & The Three with JJ Redick, Laughter Permitted with Julie Foudy, 30 for 30 from ESPN and Bill Simmons from The Ringer - the ‘Parent Corner’ segments are definitely humorous, especially to this non-parent)

• Entrepreneurship (How I Built This with Guy Raz and Founded & Funded from Madrona Venture Group)

• Fitness/Health (The Ready State with Juliet and Kelly Starrett, Doctor’s Farmacy with Mark Hyman and The Mind Muscle Project with Raph and Lach)

• Tech/Product (a16z from Andreessen Horowitz and Product Talk from Products That Count)

• Food (Eater’s Digest from Eater and Foodcast from Bon Appetit)

• News (Next Question with Katie Couric, Modern Ruhles with Stephanie Ruhle, The Prof G Show from Scott Galloway and Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway)

Most of the time, I am listening to pods while I am working out as long as I am not doing some intense cardio where I need to be laser focused on my pace and my timing like my OPEX “Pain/Gain/Sustain” style workouts. Those efforts, plus my weightlifting prescribed by our coach, have also been a savior for me on all fronts.

Other things (outside of work) that we have been doing to stay sane while not being able to entertain as much as we typically do is hike where possible, The recent smoke and fires over a good chunk of the month have been a real bummer as September is typically a nice weather month in the Pacific Northwest. Fortunately we have been getting out for hikes and walks here and there, so that has been helpful mentally and emotionally for me.

I’ve been trying some other things like taking a couple of online classes, which I’ll get into more detail about at a later date. I also attempted to bake, which is not something I typically do. Regular readers of this space know that the other Chez Beck household member tends to do those things and he does them REALLY, REALLY WELL! Too much GBBO, me thinks.

Bringing it all back to “Mom & Dad, are we there yet?”, I think we’re about 1/3 of the way through this. So that means being really focused on how I can ensure I get the right amount of sleep, not work too much and not stress too much about things beyond my control. Making that clean break from my office upstairs to downstairs to the kitchen and family room to relax definitely helps with me winding down before bed. Yes, I realize that I am lucky that I have that space. All of the above activities help with that. I’ll close out with, once again, if you are struggling and think you need help, please ask.

Baking. Jill. Weird.

Quarantine life has brought out the ‘almost impossible’ in me. A willingness to attempt to bake something sweet. Readers of this space know that I do not like baking savory things on the best of days but I could be motivated to do for the right occasion.

The issue when I do bake is that I rarely attempt the simple. And the problem with that is that baking is generally anything but simple….. if you don’t like to follow instructions to the letter. Ahem. It is why I enjoy savory cooking because I can “off road” in a variety of ways based on what is in season or whatever I may be fancying. Baking requires precision, patience and leaves very little latitude for error. Meh.

My other problem when I attempt to bake is that I tend to pick complex recipes by chefs I follow. I mean, if you’re going to go big….

With that, most of my baking has been in either the Bouchon Bakery cookbook or the classic Bouchon cookbook. Both eateries are owned by Thomas Keller. I am a big fan of most of his restaurants and one of the highlights was taking Lisa and Jarrett to Per Se when I had the “purple claw” from the Australian Walkabout.

In the past, I have made things such as his Quiche Lorraine on a number of occasions. I wouldn’t say it is complicated, but it requires planning and is a multi-day effort. From the Bouchon Bakery cookbook, I have made 'Bacon-Cheddar Scones’ because, of course, savory, cheese and bacon are involved. Also made were ‘Nutter Butters’, ‘Fuhgeddaboudits’, ‘TKOs’ as well as puff pastry made from scratch. This was for another special occasion dish made here at Chez Beck called ‘Duck Wellington with Mole Sauce’, which is Vitaly Paley’s recipe from Paley’s Place.

[Side note: When I was on Facebook back in the day, I tagged Chef Paley on my dish after making it and he complimented me on the presentation. Proud amateur chef moment. Anyway…..]

As part of quarantine living, Marc and I have started watching GBBO (aka the Great British Bake Off). It’s pretty fun and I must have had too much wine one night when I decided that I would bake something for an upcoming socially distanced gathering with some close friends. See, all in-person gatherings are now special occasions. And with that, I chose to make Thomas Keller’s ‘Oh Oh’s’ recipe.

I am unsure what the hell I was thinking (again: see wine comment above) because I had never rolled baked sponge pastry and I certainly never tempered chocolate. In case you never tempered chocolate, it is a challenge and requires that whole ‘precision, patience, whatever’ thing I mentioned at the top. And as with any Keller recipe, it requires multiple days of effort in the best of circumstances. Alrighty then. Let’s do this anyway!

The sponge was relatively easy to make and the cream filling from scratch was also pretty uneventful. I remembered Marc had made these previously and it was great to have some notes around scaling the recipe, particularly around the cream. I did find myself looking furiously at the oven to see about overbaking and doing the whole toothpick testing thing, a la GBBO. I’m such a wanna-be.

I doubled the recipe, including Marc’s recos, so I had a bit of buffer as I only needed 8 Oh Ohs to be remotely acceptable. Rolling the sponge with the cream was tough. Next time, I might err towards slightly underbaking as the sponge may cook a little once it comes out of the oven. I had to do a bit of a flip to get the sponge cakes out of the cookie sheets, but fortunately those went off without any problems. Got them all rolled and prepped to go in the freezer overnight. A little cracking, but not too bad.

Wait. What the hell am I talking about, “next time”? No, thank you!

Got ‘em rolled. Ready to go in the freezer overnight.

I checked on them dutifully, but had to be careful as I may have gone into hoarding mode when it comes to our collection of Crowd Cow meats and seafood in the two freezers we have. I barely got them in without scraping against anything. This required putting a special sign on the freezer to ensure everyone (all two of us) was careful with the precious cargo in the freezer. Normally I would have coated them the next day but the plans were in disarray due to the smoke and fires in the area.

We decided that plans were moving forward so I started with tempering the chocolate 48 hours later. Tempering chocolate is a complicated process, as I mentioned above. You cannot screw up the temperatures and you need to monitor it incessantly. You’re talking 3 phases. The 1st phase was just melting the chocolate from bar form. Standard. Then the 2nd phase has you taking it off of the double boiler and letting it cool, which TAKES. A. FREAKING. LONG. TIME. Then for the final phase, you have to heat it briefly and then get it on the cakes as quickly as possible.

Attempting to temper chocolate.

The 2nd phase took well over an hour. Kept stirring it. But the chocolate was taking its sweet time. It finally hit the temperature but we didn’t have a tempering fork, so I was handling the cakes with my hands and then even though we had the cakes with chocolate on a cooling rack, they still stuck to the bottom. An unmitigated disaster. Lots of f- bombs dropped. [Note that we had lots of f-bombs dropped the previous nights because Marc and I are fans of the Broncos and the Giants, respectively, and they both showed up in lame fashion on MNF.] Anyway, in spite of Marc’s best efforts with his baking expertise, I was pissed off. I realized I was going to have buy a bunch of chocolate early the next day and repeat the tempering all over again with some modifications.

Worked out the next morning and went to PCC. The cashier said I was well stocked in chocolate to get through the next pandemic. If he only knew. I also decided that tempering was out and that I was just going to melt the chocolate. Everyone was going to have to be ok with non-shiny chocolate and live with that. Oh, the struggles of COVID. Got the chocolate melted. Marc also recommended that we continuously move the cakes once they had been coated with chocolate so they wouldn’t stick to the cooling rack. I also decided to use 2 spatulas to coat the cakes in the chocolate. The good news is that both of those moves turned out to make a positive difference in the outcome.

Progress with pearls and everything….

OK, now we were talking. Get these bad asses in the fridge to harden for later in the day. Check. Brought them to the dinner party at friend’s house. They worked. I even got serenaded for some strange reason. All in all, good. But I’ll say that I’ll likely never temper chocolate again, much in the same way that I’ll never make puff pastry from scratch again. Yes, it is a point of pride to do both, but the taste is not demonstrably different and the frustration level is way lower. Call me lazy. I’m good with that. Now quiche crust, on the other hand, is something worth making from scratch.

Squats and Tacos, baby! Oh, wait… Cardio and Chocolate!

What September 11th Means To Me

19 years ago today, ~3000 people were killed, including a friend of mine, and many more have passed away since as a result of what happened at the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and in Shanksville, PA.

