There are certain things you don’t do during subway rush hour, like, bring a bicycle. You want your dog to hate you for a couple of days, step on the platform at 5pm. Moms with their 4×4 baby carriages are already home exhausted and the ones who missed the memo learn quickly after being serenaded with murderous screams from their offspring. From 430pm to 630pm, it’s sardine season and only the very lucky get nudged by a harpy with a buick backside wanting to take your seat although there is no room to stand up.

Those are the standard observations of rush hour tribulations. It always amazes me that someone could tack on one more “don’t” to the list. Don’t bring your mungo, buoyant exercise ball on the subway!

When the train arrived people packed into other doorways to avoid the Hindenburg. We all watched with half amusement when she met some resistance with the space between the door and the poll. What a pop it would make, ear drums would burst, the blood. The balloon just fit the carriage barely, oh damn.

As the train made it’s journey to Sendlinger Tor, two women of runway stature stood up to exit the train. There was a brief moment the models disappeared, ducking to the floor and emerged on the other side of the balloon pressing their bodies against the subway doors. The holder of the yellow orb made no apologies but did mention that she had been holding the hefty ball a better part of the day and wondered how she’d get the balloon into her apartment. As she said this one passenger poked a finger at the balloon and scratched it slightly perhaps in curiosity or contemplating a dubious plan of retaliation.

The train stopped and the doors flew open with a pull of the handle. The woman the entire time was never visible to me. With the jingle of her bottle stash and the sight of the yellow balloon slipping through the open air bouncing with delight, the woman was gone along with my silly distraction. The rest of the ride seemed mundane and the rest of the passengers were become once again aware of the “don’ts” in the carriage. Scowls ensued. Na, perhaps silly distractions should be allowed on the subway between 430pm and 630pm. What do you think?

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[Before I get to the beets.. Still in the midst of getting the coding for the not-so-public stuff in order, it's taking longer than I thought. In the shuffling for some archived code, I found a vector I had worked on a year ago and figured it was now or never. It's been bouncing on the header left and right for the last hour but I think it will stay put. If you don't see it, it's embedded in some java.]

This post and hopefully posts to come will document an earnest effort to liberate my eating habits. I will always have a place in my belly for Hamburger Helper, Stoffer’s and Chef Boyardee and their paper weight meals. A part of me still holds on to the wishful thinking that such garbage food isn’t all that bad. We live, don’t we? We save time, don’t we? We save money, don’t we?

Well, I’m not so sure these days and this is why I’ve got red beets in my kitchen.

So beets. so random, you say. Never once did I pay attention to them. They were never in our refrigerator and a canned beet was suspect. I wonder what my dad thinks of them. He always has some strange and intriguing explanation for waging the blech-food finger. My favorite: “Cilantro tastes like dish water!” he’d proclaim. The only beet I saw for a long time was at a Pizza Hut salad bar, cold and previously canned, it would stain my sunflower seed covered, cottage cheese a brilliant pink.

Tom Robbins wrote that the beet is a serious vegetable. I haven’t finished the book yet but I already disagree. After watching A’s 3 year old nephew paint himself a wide clown smile with a plateful of beets, it’s clear the beet is laughably simple and sweet.

1 kilogram of organic beets costs 1.88€. Trim the ends and put them in boiling water with a little bit of vinegar to preserve the color. Cooking them whole will preserve the flavor but large ones will take about 1 hour to cook in a traditional pot. I used a pressure cooker for 20 minutes on the highest ring setting and they came out fabulous. Afterwards I put the beets in a bowl of cold water, while I rubbed the skin off with my fingers. It comes off easily and I didn’t notice any finger staining during the process.

There is tons of information on the health benefits of red beets brimming on the net but now that I have these health gems, what to do with them? Besides boil them and tossing them onto a salad, I’m starving for better beet eating ideas. Any suggestions?

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The fork in the road continues to divide without a rare opportunity to look back. I find life is a new distraction with every head turn and the need for an outlet for impermanent muddling is weighing on me. It is abundantly clear this website needs a scrub down. It down right stinks. In the next idonno months plus posts will either be privatized, password protected or axed from the reachable universe and future post may be deemed for your eyes only. no. not your eyes! Your eyes.

I do value feedback from the blogger continuum, however I want to take this puppy to some shadowy, organic, yoda-esque level. What that means is I really don’t know what the hell I’m blabbering about so let’s not spread this brilliant illness any further.

For those posts that will be hidden behind the gatekeeper field, contact me if you’d like to hold the key. Makes it easier and I don’t have to deal with your registration. But if you are inclined, go register as a subscriber.

Indeed everything has changed. Starting with blog posts under the tab Blog.

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In the meantime, Alex and I are on a roadtrip in the South. Current location: Houston. First impression: bleh. So why bother: We are visiting a ex-gee friend of Alex’s. Next stop: Austin, whoot! We’ll celebrate my birthday surrounded by music lovers this weekend. I’m tickled with anticipatory glee.

So far we’ve been to Pensacola and New Orleans. Pensacola was as cold as a witches’ tit but the beaches were nearly deserted and exceeded all beach loving expectations. Bright sun, white sand and blue-green gulf water – an aah moment.

New Orleans, although a bit dirty compared to Munich, has a charm that cannot be matched in Munich. You can see people really struggle here and yet they still give you a smile and will warmly talk we you ask how you are doing. We ended up putting our loose change in our pockets because we were asked so many times for a quarter for a food, booze or charity. It’s hard not to run into someone trying to sell you something. When we asked a random fruit stand woman where the nearest city-run tourist office was, she immediately wanted to sell us a swamp and ghost tour combo for $44 a person.

Not to fret. I do recommend going to Jean Lafitte Museum for a free city tour and check out the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park for free music from very talented park ranger musician.

Do avoid visiting the plantations. They are privately owned and designed to make money off of Gone-With-The-Wind buffs. They aren’t friendly to people who opt not to take their $18 tour per plantation and don’t expect to learn about all sides of life on a plantation. A new tree planted under an old oak framing the Laura Plantation obstructs the view of the house from the street.

I’m awfully lazy right and wrapped in sadness over the images in Haiti, so I’m not uploading any photos. I do have photos of our roadtrip on my facebook.

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