Mood Management: Asparagus, Books, and the Caprice of Clouds

Cooking adventures continue!
As a first-time spring Seattleite, I have to say...the weather here this month has been one capricious beast. (See how tutoring SAT vocab is rubbing off on me?) It will go from sunshine to stormy winds to full-on hail to sunshine again, interspersed with 45-second blasts of pouring rain throughout. Mostly, it's just been cool and overcast a lot, but filled with the confusing presence of blooming flowers and spring birds chirping. I don't know what to make of it. The general lack of sunshine, though, the past few weeks might be getting to me a little bit...or it might still just be my crazy hours. I've felt calmer lately in general, though. A little worn down, but mostly content. My foot's starting to show signs of healing, so that's a plus.

I'm working to keep up momentum in initiating positive change in my life, as much as possible...we'll see what direction the next few months take me, but I am simultaneously happy with where I am now and exhilarated by the possibilities for the future.

Some (temporary for now, for however long I need) commitments to myself I've made, as of yesterday:

- Read more. (Currently on my coffee table: Lorrie Moore's "Birds of America", which someone once recommended to me as the absolute best collection of short stories ever written. I can't even remember who gave me the recommendation, but I bought the book years ago and have let it sit on my shelf since. To its credit, I didn't give it away with the 70% of my books that didn't make it out to Seattle with me, but...it just takes a lot to get me to read short stories. I generally find them horribly unsatisfying...I don't like the constant goodbyes with characters I'm just barely starting to get to know. But this collection really is ridiculously good. My writing might even get pushed back into a fiction kick for awhile because of it...
- Keep a more manageable work schedule; No more months without days off.
- Tea instead of coffee, indefinitely.
- No allowing running injuries to keep me from being active. Usually, if I can't run, I just give up on physical activity altogether; the all-or-nothing personality in me is too busy being upset about not being able to run. So I really haven't done much lately - but I went for a long, brutally windy bike ride yesterday, and did an intense Power Hour at the gym this morning, and OI VEY have I missed endorphins!
- No junk food, also indefinitely. This includes chips, cookies, candy, ice cream, French fries, sweet pastries, etc...

I've tried going halfway on that last one, but I'm still making far too many compromises. I've spent six years wishing I were a health nut, and I'm just tired of wishing, instead of being. I quit junk food for a 70-day period my senior year of high school, and it was a good thing for not just my body, but my moods and soul as well. So I'm giving it a try again. So far, so good. My meals yesterday:

Breakfast: Oatmeal with raisins, cranberries, cinnamon and walnuts

Lunch: Rottini pasta with cherry tomatoes, peas and asparagus (CSA-share-food Alert!)

Snacky-poos: Apple, Carrots (CSA-share-food Alert!) with hummus

Dinner: Buckwheat pasta with mizuna (CSA-share-food Alert!), onions and walnuts

The sauce in progress.
Dessert: Vanilla yogurt with slivered almonds, fresh strawberries and agave nectar

Today so far, I had oatmeal again for breakfast, and for lunch, a banana/blueberry/strawberry smoothie and a ridiculously tasty salmon burger on a pita with fresh cucumber (CSA-share-food Alert!), tomato slices and tartar sauce. Yummy. Healthy food is awesome.

Feelin' good...

Music shoutout of the week: James Vincent McMorrow.

Cup o' Joe Monday: A Special Engagement

This week's Cup o' Joe is, again, actually a Cup o' Tea - and it comes to you from a very special space - i.e. the new apartment! Seyeon poses at our celebratory housewarming tea party:


Isn't her hair awesome?
This picture, obviously, was taken at night, so the bay windows behind her reflect more of the inside of the apartment. There will be more pictures in the future of the place, but not until Alan and I get some furniture moved in and everything organized and decorated. For now, it's just a heaping mess of boxes, and I'm camping out on the floor on a layer of memory foam with some quilts and pillows...so this photo shall suffice :)

Like my kitty cat (who will officially take up residence here sometime this week, too!), the tea pictured above hails all the way from Oberlin. It's funny how much emotional significance material goods take on once your concept of "home" gets thoroughly fuzzed up by so many moves and cross-country shifts in a short period of time. Anything from Kansas or Ohio fills with me an achy sort of calmness.

On a total sidenote, there are so many people I miss. The size of the world is an increasingly melancholy thing as I grow up and move around and meet more and more people, only to miss them all the more when we inevitably go our separate ways. So it goes?

Just learned I have to officially switch over my Kansas license and plates on my car in order to qualify for a residential parking pass to park on my own street here during the day...bummer. As excited as I am about having a Washington State license and Mount Rainier on the back of my car, I'll miss the ties to my home state.

(Despite the lack of writing about coffee this Monday, I must be honest: I've had coffee twice in two days...eep! Free Starbucks at the Keen clinic yesterday morning, and a tasty but overpriced "white velvet" at the previously-reviewed Espresso Vivace this morning to help power through my 8.5-hour Monday workday.)

But off the melancholy note, and onto a happy report of a wonderful hike I went on yesterday with a couple coworkers -> We climbed Little Si, a small mountain (big hill?) that stands humbly in the shadow of its respectable sister, Mount Si, just outside of North Bend...which is about a half hour's drive from downtown Seattle. The lush greens and autumn colors were incredible. + The rain held off until we'd made it back to the bottom and were on I-90 on our way back to Seattle.