I was there and maybe some of you were as well. Below is my story from a year later after the attacks. The last paragraph obviously resonates a bit differently than in previous years given today’s circumstances with COVID and the events of 2020 in general. But the last 3 sentences still apply.

9/11 - A Year Later (9/11/02)

Many of you have been e-mailing or calling to see how I am doing today. I am grateful for your concern. I started typing something up for myself, but figured maybe it might be more therapeutic (and easier) for me to share this with you.

Well some days you just wake up and don't know what to think. This is one of those days. I decided not to go into work because I felt as if I would be re-tracing every step that I took that day and to be in the actual place where I saw it all happen was going to be too much for me today. But even with not being in the office, I still am re-tracing my steps at various points throughout that day, which included seeing the 2nd plane hit one of the towers and then watching that same tower fall to the ground not long after.

I also remember how happy was a few days earlier celebrating a big milestone. I was surrounded by close friends at Artisanal and spent the day with my folks at the US Open on a gorgeous day. I thought to myself that life was good. I spent the next day with my family at Luger's and continued to think life was good. After 9/11/01, I remember thinking how grateful I was that I was smart enough to know how good I had it (and still do).

Part of me still feels like it's not possible that this could have happened. Like it does not seem real even though I know it's real every day I go to work. The whole thing just seems so unfathomable - even a year later. I think a lot of us are just checking up on each other - many of my friends work on Wall Street, so many of us just remember what it was like to be "there" in addition to the loss of any family and/or friends. I'll never forget the fear that my family and my friends had when no one knew where I was for about 3-4 hours, and how panicked people sounded on my voice mail or on my hotmail account. I remember spending most of the next 24-48 hours responding to people as much as I could because they did not even know the difference between the WTC and the WFC. I was so exhausted and I think it took weeks for me to get back on regular sleeping pattern. I had to stop watching the news because the images on screen were being replaced with the ones I saw with my own eyes. 

At the time I was living in the Village, you looked downtown and you just saw tragedy and despair - and that is an under-rated description. You knew it was a beautiful day, but you couldn't see it because all you saw was smoke. You looked uptown and the city looked as defiant as ever. We had an extraordinary run of good weather in the following weeks and when you looked in the direction of the Empire State Building, you never would have known what happened. Seeing the walls of missing people ads was gut-wrenching. Most of the pictures had the missing person with a child, grandchild or spouse/partner. I cannot imagine the anguish of those families.

In the months following 9/11/01, my company laid off 10,000 people. The rumors lingered for about 2.5 months, which made an already bad situation worse. A strong chance existed that I would be one of them. I was not, but good friends of mine were. Working in an office that overlooked Ground Zero recovery efforts was difficult to put it mildly. Smelling the burning was not only unhealthy physically, but mentally and emotionally. And then they restored work emails from the morning of 9/11 on a random day 2+ months later. Reading everyone being panicked about my whereabouts on 9/11 literally made me puke into the garbage pail next to my desk. Yeah, the suit I was wearing that day went into the trash. Didn't need the reminder.

When 2001 ended, I was happy to move on to another year. The nightmares eventually stopped but I still hear certain airplane engines or helicopters that remind me of the sound that I heard just before the second plane hit. 4 images are forever embedded in my head from that morning - the impact of the 2nd plane, people falling from the towers, people running for their lives when the 1st tower collapsed (I did not see that one actually collapse but I heard it) and finally the 2nd tower collapsing. I doubt they will ever leave my memory. It all feels like a bad action movie all over again. 

One time I went to a party that happened to be on the same floor as the 1st apartment we sought refuge in (before 8 or 9 of my colleagues came back to my apartment to use my landline since none of the cell towers were working). I felt a bit uneasy and some of the memories came back. I stayed and toughed it out. (2021 ed note: Do not take this as advice. Do not tough it out. Get professional help) I still have trouble watching news related to this event. When I was in London recently, a commemorative special came on and the channel was changed immediately. 

But I also think of some humorous things that happened since then. As I mentioned before, 8 or 9 colleagues of mine took refuge at my apartment in the West Village. What I did not say is that most of them were very senior managers within Research (Managing Director level for those of you familiar with Wall Street) and they were in my shoebox apartment on Bedford Street. So we had a reception with Rudolph Guiliani a few months ago and a number of people who were in my apartment that day were at the reception with their spouses (2016 ed note: this was pre-crazy Guiliani). I was introduced on more than one occasion as 'the girl who let us camp out at her apartment and use the phones'. It was humorous because those anecdotes happened on separate occasions with a friend witnessing it each time.

So when this anniversary came around, I started to really dig deep, as they say, and think about how I felt on the days leading up to this day and the day itself. I constantly remind myself how lucky I am. I think I take the time to tell the people in my life who are close to me how much they mean to me. So many people that morning did not and will regret it for the rest of their lives. I am keeping perspective or at least trying to. As one friend recently reminded me, we had very little difference between the people in the WTC and WFC - we all went to work that day on a glorious Tuesday morning in September.  I just had the benefit of location that morning and that was it. But that small benefit saved my life…. along with quickly evacuating.

I'd like to make one thing clear though - while the tone of this e-mail has been somber, I am one of the lucky ones. Make no mistake about that. I have been able to resume my life as it was pre-9/11/01.  Many people have not for a variety of reasons. Some people, who maybe did not lose anyone per se, can't ride the subway - they get panic attacks. Little things that you take for granted are suddenly not so little. My life is good and 2002 on the whole has treated me quite well. I was in Australia for the wedding of 2 close friends in January, plus spent some time sailing in New Zealand and the Greek Islands. One of the gents on my trip to the Greek Islands, Marc, has encouraged me to stop and to smell the flowers a bit more. I was able to leverage a business trip in August and meet up with him in 3 different cities on the weekends, plus I'm planning on meeting him in Switzerland in October. (2006 ed note: I married the guy) Marc's a good guy and I consider myself lucky that he happened to be on my boat for the same amount of time I was onboard. So things are good for me and I'm not complaining.

They say every generation has their 'where were you when.....'.  For our parents, it was probably JFK's assassination.  For ours, let's hope it's this because something worse happening is just unthinkable to me.  So instead of waiting for something else to happen, I'm going to make my life happen on my terms.  Here is hoping that you are all doing the same. Own your shit - plain and simple.

PS — RIP Vinnie Bag O'Doughnuts.

Marc and I on Patmos (Dodecanese Islands, Greece)

Day 6: Mexico City —> Teōtīhuacān —> Mexico City.

We had a relatively early start this am to head out to the Pyramids, which are about an hour outside of Mexico City. Rodrigo, our guide, explained some basic things about Mexico City on the way out. For example Mexico has 32 states and you can see colors on houses, which represent political party affiliation. You’ll see pink, yellow, blue and red/white. The current President is a member of the National Regeneration Movement, which has a pink color. So it is why many of the taxis that we have seen have a pink trim on the outside.

We went out to first visit the Temple of the Feathered Serepent (aka Quetzalcoatl). It was incredibly impressive to see how much of the carvings are intact and how detailed they were. When we were at the Anthropology Museum yesterday, we saw the replicas. Now we were seeing the real thing. [Note to anyone thinking of visiting Mexico City: Hit the museum first before you hit the Pyramids.] So ‘quetzal’ means birds with beautiful feather and ‘coatl’ means serpent. We had time to climb to the top of the pyramid and take in views of the other two pyramids that were on tap for today. It was steep! Let’s just say these stairs wouldn’t pass US building codes in terms of slopes!

Rodrigo then took us to the entrance of the Pyramid of the Moon. Before getting to the pyramid itself, we walked through the Temple of the Butterflies (aka Quetzalpaplotl). We saw murals that were created in 100 AD. To say that this was really interesting is really not giving this enough credit. Much of the temple had been restored around the 1960s. We climbed up to as far as we could of the Pyramid of the Moon, which was also steep. Fortunately they had ropes to help you navigate the way up, and more importantly, the way down. The views were excellent and we had really good visibility in all directions.

After that, we walked along the Avenue of the Dead, where all of the governors lived. Believe it or not, citizens picked leaders based on actual intellectual knowledge in topics such as astronomy, geometry and geography. Ah, the good old days. It was incredible to find out that only 7% of all of the Aztec ruins have been excavated at this time. Lots of ruins, including pyramids, under grassy hills. We climbed up to the much taller top of the Pyramid of the Sun. It was crowded and step, but they had ropes to help navigate the climb up. And it was also a good workout, especially at that elevation!

