JanerBlog

Of river poet search naivete

Paddled a beautiful section of the Kalamazoo river tonight. We originally put in at D avenue -- there's a very kind gentleman who makes his land accessible to the public, with hand-lettered signs saying "Welcome canoes, kayaks and boats" and "Parking $1.00 per car / put-ins $1.00 per boat / Please be honest" We had a nice chat with him before getting our boats in the water.

The original plan was to paddle upstream until our arms gave out, then have a nice leisurely float back downstream.

Well, it turned out that between the rain-heavy river current, the wind blowing in our faces, and my still-primitive kayaking skills, the river kicked my butt in ten minutes flat. I was paddling as fast and as hard as I could, and was just barely holding still, the swift current turning my boat closer and closer to shore. I was pretty afraid that the current was going to sweep me away before i could do anything about it.

So we put back in, threw both kayaks on top of R's car, and drove upstream aways to another park. We put back in and floated back down to the original put-in. Ironically, the river narrowed drastically just before where we put in, and was the fastest part of the whole trip! If I'd just been strong enough to paddle that first 100 yards, I could've easily made it as far upstream as I felt like going. Still, it was a good idea to play it safe, because I'd never done that part of the river and R had only done it once.

The trip downstream was a lovely one. We saw some pretty impressive wildlife, on top of all the usual ducks and geese: a small herd of whitetail, at least a dozen great blue herons, something that was probably a river otter, and at the very, very end, a mature bald eagle. What a treat! This kayaking stuff is awesome.

Gathering mushrooms-o

I went mushroom hunting last night and found a bag full of False Morels (Verpa Conica). I identified them with help from Director Dan and his five mushroom books. I'm still a little wibbly on eating them, so I gave them to the coworker who told me about the hunting spot. He says he eats them all the time, and maybe he'll swap me some true morels later in the season.

Smartshop Kalamazoo to close

This makes me so, so sad.

Sugarloaves

Went kayaking again tonight, out at the Sugarloaf Lakes south of town. I went out with my new friend R, who I met through one of the pool sessions and who's a great paddling buddy. There aren't many other women to whom I can say -- without a trace of irony -- "Hey! I just found out about this really awesome swamp nearby! Wanna go check it out?" and have her say "Awesome! Let's go tonight!"

So we had a great couple of hours on a glass-still lake. The Sugarloaves are a treat to paddle because they're so clear and shallow; the water's as transparent as air. We saw some wildlife I've never seen before: an American Bittern and a huge beaver. I've only seen live beavers one other time, and that was in Kitchener, Ontario, and they were surrounded by birch trees they'd gnawed down to make their lodges and dam -- so I was really surprised to see one trucking along in the swamp, far from any trees. At first we thought it was just an enormous muskrat, but then it slapped its huge tail on the water as it submerged. It must have weighed at least thirty pounds, and made quite a wake as it swam away.

While we were in one of the shallow, hidden cattail coves we surprised an enormous snapping turtle. He hunkered down under the water, pressing his huge shell -- the size of a chair seat -- into the mud. Heading into the narrow passage, I saw the same mama Canada goose I'd spotted the last time I was out, her long neck snaked protectively over her nest in the exact same position I'd seen her in two weeks ago.

We also found a noodly little passage that went nowhere but was fun to navigate -- by the end R had taken her paddle apart and was poling her boat like a gondolier, and I was pulling myself along by grabbing handfuls of dead cattail stalks on either side. On the way back we rounded a turn and surprised a pair of sandhill cranes standing on a little patch of ground not fifteen feet from us, all toasted-cheddar-brown in their spring plumage. We got really quiet and paddled carefully, and they stayed where they were, arching their long necks and cocking their lipstick-red heads at us until we moved out of sight.

We pulled in as dark was gathering, under the light of a half-moon so bright it cast shadows. What a great way to spend the day.

Worth the Weight

I've largely stopped talking about weight, and my issues with my weight, because a) nobody likes hearing people go on about their diets, and b) because I really don't like all the self-loathing that typically accompanies a round of fat talk.

