I cleared all my shoes out of the closet, vacuumed, and got rid of any shoes that were too worn, I never wore, or hurt even slightly (which means I never wear them)-- about 6 pair. Now I have 14 pairs of shoes, total. That isn't a lot for a woman, right?

I agreed to let a French documentary team meet me at the apartment on Saturday to talk about The Compact and anti-consumerism, then I'm taking them to a FreeCycle event in my neighborhood. And I forgot to clear it with Polly. And she's in the midst of packing and cleaning and getting ready to move.

I am a horrible, bad roommate.

I have an interview tomorrow at 8:25 in the morning on WBAI-- 99.5 FM in NYC. It is about the Mother Jones article and my plastic-less blog.

I haven't done a radio interview since playing Maria in The Sound of Music my senior year of high school when they dragged me and Captain von Trapp to the local FM station for some puffball 'ain't they cute' questions.

Wish me luck-- especially in dragging my ass out of bed early enough to be on time. I have to do the invterview on a land line, don't have one at home, so am going to the office early.

The photo shoot happened today. The plan was to meet at Union Square greenmarket to drop off my compost and get some shots, then move to Astoria for shots in my apartment and neighborhood. We ended up shooting 5 rolls of film (real old fashioned camera work here- not digital!), all in the greenmarket. Have you ever been there before when there was a photo shoot or film crew and you are annoyed because it is crowded already, they're in your way and you just want to do your shopping? Well I was the annoying one today.

I applied a little make-up, no more than normal, and worked my hair over with a curling iron. So it was me on a good hair day. I wore jeans, a black jacket given to me by ktbdiva, a scarf and some fingerless gloves that I knit myself. And my Danskos. About 20 minutes in to the shoot, the assistant photographer pointed out they were different colors. I was in a hurry leaving the house and wore 2 different shoes, one from my beat up old black pair and the other from the new maroon pair. Oh. My. Cruise. So embarrassed. They thought I did it on purpose!

About the guy assisting Erica, the photographer-- he was really attractive. He was holding the shiny round thing to reflect light on my face, so of course he spent a lot of the afternoon looking right at me. I'd catch his eye every now and then, smile loopily and have to look away really fast.

By the end I was feeling pretty freaked out. I was cold, hungry, loopy from catching the cute guy's eyes too many times, had to pee, and having that much attention focused on me for 2 hours was getting to me. Not just the photographers, but passers by. With head shots, you know what the photos are for and have control over choosing them and how they are used. With this its out of my hands. I know the photographer does really excellent work so I'm not worried. I'm just saying the feel of the shoot was completely different from getting head shots done.

I hope Erica got the pictures she wanted. Can't wait to see how they come out.

I've decided to try to learn how to belt. As in imitate Ethel Merman. Because I damn well feel like it, that's why. Because I think it may have interesting things to teach me about chest voice that I can apply to opera rep. Because if I ever teach voice again I'll need to know how belting works for the music theater kids. In grad school I got away with an airy 'oh, I can teach you basic classical technique and you can use it as a basis for anything you want to do'. Not gonna cut it long term. Finally, because I think it'll be FUN. Hee!

In other news, my plastic reduction blog (plasticless.blogspot.com) is being featured in a magazine coming out in May. They are sending a photographer in the next week or so. gulp.

My questions of 'do I really want my 15 minutes to be about this?' may be moot at this point.

One more-- taking a break just now from watching King Corn on Netflix. A summer in college working at a beef packing plant did not turn me off meat. This might.

Just took the 2nd batch of bread pudding out of the oven and it smells DIVINE.  (Sorry funnygirl78-- the croutons sound tasty but as I don't have salad ingredients around, and as that first batch of bread pudding was so good I wanted more, pudding it is.)

There are still leftovers from Ladies Who Dine, in the form of the pudding, a little bit of each type of fondue and a batch of pesto made from the leftover basil.  Considering that dinner fed 6 and I will have eaten lunch and dinner for an entire week from the leftovers, the price of the meal has gone way down.

My wallet is still empty- I haven't needed to get cash for anything this week.  Change from my piggy bank today to purchased 1 qt. milk and 6 eggs ($2.09), then after my coaching this afternoon I picked up 3 oranges and a carrot ($1.13).  I did write 2 checks for Sing Thing and my coaching.  Tomorrow I'll get cash to pay for Girls' Night.

It's been kind of fun!  I like the idea of doing this once a month or so-- a Buy Nothing Week.

Bedtime Challenge-- I've been pushing it, getting to bed at 12:30.  But, I'm having an easier time getting out of bed in the morning.  I feel like my body is getting back into the groove.