Rodrigo then took us to a place where we learned about agave plants, which play a big role in mezcal production. These trees literally produce 2 liters of honey water 2x per day. The honey water is use for pulque. The tree we were checking out is 12 years old, and they typically live twice that time. 20 different kinds of agave are produced in the country of Mexico. We also learned how the worm in tequilla tends to add a smoky flavor, which I was able to smell. Finally learned about the different kinds of obsidian and how you can see through it!

We then headed off to lunch at Nico’s, which came recommended by a few sources, and said farewell to Rodrigo. The lunch at Nico’s was pretty insane in terms of the amount of food that came out. Tortillas of all kinds for days. I think I have eaten more tortillas in the past week than I have in my entire life. If you think I’m kidding, wait until you see the food photos on Dropbox. Excellent food and in a fun atmosphere. They did tableside salsas, guacamole and café de olla.

After that, we all headed back to the hotel and I went to the gym. The Maccabi Games are in Mexico City and throughout the week, more athletes and their families have been arriving at the hotel, and thus the gym. One person asked me while I was on the elliptical, “what event are you here for?” I responded with, “I’m here to eat!” Apparently I looked just athletic enough, I suppose. You can’t make this stuff up. I think I have a cousin who participated in these games a number of years ago, but I’ll need to check with my folks on that when we get back home.

We had the closing ceremonies with Rebecca and with Jason at Bistrot Maximo. Again, really good food and the sommelier really was into the fact that we were doing  only Mexican wines all week. So we talked about some different styles and were able to enjoy 2 more labels that we hadn’t tried yet. During dinner, we were recapping the worst meal of the week, which belonged to Rebecca. When we were at L’Opera watching the Women’s World Cup semi, she ordered something that ended up being “mayonnaise with a side of shrimp” as opposed to the other way around.

That led to the discussion of the escargot starter that we got. Rebecca then chimed in about how that dish really teetered along “the gross/goodness line” and she wasn’t sure where it would end up. This put Marc in stitches as he started crying from laughing so hard. As many followers of this space know, it isn’t a party until someone can get Marc crying from laughing too much. Well played, Rebecca. We ended the evening at the hotel bar, where more mezcal may have been consumed along with another Mexican wine.

Day 5: Mexico City

Happy 4th of July everyone who will be reading this sometime after the holiday.

We started in the gym with Jill on an elliptical machine. I biked for 10 minutes to warm up. I did our homework WOD that is supposed to be with a kettlebell but they only have dumbbells so used that which was awkward. Jill did the WOD after me and we got breakfast.

We all met up and walked into Chapultepec park for the scenery and then over to the Anthropology Museum.

This was a worthwhile museum to spend a couple of hours wandering around. Lots of well preserved artifacts from different eras and presentation of temples and tombs and art and society and traditions. I saw Jill a few times as we meandered separately around. At one point she told me to go get a picture of "the big wooden thing". The specifics beyond that became it's at the top of the stairs/escalator. When I saw it, it reminded me of Fazzino which Jill's family has many his works. I texted her that I got picture of the pre Fazzino. 3D art from way before this last century.

Too many photos to post here, but a small selection at the end of this post. For those that want even more, you can browse all photos on Dropbox.

Next up was a walk back over to Pujol again but now for a lunch taco omakase. Someone else's take on this from last September saves me some presentation and typing time. Notable differences now include it being 10 courses and they have you choose the pairing. Mezcal, wine/sake, beer, or mocktails.

I was asked about my food preferences since they had a list. At the end he asked if insects are ok and I said sure. Yes, ants were involved. Ant larvae to be specific which one server or bartender referred to as Mexican caviar.

The 10 courses were great and they substituted shellfish well. The mole at course #9 was great like Tuesday (and 2 days older!). The accompanying Mezcal tasting all afternoon was spectacular. All 4 of us agreed that the taco omakase was the one to do if you couldn't do both this and the regular dinner menu we did on Tuesday night.

While sitting at the bar, we got to interact with an Australian bartender who gave us some great pure agave syrup that was amazing. Plus more than one staff member recognized us from Tues and warmly welcomed us back. Jason and I both agreed that the two best Mezcals of the 6 we were served were Mezcal Real Minero (Largo) which was just solid daily goodness and Mayalen which was peppery for particular occasions.

We also learned that as the shift ends at 2am, the pastry staff start showing up for the next day. And the prep crew shows between 6 and 7am as the fresh food deliveries arrive to get the next full day of meat and vegetables going. 24 hour full operation!

We got out just before 4pm and got an Uber to the Frida Kahlo Museum. This was an interesting view on her life and what she endured while also persevering and creating some legacy. I don't watch many movies so I have not seen Frida.

We got back to the hotel 2 hours before dinner to relax just a little bit. Could have used 3 hours. Off to Sartoria to complete our very international 4th of July by going Italian for a great meal. It was very nice to take a short break from Mexican cuisine after almost 5 full days of it. We were all too full and tired to take on dessert. I know this may shock some readers.

Day 4: Mexico City.

Marc slept in and I ventured to the gym to attempt to minimize the damage from all of the awesome food and wine we have been consuming. All hail cardio this week. We got some breakfast and then headed over with Rebecca and Jason to Mercado Medellin to meet with the chef who was going to lead our cooking class for the day. We had 2 other students joining us - an expat who lives in Mexico City and his friend visiting from Nashville. Chef Beto and his sous-chef, Mario, were on time and gave us the lay of the land for the day.

We walked around the market and sampled loads of things. Chicharrón. Mole paste. Some meat. Mexican coffee (followers of this space know that this is ALL Marc). Cheese. Chocolate. We learned that Mexico has 143 different chiles! We also tasted tlacoyo, which is a tortilla that has beans and chicharrónes in the tortilla itself and then you put in a filling, which in our case had chicken. Yummy. Beto took us by a tortilla maker that makes 14,000 tortillas per day and it happened in a room that was smaller than my garage. Amazing.

Amongst other tidbits gleaned from the tour, piñatas were actually created as a religious object used for teaching. The original ones had a 7-point star, one for each of the deadly sins. You were supposed to hit it 7 times at Christmas. Fruit used to be inside as a reward for eradicating the sins. At some stage, it was commercialized for birthdays and other fun events with candy coming out, but no one really knows when that transition happened. We also learned that chocolate didn’t always have a positive connotation when it came to Mexico. Sacrifice was involved. Anyway, the more you know....

We headed to Casa Jacaranda to start cooking. It’s a really beautiful space that is very contemporary but also very comfortable. Linda and Colin, the 2 other guests on the tour, were a lot of fun and it was great having them join in because we had no idea how much food was going to be made today. Spoiler alert: MUCHO (my Spanish skills are over the top, as you can read).

The group ended up making tamales (a single one is called a tamal - no ‘e’ at the end), green mole with shredded chicken, salsa verde, tomato salsa, tortillas from scratch, and some other things. Beto and Mario had us vote as a group if we wanted to do savory or sweet tamales, and Marc took a leadership role and immediately piped in with ‘SWEET!’ They were excited as most people choose savory. They weren’t super sweet by Marc Beck standards but it was fun to make those.

As we were eating mid-afternoon (with an 8pm dinner reservation - hmmmm.....), we also sampled some more Mexican wine, which has really turned out to be a great exercise. The wines have been unique and we have learned a bunch. It’ll be interesting to see what we can procure back home. Last night, one wine from Pujol was a star performer. The food that we all made was very tasty and the 2 other folks got to take out some leftovers since one of them was local. Great - nothing went to waste. After the meal, Beto and Mario led a mezcal tasting for whomever wanted to try. I think Marc and Jason tried about 5 or 6 of them. I’ll let Marc talk about the different styles, if he chooses. The cooking class was a great time and a nice way to learn about the food of Mexico.

We got back to the hotel after 5:30pm, which was a tad later than expected, with a quick turnaround time for another big time dinner at Quintonil. I crafted a plan so we could slow our roll at dinner and not eat straight away, plus we all agreed that we already were so stuffed to not have the tasting menu. The food at Quintonil was pretty outstanding. The wine service could have been a bit better, but overall we had some standout dishes with innovative presentation. I have never seen a salad presented as a profile within lettuce. Marc ate more seafood (amberjack in case you are wondering), which is a win for everyone. Escalmoles (aka ant larvae) are a regular thing on menus in Mexico. And the panna cotta was not what we were expecting, but enjoyable all the same.

