isn't it nice to be home again

^^^ One of the more obscure of James Taylor's songs....

What a comedy of errors my weekend was!  The Mercury Retrograde went out like a lion.  I was up at 4 on Friday and on the road at 5:15 -- good so far.  Three hours later, though, and my cruise control being on caused the car to do the same wonky electrical thing it did last year (but hadn't done since) ... but this time it ALSO involved my transmission somehow!  The car didn't FEEL like it had a significant problem, and the warning light was not red but amber, so i stopped in the next town of decent size and started making phone calls.

Long story short:  i rented a car to continue the trip, because the show couldn't go on without me.  Thank god i had packed light.

I ended up doing a lot of intermittent fasting, so i raise my coffee-cup to ketosis, without which it might have been uncomfortable -- but of course if i were eating like "normal people" i wouldn't have had to fast, because there was plenty of good evil food ... if you know what i mean.  ;-)

The show itself turned out as well as we had any right to expect.  Before i arrived there had been one rehearsal, then on saturday there were two (morning and afternoon).  The morning one was appalling.  Our Mabel not only didn't know her lines, but she didn't even know the tunes ... and our Frederick was no better.  The director, who had condensed the script (and done quite a good job of it) also had the foresight to write the whole thing out on what one might call a period-correct teleprompter -- a big roll of newsprint.

Knowing the music better than anyone there, i became an unofficial assistant director, and pulled the ladies aside for a concentrated run-through of songs they weren't sure how to perform ... and bless him, our Pirate King came along too.  This guy is a professional (we have several actors in town who actually get paid in the real world) and though he was a little weak on his lines, he knew his songs.  We got everybody comfortable with how the parts should sound, and made a minor change in the way the finale should flow, and the last rehearsal was ... less appalling.

Fortunately we had an audience which WANTED to be pleased and amused, so the final product was well-received.  Most of the cast assembled in Meg's and my little cottage for a glass of bubbly and the kind of hilarity that comes when the worst is over.  We sincerely thanked our horrible "star" for making it possible to present our show at all -- it actually was a brave move of hers.  It was just unfortunate that seeing as how she couldn't play her part correctly, Frederick couldn't either.  :-(  For the record, this is how the scene should have looked and sounded:

Ours didn't.

The rest of the event passed as expected.  I packed out in good time on Sunday and spent that night at a half-way-home hotel, then after a few hours returned the rental and turned the key of my own car.  THE TRANSMISSION WAS FINE.

Head ... bang ... steering wheel.

Driving home without using the cruise control was a pain in the ass.  I'm so used to it, my speed was less consistent that i like through that hilly area.  Got home with no problems.  Immediately opened a bottle of wine.  Went out for dinner and had a feast, including more carbs than usual.  Slept like a baby (after a catch-up session on FB -- happy birthday again, Kim!).

The End.  ;-)

the trouble with weight loss

In my case, it's not just an issue of going out and buying new outfits.

I have an "event" today for which i need to dress in American Civil War era clothing (advertising the Chatillon-DeMenil House's annual event, "A Death in the Family: Death and Mourning in the 19th Century").  It's ALWAYS a good idea to start getting dressed well in advance for something like this, if you don't often wear the ensemble; i put on my drawers, i put on my chemise, i put on my best corset ... and it's too big!  I put on the OLD corset i made a number of years ago ... and it's ALMOST too big.  DAMN.

Doesn't matter if a lot of things are a little large, but a corset HAS to fit.  It, with help from the chemise, holds everything in place*.  The ideal mid-nineteenth-century silhouette is completely different from the modern one, and only period-correct underclothes can make that happen -- that's why good living-historians dress authentically down to the skin.  Wanna know why the 1993 production of "Tombstone" LOOKS so much better than all the ones that came before?  They realized that just decorating the surface is inadequate.

Well, the good news is, there are two dresses i haven't worn in a long time which will again see the light of day.  Bad news ... i'm going to have to make a number of other things, INCLUDING new corsets.