I spent time over the weekend getting my bank accounts reconciled and comparing income/expenses from January and February.  I'd been putting it off.  Actually things aren't as bad as I thought they'd be.  I have to nip into savings to pay my health insurance this month, but that's it.  Hours at my desk job have been basically cut in half for 2 months now.  Hopefully things will pick up.  In the mean time, I can deal...for a little while longer.

But it makes me want to challenge myself.  There is one week left in February.  My pantry is stocked and refrigerator is full of leftovers from Ladies Who Dine on Friday.  My wallet is empty.  Can I make it until the end of the month without grocery shopping OR spending money?

Some money has to be spent-- health insurance, studio/accompanist fees for SingThing (that will be re-imbursed in short order).  There's a girls night planned for Friday, so I will spend money there.  But for everything else...

I'm out of milk.  If I want to not waste any of the bread leftover from LWD, I'll need more milk to make another batch of yummy bread pudding.  I can use change from my piggy bank for that.

OK, it is on like Donkey Kong.

Also- today is (I think) day 5 of my 30 day self challenge to get my ass in bed between 11:00 and midnight.  When my work schedule started going haywire and when I got sick, my sleep schedule went out the window.  Time to reclaim it.  Because when I don't sleep right, everything else suffers-- I'm late to stuff, I forget things more often...it costs me. 

RAWR.

1. Go to your calendar and find the first entry for each month of 2008.
2. Post the first line of it in your journal, and that's your year in review.

My LiveJournal begins in April 2008 so it is a bit short.  Quick 2008 Summary: I went from being laid off to being a freelance musician and office worker, went on The Today Show, mostly kept Compacting out of habit, moved from Chelsea to Astoria, and started a public blog about plastic consumption and reduction in NYC.

APRIL:  I remember during the one non-date I had with my high school classmate Brad, he told me that everyone has a blog.

MAY: I went to the Graybar Passage at Grand Central, to the site of the new Joe the Art of Coffee store, due to open sometime this spring.

JUNE: Today I made yummy hummus from dry garbonzo beans.

JULY:   I'm still at Ms. Chatzky's lovely home, and have a list of things to do. 

AUGUST: I moved to the new apartment Thursday and still have lots of unpacking to do.

SEPTEMBER: These are all things I've wanted at various points for a year and a half. 

OCTOBER: I'll be in Iowa for the next few days on a family bike ride on the Wabash Trace Trail.

NOVEMBER: So I finally made my first dish using "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian".

DECEMBER: Go here, copy the letter to Governor Paterson (edit to make it your own if you feel like it), then send it using the link on the page:
http://council.nyc.gov/html/action_center/no_to_plastic_bag_bill.shtml


Happy New Year, everyone!

An actual public bloggy blog.  I'm a Iittle scared.  Its all about plastic avoidance.

http://www.plasticlessnyc.blogspot.com/

2007 was the Year of Compacting.  2008 was figuring out life Post Compact.  2009 will be more of the same, but with less plastic.

Please visit and give me your feedback- there or here!

I'm drinking my coffee and procrastinating.  I need to get my butt in the shower, throw my concert dress, curling iron and make up in a bag and head to Port Authority.

Tomorrow at 4 I'm singing a recital with Scott Jackson Wiley playing guitar.  It was a last minute thing-- he called me a little over 2 weeks ago needing a replacement for a violinist who had to back out.  The concert is part of a series at Locktown Stone Church, out in the country near Flemington NJ.  We are taking a bus this afternoon, will be hosted by cousins of Scott's tonight, and I'll bus back Sunday night after the concert.  Hopefully I can get back early enough to spend a little time with my OWN cousins, who just called this morning to say they would be in town this weekend.  Am seriously bummed to not be able to spend time with them-- John is an agriculture consultant in Iraq and home for 3 weeks on leave and I haven't seen him in over a year.

Anyway, I'm very glad to have had this concert fall in my lap.  It is my first experience throwing together an entire program of almost completely new music, translations and all, and actually getting it performance ready in that time-- though not memorized.  I haven't been interested in pursuing auditions this season, just doing the things that come my way.  That MUST CHANGE.  But at least the things that have come my way have been artistically fulfilling.  Here's the program:

Purcell: Music for a While
4 Courtly Airs for Voice and Lute, 1603-1643 (various composers)
Schubert: Staendchen and Ave Maria (lovely with guitar!  quite a different experience)
Granados: El Majo Timido, El Mirar de la Maja, El Majo Discreto
Villa-Lobos: 2 Guitar preludes (Scott only)
Rodrigo: 2 Spanish Christmas carols- Pastorcito Santo and Coplillas de Belen
Niles: 2 American Christmas carols- Jesus, Jesus Rest Your Head, I Wonder As I Wander
Seiber: 4 French folk songs

Seriously, I gotta get packing.  Have good weekends! 

