Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Archives for March 2006

Getting back into it

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I didn’t exercise for a week and a half because first the kids were sick, then I was sick, and then I had to recover from being sick. I felt weak, I slept a lot, I had zero interest in food. I didn’t even make coffee for days.

Then last Thursday Rob, Nina, and I got together at 6:30am for a 3 mile run. Nina hadn’t exercised much in the past month, because she had a court case for three weeks, followed by an upper body infection. Three miles: easy as pie.

Or not.

It was much harder than I expected. Trying to exercise after a layoff always feels like I’ve never exercised before. And I’ve started feeling tired in the afternoons again — maybe exercise really does give you more energy. Moving my body beyond walking to the car and back felt good, though, really good. And this morning, when the alarm went off to get me out of my morning doze, I popped out of bed and thought, Whoo hoo! I’m going running!

Today we decided to go nuts and do 5 miles. Before the layoff, 6 miles would be our “short” run. But right now 5 miles feels like quite the hike. Rob had us run a few speed intervals in the middle, going at a slightly faster pace than normal for 2 or 3 minutes. We took a short break at the 2.5 mile turnaround, then headed back.

We did 5 miles in 49 minutes, which is actually fabulous news: despite the layoff, we really are getting faster. A 10 minute mile is quite an improvement. When we started running as a group, we were doing something like 13 minute miles (or…possibly…14 minute miles). Rob, since he’s lost so much weight, can go a lot faster, but he’d rather have people to run with, and he gets a fairly good workout with us. Nina, when she’s stronger, can probably do somewhat faster. I am the slowpoke, but I’m working on it.

I just wish it didn’t feel so much like I’m starting over. Rob assures me that it will all come back fast enough (pun intended, because, after all, he’s Rob).

Tsotsi: the review

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I don’t often have a visceral reaction to a movie. Usually I laugh, I’m bored, I’m intrigued. It’s not often, however, that I feel the need to flee a theater because of what’s on the screen. Darin grabbed my hand and whispered, “It’ll be okay, really.”

Tsotsi was a difficult movie for me to take, because a lot of the movie is about a baby in danger. I’m going to go ahead and spoil something for anyone who might go see this movie and might have the same reaction I did:

The baby turns out okay.

Tsotsi is a South African movie about the titular character, a baby-faced criminal who doesn’t even have a real name (“Tsotsi” means “Thug”). He and his band of cronies go out and night and do crimes in the glittering modern city of Johannesburg, with Tsotsi picking their victims, and then they escape to the run-down ghetto of the township on the outskirts of town, where everyone lives in concrete buildings topped with tin roofs. One night his compatriot Butcher kills their victim, primarily for the fun of it, and in the ensuing blame game Tsotsi beats up another member of their gang, Teacher Boy. Upset about what he’s done, Tsotsi runs out into the night, across the field, ending up at a posh upscale community. A woman in a BMW gets out of her car to fiddle with the automatic gate opener and Tsotsi jumps into her car. When she yells at him to stop, he shoots her, then drives off.

Only when he’s miles away does he discover that there’s an infant in the back seat.

What happens as a result — to Tsotsi, to the infant, to the woman he’s shot, to her husband, to his friends — is not “big” in the way it would be in a Hollywood movie. Tsotsi does not automatically morph into a nice guy — he has no idea how to be a nice guy. He doesn’t even automatically become a good caregiver, having had no care himself, raising himself from an early age. But things do change for him: his perceptions of himself, of other people, his relationships to his friends.

One of the most interesting things about Tsotsi is how there are so many factors in the story that are simply there: never called out, never given as excuses. Several times during the story we see giant billboards (they must be all over Johannesburg) alerting people to the dangers of HIV/AIDS. The destruction AIDS has wreaked on South Africa looms over both Tsotsi personally and larger segments of the society — the scene at the children’s camp is devastating. The divide between the poverty of Tsotsi’s township and the upscale elegance of the people he robs is gigantic — they might as well be on different planets. The BMW Tsotsi abandons is stripped bare by the time the cops find it. The only hope Tsotsi finds is this little baby. What it gives him the hope to do is strange.

Darin really liked this movie. I had a much more difficult time watching it. It’s definitely a welcome change from standard Hollywood fare, though — so many times we’ve walked out of movies and within seconds we can barely remember a damn thing about it (one reason I didn’t write up anything about The Matador, amongst other movies that I’ve completely forgotten). I can see why Tsotsi won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film — it’s not an easy story, by any means. But if you’re looking for something a little stronger and more resonant, this is probably a good choice.

Comfort baking

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I learned something new this week: when you’re violently ill for 24 hours, it’s not a “24 hour thing,” it’s the “stomach flu.” I haven’t gotten the flu very often, okay?

Anyhow. Whatever this thing was, it has completely kicked my ass for the past week. I’ve been lethargic and my stomach has felt queasy for days. I’ve been home a lot.

During this week, I’ve discovered that one way I like to pass the time is by baking. In fact, several times I was itching to get started baking something and felt stymied that I had to do something like, I don’t know, laundry. Or napping.

On Friday I made the Cook’s Illustrated recipe for shortbread. I burned the first batch. So I dumped the entire thing and got to making a second batch. Not that I particularly felt like eating any, and Darin certainly wasn’t in the mood for a cookie. (I’m a little disappointed, because while the CI recipe is good, it’s still not the kind of shortbread I want to make, which is the kind I get at a local coffee house: softish, flaky, very buttery. Maybe I can’t make it at home, but I keep trying.)

I picked up Chocolatier magazine (personally entranced by the “perfect chocolate chip cookie” recipe, just as Ivonne at Paper Palate was, but the deciding factor was the Chocolate Cherry Bread recipe, which I want to make for Darin) and 125 Best Cupcake Recipes by Julie Hasson. Yes, I’m currently into the whole cupcake craze.

I made the honeycomb recipe from Chocolatier, mainly because I had some honey on hand and because I love Violet Crumbles so much. It was fun to make — the part where the sugar-honey goo bubbles up with the baking soda is cool — but the end result screamed, “Extreme dental work will be required if you eat more than one crumb of this!” So I tossed it.

Yesterday, however, was the sine qua non of baking mania: I made a loaf of sandwich bread, I made biscuits for dinner (the best I’ve ever made! and the kids didn’t eat them! what’s up with that?), I made banana chocolate chip cake after dinner.

While I am enjoying some of the fruits of my labors (I am as fond of banana chocolate chip cake as the next person (the next person who likes banana chocolate chip cake, that is)), I’m not especially crazed to eat these things I’m making. I’m just finding that baking is very relaxing for me. The idea of mixing a whole bunch of stuff together and having a new food at the end is just deeply appealing. And very odd. Would never have thought it was possible, but there it is.

If When we remodel the kitchen, I am so asking for a baking area.