So there you go. An action-packed and fun-filled day. Special thanks to Lisa for watching the other Women’s World Cup semi that was boring as heck and keeping me up to date via text.

Day 2: Mexico City —> El Nevado de Toluca —> Mexico City.

Since we had the extra 36 hours before our friends arrived, I thought it would be fun to go for a hike to mix up the itinerary a bit. I checked out some websites on fun day hikes and settled on one that is ~2 hours outside of Mexico City that reminded me a bit of when we went to Crater Lake.

Marc was not really excited when I told him that our guide for our hike was picking us up at 6am this morning. But we managed to get up on time and Marc got his pastries for the ride out to our hike. Crisis averted. He also promised to return when we got back to try the chocolate cake.

Our guide, Carlos, was on time and ready to go. It was still dark for most of the ride out but as we got closer, we were able to see lots of fog over in the direction we were slated to hike at. Admittedly, I was also a tad nervous about the hike. The duration was fine, but I experienced some altitude sickness on a hike at a similar altitude during Operation Cincuenta. I wanted to be careful (see that, DAD!) and smart. Carlos gave us a couple of options, so we took the easier one that was ~3 hours of hiking and about 5 miles.

Off we went and we started at 13,500 feet to climb to a max of 14,500 feet. Doesn’t

seem like a ton of elevation gain, but at this altitude, you feel it quickly. We took our time and got to the top where we could see both lakes, although one of them was covered in fog at that particular moment. Then the fog quickly dissipated as we walked down to the lakes.

First up was Lago del Luna, the smaller of the lakes. As we approached, it started to get sunnier and sunnier so it was time to shed some layers. The lake started to show different colors, which was really pretty. We continued on to Lago del Sol, which allowed us to get a close-up of the summit of Nevado del Toluca. The fog was moving around rapidly, so we were trying to be efficient in getting photos. What was great was that we had the whole circuit to ourselves. No one else out there. Carlos said that on the weekends that this trail is packed.

We made our way to the other side of the lake and decided to eat a little before the climb out of the craters. Marc and I told Carlos about Crater Lake, which is still one of my favorite places that I have visited in my time in the PNW. He definitely wanted to learn more as we were trying to compare both locations. The fog started to roll back in as we made our way back up. It was a workout, for sure, and then I wanted to see if we could hike to a higher lookout point to get a better shot of Lago del Sol, which is obscured at the top of the official trail loop.

Fortunately Marc and Carlos were game, and we hiked up a bit more because we needed more elevation, right? The fog was pretty thick but since it wasn’t windy, we stayed up there for about 5 minutes and guess what, the fog moved out a bit. More photos. After that, we headed back to the car and started the ride back to Mexico City. Along the way we were held up by a traffic accident (no injuries) and then we saw a government car of some kind in a drainage ditch in the middle of a major highway with a bunch of police around. Hmmmm. You can’t make this stuff up. I wish we could have stuck around to find out what happened there!

All in all, Carlos was a fantastic guide and we were lucky to have him. We made it back, Marc got his afternoon pastries and we just chilled for a bit waiting for our friends to arrive.

While waiting for our friends to get settled, Marc got his 1st mezcal tasting in at the hotel bar. Honestly, it smelled absolutely revolting to me but Marc seemed to enjoy it, so that’s good. Him and Jason sampled another mezcal at dinner. I’m sure Marc will have more to say on this topic as the week progresses. Later on, we had a great meal at a local restaurant that included duck buñuelos (SO GOOD), pork tacos, chicken with mole negro, manchamanteles and escamoles (look this one up - we have precedent on this one from Operation Cincuenta). On the dessert front, Marc had a whole page on the menu dedicated to chocolate. All in all a good day.

PS - We will have a later blog post on food. Have no fear.

Day 0 & 1: Seattle —> Mexico City, Mexico

Most of our trips begin with an early flight based on our preference for being first flight of the day when possible. The European ones are closer to dinner time but they serve you a full meal and then everyone “tries” to sleep.

This one involved eating a regular dinner at home and then going to the airport for a 10:30pm flight. This is day 0. We walked over the the gate just before boarding time and they were announcing our names to come up and validate our passports. We had checked in online so nobody at SeaTac had scanned them up to this point. They may have been announcing a call to us for the past 30 minutes.

We stood around as the boarding was delayed by a ton of underage children traveling by themselves that had to be dealt with first. They finally went down to the plane and they took people needing assistance. We were in first class so we went next and the children were all being taken one at a time to their seat so not off to the fastest start. We finally got in and sat down and remarkably the plane detached from the boarding area around 10:30 which was amazing.

I don’t sleep well, if at all, on airplanes. Jill will tell you I can sleep on command just about any other time. She had some ZZZquil pills and I asked for some. It might have helped. The flight in the air was in the 5 hour range and there was some decent turbulence at many points along the way. I’m guessing I snoozed in small few minute doses waking up often as we moved into day 1.

We got off the plane around 6am which was the schedule. We were handed immigration forms walking off and had to fill them out among the masses before getting in line to go through customs/immigration. It would have been nice to get these in the last 30 minutes of the flight and been able to just walk into the line.

The non-Mexican line was insane but we worked our way into the roped area because before that it was just chaos. After a couple minutes barely moving, they randomly opened the ropes about 5 curves ahead and directed the line to start moving over the the Mexican immigration line. We moved up and into the people being sent over and they cut it off about 5 people behind us. This line moved way faster and we probably cut 20-30 minutes off entry time being over there.

Our driver was outside the customs area and quickly got us to the hotel. We unpacked most items and set an alarm for just under 2 hours later. I don’t think it took me long to fall asleep on command outside of an airplane. That was a great chance to try to reset to a time zone 2 hours ahead but not really losing the day and really messing up sleep at the end of day 1 as well.

We had a light breakfast in the hotel and then headed to the park (Bosque de Chapultepec) right next to the hotel to walk around. We were unable to withdraw cash from the ATM inside our hotel and we should have gotten some at the bank right next to it before walking around. We decided to walk up to the castle but there was a pat down / bag check area along with lockers but we didn’t have any local currency to get a locker. We were close enough to the hotel that we went back and got cash and ditched the bag for the morning.

We walked up to the Castillo de Chapultepec and were forced to drink the water in hand as they don’t appear to allow water inside a lot of places that you pay to get into. It was a beautiful place with some amazing art on the walls along with some museum-like collectibles on display and great views of the densely treed park around us an the tall city buildings beyond. You can see straight down Paseo de la Reforma from there which goes by our hotel. On Sundays, they close it to traffic until 2pm and people walk and bike it without the distraction of vehicles. It’s similar to Bogotá.

We walked back down the hill from the castle and grabbed the backpack before heading to lunch. It was a quick 15 minute walk to Contramar, which is a heavy seafood restaurant with hardly anything that didn’t include things from the sea. I used to tell people “I don’t eat my own kind” meaning creatures that love/live to swim (not a fishy fish eater whatsoever). I guess after Operation Cincuenta in Dec and now day 1 here I have to retire that statement. I ate 3 seafood dishes. Ceviche Contramar, a tuna tostada with avocado, and some taco like mahi-mahi. All very fresh and delicious.

We then walked from lunch to the Centro Historico area which has some pretty beautiful buildings and lots of activity during the day. We will be going here again on Tues with Rebecca and Jason so we looked around a little for pre-planning and went to the Museo. This shows the history of this temple that was built and then added 7 layers on top of getting bigger and bigger as it went. We had walked around a lot today in the sun without sunscreen and this museum also made me chug my water. So I was starting to feel the dehydration and sun on my neck. I told Jill I’d just sit inside the indoor portion while she walked around more. We ended up leaving and just getting back to the hotel to hydrate, plan day 2, clean up a bit, and get ready for dinner.

We ate at the hotel but they didn’t have the lamb tacos tonight which was a bummer. They did have something that Jill noticed - duck with mole and other goodness. That’s what I got and it was delicious. While we were looking at the menu, we decided that we tend to try to go with local wines and they had some from Mexico. We aren’t sure this will happen all week, but I confirmed we should do it if something seems interesting. Then Jill texted our friend, Erik Segelbaum, to ask about wines from Mexico and he wrote back quickly with 2 of 3 producers that were on the very limited list! Erik has many talents, with one of them being how to master beverage programs at restaurants as well as how to get a label into a top beverage program.

I ordered a really good margarita so Jill got a glass of the only Mexican wine by the glass. It was a cab from the oldest producer in the Western Hemisphere (thanks Erik) and then we just ordered a bottle for dinner. Believe it or not, it was good AND it was the cheapest red wine on the menu. I encourage readers to find out where in Mexico wine grapes are grown.