_______
*  the corset pushes the girls up while the chemise keeps them from escaping out the top.  corsetry 101:  in the back where the laces are, there's supposed to be a gap from two to four inches -- the two halves fasten together in the front, but should not meet in the back.  when you hear about the 18-inch waist of a young lady ... that's a stretch of the truth.  her corset has a waist-size of 18 inches, but her measurement is closer to 22.

why so many history buffs don't really know history

I'm a reenactor/living-historian.  When i first entered "the hobby" i found it full of people of remarkable variety, unlike some of the other communities to which i'd belonged before (fencing and theatre).  On one end of the spectrum, predictably, there are large numbers of history teachers (teachers of other subjects are well-represented, too); on the other end of the spectrum are the Scarlett O'Hara wannabes.  The quality of "interpretation" (how the character you portray when doing "first person" really exemplifies the type of person from DOCUMENTABLE HISTORY) runs from cartoonish to absolutely authentic.

For me, the hobby was a good fit -- i already had a great deal of interest in history, i'm an advanced seamstress and handicrafter, and i enjoy reading and doing research.  I was lucky enough to join a VERY knowledgeable and skilled group, so positive examples were all around me.  I set out to master my new art....

There's a lot of material available to help new reenactors get up to speed now, but when i started they were much more sparse.  I looked around me at other women portraying particular TYPES from the past, and i looked at the references available, and i saw this huge disconnect between what i KNEW about history (from literature), and what a lot of reenactors were trying to act out.

You see, founts of information on history are very far from being equal.  Two different historians may be using the same source material, and due to any number of differences of PERSONAL experience, may interpret them poles apart.  So how does the hobbyist know which one to believe?  The average living-history-aspirant goes with his OWN gut and preferences, and the superior one bypasses the professional historians (secondary sources) entirely, and goes to the primary source himself.

THIS is the secret to having a grasp on history.  Almost everything you've ever seen on television or movies is WRONG.  The screenwriter may be devoted to telling the truth, but the "truth" is filtered through a modern brain, with all the conditioning that modern society has put there.  A lot of what you were taught in school is also HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE, because the writers of textbooks and the teachers also have Modern Brain-Filter Syndrome.  Things that you're told at historic sites, whether by volunteers or professionals, can be laughably incorrect.  EVERYTHING you read has been filtered through somebody else's brain, with all the culture bias and personal-experience-coloring that entails.

What's the most reliable source?  Depends on what kind of information you're looking for.  The secret is to get the words of a detached person who is witnessing the detail of life on the spot.  Reminiscences can SUCK -- you know how your grandfather claimed he walked seven miles to and from school ... in the snow ... barefoot ... uphill both ways...?  If a person is remembering an era from more than ten years on, there's  a good chance it's sentimentalized, romanticized or sensationalized in some way.

Places where some very good material can be found are police and court reports.  Here, a lot of information is recorded quickly and in a matter-of-fact way.  Period newspapers take the basic information and try to make it more interesting ... but if you reduce the descriptive jargon, the bedrock "facts" are frequently instructive.  Journals and letters are illustrative of the individual's experience -- in the former example, the writer probably never expected any eyes but her/his own to see it, and is frequently an honest observation of life.  Just make sure, if you ARE reading collections of letters and journals, that they're in their entirety:  EDITED journals and letters are also victims of MBFS.

Even fiction can be used to give solid information on life in a different age, but there's a trick to it.  It has to be fiction ABOUT the time IN WHICH IT'S WRITTEN.  Cooper's "Leatherstocking" stories are about an age in which Cooper did not live, so it's OUT.  Jane Austin is IN.  Samuel Clemens is ... MOSTLY in.  Ditto for Charlotte Bronte, but not Emily.  Maybe Anne.  In these writings, what you look for are the throwaway details that people take for granted.

"One morning, Mrs. Bretton, coming promptly into my room, desired me to open my drawers and show her my dresses; which I did, without a word."  Interpretation:  ladies were known to store their dresses in chests of drawers.  If you believe that NO closets existed in houses of the mid-nineteenth century (wrong), and that everyone had wardrobes in which they hung their clothes (wrong), or even that poor people without wardrobes ONLY hung their dresses on pegs or hooks or nails ... you don't know as much about history as you think you do.  When a modern novel ABOUT the past shows a lady doing fine embroidery in silks, a novel FROM the same era is more likely showing the lady hemming a handkerchief.  Same lady, doing needlework, different vision entirely.

