Things to do in Ithaca, NY
Three years ago when I moved here, practically everyone I met volunteered things to do in Ithaca, so as not to be bored. They felt it vitally important to share with every newbie—and potential former Ithaca resident. I kept hearing the exact same three things from the different people who live here. Someone would say “ohh if you like Mexican food, we've got the best Mexican downtown it's called Viva …Gimme Coffee has the best coffee…of course you’ve got to go to the famous Ithaca farmers market .” These things always came up as a tri…
Inexpert Guidance on Mindful Eating
Mindful eating is the practice of giving your full attention to eating and drinking, noticing what happens to foods as you process them. It is derived from mindfulness, focused on being present and fully engaged with whatever we're doing . When you eat mindfully, you focus on the loof, feel, smell, and even the sound or your food. And you pay attention to your feelings of being hungry, sated, and full. I don't have any rules for my mindful eating, but I've come to recognize some patterns that made me want to try mindful eating..…
England 2025: Friendly Recommendations
I can recommend joining an online group that feeds your passion, and befriending at least one group member; asking them questions and sharing messages (not in a weird way). I can recommend cultivating a real friendship with this person, and growing to share your life's challenges and triumphs with this friend. I can recommend planning to visit your new friend whenever you visit their country, and perhaps have to cancel if one of you gets sick. I can recommend maintaining the friendship, speaking via text or phone for the next year or so be…
Elderberry Syrup Recipe
My recipe is no secret. I've had a late start on my syrup this year, because it's just been so dang nice out. Well, the weather has caught up with the season, and last week I caught the cold that's been going around my office. While I had no syrup on hand, I was given daily doses of master tonic by my mum for the duration of the illness--around 5 days. Each year, I dig out the old recipe book for a reminder on what goes in. Finally it's fully committed to memory. One little change is this, the preservative: I use wither Vitamin…
Mindful Eating: Day 4...
How to mindfully eat a hamburger and fries...or not. On the one hand, I was not looking forward to mindfully eating my weekly hamburger and fries from Five Guys. This is because I wasn't sure I could do it. This meal is quite often scarfed down, book-ended by a handful of salty roasted peanuts. Questions in my head: Will I be able to do it, eat a succulent burger and too-many-delicious fries slowly? Chewing and swallowing the bolus before taking another bite? If so, will I enjoy this meal more than in the past? As with others this week…
Mindful Eating: Day 3…
Finding the time for mindful eating…Breakfast is a challenge. First, because it’s muesli. I’m not a fan of oats, so I must to doctor them up special to make them palatable. Practical DINK Muesli recipe: (random amounts of) Oats, unsweetened dried coconut, dried cranberry or currants, unsalted pepitas, raw sunflower seeds, cinnamon, and a scoop of raisin bran cereal. Next, I have grown accustomed to standing for breakfast, and shoveling it in (again because I don’t really like oats) , and I have rarely sat down to eat breakfast. So, Today, I…
Why I’m Trying Mindful Eating
I caught myself on two separate occasions last week, having consumed a delicious bag of Barbara's cheez & jalapeño doodles. I had no recollection of any enjoyment in either one. With this snack in particular, it’s just not like me...I love those things, and they often remind me of Friday evenings back in grad schools, when I worked in the multimedia studio—managing training and checking out audio/video equipment, lighting rigs, microphones, cameras and DAT recorders—late into Friday nights. My meal of choice back then was a pot of hon…
Feeling Sad? Write Poetry
I'm terrible at poetry, but this is what I felt at 5:30AM: You know when you were little kid, and you went to the fun fair, and you begged your mom to get you a balloon. From that diminutive vantage point you looked up and saw floating high above you, a gaggle of helium filled excitement. When you wore down mom’s resolve and you finally got the balloon it was tied by it’s string to your finger, and you imagined then the force, the rising force, gravity defying force pulling up, on the balloon also raised your hand and your arm into the …
There's Nothing Wrong with your Eyebrows
25 years ago my Chinese best friend told me that I had 'Chinese' eyebrows. This was neither dig, nor compliment, just an observation. She went on to point out the similarities between my brows and her brother’s. The resemblance was uncanny…I likely made a joke about us secretly being related, before we moved on from the topic completely. Four photos of my brows through the years:(L-R) my 20-year old somewhat thicker unadulterated eyebrows (me and Baby Jen), my 27-year-old heavily plucked eyebrows with some highlighting, then my 2023 e…
Walking in NYC
(and a bit more about my departed social anxiety ) Today we strolled to Moynihan Train Hall (formerly New York’s Penn Station) and I exclaimed to hubby, “I can’t say when I’ve been happier than this…this has been the best trip!” Then I kissed his lips—slightly sweet from the kettle corn that we polished off a few minutes earlier (purchased at the the 9th Avenue Food Festival) . His response was to warn me against hyperbole. But then I told him why…not only was I in the presence of my favorite fella, having just munched on my favorite snack,…
Start of Festival Season
It's Here, Finally... Back when I lived in Baltimore's queer hub, the Mt Vernon community, the Flower Mart was hailed as the official start of festival season. One weekend in May, Mt Vernon place/Washington Monument exploded in plants, music, and food. A view of the Washington Monument from our seat in the grass, at the 2023 Flower Mart. Friends and I would walk over from my apartment, usually hungover, to enjoy Flower Mart. It was the gateway...afterward we could then look forward to: the Pow wow (now being re-tooled as a better…
Remember Dating:
A Story from Our Archive: Dating Apps Back when we first started dating—maybe around a month in—hubby neglected to delete his dating app and got a ping from a lady for a date. He told me about it and I had a fantastic laugh at his expense. I did not ask to see the lady’s profile, and he did not share. Instead I had a bit more fun imagining what he thought he wanted. He deleted the app after some of my good-natured ribbing! In my mind’s eye, I imagined that he wanted a ropy white woman, of a certain age, who carried a yoga mat in the trunk of…
The Smoking Saga
Okay, so I started smoking when smoking was cool...sometime last century. Like classic convertibles, playing lacrosse, listening to the Grateful Dead, finishing the New York Times crossword, huddling for warmth in a wintertime circle of smokers, cool. In short, I started smoking in high school. For the next several years, cigarettes were a wonderful accompaniment to the all of life’s small and large milestones. They helped fill in the awkward pauses when meeting people in bars, between bands playing at the Side Bar. Between classes as an under…
On Socials