As we walked out of the restaurant past the fountain back into the hotel, I was staring at the pastry/coffee area. I had spoken with the guy working there earlier about opening time. 6am. Perfect! So after dinner he waves as he sees me and I loudly “woo-hoo” this occasion which raises a smile.

And with that we are closing the first very full day in Mexico for the both of us.

Day 23: Bogotá, Colombia

After the chaos of the past few days, and yesterday in particular, Marc and I had a much needed ‘sleep-in’ day. We didn’t really have much planned for the day since we were originally supposed to be coming back from the Amazon, so we just kind of rolled with it. Fortunately for all of my travel in my previous job, I was able to use my status to get us a pretty late check-out time as our flight is not until 1:30am tomorrow.

The city of Bogotá does a number of cool things fitness-related on Sundays. They close streets for pedestrians, cyclists, etc. They also run fitness classes in the street. We were able to see one from our hotel window. It was entertaining to watch. The sun was shining and the temperature was very pleasant (mid-70s). Marc and I had some re-arranging of our clothes in our luggage to take care of, and then we wanted to get outside since the weather was nice.

Our friend, Marcelo, is a Bogotá native and happened to be in town with his family. We were meeting them later for dinner, but he texted me in the morning about a good local market near our hotel in the neighborhood of Usaquin. Marc and I walked through it and he said it kind of reminded him of the booths at Pike Place Market back home. It’s always fun to see what people sell in markets in other places. We also checked out a local mall called Hacienda Santa Barbara (Go Gauchos!).

On the walk to lunch, I saw a sign for a place that teaches English called ‘Wall Street English’. Hmmm. Do they teach students how to speak like Gordon Gekko? Or is it more like this scene (see #4) from the movie “Stripes”? We had lunch at Local by Rausch, and Marc had a rum and coffee concoction called an ‘Aroma Café’ that he seemed to enjoy a great deal. Plus we tried a local dish that we hadn’t had before called ‘mazorca desgranada’ with braised brisket. Very tasty!

We walked back and watched Red Zone as we packed everything up. Marc and I have been getting a kick out of the Spanish announcers doing Red Zone (they use 2, as opposed to 1 in the US) during our time in South America. Interceptado! That was my favorite line. LOL. Unfortunately the Giants defense couldn’t do their job.... again, so it was a loss for Big Blue to the evil Cowboys. The game between the Cowboys and the Seahawks next week is going to suck as I despise both teams. 

Anyway we checked out and stored our bags before heading over to dinner with Karin and

Marcelo. On the way, we saw some more Christmas lights in one of the squares. They really do a great job with the lights in Bogotá. When we met up with our friends, they said that Medellín does an even better job with the lights. Dinner was way entertaining as we recapped our South American adventure, and Marc had some more fish. The choice of having some wine may have been suspect as we had to stay up for our 1:30am flight that was still 3 hours away.... And so it goes. 

You can find more pics of our adventure HERE.

Day 1: Seattle —> LAX —> Lima.

This post won’t win any awards for excitement as it was a travel day but I’ll lay the ground work for this latest iteration of ‘Marc and Jill take on a different geographic location’.

Marc and I got up at 3:30am (PT) to catch the 1st leg of our trip to LAX. Other than having to check a bag for the first time in almost 2 years, it was pretty uneventful. LAX is an adventure on a good day when you need to transfer, and it was good we had plenty of time. We landed in a “satellite terminal” and took off from a different “satellite terminal”. In that time, Marc really prepped for the long haul flight by finding all of the chocolate in the lounge. I’m guessing no one is shocked by this behavior.

The flight to Lima was just under 8.5 hours and landed on time, which was amazing based on previous flight history (yay internet!). Then I figured landing at midnight, going through Immigration, picking up checked bags (did they make it?), passing Customs and finding our car service would be a goat rodeo on to its own. I couldn’t have been more wrong. From when we landed until when we were in the car, it took 30 minutes. WHICH. WAS. AMAZING.

We got to the hotel, scored an upgrade with great views and pretty much crashed..... after Marc had some more chocolate that the hotel left for us as a welcome gift. Oh, and we were informed last night that no alcohol is allowed to be served anywhere in the country through Monday morning because of national elections happening on Sunday (tomorrow). Uh, what? This is a thing?

So we will be in Lima through Thursday, and then off to Quito for a couple of days before heading off to the Galápagos Islands for a week. Then we head to Colombia where we will be hitting Bogota, the Coffee Region and the Amazonas province. We’re going to have a little bit of everything on this trip in terms of scenery, culture, food, beverage, climate, etc. We’ll be doing some hiking and hopefully meetIng up with friends in Bogota. That said, the goal is to come back with most of the meds that comprise the “walking pharmacy” in my pack.

Thanks for tuning in. And we have discovered the hard way that Google hasn’t made any significant updates to Blogger in years, so updates from the road will be a challenge.... looking at app options now.

Adventures in the Kitchen....

One thing that has picked up in earnest has been some adventures in the kitchen. That took a back seat with all of the chaos with the previous job, so it's good to be back at it. 

I had a boatload of fun when ramps were in season. They may be my favorite thing to cook with and this year, I went a little nuts. Roasted on pizza, blended into pesto and chimichurri, sauteed with eggs, grilled with salmon and baked with lasagna. And of course, I pickled some too!

We have also been using the sous vide more because it's actually pretty easy and really ensures that the food is evenly cooked. It just requires a bit of planning, but is really handy when you may not have much time to cook the day of a dinner party, etc. In most cases, we sous vide the meat for a pre-determined period of time and then we just sear it for more flavor, etc.

For the first time, at the suggestion of a friend we tried salmon in the sous vide. It tasted really good but the transfer from the bag to the plate is really challenging as the salmon is fairly delicate. Gotta figure that one out because Marc actually liked it the flavor and the texture! If anyone has any ideas, please send them my way.

This year also had me doing some baking, which is definitely not the normal order of things at Chez Beck. I was determined to prepare a gluten-free version of Thomas Keller's 'Quiche Lorraine' recipe. At the recommendation of a friend, I used cassava flour for the first time. It definitely absorbs a ton of moisture so you have to work quickly. But it came out really well.... after 3 attempts. The recipe is not for the faint of heart though. Lots of steps and the timing matters. But well worth it.

Then I wanted to do something fun for a friend's birthday and she is really into strawberries, which happen to be in season locally around the same time of year. So I decided to opt for The Modernist Cuisine 'Strawberry Panna Cotta' recipe. It's not a hard one to make but the proportions are really important so the panna cotta actually sets properly. So yes, Marc is not the only one in the house that can bake and/or make dessert.

Finally with the weather being nice and all, we have been getting some quality time in with the Big Green Egg. Salmon, Duck, Pork and Chicken. I love that thing. Knows how to keep things juicy and make everything tasty. More food experiments to come soon.

Making Some Changes

As followers of this feed know, Marc and I have been going to CrossFit for almost 8 years. It seems hard to believe that it has been that long, but it has. Over those years, we have had the opportunity to make new friends, challenge ourselves and have much fun. When I was burnt out during endurance training for half-marathons and marathons, CrossFit was a welcome respite. And who knew minions could do box jumps!?!

Honestly, CrossFit was the first place I ever worked out in that had a positive and an inclusive atmosphere. No gym I ever went to prior had anything remotely close to that. I love how it is normal in every local to cheer on the last person finishing the workout. Keep in mind that each location is individually owned so no mandate exists to adhere to a "code".


It was awesome that we would travel to so many places and do a workout, and walk out with a bunch of local recos on how to spend our time in that region. Our family and friends tagged us as part of the "cult", yet a number of them soon followed and become even more "devoted members of the cult". That was entertaining, but it was also fun seeing them challenge themselves to do things they didn't think were possible for themselves. The phenomenon known as 'Harvelicious' is still the stuff of legend.

Over those same years, Marc and I have had some events happen plus, you know, we're getting older. So we recently decided that we needed to change things. Our interests have changed over that time. Marc still swims, but I run less and we do more hiking together. I definitely still run on occasion plus I practice yoga, but little things kind of kept creeping in making us wonder if we needed to change other aspects of our training to meet our goals.