The "throwaway facts" that one gleans from old newspapers can be the notice of a runaway bondservant in colonial America, who HAD to have been wearing a tabby petticoat and checked blue bedjacket, because THAT'S ALL SHE HAD ... unless she stole clothes when she left, because they often did.  Or that [yawn] ANOTHER whore has gone and committed suicide, and it was narcotic poisoning, AGAIN.  One sometimes gets a very clear picture of the past, when dead-and-gone voices don't even know they've spoken to you.

Vintage-but-not-antique sources frequently muddy the historical waters.  My mother (who will be 90 next year) may hear me say something about old-timers doing XYZ, and she'll counter, "Oh NO they didn't!" -- all up in arms, till i point out that i was referring to people a hundred years before she was born, not old-timers of HER vintage.  If i were the dutiful, obedient child (LOL) at the foot of my elder, i might have scrapped what i had learned from a primary source and taken for fact a thoroughly mistaken, baseless OPINION....

So when people have an absolutely unrealistic vision of what life was like two hundred, one thousand, twenty thousand years ago, you can applaud modern culture's success in having completely brainwashed them.  Life "back then" was no more romantic than it is today -- it just contains unknowns for you, and mystery is romantic.  People had DIFFERENT problems, but problems they had indeed.  There never has been, and will never be a Golden Age.

Read what the laws were.  Read what happened to the people who got caught, breaking the law.  Read about the victims of the lawbreakers.  Think of how most people had to behave, so as not to break laws.  Realize that if you had money or power, these things did not apply to you.  That's what the past was like.

off-the-beaten-track, but interesting....

I'm definitely a re-reader and re-watcher.  If a book is worth reading at all, it's worth reading again; ditto for movies.  Some films/stories i even enjoy more for their "atmosphere" than for plot or artistic value.  Some semi-fiction is also good for its historical information, helpful to me as a reenactor.

One of the lighter things i read every couple of years is the old Little House series, and the interesting bit is, i usually glean a little more with every reading, even after all this time.  I identify songs, places, processes/activities, foodstuffs, ... all kinds of things that aid me in improving my interpretations of history.  I get confirmations or refutations for anecdotes of the eras i read, for my characters/impressions.  With retrospective "biographies" of course, one does have to take some things with a grain of salt.

The internet gives me more information, too.  Thanks to historians whose work is available at places like Wikipedia, i know in what areas Mrs. Wilder fictionalized her autobiographical material to make it more "eventful."  I know what happened to the family after her stories leave them behind, as well.

Anyone who has ever read this series (ignore the television BS -- they got EVERYTHING wrong in that) is familiar with the hard times the family went through from time to time -- the periods when they were between long-term homes, living rough on the frontier, dealing with harsh natural environments in which they could not always count on a significant harvest to feed themselves adequately.  Their diet was often of the most minimal quantity and quality -- cheap carbohydrate foods, lean game, that sort of thing.

So -- what a surprise -- I find out that Pa Ingalls died of heart disease at the age of 66.  (Ma, i don't know, but she was 84.)  Mary died of pneumonia after a stroke.  Laura, Carrie and Grace died of complications of diabetes.


Even in the best of times, this family ate a high carbohydrate diet -- is it significant that the carbs were mostly "complex"?  Apparently not.

The eldest child, though she lost her sight as a result of a dangerous fever when she was about 12 or 13, seems to have been the hardiest of the family. In light of Dr. Cate Shanahan's hypothesis of "Second Sibling Syndrome" this is not at all surprising.  "...Unless the mother gives herself ample time and nutrients for her body to fully replenish itself, child number two will not be as healthy as his older sibling. And so, while big brother goes off to football practice, or big sister gets a modeling job, the second sibling will be spending time in the offices of the local optometrists and orthodontists. It’s not that they got the “unlucky” genes. The problem is that, compared to their older sibling, they grew in a relatively undernourished environment in utero."  (From "Deep Nutrition.")

Laura Ingalls' life, where she begins her story, is surrounded by the "forest primeval" where wildlife is abundant and the farm is apparently productive.  Meat is procured at the height of succulence -- in the autumn, when the deer, bear, and acorn-fattened pork is at its ... fattiest.  The climate allowed natural freezing of fresh meats, so only part of the meat-harvest is processed.  However, what WAS processed was done so in a natural and healthy way, with salt and smoke, not questionable modern chemicals.  Theoretically, her sister Mary (only a year older), had one more year's worth of wholesome diet than she, as well as superior maternal nutrition, before the family began subsisting on cornmeal and lean game.  Dare we assume that this is what "helped" Mary to die of what Dr. Donaldson (in "Strong Medicine") described as the most common cause of death in the elderly of his day, pneumonia?