This last month, though, I've got a couple of wake-up calls, the first from a health assessment, and the second from a friend. The health assessment, without getting into details was ... suboptimal. The friend's suggestion, on the other hand, was much more helpful.

But let me back up.

I've always, always had an aversion to writing down what I eat, because I hate all the accompanying self-loathing (see above). I hate what that kind of journaling does to me; I'm such a Type-B personality, and forcing myself to keep tabs on every calorie pushes my obsessive buttons in very uncomfortable ways. I tried to come up with a good metaphor, and finally said today that it's like stalking yourself. "Girl in apartment 2a ate breakfast alone. She had a single cup of Wheaties, a half-cup of skim milk, and an eight-ounce glass of organic orange juice. Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach."

So back to my friend's suggestion: that I use the free website, The Daily Burn. It allows you to log your intake and exercise, then spits out nice little charts and graphs to show your progress, and lets you know how far over or under you are on your daily goals. It feels like blogging, like filling out a spreadsheet, and the extra degree of separation from a notebook full of cribbed shorthand about portions and points makes the process more about the data and less about the self-judgement. This is literally the first positive experience I've ever had in keeping track of what I eat. Pretty much every food (and most prepackaged stuff, including all the foofy hippie brands I eat) and exercise (precor machine, kayaking, road biking) is already in the catalog, so logging your progress is a snap. I'm even finding myself overestimating portions just to be on the safe side, which is something I never did before.

Seeing a week's worth of food intake laid out as data allows me to see what I should and shouldn't be doing, where I need to improve, and what I can keep getting away with. I'm not starving, I'm not obsessing over portions or calories, and best of all I'm not having to restrict myself to a bunch of stupid rules. And my pants are already fitting better, so it must be working.

So -- thanks, Kind Friend, for the suggestion. It really helped.

Tiny Niecelet!

Just got back from visiting my tiny niecelet. Have some baby photos!

I do not like The Cone of Shame.

Biked home from work tonight to a strange yowling coming from under my car. Turns out that Claudia escaped from the house sometime today (out a window? when we let the dog out?) and got into some trouble with the local wildlife. We're still not sure what kind of critter she tangled with, but it was pretty nasty; fortunately we found her before the vet closed and were able to get her stitched up within an hour. The vet said that the long gash in her forepaw was pretty serious and had just missed a major artery -- she could've bled out if it had been any worse. She also got tagged over one eye, and will be wearing The Cone of Shame for the next ten days till the stitches come out.

Right now she's cooling her heels in the library, all loopy on drugs. Here's hoping that this will break her of some of her more aggressive nature with the other animals in the house.

Another entry in the My Husband is the Awesomest series:

Hey, remember me saying a while back that Paul had a bunch of stuff in the pipe that was awesome, but I couldn't talk about it yet?

Well, here's just one of them: Armchair Revolutionary. More here and here and here.

Congrats, Paul. You're the awesomest.

Tiny new person!

I'm an Auntie again! Anna Marie Irwin was born this morning to my brother Tom and his wife Amanda. Seven pounds, two ounces, twenty inches long, and a head of light brown hair.

Welcome to the world, little girl. Can't wait to meet you.

(Poor kid. Looks like she got an Irwin nose.)

Wild life

On last night's paddle, we went back to Morrow Pond, the same place we ended up after last week's river expedition. We went from the put-in up to the nearest bridge, then turned around and did some investigating in the (very) shallow water of the surrounding marsh. Most times the water was only five or six inches deep, and on our meanderings we saw a whole bunch of wildlife: herons, ducks, geese, swans, muskrats, huge leaping fish (hope they're not Asian Carp), a snapping turtle with a head as big as my fist, and one turtle that looked just like an army helmet. While Paul was helping me take the kayak off the car in the driveway, we also saw a pair of screech owls in the trees, hunting bats. Awesome.

Add it up

I paddled twice this week, around five miles each time, and today I did a twelve-mile bike ride with a friend. So counting all the walking and biking I did in the mornings, I've traveled at least fifty miles under my own power this week. Neat.