Enter the 'Delaying Decrepitude' room. The 'No Excuses' room is still around, but is definitely used for more stretching, rolling, etc. But the "D Squared" room has some pretty cool things that will allow us to take our high intensity and strength training to the next level that is more inline with our individual goals. Marc has his goals and I have mine, and some of them do not overlap.

We are excited for this next phase and what it will bring. Obviously no change comes without risk. But you can't grow if you're not willing to adapt and adjust. It will require some adjustments to our routine and more planning on our end, but overall we think this will help us achieve our goals. I have no doubt that we will continue to drop in at local CrossFits when we travel, but for now, it's time to focus on 'Delaying Decrepitude'. Stay tuned.

Walk of a Lifetime...

About 2 years ago, I had heard about an area called 'The Enchantments' in central Washington. As we started to hike more and more last year, I became more intrigued with the 20+ mile "thru hike" as I learned more about it. I'm not a camper so I didn't have any concerns about winning the lottery, but figuring out how to day hike different parts of it became an interest of mine.

We wanted to hike to Colchuck Lake for my birthday last year, but unfortunately forest fires engulfed the area so that didn't happen. A couple of weeks after, Marc and I hiked 8 of the 20+ mile trail, and turned around at Upper Snow Lake. The hike was a grind with a ton of switchbacks and not very picturesque until you get to Nada Lake, which is almost 5 miles in. Lower and Upper Snow Lakes followed soon after. 

Then about a month later, some unseasonably warm and sunny weather were on tap. So Marc and I decided to do a day trip to Leavenworth and hike to Colchuck Lake. It lived up to the hype in terms of beauty and views. It was about 5 miles of the 20+ mile trail. It was a steady climb up but lots of nice things to look at along the way. We had such a great day but it was a long day with the 5 hours of driving to go along with the hike. I saw Aasgard Pass from the base of Colchuck and said to Marc that we have to try that next year.

I convinced Marc to do Aasgard Pass as a goal for 2018. Then I talked to one of the coaches at our CrossFit who said that we shouldn't just do Aasgard Pass, see a few of the lakes at the top in the 'Core Enchantments', and then turnaround, which was my plan. The 'thru hike' is a legendary hike here in WA state and if we're fit enough to get up Aasgard, we could and should do the whole thing. Plus Aasgard is supposedly hell to descend. So we did the 1st 5 miles and the last 8 miles of the 'thru hike'. Now we just had to throw in the middle 7'ish miles.

Easy, right? Well I figured we needed some level of training, which involved a fair amount of hiking to get us set with our gear, fitness, etc. Then I figured lots of leg work would be helpful. That same coach came up with a training plan for me, which involved lots of leg cranks (and swearing at this same coach). Yoga helped a great deal. We did some great hikes when we could, while managing avalanche risks throughout the shoulder season. My favorite was getting up to Hurricane Ridge, which is in Olympic National Park and can see from our house. We lucked out with an epic weather day when we decided to head up there.

I was doing a fair amount of stalking of reported trail conditions on the WTA site. Trying to find the optimal week to do this required triangulating amount of daylight, how much snow was on the trail, and decent weather. We also were concerned about the risk of forest fires shutting down the trail, which is a constant threat for this time of year. I booked a few different sets of rooms over July and August so we had options if the snow pack wasn't melting as quickly as expected, etc. But we were hoping to do July to take advantage of as much daylight as possible. 

Things started to align for doing this in the 1st half of July, and we somehow managed to convince one of our friends to come along, which eliminated that whole "how are we going to get the car at the start" problem since it's a point-to-point hike. To say it was great having this person join us is an understatement as Marc and I relied on him quite a bit during the actual hike. 

We had a plan, well because we are planners. Timeline, what to bring, what to wear, maps, etc. I told Marc that we should treat this as I treated race week for when I ran long'ish distances - focus on sleep the week before, hydrate, a little extra salt with meals, etc. The day finally arrived and we started before 4am so we could be on the trail hiking by 5am. It was light enough where we didn't need headlamps. It was pretty warm also for being at a bit of altitude so we were in short sleeves to start. 

Made it to Colchuck on schedule, ate some more, saw some goats who like to hang around humans before we started the climb up Aasgard. So I've been talking about Aasgard without saying why it is such a beast. You go up 1900 feet in about a mile. That is one freaking steep grade to make your way up. We had done some training hikes that would somewhat mimic that, but until you see the real thing.... we knew Aasgard had a couple of false fronts, so we had to keep focused and not get demoralized when we thought we were at the top and were not. 

Aasgard was hard - no doubt about it. It wasn't so much the ascent but the terrain. Loose dirt and loose rocks, which made it hard to get your footing. I kept my poles on my pack so I could use my hands on the boulders. It's a push on whether you should use poles or not. We saw another couple using poles and they were cranking. Others were using their hands. After 2+ hours, we made it to the top and fortunately were able to avoid the sun beating down on us for 80% of the climb, which was a bonus.

We made it to the top and the views were as advertised. Not many people, snow capped mountains, glacial lakes slowly melting, more mountain goats, and blue skies. We had a clear view of Mount Baker in the distance, which was a treat. When you looked down at Colchuck, it was definitely a sense of accomplishment in terms of how far we had climbed. 

It was surprisingly warm once you moved out of the breeze. More bugs than we were expecting up in the "Upper Enchantments". I was a bit wobbly towards the end of the climb so I needed to get some calories in me ASAP. We filled up water bottles in one of the lakes and just soaked in the beauty as we walked through. 


We did have a schedule to keep to because even though we hit the highest point of the hike elevation-wise, we still had 14 miles to go. So we needed to keep moving along. But we were enjoying the views of Dragontail and Colchuck Peaks, as well as Isolation and Tranquil Lakes. It sounds so cliche, but you really did feel isolated from everyone and tranquility was definitely something I was feeling.

My sports medicine doctor had advised of a couple of possible side treks to take but we didn't have a ton of time so we opted to stay on the main trail as much as possible. It still had snow fields to traverse in various places, but the whole time up there, you just knew it was special in the best way possible. We saw the various lakes and the well known Little Annapurna as the trail started to gradually descend. Lots of pics being snapped because it was JUST. SO. DARNED. GORGEOUS. 

We made our way to the 'Middle Enchantments' and saw Inspiration and Perfection Lakes. Plus we had a close-up of Prusik Peak. Sprite Lake was breathtaking. More awesomeness. t was bittersweet because it was so amazing up there, yet I knew our time was limited before we had to head down. Plus the likelihood of doing this hike again is slim.

The descent started to get a bit steeper as we hit the 'Lower Enchantments'. Leprechaun Lake, McClellan Peak and Viviane Lake continued to impress with their beauty. The trail was definitely more muddy at this stage so unlike wiping out in the snow, wiping out here would be less fun. We definitely had some "wet crossings" over rivers to cross that were also unstable for footing. My feet definitely went in the water a few times but it was so warm that my boots and socks dried quickly. 


Oh yes, the weather. The few campers we did see were in tanks and shorts (the Parks Department has a very strict limit on the number of people allowed to camp in the park at any one time and slots are awarded by lottery every year). It was easily 70+ degrees, which is very warm for this elevation (7000-8000 feet) and you were completely exposed in the sun. So we were drinking lots of water and using water filtration tablets/pumps to get fresh water from the lakes along the way. 

The last lake in the 'Lower Enchantments' was Lake Viviane. Somehow we lost the trail as we came upon that lake. That cost us a bit of time and was the start of me using my rear end to get down some pretty steep areas. Side note: Being short is not helpful when hiking and longer legs/arms would be helpful traversing boulders, carrying gear, etc. I was carrying about 25 lbs worth of gear on my frame while Marc who is a foot taller than me had about 35 lbs worth of gear. We made it to the Viviane crossing, which marked the end of being in the 'Core Enchantments' and the start of the true descent down to Upper Snow Lake. Filled up on more water and had about 10 miles to go. 

These next two miles were the ones I was worried about. Not a ton of documentation existed on how you got down from Viviane to Upper Snow, plus going downhill is not my favorite thing due to gravity, having short arms/legs, etc. We had maps, GPS, etc., but in any event, we lost the trail again. These things happen on hikes and fortunately we prepared for this. I have to admit though that I was not in a great place mentally when I heard we had to climb back up some really steep rocks in the blazing sun mid-afternoon and make it across some dicey gaps (thanks, KvT, for saving me on multiple occasions). But I also resolved that when I looked back on this day that I was going to focus on the beauty that we had in the 1st half of the day.