Laura describes her next-younger sister, Carrie, as always having been "delicate" -- a synonym for "unhealthy" in this euphemistic era.  She further speaks of her as having not recovered from the Hard Winter (more on that later) very well.  Unhealthy indeed.  The youngest (surviving) sibling, Grace (we are told) had never known any meat except salt pork (and a little game) until she was three or four years old.

From her sixth year till her eighth or ninth at least, Laura ate mostly carbohydrate foods, lean game and some salt pork.  Again, between her 12th and 15th year, it seems the family's diet was similar.  Lots of potatoes and cornmeal, wheat, lots of beans, some fish, and latterly wild waterfowl, which is significantly leaner than the farmed ducks and geese of today.  What they ate while in Minnesota (between her third and fourth books) we don't know in detail; they had a farm with kitchen-garden, chickens and cow, but we don't know if they had pigs, or if they actually ate beef.  All she tells us of this period is, they had only two poor wheat crops, and most of the family was stricken with scarlet fever.

The worst nutritional debacle of which we read is in "The Hard Winter."  Their second winter in Dakota Territory, after the first minimal harvest from the raw prairie, was an extremely harsh one, and the new railroad line was incapable of negotiating the heavy snows that year.  The small, isolated town was insufficiently stocked with food and fuel in this frontier area; there was almost no naturally-occurring fuel on the bare prairies, and farming equipment of the time was incapable of pulverizing the tough sod, so that the virgin soil could not yield as had the rich eastern land to which emigrants were accustomed.  It seems to me that they were damned lucky to have survived at all.

Assuming that Mrs. Wilder wasn't taking too many liberties with history, we are to understand that the family ran out of meat by Christmas, and subsisted largely on whole wheat and some beans and potatoes between the first of the year and April, when the blizzards ended and supplies became available again.  The beans would have been properly soaked before cooking, and we know that the wheat's leavening was produced from an honest-to-god sourdough fermentation ... but we are also told that the whole family is weakened and dumbed-down by their nutritional deficiencies.  Her father, meanwhile, does occasional heavy labor.

After this period of nutritional want, though, the family goes back to eating an adequate (even generous) diet, but it is still very carb-heavy.  Their celebratory meal in the spring when the "Christmas barrel" arrives (still frozen hard) containing a turkey and cranberries, also includes potatoes, gravy and light bread (made with white flour and yeast), stuffing, pies and a cake.  When their garden begins growing and the cow "freshens" they have greens, butter and milk, but it will be months before they have much more than the general store can provide -- white flour, salt pork, cornmeal, potatoes and beans....

Sweets, at least, were a rare treat.  We're told that in Laura's earliest years, maple syrup and sugar are annually produced, but not frequently consumed except in tea, on pancakes and mush.  Finding a honey-tree was a truly rare and memorable occurrence.  Candy was something special, only to be expected as a Christmas gift.  Brown-sugar syrup was probably a semi-regular addition to pancakes, though, and when there was fruit harvested (mostly wild) it was dried or preserved with added sugar, depending upon the family's circumstances.  Notably in this era, tomatoes were a fruit one expected to eat sweetened.

The final harvest of all this nutritional imbalance we already know:  heart disease, stroke and diabetes.  The latter condition, Wikipedia tells us, "ran in the family."  I wonder if it was running in the family while they were still eating autumn-fat deer, bear, fresh pastured pork, whole dairy and eggs?

the glamour of the unknown

I almost wrote a post about the "problem" of advertising influencing children, the availability of proscribed substances to them (AND to adults), and the place of the parents in all this brouhaha....  It's hard to discourage the immature mind from pursuing deleterious substances and behaviors, especially when they may be looked on as something of a rite-of-passage into an autonomous style of existence.  The young long for adulthood, because they see all of these shiny "toys" they aren't allowed to play with (yet), and suppose that attainment will mean happiness ... or at least a less limited life.

We seem to be hard-wired to want to push boundaries, even into the realm of ugliness and degradation.  The bad boy/girl is an attractive image in our culture -- someone who breaks free and goes after what they want, no matter who gets trampled in the rush.  I believe the appeal lies in novelty, escaping routines and seeing enticing possibilities.  In actual experience, after the initial excitement is past, new routines will assert themselves and the limitations will be just as great as before.  It may be "different" but it can also be mighty uncomfortable.