So I finally made my first dish using "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian". I had been told that Bittman's recipes can sometimes be, put diplomatically, interesting. In other words, strange. And there was the time I used his peanut brittle recipe from the New York Times and it didn't work out and I just felt so betrayed.  But the layout of this book is just so great, so seductive.  There's tons of information in it, arranged attractively.  Even if I hate many of the recipes I won't be sorry to own this book.

My first dish came out, well, interesting.

Espresso Black Bean Chili.  Made with dry black beans, lots of onions and tons of garlic, tomatoes, espresso or coffee (I used coffee), brown sugar or molasses (I used molasses), chili seasoning, a cinnamon stick, salt & pepper.  That's about it.  I like all of the ingredients, so what could go wrong?  Well, the flavors didn't exactly blend.  It tastes like coffee, cinnamon and molasses.  The tomato, onion and all that garlic (at least 6 good sized cloves) is overpowered.

Not only that but the recipe makes 6-8 servings.  Yeah, 6-8 servings for Norwegian lumberjacks who happen to really like beans that taste like some strange Gevalia coffee concoction.  I'm going to be packing this stuff for lunches into December, and I don't particularly like it.  Don't get me wrong, it is edible, I just won't ever want seconds.

The 2nd day packing it for lunch I tried to change the flavor with add-ins, and it worked pretty well: diced raw onion, sharp cheddar cheese, rice and a fritos.  It went down pretty well so I think I won't end up wasting much of it.  We'll see.

Yesterday I called and got my stereotactic core biopsy results:

- No cancer cells found
- Fibrocystic changes. Normal for my age.
- Intraductal papilloma found, 1-2 mm in size. Most likely benign, but they (the NY Presbyterian Breast Imaging Center) recommend a full biopsy so they can test it.

I took yesterday to mull that over, had a little pity party for myself when I got home, and now feel calmer. At this point my main priority is to talk about these results with my current nurse practitioner (who does not take HIP, my new insurance), find a gynecologist who does take HIP, transfer my records, and go forward with a decision based on those two opinions.

My other big priority is to track down someone at HIP and make SURE these tests are covered and/or find out how much I'll have to shell out for them.

NY Pres is known for being aggressive in screening and treating cancer, and that's a good thing. But I'm not looking forward to having a slice and a chunk taken out in a place that is so noticeable (assuming they do the full biopsy in the same place), when chances are extremely good that this thing is harmless. It hasn't caused me any problems and was only found as a result of the stereotactic biopsy.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001238.htm#Treatment

Danskos. NEW! Purchased at Harry's Shoes on the UWS, $120

Mark Bittman: How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. New? Used? Hard to tell. Purchased from one of the street book vendors on Broadway near Fairway, $27

2 Le Parfait "Super" Jars, 1.5L. Second hand, never used. Purchased at Second Best Thrift Shop in Astoria, $4.50 each.

The jars will store dry bulk items like beans, popcorn and rice. This particular jar sells for around $8 new, so its a bit of a score. The Danskos I've been coveting for months and they replace my black pair that are at least 9 years old (actually I'll still keep those for house clogs). Maybe I could have found them cheaper on eBay or somewhere but I got tired of looking and would rather support a local business anyway. The Bittman? Total impulse purchase. I'm very excited about it! This book may change my life.

Here we are at the start of our trip, in front of Pierce Crossings, a restored farm house in Malvern, IA. It was a great place to stay!



This was our 4th family bike trip on the Wabash Trace Trail. http://www.wabashtrace.org/



Brenda and Dad on a bridge. Brenda is riding a recumbent bike.



Bank building on Imogene's main street. I have a little fantasy of seeing it restored with an internet based business headquarters on top and a community coffee shop/diner/trail refreshments store on bottom. Not visible in the shot is Imogene's Emerald Bar, one of the only businesses in town-- the other is an Ag office. They do a good job catering to trail customers with bike racks, beer/soda/water, and a few emergency bike replacement parts behind the counter. There are 3 apple trees along the street and they welcome anyone to pick them-- yum! This year was a bumper crop.



Mel & Jan, with some Loess Hills visible in the background. These are pretty unique-- the only other hills similar to these are in Shaanxi, China, according to Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loess_Hills



Dad, Jan and Me, with a colorful field of soy behind us.



A soy field being harvested. Fields of corn and soy surround most of the trail.



Brenda and Rose on a bridge. You'll notice bridges provide most of the photo opportunities- natural resting spots with rails to lean bikes on, lots of light (the trail is well shaded), and nice open views.



Three deer on a highway ramp in Omaha. These were the only big critters we saw this trip. Other wildlife sightings: big hawks (maybe they just look bigger swooping across the trail in front of you), raccoon tracks on riverbeds, critter tracks and droppings on the trail, a couple of barky dogs doing guard duty (they chased us a bit and the big one gave one of us a head nudge, but no bites) and a snake sunning himself.