We got back on the trail and I started to think about how similar the roller coaster of emotions I was experiencing were to the ones I had when running half-marathons and marathons. So I channeled that experience and got back to the task at hand since we had about 10 miles to go (if you're a marathon runner, you know about 'the wall' which can strike at any time after mile 16). The descent was as challenging mentally as the Aasgard ascent was physically. It was getting later so then it was just about can we get back before dark. Upper Snow Lake was starting to get closer and closer and we eventually hit the south end of the lake. YAY!

Since we had done that hike previously, we knew that it was a gentle decline to the trailhead except for a boulder field to traverse. Marc and I also knew it was a very boring slog from Upper Snow Lake to the trailhead. After we crossed Upper Snow Lake, Marc changed shoes and the three of us just kept on trekking. The trail had changed since we had been on it with the boulder field, which made it "quicker" but more challenging for me, so I wasn't psyched to say the least. Then we started cranking again. 

With about 4 miles left, I noticed Marc slowing down. He informed me that he rolled his ankle and that he was just battling to to keep walking. His knees hurt from the gradual downhill and his hips were not happy. Ugh. Not good. We just kept moving trying to stay in good spirits as daylight was fading. He was a trooper. We hit the final set of switchbacks (25, in case you are wondering) when some light was still out there. About halfway down, we had to get out our headlamps - thanks, REI, for the "10 Essentials List". We were hoping not to have to use them, but that's why you have those items in your pack.

We finally made it to the trailhead - 17 hours after we started. We were happy and exhausted. Probably more of the latter. It took about 2-3 hours longer than expected. Oh - and we had to go get the other car at the start. YAY! Another 30 minutes. BUT.... as I said earlier, I knew that once we got some sleep, iced Marc's ankle, and ate, that we would look at this day as an epic one. We're not back at full strength, but we're both looking back at the hike as one of our best in terms of pure beauty. I've only attached a small sample of pics from the day. They don't do it justice. Look at more here.

The celebratory dinner may have been delayed, but it is happening this week. Serious food and wine will be had. 

You Just Never Know.

[NOTE: Originally authored for Modo Yoga Seattle's blog. They were gracious enough to ask me to write about my experience with the recent 30-day challenge.]

If you would have told me 15 months ago that I would be practicing yoga regularly, let alone completing two 30-day challenges, I would have told you that you were crazy. But here I am, and I’m better for it.

Some background. I am a Type A person who has the MO of “getting stuff done”. Make a ToDo list, complete it and create the next one. Repeat cycle. Before yoga, I ran and did CrossFit. I still do those and I enjoy all 3 activities for different reasons. [Sidebar: Yes, you can do CrossFit and practice yoga, and not spontaneously self-combust.]

I figured I would do the 30-day challenge in March because I was in between jobs and I had some extra time. Why not, right? My focus during this challenge was to ‘believe in myself’ after I transitioned out of a company I co-founded. I also wanted to continue to ‘be present’ and not multitask, which was a goal I set earlier in the year.

What I learned in the challenge was that “every day is a different day”. Your body works differently at 6am than it does at 5:30pm. Having the same expectation of your body’s capabilities for every practice is unrealistic. Just like life, right?

That 30-day endeavor inadvertently ended up preparing me for the most challenging period of my life. My husband, Marc, ended up having emergency brain surgery in mid-April and the recovery was stressful for obvious reasons. One person that I became friends with during the challenge helped out in a major way on surgery day with a small and simple act of kindness.

The lesson here is that you just never know where help is going to come from when you need it.

We had some other significant “bumps in the road” surface in that timeframe. Our friends encouraged me to keep exercising and set time for myself while all of this was taking place. So I kept going to yoga as much as I could while mixing in running with friends.

We certainly had our share of things that we couldn’t control, but you can control certain things and ‘gratitude’ was one of those I focused on. Someone always has it worse than you and setting that intention in class was huge in helping me remain focused and composed. Marc’s recovery was progressing in a positive direction, so the regular reminder during a tumultuous period was good.

Rose, one of our beloved instructors, had a great quote in a practice that said, “Don’t think about how far you have to go. Think about how far you have come.” We were at a pretty tenuous phase in Marc’s recovery at that point so those words really resonated with me and they still do many months later.

I also learned to just ‘accept’ what I could and couldn’t do on a given day, whether it was at a practice or in some other facet in life. Lying down and chilling for half of the class was surprisingly liberating and I picked that up doing the bingo in the 30-day challenge. Did I mention I like to get stuff done yet?

The quiet in the room added calm when everything outside felt pretty chaotic. It allowed me to prioritize keeping things simple as much as possible so I could take care of both Marc and myself. I still say to people that yoga was definitely a form of therapy as I was simultaneously dealing with multiple crises.

Fast forward to the 2^nd challenge in October, which had a backstory about some “unfinished business” for me (click here). In one of the workshops led by Kylie, she said something to the effect of “if you’re not willing to inspect, you can’t expect”. Another gem of a quote.

In between the 2 challenges, I had done a fair amount of introspection about a number of things going on in my life. I had made some changes, which were starting to yield results on a number of fronts.

By mid-October, Marc was participating in yoga practices 3x/week thanks to Brandon’s help. He had his modifications and the atmosphere at MYS made us feel very comfortable to just do the best we could.

Marc’s determination to stretch, sweat and recover from his multiple surgeries motivated me on days that I didn’t feel like getting out of bed at 5:30am to complete the challenge. But I did. My fellow challengers also motivated me when I was on the fence so we would make a plan to hit a class together. Marc practiced next to me as I finished day 42, which was my goal. 42 sessions in 42 days.

I’ve learned a great deal about myself from when I first walked into MYS in late October, 2014. Participating in the 30-day challenge not knowing what to expect gave me more than I bargained for. I absolutely recommend it and advise going in with an open mind. It’s different for everyone. And jeez, two 30+ day yoga challenges in under a year. Never would have thought that would have been me! But you just never know.

Adele, Jennifer Lawrence & Emma Stone Follow The Becks

Oh yes. It's true. Read on.

We don't like to travel around Thanksgiving. Generally getting anywhere is a hassle and is way more expensive so why bother. But circumstances from earlier this year surrounding Marc's health forced us to change our travel schedule for the year and so we ended up in NYC for the entire week. 

The line-up of restaurants was pretty deep but the list of people we were seeing was even deeper. We had a pretty ambitious schedule since this was our only trip slated for 2015. We had plenty of family and friends to see, and we were so grateful for the many who could work with our crazy schedule. In terms of catching up with folks, I was inspired on multiple occasions by the risks that some of them are taking personally and professionally. 

As someone who has taken their fair share of risks with mixed results, I know what is involved in making these decisions. Putting yourself out there as a founder/co-founder, trying to execute a career change or making a big life decision is hard work. And even after you make the decision, it's not uncommon to second guess your decision. On my end, it has been a somewhat tumultuous year on a number of fronts. But fortunately over the past 2 months, I've experienced and now see bluer skies ahead.

OK, back to the food and wine. I'm asked regularly on how I find the restaurants we eat at. A few are old stand-bys, a couple are recos from others and the rest I source from either Eater and/or Zagat.

We really didn't have any misses on this trip with respect to the restaurants, although Gabriel Kreuther is a challenge for anyone who is a picky eater. While they did accommodate us without a complaint, they didn't seem to have as many options as other places. I enjoyed the food and the wine, and thought the menu was innovative. The service was excellent.

My faves from this trip were The Modern (Dining Room) and Cosme. As it turns out, Adele, Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone were at Cosme the day AFTER we were there. Aren't we just the trend setters? Seriously the food at Cosme was excellent thanks to their signature dish of duck carnitas and if you know me, you know I love duck.

Other places that are worth recommending are Rebelle, Wallflower, Fuku and Orient Express (cocktails). We did enjoy the Todd English Food Hall at The Plaza Hotel, and Toloache. Volare was always Volare. And the breakfast sandwich place, aptly named BEC, was pretty tasty.

The wine list at The Modern was probably one of the best that I have ever seen in terms of diversity. A friend of ours that we met in Sydney, Australia is now the Wine Director there and really recommended some standouts. Well done, Michael, and congrats on all of the accolades.

Thanks to this article in Food and Wine, I was able to bring something different to Mom's Thanksgiving table from The Lobster Place. Score. 

We were very fortunate to get tickets to see "Hamilton" and I was worried that it wouldn't live up to the hype. I was wrong. The lyrics were so well done and the acting/singing was really well executed. I hear the waiting list is LONG to get tickets. It's worth the wait. Go see it. And by the way, I learned some interesting things about Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr in the process. 