When we grow up, all of the "toys" become less of a joy and more of a responsibility.  Now that we are allowed to stay up as late as we want, eat and drink what we will, buy anything we can afford -- essentially, do whatever we please -- we learn to see the downside, and why limiting our pleasures increases our enjoyment of them.  The grass IS green ... but there's a bunch of dandelions in it, and it needs mowing regularly.  We can shirk the responsibilities that come our way, but there are repercussions ... some of them nasty.

We see the hypnotic effect of this "glamour of the unknown" VERY often in living history.  A huge number of people are enamoured of the past; i'm very curious about how they think their personal lives would really be different, had they been born 100, 200, 500 years before.  DETAILS would be different, but you get up in the morning, do your allotment of work, interact with your family, eat, sleep and wear clothing, don't get everything you want, have experiences you'd rather avoid, and get your heart broken just the same as nowadays.  Without internet.  New reenactors dash out and get fancy clothes and equipment, but the ladies lace their corsets less tightly with every passing year....

This may be the reason why a good fantasy never goes out of style:  being "impossible" to experience, the bloom can never be lost from it.  But it isn't just the fancy trappings that create the appeal of those "far-away places with strange-sounding names" -- is a palm tree better than an oak, a rum cocktail better than a glass of wine, 100-degree heat better than 20-degree chill?  What we really want when we make a cultural escape is to start over, and maybe get it right this time.  We carry our problems with us, though -- inside our heads and hearts.  A different locale, more toys, prettier clothes, A THINNER BODY, etc. is not going to improve things a bit without a mental adjustment as well.

Wanting things we don't have, because an advertiser convinces us to think THINGS will make us happy, is a cycle of frustration.  This includes "things" like vacations, taste experiences, new lovers, almost anything!  Thumb your nose at them, and teach your kids to do the same.

the stars at night ARE big and bright

...deep in the heart of Texas.  ;-)

It's been a busy four days.  I'm happy to say that Spenser didn't bite anybody this time, too.  He's fascinated by the horses -- he seems to be thinking, "those are the biggest dogs i've ever seen, and they don't smell quite right...."

But it's been HOT.  When i'm at a living-history event where i talk with spectators, i explain that mid-to-late Victorian attire isn't as oppressive as it LOOKS; however, it's significant to note that during the last half of the nineteenth century, there was a "mini ice age" going on.  Not only is it warmer than it was 150 years ago here, there's more paving and less green, and therefore it seems even warmer than it really is.

When portraying a "decent" woman of the era, i wear a chemise and drawers, stockings and shoes/boots, a corset (made of heavy cotton), petticoat, dress, and often an apron, too.  Whenever one goes out in public one is supposed to be wearing a hat or bonnet.  When the daytime temperature is in the 90s (as it was during this weekend), the humidity high, and the sun shining brightly, ANY activity will make one miserably hot.  The men in their long-sleeved shirts, vests and hats weren't too much better off.

That's why it's very convenient to have a disreputable character to play in hot weather: while sitting on our own porch, we wore nothing but our chemises (over modern underthings, so that we wouldn't look x-rated), and went barefoot, with our hair up off our necks.  Our porch is of the "dogtrot" variety -- a sort of tunnel between the two halves of our cabin -- and if there's ANY air moving, it'll funnel through, so it's a very comfortable place to sit.  When visiting other parts of town, we put on a loose cotton skirt and footwear (there are fire-ants...).

A disreputable character is also essential in the evenings, at any time of year.  Bearing in mind that we "bend the social rules" so that everybody can have a good time, there's no way a LADY can be respectable and still hang around in the saloon at night!  :-)  Most of the women in town play roles which make it reasonable for them to have a drink, gamble, entertain and/or socialize as they like; if one doesn't want to portray a soiled dove, one can work (tending bar, cleaning or doing errands, entertaining musically), run games like faro or roulette, invent a character who reads palms or cards ... whatever ingenuity can suggest!