Sunset as Rose and I bike back to Malvern on Day 2. We were cutting it close. Once the sun goes down it gets VERY dark out there, and none of us had headlights! We were late getting in because I literally rode the pedals off of Dad's mountain bike. Dad has 2 bikes and lets me borrow one for these trips- somehow I manage to wear a different part out on each trip: the old pannier bags that finally gave up, a tire blew out, and this time the left side pedal that came unscrewed. The breakages never keep us from enjoying the ride. Rose stayed with me and I'd stop every mile, then every half mile, then every quarter mile to re-tighten it until we got back to Malvern. If we had not been late getting in, I wouldn't have gotten this shot-- nor would we have stopped for that beer in Mineola and met those nice Harley guys who wanted us to stay for 'another cocktail'!

So I had my biopsy yesterday, and am back in the office today. All is fine as far as I know. They'll call me with the results in 3-5 days.

I can't say I'm worried about the results-- I'm pretty sure the calcifications they are checking out are nothing. But I spent way too much time worrying about the biopsy, and shouldn't have. My anxiety stemmed from being unsure of my new insurance and how it works(this is still an issue but I'll just have to wait and see what comes back from them), and having a COMPLETELY uncessecary biopsy that left a scar which didn't fade for years back in my early 20s, which I then had to pay 100% of the costs out of pocket. After that one I was really glad my sister was there to take care of me.

Yesterday wasn't so awful. Leaving the hospital I felt fine, like a weight had been lifted, in fact. I got the best tasting donut ever from a street cart and took the m60 bus home. Here's what happened, in case any of you ever have to have this done:

1) Intake session with a very nice nurse. She explains exactly what will happen that day, takes yor blood pressure, has you sign the necessary forms, and answers any questions. In this case I asked her about my right boob-- the boob that sent me to my NP in the first place. I had experienced some new pain and noticed new cysts and wanted to get them checked out. My Nurse Practitioner made out a test request form for "Mammo/Sono" but they only did the Mammo part and found calcifications in the OTHER boob. The nurse understood and made sure I got a sonogram with my visit that day. Cysts do not show up in mammograms.

2) Stereotactic Core Biopsy. This is a mammogram-guided needle biopsy. They had me lay face down on a table that lifted in the air, much like lifing a car for repairs. The biopsy boob hangs through a hole in the table and is compressed in a mammogram machine so the doctor can find the exact spot she needs to sample. Getting positioned correctly and finding the right spot takes time, and its important to lay as still as possible so as not to yank the boob out of position. It's kind of like lying on your stomach at a topless beach, but not nearly as relaxing. Any position gets uncomfortable after a few minutes-- you get an idea of what 'stress positions' must feel like. Once the tech gets you in position, the doctor comes back to administer local anesthesia and get the samples. I felt some pricks, but that was it. You also get a new "accessory": a titanium clip is put at the site where tissue was removed. This is so that in subsequent mammograms, they can clearly see what areas have already been tested. Once finished, the tech cleans and bandages the cut and sends you for a mammogram so they can check the position of the titanium clip.

2) Mammogram. This was no big deal since I'd had a mammogram a few weeks earlier and knew what to expect. The tech did 3 views of the biopsy boob. After the 2nd take I noticed the lead bib I wore around my waist the last time, hanging over a chair. Me: "Should I be wearing that?" Tech: "How old are you? (37) Are you pregnant? (No) You have kids? (No) Do you want to have kids?" Me: *shrug, rueful smile*. We continue without the bib.

3) Sonogram. This was done on the non-biopsy boob at my request, to check out the cysts that I noticed a couple months ago. They showed up right away, big and black on the screen. Black because they are liquid-- tissue shows up as white/grey. There are two of them. Possibly more, but they just checked the areas I pointed out. Both are straight up cysts with regular edges- nothing to worry about, and require further action only if they are causing a lot of pain or if I just feel they absolutely must come out. They don't and I don't.

I feel fine today. The bandage stays on for 5 days, and I can't get the area wet until tomorrow. It bled through in the hours after I got home, but not since. There will be bruising, but I'm not going to look at it for the time being. The incision is on the top half of my boob. Not optimal, but I couldn't do anything about it- that was the area they needed to check. Hopefully it heals a lot better than my first biopsy, lo those many years ago.

That's my story--

Way to go, Beth!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/business/media/06filter.html?ref=media

In related news, during my recent bike trip with family I learned that one of my sisters credits me with her recent lifestyle changes. Not only did she sign the Take Back The Filter petition and stop using bottled water and filters (her tap water is really good), she's started recycling, a service she has to pay for in her town, and researching responsible environmental choices. My brother and sister in law also said they've started recycling, which I think they also have to pay extra for. That's just about the best compliment I've ever gotten.