  

Kate, Jeff, and me atop Little Si.
And so it was that my to-do list for yesterday could include: a morning clinic at work, a 4-hour hike, moving into the new apartment, getting takeout pho and watching a movie with Seyeon. Awesome.

Cup o' Joe Tea Monday: Celebrating the Arrival of Autumn in Seattle

Chai Rooibos Latte at Remedy Teas
Woke up this morning with bundles of energy. Given my newfound commitment to cutting down on my caffeine consumption, I decided to save the next few coffeeshops on my Cup-o-Joe to-do lists for weeks I really need the boost. Today, instead, Seyeon and I celebrated the arrival of autumn with an aptly refreshing trek to Remedy Teas.


This place is awesome. Each week, I feel like I'm going to new places that make me think, "Wow, now I've found my favorite" - but this one really trumps all so far, I believe.


Remedy boasts 150 varieties of tea, each described in full on their tea menu, with quirky flavors like Roasted La Creme (roasted green tea with white chocolate bits to create a marshmallow-hazelnut flavor), Precious Eyebrows (pure "chun mee" from China grown at high elevations, hand-rolled leaves for vegetal flavor and a plum-like aftertaste) and Iron Goddess of Mercy (organic oolong with chestnut notes and floral flavors). Each kind also specifies its caffeine content on the menu; much appreciated.


Does anyone notice a familiar, magical number here? Inclusion of it in my photograph composition is not an accident.
I ordered a chai rooibos latte - no idea there was even such a thing! Rooibos is a spicy, non-caffeinated South African red tea that I absolutely love, largely for its emotional associations for me with being in Holland, where it is wildly popular. The fact that Remedy combines it with my other favorite tea beverage - a chai latte - is amazing. Sipping this was like Holland in a Teacup.


Seyeon opted for their Green Energy tea, which again, as in Holland, was brought out in a glass pot and kept warm over a tea light. That little square pastry is a lavender shortbread tea cookie - not my favorite, but a nice sample nonetheless.


They also serve smoothies, lattes, matcha green tea, tea cocktails, and organic coffee, wine, beer and sake...as well as a host of locally baked goods, soups, fresh salads and tea sandwiches - again, in quirky options like Nutella Crisp (nutella + green apple + cream cheese on an organic date-nute bread with chopped walnut garnish) and Pesto Cream (pesto + cream cheese + fresh tomato on wheat bread with seed garnish). Everything is remarkably well-priced (sandwiches under 5 bucks! Unheard of in Seattle, it seems.)


It's got a trendy vibe to it - modern, hip, bright colors, big lowercase sans serif font - while being a quieter respite than many of the coffeeshops. It's a little off the main drag on 15th Ave, with gentle, melodic background music - and draws a different crowd than coffeeshops: folks looking to relax and be nurtured, rather than pump in the caffeine and get going with their day. Wonderful staff.


Bonuses: a sunny outdoor terrace, free tea samples all day long, free wi-fi, great merchandise, reading material, and probably the coolest displays of tea leaves ever imagined.

Introducing: Cup o' Joe Mondays

Chai latte, 15th Ave Coffee & Tea
On my last run, I probably passed at least two dozen coffeeshops in the course of my hour and a half out - and an idea that's been percolating in my head transformed itself into something I can no longer imagine not doing.


Sunday morning solitude and sunrise over Seattle
Once a week, I will try out a new Seattle coffeeshop I've never been to before and blog about it here. Hence: Cup o' Joe Mondays. Expect an entry every Monday from now until I get sensible and stop shelling out big bucks for overpriced beverages, complete with photos and reviews on the atmosphere, the amenities, the coffee itself...

I'm sure it's been done before, but...not by me! So, dear readers, we'll kill two birds with one stone - give you a feel for the multifaceted coffee atmosphere of Seattle, and get me out into new neighborhoods and learn my way around. So, for my first Cup o' Joe Monday...

My Starbucks > Your Starbucks


"Inspired by Starbucks" is a bit of a stretch of the truth. It is a Starbucks...just a carefully revamped one to battle the rage of the local-coffee-enthusiasts who shun all things corporate. Despite an incredible marketing plan and beautiful interior decor, many of the locals still all but spit on the place as they pass it on the street. Starbucks has an odd presence in this city; it's everywhere, but generally despised, with greater anathema than anywhere I've been before.

Sliding sales in the ailing economy caused this particular Starbucks to close down and revamp its entire atmosphere, in hopes of reclaiming some of the local clientele so devoted to independently owned coffeehouses on Capitol Hill. It reopened as "15th Avenue Coffee & Tea" a week after I got to Seattle. The espresso menu is still the same, but they also boast a bunch of full-leaf teas, bottled local microbrews and fun snacks like cheese and salmon plates. One wall is entirely wallpapered in pages of Socratic dialogues, another in huge stunning photos and paintings in wooden frames...the place has a very rustic cabin type feel, with big wood tables, vases of fresh unusual flowers, light displays made of clothespins, chalkboard menus and ceramic bowls full of coffee beans and tea leaves.


An incredibly friendly bunch of baristas, decent music to work to, free wireless you can pick up from the neighbors (Starbucks itself uses AT&T wi-fi, which costs $$), little molasses cookies for all, an outdoor terrace when the weather's nice and complementary coffee or tea tastings every day at 10 a.m.!