But after days of driving, working at maintenance, "playing the game," staying up late talking with friends i see too seldom, cooking and doing laundry, setting up and preparing things for storage again, ... i'm beat!  I hope i'll have something intelligent to say when i'm rested up again!  ;-)

preparation and anticipation

The good mood continues today, despite lack of progress in the fat-loss department.  I only have myself to blame, as i haven't been doing the Strong Medicine program AS WRITTEN.  But according to Wooo, there's no way i CAN'T be burning fat, as my actual calorie intake is way low, and my carb intake almost nonexistent.  But if i think about stalling, it'll get me down -- so i'll change the subject!  ;-)

On Thursday, i take off for Texas, where i'm part of a club which holds members-only living-history weekends -- it's like grownups playing cowboys-and-indians!  Completely self-indulgent and rather narcissistic play-acting with a crowd of intelligent, personable and talented individuals, it's one of my favorite get-away-from-it-all activities!  My best friend of over 40 years will be there, too.  Good times!

Some living history is also known as reenactment, but the two are not synonymous:  a reenactor MAY just be put in appropriate clothing and told what to do, like a film-extra, but the best living-historians are so familiar with the physical and social conditions of the time and place they bring to life, that they might just blend in if taken there with a time machine.  Our goal is to "fool the camera" ... with wimp-outs when it comes to air-conditioning in the big saloon and in some private residences, as well as full amenities where we cook, eat, and clean up.  Meg and i have a little cabin of our own, though, with none of these "cheats"!   We use nothing but oil lamps, a wood-burning stove, hand-held fans, chamberpots, etc, and we LOVE it.  It's simple, quiet, charming and gracious.  I could go on and on....

...But i don't have time!  :-)  Now that i've had a bite of breakfast, it's back to the sewing room to finish my new work dress, because Minerva Jane Frazier (whom i'll be portraying this weekend for the first time) needs something unique to wear; we don't want her to be confused with Louise or Birdie or (heaven forbid) Rosa -- other characters i occasionally play.

Yep, PLAY.  I think this qualifies as one of those activities Mark Sisson advocates so ardently.  It does require a good deal of work (we also have to carry our water supply from the "well" to our cabin, which is "out of town"), but it's an unalloyed pleasure.  Wish we could do it more often!

good old days, bad old days, or what?

I started thinking about all of the things that we "paleoids" have to make from scratch ourselves, so as to make sure they don't contain ingredients we are trying to avoid....  Makes me think of how our fore-mothers did essentially the same thing, for a whole different reason.

As a reenactor/living-historian, i take pride in being able to do all of the every-day chores as done by the lady whose portrait hangs in my dining room, my great-grandmother Laura O.  When participating in an event where school-children visit our camp, my friend Meg and i field questions about a wide variety of aspects of antique life.  We wear reproduction clothing appropriate to whichever time period we're interpreting, and make every effort to use household equipment of the same authenticity.  We cook period-correct, location-correct foods by historic recipes, and if those foods aren't fresh, then they were preserved by our own little hands, in the same forms as of old.

We make light of the work and discomfort, talking to the kids.  We explain how the clothes aren't nearly as hot as they think, and that working women didn't lace their corsets tightly as in ridiculous movies.  Heavy work like laundry was not generally done during the heat of the day, and there were "tricks of the trade" which made chores easier and houses cooler, which modern people have forgotten about.  We try to debunk a lot of the nonsense about the past which is promoted by popular media.  When the weekend is over, we trade our petticoats for jeans and drive home, get in the shower, and do things the easy way until it's time for the next event.

I feel like an absolute wimp, whining about having to make my own mayonnaise with the help of modern appliances, when i think of how much work it was to concoct entirely by hand.  Ever beat eggwhites to stiff peaks, without the use of a mixer?  It's very tiring to the arm muscles!  Of course, "ordinary people" such as we portray ate very simply, and therefore cooked simply, but it was still labor-intensive.  Preserving a summer's harvest was real work even from an urban-sized garden, and when a farm's autumn work included butchering, the efforts invested would be daunting to the modern householder.  EVERYTHING, from condiments to cleaning supplies to toiletries, was prepared at home.  Fortunately, even the middle classes could often afford hired help -- but that just goes to show how cheaply labor was held.  Unless you were rich, you EXPECTED to work, and work hard.