Now I have to read Ron Chernow's book on which the musical was based on. Good thing I just finished my last book on Whitey Bulger yesterday on the flight back. Other recent reads include The Forgotten Man by Amity Shales and Enduring Patagonia by Gregory Crouch.

If You're Not Willing To Inspect, You Can't Expect

I heard the quote at a yoga workshop I took today. Sometimes I will hear quotes and truthfully, they won't resonate with me too much. It's probably more of a slight against me than about the quote. This one did strike a chord with me.

Yeah, it can seem hokey to the many cynics in my life but if you think about it - when have you been able to proactively make impactful changes to your life without taking a hard look in the proverbial mirror? 

The past 12 months have been challenging for me on every front. Personally, professionally and everything in between. It's required me to take some time to look within and see how I can be better. Better as a wife, an aunt, a sister, a friend, a professional and any other role that I have. Getting focused on what matters. Yoga and running have helped quite a bit. Our friends have been awesome. Family members have stepped up. But I found another ally in the aim to be more introspective - reading books.

I find that reading books helps with those kinds of efforts because it requires a focus that reading current events, social media, etc. does not. And I am a current events junkie so it takes a fair amount of restraint to not check to see the latest and the greatest happenings locally, domestically and abroad. That said, the events of the past year have required me to focus and look within more than I can ever remember. It wasn't easy and most of it was not fun or enjoyable.

One of the first things I decided as part of this new chapter is that I was going to significantly reduce multitasking. I started this around 11 months ago after an overwhelming amount of evidence started coming out that multitasking actually makes you LESS productive. The focus on reading books more recently has reminded me that I do have the ability to focus and to concentrate on the critical things in my life that need to be done. 

As I was trying to assess what my next professional move was going to be (outside of consulting for small businesses), I was recommended to read Steve Blank's "The Four Steps to Epiphany". Given that I have been a co-founder 2x and have consulted on and off for a number of years, I was stunned that I hadn't read this sooner. I don't know if it made me feel better but it reinforced why certain decisions were flawed from the start in both endeavors. Let's just say that it was a HUGE EYE OPENER for me and if you're thinking about starting your own business, you should read it. 

On a similar theme, I follow a number of entrepreneurs on Twitter including Ben Horowitz of a16z, a venture capital firm in the Bay Area. I enjoy his tweets and blog posts. When I found out he recently wrote a book called "The Hard Thing About Hard Things", I knew I needed to read it. He wrote very candidly about some of his biggest lessons learned and all of the warning signals he missed as he was making critical decisions. And this past year has been about making hard decisions and yes, some collateral damage resulted which is unfortunate.

A recent read included "On The Edge" by Alison Levine, which recounts her experiences climbing Mount Everest and ties in some leadership lessons. It helped that I had read "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer a number of years ago and then saw the recent movie "Everest" which was based on the same events of 1996 but from a different perspective. As far as quick reads go, "Into Thin Air" was one of them but it was good to get a different perspective of events by Beck Weathers, who was with Krakauer on that ill-fated expedition. 

Another fast paced read included "Orange Is The New Black". OK, I am probably one of the last people in the world to read this book but it was enjoyable and more so because a great friend gifted it to me when I broke my hand a couple of years ago and needed some reading material. I am only sorry that it took me so long to get to it. No, I don't watch the TV show and nor do I plan to. But I did find the book entertaining.

Awhile back, one of my running buddies asked if I had read "The Boys In The Boat" by Daniel James Brown. I mistakenly said yes thinking that they were talking about "The Amateurs" by David Halberstam, which I had read 2 or 3 years ago. Both were about rowing and competing for the US Olympic team but in different eras. 

Halberstam's book was very good. His books were very high quality. I particularly enjoyed "The Teammates", which discussed the friendship of 4 teammates from the Boston Red Sox (yes, this New York Yankees fan just wrote that) - Bobby Doerr, Dominic DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Ted Williams, who remained close for 60+ years. I'm fairly confident you wouldn't see professional sports players roadtripping today as these boys did, which is what was documented in the book. 

Speaking of the Red Sox, a couple of years ago I read Terry Francona's "Francona: The Red Sox Years", which he wrote with Dan Shaughnessy of 'The Boston Globe. Why did I read a book on the manager of the Red Sox team that crushed me in 2004? I like Francona and can't believe the amount of BS he put up with when managing those teams. He always seemed gracious and thankful that in spite of the crap that he thought he was the luckiest guy around.

I finally got around to reading the book by Brown while we were in Santa Barbara last weekend. Absolutely loved it. It made me sad following the story of the main character and his upbringing. It made me happy how much he was determined to overcome the many challenges he faced. Pick it up, download it to your e-reader or borrow it from your library when you have time. The research done for "The Boys In The Boat" was impeccable and was hard not to appreciate as the story unfolded in the book.

In different ways, all of these books have reinforced what I heard in my yoga workshop today about basically looking within before having any expectations - whether of myself or of others. Taking the time to bring life's insanity "down a few pips" by reading helps me get more calm and focus on the goals I have set for myself. I know that being a bit more introspective has helped me achieve some of those goals and am hoping that it will continue to be rewarding for me on all fronts.

Should Harv Start Writing An Advice Column?

Dad has lots of Harvisms. We covered this previously a number of years ago in the blog with the always reliable "take a steam shower, you'll feel better" quote from Harv. It's basically his answer to anything when you are not having a good day. Try it before you mock it. 

This quote surfaced recently when talking to a friend about Harv's latest fundraising endeavor with his local CrossFit on raising money for Barbells for Boobs. She has followed his exploits when Lisa or I quote him on Facebook, and said that Harv should have an advice column. I sighed and said "oh boy", which was met with a response of "he probably has some real gems for advice".

More "oh boy". So this friend happened to be suffering from some allergies so I sent over the above mentioned blog entry as advice that she should take. Needless to say, it worked and now she wanted more Harvisms. 

"Do as I say, not as I do" - this one was generally used when he was driving 90mph in upstate New York going to Oswego.

"Those pants will come back in style" - although this pretty much referred to HIS entire wardrobe. In the case of the picture, we're talking about a sweater that was bought in the early 90s and was worn to a 40th anniversary surprise party in 2008. I am willing to bet that he still has this sweater in 2015. Unfortunately I have not been able to dig up a pic of him in the aforementioned pants. 

This sweater was so 'ancient' that it was featured in the picture collage that Lisa put together showcasing the fun times of Harv and Yvette over the course of their 40-year marriage (now we're at 46 and closing in on 47). 

Since Harv joined the community at CrossFit Rapture, he has come up with new Harvisms at a rapid clip. He actually has pretty much invented his own CrossFit nomenclature. Why call them kettlebells when you can call them 'kettles'? Pull-ups are 'chin-ups'. Hamstrings started as 'hammies' and then went to 'hams'. Perhaps Harv should have some bacon post-WOD? Or maybe he is referring to Hamm from "Toy Story"?

Harv also likes saying post-WOD that he thinks "there's a conspiracy" between Marc, the Brothers Arikian (Dad's coaches and owners of CF Rapture), Lisa, Jarrett and me. I don't know what he's referring to since we're all pretty upfront about what we're trying to achieve at CrossFit.

OK, I found another awesome sweater pic from the late 80s/early 90s thanks to Lisa (see below). Still can't find a pic of him in these infamous pants that probably have gone in and out of style multiple times since the early 70s. We'll get a pic in a future blog post. 

One of my all-time faves was when we were playing soccer and he would yell to one of us "work it, work it, work it" as the ball was being dribbled up the field. Well it turns out Lisa was still playing in Massapequa when 'Pretty Woman' came out. I happened to be home for the weekend to see Lisa play and watched Harv do his thing. So I went behind him and channeled Kit DeLuca with this gem (note you need audio turned on). It generated many laughs from the parents on our sideline. Of course Harv said, "Very funny, Jill! Very funny!" 

I would have bought dinner that night but that would have violated another Harvism. When I was delivering newspapers (before I was legally allowed to because you know...), I would meet him at the local greasy spoon after my route was done on Sunday. The check would come and he would always say, "Don't worry, Jill. I got this. I don't want to ruin your amateur standing." 

Yeah, that's my Dad. He's pretty freakin' awesome. I might consider renting him out for parties... for the right price.

If you have Harvisms to share, please do.... we know many exist.