Walking , Harold /Suzie, & Hippie Sickles

The weather is very brisk outside. A high front from the north, and winds from the east. This is the pattern that has settled in for the past 10 days, and it looks likes it's going to stay through the weekend. Yesterday I was up on the east ridge trail or the East Bay Regional Park with the dogs, and there was a puddle with shards of ice in it at 1:30 in the afternoon. It's clear as a bell outside. No rain in sight for the rest of the week. Cold and sunny. Fantastic weather for hiking, and I'll take this over rain any day.

I was up and out the door at 7:00 AM as usual with the muttleys, and I was a quarter of the way through our trail walk when I realized I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. Here I had walked 400 yards or so through the woods, and I was not aware of my surroundings. Where the hell had I been for the past 10 minutes? I was inside my head the whole time. There are wild turkeys out there, deer, owls, skunks, coyotes, raccoons, turkey vultures, hawks, eagles, bob cats, and mountain lions. It's almost as if I was walking in my sleep. Finally I became aware of the fact that I wasn't congisant of my surroundings and said to myself, "Wake the fuck up old man, and get out of your head, and in the moment."

You can go on the same trails everyday, and see something new if you take the time to look. I like to walk alone, or with the dogs. That way I don't have a conversation going on with someone. That's when I can get out of my head,  look around me, and take in the beauty of these hills. I have to work at clearing my mind of all the clutter of life, the what do I have to do tomorrow, pay that bill, work on this project, and on and on. The engineers of the world will never make a computer as complex as the human brain, never. They'll try and try, but it can't happen. It won't be organic.

I had two hamsters when I was growing up, Harold and Suzie. They were golden brown and white, and were actually two males or two females because we never did get any baby hamsters.They were my first encounter with a gay couple. They would get on that exercise wheel inside their cage, and go round and round for hours. Every time my head gets cluttered like it was this morning, or when I obsess about something over and over, I think of Harold and Suzie on that exercise wheel.

I have at least two more trail walks today, and I'm going to try and look around me, and keep the hamsters in my brain from running around and around.

Today I'm going to make a nice healthy dessert treat for me and Geri. Some people call them pop sickles. I call them hippie sickles. They're not that difficult to make, and their good for you health. It's great for the kids and they'll never know they're eating healthy, but you should tell them.

Here is how to make this simple and healthy dessert/treat for yourself or the kids. All you need is a blender and some pop sickle holders, which you can find on line or at Bed Bath and Beyond. Don't limit yourself to the ingredients listed below, the sky is the limit.

Peace,

Make Food/Not War


Hippie Sickles,  makes 4

hippie sickles

Ingredients:
banana
orange juice
water
blue berries
pineapple
mango
lemon yogurt

Directions:
1) Blend each of the ingredients by color i.e., yellow fruit, blue fruit etc. cleaning the blender in
between fruits.

2) Once you've blended one group of fruits put some in the pop sickle holders filling up 1/3 or half
and put that in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

3) Add the second fruit doing the same thing.

4) Add the third fruit etc. then stick them in the freezer.

5) When you're ready to eat them place them in a bowl of warm water to 2 minutes. Much
easier to get them out that way.

With these I only did two groupings of fruit, but like I said, feel free to be creative.

Food Consumption for 1-15-13

Breakfast: 1 piece of dense brown bread with apricot marmalade, 2 eggs over easy S & P

Lunch: Small bowl of stewed beef chunks with cannellini beans

Snacks: Nuts/raisins, pineapple, orange juice, mango, banana, lemon yogurt smoothie

Dinner; 2 pieces of Tilapia with capers, small salad w/frisee and nicoise olives, wild rice & a hippie sickle

Exercise Today: 4.5 miles waking what else?