So when i comment with exasperation (like i did yesterday) that i'm going to have to prepare a staple that most people go out and buy, there's a part of me that is ashamed of being such a lazy bum.  Just because i CAN do everything my great-grandmother did, doesn't mean i actually do it regularly -- which is rather humbling.  Ladies of the past, i salute you.

i, too, am a ghrelin junkie

Sitting here, reading my morning blog-fix, i've been luxuriating in an atmosphere of contentment, punctuated by the occasion growl of my empty belly.  :-)

When i started reenacting, over 15 years ago, it came to my attention that i had been missing out on some creature comforts for most of my adult life.  There is NOTHING more viscerally satisfactory than warming oneself beside a roaring fire when it's cold enough to snow.  Nothing.  If there's something that comes close, though, it's eating something exceptionally nutritious when you're very, very hungry.

Most people in the western world don't allow themselves to become very hungry.  Either they've been brainwashed to think that eating frequent small meals is the optimal way to fuel oneself, or their high-carb WOE piques their appetites shockingly often.  Maybe, even, social pressures encourage them to eat when they're not that hungry, so they never get an opportunity to REALLY work up an appetite.  They don't know what they're missing.

I won't try to recap the benefits of allowing oneself to get significantly hungry -- J Stanton has done that already, and he's immensely readable.  I'll just dangle this carrot in front of your salivating mouth....  I'll describe how good it feels when Meg and i have spent the day demonstrating to busloads of school-kids, what life was like for a Civil War laundress; the kids have gone and it's cooler and quieter; the stew we put to cook hours ago is full of tender chunks of beef and vegetables a-point (after hours of just grabbing a nibble -- think foraging...).  We serve it up so hot you can't eat it at once, but you can't resist tasting, and burn your tongue, and slice some (nut-based) bread to go along with it, with gobs of lovely butter, and a glass of red wine.  This is intentionally-delayed gratification at its best!

So, yes -- i'm ENJOYING being hungry, because the trade-off is so good.  Good for the diet, too (check out this one, as well...)!

post-scriptum:  Re-reading another Stanton gem found me this:  “The synthesis rate of brain serotonin was about 30% lower in rats fed for two hours than in rats fasted for 24 hours.”  ...Which, in context, implies that i get a bigger ADDITIONAL "high" out of eating when i delay it.  We've all heard that "hunger is the best sauce" -- and now we see that it's been supported in the laboratory.

more reflecting on effects of "paleostyle" living

As i progress in the first month of the Personal Paleo Code, different things start "popping out at me" -- gaining my attention as fewer diet-confounding symptoms are noticeable....

One thing happened several times over the course of the weekend, which RECENTLY hasn't been an issue with me:  forgetfulness!  I don't know how many times i was conversing with someone, and the word i wanted just would NOT come to mind.  This was historically something that would often annoy me about myself, even in early adulthood, but not something that's troubled me over the past few years.  On the drive between the living-history town and my daughter's house, i had plenty of time to ruminate on why this may have occurred over the weekend.

The stand-out "failure" i was guilty of, during the event, was late nights and early mornings.  The people i "play" with are VERY dear friends whom i see way too seldom.  When i finally get to enjoy their company, i try to make the most of the hours, and it's very easy for 2am to overtake me -- then, the next morning i may (as i did on Sunday) have to awaken at 6 in order to wait tables at breakfast.  Wednesday night (as i was preparing to leave home), Thursday night (sharing a room with my best friend), and Saturday night (as described above) i got WAAAYYY too little sleep.  Could that be why my brain just was not retrieving language-related information the way i expected it to?

On the other hand, i was proud of myself, the way i stuck to the dietary part of the Code.  As all my friends were downing beers, ciders, wine and "Pembertons" (Coke), i sipped innocently at my San-Pellegrino-with-a-sliver-of-lime pretty happily (it helped stave off the dehydration i frequently experience, too).   Bacon and eggs, nuts, a few fruits (more than my usual, in fact), steak and green beans were the mainstays of the weekend.  My energy and stamina were good.  I have to say, i DID leave a couple of supplements at home which i take semi-regularly -- i figured i'd be able to make up for their lack by eating things like oysters....  :-D

I'll make sure to get plenty of rest this week, and see how that improves the way my brain works (i'm even feeling more difficulty in expressing myself in writing).  I slept very well last night, so i'm thinking that one more long night's sleep OUGHT to catch me up properly.  If tomorrow's post isn't a bit more fluent ... well, i'm on the Gulf Coast and it's the end of January!  Where's me some seafood?!

survived....

I lived through the weekend both literally and figuratively (my living-history characters didn't have anything unpleasant happen to them...).  :-)

One VERY interesting thing leapt out at me during my long drive south -- when i stopped for gas and "essentials" at the 5-hour mark and got out of the car, i had none of the stiffness i usually feel after sitting still so long.  NONE!  Completely amazing!  I used to step out of the car and have to flex myself before hobbling about my business, but not this time.  I moved around with normal agility.  Of all the improvements my paleo diet had made over three weeks, this was a delightful surprise.

Today, however, was a whole 'nother ball of wax.  All the walking, carrying things, and standing around in shoes of the period-correct sort left my legs full of sore muscles.  I also got a bit sleep-deprived, even though fun-deprivation got caught-up-with.  I can happily live with the trade-off!

off into the wild

I've got a living history event this weekend -- YEA!  I'm heading out to Texas to play Old West with a bunch of friends.  This is one of those events that people outside the hobby almost never hear about, because these have no spectators and are not publicized; we "play" with and for only each other.  Imagine three to five dozen actors of various degrees of competence, dressed in appropriate period style, in a good-sized permanent town of more than a score of buildings.  We have a boarding house, a large barn, church, mercantile, three saloons, marshal's office with jail, two bunkhouses, various businesses and a few dwellings.

A lot of fun, and a lot of work.... 

I've spent a lot of the last two days in the kitchen, preparing paleo-appropriate food for the highway -- also the weekend's food, for when the meals provided won't be edible by those of us who eschew the "neolithic agents of disease."  Recipes out of the "Paleo Comfort Foods" cookbook feature prominently.

This event will be the only one i've ever attended while on the wagon -- THAT part is a grief!  I'll be drinking San Pelegrino water with a sliver of lime.  <Sigh>

Back soon!  Have a great weekend!  (I will.)

forward again, and backward in a different way

Still being "perfect", and my weight is down from the original number by 2.4# -- yes!  :-)  After dinner last night, though, i had my first craving;  i REALLY  wanted to put cream in a cup of  decaf for dessert.  I settled for a big spoonful of coconut butter instead.  It was the fat my body wanted, more than the lovely, creamy, sweet dairy product, i'm sure -- filet mignon is just too darned lean, but that's what my appetite called for.  I cooked the parsnip as i would Carrots Vichy, but without the added sweetener, and ALMOST added some ghee, but restrained myself.  Yum.

I may start following the recommendation of the author of "The Shangri-La Diet," and take a couple of tablespoons of bland-flavored oil a day, in place of my beloved cream.  I'm STILL deeply doubtful of his rationale, and i'm thoroughly convinced that some of his reasoning is flawed, but it seems to work for a lot of people. 

Often, tried-and-true techniques work for reasons that we don't understand yet.  Much as modern science "knows," there are a few glitches in how it filters down to everyday life, and it has also gotten to the point that there's SO MUCH known, that a lot of good stuff has been forgotten in favor of the latest discovery or refinement.

One of my favorite bloggers, Chris Masterjohn, presented us with a stunning article yesterday, discussing how the body can manufacture glucose from fatty acids, that mainstream textbooks declare this to be impossible, and that this information has been around for more than half a CENTURY and is absolutely undeniable -- and largely disregarded.  This has impact on low-carb eaters and the compromises they make.  Mind you, most of the scientific world is convinced that what's in a textbook HAS to be true....

 (Chris Kresser also dug up some sound, old information on choline, http://chriskresser.com/why-you-should-eat-more-not-less-cholesterol that's going to affect diet in my household!) 

I have an OLD diet book that belonged to my grandmother, and in my younger days of fighting weight gain i read it and tried it.  Apparently, it was one of the earliest low-carbohydrate diets to achieve a good deal of popularity, spread through a radio show in the 1930s.  Dr. Victor Lindlahr, "Eat and Reduce"!  :-)  He had some interesting tricks (like a recommendation to hang around your house naked, to speed metabolism), but it was principally a very low calorie, low fat diet, and therefore unsustainable.  He mentions the actual first low-carb diet book author, William Banting, but gets the "facts" wrong.

So when i get on an everything-old-is-new-again kick -- and i can almost promise that i will -- there's a reason for it.  Besides, i'm a reenactor and living-historian, too.